What are you reading?

nothing.

I went to the little local library and looked for something; I asked them if they had anything by Sylvia Plath or Mary Oliver and no, of course, they don't. They have lots of Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts but sorry that won't do today.

What are you watching?

Our routine is that after supper Mark, Emily & I sit together and watch an episode of whatever TV series we are interested in and have on DVD. We have watched all of Smallville, all of NCIS. I rented the first few episodes of Supernatural to see if we like it and we do. So, I ordered the first season on DVD to continue this ritual.

Seth and I watched "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage... meh (as Kristen would say)... kind of an interesting story but they just didn't pull it off in this movie.
"Push"... same thing, you would think they could have made this work but it just seemed kind of thrown together to me.
"The Heffalump Halloween Movie".. adorable
"Tinker Bells Lost Treasure"... I so love Tink.

We celebrated Halloween with our annual bonfire/weenie roast, a couple of friends, and the OU Football game. I sat in the house with Zoe the last half of the game because she was getting restless and tired of being held down by the fire. I didn't mind because by then I was worn out. Planning and executing even a small party is a lot of work.

Mark is in the studio this afternoon putting final touches on KP & Southern Rain's second CD. We hope to have it back from production by the 21st of November. That is when the band will be playing at The Wormy Dog in OKC. I'm sure you've never heard of the place but for red dirt bands it is THE place to play in Oklahoma. We've been trying for a year to get a date there and finally made it. It was one of the things on our big to-do list for this year. The only other thing that hasn't been accomplished is to get a song on the Texas charts. Kevin and I decided it was time to make a new, bigger list... and we put Billy Bob's in Ft. Worth at the top of that list. Look out Billy Bob's ... here we come.

It has been a year ago today that my Mother died. It seems like so much longer. It's funny how easily I have let that all just slip out of my mind.

I haven't talked to either one of my brothers more than a couple of times over the year and that was just to answer questions or settle something that pertained to Mother's estate. I don't think you would call what I feel forgiveness but I have let it go. The anger and hate was not good for me. I still don't want anything to do with either one of them but they don't preoccupy my mind. I just don't care.

It makes me sad to look up there at Mother's little house and see what disrepair her place has fallen into in such a short time.... junk litters the almost always unmowed yard, the vinyl siding needs to be cleaned and has algae growing on it. Her flower beds are weedy and grown over. She is not there anymore, no sign of her.

If we could but live to be one hundred and ten we might begin to understand what we need to know about how to live this one wild and precious life we've been given.

When you are young all you know is what your raging hormones tell you and then you wind up married and pregnant with Lord who knows how many babies.

And then you are too busy for hormones or life either one.

and then you are old and too tired.

We should live longer and to be stronger so we might enjoy the wisdom we have so wisely earned. So, we could run and play and dance with the wind, lay in the grass and feel the sun on our skin, have wild and (thank goodness) unproductive sex.

Someone somewhere got it all wrong, we shouldn't grow old and feeble, we should grow stronger and stronger.

Well, it is official.

Levi and Christi are going to have another baby.

I think they are crazy and they know I think they are so if they read this it will not be anything I haven't said to their faces.

But, what do I know?

It was planned.

Zoe-Beth, what we call her most of the time or Stinker Bell, is going to be a big sister while she is still in diapers. Oh, well. It is what it is. They are hoping for a boy this time and Emily has declared that is what it is.

Zoe-Beth, what a girl. She is her Daddy all over again. God help them. She is not a year old yet (next month believe it or not) and she is head strong, opinionated and absolutely full of herself. She is saying lots of words... Daddy, daddy, mommy, doggy, HI, and of course lots of just noises that mean nothing to us but she seems quiet sure that we should understand.
She is a good eater. I've found very few things she doesn't like except mashed potatoes... who doesn't like mashed potatoes?? She eats two of those little Gerber packages at dinner time, she likes most veggies and loves fruit. I feed her bananas, yogurt, graham crackers, noodles, beans, anything soft that I am eating. She has four teeth, two bottom, two top.

If she is hungry you will know it, she gets very verbal (and grumpy). If you do something she doesn't like she will definitely let you know about it. She really gives Christi hell if she isn't getting what she wants and Levi has had to swat her little bottom a few times for not just disobeying a "no-no" but disobeying and looking him right in the eye and growling at him.

I have to really fight to keep from laughing and on the inside I am thinking....

PAYBACK

I am planning a birthday party for her at our house and of course her other Mimi is having one for their family. I bought the cutest personalized paper plates from Hallmark, they are Tinker Bell plates with a picture of Tink looking at a picture of Zoe. It is adorable, Zoe's eyes look just like Tink's, big and round and blue. I am going to order a Tinker Bell sheet cake and I will make cupcakes so she can have her own. I am giving her things that she can keep for a lifetime and pass on or sell when she is older, a proof set of the coins minted the year she was born and a silver walking eagle one dollar coin plus of course a toy or two.

As you can tell I have fallen into the typical goofy Grandma mode and am head-over-heels in love with the little toot.

I have been thinking about something Erica said in a recent post about mothering....

Thinking about the women I have come from...

My mother was not a strong woman, or what I consider a strong woman. She was rather meek and mild mannered as far as I was concerned. She was thrust into the position of having to be strong, not by choice, but, by necessity. She was the oldest child who had to take charge a lot because her Mother also had been thrust into the position of sole bread winner in their family by a husband who came back from the war mentally broken. People in those days didn't talk about mental illness in a family but from what I have gleaned over the years that is what happened to my Grandfather. All that was ever said about him is that he was quiet, very quiet, read a lot, was intelligent but he couldn't (for reasons never mentioned) make their living. So, Mama (as we all called her) took over as head of the household. She ran a community grocery store/post office during the depression and was post mistress. She couldn't drive (and Grandpa just didn't) so a lot of responsibility to fell to my Mother. Grandfather died young leaving Mama on her own. She sold the store and moved into town (Ada)making her living doing cleaning, laundry and ironing for other people.

My mother never wanted to be the bread winner of our family, had no intentions of doing so. But, when Daddy became disabled she stepped up (like her Mother had done) and took the challenge by going back to school to get certified as a nutritionist and going to work in a local private school for children with disabilities.

From what I have heard of my Great Grandmother was that she was an extremely hard working woman who raised not only her own family but two of her grandchildren whose Mother died young, was a preachers wife, took care of an invalid Uncle and was the rock of the entire family structure.

So, my women had it in them to be strong courageous women even if they didn't particularly want to be. If they had lived in any other time they might have become feminists by choice.

I think if their stories were told most women have that innate strength inside them. And, we are the lucky ones, the women who aren't expected to be meek or mild mannered. We can let our strengths shine without shame.

I hope to live long enough to see what kind of women Zoe's generation produces.

I am a woodcutter, lumberjack from way back; should be a song or a poem in there somewhere, huh?

But I am.

My Dad went totally deaf when he was in his forties, being a auto mechanic, that kind of put him on the disabled list. We moved to the farm after that, he grew all of our food and did odd jobs to make a little cash. He drew disability and took care of us kids while Mother became the main breadwinner. One of the jobs he did was lumberjack. He cut trees and hauled the logs to a mill in Paris, Texas that made crates. A lot of my favorite child hood memories are of being out in the woods with him and my brothers, driving in his big trucks, going to the mill. We would leave the house with the Mac truck loaded with logs at three o'clock in the morning, drive to Paris, stop to eat pancakes, and have me back in Allen in time for school. He always blew the big air horn when he dropped me off, just to see me smile.

When Mark and I first married our only source of heat was wood. We did a lot of wood cutting. Sometimes it was not much fun. Like the days when Mark would have ice hanging from his mustache because it was so cold.

The years Levi was fifteen to seventeen he got interested in cutting wood, maybe from our stories, maybe from having been with us when he was small. He bought two new Husquavarna chain saws, one for him and one for me, and we got busy. After we got gas heat in the house, Mark just was not all that interested in woodcutting anymore and the place was in need of a lot of work, clearing underbrush and cleaning fence rows that had been neglected for a long time. Levi and I kicked butt. On top of all the clearing, we spent that two years building walking trails.

When Seth turned 14 he inherited my chain saw.

Now, just about the only time we do that sort of work is this time of year when the weather is so freaking perfect for it. It was clear, sunny,and fifties today. A picture perfect day for being out there.

I'm not sure what it is about it that is so satisfying to me - maybe working hard, side by side with my boys, the weather, the accomplishment of how good it looks when we clear an area, the satisfaction of stacking up wood to be burned ... I don't know. But, I love it.

Today was Zoe's first wood cutting trip, she sat snuggled up in a blanket in her Mama's lap but she will grow up remembering the smell of chainsaw oil and fresh cut wood, cold air, and the sounds of a family working and laughing together.

And, oh yeah, the lumberjack's breakfast that comes afterwards.

You know.... (big, heavy sigh)... I don't mind being a penny pincher, in fact, I come by it naturally, but, I am really tired of being broke.

We have had the worst year this year since we started our business 20 years ago.

I'm sure I'm like so many others that just kept thinking that the economy was going to turn around for the better... after tax season.. .during summer.. but our economy has gotten steadily worse. We hung on for a while when gas prices were still high because a lot of our shop work is oil field related but when gas and oil prices dropped our business slowly sank. Right now some of biggest customers who have been in business for 20, 30 years are barely able to keep their doors open.

I guess we took those millions of stimulus dollars and threw them away or rather gave them away to the crooks that already had all the money.

Our online retail store has all but just disappeared. We don't get but one or two orders a month anymore. If it weren't for local sales and install jobs we would have to just shut it down. And, those jobs are few and far between.

I'm not sure what we are going to do, just keep trying to keep our head above water, I guess... what choice do we have? The government sure as hell isn't offering to bail us out, are they?