Attention to the Details

I'm always writing about all the beautiful things I see on the drive in to work.  Deer and turkey, bunnies, cows and horses.  Trees and flowers and all things nature.  It's amazing what you can see from the front seat of a car as you drive along.  We spend so much of our time in cars these days.  Some days we're like zombies just looking straight ahead, not quite awake, our minds so full we're just driving on auto-pilot until we arrive at our destinations.  Some days I'll pass a friend and neighbor and we'll exchange waves and smiles.  Other days, I'm sure I pass that same friend and neighbor and am so deep in my own thoughts that I don't even realize I just missed them drive by.

Sometimes it's not just nature that catches my attention.  This morning, for instance, I saw tiny children clamber up the steps of a big yellow school bus.  I thought about myself when I was that age, so excited to be going to school.  I remember how big those steps up into the bus were, and how I sometimes needed help up that first step.  I watched as a little boy, no bigger than a minute, stood at the top step excitedly waving at his sweet Mama who stood faithfully by the curb.  Some day he'll be older and it won't be "cool" to wave and blow a kiss to his Mom.

Parked at a light, I looked in my rear view mirror and there was a woman in the car behind me, on her cell phone.  She was crying so hard, tears streaming down her face.  She kept wiping her eyes and her face was red.  My heart immediately went out to her and I said a little prayer for her to have peace for whatever was upsetting her.  I had to wonder if she was arguing with a spouse, or had an ailing parent.  Could someone close to her have just died?  Whatever was causing her grief, I prayed for it to pass.

As I was in line at the drive-thru getting coffee, I looked across the parking lot and saw two of the sweetest little elderly women standing next to a car.  They both had pure white hair and looked to be in their 80's.  One had a lavender sweater on, the other a soft yellow.  They were facing each other and holding each other's hands out in front of them, visiting away.  One would reach over and pat the other's cheek adoringly, and then they'd embrace, still holding onto each other's arms as they kept on with their conversation.  One would nod her head in agreement to what the other was saying.  It was so sweet to watch and you wondered what they were talking about so intently.  It was so touching to see how much love and tenderness they were conveying to each other.  They were obviously close friends.  It made me want to jump out and give them both hugs.  It made me miss my Grandma's.

As I rounded the last corner to my office, I saw a man in a big truck driving toward me.  He was on his cell phone and looked to be furiously yelling into the phone.  He was so mad at whoever he was talking to that you could see the vein in the side of his neck bulging out as he pounded his fist on the steering wheel.  I cringed to see him so upset.  What a terrible way to end my drive to work, wondering about what could have made him so mad and worrying about the poor person on the receiving end of that call.  It made my stomach hurt to remember being yelled at myself in the past, and guilty to think back on times when I was mad enough to yell at a loved one myself.

Just one little drive to work and so many emotional observations.

Forgetfulness

While I still consider myself to be VERY young, and by no means old or over-the-hill, my brain just doesn't seem to function like it used to and my memory is getting worse and worse.  I'll find myself writing notes just to remember the simplest of things, and in conversations with Hubby, I tend to forget what I was going to say, even as I start to say it!  I'll think of something I need to do around the house and then walk into a room and think, "What did I come in here for again?"  I'll have to walk back out, sit down and think back to why I was on my way in there in the first place.

The other day I misplaced my cell phone.  I was at my office and I searched high and low, but couldn't find it anywhere.  I looked in and around my desk, on top of file cabinets, in my purse, even in the bathroom.  I went downstairs and searched my truck floorboards, behind the seats, and still no luck.  I thought, okay, I know I had it with me because I've been using the darn thing all morning!  Where could it be?

I used the phone from the office to call my cell number and I could hear it ringing faintly, but still couldn't find it.  I followed the ringing from one side of the office to the other, down and back up the stairs.  I could hear it, but couldn't quite track it down.  Guess where it was!  The back pocket of my jeans!  Oh for Heaven's sake.

I know I'm not alone in my lack of remembering though.  Just the other day, Hubby bought a part for the toilet at the hardware store, brought it home, set it somewhere and then got sidetracked.  Later when he went to fix the toilet and needed the part, he couldn't find it anywhere.  He searched the whole house, his Jeep, the front and back porches, the barn.  He even called me at work to see if I might have inadvertently picked it up and brought it with me.  No such luck.  I told him to trace his steps and relax, he'd eventually find it.

Frustrated, he was just about to go back to the hardware store when he opened the fridge door and there was the part, sitting on the shelf next to the milk.  Good grief!  Silly boy.  And I can't tell you how many times he calls me on the phone and then immediately forgets why he called me in the first place.  We just have too much on our minds, I guess, and I think as you get older, your brain shrinks and just can't fit all the information in there like it used to.

My Prampa is 97 years young and he can remember things like they happened yesterday!  He tells me story after story and remembers names, dates and places in vivid detail.  I don't know why I haven't taken after him in the memory department.  At the rate I'm going now, I'll be lucky if I remember my own name by the time I turn the big five-o!  Of course, that's many, many, many years away.  (wink wink)

Maybe I'll find me some magical vitamins that enhance brain function I can start taking.  It can't hurt, right?  I'll head over to Walgreens on my lunch break today and see what they offer.  Now, where did I put my car keys. . . . .

Our dog is a what?!

Last week, I took Dudley in for his fourth puppy shot.  From the minute we stepped in the door, it was "Oooohhhhh!" and "Aaaahhhhh!" and all the staff had to take turns holding him and giving him love.  The nurse took him to be weighed and found he had graduated to the Big Boy scales!  He weighed a whopping 21.7 pounds, a far cry from his first weigh-in at eight weeks.  No wonder I'm huffing and puffing carrying him up and down the stairs.  I won't be able to do that much longer. . .

In the exam room, I had the doctor check his ears because we've been having to clean them out a lot more than usual and I could tell they were bothering him because he'd shake his head and paw at them.  Sure enough, he had himself a little yeast infection in his ears and the doctor prescribed some medicine to clear it up.  She also informed me that more than likely, the infection means he's allergic to grain.  Oh no!

After some discussion, she encouraged me to wean him off the food we've been giving him and onto a grain-free product.  She also said we should refrain from feeding him meat, but instead give him a handful of blueberries, a spoonful of canned pumpkin or a few green beans.  What?!  I never heard of such a thing!  She assured me he'd get plenty of protein from the food and it would actually be better nutrition for him.

I was a little skeptical about the blueberry thing.  I never heard of a dog liking fruits and vegetables, but the vet left the room and came back with a handful of fresh blueberries and wouldn't you know Dudley just gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow!  Sheesh!

Our Tubby always ate steak and chuck roast on his food every day, and once a week we'd be cooking it for him and cutting it up into little chunks to sprinkle on his food.  We totally anticipated doing the same thing for Dudley when he got a little older, but now we're faced with the fact that OUR DOG IS A VEGETARIAN!  Oy vay!

When Hubby found out the diagnosis, his face dropped and his whole body just sagged toward the floor.  He looked utterly and totally defeated.  He couldn't believe his rough and tumble, burly bulldog was a sissy la-la health nut!  Not that all vegetarians are sissy la-la's or health nuts.  I know it's a lifestyle choice and I don't mean to offend, but it was a like a slap in the face to my life-long, journeyman butcher of a husband to have to accept the fact that his dog can't eat meat!  He was just shocked beyond belief.

The next few days, we slowly weaned him off the old food and onto the new, and we've been incorporating carrots and sweet potatoes and blueberries as occasional treats.  Dudley seems to be happy as ever and fat as a little butterball, so I guess it's going to be okay.  And his ears are clearing up too, so that's a good thing.

See Daddy, Dudley doesn't have to be a meat-eater to be manly!  Look at Popeye.  He was strong with big muscles and all I ever saw him eat was spinach!

Mrs. Meyer's Meltdown

I went a little overboard yesterday while shopping at Target.  Hubby, if you're reading this, click away and don't even ask me how much I spent.  I won't tell you the truth anyway.

This past weekend, I was reading through my latest issue of Country Living magazine and came across an ad for Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day products.  I had seen these in stores before, and my bosses' wife uses their dish soap.  I hadn't realized how many scents their products come in, and I didn't know they were created by a sweet white-haired Iowa homemaker and mother of nine!

I decided to try them out and loaded up my cart with everything Lemon Verbena!  Who knew there would be so many products to choose from?  Not only do they make dish soap, but they make glass cleaner, countertop sprays, all-purpose cleaners, hand soaps, laundry detergents, dryer sheets and candles.  The list goes on and on!  What I couldn't find on the shelf at Target, I found online at the Mrs. Meyer's website.  Oh boy!

Not only do the products smell divine, they don't have any harsh chemicals in them and are made with all-natural ingredients and essential oils.  I might even actually learn to enjoy housework if I get to smell Lemon Verbena while doing it!  Did you hear that Honey?  Me, enjoying housework!  That alone might be worth the money I spent!

Lucky Me

I've got to be the luckiest girl around!  Today I had lunch with my two most favorite, handsomest men!  Hubby called from the driveway at my office and said, "Come on down!  Let's go to lunch!"  I went downstairs and hopped in the jeep and there were my two sweet boys, Hubby and Dudley, with a big bag of smelling-good food.

We drove to an old abandoned school and picnicked on the lawn under a big shade tree.  As Hubby laid out the food, Dudley sniffed the containers, doing his best to get a quick nibble of this and that before we shooed him away.  No "people food" for Dudley.  When he figured out he wasn't going to get the better of us, he mosied off on his own to explore, watered the grass, played with fallen oak leaves and then ran back to our blanket, ears flopping away.  He's so cute.

What a wonderful surprise and welcomed break to my stressful day.  Thank you sweet Hubby, for being so thoughtful and for surrounding me with love.  I am so blessed.

Oink! Oink!

There's nothing quite like the yummy smell of bacon frying in the morning!  Some days when I'm on my way into work, I'll drive past the Country Boy Restaurant, or Halfway Market, and I can smell the bacon cooking even with my car windows rolled up.  It makes my tummy start to growl and the rest of the way into work, I'm wishing I had gotten up earlier so I could have eaten breakfast before I rushed out the door.

My office is in the upstairs portion of my elder boss' house, so most mornings I sit at my computer as more tantalizing aromas drift up the stairs from the kitchen down below, where my boss' wife is cooking breakfast.  It's pure torture, especially when I'm dieting, which is just about every other day of the year!  And it's not just breakfast smells, some days she's baking pies or cookies, or has a roast and potatoes in the crock pot and the torture lasts all day long.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think a nose could give the eyes a run for their money in that department!

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of. . .

You guessed it!  Pickled Peppers!  We have been loaded down with peppers this year.  Not only did Hubby plant a bunch in the back yard, as usual, but we have sweet friends and neighbors who have been sharing the bounty from their yards and gardens as well.  So many peppers we don't know what to do with them all.  Hubby has been making jars and jars of salsa from his hot peppers, and we've been freezing them for later batches too.  He eats salsa on just about everything but dessert!

When my sweet friend Susan brought me a whole box of banana peppers, I didn't know what in the world to do with them all.  She kept telling me some were sweet and some were hot, but I didn't know which was which.  I got a recipe for pickling them, and stood at the kitchen sink washing and slicing them for about two hours!  When I got done, my hands were on fire!  I never thought banana peppers could be that hot, but they sure were!  Next time I'll have to wear gloves.

Surprisingly, the recipe for pickling them was very easy.  You just take 2 cups of white vinegar, 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of mustard seeds and 1/2 teaspoon of celery seeds and put it all on the stove in a pot to boil.  You fill your sterilized jars with the pepper rings and fill the jars with the boiling vinegar mixture to within half an inch of the top of the jar, put the lids on tight and water bath them for about 15 minutes and Voila!  You're done!  I doubled the recipe and it made two pints, so altogether I made about six pint jars with a box of peppers.  After two weeks or so, they should be ready to enjoy.  We love them on hot dogs and sandwiches.  Yum!