Here I come to .............

I had quite the little adventure the other day. Tanner has been goi ng to work with me this week because of Christmas vacation. Wednesday, Tanner and I left work a few min early so we could make a bank deposit.

I needed gas, so I decided to do that I'd do that before the deposit so I wouldn't have to back track. Good thing I did.

I pull up, get my card out leave the car running for heat for tanner (don't nag, I know the warnings). As I get out, I hear this yelling - I ignore it at first thought but it gets louder. I turn my head to see this woman hitting someone. At first, I think she's hitting her kid thinking "wow, what a horrible mother" (I do believe in spankings so my initial thought was not yer business), then I saw the other person go to the ground. I couldn't see at this point if it was man, woman or child as they had their hood up. The victim was clear down on the ground with hands over head and the aggressor was still yelling and now starting to kick.

Regardless of who it was, I knew it was out of line. Now, I start to move toward them and in my head I'm thinking, "why isn't anyone helping or doing anything?" "Am I going to get my ass kicked??" "This woman is a nutcase"

Then, she completely crossed the line with me. She had on knee high cream colored stilletto heeled boots. And she started kicking with her HEEL! Now, if you've seen any self defense ANYTHING for women, you know that this is one of the things they tell women to do to seriously damage an assailant (especially on the bridge of his foot).

I knew that she at that point could seriously injure, if not possibly kill her. So I yelled HEY really loud and walked up to her. That went well and I didn't get my butt kicked, but she kept kicking her. I walked right up to her and starting pushing her away. That gave the victim a min to get up off of the ground. It was a well dressed woman, about mid 20's (both around the same age).

Then I heard the ASSailant say "Bitch you better leave my car alone!" and I screamed at her, I don't remember what. She turned around and walked off to a cream/bronze trailblazer and got in on the passenger side. (so the driver had sat there and watched the whole thing, probably some slimey MAN). I say to the victim, "do you know THIS BITCH" (screaming loudly now at the woman as she leaves). She says yes.

So the girl gets up and I ask her if she's ok, then 2 guys from other cars appear (like they were much help before). One guy tells me "I didn't want to get involved, I thought it was a boyfriend/girlfriend thing". Umm.. ok.

She thinks she's ok, but she's rattled understandably. She then tells me that they are COWORKERS!! And that they both work at Wells Fargo!!! And that the cow that hit her was on her way to work! What the hell kind of person does that.

Now here's where I'm going to step in and say something that won't be popular. Both of these women were african american. The one that was getting beat seemed very polite and well spoken (for the 10 min we spent together), the other woman - well obvious stuff. Here's my personal statement. Don't complain about being stereotyped and "held to lower standards", when you ACT LIKE LOWER STANDARDS!! How she got a job at a bank with the attitude she obviously had, I'll never understand. The victim told me they'd been having problems at work, but she'd tried to smooth it over so they could keep their jobs. I hope the one chick got fired after the cops showed up at the bank.

Anyway, so I look down and this girls car has a HUGE dent in it. I asked her if the other woman did that, and she said yes she did. I asked her if she had a phone, to call 911, but she shows me her phone which is in pieces and her hands are shaking like crazy. So I go back to my car and realize Tanner saw the whole thing, and I was thankful he stayed in the car! Got my phone, called 911 and I was shook up at that point and couldn't remember the cross streets, but QT had already called it in.

The cops showed up, and I gave them my info and left. She was ok when I left.

I hope it all worked out.

It did answer a question for me tho, what would I do if in a "situation" Now I know.

we melted

If you didn't figure it out, we got electricity (and hot water .. yes there is a santa!) back on. Over all, I think we did really well, not much bickering going on. Tanner chose to stay here the whole time and I didn't really miss tv much. I caught myself thinking to turn it on, out of habit more than anything else. On the 3rd day, I ran a cord to the sb room so that I could organize.


Isn't it amazing how destruction can be beautiful at the same time? This was the tree in our front yard. We only have like 5 trees on 2 acres, so I'm really glad our biggest one made it. Most of them did.

Here's a view across one of our acres, the field and down to the neighbor's house. Kinda pretty - for being covered in ice.

This picture is for Emma. More ice then snow on top *big sarcastic yay!* For everyone else - if you're wondering who the hell Emma is, she's Gene's daughter in law (one of 2) and the poor dear is a canadian. ;) Don't fault her for that. She commented on these horrible ice storms up there and I realized, that arguing with a canadian over snow/ice, is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Not your wisest move.

Regardless, I'm gonna pull the "close second" card behind Emma. It still sucked. We were less prepared than the Canadians for bad weather, therefore it's worse. HA! I have her on that one ;)

OK, getting tired. I have more christmas and sb "fetish" updates I need to share later, plus some new years resolutions that I'm gonna toss out there and commit to. But for right now, I'm tired, gotta get up for work at 5:45. Dingbutt gets to sleep in, and do a job AT THE HOUSE at 8 a.m. then drag into the shop whenever he happens to show up. That kinda sucks (for me). But that is how I take care of him! I worked out that cherry deal today.

It's Caturday!

Totally stole Caturday from Two Peas . But I have to show you some great cat photos. yes.... It's come to this.



Jingles with the new tree that Gene just randomly bought me... and gave me when he was mad at me LOL. It's ok, I was mad back. It's cute tho, I love it, it's made of feathers and the funny thing is, I looked at it early that day and thought to myself I'd like to have one. He must have read my wee noggin cuz he went clear back across the store to go back to get it.

Jingly-puff helping me organize my scrapbook room. For some reason, he has the SHAPE of a pizza down, but he's extra thick and doesn't fit.

Jingles in the sb room again, looking out at the new fallen snow - day before xmas.

Mack - thinking he's still a kitten and batting around a scrap punch in my sb room. He IS A KITTEN.

Note to self... more mack pictures.

Or less cat pictures.

Blasphemy!!

OK, christmas doesn't suck.

OK I'm back. I had to take a break :) (obviously).

Holiday hectic-nick-ness (pun intended) got the best of me. No I do not hate Christmas.

A few notes:
1. Emma. It's hard to get in the spirit of xmas and snuggle with your man, when "your man" is covered in green fur. I won't say his name, but his initals are "The Grinch" :) He actually ended up doing quite well, as we got closer to christmas, the more "jolly" he got. He actually was caught on several occasions whistling christmas carols.
(his heart grew 3 sizes)

2. Amber. I'm sorry for freaking you out. You are off the hook for the xmas card lateness - lol. To rectify that egregious error, I put your pic on my fridge. And every one should know, I forgot to take amber her card cuz I left it at home. I didn't get it mailed cuz she moved. :)

3. I can't think of a 3. That's all I got.

Going to do my catch up 5-8 posts. LOL. It's easier for my noggin to think like that. You know it's time to update when you're writing blog posts in your HEAD!

I give up.

So blogging isn't just all "hey life is great" right?

Bear with me while I rant.

I'm sick of Christmas. Where is that spirit I used to have as a kid. I love(d) to wrap gifts and my mom didn't, so she would have me do them all (sometimes even mine after she hid them inside of a box). I always looked forward to the Christmas shopping, buying gifts for my sisters and brothers and even my closest friends as I got older. We'd make candies and cookies and snuggle in during christmas vacation. We'd empty the downstairs closet to get to the christmas decorations and decorate every square inch of the living room and dining room not to mention miles of lights. Sounds great right?

So where did that go? I now could give a crap less about christmas anymore. I'm disappointed in myself because I've let other ppl bring down the holidays but I think I'm more disappointed in other ppl for being such a drag the past 20 years that they've ruined it for me.

Tired of getting hard ppl to buy for, and when you ask them what they want, you get the "I don't know" or "I don't want anything." That pisses me off a bunch. I want .... have to buy you something so at least give me a damn clue ok? When I do finally find something I personally think you'd like, or what was suggested, if you don't like it, just friggin say thank you. "what the hell is this" is not an appropriate response.

I'm sick of going out to shop and having ppl oblivious to anyone but themselves. Get your gd cart out of the middle of the aisle, did you not realize that there's 14 ppl trying to get through?

Don't ask me what I want, and then when I come up with a list, just spend 1/2 hour running around the store getting exactly everything on the list with no deviation, no creativity on your own. Don't boss ppl into buying what you want them to buy.

Highly annoyed at spending tons of time and money looking for the perfect gift (and doing a damn good job) and not even getting a thank you, let alone a gift in return. How about a christmas card?

Speaking of Christmas cards, I've received one. I don't think I'll send them anymore. I send out over a dozen handmade ones, and barely get half that in return. Remember when snail mail was fun? After a year of putting up with ppl, I think I earned a stamp.

And lastly, don't take away the one thing I've always enjoyed the most. Let me watch everyone open up their gifts. I would rather have nothing at all and get to spend that time watching those around me appreciate what they got (I'd like to think that I can actually still suprise someone... but I'm beginning to doubt it). Do not nag me into opening gifts while everyone else is still opening theirs. Sorry, I've been this way since birth - I'd like to pretend like it's the spirit of christmas (giving not receiving).

So next year, act surprised when you open your impersonal gift cards. I doubt I'll go to the store the entire month of december. This includes my own children. when I was little, one easter my mom gave each of us kids a $5 bill. I thought it was so much fun and different than getting a basket full of stuff. Looking back, I'm sure it was because my mom thought it would just be easier that year. I didn't figure that out for about 30 years. So hope everyone has "fun" with their walmart gift cards.

Merry freaking Christmas. Let's go celebrate the birth of baby jesus and open our ipods and graphic t-shirts.

< /rant>

PS. We got electricity back last night. It's nice to have lights again.

Abraham Lincoln's Letter to His Brother

Interesting letter I heard about on Dave Ramsey today --- An age old lesson!!!

Abraham Lincoln's Letter to His Brother

Dear Johnston:--

Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best to comply with now.

At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me, "We can get along very well now," but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again.

Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not _lazy_, and still you _are_ an _idler_. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work, in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.

This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you,and still more so to your children, that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than they can get out after they are in.

You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is,that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home--prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor either in money or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar.

By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home, in Coles County.

Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever.

You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply, for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work.

You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession--Nonsense! If you can't now live _with_ the land, how will you then live without it?

You have always been kind to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.

Affectionately your brother,
A. LINCOLN.

It's not so bad

It's almost kinda nice, with no TV, books/mags to read, a generator that works (cept that weird popping noise it seems to make sometimes) and a bunch of candles.

Gene and Jingles are in bed. Wish I could take a picture! I asked Gene not to kick him out cuz he was so cute and sleeping and cuddled up. Now it's time for me to go to bed. Glad Jingles was there to warm up my spot! LOL

Going to let the generator run til it runs out of fuel, maybe it will be over 55 when we wake up! It was cold this morning, and when we got home from work, it was 49! Poor kitties! (and fish).

Ohhhhh.. the weather out side is frightful, me? i got.. a rifle.

Hey all...

Just wanted to let anyone know that was wondering about us, we're ok. We went on a little "adventure" today and drove to Red Oak Iowa to find a generator. They sold out while we were there so thank god we got there when we did! It dipped into our emergency fund, but we're going to do some rearranging and we'll be back up and running ok.

Anyway, we don't have complete power, but we do have heat and interestingly enough, we have phone and internet, but no cell phones. Kinda weird surfing the net by candlelight. Speaking of which, thanks Carol for all those candles, I have like *all* of them lit LOL.

Updating some pics I took this afternoon. I wish I had taken my camera when we went to Maryville, then Clarinda, then Red Oak, we saw a lot of stuff. Maryville was the worst really. Dave the insurance man down the street from my old house got it bad - crushed his car with a fallen branch. Good thing he's an insurance guy :)

Anyway - the pics - you can pull up the larger images, but I didn't want to resize everything so it will be BIG when you pull it up.

These are taken about 15 hours after the last ones so you can see some big differences.

Overall, we're ok. We're Blessed!

Last post - ICE STORM

Last but not least.... we're in the middle of an ice storm. I have a feeling I will officially miss my first day of work.

Hmm.. wait I missed a day for the flood of Ought-Seven.

I tried to take some pics out the back door as not to bother gene (bedroom in front) but my camera is flash-tarded today and would not take and I was NOT GOING OUT IN THE RAIN, not with a digital.

Trying to post the pics. Now blogger is being slow-tarded. If they don't make it tonight, I'll update tomorrow.

I admit, it would be nice to stay home (especially if there's no work to be had anyway). Sit around, eat soup, work on scrapbooks, decorate the tree. Tanner won't be going to school tomorrow that's for sure!



*I* am the slow-tarded one. Blogger did not fail me. I'm so sorry baby. ;)

Anyway, these are night time pics, taken from the safety of inside my house with the door open. Keep in mind I have a yellow bug light 'kay??

I think ice might officially suck. Pretty no? Suck yes?
Ah we agree.

more posting

I told you I was splitting this up.

Chris and Amy made it to Fort Bliss. They say it's not Blissful. Eh. Welcome to the army!

So anyway, all the pressies had to be mailed, did that stop us from buying 18 things for each child. *noooooo*. Gift cards woulda been cheap to mail. LOL. It's ok, I just wish we could see them open their stuff!

This is one of 3 boxes, Us and great-grandma/pa (hi Carol/Bud!) all went a little hog wild and they might not even have to buy santa presents. Look at that haul. I'm so proud of my packing skills I took a pic. Dayum. I should pack boxes for a living (and then shoot myself cuz how freaking boring would that be).

Snapshot of the upper cabinets now in the kitchen that has no cabinets on one side! Thanks amber/cole/copper for bringing them down! Once they are painting and new handles and lowers, and a countertop and a pantry and a desk and and and and....

they'll be great. LOL. Right now, I love them because they are hung, by us, while we were irritated at each other and they didn't fall off the wall. All in all, an accomplishment.

Vaca ya'll

Weekend after Thanksgiving, Gene and I went to Branson. I've wanted to go during Christmas for like TEN YEARS. It was fun, and nice to get away just t he two of us. Bless Gene, he was such a trooper I could tell he was hell bent on ME having a good time. Gee I love that guy. But when I could see that irriatated look on his face (cleverly masked as a grimacing smile) we moved on. It's just my way of saying "thank you" baby.

See how handsome my cowboy is? Lurve that guy. BTW, off topic for a moment. Someone at work today asked me why I had a pic of Hank Williams Jr. LOL. Gee if we only had a fraction of his cash, we would be doing glass. :)

Back to Branson - here is the train all light up coming out of the tunnel at Silver Dollar City. Suggestion... if you're going to go to branson to Silver Dollar City, go later in the day We went around 11 and I thought it was too soon, the lights didn't come on until 5:30 and the shows were so crowded we couldn't get in to any but one. Oh, and dress warm!

Here is the new tree. It's computerized to christmas music and it plays every 15 min after 5:30. Very cool. I forgot my camera that takes video! Grrupph.

Best view of the tree. God Bless America.

And what day at SDC (that's Silver Dollar City ya'll) is not complete without pickled eggs. Amusing shot, and all my christmas shopping done in one fell swoop. Quite a score.

Sidebar:

As a child, we would go to SDC every fall and we always played the game where the first to see a SDC sign would win. Easy right?

Wrong! The glassman cheated.. it was MY FREAKING GAME! He pulls over, gets the birthday candy from Becky/David out of the trunk and dazzles me with that, then the next hill finds one. Dammit.

I had to rub his BACK for 20 min. *thanks becky* (sarcasm)

updates schumpudates

I'm going to post several postings! It just seems easier that way.

I need to force myself to write once a week at least, it seems the longer I wait, the more there is to say/tell/do and I just put it off, making it worse!

First, my sister's house burnt down the saturday after Thanksgiving! Actually her whole apartment complex went up. All of them were ok (although a neighbor went to the hospital). Thank the lord they all got out ok. their sweet little pets did not make it tho. I know they are all really sad about that. I'm holding out hopes that the kitty made it out the door and someone has him.

They seem to be doing *ok*. They have another house (and I'll never live in an apt complex in my whole life I SWEAR - you can't rely on your neighbors not to be dumbasses).

There were some questions about whether Chris would get insurance or not, I don't know. Hoping that will work out. In the meantime, they've received a lot of help from salvation army and red cross. BLESS THEM! So in this season of wanting places to help with your money, I vote for those two!

We finally got all of Chis and Amy (the other Chris, gene's son) christmas shopping done. I swear the girls will think that Santa uses USPS now. Don't even wanna know what the shipping will be. There are THREE BOXES. I took a pic of how tight I packed those boxes. *for real* I won't need any packing materials. Damn I'm good.

OK, going to post some pics from the past few weeks in seperate posts!