Well I just learned a life lesson, I am not really good at implementing or fixing things. Three farm houses and an old building later.  I thought I could not afford good help, as we had many other expenses.  What I did not take into consideration is the time I spend researching, talking about it, thinking about it, then forcing myself to take the plunge and just do it.   I never valued my time near enough.  Now it is very hard to find people willing to take on those little but big to me jobs. Old farmhouses need help with old "ways and materials" to fix them.   So here I am again, filling in cracks in walls, floors, and jacking up this or that.  I refinished 100 year old 10 ft front double doors, so scary. It takes me way too long, and it is tiring getting up and down ladders, my feet and bum get sore now.  The walls are 11 ft high on both floors, I have painted every room.  Lord, just the spring cleaning I got half done, made my arms sore for days.  Spring chicken soup I say.

I have reupholstered four chairs, made all the curtains in my house, because the windows are tall, and non-standard.  No I don't sew, I can only do straight lines and maybe some Halloween costumes that's it.   I glued two rocking chairs, that did not work out real well.  I finally gave away much of the furniture that needs fixing, to those who will use it for something, after 20 odd years.  Beautiful wood, which is why I wanted to "save" it anyway!

It is sad to say, but country life does not lend itself to convenient recycling curbside pick up.  You haul your bags to some bin miles away, so you always have cans and plastic rumbling around your back seat or trunk.  I stopped for about a year after they took away the closer bin, I was fed up, but then the planet spoke to me and I apologized.

The junkin craze is awesome.  I have been a purging princess, readying for a some day retirement move to a much smaller, easy to maintain place to call home, now that the off spring are almost really gone.  However, I still s find old but new to me items call my name, sometimes the deals are so good, I can't resist.

So this just happened for example on my fixer upper prowess....one piece of cement board slid down off the middle of one outdoor wall.  I got two shimmy's and ladder, stuck them in to hold it till we could get a nail gun.  Well two weeks later the siding piece fell down and broke.  Special order two 12 ft pieces (just in case, needed 10 ft) a week later, it's so windy I can't just put in the truck, have to get help to trailer them home from the city, our trailer is busy.  My nail gun got loaned out, so now need special screws.   Also a saw with special blade to cut it.  Lovely neighbor comes over to bring some screws and saw to help, then says  I painted the board before we put up, two coats, but I did the wrong flipping side of it.   Hubby has to step in now. I don't have vulcum caulk and I see yet another trouble spot..... Hours of my life, one piece of siding (to date), I have never wanted a shot and cigarette so badly in my life.

AND Someone can come and kill all these blooming ants with napalm at this point, the peppermint essential oil mixture did not work, nor the syrup on cardboard, and some bug spray I found in the basement.  Deep, deep breaths, ok, they are just little ol ants and have every right to be here.  I do now know in the big scheme of things, I never want to tackle a fix it project again, I am toast.  Dearest universe, I love you, please make it be so.  I swear to do my best to leave a small carbon footprint.

Technology is a heavy sigh.  It displays in so many ways its disdain for me.  I am in a black hole of time and space.  One in which even the simplest change in technology my brain bypasses any depth of understanding.  The hashtag for example, it is everywhere, seems like a marketing ploy, and I thought it was just for Instagram, which I don't use of course. But then I was told you should be using it on your blog.  I don't write like that #blog#nohashtag#hell.  Now watch, a year from now I'll be doing it.  I am a slow poke.

Living in the country, we had one option for internet originally, it was a dish mounted on our roof, pointing towards some unseen satellite, or maybe it was a thingy on top of the towns grain silo's.  The dish is still there, but now we have an underground line, and they did not want the dish back, how does one recycle that?  I have a modem too. Then it all stops in an instant. Demonic activity. I call and hear your modem is bad, they send another one, which does not work and then a tech guy comes out, and nope the line has been eaten by rabbits. Happened more than once.  Since I work from home, and so does my hubby, this causes great stress in a marriage.

God forbid should the actual computer or any of its programs go haywire.  Really, I just need the basics, a Microsoft package for dummies please.  I don't think much less talk this language.  I know two people who will still help us, our kids are no better, they didn't inherit this gene (that is how bad our gene's are).  We feel like sitting ducks, at some point, it is going to happen, again.  Don't even talk about security and being invaded.  Too many options for things.  We can't figure out how to re-hook up our Wii, which is how we got Netflix, for months now.  So many wires back there.  I bought some antenna thing for our TV, but I still only get some channels, (no cable), and those channels change when a strong wind goes thru, and upstairs is different than downstairs, nothing makes any sense!

Working from home, is the same, please don't upgrade me.  They asked me to review my teams access to various tools, but the words were in tech codes,  I told them unless they can say in English what that relates to I can't help them. 

I have an android phone (yes I used the word android for the first time right here), not an I phone, so sometimes my response to group messages only goes back to one person, it confuses people.  I don't care really.  Two months ago I tried my first phone game, it is wordscapes, it is addicting and I need to stop, don't start these games!  I tried snap chat for a few days, ya no.  Although taking a selfie in a fuzzy rosy way, makes me look years younger, I can see the appeal.  Outside of cell phone, Facebook and my email, that is enough for these brain cells.   Facebook is even starting to get weary.  Too much the same. I have to take breaks from it. I have not changed my profile picture in six years, I am in my Cruella DeVille Halloween outfit, I still like it, don't see a need to change.  I sound like an old person, but I have always been this way.

Even in my car, a friend recently asked me what is this button for, do you know, I had no idea, been four years and again, I don't have On star, or SiriusXM, and who ever reads the manual.  I want a car to get me from point a to b, in comfy style preferable, but living on gravel, why bother, everyone knows where my car is, the one covered in very thick dust.  Truly my car is one of a million of the exact same in Iowa, and they will say, I see you were here, I don't recall seeing them, no they saw my car, truth. 

60 minutes showed how much waste all the fast changing technology produces.  I just recycled an entire laundry basket full of wires, ear phones, plug ins, I have no idea where they came from.  I pray all my surge protectors are still good, do they have a life expectancy?  I can't imagine having a smart refrigerator, I don't want to talk to it or it to me.  It is a big cold box. Well at least it's summer now, I should be safe from hungry rodents.

I would rather sit under a tree and have a nice chat with you, if you follow science, you would know trees speak to each other without technology at all.

Where is the truth?  Some say never in our history have we had such a difficult time discerning the truth.  I am not sure.  Initially I think yes, because even in science what was awful for you years ago is now proven to be the opposite.  Researchers lied to get their product to profit.  Have your babies sleep on their backs or stomachs.  There is another planet in our universe.  I read Scientific Journal when I travel, it's a thing, and Quantum physics is mind blowing, you should read a bit on that.  I love that that science and our spirituality seem to be converging closer than ever before.  Still, the sheer volume of so called knowledge is overwhelming, how does one determine truth for themselves.

Our own country's history taught today does not take into account new facts and we are not that old.  That one baffles me, we can't seem to fix the books going back a couple of hundred years?  Plus let's look at education, teachers have opinions, they relay those to students by word or body language, on purpose or not, good or bad, it can influence the truth.  We jam learning into a one way box, yet we humans are as different as can be, seems our educational system should accommodate that by now.  Look at your own family history, five kids, each with very different views on how they grew up and what happened.  We don't see things the same way.

Our courts know for a fact that people can't remember shit.  Time and again, we incarcerate innocent people.  Lie detectors work on some, not all.  Judges can be corrupt too, so can police, so can fireman, so can service men and women, the list goes on and on.  All those we like to hold up as a model of ethics and  humanity, are not all as they seem.  We have a tendency to want to glorify people.  Every person has value.  Even if i don't agree with you, and there are many of you, can I still see value?

Religion is a whole myriad of fact and fiction and interpretations.  I don't care what religion you are or are not, human decency, empathy and loving kindness tell me all I need to know about a person, and how I choose to interact.  The rest is between you and your God.  We love to judge everyone and everything, and yet look at us, look inside ourselves.  Can you honestly say you have never lied, never contemplated something awful in anger, been wrong, very, very wrong.  Yet others still love us.  Why cant we extend the same to those who oppose our views.  Your "moments" of greatness or failure don't define who you are in total, and that is the truth.  I have heard only two emotions drive our actions, Love or Fear, the more I contemplate that, the more it makes sense.  We are all in the same boat, same planet. I love to quote a dear love filled friend, who also quotes this "Row, row, row YOUR boat, GENTLY down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, LIFE IS BUT A DREAM".  If you believe in your soul, and that this experience is part of your souls everlasting journey, well why make it so hard!

I am sucking wind just like the rest of you.  I had a moment once, I left my newborn son in his car seat in my driveway and drove away. I was on my way to see my dying Mom, hormones and sleep deprivation, plus the stress of my Mom getting ready to leave me, I was not in my right mind.  A block away, my hubby calls, told me, and I almost got ill, the terror of that moment still lingers, I could have ran over him backing out.  So months later when I read about a women who left her child in a hot car and they suffered the most horrible outcome, my heart poured out for her.  Yes, my initial reaction was how could she, then I recalled my moment. By Love's grace, I did not end up on the front page of the newspaper.  Look at all the moments we have, they encompass such a wide path of truth and perception, sometimes you have to wonder is this life really real!   Knowing change is the only constant, that energy is our constant in some changing form, we must be willing to go with the flow, let it take it's course. 

I don't have to be right, you don't have to be right, we are still loved in all our conflict, our imperfections, I fight my little ego wanting to being right!  My perceptions will surely not be yours, it is impossible, this is our unique journey, because we are.  So I try and dwell in that love that connects us all,  till I feel it, know it and can offer the grace I have been given.  We are a changing..... but all so beautifully us.