#MondayMusings

         It’s Monday, so it’s time to muse!  Today I am rocking out to pure nostalgia.  Anyone who knows me at all knows I am passionate about music, and if you know that much about me, you might also know that I love movies and own a vast collection.  This weekend I indulged myself and updated my collection with a DVD of “Dirty Dancing”.  While I have the video cassette, I no longer have a VCR.  Because of that fact, I have been steadily beefing up my DVD collection with some of the titles I love that I have on VHS so I can actually watch them again!

          With “Dirty Dancing”, I get the best of both worlds…amazing music and a coming of age romance that tugs at the ole heart strings for the bargain price of $5.00.  Now you can see why I couldn’t simply walk past this one.    I LOVE this movie.  It was released in 1987, a year after I graduated from high school.  My daughter and I sang along to all the songs, and I find myself still singing them today.  I have them cranked to full blast on Spotify as I write this.  If you haven’t seen it, you must!  If you have seen it, you must see it again.  It is well worth the effort.

             It was one lazy ass weekend at my house, staying up late watching movies, playing cards, and sleeping in until late into the afternoon.  Saturday was made better with a Notre Dame win, and Sunday was dominated with grocery shopping, dishes, house cleaning, and laundry.  I even managed to get a bit of knitting done!  Thanks to 4-H and my tutelage, my daughter is quite the baker so while I cleaned, my daughter made bread bowls which were filled more than once with homemade steaming hot chili topped with melted cheddar cheese and then promptly devoured.  I love weekends.  There is nothing I look forward to more, and unfortunately, there is nothing that passes quicker than a weekend.

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Who's the Cook?

        Food.  Everybody loves food to a certain degree.  We all eat it to survive. There are others who eat it for pleasure.  The question is who cooks it?  At my house, that would be me.  I take full chef honors.  There used to be a time when my husband ruled as Lord of the barbecue grill, and my realm was confined to the kitchen.    My kids and I would wait, with baited breath and growing appetites, for him to come home and cook something, anything, on the grill. 

        One day my husband decided I needed to master the barbecue grill as well.   The skill was on the list of things that he should do and could do, but unfortunately hardly ever came home to do and didn’t want to be bothered with when home.  If I wanted the taste of barbecued meat grilled to perfection, I needed to learn.  So I did, all the time with the nagging thought in the back reaches of my brain that I was being prepared for a life without him.  Is he trying to tell me something?  Probably not, I am just a tinge paranoid.  I am a strong, independent woman, whether I want to be or not.  This life as a trucker’s wife has made me that way.

            

  

       

         Growing up, it was the same scenario on the most part, since my dad was also an over the road truck driver like my husband.  While he was away, Mom ruled the kitchen and did all the cooking.  When Dad came home, he not only presided over the barbecue grill, but also dazzled us with his skills in the kitchen.  Crazy enough, it was my Dad that attempted to teach me how to cook and insisted on me helping.  He taught me how to cook breakfast: eggs, pancakes, french toast, you name it.  He showed me how to make his spaghetti and his barbecue chicken.   My Dad actually had a huge collection of recipes that he began accumulating after my mom died, and I got that little gold mine when he died in 2004.

    
           Even though I watch “Master Chef” avidly and am openly in awe of Gordon Ramsay, and secretly scared shitless of him, I have no delusions that I could compete in the Master Chef kitchen, nor would I desire to.  However, we don’t starve, and there are a few dishes I am damn proud to claim as my own concoctions.  Yes, I cooked that.  My mantra has always been and always will be: if you can read, you can cook.

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Between Haiku

full comprehension

subliminal messages

linking you and me

Inspired by the prompt at

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#MondayMusings

       A little late in the day, but not too late for a little musing this Monday.  15 years ago today I was eagerly anticipating my cesarean section scheduled for the next morning with a twinge of fear and a whole lot of excitement.  I had never had a baby before and even though I had taken the childbirth classes at the hospital, I still felt ill equipped for what was to come.  Besides, I spent 99.9% of the movie shown the expectant parents about childbirth and cesareans cringing horrified behind my pillow.

        I endured a tough pregnancy with my first 
born.  Let’s just say, I don’t do pregnancy well.  I was not one of those fabled expectant mothers who simply glowed.  Tinged a sickly, pasty, green,   I struggled through every minute of my pregnancy plagued with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, riding on the hellacious roller coaster ride of hormones, high blood pressure, and gestational diabetes.  To be honest, by the time it was time to go under the knife I simply wanted the pregnancy to be over.  I simply could not imagine the reality of the baby, I would soon have.   I had no idea whether the baby would be a boy or a girl.

        Fast forward 15 years and here I am preparing to celebrate the beautiful and smart girl I was blessed with by blowing up bunches of balloons, suspending them from the ceiling, and stringing a “Happy Birthday” banner in their midst.  The real celebration won’t commence until this weekend when my husband comes home.  Still, I couldn’t let my little girl’s day pass unnoticed.  Tomorrow I will bake cupcakes, a simple precursor to the birthday cake she will have this weekend.  She will get to blow candles out on both occasions, because really a person cannot have too many wishes!   Then, once both kids are home from school, away we will go to the local pizza place to inhale as much pizza, pasta, salad, and bread sticks that are earthly possible to inhale without exploding.

     Only a handful of hours to go until her fourteenth year will be gone and her fifteenth year will dawn.  No matter how old either of us get, she will always be my sweet baby girl and I will always be her mommy and for that I will always be eternally grateful. 

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The Last Request

Photo Credits: Geetika Gupta 

    

    Would his heart race, then jolt to a stop?

       Would death be excruciatingly painful?  

      Terrifying thoughts plagued him ever since the conviction.  It didn’t matter that he hadn’t killed her, couldn’t kill her. 

No one believed him.   

      Failed appeals, endless testimonies, and the meager evidence: in the end, no one had been convinced.  As far as the world was concerned, he had brutally murdered her.  The mighty hand of justice had failed him. 

      Fast forward to his last request:

watching the sunset while sipping a final glass of wine, resigned, eager for the peace and freedom only death could provide.

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#MondayMusings

      

      I never really pay attention to blogging anniversaries or how many posts I have actually put up.  Sure, I have seen other bloggers happily sharing how they have made it to this milestone or that silently because I usually have my head lodged so far up my ass that I miss when things like that happen.

         

    

     Well, guess what?  For some reason, I woke up and literally smelled the coffee today and realized that I have published 900 posts on the Giggling Trucker’s Wife Writes!!!  This happy mess of Monday Musing is number 901!  So before this moment completely passes by without any acknowledgement at all, I will take this moment to jump up and down, and say “Look at me!  Look at me! Aren’t I special?”

 

       

      Why do I write?  It’s something to do, and let’s face it, it is way more fun than doing dishes, folding laundry, or housework.  Let’s be quite clear, I DO THAT TOO!!  I am a stay at home mom, but yes, I do more than just sit on my duff and take up space.  I cook, clean, crochet, knit, play piano, and play games, all sorts! I also juggle kids and dogs, literally.  I make the dogs do their duty outside and make the kids do their homework.  Yes, I do!  I also am honorary chauffeur to every after school activity event.  I cook too, which explains where all the dirty dishes come from.  Just as soon as I get them clean another heap appears.  It is a vicious cycle and an evil conspiracy that I will never be able to explain to you.

   

       So for all you folks that have taken the time to stop by and read the literal stream of BS that I have spewed, marveled at my haiku, and commented on my stories, thank you.  I love you guys.  You are proof that I am not completely wasting my time.  I will do my best to continue to deserve your devotion!

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After Haiku

a spark ignited

flames fanned, blazing inferno

charred devastation

Inspired by the prompt at

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All About Higher Learning

   

      Let’s talk about school, because I can!  The one school that I have coveted and would have LOVED to attend is the University of Notre Dame.  Unfortunately, it has always been a bit out of reach even though I did win a scholarship to Notre Dame when I was in high school.  It was for science of all things.  Can you imagine?  I was hell-bent at the time on going to Belmont University and studying music business, which is what I did.   That didn’t last, of course, because it was a passing fancy.  Ever since I was little I wanted to be an artist.  That was my pipe dream, so there is little wonder I ended up studying graphic design at Indiana Vocational Technical College.  Still my heart will always belong to Notre Dame.  When I walk around campus there, I am home.

          What about Hogwarts?  Who wouldn’t want to go to the school of wizardry and witchcraft?   Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to do magic, hex someone, or visit Diagon Alley for supplies?   If I had been lucky enough to study at Hogwarts, I would most definitely be in Ravenclaw for my intelligence, wit, and my ability to think outside the box.  I had to study up on the characteristics of all houses and go to Pottermore and face the sorting hat.  The sorting hat placed me in Ravenclaw!  I could never be a Gryffindor because not only am I afraid of heights, I am not keen on trying new things and am scared shitless of things like roller coasters.  No way in God’s green earth would you ever catch me flying on a broom or a hippogriff.  While I can be loyal, protective, and hardworking like a Hufflepuff, if I get a hair across my ass the wrong way, I am capable of cutting people out of my life forever without a backwards glance.  Sad but true.  Finally, while I am all about self-preservation, I simply am not ambitious enough to belong in Slytherin.

       
      If you are following the prompts from NaBloPoMo, you will probably be scratching your head about now thinking, didn’t she combine two prompts?  Ten points to you, that would be correct!

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The Flood

Ring!

“Sorry, wrong number.”

“Sofia?”

Silence.

   Her toys lay abandoned. 

Where did she go?

The search, then utter horror.

      Amid a sea of flowing toilet paper, stood my darling toddler, happily drenched, cramming every last roll we possessed into the overflowing toilet.

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