Changing Jobs

Don't think I've mentioned this before. My husband is thinking seriously about changing jobs. He has worked in the petroleum industry for 26 years. Practically the same job all his working life. He's worked for a great company - small independent company - but the job has changed, the owner is aging and has himself changed and my husband is no longer challenged, and alot of other junk that I'm not going into. It's just time - we have to think about our future. At 51, it would be better for him to make a change now than to wait 5 years. The longer he waits, the less appealing he will look to prospective employers, ya know?

This has been something we have been thinking about for the past couple of years. I was ready a year ago, but had to wait until HE thought it was the right time. God's timing is perfect, tho, and perhaps we needed to wait until I could get through my illness and depression earlier this year. We're thinking either very soon or after the first of the year. I know he's scared. He's never had to do this before. Nearly all our friends have gone through this, but not us. The thing is - he can't look for another job until he's already quit this one. It's just the situation of his boss finding out, and my husband wants to do this on HIS own terms and not on the boss's.

Is it just me, or does it seem like it's sometimes harder for men to have faith in someone other than themselves (i.e. God) to take those scary steps that must be taken? Seems to me like men usually have the mindset of being self-sufficient, in charge and in control, being the boss, the breadwinner, etc., and when it comes to letting go and letting God be in control, it's really hard for them. My husband, A, we'll call him, is a good Christian man, strong in his convictions and has a deep faith in the Lord. But this is a big step for him, not having a new job already. We BOTH have to have faith.

The Lord has always been good to us - always seen us through the storms of life, the up times, the down times, the lean times, the bountiful times, and we know He will continue to do so. He knows our needs before we even ask. We know that this change has to happen, sooner or later. We think soon, very soon, when A feels the timing is right. My prayer is that the 'event' will go smoothly, that he and his employer can end on a good note, that A can find the right job preferably here in our town (our parents are aging), and that if this is not meant to be, that something will change in his present job that would keep him from making this decision if this is not what the Lord intends. I'll keep you posted!

I have officially lost my camera. I HAVE to get another one. I'm lost without my camera.....

Back to the old grind...

Princess is on the right, Kelly on the left... Howdy from College Station, TX! I'm back at work - UGH. Princess is cozily ensconced in her new townhouse and happy as a clam to be on her own. However, there is a small problem. Her room mate, Kelly, worships everything Princess does, wears, decorates, you name it. Now they've been best buddies since birth, but never spent this much time together. I hope they remain good buddies after this year at college! Kelly wants to borrow Princess's clothes, copy her bedspread, her wall decor, you name it!

My daughter called me last night, and said "mom, I'm gonna have to charge Kelly for wearing my clothes - she's going to wear them out!" and Kelly has plenty of cute clothes - just different styles. But - Kelly has big boobs and P says she's stretching her shirts out! Her bedroom is absolutely precious, but she likes P's better. I told P that copying is the sincerest form of flattery, however P will have none of that. She bought several cute tops before she went to school, and it seems that Kelly has worn nearly all of them. Princess told me "mom, now when we go anywhere with friends, they've seen all my new clothes on Kelly and they won't look new on me!" I said, "well, you have two choices - you can continue to let her borrow and be frustrated, or you can have a little sweet talk with her and let her know that borrowing should be just an every-once-in-awhile thing or for an emergency only."

I'm anxious to see what happens as I also told her to make her decision and stop complaining about it if she's not going to say anything to Kelly. Kelly has two sisters, and I'm sure she's used to doing that. I also think she's so glad to have P as her room mate this year that sharing everything and being alike is just a way to show how excited she is. She probably misses her sisters - they're older and already moved away.

Other than the daily clothes saga, things are going well for Princess, she's getting to meet new people and learn her way around. Wish I could be a fly on the wall as she, Kelly and Caroline (the other roomie) cook supper. They make the dishes they individually like and they'll have really random things thrown together for supper. I'm sure it's quite a hoot. Ah, college life.... I never got to do that. I stayed at home until I married and so I guess I'm a little envious. It's also been fun for me and Princess to do all her shopping and fixin' up her townhouse. Living through her a little bit, I must admit.

I'm doing surprisingly well for losing my last baby. So far, she's called me every single day she's been gone at least two or three times. Thank goodness for cell phones. She sends me text msgs, too. And the best thing is - THE LITTLE 'YAPPER' (Bella) IS WITH HER!!! YEA!!!

Be back soon!

Hi, all --- getting Princess moved to College Station this week/weekend. Just wanted to let you know where I've been. I'll be back in a few days to let you know how I survived the leaving of my last baby. Plus, I can't find my camera anywhere, and it's not working anyway. Maybe it's time for a new one????? So I'll leave you with this...

Time for Princess to Leave the Nest

Well, the time is quickly approaching for my baby to leave for college. We've begun the ritual - moving some stuff to her apartment 3 hrs away at her chosen college. We got her bed set up with Anthropologie bedding (my new favorite store), bought a new black iron bed at IKEA and cool curtains at Pier One. It's a start. We bought new mattress & box springs and may have to take the box springs home - what do ya'll think? The top mattress is really thick with a pillow top and it makes all the pillows cover up the headboard. The bottom of the bed has a platform where the box spring sits so we're thinking that just the top mattress would be okay. I'm interested in ya'll's opinions...

We have mirrors, black wrought iron junk to put on the wall, and yesterday I found the cutest lamps at Hobby Lobby for half price! If my camera worked I'd show you!! Dang! We have lots of foo-foo girl stuff that she's really into right now. The only thing I'm looking forward to is that her dog is going with her!!! YEA! I just don't have time to raise a puppy right now. She's so busy with work and getting ready to leave that GUESS WHO is having to pick up the slack. Plus, this puppy is a barker - ugh. I hate the yapping - my other pom didn't do that, and I'm not sure exactly what to do about it. Guess I'll let her deal with it when she leaves. Hope she doesn't drive her room mates crazy!

We've got boxes of her things and are working frantically on her garage sale desk that we're repainting black w/ turquoise designs on it, and an antique chest of drawers that we're also painting. This child of mine is a pack-rat, but all her 'stuff' is so well organized and labeled in her closets at home that she knows exactly where to go to find something. It's amazing - she didn't get it from me. She's really into details, she's painstakingly slow when it comes to getting herself ready to go somewhere, working on a school project, completing any type of artsy-craftsy project (she DOES get that from me). Never gets in a hurry but she does fret over things until they are exactly as she wants them. How many nights have we stayed up late or all night working on a project when any other kid could have completed it in a couple of hours and been perfectly happy with it! She's very artsy and is really good at design and color.

She's not a procrastinator - it simply has to be perfect. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I guess if it's brain surgery, it's good, but in everyday life, sometimes it can be bad. I don't care what time she gets up or starts getting ready, she'll be late every time. Bless her heart! She's trying to talk me into going to Canton early Saturday a.m., but I'm not diggin the heat. I've had a sinus headache for 3 days (allergic to mold - it's so hot right now and with no rain, the mold has been high according to weather man Mark Scirto) and can't shake it - walking around in 100 degree temps with 95% humidity and other sweaty sticky people bumping into me being sweaty and sticky does not sound fun right now.

Ran into Margo - Robolady yesterday morning at the first sale. So we decided to stay together and hit a few more. They weren't the best sales we've ever been to, but we did manage to find a few items. That girl is aptly named Robolady. Boy, can she swoop into a sale, rummage through everything, grab what she wants (and you can almost see the gears in her head spinning as she thinks of cool things to make), and she's outa there. She has a neat idea for something that she's going to make out of two completely unrelated items, but I'm not going to spoil her fun - you'll have to check out her blog in a few days and see what she did with them! It was sure fun, Margo - let's do it again! I'm ready for cooler weather so we can go to Canton! Have a great weekend ya'll! I'll try to get my camera working so I can post some new pictures. It's on the blink...

Fishin/Huntin Stories

Well, here's #2 son Josh with one of his catches. He and my dad went to Dad's favorite honey hole in the 101 degree heat to fish yesterday afternoon. They caught a good mess of big-mouth bass that I'm sure we'll enjoy in the very near future. As we speak, those lovely filets are sitting in a bowl of salted water in the fridge ( draws out the fishy taste) and will be frying in the outside cooker in no time!

I was raised on fish, venison, quail, dove, squirrel, rabbit, occasional moose, turkey, duck, froglegs - you name it, I've eaten it. My daddy was the biggest hunter/fisher you ever saw. Every Saturday, you could find him at any one of a number of lakes or river bottoms, or if it was hunting season, any number of backwoods places sittin in a tree or a deerstand or stalking some varmint or bird with his dogs. I know there are alot of you folks out there who are aghast at such things, but I'm sorry, that's the way it is in much of the South, especially Texas. I'm a country girl and such things don't bother me. In fact, I'm pretty proud of it - "...and a country boy can survive..." - Hank Williams Jr.

My boys are proudly carrying on this tradition, and even somewhat, my princess. She's certainly spent some of her time sitting in deer stands in her camo jumpsuit & boots and sitting patiently in the boat or on the pier with a fishing rod. We have deer heads and antlers and ducks hanging majestically on the walls of our sons' bedrooms. I'm sorry, I don't especially think they are good decor in the living room - I will draw the line there.

This is gross, but I just thought of something - when dad would bring a big cooler full of fish home and he was in the back yard fileting them, my little sister and I would get us a stick and poke the eyeballs of the fish (they were dead, don't worry). They don't have eyelids ya know, so it was great fun to poke those marble sized eyeballs and watch them roll around - they wouldn't pop tho no matter how much we tried - they'd just roll around. Our 20 lb Siamese cat, Bandit, would sit patiently by, waiting for dad to throw him a fish head or some guts.

I don't poke fish eyeballs anymore - kinda grew outa that...

I used to tease my daddy that I didn't know what beef was until I was allowed to date and my boyfriends would take me out for a steak! Of course, we had other things besides wild game, but it's part of my heritage. I love wild game. Daddy brings me a deer nearly every fall (if one of the boys don't shoot one), quartered, and I go to it on the granite island in my kitchen - cutting up the backstrap, the steaks & good cuts of meat. Then the rest is trimmed off to take to the meat market where they'll grind it up into ground meat and some mixed with pork & seasonings added to make sausage. A very lean sausage I might add. Venison is so lean - must be good for ya.

I used to love to go hunting with daddy before I married. Quail hunting was my favorite. I love to watch the bird dogs run around, sniffing, and then when they find birds, they freeze into whatever position the birds are first smelt. Dad would creep up quietly and the dogs would wait until dad gave the order to flush. Then there'd be a frantic whooshing of wings in several different directions and bang! bang! Then the dogs would fetch the birds and come drop them in front of dad. They get so excited- this is what they absolutely live for. Demon, my dad's best dog, would run through cactus, stickers, briars, but would NEVER stop. He's come home with his feet all cut up to where he couldn't walk and with skint places and cuts all over him. Daddy would baby him and soak his feet in epsom salts and play nursemaid to him and then they'd go back out and do it again the next time. Old Demon loved to hunt and he loved my dad. Daddy even made him some little leather booties to wear. That dog would come back from a 2-3 day hunt having lost several pounds and be all boney!

When we'd hunt dove, Dad would shoot them and me & my little sis would be the bird dogs, careful to watch where they fell. (can't use dogs on dove - at least around here) It was fun to see who could find theirs first. I'm surprised we didn't find a snake or two in all that brush!

A funny story about my brother - one time Dad took my brother, Dan, who was 12 at the time, deer hunting. In the dark they got up and went out to their places to hunt. It was sleeting off and on, bitter cold (but that's good deer hunting weather) and Dad told my brother to sit on an old tree stump where he had good cover and could see the clearing where the deer passed through. Well, he stayed there until dad came back to get him a few hours later. He hadn't moved the entire time - and lo, and behold, he was stuck to the stump! His coveralls had completely frozen in the sleet to the stump! Wish I could have seen that! Daddy had to pull him off!

Well, guess that's all for today. SorryI haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy spending time with my Nashville boy. It was great having him home for a week. I miss him so much! Take care - happy hunting! Vickie