Living in America

Happy Independence Day! Hope everyone is having a great, fun day celebrating our nation & all it stands for. Though this country is going through a hard time, I hold onto hope that the best of times is yet to come. As bad as things are, I still think this is a great place to live.

I have had a lot on my mind to write about lately. There's no way I could put it all into one post. So since I can't put everything into writing, I'll write about a topic that's on my mind right now.

I'm not really ready to declare my independence from foreign oil, but I'm working toward doing a better job of it. Oh, I don't dare kid myself that I can do it. I drive 35 miles to work & visit my family 25 miles away once a week or more if I can. And that's just the beginning of what I do to fuel the big demand for oil. But I am trying to do a better job of taking care of my world.

I bought a Honda Civic a few weeks ago. I LOVE it! I am getting about 36 mpg. This is a little less than I'd hoped for (I want perfection!) but it's better than the 27 mpg I got in the Grand Prix. I figure that as much driving as I've been doing, I ought to save about $1000 a year. Of course, I'm paying $4000 a year for the thing. I really needed a third vehicle, though, because Rachel's old enough to drive now, & a third driver in the family will be helpful. Oh, I dread it, but with our busy schedules a third car makes sense.

I have been reading a new book. Well, it's new to me - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a little more drastic of a move than I could make. I've tried changing my eating habits to help the "little guys" out in the past, & my fledgling efforts did not get far. I tried buying raw milk & naturally-raised chicken & bacon. It didn't work for me because of Randy. He was afraid to drink the milk. "You'll die because it's not pasteurized. You can't give this to the kids." He didn't have to worry - his fearful attitude was contagious, & the kids refused to drink it anyway. I didn't get sick at all. He thought the chicken tasted "wild" & preferred "the kind you get at Wal-Mart." He loved the bacon, but he totally freaked out when I told him how much it cost. "Well, no wonder we can't afford to pay off our credit cards." I tried arguing that I didn't spend $80 every six weeks to get my hair cut & colored like some of my co-workers. (And this was in the old days at my old job. I have lots more arguments now...but more on that another time.) It didn't impress him much. So, gradually, I cut my ties with that farmer's family. I just quit buying from them, & I still get their emails, but I just don't respond. It was nothing personal, I liked them very much although sometimes I felt guilty after reading their newsletters.

Every year we buy a portion of a calf from a family in our church. Their family is not dependent totally on people like us for their survival. They have a big operation & sell a lot of cattle each year. You can read about them here. Now for the purists here, I know they use artificial insemination & they give soy byproducts in addition to grass. Well, I didn't choose their beef because it was organic. I chose it because a few years ago I wanted to buy beef from someone I knew. When I was a kid my grandfather raised cattle & it just made sense to me to eat meat that's grown up nearby. It doesn't get much more local than less than a mile from the house. Randy goes for that one for several reasons. He loves the taste, for starters! He also likes the fact that overall it's cheaper than buying beef from the grocery store. You might get ground beef cheaper, but the steak & roast prices never fail to make up the difference.

I do buy eggs from a farmer about six miles up the road. Unlike most egg farmers, he charges prices comparable to the grocery store (instead of twice as high). I buy honey from them too. He is a sweet little old man with a fairly small farm, but because the price is not bad & the taste is so good, Randy doesn't give me any grief about that.

I also buy vegetables from local folks. We have a few markets fairly close to us, & there are also some organic farms along the way. Randy doesn't like their prices, in general, but as long as I use what I buy Randy doesn't tend to freak out too much about that.

I don't grow a lot because I just don't live a lifestyle that works well for that, but maybe I can do more of that in the future.

I have a long, long way to go toward lessening my carbon footprint, but I'm learning as I go. I think the Barbara Kingsolver book has helped me in one way for sure - I am doing a little better about eating at home instead of on the road.

That's all right, Mama

Two different sides to the coin here.

I was reading about Michelle Duggar yesterday...she's the mother of 17 children. You may have heard of her. She's been on TV many times, as one of the networks seems to enjoy airing the story of the birth of number 15.

Michelle's story is always met by different opinions. One of my co-workers always gripes about children anyway, & she's not the least sympathetic. I often read a blog by a mother of 11, & she's talking about it too. Her reaction is more like mine: God bless them!

On the totally opposite end of the field from Michelle Duggar and sweet baby number 17, are those women who, for whatever reason, do not bear children. I do know a few of those, some who are childless by choice, & others who didn't choose to be that way, but have chosen to accept their lives as they are.

In a little while I am going to a funeral for a lady who did not have any children. I do not know if this was her plan, because I never asked; I figured it wasn't any of my business. I do know that she was a young woman in the 1960's when there weren't as many medical options for those who didn't conceive easily. For whatever reason, by her choice or not, she didn't have children, & in her late 20's or early 30's sometime, she went to college and became a teacher.

In this role, she influenced many, many children in this area, including my sister-in-law, who was enthralled on a daily basis watching her teacher re-apply her lipstick after lunch. Mrs. Opal was a sharp dresser, too. When I last saw her at church a month or so ago, her appearance belied the fact that she was a very, very sick lady. Her suffering is over now, she has gone Home. Her husband and the many friends and relatives whose lives she touched mourn her passing.

In the Laura Ingalls Wilder book I've been reading, one of the timeless articles deals with not understanding people and how that can be dangerous. She tells of a neighbor lady whose actions were odd in the eyes of the community. When visitors came, they were appalled at the unkempt condition of her home. Whispers flew around town about how the lazy woman frittered away her days while her young daughter spent her after-school hours doing all the work. (In that time most women didn't work outside the home, and so homes were EXPECTED to be spotless. It was sort of a competition between the ladies back then, who could get the housework done quickest.) The story goes that the real reason Mrs. Brown wasn't keeping up with her housework was because she'd been writing for newspapers so that she could afford winter clothes for the little girl. Both were perfectly happy with the situation, & had never bothered to share their motives with anyone outside the family.

I think this is an important lesson for all of us.

Don't stop believin'

This song is everywhere these days. It kind of gives me a good feeling to hear it. I am believing that something good is about to happen. I am not sure which good thing will happen...but something good will.

I mention Carla's Country Living a lot. Borrowing from her, here's a list of the beauty in the simple things here in Cheatham County.

What I see... dry yards everywhere. Praying for rain... Did I see some clouds? I hope so!
What I smell... flea spray! Ugh. It's a never-ending battle. Every 2 weeks, there's another hatchin' & we go through the process again. Surely, eventually we'll get rid of 'em.
What I hear... Oprah's on! I ought to turn it off. Nobody's in there watching it because - I sprayed for fleas!!!
I'm wearing... my teal scrubs (still haven't changed after work)
I've been watching... Big Love on HBO.
The garden... is producing some nice squash & one nice tomato. I call it the $10 tomato; I bought 4 plants for $2.50 a piece & that's what I've got to show for it. I have had 2 $2.50 peppers from those plants I bought.
School... kids go back August 6. Went today to pick up R's report card & the form for her to get her learner's permit next week, if she passes the test. If it were in the Harry Potter book, I think she'd be more interested.
in the kitchen... not sure. Might do pizza.
What's in the CD player: a mix CD I made last fall. I call it "Do Yo Thang, Honey," because my favorite song on the CD is "Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguilera. That was popular the fall semester of Rachel's freshman year. It's followed by a song I liked during fall of my freshman year, "Urgent" by Foreigner.

Not much else to tell here. I've been working on widening the driveway, cleaning the big window to the back yard, & tackling the garage. Work is s-s-s-l-l-o-o-o-w-w this week so I'm home a little more, which is kind of nice. It's not nice on payday, but I might as well enjoy it while I can.

I've got a mansion, just over the hilltop

And I can't wait to be there!!!

I started to name tonight's missive "nuts & bolts, nuts & bolts...". You know what comes next. If you don't...sorry. Ask a cheerleader.

I could use a cheerleader right now. Today has been a hard day. Work was stressful enough. Outside of work was stressful, too. Randy was home trying to get some work lined up for our plumbing. Randy & I don't do major plumbing or other major household repairs very well. By that I mean, not only do we not know beans about major problems, we don't emotionally handle those kind of problems well either. Give us a new surround sound or TiVo or computer network, we can handle that. We can scan your photos & mail them around the world. We can sing whatever you want to hear. We can produce musically talented younguns. But we can just barely plunge the toilet.

I really am not being fair when I say that. Randy can change a washer or even the sink or toilet itself. I can install washing machines. I can MacGyver my way into rigging together a toilet flush apparatus out of paper clips. I highly recommend a plunger for every commode in the house. And, as I said, Randy can even put in new toilets like a pro. But we are the dream customers for plumbers, because we will - left to our own devices - agree to pay whatever the plumber says we should. You say gold pipes are today's standard? Sure. They cost how much? Well, if we gotta have 'em.

My co-workers think I married an idiot. Well, I COULD sit back & compare husbands & get into vile name-calling, but I am gonna take the high road here. I didn't marry an idiot. As I said, he's a whiz at the wiring & sound stuff. And, he knows the difference in conjugating verbs & dangling participles. (Boy, has THAT been financially lucrative. Just like my knowledge of principles of accounting, identifying wildflowers, & comparing the vegetation of north- & south-facing slopes.) He's a good cook. He's a good daddy. He is a sweetheart who hung my new hammock, which I bought with my birthday money & immediately felt guilty about (turns out, though, the cost of the hammock is just a drop in the bucket, pun intended, in the grand scheme of the 21st century Watergate scandal). He hates me right now. I don't think there's anything I can say that would help that. I didn't tell him he was an idiot. He inferred it from what I said about my co-workers. And I didn't tell him everything they said. Nor did I tell them everything he said.

I am not going to say anything when he gets off the phone with his mama either. She's in there giving him names of plumbers too. When I did that I got lambasted. I don't hear him giving her down the road. (Honestly, though, I would worry if I did.) No, I am gonna take the high road here & NOT say, "See, even SHE thinks you could do better than that estimate you got." For all I know, he might've told her what a meanie I was, & THEN she went & got more numbers.

No, that's not what happened. She told her sister, who told her that we were getting reamed! & gave her a number for us to call. So she called to tell Randy, who felt more like an idiot.

Believe it or not, I can find things to be thankful for. It seems like a pipe dream to imagine moving out of this house & into something I might dream about. Unfortunately, I owe too much on this one & houses seem really, really expensive here to me. I found this article - America's 10 most overpriced housing markets - & believe it or not, I didn't find Clarksville, Pleasant View or even Nashville on the list!

Ten more things I'm thankful for, & then I have to get ready for bed.

1. My patients were all really nice today, &
2. All the stress tests went well.
3. I spoke to both my brothers - even the one who lives in NJ - today. And -
4. They're both doing fine.
5. I made it to Derek's band concert tonight just in time, & didn't even have to exceed the speed limit. much.
6. I am SO glad I have been using the CPAP. Without it, I wonder how I would be functioning right now.
7. I am SO glad I got rid of all those attempts at side businesses that sucked out a lot of my time & benefitted me very, very little. If I were still doing all that stuff, I wonder how much more of my time they'd be draining.
8. I am SO glad I got back into Southern Gospel music, because without the positive, upbeat messages I feed my mind, I would really be down & out right now.
9. I am SO thankful I won that mp3 player at the state nuclear medicine meeting 10 days ago, because it has kept me entertained & given me a lot more inspiration to sing!
and finally, though this might seem a little crazy...
10. I am SO thankful I read Vestal Goodman's biography, Vestal! this weekend, because I need all the inspiration I can get. And how they got money in miraculous situations - yes, Lord, I needed that.
Two more? Three? I got paid today. I have a check I forgot to cash from my grandmother. I also got a check for $50 from a prescription program Randy's enrolled in, where we get our copay back every month. And, they sent us next month's coupon too. Praise the Lord!

It's just another day.

I feel like using the title, "Nothing happened in Greenbrier today." I don't have any idea if anything happened in Greenbrier today. I spent my day in Clarksville. It was just another day. I had a pretty light schedule. It was a beautiful day, for sure. It was about 65 degrees (unlike yesterday when we had record-low temps), sunny, really nice. I went out to pay some bills at lunch. I got off at a decent hour. I took Rachel to her piano lesson. I sat in the Baptist church parking lot & read some of "Flood." That's about it. Pretty ordinary, but it has been a great day.

Let's see...what is happening in my life that might be newsworthy...oh! I've decided to put the Chauncey Almanac on Blogger too. I will be sure to add that to my blog roll when I get it done.

Later!!!