More Ponderings...

Today was one of those days that self-introspection was needed.  We had a busy, busy weekend so my kids were off the wall crazy.  Luckily, Mondays are my Yoga day at the Y so it was nice to have peace and quiet, even for just an hour!

I always feel a little stupid while doing Yoga.  I've only done it a few times so I'm sure I look pathetic, but besides that, I'm not really into the whole "balanced aura" thing.  Still, Yoga does really force you to think about your life.

So as I pondered things, I started thinking about friendship.  What makes a friend?  Is it being the same age/gender/marital status?  For some that's all it takes.  For others, they yearn for something deeper than just the superficial statuses.  In grade school all it took to find a best friend was sharing the same toys.  In Jr. High, it was mutual hatred for something.  Be it boys, a certain girl, parents, life.  Jr. High was always awkward.  Then in high school, friends were made by liking the same activities.  You're a band geek?  Me too!  Let's be friends.  At graduation you'd swear you'd always keep in touch, but reality sets in.  Now looking back, I'm only close friends with one girl from high school.

Now in my 30's, friendships are made a little differently.  It seems that I'm drawn to those women who are in the same life position as me.  Married with children, have a career (even if it's a staying home with the kids), active, likes to goof off and have fun.  You'd think that'd be easy.  Nope.  It's amazing how much harder it is to make friends in my 30's!  I thought I'd join the church play group.  Nope, meets on a day I work.  So I thought I'd go to a women's retreat.  Couldn't do it.  I'm not into the whole "let's hold hands and rejoice that we're women" thing.  The only girl I want to hold hands with is my daughter.  After that, it's just weird.

So as I pondered while in the downward dog pose, I thought of all the friendships I've had over the years.  It took me a minute, not because I've had that many good friendships, but because I never think well with my butt up in the air.  Once we moved onto a different pose, the pondering commenced.

I'm in a stage in my life where friendship is more important to me than it ever has been.  My stress level has skyrocketed over the past few months.  Joel can only listen to me vent for so long before he starts to get that glazed over look.  We all need girlfriends who can understand how frustrating it is to work out constantly and not lose weight.  Or make an awesome dinner, only to have your 5-year-old gag while eating it (that happened tonight!).  And who doesn't want to share the awesomeness of pedicures with a close friend?  It's always nice to have someone with you when you can't understand the technician.  Between the 2 of you, surely you can translate.  :)

As my Yoga class came to an end, I thought to myself, it's time to work on the friendships I have and appreciate those who make me who I am.

And I also need to work on my Yoga poses.  I look ridiculous.

You're standing on Jesus!

Joel has an enormous family.  He's 1 of 6 kids, and the only boy.  You can imagine how awesome it was to be the only girl marrying into that family.  Truly, his family is great though.  His family is also quite fertile.  Three of his sisters have 5 kids each.  Some quick math and you can see that's already 15 grandkids for his parents.  Add in our 2, plus another 2 and you get...19 grandkids.  Yep, fertile bunch.

So his family likes to get together for every most birthdays for the 19 grandkids.  The problem is that no one has a house big enough to hold everyone.  Our house is the largest and that's just sad.  Still, we all pile on top of each other to have family togetherness time.  It's exhausting stressful suffocating wonderful.  :)

Last night happened to be one of those birthday party get togethers.  It was for Joel's nephew, Nathan's 14th birthday.  Nathan's mom (Joel's sister), Annette and family live in BFE the Indianola area on a big huge acreage so there's a ton of land, but a small-ish house.  As usual, we all crammed in there, hoping everyone had showered recently.  I'm glad to say no one smelled.  Yea for us...and soap.

Because they have so much land, and it was the day before Easter, it was decided to have an Easter egg hunt.  One of Joel's many sisters went out to hide the eggs while Joel and I entertained the kids inside.  Instead of being enthralled by Joel and my skills, the kids just wanted to crowd around the front door waiting for the signal that the hunt to begin.  This of course meant that all the kids were falling and stepping all over each other.  At some point in all the raucous we heard a little voice scream, "NATHAN!  You're stepping on Jesus!"

After a moment of silence we realized that a Easter decoration showing Jesus rising from the dead had fallen off the front door and Nathan was stepping directly on Jesus' face.

Oops.

After saving Jesus from Nathan's shoe print, the hunt commenced and all was well.  Next year perhaps we'll put away the Jesus decorations before the kids take over the place.  Did I mention there are 19 of them?

Happy Easter all!

Easter Goats

I know that most people think of bunnies when they think of Easter.  I don't have any stories about bunnies, although we did have 2 for a short time.  They just sat in their cage and pooped...a lot.  It was always gross to clean out their cages.  Perhaps that's why we only had them for such a short time.

However, I have a story about goats.  As in...when I was growing up, we raised goats.

Yep, sure did.  I can't remember when we got our first goat.  I just remember having them.  Now before you think I grew up somewhere in Podunk country, let me just say that we only had the goats in the summer.  One of the men in our church was a farmer.  He always had baby goats that needed to be fed and cared for.  Apparently goats are born in the spring?  That may not be true.  I'm going with it though.

So as soon as school was out for the summer, the goats would arrive.  I can't remember how many we had, maybe 4?  We had a pen in our back yard.  Oh yes, the goat pen.  We lived on an acreage so we had plenty of space for a pen.  It was a pretty big area, fenced in and even complete with a little house for them.  So we had goats.  Because they were baby goats, they had to be bottle fed.  Remember those old Pepsi bottles?  Ya know, the big glass ones?  They aren't made anymore.  Something about the environment, although HELLO!  We were reusing them!  We were being "green" before there was an app for that.  But I digress...so each morning we'd get up, make a bottle up for the goats and go feed them.  Their milk was made from powdered milk.  I'm sure there was something else in there too but I was like 8 when this was going on.  My memory is only so good!  We'd have to attach a nipple on to the bottle and off we went.  At the time I never really thought of how large that nipple was.  Now I think, DANG!  Those suckers were huge!  The goats would gulp down that milk like they were starving.  I remember my sister and I going out to feed the goats.  For some reason we got such pleasure out of feeding them.

I've been asked why in the world we had goats.  Honestly, I have no blessed idea.  I'm sure our parents wanted us to learn about livestock or something.  Maybe be comfortable around animals??  Whatever the reason, we raised goats every summer.  We never thought that was odd.  It just...was.  Now I look back and think...huh.  We raised goats.  And fed them milk from Pepsi bottles with HUGE nipples attached.  Perhaps that is a tad...odd.

Split Pants and a Pine Tree

There has been many times over the past several years that, upon hearing the Cowell Family Kickball stories, there has been desire to join our family in our activities.  After reading this story, you may rethink that decision...

A few years ago my cousin Mike was getting married.  His fiancée-now-wife, Sandy had been a part of the Cowell Kickball Extravaganza a time or two before but I don't know that she fully comprehended the seriousness that is kickball.  Being the Cowells and the fact we do almost everything together, we decided to throw Mike and Sandy a couple's wedding shower.  For those who don't know what that is, it's basically the same as a bridal shower only men come too...and the gifts are mostly "home-ish".

So on this particular day, Sandy's mom, dad, and brother came down for the shower.  We had food and gift opening, a few cheesy games...blah, blah, blah.  And then the real fun began...KICKBALL!!!

Now the Cowells don't wimp out on kickball.  We've been known to have instant replay (Aunt Faye video tapes then we play back if there's a questionable call), the National Anthem is sang (Salli and I have a fabulous rendition we like to display), and lines are either spray painted or mowed.  Oh, and we have an electric scoreboard too.  Yep, we're hardcore.

So out we went to Uncle Don's backyard.  We figured out the teams, rules, and prepared to play.  But before all festivities could begin, Salli and I lead the group in a singing of the National Anthem.  Probably the funniest part of that was later while viewing a picture of it, Shawn had his hand over his heart.  Rumor has it, although not confirmed that Sandy's dad did the same.  We are nothing if not patriotic.  :)

The game began and was off with a bang.  At some point I was up to kick.  I'm really thinking Salli was all-time pitcher because she was uber pregnant with Natalie.  I kicked the ball and ran like the wind.  Nearing first base, I could see that the ball was being thrown towards me to get an out.  Well that just isn't acceptable.  I tried to run faster but there was a problem.  The grass was wet.  Therefore when I increasing my foot speed, all I ended up doing to sliding.  One foot went forward, the other backwards.  Now while you ponder how this looks, let me help you out.  I did the splits.  I've never before in my life done the splits.  My legs just don't go that way.  They did this day though.  I heard a ripping sound and truly though I had ripped something vital.  But as I stood up and took a look, I had ripped a hole in my pants.  In the crotch of my pants.  Classy.  However, I was safe on base!

Soon after the crotch ripping experience, I was in the fielding position.  Someone, can't remember who kicked a ball right over my head.  I went running backwards/sideways for it.  As my hands closed over that ball, I ran smack into a pine tree. I didn't just gently brush against the thing.  Nope, I annihilated it.  I was completely and totally inside the tree!  So now besides a rip in my crotch, I also had pine needles in my hair and scratches on my face from the tree.  One would think that after a head-on collision like that, concerned family members would run over to make sure I hadn't done permanent damage.  Yes, those questions were asked.  But only after it was determined I had indeed caught the ball.  Only after I had exited the tree, wiping the blood and pine needles from my face with one hand and holding the ball in the other.  Even then there was much discussion about whether or not the tree counted as the ball hitting the ground prior to being caught since, of course the tree is attached to the ground.  Then I was asked if I was ok.  I'm pretty sure by now Sandy's parents are totally thinking I am we are the most neurotic family in the world and why would Sandy want to be in it!  Can't say I blame them.  Mike's cousin (me) looked like I had been in a bar fight.

By the end of the day Sandy's family must have figured out we're not that bad because they still let her marry Mike.

Todd the Dog

When I was a kid, we always had dogs.  Living out in the country, we went through dogs fairly quickly.  Either our dog would get hit by a car (most common) or picked off by a hawk.  Ok, the hawk thing never happened but I always wondered if it would...

We had St. Bernard, schnauzers, poodles, terriers, mutts, not all at the same time, but over the years that's what we had.  When I was in Jr. High (I'm guessing about 13), we needed another dog.  The last one had died of something or other.  My brother really wanted a dachshund.  I think he just liked that he could call it a "wiener dog".  What is it with boys and the word "wiener"???  Crazy.  Anyway, my mom found a listing in the paper for a dachshund and it became ours.  His name, Shiloh's Hot Toddy.  Dumb, but we shortened it to Todd.  Over the years, Todd became my dog.  He slept with me, came to me whenever I called, followed me.  He was mine.  Of course, Todd was also the biggest annoyance ever!  He barked at absolutely everything.  If a leaf blew, he barked.  If someone sneezed, he barked.

As I went through high school, Todd became more and more annoying.  He'd bark in his sleep!  We joked that of all the dogs we'd had die over the years, Todd was the one that wouldn't die!!  By the time I left for college, he was getting up there in age.  I think he was 13?  In doggy years that's pretty old!  I went to college in Ohio for a year and of course, Todd stayed behind.  In October of that year, I remember my mom calling me to break the news that Todd had to be put down.  After I left he got sicker and sicker.  He was starting to have kidney problems and the vet was recommending all sorts of medication.  My parents are good people but a dog is a dog.  They're not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a dog.  So my mom told me Todd had been put to sleep.  Of course I was sad for a time but what can you do?  He was old.  Dogs get sick and die.  It was bound to happen sometime.

Fast forward to a few years ago.  My family was having a big get-together.  The Cowell family tends to get loud and boisterous at our functions.  We are super competitive to we'll play kickball, Catch Phrase, Rock Band, whatever we can do to challenge each other.  For some reason on this day, we started talking about dogs.  By this time, I had been married for years.  Salli and her husband were there.  Shawn and his wife was there too.  My cousins were there.  We all had stories to tell.  Most recently Salli had had to put a dog down.  But Salli being the big softy that she is didn't want her dog to suffer.  She was fearful that the dog would feel the needle go in his paw and be in pain, even though 10 seconds later he'd be dead.  Still, those 10 seconds shouldn't hurt, right?  So she did what any loving pet owner would do.  She had a friend take the dog into the woods and shoot it in the head.  Problem solved.  No pain, no suffering.  Just BAM!  Dead.

As we were all laughing at how bizarre this story was, my uncle asked "isn't that how Todd died?"

You could hear a pin drop.

WHAT?????!!!!!


Slowly all heads turned toward me.  I'm pretty sure my face had drained of blood because I remember seeing mouths moving but no sound was entering my head.  MY DOG HAD BEEN SHOT IN THE HEAD???  As I stared at my uncle, his reply had lost most of it's gusto.  He said "uh, you didn't know that?"  Nope!  Sure didn't!  My mom was quick to jump in and explain that yes, Todd was sick.  He wasn't going to live too much longer anyway and they were about to leave for Europe for a few weeks.  Who would watch Todd?  It was doubtful he'd make it to Christmas and why spend the money on a kennel when he was just going to die?  It was a mercy killing.  Truly...really...a mercy killing.

Somehow I was able to see their point.  Todd was old.  He wasn't going to last forever.  The fact that my family kept it a secret from me for almost 10 years was quite surprising.

And that is how Todd the dog shall always be remembered.  He just wouldn't die...until he was shot in the head with a .22

My hatred of Strawberry Shortcake

When I was younger, I shared a bed with my big sister Salli.  It was a double bed and since we were all of 5 and 7-years-old, the bed was plenty big for the two of us.  Many nights Salli and I would snuggle under our Strawberry Shortcake canopy bed and fall asleep.  Everything in our room as Strawberry Shortcake.  The bedding, the curtains, even the garbage can.  We loved Strawberry Shortcake with her pretty red curls and big smile.  And she loved us too, we just knew it!

One night Salli didn't feel so well.  Our mom took her temperature, gave her some medicine and sent her to bed.  I crawled into bed with her and promptly fell asleep, dreaming of strawberries and shortcake.  Later that night Salli woke up.  She knew she was going to be sick.  She must have wanted to leave everyone else sleeping so she figured she'd just roll over and throw up.  Quite logical to a 7-year-old.  In her feverish delirium, she failed to realize which side was what.  Out came the barf...right on my head.  Yep, my wonderful sister threw up on top of me then immediately rolled over and fell back to sleep.  My mother heard the retching and came running into our room.  Imagine her dismay when Salli is fast asleep and I'm covered in vomit.  So in the middle of night, I had to have a bath and the sheets needed to be changed.  Suddenly Strawberry Shortcake didn't look so great.  Every time I looked at her, visions of vomit came rushing back.  I was scarred.  

And that's how I ended up with vomit in my hair and my hatred of all things Strawberry Shortcake.  

Things that make me go "huh"....

SO I was thinking the other day of all the weirdness in the world.  There are all sorts of oddities that just make me curious.  Who thought these things up?  Who thought it was a good idea?  Why is this taking up my time?

Here is a sampling:
1.  Why is it a crime to impersonate an officer or a doctor but not to impersonate a decorated war veteran?  If I pretend to be a doctor I could be arrested.  If I pretend that I was in a war and won all sorts of awards, I'm protected by the 1st amendment.  Really?

2.  Why do some mothers talk to their child like they're idiots?  Seriously, do you think the baby is going to understand "goo goo ga ga" any more than they understand the dictionary?  They are babies.  Let them grow up a bit before they realize they've been birthed by a moron.

3.  Cloth Diapers.  Who in the world thought this was a good idea?  Now I realize that years ago, this was the only option.  Mr. Huggy and Mr. Pamper hadn't yet invented their diapers.  Still, in this day and age, cloth diapers?  What in the world?  I understand the whole "global warming" thing, I really do.  Here's my problem with cloth diapers.  You have to wash them!  Pee and poop filled grossness mixed in with my towels?  All I can think of is poopy and pee-y water swishing around spreading the nastiness to all other clothes in the machine.  I realize you could wash these by themselves.  Well, then I'd be thinking of the leftover particles stuck in there.  Kinda like when someone leaves a present in the toilet and it's all disintegrated and gross.  Not planning on washing my clothes in that water.  Ewww.  Almost everyone I know who has used cloth diapers quickly switch to disposable.  When my brother used them on his child, he said they had to scrape the poop off in the toilet before washing the diapers.  Excuse me?  Scrape the poop off?????  That's just wrong.

4.  *I'm going to get on a Medicaid rant for a moment*  Why is it that some people on Medicaid have a sense of entitlement?  I mean really, you can't afford your own healthcare, your own food, your own gas but I'm supposed to pay for you to have fake nails and a really nice cell phone?  I get so irritated when a patient walks in with Medicaid insurance, flashing her fake nails, pulling out her Blackberry, acting like I'm a huge nuisance to her, then after the exam asking if I'll sign her gas voucher so she can be reimbursed for mileage.  Really?  How about you don't get your nails filled this week.  Then you could afford gas.

5.  Dr. Oz.  I love how he gives an incredibly vague symptom then says anyone experiencing this may have cancer, or a heart condition, or gangrene.  What in the world?  You have a hangnail?  Quick, go to your doctor because you may have necrotizing fasciitis.  Bloated?  It's ovarian cancer.   It's amazing that one man with MD after his name can diagnose the entire world without ever evaluating a patient.  Equally amazing is that doctors will order an exam for a patient simply because the patient complains that "Dr. Oz told me to go to my doctor".  Wow.  Makes me wonder what else you'd do just because Dr. Oz says so.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box.  Don't send me hate mail.  These are just my opinions of things that just boggle my mind.  If you feel differently, fine.  Write you own blog :)