The Grass is Always Greener...or is it???

Every once in awhile a person will have a bad day. But then you hear a story about some other poor schmuck that has it worse, and then you realize that you may have a pretty green pasture to lie in after all.

There are days that I want to pitch it all and come home from work and switch jobs on the spur of the moment. I left a job once before with no job lined up "on the outside" and it took me two months to find a pretty good replacement job. Two months of pity party was about all my friends could take and they almost threw a big party when I finally found my next job. I had put all of my eggs in the "work your way up through the production environment in the hopes to one day take on the Supervisory role for that deparment" basket only to find that I did not possess what the company was looking for in a Supervisor. It seems that in order to be a good supervisor you have to be a tough guy on occasion, and I was too much of a nice guy to be a supervisor. That was a long two months for me, too, and I will advise everyone to line up a job before telling your boss that you quit...especially in today's economy.

There are days that your spouse grates on your nerves and you wonder why you stick it out. Your kids can be major pains in the keister (especially the teenagers), and most of your co-workers can be idiots on a daily basis. But I have news for you: You also grate on your spouse's nerves, you are a pain in your teenager's butt, and you also can be an idiot at work. But let's take a look at our landscaping.

One day in particular started out as the previous one had left off. I can't remember specifics, nor are they important, but I must have had a run-in with my wife and oldest daughter the night before, and I was headed off to work with a company full of village idiots. Part of my job is to QC production tickets to make sure the scope of work writen in the job ticket matches what the final product should be. When I call a CSR to make revisions to the scope of work because there is something written incorrectly, I occasionally will be accused of singling them out or being too nit-picky. Yep, you write something wrong, but it is my issue because I have nothing better to do with my time than to point out someone else's errors. So off I wen to work waiting for someone to cross my path incorrectly and I heard a lady on the radio calling in to send a message to her husband who was stationed overseas. A few minutes later I arrived at work with a lady who married her fiance about a month and a half before he was deployed to Iraq for a 12 month tour that was exteneded to almost 18 months. After he came home safely, thank the Lord, they decided to start a family, only to loose their first pregnancy. Again, thank the Lord, they are expecting a baby girl in mid-January.

By this time I had alread stopped and thought to myself, "Hey, buddy, you may think you have it bad, but here I am able to go home and see my wife and family every day, where the lady on the radio and the lady sitting next to me may not see her husband ever again. Another lady I work with can't have kids of her own, so she'll never know what it's like to raise one of these human beings from an infant to adult; to teach them how to walk and to talk, and to walk them to school for the first time; to bear with them when they talk back to you, and to one day walk them down the aisle, or to see them walk down the aisle with their new bride as you did many years ago; and to pick up the phone when they call to say, "Dad, I used one of your lines on my kids today."

And how bad is my job, really??? I don't have to wear camouflage to keep from getting shot at. I work in an air conditioned office, not the middle of the desert where it is 115 at 11:00 pm. My work day is 8:30 am until 5:00 pm, and I don't have to pull guard detail, or get woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of mortars, only to the sound of a child crying from a bad dream.

So the next time you think you're having a bad day, stop and take a look around and ask yourself if you're that bad off. You may just see someone else making lemonade out of the lemons they've been dealt.

Or, if you subscribe to the Cowboy At Heart lifestyle, remember this little story and the moral that follows:

Two young boys were entered into a sociological experiment. One of the boys was placed in a room full of every imaginable toy; the other boy in a room full of manure. The doors were closed and a couple hours later the boys were checked on to see how things were proceeding.

The boy in the room full of toys was sobbing incoherently and all of the toys were broken. After calming the boy down, they found that he had no one to play with and he became bored with playing by himself and broke up all of the toys.

When the sociologists entered the second room they all had to duck to avoid the manure being flung hither and yon. The laughter and squeals of delight coming from the young boy was almost deafening. They calmed him down and in utter shock and disbelief asked him why in the world he was so happy about being placed in the most horrid environment imaginable.

Out of breath, the second young boy replied with a huge grin and a sparkle in his eye, "THERE HAS TO BE A PONY IN HERE SOMEWHERE!!!"

Keep an eye out for ponies. They're out there, but you may have to look closely to find them. You'll most likely find them where the grass is the greenest.

You Still Have Time

There has been quite a bit of disheartening news lately that makes me take a moment to stop and think. We don't know how long we'll be on this rock and we can't let those little moments pass us by.

Friday of last week the news was of a 16 year old girl who was evidently driving her 13 year old and 2 year old step brothers to school and daycare because an adult family member was recovering from surgery of some sort and unable to drive. The girl somehow lost control of the vehicle on wet roads and plunged into the Green River which was running high due to the rainy weather. The girl made it out of the car and dove down trying unsuccessfully to rescue her step brothers. Authorities have since pulled the vehicle out of the river but are unable to find the 13 year-old.

From North Carolina came the news of a teenage girl who spent most of her high school years campaigning the importance of teen driving safety and was tragically killed by a drunk driver mere blocks from her home.

These news bits leave me and others pondering why these events happen and question the Big Picture; for those of us who believe in God, how could He let this happen? We don't have the answer and we won't know what the Big Picture is until we are standing by His side. Until that time we have every opportunity to not let these precious moments slip from our grasp.

So things aren't always Puppy Dogs and Roses in life and you may have that little squabble with your kids or your parents. You may even get into the Big One with a family member or a friend and go for years without keeping the lines of communication open. You still have time. Take the time to forgive and move forward. What happened in the past is behind you and we can't go back to undo what has been done, but we can move forward and tell these people what they mean to us before they are gone, or before we go for that matter.

We don't know how long we will be on this Rock, but we still have time.

Welcome to My World

Allow me to introduce you to my family...you may want to grab a cup of coffee before reading any further.

I am blessed with a LARGE family, and outside of last week, a healthy family. I thank the Lord for this each day. Now if I could find the time to let them know how proud I am and how thankful I am, I'd be the richest man on Earth. That is my spiritual quest in life.

I have a wonderful wife who is extremely creative with what she can do with a piece of fabric, turning it from woven textiles rolled off a bolt in a fabric store to a menagerie of Halloween costumes, formal attire, or keepsake quilts. She is by no stretch of the imagination Mother Nature, or at least Mother Nurturer. She really has a grasp and connection to each of the children and knows how to coerce...I mean persuade them into doing their chores without the veins in her forehead popping out. I have the corner on that market. She is also THE Top Chef. The Thanksgiving before we got married, I took my grandparents to dinner at Chanon's house. At the end of dinner, my grandfather pushed his chair back, patted his stomach, and said to me in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice, "Boy, she's a good cook. Now don't screw up and loose her."

The day we got married, I was happy to walk down the aisle with Chanon on one hand and Quinn on the other. It's one thing to decide to spend your life with another person and share your hopes, dreams, joys and sorrows. It's another thing to accept into your life a child at the same time. I knew that day was coming, so I had my wedding band specially made (by my mom) to signify the joining of three souls. The ring is made of three pieces of gold; two yellow gold to symbolize Chanon and Quinn, and one white to symbolize myself, all three joined in the never-ending circle. No preparing myself slowly about it; just jumping right in with both feet and praying that I don't step in a big ol' pile of...you get the picture. That is a lot of work, and at times it is well worth the effort. Then she became A TEENAGER!!!!

Between Chanon and I there are four more children: Zane who is 6 now, Willow is 5 and Ayla and Harlee, the twins, just turned two. TWINS?!?!?!? You find yourself asking the question, "Now we have three kids, what's one more??? I have three siblings and mom and dad turned out OK." (Enter nervous chuckle here...) Then you go in for an ultrasound to find out boy or girl, and the tech finds two little heads looking back in the monitor and you realize God has a sense of humor and replies in His made-for-the-big-screen booming voice (I actually heard this in a booming voice, no lie), "HERE, TAKE TWO...THEY'RE SMALL!!!!!"

Life in this house is NEVER a dull moment. Willow was daddy's little girl and hates to share her daddy with two new sisters. Quinn jumped in on that band wagon too, and even now at 13 she tries to cuddle with daddy...who happens to be siting in the recliner with the twins and Willow. I can tell what the barometer reading is when I hear "Daddy!!!" or a stereo pounding from the other side of the locked door. Then you come across last week...the 24 hour bug ripped through this house like a Texas Twister through a trailer park, taking out everything under the age of 38, leaving in its wake a path of destruction including dirty dishes and laundry. Which kid can still go to school, which one needs the antibiotics, and which one needs the Motrin...I just realized Chanon has never fashioned a nurse's uniform for her Halloween wardrobe. Hmmm...I'll leave that description to my personal memoirs!!!! RRROWWWW!!!!

So the kids are mostly back up and vertical now, although Willow succumbed to the bug over the weekend, so she's flying at about half-mast, but she's hanging in there like a little trooper and hasn't missed school. The others are trying to get their appetite back, and tonight's quickie dinner of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Beef & Vegetable Soup went half-hearted. So I let Zane off with a half-bowl, and a fruit snack for dessert. Quinn quickly brought it to my attention that life is not fair.

"What?!?!?!? I can't believe this!!! You guys go soooo easy on him. When I was his age you would have made me sit there until I finished the soup!!!"

"Sweetie, I need to tell you that you were never his age. You were born a teenager and knew everything coming out of the womb, just like your mother and I were born old people and were never children and therefore know nothing about what it is like to be a teenager."

For once, she couldn't argue with my logic and started to take care of the dishes. I guess I was possessed by a moment of intellect and thought "What would Chanon do???" and it just flowed.

Damn, I'm good!!! Thanks, honey.

Failed attempts

Well, like I said, I'm new to this world of on-line posting. While I tried to go for the cute-humor, I failed at my attempt...miserably as my wife pointed out. She said the play on words for "logging" was too cerebral...when in actuality, the posting was locked as a potential [canned process meat product packaged in gellateanous matter] blog. Word to the wise...keep the repetitive words and phrases to a minimum and avoid a block on your posting.

So what's a Country Boy to do??? Saddle back up and give it another go. This whole new techie world we live in may take some getting used to. I've grown up a bit behind the times, my first experience with cable tv being in 1990 with my first apartment and roommate. By that time, MTV had stopped playing videos all the time and developed into producing "The Real World" and other shows which were fictitious anywhere outside of Beverly Hills.

A few nights ago I thought about what my wife wrote in one of her postings about kids today and their speed and agility at text messaging. I was in the middle of my Community Band rehearsal and the alto sax player next to me dug her phone out and started texting in the middle of her eight measure rest...and had ample time to not miss a beat when she came back in. I on the other hand was so amazed that she could text with two thumbs that I missed my intro and had to catch back up a few measures later. I think they can do it so quickly because they set their phone up to WORD rather than Abc. Either way, I can't dial the phone number with two thumbs, let alone spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I get thumb-tied.

Well, here's to what I hope to be a successful post. Happy reading.

How to Blog

My wife started up a blog to keep her from losing her adult conversation abilities during the day. We are now down to just the two-year-old Twin daughters at home during the day, and the older three in school full-time. YAY!!!!! There's only so much Barney, Caillou, or Baby Einstein an adult can absorb in one day without the cheese slipping off your Ritz...the sanity screws twisting themselves all the way out, sending the parent skittering wildly out of control until the other parent arrives home to be tagged like a Big-Time Wrestler in a Cage Of Doom match. Not that my wife utilizes the Magnavox Babysitter all the time. She has a schedule of events throughout the day with a splash of TV in the midst to allow for Blogging, housechores, coffee, telephone calls, sewing, scrapbooking, cooking, paying bills, and showers. I'm kind of digressing, but you will probably see this happen quite a lot as my blogs go on and on and on...it's one of the qualities everyone likes about me. They talk about it all the time. My wife told me I should start a blog since I have a gift of gab and creative writing abilities. (I think deep down inside she's hoping that with a Blog I can release some of the pent up conversations that remain bottled up on a daily basis. She can tell when people are too busy to talk at work because I come home and start in like the Chatty Kathy Doll. When you pull the string but the talking spool doesn't seem to take up the pull string and the conversation NEVER....ENDS!!! Digression #2.)



So I researched how to be successful with your blog, and I found that you should go to a Blogging Camp to work with other Bloggers. When you first walk in to a Blogging camp it can be quite overwhelming. Some Bloggers are rookies and others have been Bloggers all their lives. Some Bloggers also are second generation Bloggers, born from a good stock of hard-working Bloggers who helped build the Blogging Industry with their bare hands, hard work, determination and know-how. As a rookie walking into the Blogging Industry for the first time, the old-time Bloggers are cautious of divulging all of their trade secrets until they see whether you are going to stick with Blogging or just try it out for a little while.



One item I found that will keep you comfortable is a good set of Blogger Boots. They keep your feet dry and also offer good arch support. Depending on who you talk to, Steel Toes are a necessity or a recommendation. In my homble opinion, look for Bloggers in the industry who require Steel Toe Blogger Boots. The safety of a Blogger is not something that should be taken lightly. Without your toes you can't stand to Blog. Alwys think: SAFETY 1ST!!!!



The most successful part of any Blogging Operation is the hardware. Spend some money on the equipment you need on a daily basis and you can one day be proud to say you're a Blogger. My wife recently upgraded her computer system to help her in her Blogging efforts and to manage her home-run business. As with all technological advances it is wise to keep in touch with the technology used in the Blogging Industry. It has been evolving ever since it started up, and is in a constant state of evolution. Don't be afraid of progress. Always strive to Blog efficiently and wisely.



Look for future Blogging articles from me. I'll do my best to keep you informed on technological advances in the Industry. Next time I may talk about Blogging Trucks; Mack, Peterbuilt, Kenworth, or just that old Ford parked under the apple tree. Until then....



Keep on Blogging!!!!