SS - thank you. Worked too late tonight. Just struggling there right now, too.

Need to look for car tomorrow.

YUCK!!!!!

I hate buying a car. Even more than I hate buying a swimsuit.

No hygienic people around?

I was on the INTERSTATE yesterday and I was WONDERING if NEAK and her husband were in one of those big old trucks I kept seeing...

Hi, Mimi--Good question!! They left Pennsylvania last night (I was going to say "PA" but it didn't look right!) and will be in Tracy, CA to reload on Tuesday or Wednesday. So whatever it is that takes them the straightest from there to here is how they'll be travelling. I have my hands full with their 3 kids and my extremely-confused father, who has never fully regained possession of his marbles since he fell last week and knocked himself out. Neak and AJ are on their own, travelwise, although I did watch TV for about 15 minutes Thursday night to tell them the weather forecast for what they were going to be driving through.

Mr. Wonder-Nerd, age 11, ended up in Canada for 6 wks. with his dad, but without his schoolbooks. He's in danger of flunking 5th grade, so I am "bonding" with him from morning till night trying to catch up this mountain of schoolwork by the 15th. Just 3 more grandkids to go, and I'm NEVER taking 5th grade again!!!

tl

I will have a little prayer for your whole family. Several times. I do really informal prayers....sort of like prayer memos but I have a feeling that God is grateful to hear from any of His children. Now matter how. No matter where. No matter when.

Meanwhile, I found this poem in my e-mail.

Susanna - by Anne Porter

I pray for all of you...for Neak and AJ's safety, for T&L, her father, and of course, Neaksis and all the children. I'm praying that Cinderella start having days where she doesn't hurt and that she finds a good car at a reasonable price, for AW and Aussie's wife and family, and AW's mum. For all of you, including starting early for SS, that he won't pull his hair out when the twins start driving. :eek:

SS, I'm fine...keeping myself busy and getting back into my arts/crafts in order to keep my sanity. I'm back on my ADs, after weaning myself off them a few weeks ago. Stuff happens. Oh, well.

Dear Lady, thank you so very much. Tomorrow is a new week and I am praying that I have a better week at work.

I pray for all my MB friends often. Sometimes it is collectively. Sometimes it is on an individual basis.

For a variety of reasons, we have had a very not-too-wonderful day. I've been teaching the kids Bible verses by memory and the one I chose to start learning tonight was Lamentations 3:22,23, where it says of God's mercies, "they are new every morning." I think we needed to be reminded that tomorrow is a fresh start and a clean slate, thank God, and go from there--without dragging today's sludge along with us.

Speaking of dragging, I think that's what my tail is about to do in the direction of bed. 3 children and one old man WAY out in left field does a lot to take the starch out of a person. Can't say that being 60 helps either!

tl

Love, smooches, and squidges to all. I read all the prayers and well-wishes with gratitude. We are driving safely...long, but safely. In fact, I personally drove the rest of the way through PA today, cut the corner off WV, all the way across OH and IN, then a little bit in IL. I'm pretty sure that 5 states in a day with me at the wheel is a new record. (Usually I get stuck with all the big states, like Texas!)

Mom, while I am still remembering, for these 2 nanoseconds anyway, Mr. C did have his schoolbooks with him. That is the scary thing. He simply chose not to utilize them a good deal of the time. AJ tried over and over ever day to get him to do his work, but with little result. He has my complete sympathy, since I know first-hand how hard it is to get that little squid to do his work. It takes a woman of forceful personality to accomplish it. I know a little boy (I just mis-typed bot instead of boy, but maybe I was right the first time) who is NOT getting to do home school next year.

Mimi, we were parked at IdleAire all day yesterday and till this morning, so it wasn't us this time. IdleAire is wonderful though - we were almost as comfortable as in a motel room. A little motel room the size of a postage stamp. With no shower. Lol, it's not really that bad - we were at a truck stop so we at least had access to bathrooms and showers, and IdleAire provides phone service, cable TV, Pay Per View, internet, and heat or air conditioning, all piped in through the truck window.

We were happy as clams, with our bed pulled up into a table, and a microwave so we could eat hot food. I even had Martinellis, but we couldn't get them open since the can opener didn't make it along. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

So you might've seen me cruising by today.

Over the next few days I'm going to try and add some of you to my friends list on Flickr.com so you can see some pix of the truck, etc., more than could be posted publicly. If I'm slow sending the invite, or if I don't have your email, feel free to email me at you _ neak at yahoo dot com. Since AJ, Mom, and Tina all have free access to my mailbox, and go in there at least as often as I do, there need be no fears of private communications.

Well, morning comes awfully early for the daytime driver (Neak <---) so it's off to bed for me. I'm sure glad I woke back up or it would have been even longer before I got back on here to say hi. Miss all of you, and hope you're having fun, too!

And Mom, care to share anything else about your less than wonderful day?

Hi everyone

driveby to check all are ok and not having a hard time... well T&L is the exception because I KNOW she will be enjoying the grandkids and the bonding experience with Mr C. I mean its a rewarding experience ... well I always found it was after they were in bed and I had a brandy.

Neak hope the driving lessson's are quickly over with and you are back to being the Queen of the Road! MUST be a song in there somewhere!

Mrs van de Kieft said hi. She got home not long ago and sent some email thankyou's out before walking half asleep to her bed.

So before I fall asleep on the keyboard I had better follow her example.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh Mikey is sound asleep ...... with a teddy bear.

You are "FIERCE"!!

I love, love, love that you've become a TRUCK DRIVER!!

You win the GODDESS AWARD for TODAY!!

Please join our thread when/if you have the time...

She's been a truck driver for several years now; I forget how many--at my age, things tend to run together. I have a confusing time melding her two personas sometimes--the big rig driver and the published author of two books on the life of Christ! I have, in my wallet, two pictures of her in her wedding dress. She was absolutely beautiful and the sleeves were these puffy, frou-frou things--utterly feminine. When she first started trucking, I loved to show the pictures to people and tell them that she was a trucker, and under those fluffy sleeves she had, tattooed across her bicep, the words "Born to truck." They were always completely flabbergasted, until I had to let them in on the joke. It was such fun. The first time I saw her step out of the truck cab, wearing military green coveralls and army boots, was just a bit disconcerting, I'll have to admit, but that was a long time ago and I've gotten used to it by now.

Well, Neak, let's just say that The Wonder-Nerd has NOT been exercising his option lately on whether or not to do schoolwork. Instead, he has been exercising his option to continue living!! People with no self-discipline can sometimes profit from the blessing of Granny discipline in its place. And what do you know? Granny's available! Lucky for him, isn't it?

Don't ask him what HE thinks. His opinion was not solicited yesterday. Won't be today. Tomorrow's not looking too good for him, either! Well, their breakfast is over. Time for him to hit the books...before the books hit him!!!!!!!!

tl

BACK TO SUSANNA

If you click on this:

Writer's Almanac Archive

and click on the archives for the week ending 03/31/08, then click on 'Sunday', you can find the poem.

Mom, just so you can remember easier, take Mr. C's age at any given time and subtract 4 months. So in other words, over 10 1/2 years so far, just not all the time.

Well, we have a flat tire on the trailer, so as soon as we pick up a couple extra crates here in Omaha, we're going to limp back 9 miles to a shop to have it fixed. But - woo hoo! - that will give me a chance to take a nice shower. (Is anyone else but me hearing the Marlin Perkins theme song? How I used to love watching him chase animals down in the Marlinmobile and shoot them in the butt with his tranquilizer gun. When I grew up, I knew I wanted to be just like him and shoot wild patooties with darts.)

Now AW, you give that dear Mrs. VDK lots of hugs, and tell her she can sleep in as late as she wants. Don't know if you saw, but your other half was on here a couple days ago, and we were mighty happy to see him! And I'll bet Mikey is getting humongous by now. He's about 2 1/2, right?

Ok, we're on our way back, so adios for now.

Neak said to say she was in the middle of a post when they lost their wireless access, and she hasn't been able to get back online. She threatened, I mean promised to be back soon.

tl

Yeah, we've seen that movie, too.

Cinderella, the poem was very thought provoking. I think that is good for us.

No car yet?



I see T&L hasn't gone back to work yet. I mean at the hospital, because what she is doing has to be as bad or worse in some ways.
How's the foot T&L?

I am sure Mr C will get caught up on his school work. Boot camp tends to do that for a person. How about the princess? I haven't heard comments about her for a while.
I'll assume the big D goes on about the same.

AW is so caught up in other things that she hasn't updated us on her construction projects. Maybe they are all finished. At least for now.

I don't dare comment on Neak at this point, so I'll just say "Hi AJ !!"

We have another new grand daughter. This brings the total to 9. I don't feel that much older from year to year, but I can tell I'm not 17 any more.
New grand daughter broke her collar bone during birth. Does that happen often T&L?

She seems to be OK, but they are being careful with her.

New babies are fun when you are the grand parent. I sleep through the night just fine. Ha, Ha.

SS

Hey, when you don't want a car note and you have two children who could get driver's licenses in the next two years, and you've just been rear ended by an SUV on the interstate while you were stopped in traffic, you look at cars differently.

1. It has to be big enough but not too huge. (Remember, I've walked away from two car wrecks that really could have hurt me.)[Their dad drives a Crown Victoria boat so they could be even more spatially challenged if I got something too small.

2. It has to be safe. (enough said)

3. It has to be reliable and in good shape.

4. It's only for a few years.

those are the big requirements

Hi all

hope you are doing well. SS building is on hold until I get the finances a bit... well a whole lot... healthier I have my orders. Aussie is so conservative I think he could conserve onions by looking at them ... but I never said that lol ... but I have a PLAN !!

I have a fantastic offer from a bank on low long term interest rates and fee free mortgage. SO if I move from the one to the other I can save over $348 per month.... thats nearly a whopping $4200 a year and I wouldn't have to touch that OTHER money. purrrrrrfect SO I ordered the rest of the wood for the floor at long long last woohoo!!!

Rella remember to look around and take a magnet with you.... run it down the car panels and if it doesn't stick then someone has bogged up a dent or a hole... and if the engine has been detailed than be sus of it. Better to see oil leaks and things up front. If you are a member of a road service they may have a veh inspection service available... some car insurers have this as well here.... maybe a friend or work mate who knows a great mechanic is also a good way to get a car checked out. Hope it goes well!!

Neak .... Mrs VDK has asked me to add this I am innocent

" With sincere apologies to Randy Travis' King Of The Road - please sing the following to his tune :-


Trailers for hire and rent
Cabin seems smaller than fifty cents.
No charged phone, no pool, no pets
Just the kids to mess my rest

All but two hours of steering truck
Buys some needed rest room time
I'm a girl of means by no means
Queen of the road

Third fuel stop, midnight rain
Destination...Bangor, Maine
Old worn out PT's and shoes
I don't pay no union dues

I know every diesel engineer at every stop
All of their children, and all of their stock
And every loo in every town
And every shower annex that isn't blocked

Trailers for hire and rent
Cabin still seems smaller than fifty cents
No charged phone, no pool, no pets
Just the kids to mess my rest

All but two hours of steering truck
Buys some needed rest room time
I'm a girl of means by no means
Queen of the road
Just Queen of the road
Queen of the road "

All together now !!!!