Ram 🐏 bling 💍 ~ 6/25/22

My sleuth

Lulu and I had a really nice walk this morning. Instead of river level, we walked street level. I reminisced about the years I worked downtown. Surprisingly I remembered all the shortcuts. We made good time and hit 5 miles @ 8:30 🕣.

Afterwards we made a quick stop at Target 🎯 so Lulu could grab a few things for her upcoming coast trip. As I walked more laps because I’m competitive with myself that way, I saw a journal 📓 and wouldn’t you know it, the cover says “Grin and Bear 🐻 It”. Hey that’s my theme which means despite not needing a journal, I bought this one anyway. I’m going to use it to aggregate some things, keeping to a single related topic.

I’m like a kid in a candy 🍬 store 🏬 who needs a nap 😴 😂. I’m sleeping somewhat better. Thankfully 😅. But getting up at the b’crack of dawn has its after effects.

Wishing you a sensational Saturday.

As always more to come.

#SoCS ~ 6/25/22

Hello 👋 Folks! Coming at you live from my iPhone 📱. The last Saturday of June snuck right up ⬆️ on me. I agree ☝️ with Linda; how did we get to the last week of June already? And what day is it anyway? I didn’t think 🤔 I’d be able to write ✍️ today. Or least not without railing against the machine.

But I’ve opted to keep my opinions to myself. Not that I don’t care 🤷‍♀️ but it’s exhausting to try to convince others to change their way of thinking to my own. I need to divert my energy to what I can control. Of course it’s stream which is usually outta control. But I CAN moderate my response to the prompt which follows.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “product/produce.” Use one, use them both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use both. Have fun!

Ooh 😮 bonus points on the line. What product can I create to earn that carrot 🥕? One down and one to go.

Hot 🥵. Muy caliente! When you live in Texas with many (I’ve lost count) days of consecutive temps over 100, your turn to water 💧 the garden 🪴 whose produce is barely 😰 hanging on results in memories of summers past. Ya see the hose was baking all day making that first blast 💥 of water scalding. Yep you almost burn 🔥 yourself. No exaggeration either. Damn!

How’s that about summers past? Well when you were a kid 👧 and you turned on the sprinkler or the water 💧 wiggle, you let the hose run 🏃‍♂️ for a while to cool 😎 down. Now I wanna run all around the yard getting soaked. I bet our dogs 🐶 🐶 would love 💕 it.

Please know that I’m not complaining. After Snowmageddon 2021, I swore I’d never whine about the heat again. Our A/C is a product that produces sweet relief 😮‍💨. We’re a set it to 78 and forget it bunch. Our energy provider loves us. Too high for some who swear by 72, but to us, we’ve got ceiling fans to compensate.

Alrighty. Landing the plane ✈️. Lulu and I are walking 🚶‍♂️ it off. We usually go river level but we’re going topside this time. Living on the edge.

HERE are the rules and ping back if you too would like to play along.

As always more to come.

Friday Book Club: J-Dub’s Review of The One You Want to Marry (And Other Identities I’ve Had): A Memoir by Sophie Santos – tattle telling on myself too

Here is my GoodReads Review: Rolling joints. Seriously? OK talk to text you’re a mess. I really enjoyed this book. When it’s something so personal, who am I to review or critique? Instead I recommend you read and decide for yourself. Me? I’m always up for an entertaining story. This memoir is full of them.

So, …. there was no mention of rolling joints in the book but I said something that talk-to-text converted to that. I left ‘as is’ since I am easily amused. This book was a free Kindle selection of the month which means I got highlights. Being a little out of practice, I couldn’t use all of them. I’m much better with pen to paper in my common place book as a read a physical book, with pages to turn, that I can hold. Lemme just say that the acknowledgements at the end were off the chart with really good stuff. Sophie is very lucky to have good people in her life.

Here I’ll share a few (okay nine) quotes that really resonated with me, then I’ll let you go.

1. If you’re riding in an RV with your grandparents who have kindly taken you on a trip to see the Four Corners, don’t make your seventy-one-year-old grandpa sleep on the floor—unless he grabs your knee and jokes, “This is how a horse bites an apple.” Then it’s fair game.
2. If you look past the homophobia, bigotry, snakes, pushy moms, and Joel Osteen–style, veneer-capped smiles, Baptist churches are the best.
3. Mass was somber, and the reverends spent a lot of time swinging scented, …
4. It was a perfect illustration of my relationship with my mom . . . close—way too close—and codependent as hell.
5. What I really wanted to say was, Let your freak flag fly, weirdos!
6. I trusted my mom yet again, who was the Old Mill grits of the South. (That means queen bee.)
7. You can’t text someone an insane number of times to get them to talk back to you. That would mean a restraining order.
8. Her mom – “You were so frenzied. I wanted to help, but at times I felt helpless.” Sophie – “I’m happy I went through everything. I think it all timed out exactly as it should’ve,” I assured her.
9. “Think of the thing that you don’t want us to know about you and then tell us all about it.”

The bolded quote – lucky #7, when I needed to see it, boom there it was in print!! Some of you may remember my angst ridden, worry posts of late where I mention I was afraid of getting in trouble? Well persistence paid off. Kinda, sorta, maybe? I re-read some of the texts (and emails) I sent in search of … whoa buddy, I want a do-over. Oops sorry. I was losing it. All is better now, kinda, sorta, maybe?

As always, more to come.

Thursday Thoughts with a Side of Poetry ~ 6/23/22

I have always written to release the hounds. I graduated from a cute little diary with lock and key to spiral notebooks. At the start, I had no idea why I was compelled to put pen to paper. For me, the writing process was therapeutic. A time of slowing down the thoughts into some semblance of organization, to make sense of the chaos forever swirling in my brain.

In a recent Swedish death clean, I reread my spirals, then promptly recycled them. Destroyed the evidence of my wild crazy days. Ah to be young again. But I digress. The purge saves Pony and Lulu from having to decide what to do with my things. I want to spare them that duty.

Sounds like I’m preparing to die y’all because now I can die happy. Something very small and inconsequential to others has happened to me to validate my existence. When I say die, I mean figuratively die (or let go). Though I’ve yet to receive a proper diagnosis which makes anything possible but I’m managing day by day.

Okay, time to land the plane. Throughout my childhood journals, I doodled, copied quotes, and wrote poetry. Scattered all among the prose where pearls of wisdom that I collected by observing everyday life. Like no other form of writing, poetry was where any bad feelings flowed onto the page. If journaling worked before to keep the pain at bay, maybe it’ll work again? Dusting off my mad skillz. Without further ado, here goes nothing …

my heart is full

overflowing

creating a palpable

sense of urgency

to make up for

what might have been

hide what hurts

deep inside

for what was lost

erasure

never final

until done

I might refer back here as a landing page for my Get Real series where I plan on sharing more of my “stuff”. Or not. I’m still on the fence.

As always, more to come.

#1linerWeds. ~ 6/22/22

I saw something funny on Sunday and was all set to use it for my one liner today. Then on Monday, 6/20/22, I went to a OneRepublic concert in the middle of the day. For my work’s 100th anniversary. Ryan Tedder joked around as he kicked off the show so I switched course and instead, this became my one liner.

We found about about San Antonio like most of the world … from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Ryan Tedder

That made me giggle for sure. Ryan hails from Oklahoma and said to him San Antonio was always theme parks, the Riverwalk, and of course the Alamo. He also said we are famous for the greatest cuisine known to man – Tex Mex. I have to agree that there is something special about Tex-Mex. Now I’m craving LaLa’s Gorditas … I’ll have the poquito todos por favor. Yummy!

To participate, HERE are the rules & ping back.

As always, more to come.

Share Your World ~ 6/21/22

Howdy y’all. Every week I delay my posting for #SYW so I can keep my streak alive. A post a day for 1400 some odd days so far. Melanie serves up the questions and I bat back some answers. Lookie HERE if you too would like to participate. Fair warning, I am giddy! Yesterday was our 100th anniversary. I attended an all day party & I’m still reeling. Feeling the feels. Hanging out with Ryan Tedder. Now time to share …

QUESTIONS

What are three scents you like? fresh cut lilac room scent from bath & body works, cinnamon, & vanilla

What is something true (factual) that most other people don’t believe? oh good lord, lol. Oh so much but when you say most people, some of the more obvious answers won’t work. Okay, how about this? Once when Pony was on jury duty and during voir dire he was asked if he could use DNA evidence in consideration of someone’s guilt or innocence. He said “yes”. The lady next to him very loudly said “I’ll pray for you son”. He was all “I’m not your son & what the hell??!!?” & then they were both excused. Haha!

Would you rather have a massage or get  facial? why not both? A whole day pampering session sounds nice.

Have you ever thrown someone a really extravagant party? When my in-laws had their 25th anniversary, we threw them a surprise party which wasn’t too extravagant now that I think about it. We were only 23 & 24 years old ourselves and couldn’t afford too much. But, that was the biggest party I have ever thrown so I guess it counts.

GRATITUDE SECTION

Feel free to share some gratitude. It can be a photo, image, quote or just some wisdom.

See above! Yesterday was one for the memory books. I am grateful to work for a company that has stood the test of time. I’ve served 38 of those 100 years. Cheers to being part of something bigger than yourself. ❤

As always, more to come.

haiku – day & new ~ 6/20/22

old is new again

on this day we celebrate

service above self

Happy 100th birthday USAA! I’m verklempt y’all. Talk amongst yourselves. 🇺🇸🦅

Ronovan Writes

#SLS ~ 6/19/22

The prompts today are Amaze, Astonish, Curious, Shock, Surprise, Wonder suggested by Melanie aka Sparky. Thanks Jim for hosting. I’ve no idea why but I had a really hard time picking a song. Then I stumbled across this gem. I say gem since the song was written for the movie Curious George. I loved those books. The man with the yellow hat & his pal Curious George. I always wanted a monkey for a pet & it didn’t help that cousin Jackie S. had one! I loved Curious George almost as much as I loved Harry from No Roses for Harry. But this isn’t about that … I’ll save books and pet talks for another post.

Ultimately I picked Upside Down performed by Jack Johnson. Writer(s): Andrew Oliver, Jeff Valentine, Brent Allen, Devin Nicholas Oliver, Zachary Tyler Johnson. Hope you enjoy!

Who’s to say
What’s impossible
Well they forgot
This world keeps spinning
And with each new day
I can feel a change in everything
And as the surface breaks reflections fade
But in some ways they remain the same
And as my mind begins to spread its wings
There’s no stopping curiosity

I want to turn the whole thing upside down
I’ll find the things they say just can’t be found
I’ll share this love I find with everyone
We’ll sing and dance to Mother Nature’s songs
I don’t want this feeling to go away

Who’s to say
I can’t do everything
Well I can try
And as I roll along I begin to find
Things aren’t always just what they seem

I want to turn the whole thing upside down
I’ll find the things they say just can’t be found
I’ll share this love I find with everyone
We’ll sing and dance to Mother Nature’s songs
This world keeps spinning and there’s no time to waste
Well it all keeps spinning spinning round and round and

Upside down
Who’s to say what’s impossible and can’t be found
I don’t want this feeling to go away

Please don’t go away
Please don’t go away
Please don’t go away
Is this how it’s supposed to be
Is this how it’s supposed to be

As always, more to come.

Sunday Reflections: A Week in Review ~ 6/19/22

First off, Happy Father’s Day to all the daddios out there. May your day be full of joy. I’m not up to much so quick roll call then it is off to celebrate the remainder of the day to honor Big B squared & his dad, our PoPo, the guy who helped build the Internet.

• Sunday 6/12/22 – #SLS
• Monday 6/13/22 – haiku
• Tuesday 6/14/22 – Share Your World
• Wednesday 6/15/22 – #linerWeds. if it doesn’t hurt, it can always help
• Thursday 6/16/22 – Thoughts – the words we choose to call each other
• Friday 6/17/22 – Ramblings & Phone a Friend – watch Ms. Marvel on Disney+
• Saturday 6/18/22 – #SoCS – bonus points after getting carried away with a memory from high school

Peace y’all. Until next time. Stay safe.

As always, more to come.

#SoCS ~ 6/18/22

Top-o-the-morning to you my lovies. Dan is pinch hitting for Linda while her electricity is out. Bonus points & free drinks are up for grabs too. Yeah Buddy!! Here we go …

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cent/scent/sent.” Use them in any form you like. Use one, use two or use them all. Bonus points if you use all three, and Cheryl will put your next drink on David’s tab. I know, you used to get bonus points for two, but inflation… Enjoy!

My two cents worth 1/2 a penny due to inflation is something I use a lot. I think I’m being funny. Sometimes I even get a laugh or two. I missed my calling y’all. I should have been a comedienne. Though realistically I always laugh before delivering the punchline because I easily amuse myself.

Scents – ok scent is something I was going to write a whole separate post about. I didn’t and now I can’t remember how the topic of scent came up but I’m streaming so, on I go.

Apparently we’re human animals. No duh Jilly. Ah, there we go. I know now. Animal instincts.

A high school friend’s mom was getting her Masters studying psychology or something along those lines. One morning my friend comes up to me in the gym before class. We’d sit there on the bleachers flirting we boys cuz we were boy crazy. She’s being silly, sniffing around me, and our convo went something like this ..

Me – what are you doing? I showered. Smell me! as I lift my arm for her to get a good whiff

Friend – my mom says we’re the best of friends because I like your smell

Me – alrighty, I smell you too ❤

Friend – yes we don’t even know we’re doing it but pheromones are a thing and not just for hanky panky

I had a good life y’all. LOL. Educated on the gym bleachers.

Time to land the plane. Those bonus points are right within my grasp. Using sent will close the deal. I sent what I refer to as a packet of proof and that turned the tide. How far remains to be seen. But I’m back in the land of the living with a plan. A co-worker asked my Wednesday, “what’s up with you, you’re glowing” No idea, guess that’s what happy looks like.

Wishing everyone a sensational Saturday because we deserve it!!

As always, more to come.