Hiatus

Hello kiddios! I hope you don't mind, but I am going to take a little break from blogging (perhaps I should have posted this a week ago BEFORE I started taking the break).
I just have about 300 things going on right now and a few things have to be put on hold, this blog being one of them.

Happy Blogging!

That's... An Interesting Trim Job... (!!!!??!!)

It's Tuesday again and time for another Totally Awkward post courtesy of Tova Darling (can I ever thank you enough!?) Hit that link and visit Tova's page for a whole list of totally awkward posts!

Today, we go back to my 18th year of life. It was the summer after my Senior year in high school and I was working in Branson, MO at one of those trail ride places. You know, you'd come and give me $12.50 apiece and I'd put you on a horse and take you riding around for a few miles through the Branson countryside (because at that time there was actually a little countryside left) while you referred to me as something stupid like Cattle Annie.
Now the fellow who owned this place liked the pretty girls and after I started working there, he hired another girl (we'll call her Curly) who was very pretty indeed. Long, blond hair. Nice tan. Bright blue eyes. All the boys were really into her. I soon found out they were wasting their time in one of the most awkward situations in my illustrious history:

We were at work one Thursday when Curly suggested to me that I bring a change of clothes the next day and come over to her place after work. Her roommate was out of town and it would give us a chance to get to know one another socially, not to mention saving me a long drive because she lived right up the road from work.
So, the next evening, we did just that. Naturally, after having worked with horses all day long, we were dirty and grimy and sweaty and both needed a shower. Curly graciously showed me to the bathroom and the clean towels and suggested I go first since I was her guest. While I was showering, she popped into the bathroom to check on me. At the time I thought, "Okay, clearly, she doesn't have as many personal bounderies as I do, but whatever. It's not like she can see through the shower curtain."
I got dressed and kicked back in a rocking chair in her living room while she took her turn showering. All was well until... it wasn't anymore.
There I was, minding my own business and watching tv when Curly walked out of her bathroom, completely nude, and came down the hallway toward me. My brain screamed something incoherent and I turned quickly back to the television for something (ANYTHING) else to look at. This did not deter Curly - she just stepped in front of the tv, all the while getting closer to the rocking chair I was now starting to sweat in. She asked, "So, where do you want to eat tonight?" I answered, "Uh, I don't... I hadn't.... Uh, I, uh... WHAT!?" And thus the conversation went on for about the next 15 most uncomfortable seconds of my life. I am a person with serious personal bounderies, so physical closeness with those other than my immediate family makes me nervous anyway. Nevermind if you are a virtual stranger. Certainly nevermind if you are BARE-ASS-NAKED! So, it happened that Curly stepped even closer as I leaned even further back until BOOM! I flipped the rocking chair over, breaking the arm off of it, jumped up, apologized, grabbed my bag, made some lame excuse and got the hell out of dodge, as they say.
It didn't occur to me until the next day, when I was preparing to go back to work on Monday that I would, in fact, have to face her again. CRAP! CRAP CRAP! Any number of awkward things could happen, couldn't they?! How would she act? What would she say? What if I overreacted? Did normal 18 year old girls run around naked in front of one another? (not the ones I grew up with).
As it happened, she wasn't at all embarrassed, sorry or shy. For the last several weeks of that summer and that job, I just had to dodge, duck and dive this chic. It was that or yank her hair out and at that point, I was afraid she would enjoy a little hair pulling...

Pranks Gone Wrong and etc...

We live in Aurora, MO. Marionville, MO is the town next to ours. My son goes to Aurora High School. I attended Marionville. Okay, background out of the way, I'll go on with the story now:
This weekend, the Aurora police department was called to the Aurora High School because there was a dead deer lying in front of the entrance to the school. Upon investigating, the police found that the deer was wearing a Marionville Comets hat... I wonder if the turds who did this even remotely thought about the possibility that there were surveylance cameras all over the school??? Time will tell.

It's Monday, and I'm sure you are by now used to the fact that I am just not "with it" enough for a coherent post on this first day of the week, so I'm going to leave you with pictures from our trailride this weekend and wishes for a wonderful week!

View from one of the high trails:


Me and my kids. Hubby was riding one of mine yesterday, so I had them both there. Louie on the left and Rain on the right (doesn't she look happy!? not)


There is an old cemetary in this particular park. They don't keep it up anymore, unfortunately.




When we got home, Pea Pie decided he wanted to learn to do some roping. He did a pretty impressive job for his first day - ended up helping hubby out by roping a calf that needed a shot. Then he learned to give the calf a shot. He also learned we do not wield a syringe as if it's a sword...

Bits and Bobs

Well hello, hello, hello!! Not only is it Friday, but the weather here is AMAZING! High of 80 today and I'm declaring official Fall weather. I SAID I'M DECLARING IT!! (hope the weather is listening!)


Time for another edition of Friday Fragments (wooo-hooooo!) For more of these little tidbits, visit Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin Time.

Let's see:
Have you ever used flylady.com? If you have trouble staying organized, keeping your house clean or anything like that, you should check it out. It's amazing and completely free!

It's time for Broiler Fest here in Crane, Missouri. What's Broiler Fest, you ask!? Well, it's a Festival celebrating the eating of many chickens (broilers are what eating chickens are called). There are carnival rides, a beauty pageant, crafters and...well, a lot of chicken to eat. That's what we're having for lunch today here at the dealership.
Now, here's the big scoop on Broiler Fest. Don Johnson (yep, the Miami Vice guy) has several family members living right in this area and every year, as long as he's not working, he comes to the Broiler Festival. Yesterday, he had lunch at Bootleggers in Aurora, MO (where I live). Last night he was at Ruby Tuesday in Springfield AND yesterday he got himself a Missouri Drivers License. hmmmm. I DO have 10 acres for sale. Wonder if he's looking for a place to build!?

My son is off to his dad's for the weekend after school today. I always say in a very cheery voice, "I'm so happy you get to see your dad this weekend. Have fun and stay safe!" But what I'm thinking is, "THIS SUCKS!"

Learning Spanish has become very difficult. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to believe you canNOT just throw el in front of every word and turn it in to spanish. EL CRAP!

OH! I still have not bought batteries for my digiscale, so I have no clue how much weight I've lost, but I'm building good habits - no soda now and tons of water, watching my portions AND...dum duh DAH!!!! getting a LITTLE exercise. It's a start.

I watched "Obsessed" starring Beyonce last night. That was pretty decent. I ended up yelling "THROW THAT BITCH DOWN THE STAIRS!" Which is EXACTLY what I would have done. Except the only stairs at our trailer are the ones on the front porch. I don't think that would have killed her, but it would have been a start.

My plans for the weekend include: STAYING HOME, RESTING & whatever else I decide to do (probably not much of anything but bask in this weather). I hope you all get to do the things you want this weekend, too!

Blogging Post

I know! Blogging about blogging. Who'da thunk it!? Yesterday I was catching up on your blogs and one of them got my attention. It's one of many I've read on the subject of blogging "rules" and one of many that have just rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how and why I blog. This is the third blog I've had because I am a perfectionist and after getting unhappy with the first two either because I didn't blog regularly or I just didn't like what I was saying, I started another. With this one, I finally buckled down and decided every post cannot be a wonderfully witty masterpiece and that it is more important to meet my goal of writing on a daily basis than to try and be perfect. I've been pretty darn good about doing just that, every Monday through Friday, since I started Abstract Arboretum. That's a goal that I have maintainted for a few months now and I'm happy about that.

But it seems that a lot of people blog because they want to be recognized or invited to Blogher or to get some sort of fame out of it. And that's fine, truly. But, it also seems like a lot of the bloggers who blog for those reasons think the rest of us should too and that if we don't, we are just wasting perfectly good space on the internet. Incase any of you were wondering, that is not why I'm here. What am I trying to say here? I better figure it out before this thing gets insanely long. To boil it down:

1. I do like gaining followers because it could mean that I'm doing something right and people are enjoying what I have to say. But gaining a follower could also mean that the person who is following does so in order to gain another follower themselves. "I'll follow you if you'll follow me" kind of a thing. I'm not really "down" with that scenario.

2. I blog because I have a writing goal and in order to become any sort of a good writer, you have to write. I know, it's shocking.

3. I do not care about blogher or about monetizing or about getting a thousand followers who are only following because they want me to return the favor. I am not here to social network by any stretch of the imagination and I would much prefer to have 5 followers who genuinely enjoy my blog than to have 500 who are just trying to gain popularity themselves. This isn't Mary Kay or Tupperware for me. It's just my blog.

4. Social networking IS a wonderful tool for many reasons. I use it for business, but I choose not to use it for my blog. Double standard? NO. Why? Because I am not judging you for the reason that you want to blog. I'm defending my right to blog without being judged by you.

4. I DO follow blogs that I sincerely enjoy. I don't follow very many because I have limited time to read them and it really pisses me off when people leave comments that make it clear that they are not really reading your blog. I would rather follow 20 of you and be able to follow you the right way than to follow 100 of you half-assed. Sometimes I'll get a comment that just makes it so blatantly obvious that a person has glanced over a post and then thrown out a quick comment. Whatever.
If you like my blog and leave comments that are sincere or that acknowledge you have ACTUALLY read that post, then thank you so very much! I do enjoy the vast majority of the comments that I receive.

5. I don't care why you blog - to each his own and more power to you! I'm not here to judge. If you are blogging in order to social network or to gain some sort of popularity or be recognized, I certainly don't blame you for it. However, I have read many posts now where these very bloggers carry on about how if you're going to blog then you ought to be doing a, b and c or you're not really a blogger. Well, to hell with that. Blog for whatever reason you want to for as long as it makes you happy, but please don't judge when others refuse to follow your little formula.

Thus concludes this installment of GERT ON A SOAPBOX. I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Quicky

I'm going to make this a quick one because I really need to catch up on reading YOUR posts.

To Brainella: know now that I am a dork of enormous proportions - Your potpourri and oil are on their way today, however, your votives will be delayed. I brought everything to work with me yesterday thinking I would run into work for a few minutes and then down to the post office to ship. Then I got caught up at work and forgot the stuff was in the car. You know... candles do not hold up well in high temperatures... Sincere apologies - they WILL be coming very soon.

To all of you: Stop laughing and cut me some slack. I'll be more prepared for my next giveaway!! Have a fantastic Wednesday!!

OOOPS!

It's time again for another Totally Awkward Tuesday (thank you Tova Darling!).

This morning, while driving to work, I was thinking which totally awkward moment I would be sharing and I settled on one, but then... this happened about 10 minutes after I got to work:

Some of you may remember from early posts about my work that one of our auto salesmen is also a preacher. Well, Preacher came into my office this morning and sat down with his cup of coffee. I had taken off early yesterday to take Pea Pie to an appointment and then shopping, so Preacher needed to fill me in a few work goings-on. He had been sitting in my office for about 5 minutes when he coughed and then got a funny look on his face. I thought he had dumped coffee in his lap and burned himself. I said, "ARE YOU OKAY!?" And he said, "I didn't burn myself. I coughed... and then I farted, but I didn't spill any coffee..."

I'm not sure for which of us it was more awkward, but there is no denying that it WAS awkward...

While We Were Away...

Hubby and I were staying the night in Arkansas Saturday night and the middle (step)child, who lives with her mom a few miles away, called to see if she could just stay all night out at the house (she's 16). I said sure - no parties. She said she was having her friend Sammi stay with her and it would just be the two of them. Little did I know how weird just the two of them could be.
I expected to come home to empty pantries, dirty dishes and a mess. I wasn't surprised there. I was NOT expecting to come home to a broken kitchen bench (one that lifts up and has book storage underneath), a misplaced zuchini and about 27 spoons in our freezer.
First, I said to Pea-Pie, "Why in the world would they have put spoons in the freezer?" And he very quickly replied, "You remember the choking yourself with a belt in the closet to get high thing everyone was doing? Well, now everyone is freezing spoons. Then they take two spoons and press one to each temple and it gets them sort of high."
I stood there staring at him, mouth wide open, for a good 5 seconds before I replied, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!?" Then he laughed and said yeah, he just made it up. (points for having a good sense of humor. Minus points for screwing with mom.)

Here is the text exchange that ended up taking place between me and the Middle Child:

Me: Any reason there were 27 spoons in the freezer and my zucchini is missing from the table and the books were left on the floor under the broken kitchen seat?

Middle Child: O the seat broke frm my backpack the spoons were frm sam she hid them frm me and I didn't c a zucchini.

Me: Big green veggie that WAS on the table?

MC: OH! Yeah, check in the living room...

Me: Of course...living room...gotcha.

MC: ya sry.

Get your dictionary. Look up "tiny freaks of nature". See that girl in the middle with the curly hair? That's our middle child...

AND THE WINNER IS....

Drumroll please.......


BRAINELLA!!!


Woot! Woot! Way to go girl! email me at ahaley74@gmail.com with your name and address so I can get these shipped. Thanks! Now we can wean you off of those high priced yank candles you've been buying. FYI, Spring Street Candle 26oz big jars are only $15 apiece AND, if you buy 2 or more, they are $10 apiece!!
I know after you try your votives, you'll be calling to have these shipped!

Thanks to everyone who signed up! Keep an eye out here at Abstract Arboretum for more great Spring Street Candle giveaways in the future! And if you want great quality candles, incense or potpourri before then, please visit www.springstreetcandle.com

Bits and Bobs

Thank goodness today is


Seriously, my brain is refusing to boot up today. I've been awake for well over three hours and just can't quite get it going!

You have until Noon today to get entered in my giveaway (see Wendesday's post for details - it's easy as pie AND the winner is going to get some great products)!

I went to do my first weekly weigh-in today and....drum roll... the battrees were dead in my digiscale!! They're weird round battrees, too. So who knows how I've done weight wise? I do know that I'm almost completely off of soda again. yesterday a mere 10 oz, today I imagine I can drop it all together without headache worries. YAY!

Pea Pie will NOT let me hug him goodbye when I drop him off for high school. What the bloody hell? My husband seems to think this behavior is ACCEPTABLE! hmmmff! Boys!

Back to Eureka Springs for me this weekend and hubby is going along. I'm so excited about that! Although, the reason he's going is beyond hysterical. Mind you, he is not generally a jealous man, but this week I said to him, "You need to decide if you're going with my by Wednesday evening." His eyes got really big and he said, "WHY!? You don't have a boyfriend down there do you?!" I could not help but laugh. He uses up every last but of my patience - how could I possibly have time for a boyfriend? I explained (through tears of laughter) that I did not have a boyfriend, I just wanted to know because a couple of my friends were thinking of joining me. He went from "I don't know...." to "Yes, I would love to go with you" in about a 10 second span. However you look at it, I win!! I get to have my snuggle buggle with me for the weekend. Yes, I do call him stupid sickeningly sweet things like snuggle buggle.

Speaking of hubby, here's a little tidbit for you - every morning he eats S'mores flavored Pop Tarts and every morning he ends up with a glob of icing on the left side corner of his mouth. I can understand that. What I can't understand is his lack of concern over it. Again, hmmmf! Boys!

Yesterday I realized that my ex-husband's soon to be ex wife had her Facebook set so that anyone could read it. So, I did. And looked at all the pictures. It did not convince me that she is less crazy than I thought. Unfortunately, it just confirmed what I thought. pssssssssssssycho. Although, seriously, what does it say about me that I even looked? shudder...

I realized this week that, when writing about my cattle dog, I've been writing that he's a red healer... Sounds like he's a communist doctor. I MEAN red heeler. heeler. heeeeeeeler. Although, if he doesn't stop getting after our bottle calves I'll be calling him by an indian name: Walks-with-foot-in-butt.

Okay, that's all I've got and even that was a stretch this morning. dull brain! dull brain!



For more Friday Fragments, please visit Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin Time!