Braids - Redux

I know we've discussed this before, but recently a really enjoyable blog I visit, Milk Breath and Margaritas, talked about summer do's and "milkmaid braids" and gracious, I didn't realize braids had so many detractors!!


Now, I wear "milkmaid braids" almost exclusively. I love them. They keep my hair out of my face, they keep the ends from getting "ratty" - something that happens because I have a good amount of natural curl and ponytails get all funky looking - and they are a good way of telling people "I don't give a shit what you think. Yes, I have two nose rings and I'm over 40 and I'm dumpy and wear braids. Get over it."

EDITED TO ADD:
Out of curiosity, if you were working with 50lb bricks outside in the 90 degree heat. What would you wear? Would you be smart and wear your steel-toe boots from your military days? Or would you go fashionable and wear tennis shoes or flipflops? And more importantly, would you say "holy cow, it's hot and I'm in the backyard anyway" and wear jeans or would you wear one of the new "skorts" that look nothing like the old fashioned ugly ones, and are comfortable and cool and you only look a tiny bit like an idiot in boots and a skirt?

image credit: sportskort.com

Just wondering.

Anyway, what do YOU do to let people know that you simply DO NOT CARE what they think?

And is there ANYBODY else out there who wears twin braids? Or for that matter boots and shorts/skirts?

:)

Tractor story

Julia from Henhouse Pottery was talking about driving a tractor for the first time and reminded me of my first tractor story.


Photo credit: Strength in Perspectives

When I was about 9 years old, we needed to put out handlines for the season. This was going to be the first year I was allowed to drive the tractor, rather than doing something useless like hand signals between the operator and the people pulling pipe off the trailer.


photo credit: www.mascus.co.uk

Now, being a man of few words, my father sat me down at the controls and told me exactly what I needed to know. "Don't touch anything. Just steer straight. If you need to stop, push here." I was set. I didn't know what anything was, but I was ready to drive. And all went well, as long as we were on nice flat ground.


Photo credit: Sam Beebe, Ecotrust

Photo credit: Dalylab

As you can see, the ground is flat in places. In other places, it has rolling hills. Which will turn out to be a bad thing.

I drove along, totally impressed with my nine-year-old self. I'd lumber along, then press my foot "here" and I'd coast to a stop. When they signaled, I'd take my foot off "here" and start creeping along again. It worked really well. Uuntil I crested a small rise and started down into a small gully. I put my foot "here" as I'd been instructed, fully expected the tractor to stop as it had been doing.

Unfortunately, "here" turned out to be the clutch. Great idea on the flats. No so great on hills. I started to pick up speed and started to get scared. I pushed harder, but nothing changed. I started to holler for my dad, steering as straight as I could, catching glimpses of the handlines bouncing around the trailer as I careened down the hill. I could see my dad running after me shouting "STEP ON THE DAMN BRAKE... the BRAKE!!!!!"

At the bottom of the gully the tractor coasted to a stop and my dad caught up with me. I was sitting in the seat, snot a flying, hands white on the steering wheel. "Why didn't you step on the brake? he hollered, swinging into the cab to make sure I was fine. "

"I thought that WAS the brake" I blubbered.

oops.

Oh. Minor glitch in communications.
To this day, when my family is trying to explain something and doing an incomplete job, someone says "Step on the damn brake!". The point is clear. :)

What kind of family miscommunications do you have to share?

Lest we forget

Semper Fi, brothers.

Thank you all military members past and present.

My front porch - Now with a giveaway!

Hermit Jim got me thinking... over at Coffee with the Hermit, he said something about front porches and inspired me to post MY front porch. Then he challenged me to get MORE pictures. I figured, what the heck... let's have a giveaway!

First... the porch.

This is where we sit and "take in the world". All of this we did ourselves. When we first moved here it was a straight sidewalk - that I personally jackhammered and loaded into a trailer, ugh - and we put in the curved paver patio.


It is still a work in progress, as you can see!!!


Here it the view down the street... as you can tell, it's a plain old subdivision, albeit at least the streets aren't straight. But it's sad because nobody ever is outside. Just us. :(



Now, the giveaway!
You can enter by commenting and by doing a post about your porch and dropping the link in the comments section. Now, I'm not promising fabulous prizes, but I'll pony up something to enjoy while you're sitting outside relaxing. And you'll have the envy of your friends and fellow bloggers. :) Um, let's say this thing closes this Friday at midnight. Unless I go camping, in which case it'll close when I get home!

Now get to posting!!!

Fight the good fight. Be true to YOU.

Loving Annie got me thinking with her post about being content and at peace with one's self.

It got me thinking back to some times in my life when I didn't feel that way.

There was a time when I was living "away" while we were waiting for Husband to get a job in the "away" location. I went first because advance party is a concept that makes total sense to us. While I was "away" I missed my babies terribly and the stress of not having the safety and security of Husband took it's toll. Not only was the distance tough on me, but it was tough on my marriage.

Every night I would dream about swimming or water. And in these dreams, I would be suffocating - clawing my way to the surface, trying to gasp for air. Even after I woke up, I would know that I was going to die, but in the confused post-dream state, I couldn't really process the why or how.

I returned from "away" but the damage was done. For months afterward, as I struggled to find a job to replace the income I lost upon returning, I would wake up positive that somebody "shut off the oxygen". (So you know, I go to bed early. Like 9pm early. Husband would often stay up depending upon his shift.) Anyway, it sounds silly, but I would bolt upright in bed, dash out to the living room and when Husband asked what was wrong, I would haltingly mumble... air, off... can't breathe... suffocate... and generally be incoherent. No amount of explanation would convince me that I was just dreaming. Eventually, he would take my hand and lead me back to bed, tuck me in and I would fall back asleep.

This tapered off but returned again 5 or 6 years later when I was under severe job stress and let's just say the marital stress wasn't so great either. :) This time I would wake up positive that "something" had just fallen on me... a liquid or something... and I knew that it was poisonous and that I was going to die. Yes, bizarre. I know. But at the moment I woke up, I had no doubt that something ominous was there and I was going to die because of it. There were nights I would start to weep because of all that I knew I would be missing - the depth of sadness was terrible.

The point of all of this? Well, I think the point - for me at least - was that much of this has stopped now that I have room to be "me". I spent a lot of years (over 20, I'm a slow learner) allowing myself to be pushed and prodded and directed into trying to fit into the expectations of the world and others. Most of the time I fought back - causing so much pain and confusion and sorrow - and sometimes I slipped into the mold I was asked to. It was during those times - the times when I was not true to ME - that I suffered the most and that my soul tried to warn me of my imminent "death". Well, at least the death of self.

So I'm simply reminding you all - be true to who you are. Every moment you can. Because our selves - the part of us that makes us US - is worth fighting for.

Sorry for rambling. Peace out all.

Things you will hear in this life. (corrected version)

Honey, I won't be home for dinner.
I'm working doing under-age hookers.


Yeah. This life IS a bit different than most. :)
What has YOUR significant other said to you that should have been odd, but just wasn't.

Isn't that sweet. He wanted to make sure I repeated it correctly. lol

Weed

No, not that kind of weed!

I mean THIS kind of WEED.

Image credit: inmygarden.org

I have to ask...how many of you eat weeds? Or what we decide to call weeds? I am embarrassed to admit that I actually don't eat many. Yes, I know I should be the foraging chick, but I just haven't gotten that far. But I'm GOING TO.

YoungSon on the other hand, is famous for walking through the woods with us and popping something off the landscape and eating it. I learned some time ago to not freak, especially since the kid is "outdoor Ed" personified.

Anyway, here are a couple of blogs that are all "wild edible-ish" and places you should visit for some kick-ass recipes. Who knew what you could do with nettles? Besides smacking people on the arm with them as some sort of club initiation? (thank you mom, you taught me some great things. but you and your brothers and sisters were MEAN!!!!)


My absolute favorite: Fat of the Land. This guy can COOK!!!
And check out his dandy tempura.


Similar: Hunter-Gathering: Wild and Fresh Foods

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook Pretty much has all the bases covered with that title.

And for something NOT foraging related, check out the picture on the header at Ginger's place. It breaks my heart. Yes, a tad "barren", but for the beauty and the solitude - can't be beat. Oh, and check out what she has to say as well as looking at the picture. :)

OK... two questions:
Do you "eat wild"? Would you? (that's one question with two parts)
and make a post about your favorite "weird things about me (you) that others might think is a bit odd" Otherwise I'm going to make you post your refrigerator pictures again. (I suppose that's a demand rather than a question. Oh well)

Peace out, all.

Laughter during Silent Drill Platoon performance.

Quick story that Christopher made me think of with his recent visit to 8th & I to see my beloved Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon:




People should NOT laugh during this performance. People should NOT do things that will make other people laugh. Um, nobody explained that to YoungSon when he was about 2 1/2 years old and he saw a bunch of guys who looked an awful lot like his dad during NCO school, where he (Husband, not YoungSon) marched around with a rifle and did cool-guy drill movements.

So picture a hushed crowd, enthralled by the performance when a little voice pipes up and peals across the entire parade deck "my Daddy can do THAT".

Yes, we all laughed. And while I think Husband was pretty 'Sierra Hotel' as a Marine, he most definitely wasn't a member of the SDP. Rather, he got to 'swing with the wing'. I miss those days.

Was he AIMING for me??? (now with more info!)

:)

And at the end, does the editing make it seem like perhaps I was MAKING A POINT?

And this won't stay up for long. You know how guys can be about faces showing in blog posts.

OOOPS. VIDEO GONE.


I can't believe I forgot to add the most important part. Husband did not own climbing spikes when he decided to do this. So he FABRICATED his own damn climbing spikes. YIKES! Yes, he cut the steel, sharpened the spikes, welded the thing, added the straps, although he did purchase the harness system. I'll admit the spikes worked great, but having a man who can make things himself ruins the usual "stalling tactic" of --Gee honey, let's see if we can buy some and then you can climb the tree-- meaning we'll never find any and he'll end up getting distracted by something else.

Oh, and Friday the professional tree service will be coming by to cut down that one and 3 others. :)

Old pictures, falling trees and Mother's day.

When we were little, we would go to my Grama and Grampa's house. I remember being in bed in the morning and staring at this picture on the wall.

Earlier this year my mom gave me the picture and it was only then that I realized it was a picture from a magazine that had been stuck in a frame. It seems like there was a lot of that in people that lived through the Depression.

I wonder if we'll start again?


As far as Mother's day, a couple of month's ago I sent the MOM QUIZ to my kidlets and had them fill it out. YoungSon just did his yesterday as a quasi-Mother's day gift, and there is one answer that made me choke up (#15, which I left in)

Here's the entire quiz for you to torture your children with:

1. What is something your mom always says to you?
2.What makes your mom happy?
3. What makes your mom sad?
4. How does your mom make you laugh?
5. What did your mom like to do when she was a child?
6. How old is your mom?
7. How tall is your mom?
8. What is her favorite thing to do?
9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
11. What is your mom really good at?
12. What is your mom not very good at?
13. What does your mom do for her job?
Gets the government to believe that she is looking for work... Ha!
14. What is your mom's favorite food?
15. What makes you proud of your mom?
That she is who she is. That may sound like a cop out, but it's actually one of the highest forms of praise I could bestow on her. After over 40 years of intense, hurtful pressure to change into someone the world wants her to be - in short, to deny her heart in order to direct some of the hardships of life away from her, she has stood true to who she must be. A lesser woman would have caved.
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
17. What do you and your mom do together?
18. How are you and your mom the same?
19. How are you and your mom different?
20. How do you know your mom loves you?
21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?

Tomorrow should be (crossing fingers for video transfer to work properly) shots of Husband almost dropping a huge limb on my head and my sprained ankle.

Woo hooo!!!!