Back to school traditions and rituals.

I'm in complete and total back-to-school mode. Happens every year about the time the Target school ads start to run every break on HGTV and Food Network. Even spent my last "official" summer weekend doing craft projects for my classroom. I look forward to school starting. Always have. I have a list of things to be done before going back. Some of these are:

Get my roots done.
Mani-pedi.
Edit work wardrobe.
Begin the "early to bed, early to rise" training.
Go into my classroom and clean up after the cleaning crew.
Touch base with teammates and plan for planning.

Making the list (gotta have a list) brought me back to something that's been popping in and out of my mind over the past week or so. How much has changed on the back-to-school list?  Still wardrobe questions, still supply shopping, still wondering who will be in my class this year. Other than the obvious (I didn't start coloring my hair until senior year in high school), the idea has always been much the same - what to do to put my best foot forward for the new school year?

This past weekend, while I manned the hot glue gun and crazy scissors, Mom was toiling away at the sewing machine. She made fabric banners for my classroom that I will use for my students' birthday timeline. Mom was happy to help, and it was fun to work together.

It got us talking about all those August weeks in the past when we went shopping for patterns and fabric for my new school clothes. My mom would make the cutest clothes for me, sewn with love and great care. Except for the pins sticking me during fittings, I loved this back-to-school ritual. I had input in fabric choice and pattern selection, and I knew no one else would have an outfit like mine. My mom worked outside the home, so making my clothes was something she did on nights and weekends. Made those clothes all the more special.

What are/were your back-to-school rituals? I'm adding a new one to mine - making sure Mom knows she is appreciated.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, I leave Connecticut, spend one night in my own bed, then it's off to the ranch for a week and a half. I will continue to use over-scheduling as my excuse for not blogging, along with the fact that, while the stars at night are big and bright at the ranch, cell service is nearly non-existent. Enough excuse- making.

Mom and I returned to the hill country to spend our traditional week of summer with my niece Ashley. Love,love,love that girl! Despite living a fairly privileged life, she is happy with the simple things. We played dominoes, read books, road around the property in the Polaris looking at flora and fauna.

Ashley is now friends with the family that has the property adjacent to my brother's ranch. On a visit to Texas earlier this summer, she was invited to ride their horses, ride around in their golf cart, and just be a kid in the hill country of Texas. She immediately fell in love with their dog, Rosie, and Rosie loved her,too. One night on our most recent visit, she was invited to go with them to chase jackrabbits. Ashley admitted to feeling bad for the rabbit, but she thought the whole experience was quite fun.

Other highlights of the week included a visit to Inks Lake, running an antique mall, doing mixed media pictures of cactus plants, learning the cupid shuffle,and a boat ride on the Colorado river. Ashley has always been something of a rock collector, and she added to her collection by picking up interesting stones at the ranch, on a beach in the middle of the Colorado, and at a rock shop in downtown Bertram.

But, probably the most fun Ashley had was "doing Nana's hair." This event began several summers ago when we went to New Braunfels. Ashley brings in her bag of hair do-dads and creates some very avante garde styles, supplementing her hair accessories with anything else she can find - straws, string, you name it. Mom is an absolute trooper, giving Ash total creative freedom, and enduring several revisions of any style.

I love that my mom is so willing to play, and so gracious about the outcome. And, I love that Ashley will always have these memories of summers with Nana and Susie.

Greetings from the land of Lorelei and Rory...

I have been in beautiful Connecticut for two weeks now. In that short time I have taken two graduate courses, two final exams, written four papers, completed one project, walked about a mile a day, eaten ice cream from the UConn ag school dairy, and called the family at least 10 times. I have seen chipmunks, squirrels, deer and groundhogs (yep) on my way to and from class, and located 8 different species of trees I've never seen before.

I have discovered the Mansfield General store, which is like something straight out of Gilmore Girls - a general store/diner/antique store where a guy with a base and a guy with a guitar play accoustical and folky renditions of Paul Simon, John Prine, and Talking Heads songs. Serious!

I have been to Mystic, by way of giant frogs on posts on a bridge, seen Bad Teacher with a group of good teachers, and seen a small collection of Theodor Suess Giesel's illustrations (right here on Campus, at the Benton Museum, where you can shop, have a latte and watch a lady mod podge chairs.)

I have learned so much about gifted education, and yet so little. I have also learned a lot about myself - what I can do, be, become,-and I have met an incredibly brilliant, generous, and talented group of people, who I consider colleagues and friends.

It has been a busy, enriching, creative, stressful two weeks, and one of the best times of my life. Tomorrow, Confratute begins. Another grad course, but with mime, fun technology, and cocktails. Hopefully a chance to go back to the general store to see if Luke or Layne's mom are hiding out.

Goodnight from Storrs, Conecticut.

College bound ...again

What a difference 35 years makes. The last time I left for college, Mom stood in the driveway crying. This time she may be crying, but it will either be from the weight of my suitcases, or from getting up at 4 a.m to get me to the airport. I leave tomorrow morning for the first of three very intense summer sessions that will, hopefully, result in my being awarded a Masters degree in educational psychology. The pups know something is up. They are glued to me. I will miss them. I considered setting up Skype so we could visit, but aside from the silliness of the idea, I'm short on time, and would need much time to get Mom comfortable with the technology. The very fact that this resource is commonplace makes me think about how many other things are different from the last time I went away to college.

In 1976, there were no cell phones, no GPS, no personal computers, much less notebooks, tablets, iPods. I had to call my parents, collect, from the DQ in Columbus, and then again, from the "plugged into the wall" phone with attached receiver, once I made it safely to school. I took my record player and albums for music, except for in the car where I relied on my 8 track. I typed my papers on a typewriter. Yesterday, I got an email telling me to bring my printer unless I wanted to walk to the library with my flash drive to print my papers. What science-fiction voodoo!

All changes have not been in technology. I have changed. Aside from the obvious wear and tear, additional pounds and gray hair (oh, wait, my hair is still sun kissed dirty blonde, as far as YOU know), I have changed. My purpose and focus have changed. I won't be trying to meet cute boys (unless they want to carry my luggage), or testing my new-found freedom from parental control this time. I'm jazzed about the classes, the professors, the experience!

One thing that has definitely not changed is the support I get from my mom. She has been helping me plan and pack for weeks, but more than that, she has encouraged me to do this. To go to graduate school decades after my first run at college, to leave her with the responsibility of the dogs, and the challenge of the DVR.

Thanks, Mom! I promise that his time I haven't scheduled classes around soap operas, and I won't be getting any party pics with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don't smoke anymore, and you never fell for the whole "they give those to you to hold so it looks like everyone's having a good time" story anyway.

I'll call you on my cell phone when I get to the dorm.

General Hospital

I realize that by documenting this info I am setting myself (and Mom) up for ridicule, but what the heck. I am a General Hospital junkie. My addiction started in college. I had seen GH a number of times before that - Nurse Jessie, Audrey, Dr. Steve, but as a communications major at UT, I was treated to daily broadcasts in the communications building. It was the era of Luke and Laura and disco. My addiction was further fueled by the men of Tau Kappa Epsilon. As a TKE little sister, I knew I could always count on calling the frat house for a ride somewhere, or a GH update. Yep, the men of TKE were addicts and pushers of the daytime drama. This was before the days of DVR or even SoapNet updates. If you missed an episode, you had to wait for the Saturday newspaper's soap recap.

I loved me some Rick Springfield (Dr. Noah Drake), Frisco and Felicia, Elizabeth Taylor as Helena Cassadine, and Demi Moore as Jackie Templeton. Even after college, I would tape (VCR) the show. Through all of this Janelle (Mom) would just shake her head. Sure, when I was a baby she watched As the World Turns while she was doing her ironing or something, but she just couldn't understand the commitment.

At some point, I was able to shake the habit. I would check in from time to time to see Stone, Brenda, Holly, and Robert. I was really into the whole Carly, Tony, Bobbie, Jason, AJ thing. (For those of you who don't have the first clue, Bobbie is Luke Spencer's sister. They grew up in a brothel, with Bobbie turning tricks as a teenager. After changing her life, Bobbie became a nurse, married Dr. Tony Jones and had a son. Enter Carly, the kid Bobbie had as a teenager and gave up for adoption. Carly set out to hurt Bobbie by stealing her man. But Carly got pregnant by AJ, said the baby was Tony's, then Jason's....... ). But it wasn't enough to get hooked again.

Anyway, a few years ago a couple of my teacher friends were talking about GH and I got curious about what was going on. I was living with Mom by now, so I had to hide my watching, or face her ridicule. I would DVR the shows, then watch when she was doing something else. the real Lucky was back, and he was involved in a love triangle with his on again off again love, Elizabeth, and his half brother, Nikolas.
But then, it was summer, and there were only reruns and bad reality shows on tv. Mom started to come in to the room and sit down when I was catching up on the show. Next came the questions - "who is the baby's father?", "how many kids does Sonny have?", "is that Luke?", "where's Laura?"

By the time school started in the fall, she was hooked. When I got home on Friday afternoons she couldn't wait for me to change clothes so we could watch the entire week's episodes of GH. I even caught her cheating once. She would watch the show while I was at work, then pretend not to have seen it when we watched the recordings.

On Saturday, I leave for grad school. I won't have time to watch soaps. Mom will have three weeks of recordings at her disposal. Will Luke return during this time? Will Brenda stop being annoying? Will Michael follow Jason and Sonny into the mob? Will Mom watch without me? Tune in to find out!

P.s. Yay Carly and Lucky for your daytime Emmys. Mom told me about the wins. Ha!

Pickers' Paradise

My sweet friend, Jessica, says you should give yourself a treat after working hard, or doing something that's not much fun. This week, I have been reading and studying really hard (leaving for UConn on Saturday), so I've treated myself to some afternoon excursions. Mom comes with, and we explore the area around Oatmeal. We love the hardware store in Bertram, the Sonic in Liberty Hill, the shops on the square in Marble Falls, the short drive to Inks Lake and Lake Buchanan, and the food at the Maxican in Burnet.

We are big fans of American Pickers, and haves passed many picker-worthy places, but haven't had the courage to stop in and ask to go through somebody else's junk. We kinda stick to the antique shops and flea markets. One really cool place is Pickers' Paradise in Burnet. I have been looking for a little table for one of the rooms at the ranch, so we stopped in. There is a big metal barn with lots of junk in it and outside of it, and a little house next door. The afternoon heat led us into the air-conditioned house. That's where we met Gayle. She is a pretty woman with short gray hair and beautiful skin. She offered us a cool drink, and we set off exploring the "packed to the rafters" house. Not much furniture, but tons of smalls - metal ice cube trays, old books, records, games, cowboy stuff, kitchen stuff, baby stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. It would be overwhelming if it weren't sorted into groups of like things.

I spotted a corner table, and an old sewing machine cabinet, both priced really well. I wasn't sure about the dimensions, so I borrowed Gayle's tape measure. While Gayle helped me measure, she told us about how she and her husband had bought this place and its contents about a year ago. We told her we liked the name, and that we are fans of American Pickers. She said she had named her place before she knew about the history channel show, but that she had contacted them, and that they (our heroes Frank and Mike) were planning a trip to Texas. Wool hoo!

Gayle said she has been picking most of her life. She's 70' and her kids are grown, but when they were little, she used to make their lunches, load them into the station wagon, and drive onto strangers' properties and ask to look through their junk. She told her kids they were going "Christmas shopping." She said they used to Christmas shop all year. When her kids were old enough to figure out what was going on, they would lay down on the floorboard so no one would see them, just in case they knew the folks, or their kids.

As it turned out, the pieces wouldn't work for me, but it sure was fun meeting Gayle. I hope she gets to meet Mike and Frank, and that they get to go Christmas shopping together.

Pondering Velcro and hog hierarchy.

We've been in Oatmeal, Texas for five days now. Except for the one trip to "town" (Bertram) to use the free wifi at the Hungry Moose, cell service/Internet has been sketchy. I've finished my reading assignments for one of my graduate courses. Written in APA style, the text can be a bit dry. Good thing I can take lots of breaks. It's during these breaks that I ponder some of life's more important questions-like, were grass burrs in dog hair the inspiration for Velcro. Yesterday, mom picked over 30 burrs out of Ruby's nappy white fur. Each time, the removal sounded like somebody ripping open Velcro. When I get back to regular technology, I'm gonna look that one up.

Yesterday we took the dogs to a bark park in Georgetown. I know. Why would you take dogs off a 90 acre spread twenty-something miles away to a bark park? Wellllll, our ranch neighbor, Steve, came over to exterminate the house for wasps, hornets, scorpions, spiders, and rattlesnakes (sort of).He said we could leave the dogs here in their kennels, but that didn't sound like a good idea to me, so we took the pups to Georgetown to add to their burr collection.

Steve's family used to own my brother's land,too. The surrounding thousand or so acres has belonged to his family since before the Civil War. Steve says he guesses that the Indians owned it before that.We've seen some flints and stone tools that indicate this is so.
Steve and his family are goat farmers, but Steve also works for an extermination company in Marble Falls.

Since he was here, I also asked him about help with the feral hog situation. See much of Texas has a feral hog problem. I really want to know how it started. Another thing to research when I'm back to high-speed Internet country. Anyway, that brings up something else I've pondered when I take my breaks. Is there a hierarchy in wild hog packs?

My brother has several deer feeders on the property. He hunts, and we eat the venison. One of the feeders is set up so that you can watch the wildlife from the back porch. We've seen a couple of deer, a flock of wild turkeys, a racoon, and the dreaded hogs. It started out as one hog. A lone black mass at dusk. Could've been a shadow, a bush. I got my binoculars and confirmed that it was a hog. The next day, lone hog came back. About an hour later several of his friends showed up. Made me wonder if he was the scout, the front line, the official food taster or the hog equivalent of a food blogger. Yesterday we counted a dozen hogs at dusk around the feeder. I bravely went out on the porch an hollered "go away pigs!"
They ran away, but it will be interesting to see how many show up tonight.

My brother intends to teach me to shoot a rifle, so I can help rid the place of the hogs. I never thought I would do that, but all of those massive snorters so close to then house, me, Mom, and my burr-ridden pups was a bit troubling.

We'll see. Stay tuned. My next post will reveal the American Pickers connection to Burnet, Texas. Just a hogs throw from Oatmeal.

On the road again.

Heading back to Oatmeal ranch for some wide open spaces while I do my pre-reading for grad school. Here is the checklist for the trip:

Get puppies vaccinated for rattlesnake bites. Check.
Plot out reading assignment on calendar, leaving enough time to do some fun shopping in the hill country. Check.
Print out map of nearest vet and hospital to Oatmeal. Check.
Pack up latest additions to ranch decor. Check.
Load Mom's Kindle with plenty of juicy mysteries. Check.
Purchase rattlesnake repellent, rubber boots, and Great Stuff to fill in any holes where mice (aka snake snacks)might get into ranch house. Check.
Secure puppy car seats. Check.
Ask neighbor to get mail, newspaper and feed cat. Check.

Still to do:

Pack for myself, and the dogs. Mom still needs to pack,too.
Bake a blackberry pie to take with.
Finish up the mixed media longhorn collage to take with.
Bathe dogs.
Give Freddie his doggie Dramamine 30 minutes before we leave.


Yes, we did see a rattlesnake about a mile from the ranch house last week, and yes, I am intent on keeping them away from my mom, my dogs and myself. We don't have the wagon master to wake us at 5:00 a.m. Tomorrow, but I'm confident we can wake up in plenty of time to be at the ranch by noon. Cell service is sketchy, so posts may be infrequent, but I will make every effort to keep up with the snake report.

Vacations

As our Panhandle vacation came to a close, I was actually thinking about another vacation. Whenever relatives of a certain age get together, the conversation usually comes around to death and funeral plans. Not in a morbid way, very matter of fact. My granny used to say "When I take my vacation with Jesus, y'all will have a time going through all my junk, so if you see something you want, take it now.", or "I have a list of what I want done when I take my vacation with Jesus."

I hated to hear her talk about it. I love Jesus and all, but I knew if Granny went on vacation with him, she wasn't coming back. But Granny, a woman of great faith, looked forward to that day, and so, when she did take her vacation, we followed her plan, even singing a hymn about taking a vacation with Jesus.

My mom knows that I don't like to talk about this stuff. I am a realist, and I know that one day we will all take our vacations, and Mom and I have discussed the important details, but we choose to live in the present as much as possible. We don't visit lost loved ones at cemeteries, because we believe that the part of those folks we loved and treasured doesn't live there.For some folks, though, a trip to the cemetery is an act of respect, and I get that.

But back to the most recent conversation with the wagon master and the peacock hunter. We passed a lot of cemeteries, both coming and going, and around Madisonville, cousin Judy remembered driving Granny to a cemetery where her first husband (the father of the wagon master and the peacock hunter) was buried, along with a child that Granny lost. Granny married my grandfather, my mom's dad, not long after her first husband was killed in a work accident.

The conversation then turned to cemetery plots, and where who was going to be buried. After a long pause, the peacock hunter asked me what an aura is. I gave the best explanation I could, and of course, asked why she wanted to know.

"Well," said she, "I think I read somewhere that your aura stays with your body for three days after you die. I want to be cremated, but I don't want them to burn up my aura."

We'll add that information to her "vacation plans". The wagon master wants to know where it says anything about auras in the bible, because if it doesn't say anything he doesn't believe it. I promised to research this and get back to him.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Great things and not so great things.

Great thing. The Panhandle Plains Historical Museum. Wow! I will admit that I wasn't expecting much. Boy was I wrong. Really well curated, unbelievable breadth of exhibits. The wagon master's favorite was the bison-skinning video and accompanying wax figures of a Native American and his bison. The peacock hunter loved a beautiful painting of a violin in one of the three art galleries. I loved the textiles exhibition, and a Georgia O'Keefe painting inspired by the colors of Palo Duro Canyon. Mom loved the early 60's Mustang driver's seat and dashboard, complete with a radio. You could push the buttons and music from the era would play. I think I heard her singing "Sugar Shack" from across the museum. Judy liked the textiles, too, but her favorite part of the visit was the oil well drill bit exhibition. The bits were enclosed in plexiglas. Next to the first bit was a sign that read "push to activate." It didn't say how long you should hold it, so Judy pushed it - for a really, really long time. Not so great thing. The bit went up and dropped into a stone base making a booming sound. Over and over and over and over. Being the mature middle aged women we are, we didn't bother any of the octogenarian museum guards. WE RAN AWAY!


Great thing. The hamburgers and fries at the Trading Post inside Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Grilled while you wait, buns toasted, fries from scratch. So tasty!

Great thing. The hour long jeep tour of the canyon. Mom, Judy, the wagon master and I booked a tour through Elkins Ranch. We hopped in a jeep named Jonathan, along with our tour guide, Lee. Lee knew so much about the geology of the canyon and the history of the area. The jeep ride was just the right amount of bumpy to make it exciting, but not scary. Pictures will come once I'm using my laptop rather than iPad to post. Near the end of the tour, Lee asked us to hold on while she gunned it to make it up a steep incline. Not so great thing - the engine died. Lee tried to restart, but she flooded the engine. We hopped out of the jeep and waited under the shade of a tiny juniper bush while Lee walked back to headquarters, drove back in a suburban, restarted the jeep, moved to the bottom of the hill, walked back up the hill, hopped into the suburban, and drove us back to the parking lot. Lee was a trooper. I told her about the pioneer women. She really is one.

Great thing. Steak dinner from the Big Texan, followed by a great show - Texas. With the backdrop of the canyon, pyrotechnics, great voices, music, dancing. Not so great thing -we didn't get to bed until after midnight, which would be fine, except that the wagon master set an alarm for 5 a.m.

So, tired and grumpy we begin our trip home. Stop in Flower Mound, then home tomorrow.

Freezers, Grief, Singing and Thai Food.

Well, the wagon master let his nieces take the reins today. Judy took the first leg while I took notes on my iPad. Not sure how we got on the subject, but we were talking about foods you can freeze. The wagon master has three big freezers in his garage in Port O'Connor. He has lots of stuff in his freezers -venison, gallon bags of fish, ice cream, buttermilk, peas from his garden, the hind quarter of a wild hog, peanut brittle, cookies, stew, and cakes. Lots of cakes.

His wife, my Aunt Berniece, passed away almost a year ago. It has been quite an adjustment for him, as they did absolutely everything together. When he starts to feel blue, the wagon master bakes. The overfilled contents of his freezers are a testament to his love for his wife. It seems everyone in Port O' Connor knows about the freezers. Last week,someone from his bank called to see if he had an extra cake they could buy. A customer had passed away, and they wanted to take a cake to the family. The wagon master said that the cake would be his gift. Cool how baking the cake gave him comfort, and receiving the cake would comfort someone else.

I took my turn at the reins after a few hours. I had conveniently misplaced the Roy Clark cd, so the wagon master, the peacock hunter and Mom sang old gospel songs. Mom and the wagon master sang one song while the peacock hunter sang another. At the same time. After miles and miles and miles of nothing but wind farms and oil rigs (shout out to my friends who went to Tech) we arrived in Canyon, Texas.

We made our plans for tomorrow - breakfast, then be at the Panhandle museum at 9:00. Jeep tour of the canyon in the afternoon, steak dinner and show in the canyon.

Our next decision was dinner. The peacock hunter had her heart set on Thai Spice. After selling it really hard, she got the wagon master to agree, though he pronounced it "thigh"' not Thai. We pulled up to what was clearly an old KFC, walked in the front door, and were greeted by the hostess. The peacock hunter immediately turned on her heels and said, "we gotta go. Somethin' don't smell right.

Much to the joy of the wagon master (and everybody else), we ended up at a great place called Feldman's for some American food.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow's a big day!

Wagons, ho!

Well, the wagon master picked us up this morning and we set off on the first leg of our journey - to pick Judy up in Round Rock, then head on to The ranch in Oatmeal to camp for the night. Here are a few things I learned on the first part of the journey:

Apparently, 10:30 is not too early for beer, per the peacock hunter. (see yesterday's entry)

My mom's Uncle Willie, the Methodist preacher, lived in Chappell Hill with his wife. He was "just the sweetest thing, but that wife of his-she had a big, purple mole on the side of her face and she was mean, maybe even a witch."

The wagon master has started writing his memoirs - just a list of everything he can remember from the time he was born. He's got some good stuff! He told us a few stories while driving. Whenever he gestured with his right hand, for emphasis, our wagon would veer to the right.Good thing we weren't going over the speed limit.

He is also a great baker. He made chocolate pudding cookies, oatmeal cookies and peanut brittle for the trip. YUM!

In case you were wondering, you can never listen to Roy Clark's Greatest Hits too many times. We listened to it twice between Houston and Round Rock and had time for a third listen to the first few songs between Round Rock and Oatmeal. The peacock hunter met Mr. Clark when she owned a hunting lodge, and he gifted her with his cd's.

I also learned what a ring-tailed cat looks like. Judy and I scared the scat out of the cat when we opened up the barn at the ranch. Truth told, he scared me a bit, too.

Just before we turned in, we sat outside and listened to nature's symphony. Cicadas, birds, some other unidentifiable wildlife. Glorious!

Time to turn in. The wagon master has called for an early departure. So, though we won't make Amarillo by morning :), we should make Canyon by afternoon.

Pioneer Women

In a couple of days, Mom (75) and I will be hitting the trail with Uncle Doyle (83), Aunt Frances (86) and Cousin Judy. We are going to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. The pioneer women and the wagon master will have a sleepover in Oatmeal, Texas, then journey onward to just south of Amarillo to view the majesty, see a musical extravaganza about Texas, and make some memories. I have a strong feeling that this trip will be ripe with blogging opportunities.

In order for the reader to fully appreciate what is to come, we need to add a little info to those schema folders. Pull out the folder on pioneer women. I mentioned the other day that Mom and I considered ourselves pioneer women. What I meant was that whether by necessity, by choice, or by heredity, most of the women in our family "do for themselves." Take Frances, for example. There are many good Frances stories, but I'll choose two.

Frances used to have quite a bit of property in Wharton, Texas. She ran a hunting lodge/bed and breakfast, and also owned a hair salon on the same property where she lived. To add to the atmosphere, Frances kept peacocks on the property. Annoying little buggers - what with that horrid call - but pretty. One of the males was Frances favorite. Until the day he turned on her and flew at her head. Did she call for help? No. Did she try to cage the bird and send him on his way? No. In her words - "I got my shotgun and killed the *@#$^." Pioneer woman!

Another time, she wanted to kill a water plant that was overtaking the creek on her property. She did call for help, but help wasn't available on her time schedule, so she strapped on a tank of herbicide and got down into the creek and "killed those *@#$^s." She did lose her footing and fall, but she righted herself and came out the victor. Pioneer woman!

Mom doesn't pack heat, but she is handy with wasp killer, gardening shears, and hoes, and attitude! She once stared down a big, agitated, black dog while simultaneously tossing one of our dogs in the air and catching him to keep him out of harm's way. Pioneer woman!

My mom was a working mom, when mom's didn't work. It didn't stop her from spending hours making my costumes and uniforms, helping with homework, semi-single parenting (Dad travelled often for work.) and being ever present in the lives of me and my brother. Pioneer woman!

My cousin, Judy is a modern day Annie Oakley. She should have her own show on HGTV. Her toolbox and know-how are the envy of many. She is a baby whisperer, called on by family and friends for her expertise, and she once took a vacation to Cowgirl Camp. Pioneer woman!

I am the navigator. I have an uncanny sense of direction, and a need to take the wheel. I am a problem solver, an organizer, a cook, a nurse, and a comedian. Not sure I've done enough to earn my pioneer woman badge, but I'm on my way.

Please pray for the wagon master. He is going to have his hands full with the pioneer women.

Good neighbors.

Yesterday was good neighbor day on my street. At 8 a.m., there was a knock on our front door. Our neighbor, Kenneth, was responding to my plea for help in putting together my shiny new bicycle. Mom and I are what I like to call pioneer women, meaning we really do try to do things for ourselves, but putting the bike together was out of my realm. Even with my glasses, the print on the instructions was too tiny. So, enter Kenneth. He didn't need the instructions. He put the thing together in record time, took it to his house to tighten things up with his metric tools (what?), and used his uber digital tire pressure checker and electric air pump to make sure the tires were properly inflated.

When he was satisfied that the seat and handle bars were in just the right place, and after he had me take a test drive, he got his own bike out and we rode up and down the street. Kenneth and his wife, Frances, have been lived next door for more than 30 years. They are salt of the earth, do anything for you, good neighbors.

While I was riding, our neighbor, Oscar, came out for his morning walk. As I pedalled by, he shouted, "That's the way to do it girl!"

I am still a girl to Oscar. He and his wife, Lily, have been our neighbors for more than 40 years. Later in the day, Mom would go over and help jump start one of their cars.

Our neighbor Mel came out, on his way to work. He reminded us that whoever was home when the trash man came needed to put all the cans up. Burglars have been determining whose homes are prime for picking by whether or not the trash cans have been put away. Mel has been our neighbor for more than 20 years. He and his room mate, Johnny, dogsit for us from time to time.

Good people, good neighbors! It is not lost on me that I benefit from of all of this kindness due, in no small part, to the fact that my mom is a good neighbor. She has cultivated these relationships over the years. She extends herself to these people, providing a listening ear, a shoulder, a ladder, a cup of sugar - whatever is needed.

Thank you, Mom!

Is procrastination innate, or is it learned behavior?

Yesterday, I started my summer reading assignment. I am starting graduate school at UCONN this summer - a very intense schedule, much to read and absorb before I go. Up until yesterday, I had legitimate reasons to postpone reading. You know, my job, thank you notes to students, shopping for college essentials. But, yesterday was the day I had committed to for beginning my assignment. 


After the first hour, my mind began to wander. I kept pulling myself back, but I also started to wonder if my keen ability to procrastinate was something I was born with, or something I had learned. I put off thinking about it until this morning. I decided to do a quick google search to learn more about procrastination. 


According to my brief research, it seems that scientists and philosophers have been debating the question for generations. A life coach in New York thinks that procrastination stems from extreme anxiety and a lack of confidence in one's abilities. I say,"poo!" I am extremely confident in my ability to read, take notes, digest what I've read, and develop probing questions about the material. I am equally confident in my ability to procrastinate.


I am an "in your face" blatant procrastinator. Petulant, in some cases. My mom, on the other hand, is a sneaky procrastinator. A piddler, a wanderer. A sampler of multiple activities. She has mastered this technique whereby she begins a task in one room of the house, pauses after a few minutes, effusing good intentions, and focuses on the absolutely necessary adjacent task that will take her to another room. Once there, she becomes temporarily engrossed in completing something that seems essential to the well-being of our household. She can keep up this meandering trek until she has ventured into all rooms, leaving an imaginary snail trail of semi-complete good works. She may or may not return to her initial task, but something has been accomplished.


I've noticed that she tells a story in much the same way. It begins, "Let me tell you what happened today. I had every intention of finishing my project before I took the dogs for a walk. Oh, did you know there are new neighbors on the next street over? We saw them, and also that little boy down the street loves Freddie (one of our dogs), and he's so good with him (Freddie with the boy, or the boy with Freddie?). There were some trucks outside. Anyway, before we went for our walk, the phone rang. I was getting dressed. Do you know where my red shirt is? I wore it last Thursday, but I can't find it."


You get the idea. Eventually, with some prompting, I will find out that Mom couldn't finish her project because she spent an hour on the phone with a friend who needed a good listener. Listening to Mom getting to the point, like watching her process in finishing a task can be time-consuming, but it's worth the long, amusing meandering journey.


Now, enough procrastination. I have some reading to do.

Go ahead and blog. All the cool kids are doing it!

Do you remember in Gypsy, how whenever Rose wants to change the act she says she "had a dream"? Too young for Gypsy? O.K., remember on Glee, the song that Kirk sang - "I had a dream. I dreamed it for you, Dad." - well same thing. Last night I had a dream about writing a blog. Maybe I felt like my act needed changing. Maybe it was so that I would act on what my brother and I have often said about needing to capture the essence of our mom in writing, or maybe it was a procrastination ploy. I have an ENORMOUS summer reading assignment. But that's another story.


Either way, when I woke up this a.m., I was convinced that I should write about life with my mom. We have been roomies for almost 8 years, now. When this all began, it was a means to an end. I had invested (badly) in my own business. Ended up selling my house, cashing out the 401K, starting a new and improved career. All the while, I assumed that living with Mom (Dad passed away in 2000) was a temporary fix, and yet......


I lamented to a friend at the time that the widow (mom) and the spinster (that's me) moving in together was like recreating an episode of The Golden Girls. My friend reassured me that we were much more like the Gilmore Girls, and I so wanted to believe him. I thought it was because he thought Janelle (mom) and I were so hip, so cool, so with it. Might've been based on maturity, though. 


Fast forward to, well, now, and I'm wondering if we've passed the Gilmores, the Goldens, and are now on our way to Grey Gardens. If so, and if there is a documentary in all of this, I might as well blog. I can't make any promises about whether anyone else will be as entertained by our stories as we are, but here is a teaser. 


Yesterday, while watching an 80's movie marathon (first runs for Janelle), she looked up from an angst-ridden Emilio Estevez and asked me if the singer, Gloria Estevez from the Miami Sound Machine, was Emilio and Charlie's mom. Bah-dum-bum!


For the record, my mom is incredibly hip for 75. She's the coolest and the kindest. And, she HAS seen the entire DVD set of Gilmore Girls, and both the Grey Gardens documentary, and the Drew Barrymore version. So here goes an attempt to figure out where we fall within that spectrum. Hope you'll check back and weigh in!