I hit the decade mark here this past May. I grew up convinced that the last thing I would ever do is move back to Morse Bluff, I’ve been back for 10 years now and I have no regrets. People ask me constantly, when they find out that I’ve lived in other places, “Why’d you move back?” This is what I tell them, which happens to be some of the same enticements I use when attempting to bribe my brother and sister to make their journeys back home to Morse:

If every year, when your vacation days are replenished at work and you sit down to plan where you are going to spend this precious time off, if the first thing you do before anything else, is figure out when you are going to sneak back to Morse Bluff… you should probably throw in the towel and move back. That way, you could spend your vacation days on real vacations.

If you long to drive a gravel road with roller coaster hills and scenery that changes daily as the crops mature in their patchwork plots and the season’s colors transform your view with every trip through… you should probably give in and start pricing a good piece of land with a scenic view in all directions. I recommend you tell the architect to include a wrap-around porch in the house plans.

If you haven’t seen a rain gauge in more than a week and you are going through serious withdrawals… it’s time to consider that you just aren’t where you are supposed to be.

If a town with a population of 10,000 seems like a big city….Morse Bluff is a perfect fit for you.

If you like to shop in the “big city” but you don’t want to have anything to do with living in or near one…consider Morse Bluff ….it’s there if you need to go, but who wants to drive by a Target or Walmart parking lot more than a few times a year or so?

Sick of stop lights?…it’s a non-issue.

If you desire ample opportunity to become “involved” and have an open invitation to live out your political dreams… you can do that if you move back to Morse Bluff, we are always looking for a breath of fresh air in our government machine.

If you want to raise livestock in your back yard…we can work that out too.

If you love your family enough to actually want them within close proximity of you…you should probably move home.

If you are an exercise enthusiast who doesn’t mind that every once in a while a truck will slow down as it approaches you and the driver innocently, leans out the window and asks you if you need a ride somewhere…this is definitely the place. Along that line: if you prefer encountering deer, opossum, raccoon, and stray dogs instead of muggers while you are on your early morning run….we’d welcome you with open arms, just switch out your mace for some non-toxic pepper spray…Fido is vicious toward strangers but he’s still a member of someone’s family.

The most dear to my heart, quite possibly the turning factor in my personal decision to defy all of my rebellious-youth-ideals and move back to the small town which I fought so hard to run away from: the drive between North Bend and Morse Bluff.

If you want the complete Nebraska experience in one ½ mile of nature’s best, 2-3 times per day, every day of your existence… you need to strongly consider putting in a serious bid on one of the several houses, lakeside lots, or acreages for sale in our fine village and surrounding rolling hills of farm country.

The “commute” between North Bend and Morse Bluff has to be the most enriched path of highway I have driven and I’ve been a few places. Still some may argue but come on, at the very least it’s in the top 10. This drive would stop my heart no matter what time of day I arrived or what time of year I returned for a visit. It still does, no matter how exhausting or frustrating a day I’ve had, once I turn south and cross those tracks, it all melts away and I become so very thankful for this life I have been blessed with.

If you haven’t done it recently, stop on the south side of the river bridge and make your way down to the edge to watch the sun set on the river…just astounding! Right now, the geese are teaching their young to fly, I can guarrantee they will make their way through your picturesque view extra low over the flowing water’s surface, with the twilight as their backdrop. There will probably be some boys fishing off the edge somewhere or on a sandbar with their dog frolicking as they try to cast out their lines near the campfire they’ve built in preparation for their overnight camp out, literally “on the river”. You might get an enthusiastic, hefty wave and a near-deafening burst of motor and laughter as the “cool people” on their air boats, fly past you, obviously enjoying every ounce of what Nebraska has to offer. The sky is full of color at dusk with just the right amount of tassel pollen, country road dust and humidity to bring out the deep fuschias, an array of oranges, and shades of purple, the likes of which you never knew existed….just think, you could share this wonder with your kids every single day.

As you make your way south through the over-reaching trees, it’s like a beautiful, natural, heaven’s gate. You’ve got quaint and ornate lake houses on either side with beautifully kept grounds that aren’t landscaped into plastic, cookie-cutter perfection, instead they blend in with their Nebraskan surroundings. Mixed in between you’ll come across a colorful heard of lazily grazing cattle on the east side of 79 and a taste of industry with the Dolezal operation on the West which it isn’t distracting or destructive looking, it just enforces our ideal that, in Morse Bluff, we strive to cooperate with nature without destroying it.

Then before you know it; there she is, our Morse Bluff: nestled in among the trees on the side of the hill like a cozy, safe harbor welcoming all who approach….like a fleeting gift you will unfortunately miss, if you are rushing by too quickly. My heart used to seriously race as I turned off the interstate in York and made my way home through Columbus on Highway 30, sometimes I’d turn off at Seward and make my approach from the South but other times I would come in from the North. I remember finally reaching the Platte river bridge after driving for 10 hours or so and I would always, always, always slow down to 40 or 50 mph even though all I wanted to do was get home and get out of that darn car. People would wonder why this strange Texan was driving at a snail’s pace; they don’t wonder anymore, I’ve got 6 county plates now and it’s an expectation. You just can’t help yourself, it’s a vision that takes you off guard and you’ve got to decelerate for a moment so you can take it all in after you’ve been away for a while, or just gone for the day, kind of like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in ages.

If this sort of syndrome comes over you as you visit your family, or as you’re dropping by for a visit in Morse Bluff…..it’s definitely time for you… Morse Bluff will always welcome you back, even if it’s just for a few of those oh-so-precious vacation days.

Work is just nuts these days; it’s more competitive and we are all on the edges of our seats wondering if our jobs are secure, with trepidation, we take it day by day. The national/local news and government are scaring the pants off of us with threats of “pandemic” proportions. And who really knows what the heck is going on over there in Pakistan…what are those people thinking anyway? Even if we don’t want to know, the 24-hour news shows will forcie it down our throats while we attempt to enjoy an evening meal.

My suggestion: start a garden. I promise not only will it remove you from in front of the television but also away from all of this world-craziness for a while every day. I begged my father for a patch of land and bribed him with dreams and guarantees of several varieteis of fresh tomatoes, gargantuan pumpkins, and sweet, juicy, black diamond watermelon. Eventually he took the bait, we shook hands and he informed me that he would supply the wanter and the dirt and that’s all….the rest was up to me. Victory was mine!

I have a vision, well several, but one is of a good-sized garden that can provide produce for the families of my brothers and sisters. Most of us live around here and with the price of one tomato being what now $5? You’d think it contained tobacco or gold or something! It’s becoming ridiculous. My thought is to be able to let the relatives shop in their very own, personal, open-air produce isles. Part of the vision is that our pack of ankle-biters (my nieces and nephews) can get out there in the rows and pick the tomatoes and peas and pumpkins themselves, like we did when we were kids. I understand there are children out there that believe their lettuce comes cut up in a plastic bag from the refrigerated section in the grocery store! Everyone needs to experience a fresh, leaf-lettuce salad where occasionally, a grain of soil curnches between one’s teeth; a little dirt never hurt anyone. With that dream in mind, I pressed on.

This vision of mine began to fully materialize when the massively intimidating roto-tiller of my youth, magically appeared next to the patch of ground this past weekend. I remember this beast the minute it came into view. It had to be the same one with it’s large, slightly rusted motor and huge red fender covering the deadly looking blades lurking under the flaps on the back. I was informed that I would be honored with performing the ground-breaking ceremony, otherwise known as the tilling. The skepticism had to be undeniably obvious by my raised eyebrow because I got a: “You can do it, you’re gonna do it, I’ll get you started, let’s go”, and off we went.

After his little pep talk of sorts, he reaches over and pull-starts this 35-year-old contraption…one pull mind you…farmer/small engine genius that he is. Just like that, my father is walking breezily, next to this ear-splitting monster for a few feet, barely holding the one handle with the tips of the fingers on his right hand, making it look effortless. The man missed his car salesman calling. I jump in with renewed confidence, how hard could it be…right?…it looks so much easier than I remembered.

Holy mackerel!!! First of all, the handlebars are at the height of my armpits so my elbows are up by my ears, the ground I’m attempting to work was part of a corn field last year so there’s huge tractor tire tracks in it and every time we (me and my new mechanical friend) go over a rut of any size; I practicially get thrown from my precarious saddle. My generous instructor informs me that “it might buck a little, just hang on and don’t let it get away from you” then he drives off. Farmers…like he’s got better things to do on this sunny day in early May. I guess I was okay with his leaving because I like to figure most things out for myself without anyone watching me make mistakes, this is definitely one of those things. I’m a nurse who pays special attention to the ergonomic workings of people’s manual labor jobs and this one would have taken the cake, had I been observing myself at this particular task. There was a point at which I was just hoping I would be able to walk away without having to wear a cervical collar for a couple of weeks, a sling to support a possibly shredded roatator cuff, not to mention hoping that my face remained intact should I “let it get away from me” and fall prey to those potentially carnivorous blades.

It took me a while but I stuck with it and then I repeated the fun because the farmer told me that is what he would do if he were planting a garden and I tend to follow instructions from those that should know. When it coems to gardening anyway. The second pas was nowhere near as exciting and the soil finally became soft, workable and suddenly, full of promise and possibility. I stood back after I was done, smelled the turned earth, cracked my neck a few times to get my head back on straight and finally started to feel like the sheer terror of the last few hours of my life, was completely worth it. Well, once the rining in my ears subsided…mental note to self: ear plugs would be of benefit for the next round with the roto-tiller.

Now for the fun part: the planning and the planting. I should clarify my idea of “fun”: the weeds are non-existent for this short period of time and the possibilities are endless because I have packets of seeds that would make anyone jealous. More seeds than I will ever use but I couldn’t resist when leafing through the catalog in Januay. I am a novice so I spent that time it takes to loosely measure and I even drew a colored map of what I envision the garden to look like complete with colored-pencil drawings of the vegetables in their beds. I could picture it in my mind, I measured meticulously with a marked broomstick before I pounded in the stakes and ran the string between them to mark my straight rows. I carefully placed some of the seeds in somewhat perfectly linear fashion down each row bed. I’ve started some seedlings in my house for transplanting and I even tacked the packets at the end of each furrow as part of the therapy I mentioned earlier. Everything is in it’s place and as it should be, all is right with the world.

To me, gardening just makes sense when most things around us don’t. I have the luxury of enjoying it, I won’t depend on it to feed my family so it won’t turn into work….well at least not until the weeds take back over and the temperatures start to climb. Still, I’ve managed to create an outsource for my anxiety and work-related stress and to me, that alone makes it worth the while. With every weed yanked free and vigorously shaken loose until it’s lifeless and then thrown out of the garden with a vengeance; so too will go the pressures of the world and the stress of my day….it’s the perfect therapy.

Many weeks ago, my daughter and I were sitting down to supper. I asked her the question that I usually ask her at the end of the day; “Well, did you learn anything today?” Fortunately, she still answers me thoughtfully and doesn’t just grunt or ignore me…yet. She replied on this particular, atypically warm day in February: “I like Spring; it smells like the last day of school.” I’ll never forget it. The anticipation and happiness at the thought of school letting out, beamed from her face.

Isn’t that how we were all feeling that Sunday when most of us were sitting in our silent, chilly houses with our circuits all disconnected? Probably, the farthest from it for most of us: the consensus was that it was a long day, more than a day for quite a few, and it was boring and cold. Personally, I love to wake up in the morning when the power is off. The world is at a mandatory standstill which is a huge, welcome delight and relief. It’s as though the earth stopped spinning out of control. Being a Sunday; no one was expecting me to be anywhere and I could lay there and enjoy the complete slience. No humming , no fans, no computer noise, no phone, no fridge kicking on and off. Only the sound and vibration of the cat’s motor running against my ear. He must have detected a slight nip in the air at some point during the night; when I opened my eyes, I kind of felt like it was as if he was attmpting to have as much of his surface area pressed up against my warm head as felinely possible. This tactic proved successful,judging by his outward signs of contentment. The Spring birds were outside my window, dicussing the unseasonal weather as well. You could tell that they were confused and miffed at the whole situation, possibly discussing the idea that they may have returned too soon, and whose fault that was.

The temperature outside wasn’t as cold as it could have been so snuggling back in bed with a book and my warm, water-bottle of a cat, was an option for keeping toasty, at least for a little while. How often do we take the time out of our lives to just linger in bed and read? What a treat on a Sunday morning before the Spring chores begin and our outdoor, after-work lives, start all over for the season.

Not only did the outage provide us with time to catch up on some reading but how many of us drug out the familly board games? Those boxes we put away in the closet once the Wii, Nintendo DS and 24-hour Sports channels took over the house, made their way to the forefront on Sunday. Twister, Monopoly, Connect 4, Apples to Apples, Clue, Life, Chess, Go Fish and my least favorite: Dream Date Barbie. Eventually, our frosty feet got the better of us and we had to head for higher ground, in other words; a house with electrictiy. But even that was a welcome change, to stop and visit with family on the weekend, without rushing around trying to get everythning done beofre the work week starts again. You can’t finish the laundry without power….oh! for that excuse on a regular basis.

The other thing I did on that Sunday morning was pray. I’m not a religious person really, but something I witnessed, while driving in that crazy storm on Saturday night moved me to ask for help for the family who woke up Sunday morning, not only out of power, but out of their home. I know a lot of us were complaining about the electrical company and how much time it took them to get us country folk all juiced up and back to normal, but they were out there working in full force with teams of trucks everywhere ereecting ples and stringing lines. Almost all of us can be thankful to the electricians, the firemen, and the paramedics, that hours of power was all that we lost to that storm.

This morning, as I let the anxious, aforementioned cat out on to the deck for his morning constitution; I stood out in the morning air and took a few deep breaths in. Even though there were still several small, lingering clumps of snow glowing in the dawn’s shadows on the grass…..I could detect that undeniable scent, yes, definitely…..the last day of school.

I know it might be difficult to conceive or understand, but I have received divine confirmation that Spring is just around the corner.

I was driving through Schuyler the other day on my way into work, already feeling the stress that mounts every day as I get closer and closer, white knuckles start to form, fingers starting to make an impression on the steering wheel and there it was…a literal sign from above: “CHICKS ARE HERE!”

Maybe if we were in downtown New York or in some seedy part of any big city, that phrase might make you conjure up all sorts of lewd mental pictures and it might even be offensive to some of us.

However, those three simple words; boldly, yet innocently on display in the middle of the marquee in front of our local farm supply store, made me smile, made me reminisce, made my day. I turned the blinker on, made a right and spent 5 minutes de-stressing while I took a quick peek at the new life skittering around the cattle tanks in the middle of the store, before proceeding on work.

Somehow that smell of sawdust always takes me back and it hit me as I walked through the door. Hundreds of the fluffy yellow peeps would arrive at our house as if by magic, in half-shoe box sized crates with tiny air holes, toward the end of every winter of my young childhood life. We girls must have looked like foreign giants as we gathered around and tried to catch a peek at them before Dad opened the boxes. It generally took plenty of repeated reminding but we wouldn’t be opening any boxes until we got their new home ready. This unrestrained anticipation insured many able hands were available, so we all quickly set to work.

Down in the basement kitchen; we would unroll the corrugated “fencing” until we had a good-sized circle just big enough for the amount of chickens we had. They needed to be kind of bunched together to stay warm, but not so close that they would smother each other. The adults in the room must have had some sort of mystically, scientific equation involving Pi that went into figuring out the exact size of that circle. Without a care for the specifics, we happily used two hands to clothes-pin the pen in place with the extra roll of cardboard there handy so we could easily enlarge the circle as the chicks grew out of the original one. The large, belled, warmer lamp would be hung from the rafters, perfectly centered over our miniature corral, a new bulb inserted, flipped on and tested to make sure it worked. We kids were then allowed to jump in and spread the sawdust in a nice even layer. Mom would get out the small chick feeders with the holes and we would have to wash the pieces of the clear glass, bell jars and the glass attachments that, together, became their watering stations. The pretty jars always started out so clean and the chicks never seemed to care…they just pooed all over them. I still remember being mesmerized, watching the bubbles float up as each round, glass tray filled with water and though our little hands weren’t able to master the technique; Mom could always expertly flip the water-filled jars over and get them set down in the dry dust, without spilling a drop.

Now we were ready to meet the new additions to our farm and we always got excited until we were reminded that the boxes would be set in under the lamp for a while to warm up and then eventually we’d let the chicks out. They were counted and tallied and released at some point and I remember spending hours just watching them “do their thing” there under that lamp. Any sudden movement from me on my little stool next to the fence and they would bunch up and start their quiet cacophony of chirping like a bunch of kids on a playground when a tractor trailer approaches; they back away, talk about it, then move toward it as it passes by to get a closer look. The tiny chicks’ memories were even tinier and it only took seconds for them to resume their positions and activities of drinking, eating, scratching, excreting and of course, dozing….they were just babies after all.

Our chicks co-habitated with us for a few weeks until they sprouted a sufficient amount of feathers, March got closer to April, and the mercury got farther away from zero on a more consistent bases, at which time the little chickens would be moved to the “chicken house” along with their warming lamp and all of the paraphernalia. At that point, they became additional chores on our list, the newness long worn away, and the sweet little fascinating fluffiness just a fleeting memory replaced by pink skin, pin feathers, and sharp, demanding, little, always-hungry beaks. The sweet cuddly memory gone until that smell of sawdust returned again to our basement the following year.

As I stared down at the incredible variety of skittish, newly hatched fowl there at Bomgaars that morning; it reminded me of the importance of taking time for these moments within the seasons. Even though, I don’t raise chickens, at least not yet…maybe someday, I enjoy the preparation and anticipation for new life that comes fresh in the early Springtime. I’d obviously forgotten that as I let myself become wound up and stressed out before I even get to work each day and time just goes by without my knowing what day of the week it is. The presence of this seemingly insignificant, three-word “sign” that was thrust by chance, into my daily routine, reminded me to start watching the ditches for that tell-tale green haze as I drive to work, to take that time during the day to walk and deeply inhale the approaching Spring, and to slow it down because my white knuckles would not have been conducive to life, should I have decided to pick up one of those fragile babies, I stopped in to see, at my local farm supply store.

I’ve attempted to write this so I don’t offend anyone and I’ve tried to go at it from both sides of the fence. You are invited, at the end, to decide if I’ve succeeded in my attempt.

I’m a nurse by trade; not because it was some sort of life long dream or because I always wanted to be. Looking back in my “School Daze” book; let it be noted that I usually wrote “farmer” in the space provided for what I wanted to be when I grew up. Nursing seemed like a practical choice at some point and it’s a profession that is serving me well. Here recently, I’ve become an “Occupational Health Nurse”, the likes of which they don’t really talk about in nursing school accept to mention it during Nursing History when we covered the single page pertaining to “Industrial Nursing”. Doesn’t that sound exciting or super-hero like? Maybe more like a large-ankled woman in a white, dress-tights-orthopedic shoes ensemble….in reality; it actually depends on the day.

Truth be told, it’s a job like any other only the variety of my work is endless. I often times can’t believe the situations I find myself in and revel in the challenge of figuring out how to get out of them, all the while, striving to achieve the most favorable outcome. My favorite portion of my work would be that of wellness teaching; the health fairs and educational opportunities where healthy people come to us to learn how to be even healthier. In order to fulfill my duties in this area, I network quite a bit with the surrounding community. One of those networks has landed me on the Colfax County Tobacco Free Coalition for the past few years and I’ve become a tobacco cessationist instructor at my job as well.

Sounds like great fun doesn’t it? Our new law: LB395 (requiring every indoor workplace in Nebraska to become smoke free), comes to fruition here on the first of June. My being an instrumental player in initiating compliance at my place of work, as well as in the community has turned me into a “Nurse Ratchet: Tobacco Cessationist”, type character to some, I’m afraid. Personally, I first became interested in this wellness program because some of my employees came to me and asked for help and I felt I needed to be more involved and educated in order to offer the best information. Sometimes the best intentions make you the target for everyone’s complaints, but that’s okay because my super-hero cape is bullet proof, so are my tights.

We all know the law is coming and everyone, of every age group seems to harbor an opinion one way or the other. The most entertaining to me are those folks that come out and complain about the increase in tax on tobacco. They feel this is an effort to play on the publics weaknesses and are leery about where those tax dollars are going to come from once everyone quits smoking. I find this particular argument to be such a positive and prolific one because deep down they believe it’s going to work and that people will stop smoking or cut down on their smoking overall because of the rise in the tax. When they start telling me that the next thing they are going to tax is my ice cream or my fast food to make up for the inevitable decrease in tobacco tax revenue….they’re treading on shaky ground. Though maybe that’s what it will take for me to lose weight…if it works for one, why not another?

I am looking forward to being able to go to our local restaurants/ bars for a meal or a drink. I’ve got some personal medical and hypochondriacal issues that limit my patronage, I’ll admit it. Some folks are okay with it but having to wash my hair and hang my coat and jeans outside after I eat just to get the smell out, or use my inhaler in order to catch my breath, makes the dining experience not even worth it. And I know, it’s my choice: “Just don’t go there if it bothers you.” Which is all fine and good, but we live out here in a wonderful world where the local bars are family places. Where our family meals often DO take place around a table and that table happens to be located at our friend’s establishments, where we meet up, share our lives and break our bread. This isn’t New York or even Omaha where a bar is specifically a place to get loaded….well not 100% of the time anyway. It’s a completely different spin on the idea. We could just not go, but by doing that we cut ourselves off and are missing out on a vital part of community interaction. Believe me, I’m one of those that chooses “not to go” most of the time and I really would love to spend more time with neighbors and friends.

It’s the right thing to do and I’m sure we will all get used to it, our children won’t even remember the days when you used to be able to smoke indoors. I know, right now, some of you may feel like your rights are being violated and it’s natural for you to feel that way because you have to make a change that not everyone else has to make. It doesn’t seem fair, but please take a look around this place where you are smoking. Consider for a moment your waitress or waiter or co-worker: Their risk of heart disease and lung cancer increases by 20-30% just because they want to make a living and are doing their job every day. Talk about having your rights violated! There are OSHA laws out there to limit the amount of ammonia and hundreds of other substances you could be exposed to at work but not the amount of nicotine and in some cases, the carcinogens in second-hand smoke are even deadlier.

It’s also important for those of us who will reap the benefit from this new law to consider our friends and neighbors who are going to have to make the change. Get involved, see what you can do as a community, to help because the law wasn’t passed in order to punish, it’s there to make all of our lives better. What sort of changes will your local establishment have to make to accommodate an outdoor area for smoking? Is there any way we can help them with this? Could we organize a community clean up or a deck raising on a Saturday afternoon before planting season starts to help with an outdoor area? Is there a local smoking cessation class to assist those that want to quit? Do they have the information they need to comply with this new law?

We are all in Nebraska here together and it’s a huge, bold, admirable change for all of us so we need to work together to make it happen because it affects every one of us, of every single age group. So I suggest we start talking about it and not one side against the other but rather, how we can approach this law and make the most of it. Nebraska is one of just 23 states with such a law coming into reality and I am proud to be a part of such a wonderful group of forward-thinkers.

I would love to hear successes as well as complaints from our readers. I don’t usually get too political, but you know where I’m at if you need to vent….that’s why he puts me on the opinion page. For more information go to:
www.smokefree.ne.gov.

For a list of states that already have their law in place go to: www.no-smoke.org/pdf/100ordlist.pdf.

There is some expansion happening at my place of employment that has made the existing parking lot inaccessible. The backup parking lot happens to be quite a bit further away from the building with the additional benefits of being too small and lacking organized entry and exit points. As a result there have been many complaints and difficulties due to this arrangement. The following is something I posted in my department to give everyone some perspective.

1. It could be a coincidence, but I am seriously starting to think the frigid air is good for adult acne.
2. It’s no coincidence: I’ve been forced to eliminate my usual bottle of water, consumed during my commute into work….now, I wait to drink it until I get to my desk. There’s something to be said for actually performing those Kagel exercises. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.
3. We can really learn to appreciate that “smell of money”. Like my Dad used to say whenever we kids complained about smelling like cow crap at school, after helping with the milking each morning: “That herd of 40, 4-legged, s__t-producers out there, in the back yard, is putting food on your table so zip it!”
4. I moved up here from Texas 10 years ago and I am finally faced with the fact that I really do need a pair of coveralls! It is a good idea after all! It can get kinda cold up here.
5. Just when you are sure some old fart is permanently crabby and crotchety: he picks you up in his warm truck on a particularly cold morning and gives you a ride to the walkway. There’s hope for all of us…you just have to believe and give everyone a chance.
6. I have a cost savings for nursing this month: I was asked to put 4 treadmills in the conference room at one time. We really don’t need them anymore with the mandatory half-mile walk every day.
7. Personally, my reflexes are improving due to the necessary dodging of the urine and poop showers, flying randomly from the cattle trucks, as I walk to and from my car.
8. We get 10 more minutes to chat with our co-workers as we walk in together. This is a great time to get to know someone you don’t normally talk to…. take advantage of it.
9. It’s Christmas time. Have no clues what to get that person whose name you drew in the office gift exchange? My suggestion: gloves, scarf, and a hat…..one size fits all….you can’t miss.
10. I think I lost 5 pounds already! YIPEE!!! How about you?
    The Top Reason to see the Bright Side of our Parking Lot Situation:

FREE WEIGH-INS in the Nurse’s office anytime!

They finally got me.

My daughter and I were coming back from her dance lesson in Schuyler on a Monday night and I was so excited to not be going the normal 58 miles per hour that is usual for my personal, miles and miles of Highway 30 travel. I happened to be following a car going 68 or 70 miles per hour for a change and I admit it, I couldn’t help myself, I was right there with him and loving the opportunity to actually drive my car.

Yeah, that’s me, I’m the one following you just close enough but not too close, impatiently pushing you to go 5 miles over the speed limit. Which is a frustrating waste of energy because we all know how difficult it is to pass on our beloved two-lane. I’ve got this car with “six-on-the-floor”, you heard me right, not five, six. That diesel engine is just aching to accelerate and yet we are forced to plug along at 58, day after day after day. It can’t be good for the vehicle or the driver, that’s what I tell myself.

I digress; the two of us were singing to the radio as we tend to do while in the car, both tired because Mondays are extremely long days for us. We were cruising along at light speed and all of a sudden the pace car in front of us slams on his brakes. Stupid me, I couldn’t figure out why. Then my co-pilot informs me that there are flashing blue and red lights behind us. I was too busy throwing my hands up to gesture at my racing buddy and his odd choice to decelerate for, what I thought was, no apparent reason. I didn’t even notice the intentions of the squad car in my rear view. Turns out, that car ahead of me was more aware of my surroundings than I was myself. I take back the gesture, whoever you are…you tried to warn me and I appreciate your effort. He, of course, was able to continue on his way as we, obligingly, pulled over onto the shoulder.

By the way, I have never really given it much thought before but there is absolutely no shoulder to speak of on the edge of our lovely country thoroughfare. Seriously. Our fine officer of the law was taking her life into her own hands just getting out of that squad car, walking basically into the flow of traffic, past her own car and over to mine. I was frightened for her, the walk seemed dangerous, someone should do something about that, like add another couple of lanes or something. The semi trailers were whizzing by her, just inches from her back side as she bent over with her flashlight to ask me if I knew why I was being stopped.

I haven’t been pulled over for many, many years but, in the distant past, I would have answered this question with a somewhat respectfully flippant: “No officer, I have no idea.” However, my child was sitting next to me and she knew that I knew…so: “Was I speeding?” seemed a more appropriate response. To which she answered: “Yes you were ma’am, do you know what the speed limit is on this highway?” I had to tell her that one correctly too because I know darn well that the “Tween” in my passenger seat would smirk or something if I lied and said I didn’t.

We got her the registration without too much scrounging around in the glove compartment and I managed to locate my wallet, which fortunately contained my driver’s license, from the back seat with my daughter’s assistance. Then, as our personal constable was about to return to her “office”, she looks at my face and asks me: “Have you had anything to drink tonight?” I had to think for a moment… it had definitely been a milk and water kind of day so I replied, quickly, though maybe too quickly, to the negative. I’m certain I appeared somewhat taken aback by her question, I’m not much of a poker player, because she responded defensively with; “Well I smell something coming from your car but I can’t really tell what it is.” All I could think of was that my nice new-car-smell has recently been replaced with the pungent, sweet, acrid fetor given off by the rendering process, among other untold processes. My current parking spot for 8-10 hours each day is located directly north of the waste water treatment area where I’m currently employed and the aforementioned “fresh scent” seems inevitable. I explained this to the officer and she responded with; “Uh, okaaay.” If the odor we exude, after a few beers, even closely resembles the smell of my car’s interior, maybe we should all reconsider and have a soda next Saturday night instead.

“Now what?” The inquisition began within seconds, once we were alone again and waiting. I laid it all out for her: “Now I get a ticket which won’t really cost that much on the surface, but I will pay for it monthly for the next three years as my car insurance will go up and this whole thing will suck over a thousand dollars from your college savings.” Did I mention I tend to be a bit over dramatic and blunt when I’m tired and frustrated? I try to be realistic with my impromptu educational opportunities concerning my child, no sense in beating around the bush. I made a mistake and not only am I going to pay for it, but unfortunately, so will she.

We were cut a lucky break, I was given a verbal warning when all was said and done. I’m taking it to heart, I’ll drive like the rest of you, staying within the letter/number of the law from now on. That’s the lesson I closed the conversation with as my girl, who is 3 short years away from driving herself, and I, finally continued on home to Morse Bluff. It never pays to drive faster, you don’t really get there any quicker anyway, and sometimes those few miles over the speed limit can cost you even more than an embarrassing traffic stop, a speeding ticket and a bump in your insurance premiums.

To the nice, young, officer that stopped me: I know you may not have added to your quota the other night, but you need to know that you made a huge impact on two of the lives you are out there to protect. Thank you.

I skipped my Pilates class this week. I had a fairly decent reason: my kitchen was a mess and my toilets needed cleaning and I was expecting company on Friday after work so the cleaning was justified. I am still feeling like I let myself down somehow and my muscles are more sore now than if I had tortured…sorry, exercised and stretched them for an hour in a structured class.

I’ve never been much of a “group exerciser”, lately, I’m not much of an “exerciser” at all. I decided to give this Pilates class a try for a couple of reasons: the time of day and week was amazingly open for me and my back has become a desperate mess. It was suggested that I need to strive for more flexibility and that stretching and stomach exercises would help the most. Walking seemed to be making the pain in my back and hips worse.

Pilates sounded like a perfect fit by definition and we now have this wonderful opportunity right here in town with “Fit on Main”, so I’m giving it a whirl. Of course, before I started I did my usual Internet information prep and I was happy to find out that Pilates is basically, entirely low impact. I secretly thought to myself; “How tough can it be, you’re laying down for pretty much every exercise, even I can handle that.”

I realized that I had some sort of mental block when it came time to participate in very public, group exercising. The hardest part for me, was overcoming the self-consciousness that accompanies the idea that I might not be able to keep up or even just the fact that, in some of the exercise positions, more of me might be hanging out than I can personally accept as appropriate. When you are walking around town or going out to eat in front of your acquaintances, friends, and people you do business with everyday; you aren’t generally clad in Lycra-wear with your head between your knees and both of your feet in the air. It’s a hurdle, I’m sure we ladies all struggle with at some level, I don’t care who you are or how hot you look in your yoga pants. There’s just something about lying on your back with your legs spread wide that is taboo for some reason, or well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

I summoned the courage, braved my insecurities and signed up anyway. At the first class, I think I counted 30 or so women and I’m sorry to say, though it’s nice to have more room to stretch out, the numbers have dwindled. Rebecca is fantastic! She’s the perfect motivator for me because I respond well to the pleasant mixture of her boundless energy and her Pollyanna-sunshiny-attitude mixed, delightfully/refreshingly with grating, realistic sarcasm. I couldn’t be more entertained and in pain at the same time. I can tell she really cares about us as she demands we breathe to her count and keep our feet “up, up, up….no drooping”. We stare at her pleadingly for the “…and relax” command, as we attempt to keep our shoulders off the mat and our straight, quivering/convulsing legs inches off the ground. She just keeps talking and telling jokes, can’t she see we’re dying down here!?! Maybe that’s the point, though sometimes it’s hard to deep breathe and laugh at ourselves at the same time…..but we try.

It’s not for the weak, don’t let the horizontal positions fool you. For some of us, when we recline, gravity takes hold and with all of that up near your face, with your knees, pulled obligingly into your chest; it’s a challenge to keep from turning purple, much less breathe with any sort of rhythm…and still we try, because all you can do is try and keep trying.

I remember, in the beginning, we ladies were meeting each other at Mini Mart and other places around town for weeks asking each other, sympathetically, about our aching stomach muscles; our “natural girdles” as it were. We’ve bonded in more ways than that I’m sure; I think we are all standing up straighter, sitting less, and we are all making our “imprint” in this world every chance we get, now that we know and feel, how important that can be.

I’ll try not to skip anymore. We all deserve at least an hour each week to focus on our personal “core”, whether that be in the corporeal sense or the spiritual. It’s our time and we should never allow earthly, mundane tasks like washing dishes or cleaning toilets get in the way of our inner peace.

Namaste everybody!

Are you all as tired as I am? I can’t believe we are starting to think about Christmas shopping again! This life is going a little too fast forward for my taste, the none-stop running is wearing on my usually pleasant disposition.

Here’s one theory: we got more rain this Spring and Summer than we normally do, at least we got a little bit every now and then, somewhat consistently. I find that I am still mowing my lawn like it’s Spring time, when I usually let it dry up and go dormant by mid July; to me that’s just easier. My thought is that having to perpetually keep up with the constantly growing grass all summer long, has robbed me of time I might have used to reflect, cogitate and slow down so that I might come up with more viable reasons as to why life is spinning out of control.

No? Oh well, I’m a simple, small town girl with simple theories. I did have a chance one beautiful morning, a few weeks ago, to nap in style and I never pass up a chance to nap, I liken it to winning the lottery.

My Dad enjoys taking advantage of his crew of offspring every now and then. Our numbers are a blessing at Christmas; when the house is full and you can see the pride and sheer contentment in our folks’ faces with all of us and all of our children there to surround them with joy and noise. It must be similar to that feeling when the farm yields a bumper crop for the year, only we keep bumping the numbers higher and higher.

We also, as a group, tend to have a certain amount of buying power, now that we are older; when it comes to buying gifts. Think about it….when you split it nine ways…..you have so many more options.

The team effort I enjoy the most though, would have to be the annual laying out and loading back up of the irrigation pipe. I was called upon to join again this year, out of desperation on my father’s part; I work Saturdays and have sadly missed a couple of years. This year he “needed” me, so I made it work and after I put in a half day at my job I was out to the farm by 0900 with my leather gloves on, raring for action…well, I was present and accounted for anyway. In the past, he has been able to round up several spry, teen-agers with not a care in the world as to the condition of their rotator cuffs but this year he had a motley crew at best. My youngest brother, me and my daughter, my sister, her husband and their two boys and we were all kind of looking at each other like; “Okay.  Let’s just do this.”

We split into two groups and after loading one trailer with my brother; he got in the driver’s seat and my daughter, my nephew and I precariously hopped up on top of the pipe to ride back to the farm the old fashioned way. The kids loved it once the pipe settled and we got up onto the road. They laid down on the pipe, looked up at the clouds and let out an “aaaahhhhhh..” as the bumps and shimmies made their voices jump around until they were giggling uncontrollably at themselves. Remember when you did things like that? Back in the day before all of those “Farm Safety Gods” bore down from above and swiped away the adventure, the spontaneity, and the “I dare you” aspect that makes farm life fun. There aren’t any seat belts on the top of the pipe, in the loader bucket, or in the bed of the truck, therefore taboo these days.

My favorite part of the irrigation experience is always the loading and unloading of the pipe and not because I totally love to lift these 10 inch, aluminum beasts over my head, one after the other, onto the pile or the trailer, depending on the season, but because of where the storage area is located. Every year I’m allowed to venture up there, I’m surprised by the beauty of this small clearing at the top of the bluff. There’s this open area, surrounded by trees where I’m not sure if the prairie grasses were planted or if they remain there from times long past but this view always takes my breath away. I prefer to think the grasses ancestral rather than planned out and machine seeded; but I think we’ve all come to the conclusion that I’m a bit of a romantic about almost everything.

The wheat grass flows and shines as the breezes blow through. There are patches of wild rye, switch grass and Indian grass peppered in and throughout. As I walk through; I search for the wild asters who come out of their low-to-the-ground hiding spots and show off their tiny, tough, daisy-like flowers. The round-headed bush clovers stand proudly, singly, dotting the prairie scene with their blue leaves and ball shaped grouping of white and red petals, and I can also always count on bright, sunny yellow goldenrod and sunflowers to greet me like old friends without fail.

I have to admit I was tired that day after rising in the middle of the night to go into work and I think the “the crew” knew it so they left me up there, in paradise, to wait and unload as the full trailers came back. I didn’t argue and I took the opportunity, between loads, to reacquaint myself with that feeling of how life used to be before there were pipe and the occasional tractor coming up to that clearing. One could possibly imagine themselves standing atop this hill in order to predict the timing of a storm seen coming from many many miles away, where the buffalo herd was, or if the rival tribe was headed in this direction.

I couldn’t tell you if all of that is even true to this area but I was prairie dreaming and that would be an example of my imagination at work. When the wait between loads got to be more than 10 minutes, I couldn’t resist the temptation to lie down in the middle of those soft, flowing grasses, feeling the  grasshoppers curiously investigating my foreign body, placing my leather gloves on my forehead to shield my eyes but not block out the unending blue Nebraska sky. I listened and heard the cicadas, the crickets with their never-ending songs, often signifying unrequited love, and I even had a Monarch land on my knee for a second until she realized she had mistakened my blue jeans for possibly some purple prairie clover;  and she was quickly off to find the real thing.

The whooshing of the grasses moving together in rhythm and that crispy, burnt smell of September carried my heart to a calmer place, enabling me to forget about the crazy work place I had left a couple hours ago, the deadlines, the commitments, and the hustle that is required of every one of us because life is racing  by a little “too fast forward”. For a moment, for 20 minutes, I was allowed to sleep in this wonderful Nebraska dream scape until I heard the old Ford coming into the yard below, I turned over and saw the puff of black smoke rise above the trees as my brother shoved it into low, in order to begin his ascent, pulling his full trailer and more work behind him, requiring me to break out of my grassland fantasy and get back to work.

I have that memory from that fun, break-in-my-monotony kind of day and I take it out to use it whenever I’m waiting at the railroad, driving slowly behind a combine, or when I’m taking a personal moment to briefly crumble under the pressure, at my desk in the afternoons. I’m able to find that peace again and slow it all down if not just for a flash of time; I find it really helps me.

It’s still all rushing by and time seems to take on a life of it’s own, there’s really no way to control it. I  think it’s important that we all make good use of that one calming memory and take selfish micro-breaks during our busy days because we deserve better and more than this treadmill that life seems to have become. Oscar Wilde describes a dreamer as thus:  “One who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”   A dreamer can dream at any time during the day in order to re-orient himself and find his way once again; so give it a try, the sunrise that accompanies the dawn reminds us that every day is a new opportunity to start fresh, and I can’t imagine a more inspiring sort of “punishment”.