A Eulogy for my Favorite Jeans

When I walked through the doors of the western store, I made a beeline for the Ladies Jeans department.  It was there that we first met.  I saw you in the corner of my eye, and pulled you off the rack. It was instant attraction. You were low rise,  extra long,  boot cut,  and you were "Cruel Girl" brand.  My heart fluttered, but it was too early to know if it was "love".  I had to try you on.

After slipping you on in the dressing room, I knew that we were MFEO (made for each other).  You hugged me in all the right places, you covered my flaws, and you looked amazing with my light tan cowboy boots. Even though I'd birthed three kids, you did not make me feel like I was wearing "Mom Jeans". I had to own you, whatever the cost. 

This began our serious relationship.

You were the first pair of jeans I'd wear out of the closet every week.

My days were brighter when you were on.

Through the years you began to fade, but I didn't mind.  You were softer then.

Over time, the heaviness of my bling belt frayed your belt loops.

Then, there was the unfortunate day that I snagged your pocket with my fencing tool.  With each washing, your pocket began to unravel more and more. I didn't worry, though. It just added character.

After several years, your fabric began to thin out, and you tore in the knee.  That's when you transitioned into my favorite "work" pants.  No more date nights, no more parties, no more lunch with friends.  You and I worked cows together. We fixed fence.  We split firewood.  We were a team.

Your hemline began to fray with your exposure to dirt and manure, but you still stacked nicely over my boots and didn't raise up in the stirrups or when climbing through corral pipes.  You remained the perfect length.

All of that ended yesterday when I felt the breeze on my rear. You wore too thin.  You worked too hard. You left me feeling exposed.  And now our relationship must come to an end. You lived a long life.  You served your purpose. You will forever be #1 in my heart.


Rest in peace, my favorite jeans. I will never forget you.

With all my love,

Nell

"I've Got a Golden Ticket..."

The final stop on our field trip was to tour the Joy Cone Factory. All I have to say is.....Too Cool For Words. When I was a kid, I used to watch Mister Roger's Neighborhood on PBS channel 8. In my favorite episode, Mister Rogers toured the Crayola factory. I wanted to tour that factory so badly! I would watch every day, hoping they re-ran the crayon episode so I could sit in front of the TV and be amazed by the machinery.  Getting to see the Joy Cone factory was even better! We saw every aspect of production, and we were all wide eyed at the process of turning ingredients into batter, and batter into cones, and cones into packaging, and packaging into huge boxes.  I feel lucky to live on this side of the industrial revolution. Giant machinery is truly a modern marvel.

 There were no cameras allowed inside the facilities because we saw top-secret stuff inside. Besides, we had to wear hair nets, and I don't want any pictures of me in a hair net on the internet.  What's worse, my husband had to wear a hair net and a beard net because of his goatee.  I think that any man who has to wear a beard net at work should get paid a dollar more an hour for pain and suffering.  It was all worth it, though, for a chance to see how a pink ice cream cone is made." It's classified information. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."  (Name that movie!)

 I felt like I was touring Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and I had a golden ticket.

♪♫ I've got a golden ticket, I've got a golden chance to make my way, and with a golden ticket it's a golden day!♪♫♫♪♫

OK, enough singing.

The ice cream cone was invented at the World's Fair in 1904 when an ice cream vendor and a pastry vendor had booths side by side.  The pastry vendor served meats and savory dishes in his waffle bowls.  One day, the ice cream vendor ran out of bowls to serve customers, so he asked the waffle bowl vendor next door to make him something he could serve ice cream in.  The ice cream cone was invented, and the rest is history.  The Joy Cone Factory is getting ready to celebrate 100 years in the business and is the largest manufacturer of cones in the world. They produce over 1.5 billion cones per year.  They supply cones for companies like Mc Donald's, Dairy Queen, Burger King, and many others, as well as grocery stores.

A Cool Random Fact:
-All of the broken or defective cones are crushed in a silo and fed to livestock.

At the end of our tour, we all got to enjoy a free ice cream cone, and we were given a box of cones to take home. I may not be a kid, but this was the coolest field trip I've ever been on!

It was such a delightful day!

Surprising Life Lessons from an Iron Lung

"Get as much joy from life for yourself and others as you can squeeze out of it." - Martha Mason *

I organized a homeschool co-op field trip to Flagstaff for a day of adventure and learning.  As always, I had as much fun as the children.  The day started with a visit to the Pioneer Museum.  There were many artifacts there with ties to northern Arizona history. There were items relating to prominent ranching families who settled the area, and stories about the making of the state of Arizona.

A few highlights:

I was surprised to see this brand on the wall. We still buy heifers with the  V BAR V brand, and it's been around since 1891.

I've always had a thing for old barbed wire, and they had a large display of several unique types.

This mountain lion named "Josephine"  was gifted to the Arizona Rangers as a cub, and she was their mascot for many years.  She had a tendency to wreak havoc on the horses when her natural instincts kicked in, and scattered them to regions far and wide when they were tied to their picket lines. She definitely had a reputation for trouble. Josephine once got loose on a train while traveling with the Rangers and tried to attack passengers from New York as she ran up and down the aisles.  When she died, the Rangers made her into a rug.  After the rug wore out, her head was donated to the museum so her legacy could live on.

  The Pioneer museum is housed in an old building that was formerly a respite home for the elderly in the days before Hospice and Social Security.  As such, there were many old relics from the medical field there as well.

It was all very fascinating, but there was one item that haunted me for days.

I'm sure that my parents' generation was familiar with the Negative Pressure Ventilator, a machine that was also known as the "Iron Lung". This, however, was the first one I had ever seen or heard of.  The Iron Lung is a capsule that someone lives in with their head sticking out on the end.  The machine allows a paralyzed person to breath by changing the pressure inside to expand and contract the lungs.  Iron Lungs are virtually obsolete today. They've been replaced with modern ventilators that allow people freedom of movement.  But at the height of the Polio epidemic, Iron Lungs were quite common. They were life savers.

The thing that really bothered me were the stories that accompanied the display.  I read of a woman named Dianne Odell who contracted Polio at age 3, and lived in an Iron Lung for nearly 60 years. 60 YEARS!!!  The worst part was that she died in 2008 during a bad storm in Tennessee.  There was a power outage, and the back-up generator failed so she had no electricity to keep the machine running.  It was tragic.

All I could think of was that it must have been a living hell to live life in a casket-like capsule for 60 years. It bothered me so much that I went home and started reading more about what life was like in an Iron Lung.  Weird, I know, but I couldn't fathom how terrible it must have been. Yet I was blown away when, upon further research, I discovered that many people in Iron Lungs made the best of a bad situation, and went on to live fulfilling lives.  Many actually got an education, had a large circle of friends, hosted parties, and even wrote books with voice activated computers. They didn't allow circumstances to get them down.

Dianne Odell's story inspired me. Here's a woman who many people would feel had every right to have a chip on her shoulder.  She could have cursed God for dealing her a bad hand and felt sorry for herself her whole life.  She could have given up.  Many people in her situation would have thrown in the towel. But she didn't.  In fact, she did just the opposite.  She lived her life to the fullest.

"I've had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith.  You can make life good or you can make it bad. "- Dianne Odell

If there's one thing in my Iron Lung research that really smacked me in the face, it's the glaring reminder that much of our happiness in life depends on our outlook.  Bad things happen to everyone at some point, but it's how we react to these challenges that determines whether we have joy or not. Happiness is ultimately a choice.  





* The quote at the beginning of this blog was from a woman named Martha Mason, another 60 year veteran of the Iron Lung.  She died in 2009.

Getting Back To Normal

I'm back! My husband was working out of town for two weeks.  We picked him up on Thursday, and things have been insanely busy ever since. I'm so glad to have him home again.

When we said goodbye to him, he drove seven hours away to a job site in the middle of the desert.  The nearest town was two hours away from where he worked, so he had a four hour round trip each day to get to and from the hotel.  He drove in heavy equipment several miles on this rough road to reach the pipe they were welding. It was a tough job with long hours and no cell phone service.

And there were rattle snakes....

Snake in the headlights

Lots, and lots of rattlesnakes. The place was crawling with them!  He brought  home a dead Mohave Green Rattle Snake that someone ran over, and the rattlers off of two additional dead snakes for our kids. My husband always brings home unusual gifts from the places he works, but dead snakes and rattlers top our list of ummmmm.... "unique" gifts.

"Oh, Love, you brought us home dead snakes....how thoughtful of you...you shouldn't have."

The kids LOVED them!

(The snake is in the freezer, waiting to be skinned, so....no pics. Sorry.)

He also saw a bunch of these.

 This one was the size of  a Zinger snack cake. I know this because he took a blurry pic of it with a Zinger next to it for size comparison.

Sounds like a great place to work, doesn't it?

As soon as my husband got home, life went back to warp speed.  I'll post more about our exciting weekend adventures in other posts.

Meanwhile, I'm just glad things are back to normal around here.

A Few Things I love about Texas

A Few things I love about Texas:

- Longhorn Cattle in pastures near the ranch houses just for "looks"

-Friendly drivers who drove on the shoulder so people could pass.

-American Flags and Texas Flags flown side-by-side in front yards

-Good Country Music played in EVERY store and restaurant.

-A radio station called "Kicker Country"

-Charro Beans

-Nice People

-Cowhide Furniture

-80 mph speed limit

-Big Hair

-"Yes Ma'am"

-The shape of the state of Texas etched in glass at fast food restaurants, on door mats, inside gas station bathroom stalls, on napkins, on billboards, on paper cups.  Texas is EVERYWHERE!

-Their deep love of Football.

-Bling is the norm, not the exception.

-Deer Corn is sold at every gas station

- Ford Trucks...everywhere.

- Grill guards on every vehicle

-Beef, beef, and more beef

-George Strait

"Pookie"

Meet Sneakers. He's quite possibly the most evil dog that ever lived. I know because he was our family pet from the time I was in 6th grade until he died a few years ago. He's a legend in my hometown, and people still tell his stories to this day. My mom picked out the name "Sneakers" because his white paws made it look like he was wearing shoes. But no-one else ever called him by that name. We all called him Pookie. It was ironic that he had a lover's pet name because there was no love in that dog. While I lived at home, he slept under my bed. I would have to superman dive under the covers at night so he wouldn't bite my toes. He said goodnight with a 2 minute growl from under the box spring. He chased away every cat in the neighborhood. Come to think of it, he chased every solicitor away, too. When the door bell rang, he'd jump up on the chair next to the window and try to attack people through the glass. He made Trick-or-Treaters drop their candy and run for their lives. He ruined a lot of curtains.

Throughout the day, he would move from hide-out to hide-out, lurking behind chairs, in corners, or under the recliner. You definitely didn't want to get up in the middle of the night for a drink of water. Pookie could be anywhere. He wasn't a dog that you could kiss on the nose, either. He'd rip your face off. In fact, virtually no-one outside of the family could even pet him. It became a game to our friends to see who could touch Pookie without getting bit. The trick was to dangle your arm on the side of the couch for 5 minutes and let him slowly come to you. If he nudged you with his nose, you could scratch him behind the ears. But God forbid you make any sudden moves or he'd turn around and bite. On the rare occasion that someone actually pet him, they'd want us to take a picture to prove it. It meant serious bragging rights because everyone was terrified of that dog. We knew that if good dogs died young, Pookie was going to live forever. And he practically did.

Looking back, I'm surprised my parents kept him. He was a real liability. But my mom never saw it that way. She loved that dog. In fact, she called him her "love pup". He'd ride with her in the car when she took us to school, and he'd keep her company throughout the day. Whenever he'd growl, she'd say, "Sneakers, quit being naughty." Right. Like that was going to help. Mom had the patience of Job with that dog. She was the only one that could bathe him, and cut his hair. She would do it in sections as he would allow it. For several days, he'd look absolutely ridiculous walking around with a quarter of one side clipped. Sometimes, Mom would cut whatever side was facing up while he slept. Then she'd wait for another day when he was sleeping on his other side, and she'd finish the job....with only a few minor puncture wounds on her hands. Everyone wandered what in the world she saw in that dog.

That's the thing about my mom. She saw the best in everyone...even our evil dog. In my thirty three years of life, I can't remember a single instance when she had ever said an unkind word about anyone. It's remarkable, actually. No matter how mean, or ridiculous, or awful a person was, she would find something kind to say about them. If we spoke of political leaders we despised, she'd say, "Now Nell, have you prayed for that man? He is our leader, and he needs our prayers during this time." Whenever I came home from school and complained about a bully, she would tell me to pray for my enemies because it would soften my heart toward them. When I passed judgement upon someone who did something horrible, she would say, "But for the grace of God, that might be us." She always, always, always put herself in someone else's shoes. She always considered the fact that at any given moment, people could be going through something so tough that it made them act in a way that was out of character for them. She chose to see the spark of goodness in the darkest of people.When people hurt her, she would pray that they would experience the love of Jesus. Then she would remind us that hurting people hurt other people. She encouraged us to pray that God would take their hurt away.

That woman was one of a kind, and I miss her horribly. It would be a struggle to imitate a fraction of her overwhelming kindness. I feel so blessed to have had her loving example in my life.

Pookie got old, and lost his sight, his hearing, and the ability to stand up. He had seizures quite often, and my mom stayed right by his side through it all. After he died, my mom cried for days. It was no big loss to most people, but it was devastating for Mom. She didn't see an evil dog like the rest of us did. No. She saw a companion and a friend. She saw a dog that just needed more love, extra kindness, and a little understanding. Mom's "Love Pup" died at nearly 22 years of age.

Mechanical Failures

There comes a time in every gal's life when she reflects back on her teenage years and wonders if she should have done a few things differently.  Nothing makes a girl re-think her high school elective choices more than a frustrating mechanical failure.

My deep questioning came at a crisis moment on Friday.

Here's the situation:

My hardworking husband was welding two hours from civilization with no cellphone service. I had to haul water to the cows so I loaded the water tank, generator, pump, toolbox, and water hose.

I loaded the kids in the truck and popped in some classic George Strait tunes.  We rolled the windows down in the old truck and took a leisurely drive down to the pasture. It was a beautiful fall day for hauling water.

I drove down the little two track path, backed the truck up as close as I could to the stock tank, submerged my pump in the water tank, hooked up the hose and drug it to the stock tank.

It was a routine job.

I pulled the cord and the generator fired up on the first pull! I plugged in the pump and 20 seconds later the generator died.

"Hmmm...that's odd." I thought.

I pulled it again.  It started up and died 15 seconds later.

"What the heck?" I thought.

I checked the gas.  1/2 a tank.

I checked the oil.  Full.

I checked the fuel switch...open.

I let it sit a minute and pulled the crank again. It ran for 5 seconds and died.  again.

I messed with the choke several times.

Again:
Pull. start. die.
Pull. start. die.
Pull. start. die.
Pull. start. die.

Now I'm sweating from cranking the thing twenty times.  My husband was unreachable, so I did what every girl would do:

I called up my dad on speed dial.

(I've been calling my dad with crisis related mechanical questions since I got my first car.  He's used to my mechanical language. We have this complex diagnostic dialogue that we do over the phone.  Here's a piece of the actual conversation. )


"Hello."
"Dad, I need you to tell my why in the world my generator won't run.  It starts and dies in 5 seconds."
"Well does it have gas?"
"Of course it has gas! I'm not a dork."
"Tell me everything you've done."
"I turn the switch to on, put it on full choke, and pull the crank.  It runs for 5 seconds and dies. If I move the choke...it dies. No matter what I do, it dies."

"Try to start it and let me hear it over the phone."

I set the phone down on the toolbox and crank. Same thing happens.

I pick the phone back up.

"It sounds like it's starving for fuel."

I mess with the choke a little.  Nothing.
He has me do like 15 more things....cranking in between each thing so we can see if it works.  Nothing.
I take some pictures of the fuel line and send them to him so he can have a visual.

Now the cows are gathered around. They lick the hose to mock me.

I tell them, "Patience, Ladies! I'm workin' on it!"

25 minutes has gone by. I'm out of breath from cranking.

Dad asks me about the carburater.
I say, "Is it the silver thingie hooked to the fuel line?"
He seems doubtful about my engine skills.

He asks if the air intake is clean.
It's spotless.

He tells me to take apart the fuel line to see if there's a clog.

Here's the part where I rethink my entire high school experience:

"Dad, why in the heck was I a cheer leader in highschool???? My cheerleading skills have done nothing to help me out in real life.  What I should have done is take auto mechanics, and small engine repair classes.  That way, I wouldn't have to call someone every time something goes wrong with the machinery on this outfit!! What was I thinking???"

I hang up the phone.

I check the fuel line as best I could. I actually have no idea what I'm doing.  It seems satisfactory.

By now, my arms are trembling from starting the generator 46 times. I'm covered in gas, oil, mud, and manure.  I decide to take a break and wallow in self pity on the back of the truck tool box for a good 3 minutes with my feet kicked up on the generator. I ponder life as I stare at a black heifer nudging my hose with her face.

Then I pray.

"Dear Lord, I could really use a little help right now.  If you would see fit to help me start this generator, I would sure appreciate it. Amen."

When it comes to prayers pleading for help, it's best to keep it short and sweet.

I decided to give it one last crank.

Miracle of Miracles, it ran like a champ!

I cried out, "THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!

A minute later I called my dad so he could hear the purr of the engine.

He said, "What did you do different?"

"I prayed."

I thanked my dad for all of the help and hung up the phone. I watered the cows and drove home with a sense of satisfaction.

Everything I've ever learned about mechanics has been from little challenges like these throughout the years. I can put all of my knowledge in a little sack and it wouldn't amount to squat.  But there's one thing I DO know. I've got a 24 hour help line available to me at all times. When my husband is away, it's nice to have Dad on speed dial.  

Oh, and....

When all else fails, it never hurts to talk to God about it. After all, He does do miracles.