Reveal Thyself or Eat Bread and Butter

Look Bloggie Friends. I got an award and I got it sitting right here in my ratty old bathrobe. I didn't have to gussie up with the rhinestones and the 4-inch heels. And I just have to thank one person, Robin at Your Daily Dose. Thank you Robin (I'm blowing you a kiss in my best dramatic form).  Pay her a visit, she is indeed, a hottie with brains. I love to talk to her.

Very Inspiring Blogger Award
I'm supposed to divulge 7 things about myself
And pass the award on.  BUT...the award is here if anyone feels inspired to take it.......  I'm putting the ole whammy on it and it'll bring you luck if you take it.

1. My favorite food. Any Italian bread with Meyenberg Goat Milk butter.

2. When I was young, I wanted to be an opera singer. (no kidding)

3. My favorite movie stars, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy (no kidding)

4.  My husband was Canadian. He said ayout and abyout. You know, how Canadians say "out" and "about." He always made me laugh.  (see below)

5.  I've always been a sucker for a man who made me laugh.  Ha

6.  I voted for Goldwater. (no kidding)

7.  I also voted for Al Gore (wish I were kidding)

Adios Bloggie Friends. Someone please take the award. I can't choose. You all inspire me.

I Have a Confession

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Little Jane and the Pistol Whips

A new picture of my Granddaughter and her band, Little Jane and the Pistol Whips.  Critics call her voice a throwback to the days of unadulterated country. (not only that, she's a really nice person)
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      I Have a Confession ........... I Took Drugs this Weekend

My daughter recently had a three-week bout with that terrible flu. She insisted I get aspirin or advil or whatever those drugs are that check pain, just to have on hand in case I got the flu. She insisted I would need it. I stood in the pharmacy looking at all the labels and finally bought Aleve. I honesty do not remember ever taking any of these so called, pain-killers. I've been lucky my whole life because I seem to have dodged the pain bullet (well having babies hurt a little). 
On Friday my daughter and I went to lunch, followed by our usual walk. Half way I knew I wasn't my energetic self and asked if she'd mind if I went back. By the time I got home I had pain, pain, pain from my waist to my ankles. I had no idea what it was but I read a lot. Was it sciatica or my tail-bone out of whack?  I only knew it was more pain than I've ever had but I also knew it wasn't the flu.

I went to bed and tried to sleep but the pain just got worse. For the next 12 hours I tried every position I could contort my body into......without relief from any.  I was silently screaming and clutching at my sheet. Finally, at 4 AM and feeling like I was betraying myself, I remembered the Aleve. I opened the bottle and found tiny little blue pills. I swallowed one with much guilt.  The directions said it would relieve pain for 12 hours. Oh boy, I needed sleep badly.

I could feel the grips of pain slowly releasing and the pleasant waves of sleep overtaking. I realized why people take drugs as it tends to make things seem better than they really are. Although the pain is greatly reduced, the pain-killer was no cure and I'll be going to my natural-path to find out what was the cause.

OK, so I've learned something. Pain killers do have a place. I've always done the natural cures and I have books galore.  I have since looked up "tailbone" because that seems to be where the pain stems from and there are 2 natural remedies I'll try until I see Mary Jo. One is to sit on a pillow filled with poppy seeds and another is apply oil of sassafras and oil of wintergreen to the tailbone.  
Adios Bloggy Friends 
  
 

I should listen

Costco Shoppers in a Row. Pick your partner and Dosey Doe

For a child of the Great Depression, Costco is my kind of store. We, of that era, have to keep a well-stocked pantry. For others living in Montana, they stock up because who knows when they may visit a store again, especially in the winter.
I kept running into these two old cowboys and my mind likes to make up stories about strangers. I imagined them living on a ranch in White Sulphur Springs and could see them putting away their groceries.
I was mainly in Costco to purchase a salad spinner that I was drawn to the week before.
At that time, I stood in front of a salad spinners display and fought an urge  to buy a spinner. A silly thought, I have a spinner . That evening as I was spinning greens, my spinner cracked and spewed out  pieces of plastic. Finish salad spinner. Dang, why didn't I buy that one. Things like that frequently happen to me.

I got in the check-out line and there were the 2 cowboys. I said to them, "Getting ready for the long drive home?" One answered, " Yeah, we live in White Sulphur Springs."

Do you also run into arguments with your intuition and later wish you had listened.

The Spotting

If you love me, show me

It was late afternoon on Valentines Day as workers were leaving their jobs. Traffic was getting heavier and the temp was beginning to drop for the evening.

Cody and I were finishing our walk at the Fair Grounds when we walked by a car with the engine running. Inside was a youngish gal who I suppose guys would describe as "hot."

Just then a pickup approached from the opposite and slowed down as it passed the running car, placing Cody and me in between them.  I felt some kind of weird communication between the truck and the car as the parked car began following the pick-up. They stopped at a small parking lot. The guy got out and jumped into the "hot" gal's car. Ding ding..... cheating, cheating, cheating. They were obviously married to other people or why meet in a deserted fair grounds on a cold winter day. Oh, right, it is Valentines Day and they have to meet and profess their lust on this romantic day. I'm sure there could be a thousand innocent excuses for their meeting but my gut tells me otherwise.

The hottie's husband probably left work early to buy his wife the traditional roses and candy and will present her with an expensive piece of jewelry when they have dinner at the fancy restaurant he chose. Pick-up guy's wife is at home in the kitchen, wearing an apron and cooking that perfect dinner for the man in her life. She had spent part of the day shopping for the diaphanous negligee for her and a sexy neck-tie with matching thong for him, in anticipation of their evening.

I hate cheating. I started up my car and drove from the park without a glance in their direction.

Love? Look of Terror. He's Reading the Clues.

Valentine's time and I'm reading just as many comments of ..."blaaa Valentine's Day," as from those who go all gooey and ga ga over it. I guess I'm from the former group but I'm social and can go along with the crowd. Years ago, I had a reading with a  Western astrologer who took one look at my chart and asked me why I was married.

I figured out why. My generation was caught in the middle of women's transformation. When I was little, all the women in my family mesmerized me into believing the total sum of a woman's life was to find a man who was a good provider, have babies and live happily ever after.  I did that, twice. I'm not complaining. My life was good, more than good but relationships left me yearning.

Years later again, I saw a Vedic astrologer and the first thing he said when looking at my chart, "You were supposed to be a dancer. What happened?" Stutter, stutter, blatt, blatt. I did dance but to be the dancer my chart indicated, it would have excluded a family. No, I needed my family too. My life was like being at a very exclusive buffet...... I knew I couldn't take everything, but I could choose the best of the things I really liked.

What does this have to do with Valentines Day? Nothing, really. But I finally figured out after 80 plus years, I don't have a single regret. My life is like a movie and I get to be the director. So I'll say Happy Valentine's Day but more in the tone of the Valentine above (by the way, it came from my granddaughter. My kind of Valentine).
Dear Bloggie Friends, may you have a meaningful and loving Valentines Day in your special chosen path.

The Lowly Potato Chip

 I love potato chips. It's just the whole combination, the potato, the salt and the oil.  I am fearless, I have real guts in admitting that in this day of "don't eat chips but if you have to. eat baked chips." OMG  Have you ever tasted a baked potato chip? I bet you have in the name of "trying to shed a few pounds." Baked chips are the WORST ...........the very WORST." Yuck, spit it out.

Here is some rambling of a senile old broad. When I was a teenager we ate chips for snacks  BUT the potato was sliced very thin, so thin you could see through it and scattered throughout the chip there were little bubbles of oil. Biting into one sent heavenly bursts of flavor throughout your mouth.  But the best part, no one was fat. NO ONE. The fattest person I ever saw ( and he was a movie star) was Fatty Arbuckle and he would be considered the norm today. We ate what we wanted and never used the word, diet.

Why? Many reasons .......we never had processed food and no GMO's. (Bill Gates hadn't been born yet. No, I won't say it)  No chemicals floating in the air we breath and no trans-fats.  All this stuff makes you FAT.

 
The Kettle Chips (in top picture) are the best I can find (beside making my own).
Has anyone found a good tasting potato chip recently?  Or have you given them up for good too, like a lot of people.

Meet My Old Friend

My old friend has been with me a long, long time

  My friend, the tattered, coverless, frayed old dictionary has been with me since I was in junior high.  I must be like a faithful old dog or a comfortable pair of old shoes because I can't part with certain things. 

My husband bought me a gorgeous new dictionary with a cover as soft as a flower petal but it was too big and just didn't feel right.  Years later, after my dictionary completely lost it's cover and some of the pages, he tried again.  This time, it was smaller and shouted the word, "expensive." I tried, but eventually gave both of them away.

My long-time friend, Marilyn, came to help me with the moving this summer.  We always had 3 piles, Trash, Thrift and Save.  She picked up old friend dictionary and said, (as she was depositing it in the trash pile)  "this has to go."

"Oh no," I gasped, as I retrieved it from the trash.  "Spell-check seems cold and brittle compared  to old dictionary." I'm a terrible speller.  She understood.

Dear Bloggie friends..... I'll wager you don't hang onto old worn-out goods, do you?
                                                                                             

A Tid-Bit From My History

My Father, the Little Guy on Your Left

This photo has always hung on a wall of every house I lived in. My Father is the little one on your left, clutching a bag a candy. Maybe "hoarding a bag of candy" is a better phrase.  He rarely got candy and he wasn't going to let any of his 17 siblings near him.

That right. Eighteen single births, my Grandmother had, of which my Father was the last one. He was the end, fini, kaput. I bet his mother was dancing on the roof-top. Ha

I learned how to love and share from this side of my family. Oh yeah and laughter and singing. What a happy group.