Play Time

When I was a little girl, my sister, our friends and neighbors and I played a lot things using mostly our imaginations and sometimes a few props.

One of the things we played was "horses."  This was done in two different ways.  One way was to pretend we were horses and we galloped and neighed all around our large yard.  We would choose what we looked like--I was usually a powerful black stallion--and we named ourselves.  We played this type horses mainly at our house on Arlington Street in Pueblo.

The other way we played horses was by riding our bicycles with ropes attached to each end of the handlebars.  The bikes were the horses and we were the riders.  We would ride our horses around and around the block. There were times when we would count how many times we went around and tried to ride around 100 times.  (Probably we did the 100 times around the block by just riding, not pretending the bikes were horses.)  We did this on 25th Street in Pueblo.

Sometimes we played "love."  Someone would be the woman and someone would be the man (I think we played this with just girls).  I think this theme sometimes included "war."  The man would come back from the war, and then man and woman would kiss--by putting our hands flat against our mouths and then just kissing our own hands.  We played this on Arlington Street.

We played "fairies" which only meant the little flying people with beautiful wings.  We flew everywhere.  You know, I dreamed about flying when I was young.  I even tried to really fly at one time.  One day I had a stomach ache, and I told my mom.  She told me to say over and over, "I don't have a stomach ache; I don't have a stomach ache."  I did it, and my stomach ache went away.  So I thought maybe this could happen with flying.  One day I said over and over, and I mean over and over, "I can fly; I can fly; I can fly."  I said it for several hours, and every once in a while I would jump up to see if it was working.  It never did, but it wasn't for lack of trying. (On Arlington)

We also played "house."  My folks had a stack of old boards back behind the garage.  We took some of the boards and outlined rooms to make our houses.  It was fun--until our parents got rid of the boards.  They didn't even ask us.  It was sad.  This also was on Arlington.

We played beauty contest and school.  We played with our dolls.  We played our little red record player and sang songs.  We had clubs.  With the neighbor's permission we ate fresh veggies out of her garden. We climbed trees--there were a number of times I had to be rescued out of the tree.  We rode our bikes and hunted for four-leaf clovers over at the school grounds.  We roller skated and jumped rope.  We were very active and we didn't watch much TV--there wasn't much on.  We read comic books and real books.  We sold lemonade and some of those comic books.  We walked to the store and we rode the bus when were we older to go downtown and spend a dollar.  And of course, we had chores.

Life was good.  We were creative and busy and active.  We were blessed.

Good Things

I feel like making a list of gripes, but I'm at least going to start with a list of good things:

I have a good job.
No one in my family has cancer.
Jen is feeling better.
Gary is a good husband.
It feels a little like fall outside and a little like being in the mountains.
Our cars are working.
Our puppies are a lot of fun.
There is fresh produce at the farm stand.
It's Saturday.
Aaron vacuums the living room nearly every week.
We have celebrated our 40th anniversary and Gary's 60th birthday this summer.
God is good.

I need to get happier.

An Unexpected Adventure

I work at the county Sheriff's Office, and for the last several months the building has been renovated with a large addition on one end. We are getting close to everything being finished, and one of the last steps has been the laying of the carpet in the downstairs hallway.

On Thursday I opened the door to step out of the large room where I work into the hallway. I saw a man from the left winding up a string and another man rolling up the same string from the right. No carpet had yet been laid.

After the man from the right passed by me, I stepped out into the hall to cross over to the restroom which was only a couple of feet to the left of the door to my work area. As soon as my feet hit the hall floor, they both stuck firm to the floor--the carpet glue had already been put down, but I didn't see it.

I tugged hard on my left foot and it came loose with some effort, and then I turned it partly around to face the other direction. When I pulled on my right shoe, my foot started to come out of it. A woman I didn't know who was standing halfway down the hall where it was already carpeted hollered, "You'll have to leave your shoes there!" Well, I didn't plan to do that, so I pulled harder.

About that time I realized I was in a precarious position and in danger of falling. The carpet man meanwhile had moved closer to me while saying, "The floor is sticky." Oh, really? He held out his hands and I took hold of him and was able to finally to move off the glue and back to the ungluey part of the floor.

I think the moral of this story could be it's good to look before you leap. Or all's well that ends well. Or holding hands with a stranger isn't all bad.

When I told some of my co-workers this story, one said she was laughing with me, not at me. I must have been laughing very quietly.

Annibirthary - Birthaversary

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This summer is our Birthaversary or Annibirthary--we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and Gary has his 60th birthday. Our anniversary was June 10th. We celebrated by spending the night in Denver. We ate at a couple of favorite places and saw a couple of movies. Good times..

Gary's 60th birthday is coming up on August 20th. I don't know yet what we will do for it. He will get to choose the meal of his choice for sure--it will probably be fried chicken or steak. Beyond that I'm not sure what will happen. Right now he is saying no gifts, but that can't be right. We'll see..

We would like to celebrate in bigger and better ways, but there are some limitations to our possibilities including little energy and limited money. Actually most of our married lives we have had limitations on money and time. Now we could probably work out having time, but there still is not enough money and now we have less energy/motivation than we used to. Oh, well..

But we really enjoyed the anniversary celebration we did have, and hopefully Gary will enjoy his birthday..

HAPPY BIRTHAVERSARY OR ANNIBIRTHARY TO US!!

Wedding Surprises

I have a friend at work who found out after the wedding something about her husband that was very peculiar--and very interesting to me. He won't or can't eat things that are round. This includes meatballs, certain kinds of cereal, some candies and many other things, I suppose. I think that is very odd. If Beth makes meatballs, she has to cut them in half for Jerry. I guess he can eat half of round things. I guess I'm suspicious that this anomaly must not really be true--surely he is just making this up. But I suppose since he has maintained this behavior for many years, it must be the truth. I suppose in every marriage there are surprises. That makes life exciting!

Meeting with Strangers

I stayed home from work on Monday so I could be at home to meet with the sprinkler guy who was turning on the sprinklers and seeing if there were any problems. Even though the day wasn't an exceptional vacation day, it was a very nice day. I watched a movie, played online Scrabble, read, did a little housework.

Today is Thursday, and I'm taking this day off as well. I had to meet with the air conditioning guy. I'm pleased to say the air conditioner is working very well. So happy. We've had a mix of using the air and the heat during the last couple of weeks. Yay for spring in Colorado!

I had to go to the store earlier today, and so I stopped at a Chinese buffet near here for lunch. It's not wonderful food, but it's inexpensive and I found some things I liked. I really love Chinese food, and not just because my daughter is Chinese. Our whole family is partly Mexican and just a tiny bit Italian--pizza/spaghetti Italian.

So tomorrow is Friday. It has been great to only work three days this week. This is definitely a schedule I could get used to. I never used to even think about retirement, but the last year or two it's definitely been on my mind. It seems like it's going to take too long to get there. Oh well. I need to be careful not to wish my life away.

Random Thoughts

1. One lady at work quotes her ninth grade boy who says, "What the h_ll!" Apparently it's okay for him to say the word. She says cuss words some herself but not a lot. I say, "Why allow and encourage a child to use that language?" They will say enough of that kind of stuff without encouragement. 2. I talked to Jen last night. She is very involved in practicing a play to present in May. The play is similar to the the play "Into the Woods" which I really enjoyed seeing on TV several years ago. I think she is playing the wicked stepmother. 3. We got our dog Gizmo groomed yesterday. The groomer cut his little foot, although it wasn't too bad. This is the third time his foot has been cut. Last time it was bad enough for him to wear a bandage plus a cone around his neck. He seems to be okay today. Poor little guy. Going to the groomer just wears him out. 4. We grilled steak for lunch today--just round steak. It was pretty good. 5. I've been playing a lot of "Words with Friends" online--it's like Scrabble. It's a lot of fun. 6. I'm staying home from work tomorrow because the sprinkler guy is coming to turn on the sprinklers. We've watered our front yard grass (Gary has) by hand several times, so it will be good to have the automatic system on. 7.Gary had a stress fracture in his foot for a couple of weeks. He got a boot to stabilize it. It's mostly well, and he just has a twinge now and then. 8. I'm watching the Cooking Channel on TV. They are showing pickle spears that are wrapped in bacon and then deep fried. I think I would like that. 9. I voluntarily stepped down one notch at work. Instead of being a Senior Records Tech, I am now a Records Tech II. Not as much responsibility. More things were being added on to the job, and I just decided I didn't want to do them. I don't know yet how it will affect my pay. I checked with someone in the know, and she didn't think it would affect my pay at all, or at least not very much. 10. Jen ordered a bunch of things online (shoes, clothes, odds and ends) and had them sent here for us to mail. We sent them out a week ago Wednesday and she got them on Friday. She was happy. She's been trying to call and talk for a few minutes on Saturday nights--her Sunday mornings before church. It's been great to hear so often. I know many more things, you know, but this is all I feel like writing. Catch you later!