I wasn’t expecting anything at my box so it’s all really a surprise but inside was this book, Weird Missouri, from the writers. My gift for allowing them to use one of my photos. :)

My photo is a full page bleed on page 73. It’s been some time ago that I was contacted for requesting to use the photo and I ended up giving the guy permission to use anything he wanted or could use. All I wanted was a copy of the book, haha. Well, I completely forgot about it until today and they ended up only using the one photo, but I’m happy. I am a bit disappointed that the Bonne Terre Mine didn’t make it into the book at all (I had some photos from inside it that he also expressed interest in), it would have been nice to have seen a piece on the mines, even if they didn’t use my photos.

So, anyway, the photo?

I told you it was weird!!

By the way, here is the piece that these same guys did on the mines for their History Channel show:

(The mines are extra special to me because three generations of my ancestors worked there, two as miners and the third as a machinist. Also, it’s too bad the video gets cut off slightly early…)

So, anyway, to WeirdUS: thanks! I can’t wait to actually sit down and read the book. :)
Everyone else: buy the book! heehee :)

Well the other night Elijah brought me the book to read to him which is funny in itself because he never does that. So we sat to read it and the first scenario (which you can see pictured if you click the book then click it again at amazon to read inside and click on excerpt) says:

Mommy says, “Do you want peas for breakfast?”

What do you say?

So I read it for him and asked him “what do you say?” He paused for a second, thinking about what to say then finally said, “PLEASE!!”

That’s my kid for you, outside the box!

Of course, I had to shatter his tiny little ego and let him know that not everyone likes peas as much as he does because when you lift the flap, the little girl is clearly disgusted with them and she says, “No thank you!”

:-P

Pretty much the rest of Friday for me was spent at the house with some of the others while Steve went out bow hunting (since rifle season doesn’t officially start until Saturday morning). We in the house saw three deer come right into the back and then front yard, a little doe, a spike buck with one spike, and a small six pointer. After Steve returned, we ran out and got our rifle tags at the local Walmart. I swear that’s the last Walmart in the country that’s not open 24/7. Then it was back to the house where everyone sat around jabbering on into the night, telling stories and jokes. J, man, he’s knock down drag out hilarious. It’s not necessarily that his stories are funny but the way he tells them is great. For one, imagine a southerner making fun of someone with a northern accent. Yeah, I about peed my pants. :P

So it was off to bed later than I’d wanted. And then, I realize: horror of horrors, I’d forgotten my earplugs so I lay awake listening to Steve snore. It was pure torture. At midnight thirty, I got my butt out of bed and headed to the couch where it was QUIIIIIIIIIIIIET. Luxurious. I snoozed until one of the guys came upstairs about 4:20am. By then all was lost.

So I’m dressed in my under layer of hunting clothes and Steve won’t get up out of bed and I’m getting ticked because if I didn’t get any sleep, why should he? LOL. But when I mentioned that Grandpa had threatened to wake him up with The Chicken, he literally jumped out of bed.

Fully dressed, I felt like the Michelin man, and probably looked like him, too. Besides me skivvies, I got a pair of sweat pants capris, a huge pair of men’s jeans over that, my t-shirt, a camo long sleeved shirt, heavy camo shirt, orange vest, orange hat, big mitten gloves, Steve’s long socks, and these big heavy boots. I hate those boots, they’re so heavy, they’re hard to walk in and I guess the arches are off or something because after a while they hurt something fierce.

We head out about 5:30 when all is said and done, it’s still dark out and it takes us about a half an hour to get to the tree stand. We drive up to the barn (not a far distance, though longer by road, but it was easier to walk from there than to cross several barbed wire fences from the house), leave the Jeep and start walking West. We have to go through one gate and walk walk walk, then through the next gate and now we’re in the field that the cows are in.

It’s at this point that I decide I’m afraid of cows.

Cows is stoooopid and they think “O HAI HOOMAN, YOU CAN HAZ FOODS???? GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!” And as we get about halfway through that field, they literally start surrounding us. Steve is talking to them because he’s saying they don’t know what they are and that talking to them lets them know we’re human and not there to harm them. Whatever, they wanted food, I know it. Because of my big boots I’m falling behind and I start to freak out, I’m like, “Get! Get!” Steve says, “stop it, don’t raise your voice!” Well, uh, then get these things away from me! I’m really no stranger to cows, we had one once when I was growing up. But it was also then that I saw how cows might react to people they don’t know (that particular cow, when my friend and I were going to walk the trails that were around the field and we entered the field, started going nutso, bucking and running around and jumping, it was really freaky). And cows is big, even the little ones are big. So it was pretty unnerving to have them surrounding me. Steve came back and saved me though, and we crossed through the next gate. The cows then gathered RIGHT up against the gate and fence there and literally stared at us until they couldn’t see us anymore. One of them was mad/angry/sad/happy/ticked/lonely/fillintheblank and kept doing this weird mooing all friggin morning long. I showed great restraint by not shooting her.

So then it’s descend down the hill, around the next pond, up the hill, up up up, down down, up up up, then to the tree stand. And THEN I have to climb my fat butt up that ladder to 15 feet off the ground through this little hole and sit my still fat butt on a hunting cushion on a –

omg, Steve just did a deer call in his sleep. I’m dying.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, so then on a hunting cushion on an upside down bucket. Hold my gun. My camera case is nearby. In my pockets I’ve got kleenex (which I’d also forgotten and had to buy at Walmart), stuff to suck on, lip stuff, and my cell phone. But a lot of good any of it does me because if I even move at all or have a cough or a sniffle, Steve’s like “STOP IT!!” And I’m hissing “you knew I was sick when you brought me out here!”

We saw two deer right away, but not soon enough.

So now we wait for hours.

Did I mention it was cold? And WINDY. Seriously windy. Like, hurricane windy. And when that tree shakes, talk about scary! The sun came out at one point and I started to actually feel a bit comfortable, but then suddenly, it got very dark, the wind hit again, and it started raining. Great, so now my so sweet camera bag is getting wet. And I’m cold again! Do I have any toes left?

Finally, I hint enough that I’m done. This is stupid. We’re not seeing anything and I think I’ve lost my ears to the cold, despite having traded out my cap for a sock hat earlier. It was 9 before we got to start heading back. But, alas, and woe is me, after all that work getting back down out of the stand, Steve wants to walk around a bit. He drops some of the stuff and we start around this group of trees with our guns. I’m following and I had this strong urge to go

SHHHHH I’m hunting WABBITS!

But I knew if I did, that would be the end of my life so I stayed quiet. We saw two deer again, it was one of those things where they popped up and stared at Steve and he at them for a split second, each of the three like OMG!!!!11!111 then they bolted.

We turned back and headed the way we’d come but once we were out in that field, Steve decided he wanted to follow the tree line. No way, I say, and I pick up the bucket he’d been sitting on (filled with supplies, has a seat on top) and start back to the next gate. I’m not crossing that gate though, of course, not to face the cows alone! No sooner has he walked off when it started to rain again… oh, nope, never mind, that’s not rain… it’s sleet. Twice I ended up sitting down on that bucket in the sleet before he finally met me at the gate.

Frozen solid, we return to the house and eat something and, in better clothes, I make my place on one of the couches in front of Grandpa’s big screen TV. I pretty much stayed there the rest of the day, haha, I was wiped out! The other hunters returned for food, I snoozed, and they all headed out after re-warming again, all were out by 2pm. Even my grandpa’s girlfriend went out, a 12-year-old they know who’s a really sweet boy, really wanted to take her out (he just adores her). So it was just me and Grandpa and we finished the movie that the rest had all been watching with us, John Wayne’s last movie (The Shootist) on AMC and then followed that up with Shenandoah which I’d never seen before but was really good.

We broke that up about halfway through, though, to take my cell phone to its charger in the Jeep because my phone is stooooopid and a quick run to one of his rental houses to check on something and back to the house before the hunters returned, again unsuccessful. I am convinced it was the horrid wind. It was swirling, not just blowing, in every direction and it was cold. If I was a deer I wouldn’t be up walking around in all that!

No, instead of who got the biggest deer, it was who had seen the most squirrels?

The rest of the evening was spent with music, dancing, checkers, and pool. It was fun but it ended fairly early, everyone was so tired.

I had obtained earplugs so I slept a lot better that night until 5am when we were woken by The Chicken. I about had a heart attack and Steve started laughing and telling me to chill out.

But seriously. I hate The Chicken. Here’s The Chicken:

How would YOU like to be woken up to that at 5am on a Sunday!!?!!?

That video is over a year old, by the way, Grandpa’s had that stupid thing forever.

But thankfully, I was able to go back to sleep after that for another glorious four hours. If it hadn’t been for the sun coming in the window behind my head I might have slept longer! I got up and showered and dressed though, and headed out and was surprised to see two people at the table that I had never seen before. And of course, no one bothers to introduce us either and at one point the guy, who could be my age or even younger asks me who my mom is. I tell him and he knows who I’m talking about. It’s like uhhhh. That’s how it is at Grandpa’s farm though.

Thankfully Steve returned soon and decided the two of us would head to town for, as he put it, a “heart attack breakfast.” Since Grandpa’s only at the farm about 4 days out of the week, there’s hardly any food there, so this is not an unusual occurrence. We headed to town and had an amazing breakfast that kept us both going until well into the evening. Ha. After returning, we spent some more time on the couch until it was time to get ready to go. We were all packed up and dressed, again, in hunting clothes. The other guys either went home or headed out to hunt and Grandpa and his girlfriend headed back north for the days he’s not at the farm and she returns to her life and house etc. We headed to hunt.

Steve dropped me just past the fishing pond on his bucket with the seat on the lid, looking out in the field he’d been bow hunting. Of course, every time he was bow hunting, he saw lots of stuff but never shot anything and the whole time I was there, what did I see? A chipmunk. Some blue jays.

He went to his stand and left me until it got dark.

I sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Stood a bit. Sat there.

The chipmunk returned. Slowly I got my camera out and had the lens cap off and kept watching the chipmunk. I turned slightly, ever so slowly (the seat can spin all the way around). Apparently that’s when the chipmunk noticed my presence and I scared the patooty out of him so he stood right where he was and chirped at me. And chirped. And chirped. The bloody thing wouldn’t shut up! So I finally moved a bit more, and scared him off. He didn’t try to return for an hour or so. He was mad I was in his territory, I guess. That pine tree, you know, all his.

Right at about 5pm I realized it was getting dark fast and if I was gonna get over that barbed wire fence to get back to the Jeep (at the house) the easy way, I’d better get moving. This barbed wire fence was missing the top strand so it’s the only one I could ever think of getting over, especially alone. And at that, I barely made it. But I did, and I carried the bucket again, this time with my camera case in it. (Earlier my camera case had gotten wet and those stupid jeans had bled a bluish green color on my nice yellow bag and I’d had to wash it all out with Shout and stuff.) So that and the gun and I walked across the little dam and back up to the first gate to the pond area.

Then I saw a shape and stopped and raised the gun to look through the scope. There was the little doe from the other night, staring right at me. She was about 100 yards away. I could have made the shot if I’d wanted, but I already knew I wouldn’t take one that small. Plus, she was technically in the back yard, having gone over the fence even though we’d closed the first gate and the rules are no shooting in the back yard. Well, technically I’d have been shooting into the back yard, not from it, and no one was there and the bullet could NEVER go anywhere near the house, more parallel to it, but you know, I’d have had to lie about where I shot her. :) I stared at her some more and raised the gun again and she was still looking at me. When I took two steps forward, she took off. She didn’t go far, but I’m so blind I couldn’t see that until I walked again and she took off again. Yeah, my vision was getting really bad. After that, I didn’t see her again and I didn’t see the other two deer she’d been with on Friday.

Steve took forever but finally made it back to the Jeep and, haha, I was so uncomfortable, and there was no one around that I changed into my normal clothes right there. Could have waited and gone up to the barn I guess, but it was so nice to get those boots and man pants off. :P

The ride to my parents’ house was long and tedious, especially before we got food. My mom had picked Elijah up from my mother-in-law Saturday night so we had to get him there. Not to mention that thanks to that stupid bucket thing, my butt hurt for the next 12 hours. It was seriously uncomfortable.

And there you have it, another pointless, long winded post from me. Can you tell I’ve had nothing to do tonight? :)

Oh, and I hate this commercial.

The end!

Dearest love,

How are you? I hope you are fine, My name is Miss Immaculate Kennedy, 23 years old, I am browsing today in the internet for a reliable person whom I will establish a very good relationship with before I come across your profile.It seems like some thing touches me, that’s the reason I have decided to contact you in this medium, I hope you are not upset and discouraged by my chemistry?.

Meanwhile, l will also like to know you the more,and l want you to send an email to me showing me your opinion over this since we don’t know each other before so that l can give you my pictures for you to know whom l am.I believe we can move from there if i can rely on you.Remember the distance or colour does not matter in any sincere and honest relationship rather, love and good feelings matter a lot in life.

I am waiting for your reply as soon as you recieve this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Immaculate

I had a strong urge to reply with “WTF” and had to fight it down.

It’s seriously, though, like what the heck is that!?

I can only figure they want you to end up at missimmaculate.com because that’s what I get when I Google but that website is… messed up. Very confusing and half the stuff doesn’t even work.

But I had a good laugh at the manner of language here and especially the ?. :)

First, I screamed “what the heck!?” But since I still don’t have my voice back, it was pretty much just a series of squeaks.

He started going, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I dunno what happened, I’m sorry!”

But then? I burst into tears.

Bloody hormones.

I swear, some people might wonder that I have an abusive husband but he really really doesn’t mean it. Ever since that earthquake, he’s been all weird. He squeezed the crap out of my leg then and then about a week later when there were crazy winds, I got my arm squeezed. Then there was another night I got my leg squeezed again, amongst other things. This keeps up and I’ll be a tiny little raisin. :)

Just makes me laugh, though, because I remember this episode of the Reba show where Brock was waking up feeling horrible and it turned out that Barbara Jean was beating the crap out of him while they were both asleep.

I guess Steve’s still getting me back for the time I bit him in my sleep. :)

So we are filling a box for a boy about the same age as Elijah. This is great for him because he is picking out things he likes to give to someone else. Today in the pharmacy, he said, “and can we buy some toys for the little boy who’s mommy doesn’t have money to get him presents?” Of course I about melted. He went to the stuffed animal rack of these soft little beanies and I told him that while we’re going on a special shopping trip for this tomorrow (to the land of affordable, the pharmacy is expensive), he could pick out one toy from the rack to buy. Not surprisingly, he picked out a little white tiger. He has a white tiger like that, although about twice the size, that I got him at the tiger sanctuary the day we went out there. He has an orange one, too, but the white one is his favorite. It was heart warming to see him look for one that is just like the one he already has that’s his favorite. In the box so far, we have the tiger, a little Lightning McQueen notepad and Lightning McQueen pen. Tomorrow we’ll be filling it with more items both fun and functional. So it’s a good thing the tiger isn’t that big!

There are five steps to sending out a box through the organization. Their website states that you can use any shoebox but somehow we got some “official” ones at our church that are colorful and have the organization name on them. You decide what age group and gender you’ll be filling the box for and then fill the box with items from the likes of toys, school supplies, hygiene, certain kinds of candy and other various items. Some of the restrictions include no guns or knives (even toys), medications or vitamins, breakable items, etc. Most of that is common sense, I think. So after you’re done, you fill out the form and attach the proper label and either drop it off at one of their drop off locations or mail it with a $7 donation to help cover postage.

I think it’s a great little organization and a great way to spread some cheer and hope to participate next year. After doing it this year, I would like to next year do more than one box, maybe for several different age groups.

The one problem I am coming up against is the age group, actually. The groups are ages 2 to 4, 5 to 9, or 10 to 14. Elijah is 5 so we wanted to stick to his age group but 5 to 9 is kind of a large group and I wonder if we did that group maybe if a child around age 9 got it, he might not appreciate the items as much as a 5 year old would. And on the other side, if we choose 2 to 4, a 2 year old might get it and maybe we’d have some items that are fine for a 4 year old but not quite appropriate for a 2 year old. I guess I’ll be able to better decide after Elijah picks out all the stuff to put in. Of course, I’ll have to override some of his decisions because I do want to include items like a toothbrush and probably a little flashlight with some batteries. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, maybe the people actually handing out the boxes will have discretion. My part is really just making sure I get it filled and sent out in time!

So I encourage you to participate, it’s really a great project, especially to teach the little ones about sharing and helping those less fortunate.