Well, I am going to have a vacation whether I want to or not!

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Well, the wiccan and I were all good to go right up to the time she figured out that raising a toddler for her son was a crook in the road, so to speak.  Seems the hubby works and the lady who takes the baby to day care would be leaving town with me.  What to do!  What to do!  Oh, I know!  I spent years doing it!  Stay home and do it yourself.  There, that solves that little problem.  It does not, however, solve the one about the family and friends waiting on the other end for us.  This entails 3 sisters, my girl cousin, my favorite Republican, my boy cousins, my friend from Missouri, Karen, Evie, the guy at McDonald's who's name I forgot, not to mention my daughters and their families in Lakin that I stop and see on my way down.  Oh, yeah, and the gas stations that rely on me for income!  Now, be very sure that they are all going to miss Lyn and I am a poor substitute, man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
So, I will be making the trek by my tiny little self!  Just me and Charlie Pride, Porter Wagoner, Emmy Lou and a few others.  Oh, and a big jug of ice water and something to munch on.  And I have to stop in Las Animas to buy lottery tickets.  See, this is my last shot at freedom before the kids move to their new digs.  I have that flock of geese out back that has to be tended to and the neighbors that I counted on for all those years done moved to Rapid City, South Dakota.  While I am on good terms with the new neighbors we have not reached the "Hey, go get goose bit while I am gone." stage.  And while I have friends in town who would sacrifice a limb for me, I do not want to be obligated.  Know what I mean?
I have always envied the people who can plan a vacation and then do it.  You know the ones who say, " Oh, we are off to Cancun for the week.  No, we do not have 2 dogs, a cat and 13 geese to worry about while we are gone.  We are footloose and fancy free!"  Nor do they have a store on eBay or luncheons for clients or guild meetings or winter sales coming up that need soap and lotions to be made.  Now I do not want you to think for one moment that I am complaining, cause I am not.  I have worked hard making my little corner of the world as busy as I can because my momma raised me to believe that "Busy hands are happy hands."  And that is usually true as I meet myself coming or going.
"But", and that is a big word.  That and "If".  But sometimes I set and take stock.  I do many things and I am not sure that I do any of them real well.  I might be better served if I just stopped doing a few of them.  Like the spinning wheel.  Well, I actually have 2 of those.  Neither of which I have used in months.  I could sell those.  When I do then I will need to sell the wool I have stored up to spin.  I have two floor looms, a four shaft and an 8 shaft.  I can not weave on two at the same time.  But which one should I sell?  Then there is the long arm machine quilter.  I make money with that, but not very often.  More often than with the 6 needle professional embroidery machine that has it's own room.  Soap and lotion is a definite keeper cause I can not buy anything this good on the open market.  That brings us to the gluten free pantry that I maintain so I can bake for a few of my friends.  Then there are the 2 rooms and one trailer for the eBay stuff.  This is ludicrous!
So here is the deal.  I am going to make this a working vacation.  I am going to take a notebook and make me a giant list.  I will list everything I do and what equipment it entails and when I come back I am going to have a plan for my life.  I am pretty sure the blog and ebay will stay.  Right now that is all I am sure of.  So, I am going to be gone for a while.  Maybe I will borrow my sisters computer and do a blog while I am gone, but in case I do not, just remember that I am out there somewhere working through something in my befuddled little mind and if you are so inclined, you could say a little prayer or novena or some thing!  Lord only knows, I need all the help I can get, because it seems in the back of my little mind, I recall doing a blog  just like this the last time I went on vacation!
Oh and then there is that poison ivy that I manage to get into every time I go down there.  Last time I was not allowed out of the house and I assume this time will be the same deal.  I do not want any more of that stuff!
Peace, Bro!

They are winging their way to Hong Kong!

First..click here to donate to my account for the AIDS Walk!

Today I had a small victory and I want to share it with you!  See that package  up above?  That contains 4 vinyl records and I built that box with my own two hands.  Why?  Because anything over 4 pounds going to Hong Kong requires Priority Shipping; under 4 is First Class which is much cheaper.  Now I am getting quite proficient at doing the online International shipping, but this one had me stymied.  Until, along came Matt!

This is Matt Phelps and he is my buddy at the Mesa Pharmacy. I had packed this order very carefully the night before thinking my maximum weight was 5 pounds. I could not buy first class postage online because that is just the way it is, and besides that the address was too long. See, here we just say John Doe, 54 elm,nowhere, no state 12345.  In Hong Kong the addresses are 4 blocks long.  So when I got to the post office I found that it was a pound over and would cost me $49.98.  No way.  So Matt unpacked the whole thing and weighed the box, my packing materials, the records and pronounced it a mess.  He looked for a box, but still it was overweight.  So I brought it home and constructed a box that was lighter, smaller, but still sturdy.  The corners of the albums I protected with bent card board  and lined with foam sheets.  Back I went and Matt met me at the door.  To the scale and voila!  A miracle.  3 pounds and 14 ounces!  First class and money saved.

  

Here is my receipt for $32.87, exactly what I had charged Mr. Cheng!  I will not figure the profit on this little transaction at an hourly wage, because the packing, running back and forth and the stress of the whole thing could not be measured.  Below you see the change I received from two $20 bills. You also will see the front of Mesa Pharmacy.  

So, today I salute Matt Phelps who works at Mesa Pharmacy out here in Blende.  25th Lane and Highway 50.  If you get a chance to pop out and see him, be sure to tell him Lou put in a good word for him.  He is one of the good guys and they are getting so few and far between that it is kind of sad!  So I gotta say thanks to Matt and tell you girls out there that he is still single!  But watch him go!

If it was fun last year, it will probably be fun this year!

To donate for my team and I online go here!
I have had a few people show interest in walking with me at the AIDS Walk in the Garden.  The boy cousins may make it up for that.  Sure hope so.  But a couple people at church are entertaining ideas of tagging along with me.  And it seems the first thing they want to know is "Is it fun?"  Well, I have to say it sure is, for me anyway.
First I get to raise money for a cause that is very dear to my heart.  I also get to tell people what AIDS is and why it is important that I raise money for this particular cause.  All the money we raise in Pueblo, stays in Pueblo. Not Colorado Springs.   We were given a choice of what to use our money for, no strings attached.  Linda, John and I immediately decided we could use it to pay some ones light bill, or co pays, or any number of things like that, but there is a fund for that.  So we decided to be very selfish!  We wanted to have fun!
Now, selfish is not really what I am about, but you know that!  The second Tuesday of every month, I fix us all a lunch.  Sometimes there are only about 15 of us, but a cookout in the park will bring out 40 or more.  I fund the food myself which leaves us more money for other things.  After the lunch we all load up and go some where fun.  Miniature golf, the zoo, museum, bowling and last month we dined and Soup or Salad (paid for out of our funds) and then off to the movie.  See, education does not always have to take place in a formal setting.  For some of our clients this is the only outlet they have.  Before we lucked into this money, I would just do a social luncheon.  That was good, but it was rather sterile if you know what I mean.  We hold this in a conference room and then set and visit.  Getting the picture?  Plastic tables, steel chairs, microwave and paper plates.  Acceptable, but not near as much fun as a picnic at the Nature Center.  I work hard for my money and enjoy feeding people, but I can not afford the little extras that this money buys.

And, if you have never walked in the Garden of the Gods, in Colorado Springs, you do not know what you are missing.  The walk is October 8 and registration begins at 8:00.  When that is over Richard will do a little pep talk up there on his stage and we will all cheer and then we are fired up to go.  I love that walk.  I feel so close to God up there among those boulders.  How any one place could hold so much grandeur amazes me.  And the only man made parts are the walk ways.  All the scenery and the beautiful blue sky are just the way God threw them down all those many years ago. 
If you are just wanting a walk, come join me, but remember I am very competitive and it will be my goal this year to start dead last and finish in the top 10.  Oh, wait!  I did that last year!  Maybe this year I will start first and finish last.  NOT!
So, if you are thinking about donating to a worthy cause this year, look my way.  I know we are a small corner of the world, but this small corner sure needs a bright spot occasionally and that is what this money does.  We won't change the world and we are not trying to.  We are just a bunch of people trying to make the best of a bad situation and bring a smile to lives where there is not a lot to smile about.  And you know what?  It helps.  It builds self esteem so one of our clients has gone back to school to get her degree dispite a mountain of adversity.  Several come just to see their friends.  Sometimes by making people take the first step, they begin a journey to a way better place.

Please think about donating to me and my little band of forgotten people.  And know how very grateful me and my little corner of the world will be.  God Bless!

to donate to us online go here!

Oh, is the country life really for me?

Click below to donate for the annual AIDS Walk in the Garden!  I am behind on donations and will look like a piker, so save me the humilitation!  Please!!

http://www.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=489730&u=489730-227465622

My head is pounding.  My eyes are bagging.  My poor neck is stiff and I am going to shoot the neighbors!  Why do people get dogs, just to listen to them howl?  My dogs are here by my feet looking up at me with adoring eyes.  Last night they were in my bedroom.  One was in her crate cause she has bad habits.  The other was on the floor by my head snoring.  On the other hand, the people who are directly Southwest of my bedroom and only about 500 feet away were busy sleeping while their dog howled at the moon and was answered by the dogs who live right East of me. 
See last night when I went to shut up the geese I heard dogs in the field behind me.  They were barking at me.  Scared me so I hurried back in and locked the door.  I do not know if they can open doors or not, but I take no chances!  I always worry that something will want me.  Hasn't bothered me so far in my journey through life, but you just never know when a lunatic may cast his eyes upon me and lose control!  Hey!  It could happen.
So we came in and since it was dark, we got ready for bed.  Now I sleep with my bedroom window wide open!  Nights are cool here in Colorado and this makes for some good sleeping.  Or it should.  But not if the other people in my world are inconsiderate oafs!  I live in the middle of my own little acre and there is an empty acre West and more South. This should tell you that my neighbors are not real close there. Ah, but a doggie voice can carry for miles on the night air!  And the fact that the neighbors East have probably a total of  9 dogs makes for a situation that might drive me mad. 
First the dog that I had never heard bark, so he must be new over there.  And big, I might add, if his bark is any indication.  He barked several times and the 9 answered.  Then he howled.  That seemed to really get their attention!  Now, have you ever tried to sleep with a howling cacophony of beasts of all sizes and shapes?  And just as I would start to drift off, the leader would remember that he was outside, alone and wanted someone to come and pet him.  So that is how I spent my night.  My dogs were very quiet and complacent in that they felt no need to add to the melee. For that I was grateful.
And then about 4:30 AM my little eyes popped open and it was very quiet.  I think that is what woke me up!  Complete silence except for the occasional chirp of a cricket.  Now the key here is I was now awake.  I could have lain there for hours, but when I wake up, I get up.  I do not fall back asleep.  Oh, I will when I set down in the recliner to watch the news or Jeopardy! but not while I am laying there in my bed in my jammies with the sun thinking about coming up.  I do some of my best work in the wee, wee hours.  So, I get up and make my coffee and listen intently for the dogs.  They have all apparently worn themselves completely out, because there is nary a sound.
Now, I can devote myself to thinking about how I could possibly get even with those jerks over there with the howling dog.  I at one point in time had a spotlight that would light up the hillside a mile or so away.  I am going to look in the top of the garage because I think that is where I put it when I burned a hole in my doily with it.  I am going to find it and mount it on a pole out there and point it at their bedroom window.  I will plug it in to a sensor box so every time their dog barks the light will come on for just a few seconds.  I am telling you that thing is bright!  If I leave it on, my meter will explode and if it doesn't it will burn all the vegetation between here and there.  So it shall be internittent.  That should do it.
Ok, enough of my tale of woe.  It is a new day.  No dogs are barking.  I will go let my geese out and then cook me an egg or two.  Then I shall stroll up the road to see my step daughter and pick up some stuff she has that needs altered.  When I get home, I will set in my recliner and catch Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and if I happen to drift off, well that is just the breaks of the game.  Not like I have anything to do today, since it is Labor Day and the last holiday of the summer season.  Someone will call me later and invite me over because they are having a cook out and I am always hungry.  And I am always fun!  Or at least I am when I get my good nights sleep.
Caio!  (Did I spell it right?)

Well, the kiddies are on vacation, again.

You know what amazes me?  The son and his girlfriend work 32 hours a week and are just absolutely exhausted from that effort.  When I was raising the babies, I worked my regular job at the Red Carpet Restaurant 6 days a week, 8 hours a day for 48 hours.  Then I went to the bakery for a 3 hour shift 5 days a week.  So that total came to 63 hours.  Oh, and some times I would take a shift at the Dutch Mill as barmaid, just so I could go dancing.  Then I was home for the fun parts of cleaning, laundry, and all the other fun stuff that kept a home running.

After the kids got a little bigger and the divorce was reality and I came to Colorado and another divorce was another reality, I worked in an office 40 hours a week, waited tables in a restaurant 18 hours a week, cooked 2 shifts for another 16 hours and went to school  3 hours a night  5 nights a week to finish my degree. (Please note here that I remained on the Deans List the whole time and finished #2 in my class.) That was a total of 89 hours.  And of course with all the coming and going I lost a lot of time.  And of course, there was that sleeping thing that had to go on.  Oh, and dating.  Speed dating I called it.  I did manage to marry once in that time frame.  I had to quit the restaurant at that time since the guy was very needy, but that is neither here nor there in this musing.

There is a point to this narrative.  The kids are on vacation.  When they come back from vacation they are off to Grand Junction and some where else for training in their jobs.  Then comes the fun part.  These two over worked people in the prime of thier lives are moving out of my house.  They are moving into thier very own space.  The will be cooking, cleaning, paying bills, maintaining a yard, doing thier own laundry and all the stuff that adults are expected to do when they become adults.

Now I know you remember little Bret as the wide eyed little fellow who was so innocent he stunk, but times have changed.  He works and earns a paycheck.  He has wrecked his car twice, been in trouble with me several times for his choices, has a live in girl friend and it is time to cut the cord.  I want him to get out in the real world and get a taste of that while he is young and still knows all the answers.  And, let's face it, I have spent 55 years raising kids and I am tired.  I want to clean my house and it stays clean.  If I want cabbage for supper I can have it.  I do not want to worry anymore about whether or not there are clean towels in the cupboard.  I use one towel for 2 or three days.  They use 2 or three towels per shower per day and when they are done they are "dirty".  My washer and dryer run constantly.

I am sure we will have a "house warming party" of some sort.  I am giving them my deep fat fryer and a gallon of cooking oil.  That should hold them for a week or so.  I am also giving them my pots and pans.  I bought them when Kenneth passed and kept them in pristine shape hanging from the rack in my kitchen until they started cooking.  Since they prefer thier pans with burned on grease and gouges, I will give them these and I will buy new ones.  I am giving them most of the towels, all the queen size sheets except my pretty lavender flowered ones.  Lots of blankets.  A couple dressers.  Not my drafting table and not the round drop leaf oak table.  A snow shovel, a rake, a regular shovel, my Batter Pro..... Lots of stuff I no longer have any use for when they leave.  But I will also buy them some new stuff.  Not going to just use them for a dumping ground. 

Do not think I am complaining for myself.  Here is the deal.  What a culture shock this is going to be when they reach for a towel and none is there!  Or when they look at a sink full of dishes and it is there!  And I would like to be a fly on the wall when they get the first electric bill.  They may then understand what I was talking about.  They buy their own groceries now, but only because they eat differently than I do.  Bret thinks lettuce is what food eats!  Days go buy when I subsist on a "no meat" diet.  Not because I am a vegetarian, but because I just don't bother with the meat stuff. 

Now, these kids are great at getting up on the days they need to work and they pack thier lunch.  Then they come home and play video games.  Some times I cook.  Sometimes they cook.  Or some times I  cook and they cook.  Rather informal so the cooking thing I beleive they can do.  It is just the rest of it I worry about.  But, here is the deal, there is a thing called "pride in ownership" that I am hoping will kick in here.  I think it will.  And if it doesn't, I am 30 miles away and can not see thier house from here.  They can even fight all night and I won't know.  Ahh, ignorance is surely bliss! 

Fall is in the air, believe it or not!

I know it is a little hard to believe that Fall is almost here when you are sweating your way through another one of those 100 degree days, but trust me on this!  I am setting here in my jammies with by coffee and looking out my office window at the Cherry tree.  And there is another bone of contention with me.  Kenneth and I bought that Cherry tree when we first moved in here almost 30 years ago.  Bought it and two Peach trees.  The Peach trees stood side by side in the front yard and the one on the right was loaded with the biggest sweetest peaches you ever seen.  Course in my little Utopia here,  you only get a crop every 7 years.  But when you get one, it is fantastic!  So the one on the right was prolific and the one on the left must have been a boy cause it never even bloomed.  Finally the bores got to them both and they had to be pulled out.

And all the while the Cherry tree which we planted right out side the office window grew like a weed into a beautiful specimen.  Every year it was covered with blooms and every year not a cherry in sight.  The neighbors have one that is always loaded and the bees are swarming on mine, but not a cherry one.  I have to get out there every few years and trim around on it to keep it from rubbing on the house.  I have thought that maybe I would take it down, but the birds and squirrels like to play in the branches and peer in here at me, so it stays.

When we were hauling in Paonia we went and picked Apricots on the BLM, which you can do.  I had a bread sack full that I brought home and made into jam.  I threw the seeds out by the septic tank and the next Spring I had lots of seedlings, which I planted here and at my mother in law's.  I am down to only two, but they faithfully produce every 7 years.  The reason that happens every 7 years is the weather pattern more than something mystical, I  think.  I do not like Apricots, but some people do and the ducks (before they were fox food) and geese love them.  Course either way, I have to pick them.

So this is how it goes around here... The back acre is barren except for goat heads which the geese refuse to eat regardless of what you and I both heard about them eating goat heads!  The garden area is weed free for the first month of planting and sprouting season and then my mind wanders and it gets hot and the weeds take over.  But the zucchini produces prolifically and I chop them for the geese.  Saves on grain.

The yard area is pretty well going to pot.  At one time I had 64 rose bushes which I fed and pruned faithfully, but the last couple years the ground has gotten so far down there that it has become impossible to do what was once so easy and so much fun!  So the rose bushes are about gone.  Except by the front gate and in the back.  And the Choke Cherry bush that I planted 20 years ago has now spread out and enveloped most of the side yard.  It has completely swallowed my Austrailian Copper  Rose and is encroaching on the Lavender and Sage Herb garden.  But you know what?  I think this will make a very nice wild life area.  The birds have first call on any fruit that pops up out there since they are a hell of a lot faster than me, so why bother?  The Raspberry bush has thorns sharp enough to pierce my heart so that fruit is gone.  The Rhubarb is inside the protection of the Rambling Rose which has thorns with hooks that have left scars all over me.  I think me and and Round Up are going to have us some quality time this fall.

But any way, what I started out to tell you is this, fall is in the air.  I once more have not gotten done what I dreamed of last winter.  So here is the plan now, as I see it.  Fall is here.  I am too late for the Spring pruning.  I think I will take a drive to the mountains and enjoy the fall colors.  I will call Renate and Val and Dale and we will have a tiny picnic.  Then I will come home and once more start thinking about what I am going to do this next Spring.  I will write it down so I remember.  Trim the Evergreens on the North side of the house.  Trim the Cherry tree out of the rain gutter.  Top the Austree by the car port.  Oh, and do something with that tin shed!  Or not...........

Now I have not thought of this man in forever!

  There is no picture of this guy.  Well there is one of him in overalls standing in front of an orphanage.  That was where he lived.  See, many years before he met my mother, my father was married and had 5 kids.  Two of them died of something called "Sand Pneumonia".  A boy and a girl.  Then his wife died.  My father put the remaining 3 sons in an orphanage. Earl was adopted by a family named Siefert.  Richard by a family named Nichols.  Gene was never adopted and eventually left the orphange and went into the Army.  Both he and Richard served in World War II.

 Earl went to work at the power plant in Hutchinson and eventually retired from there.  He had a lovely wife named Gertrude and we of course, called her "Gertie".  They had a daughter, Lorainne, and two sons named Leon and Leonard ( I think).  Earl was a part of our growing up years.  Richard moved to Nebraska and then to Denver.  He never really fit in with society.   He was never married and came to visit us on rare occasions. 

  But Gene!  William Eugene Bartholomew!  There was a character.  I first recall seeing him when I was 4 or 5 years old.  He had just gotten out of the Army and came to our house in Nickerson.  Then he disappeared for several years.  Then he appeared again.  Every time he came he went to the Arkansas River to stay alone for several days. Then, poof! he was gone again.  By the time I reached high school I found out why he was disappearing .  He had a wife.  He had a son.  He had a bad habit of writing checks on some one elses account.  And of course, law enforcement had a bad habit of locking him up! Around this time of my life 2 things happened.  Gene was locked up and the movie "Picnic" was made in our town.  I took my brownie camera my brother Jake had sent me from Germany and went to take pictures.   The assistant director took my camera and went and took pictures of Kim Novak and Bill Holden behind the scenes.  He took 7 or 8 pictures.  I was on cloud nine when those pictures were developed.  I had pictures of movie stars!  So I took my precious treasures and tucked them in an envelope and sent them to my dear brother, Gene, in care of the Lansing Prison there in Eastern Kansas.  He wrote me lots of letters, you know.  Wrote them in Calligraphy!  Practicing his craft, I guess.

  And for years after that I told people that I "used to have pictures of Kim Novak and  Bill Holden that were taken on my very own camera".  I never saw the pictures again.  I do not know where the negatives went.  I never saw my brother Gene after he got out of Lansing.  We did search for him, but the last anyone saw of him was when he was in jail in Nebraska for vagrancy and they let him out on the edge of town headed west.  Never a word after that.  Like he walked off into the sunset and poofed.  Earl and Richard have long since passed and I am sure Gene has also.  But I will let you in on a little secret.  Promise not to tell? 

  In that closet right over there not 12 feet away is a box.  And in it are my treasures.  I have my grandma's braid.  I have Bret's ponytail.  And I have letters from Gene Bartholomew to our father that were written by a 10 year old boy in an orphange.  In one he is so proud because they got new overalls.  And in one he pleads for his father to write.  Somewhere in this world is a man named Billy Bartholomew.  He may not be alive any longer, but I bet he has heirs that would like to read these letters.  I know I would like to talk  to him.  Isn't it strange how we hide little pieces of our past and never pull them out or think about them and then when we least expect it, we wake up and find our selves recalling so much of the past that we can not even put it all down on paper?  Life has a funny little way of catching up with us and bringing us to our knees.

  And that is where you will find me this morning.  I have lost so much in my life.  Friends, family, pets, memories....  I want something to hold on to.  If there is anyone out there who knows a Bartholomew let me know.  My father, Ruben Floyd Bartholomew was born in Hudson, Kansas and is buried near there now with his son and daughter.  And my brother Delbert Leroy Bartholomew.