Thanksgiving in Arkansas and Stuff

I am on a road trip seeing family and just breathing in the open spaces in my head and heart. I am near the place where I was born and grew up.

Celebrating Thanksgiving and having a wonderful time in central Arkansas is something I have not done in years. Shelly, my niece, and I are sleeping together on an air bed in a room that is normally used for the dogs. This should have been a sign that we were in for trouble. We went to bed about two in the morning and talked until about three something. Awake at 6:00 a.m. with my butt lower than my head and feet. Obviously the air had seeped out the air mattress. Shelly was snoring with vigor... I got up to find the pump and suddenly she sat straight up out of her deep dead noisy sleep and said, "the air is gone". I staggered out of what is called the "Dog Room" where we are sleeping to the media room or "The Cave" where 7 teenage boys were sleeping to find the pump. When I opened the door to that room the smells that smacked me in the face brought me to full awake mode. After stepping around all of the bodies I found the pump and went back to my assigned spot to air up the bed. Shelly rolled off the mattress and staggered out of the room to some other place and there I was alone with the pump and a once again a slowly wilting air mattress. Time to get up and make coffee. It was 6:30.

There are twenty-five of us in this place for Thanksgiving and it is such a blessing. I have not been able to be with some of these folks in over 10 years. Some of them were tots when I last saw them and now they are adults...far too long. Now they having their own babies, going to war in the near future, trying to decide what will be the best thing to do in this crazy economy, where to find a job....pay off school loans, and just live in peace.

Story time...Shopping

This is Landon last summer.

It is such fun bonding again with my grandkids. The boys are just a little wary of me sometimes. Landon is 3 and being all boy he is just to rough, tough, and busy to take the time to learn to do all functions in and on the potty. So I've resort to bribery. I believe in bribery...it has keep me out of some sticky spots in the old days. Any normal gunslinger would resort to bribery to keep from using her guns. So I offered money and a shopping trip to Landon if he would do his number 2 function in the potty. It worked. After a long amount of time the deed was done and he came to collect his money. The next day we went to where all good abuelas take their guys to pay of their debts...Wal-Mart. We went straight to the toy section and loaded up the cart to look and touch it all. Then one by one he put back the things he didn't want. He finally decided on a laser gun that made a wonderful noise and a produced a lot of flashing light. Well, we (being his mom, dad and myself) thought we had this problem whipped...wrong. The next day the process started all over again. I will not go to the potty. After a lot of talking, nothing was changing his mind, not even bribery. I told him I wanted my gun back. He looked me squarely in the eyes and told me, "It don't work," and strolled out of the living room. That little turd.

Well over and out for this time.

Oh by the way we moved out of the "Dog Room".