Whew, I'm Beat!

I wanted to buy James a new shotgun for Christmas this year so today we went to Mack's Prairie Wing in Stuttgart, AR; quite a large sporting goods store. See the empty parking lot up there in the advertising photo? Well, today it was smack dab full, and as soon as I walked through the door and was bombarded with wall-to-wall human males clothed in cameo, I realized I had found Hell.

There wasn't room to walk so you sort of traversed with weaving motions through maze of bodies. Some were weaving themselves, some were merely standing in groups of 3 or more discussing their afternoon hunting plans, I believe some were even having family reunions. There were camouflaged persons who pushed and shoved their way through the aisles, and women with shopping carts prodding you from behind. Worst of all, it was impossible to tell which bodies were working there and which were shoppers, so after standing at one counter for about 30 minutes for a hunting knife purchase I'd had enough and started staggering my way through to the front doors and some much needed fresh air.

We did come home with a shotgun but we didn't buy it there cause I'm pretty sure we'd still be standing in line at one of those counters hoping that one of those folks we kept asking for help actually worked there.

I'm Trying here.

Tae Kwon Do is done till around mid-January.

I'm not through Christmas shopping and not sure when I will be.

Lacking the Christmas spirit and not sure it'll be happening.

Just all blah.

Come December

On or about December 1st I'm going to get back into the swing of things and do some serious blogging.

No more excuses.

Later dudes and dudettes. :-)

Photo Challenge - Ageless

It's time for a new challenge and the prompt this time is Ageless. I can't wait to see how everyone interprets this. Be sure to go over to our Photo Challenge Blog and click on the names of all the participants in the comments.


Ageless is "Old Man River". Can you imagine how long it took to carve its way from the far north state of Minnesota all the way down to the gulf? If he could only talk, the tales he could tell....

"Well, I built me a raft and she's ready for floatin'
Ol Mississippi she's callin' my name
Catfish are jumpin', that paddle wheel thumpin'
Black water keeps rolling on past just the same
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon won't you keep on shinin' on me?"

Ageless is our ancient moon. How many turns of the Earth has it witnessed since it's birth?

"Don't go around tonight, Well, it's bound to take your life, There's a bad moon on the rise."

Ageless is our ever eternal sunsets (and sunrises).

Red sails in the sunset, way out on the sea.
Oh, carry my loved one home safely to me.

Don't Forget the Photo Challenge Tomorrow!

The photo prompt is Ageless. Go sign up at our Photo Challenge Blog and show us what you've got. It's FUN!!

Learning to Drive

Every time I hear that song it reminds me of learning to drive when I was a kid. It was much different for me than it is for lots of kids these days because there aren't as many rural roads now as there were back then. By rural I mean unpaved roads that only had a few cars or trucks traveling them every day. The one we lived on when I drove for the first time was just under a mile long and it was a dirt lane shade lined with every kind of tree.

I think I was in about the 3rd grade when PaPaw decided that he could get busy farmin' earlier in the day if he taught me to drive my sister and I to school. It didn't deter him that although I could see enough of the road through the steering wheel to keep the car between the ditches, I couldn't see the road a'tall when I had to scoot down to push in the clutch to change gears. This didn't create too big a problem the times I scooted, pushed, and shifted all quick like, but when I didn't push in quite far enough and it wouldn't shift right off, I'd be weaving from one side of that little dirt lane to the other. That time right before we reached the end of the lane where I'd have to scoot way down in order to push in both brake and clutch, it finally happened. I wove too far one way or the other during my scootin' time and ran us off into the ditch. He took off walking and fussin' about how if I was gonna run into the ditch I could have done it back closer to the house so he wouldn't have to walk so far to get the tractor.

That was the end of my driving that day but by the time I was about 10 I could drive most things with wheels on it, if it would crank.

Tippy Toeing with an Occasional Trip

That's pretty much been what it's been like around here of late. It's rained, and rained, and rained some more, then the sun will pop out all bright and shiny for a day or two before it clouds up and dumps some more of the wet stuff. It's the makings of a nightmare harvest and these farmers around here are some very grumpy fellas.

The farm managers ain't real happy either.

And the wives of these men aren't being too terribly sociable.

On a better note, Alexis had all 100 - A's on her report card! Zach had 3 B's and 2 C's. Jami told me Krysten, Abbie, and MeriKate had A's and B's on their reports, so that's all good. I'm sure Jordan and Jaylen had A's across the board too because they're bright young'uns. Maybe we'll get all of these children through school some day, won't that be nice?

I attended the Parent/Teacher conferences at school on Wednesday with my usual aggravation about the parking around that place. The high school students take up the biggest portion of the parking and that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the teachers and practically NONE for visiting parents. I mentioned to a board member that it might be practical to disallow the underage drivers a parking place even though they hold a "hardship" license to drive. I say this because according to the Arkansas DMV regulations, hardship licenses are not to be issued merely for the convience of the parents but I grant you, each and every one of the 14 and 15 yr olds who drive to school here has a school bus that goes by their house before and after school. Riding the bus would surely cut down on some of the traffic messes in front of the school as well.

Ok, all done tripping through my mind. I hope everyone is having a super weekend!