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Human thumb

I was talking to a guy at work yesterday and he was talking about his neighbor. He doesn't know his neighbor's name but he said "he's a human thumb". I looked puzzled or perhaps said "human thumb?" He said "you know...the kind of guy with broad shoulders, no neck and a bald head, a human thumb". Isn't that a great description?? I've shared this with my two younger daughters and it's fun to people watch and do a thumbs up when I see one walk by. Then we laugh. I wonder if the human thumbs think we're laughing at them. Well, I guess we are but not in a mean way. Look for human thumbs, there are a lot our there!

Dirt,dirt,dirt,dirt

I am on the verge of some sort of breakdown. Yesterday Tom spent over 8 hours on the tractor,plowing through the endless dry, dusty dirt. I was driving home from work and I saw our place from the road and thought there was a fire because I saw a huge cloud of "smoke" in the air. It was dirt. He forgot to close some of the windows before he started this new project. There is a layer of dirt everywhere. I brush my teeth, the toothbrush is covered with dirt. I have a drink of water, the glass is covered with dirt. I hate this. Tom is losing his patience with me because I guess I'm not looking at the "whole picture". This is neccesary to get the end result. I think he likes driving his tractor around in the dirt. I'm taking a quick break from cleaning but I have to go wash my hands now because the computer is covered with dirt. Lindsay has friends spending the night here tonight because they can't move into the dorms until tomorrow. I hope they don't mind dirt.

Baked chicken with peaches

Yesterday Tom, Melissa and I went to pick peaches. Lots and lots of peaches. I'm making baked chicken with peaches for dinner tonight and it smells SO good! It seems like an odd combination....peaches and chicken. We'll see.

Tom and Brad are actually starting to sell some of their granite. I've picked out the granite I want for my kitchen and I can't wait to get it done. www.sunsetgranite.com Tan brown. What do you think? My favorite is actually Santa Cecilia but that's really popular. One of the nurses from work came out here with her husband yesterday and picked it for her kitchen. I'm jealous but I'm sure tan brown will be nice too. Anything will be better than our countertops now!

My dinner smells like dessert....

Letter to Jean that will never get sent.

Jean, I feel that there is such a weird chemisty between us...some odd competition that is very unhealthy. So, let me just say...you win. You are more successful than I am, you are prettier, you have better kids, a better job, a better marriage, make much more money, take much better vacations, you are smarter than I am. You have SO many more friends than I do. You have a nicer house and not only a place at the lake but a lot at the lake where you can build your dream house and live happily after ever. You once said to me how "you want to raise dogs and I want to live at the lake with my friends"..something about how we both have our dreams and can't we just be happy for each other? I once mentioned I'd like to raise Maltese, perhaps. This is not a dream and how is this a comparible to living at the lake with friends? That has always bothered me. Oh, and how can I forget....You know "the Chip Goeman of Lisbon, ND". Jean, get over this Chip Goemen obsession you have. He is a little nobody in a little nowhere town in MN. I hope that you feel good about yourself. You are great. Love, Kris

Q tips

Had ANYONE even read my profile? It asks for me to come up with the tagline for a new plastic bedsheet and I answered Q tips. That is stupid. The question that I answered was something along the line of what would you bring with you on a trip to the moon or a camping trip....something like that. Q tips.....I went camping once and forgot Q tips. It was awful. Plastic bedsheets? Wet freely! That's a good name.

What do I really, really love?

I LOVE cool weather! Today was so nice. It was cloudy, it was cool. There was even rain. I was so happy. I had been thinking that maybe I really hate "the farm" and will never, ever be happy here but I think it was just that I was so hot. Today I wasn't hot and I was happy. Hot=depressed, cool=happy. I heard the weather report and it will be in the 90's again over the weekend. Weekend=depressed.

What do I really, really hate?

Wow....I think I kind of hate lots of things but what I really, really hate is being hot! I hate hot. I am beginning to hate the sun (because it's hot). I miss air conditioning. I will do anything I can to have AC by next summer. I am too old to suffer like this. So, you think at least you can cool off at work, right? NO! They have this stupid sky light that magnifies the sun. We are like little hot ants running around asking people if they've passed their air yet. We've all complained about the heat at work and they keep telling us they've ordered some sort of shade for the evil sky light but that was MONTHS ago. It's on "back order" or will be here in "two weeks" ....we've heard that for months now. I long for cool, cloudy weather ...the kind of weather I can wear jeans and a sweatshirt. If I complain about cold and rain this winter I should be whipped.

I did it!

I'm so proud of myself. I got my colonoscopy done before I turned 51. That is one New Year's Resolution that I kept! All in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The worst part was not taking Advil for a week. There was a mix up about the timing of the colon prep so I had to get up at 4 AM today to drink the last of it. I think this was a good experience for me as an endo nurse to understand what my patients are going through. I must say patients are really whiney about the prep...all kinds of drama about how awful it tastes and how they throw it up. The secret is to mix it with Fresca. My doctor gave me a Valium to take an hour before my appt. and that was also helpful. I was worried that the sedatives wouldn't sedate me since I've seen that happen occasionally and the patients truley look "shell shocked" after experiencing that. I was very nicely sedated, woke up without a hang over, got good results, don't have to do this again for 10 years and I've been eating and sleeping the rest of the day. I feel that I've done something good for myself. I would encourage everyone to get their colonoscopy if it's indicated but since my daughers are the only one who read this blog that will fall on deaf ears. Girls, when you're 50 go get a colonoscopy. By that time it won't be so involved...heck, in 10 years I bet it will be even easier than it was today!

It's not easy to be....ME

I can't take Advil and my back hurts! All the time. I have to have only clear liquids tomorrow and work and still not take Advil and then come home and choke down some nasty tasting stuff that will make me spend the night on the toilet. Then I have to get up at 5 AM drink MORE nasty tasting stuff and then go to some awful place where they'll stick a big needle in my arm and give me drugs that won't knock me out and then....there will be a long, long, long tube that will go.....guess where. Does anyone really not understand why old people are depressed? This is my life. I'm catching Tom's cold too....shoot me now.

He' gone...

How can Peter Jennings be dead? He looked OK in April when he did his last newscast. The voice was husky though. And then they didn't even mention him again so you had to suspect things weren't going well. Who will replace him? Lindsay thinks Elizabeth Vargas? I was thinking maybe Charlie Gibson? How can I feel so sad? It isn't like I knew him. So, there you go....smoking cigarettes will kill you.

Check your deck...now!

I just saw on the news that there was a deck collapse in Beaverton. It was some sort of family gathering and they decided to take a group picture and the deck full of family collapsed with people falling about 10-15 feet. Ten people taken to the hospital by ambulance. The worst injury looks like grandma. Guess what happened to her? Yes, a broken hip.

I ran right out to check OUR deck. It's a bit "iffy" but the fall would be about 4 inches.

The message is go check out your deck. We don't want grandma breaking a hip!

I'm going to be left behind

Last week my sister Lois had emergency abd. surgery and was very, very sick. She's 67 now. I guess my brother, Kermit had some testing for pancreatic cancer. He's 64. My sister in law who has had bladder cancer had a colonoscopy that was inconclusive so she had to have some sort of baruim x-ray. My brother in law, Todd has had a few strokes and has weakness on one side. Barring any accidents I will outlive all of them. That's four funerals that if I even begin to think about I break down in tears. Maybe being the youngest by 16 and 14 years isn't all that great. As of today they're all doing well.

Run on sentences

Melissa tells me I should start using paragraphs.

Happiness

I've been thinking about when I've been the happiest, periods in my life where things are really good. There are two times that come to mind immediately. I skim right over my childhood which wasn't happy. My first frame of time when I was very content and happy and having lots of fun was when Tom and I lived in our house in St.Paul on Randolph Ave. We had Brenna and had just had Melissa. We had great friends, Barb and Troxel. We did so many fun things together. The second time was when we moved into our first house in Oregon. It was so exciting to have such a big house (after living in a tiny apartment for 9 months) and the neighbors were great! We were all misplaced from different areas of the country so we didn't have family around and we all became each other's family. We spent Holiday's together, we went camping together, we had weekend parties and cul de sac picnics. Those good times ended about two years later when Chris and Wendy moved. It was never the same without them. As I think about Wendy I realize SHE is what a good friend is. She shared her dreams and concerns with me and cared about what I thought. She cared about my dreams and concerns. She also made me feel like I was the funniest person she ever met and when I was around her I WAS funny! Really funny. I think she is a once in a life time kind of friend. I feel bad that we've lost touch. You know one thing that is a certainty is that things will change. Whether things or great or terrible they won't stay that way. I have had moments of happiness recently, of course but never those long stretches of happiness like the two times I just mentioned.

If you know what I'm talking about....get a life!

How could Lexie NOT have a huge school girl crush on Glacier??

Cheap therapy....old friends...not so gold

OK, in my mind right now I look like Carrie in Sex and the City as I write this question worth pondering......"Do you reach a point where an old friendship becomes a toxic friendship that needs to die a natural death?" I'll call this "friend" JEAN (because that's her name) I can use her real name because she will never read my Blog because it's not about how important she is. Jean and I go way back....I remember her mom telling me about how she and my mom, who were both pregnant with us attending a baby shower for another woman who had twins---Chuck and Mike. They are twins but Chuck died from some heart virus when they were in their 30's. I digress.... So, we've been friends for a long time. We didn't become best friends until we were freshman at Clara City High School. That's 36 years ago. As I look back on our friendship now I can see some issues that were never addresed My sister in law, Jan has told me that she always thought Jean was jealous of me. Believe me, there was no reason. I lived in town and she lived on a farm...maybe that bothered her but come on...Clara City is not a city! As I think about this maybe it will sound like I was jealous of Jean but I really wasn't. She was tall and naturally thin where I had to become somewhat anorexic to get thin....that lasted about 4 days. She had two boyfriends before I even had a date, she breezed through nursing school where I had all kinds of issues and took an extra year to finish. By the way, not being in the same class in nursing school with Jean was the best thing that could have happened. I didn't rely on her and actually made my own friends (I was shy). Through all this we remained very close friends. I'm not even mentioning when we were in high school I got a watch and she turned around and got a better watch. I got a suitcase for high school graduation and she picked out a nicer one. I noticed this but didn't dwell on it. I ended up getting married a year before she did and got pregnant easily. She had some infertility problems but ended up having two kids. I had three girls, she had a boy and a girl. There was much talk from her about "MY SON" Her way of rubbing it in that she had a boy? I don't know. I wouldn't trade my kids for either one of hers, believe me. Through all these years I always felt we were on the same page....we both lived in the Twin Cities and were working hard and didn't have much money. In 1988 Tom lost his job and there wasn't much in the computer industry in MN so we moved to Oregon. It was a really hard move for me and I was incredibly homesick for a year. I had to leave a job I loved and leave "home" for the first time. It turned out to be a good move and we were able to build a nice house and make some new friends. Jean and I kept in touch with weekly phone calls (no e mail back then). I really believe I never rubbed anything in Jean's face. Come on....my first plane ride was when I was 29 years old. I'd never been anywhere before moving to Oregon. I have to admit that when my oldest daughter, Brenna (hi Brenna!) went back to MN to attend college that Jean was a life saver and helped out a lot. Let's move forword a few years...Jean is in an unhappy marriage but both she and Jim (her husband ) have good jobs and Jim's parent die and leave him some money. They finally get to take some great vacations... a cruise, a trip to Mexico, etc. They sell their house and build a new townhouse and buy a trailor which they move to a lot they rented on lakeshore in MN. They make many new, very "important" friends. Jean turned 50 in July of 2004. I knew she wasn't happy about this b'day so I made a point of being really nice. I sent her a card every day for a week and sent her a really neat gift and of course I called her along with sending many e cards. This is hardly acknowleged. I just hear about what her new friends do for her. My 50th birthday was November of 2004. I was also depressed about this birthday and I had quit a long term job and started a new job that was awful so I was really, really depressed. This is right around the time that Jean and Jim moved to their new townhouse but still.....no card, no call, no e mail mentioning my birthday. I got e mails from her but it was just about her nice place and the move and her important friends. This set off something in me. I was SO hurt that I stopped all communication with her. When she finally realized this and I told her why I was hurt she flipped out. How could I be so thoughtless? She finally has a new place...I had a new house. Why couldn't I be happy for her and all the good things going on in HER life? I haven't even mentioned how she carries on and on about how really IMPORTANT her NEW friends are....why Wilber or whatever his name is is "the Chip Goeman" of Lisbon, ND. I realize that no one knows who Chip Goeman is but for some reason she thinks he is some God like guy that we went to high school with. He wasn't very bright and flunked a grade and didn't go to college or ever even leave Clara City. He took over his dad's life insurance company in Clara City (big fish in tiny, tiny pond) Too much detail, I know but I'm thinking I've about had it with Jean. She expects me to be impressed with all her activites now. She always looked down on us because we would maybe have a beer with friends.....alcohol....evil. Well, her new friends drink and now it's all about fancy red wine at some fancy house, rum slushes on their deck. I shared information with her (via e mail, we rarely talk on the phone anymore) about my sister having emergency surgery and being very sick and she didn't even mention it. I heard about how she's heading back to the lake and will be having a "girls day out" Friday and they'll go shopping all day. Someone told me a few months ago that she had read an article about how just because freindships are old doesn't mean they should continue. People outgrow each other and you shouldn't remain friends if it's just a habit....especially if it's turned toxic. I think this is a toxic friendship. I can't imagine that anyone has made it though this long blog entry.....even my own childred but cheap therapy, right??

Cheap therapy

I've been told for some time that I should start a blog. I go from thinking that I would have nothing to share to the other extreme that I have TOO much to share. So many thoughts..how do I even know where to start? You can't live for 50 years without coming up with many ideas and opinions. For a long time I debated what I would call my blog. Today I came up with "cheap therapy" which I love so today is the day I start! My life is in a transitional period right now, lots of changes, some good, some not so good.

We sold our family home where all three kids were raised and moved to a much smaller house that we built on 3 acres. I've had very mixed feelings about this. This is more my husband Tom's dream than it is mine. I'm finding that everything that goes wrong or is an inconvenience upsets me even more than normal. Right now it's the lack of air conditioning. Our old house had AC and this one doesn't and it's right in the middle of a hot field of dirt. It's hot and it's dirty. I'm not happy. It's going to be 100 degrees tomorrow. Tom always bites off more than he can chew and he's drowning in projects. He starts many and finishes few. We really need some grass, some landscaping, maybe finish painting the house or his jumbo "shop". He's decided he needs to put curbs in around the driveway. A project that will take the rest of the summer....hmmmmmm........ He hates his job and is always exhausted and doesn't have enough energy to finish things. It makes me wonder if this "dream" will be more of a nightmare. I know I'm not being fair and that I'll learn to love living out in the country too. This is just "cheap therapy" right??