All Decked Out

October 16, 2013

Tuesday’s High			82
Tuesday’s Low			52
Days in Las Cruces			114
Steps/Miles walked Tuesday		12965	6.5
Steps/Miles walked		899,169	449.6

Got nothin’ today, other than a brief recital of yesterday’s events.

Scott and I pulled up the indoor/outdoor carpet from our front deck. It was beyond ratty! Then we drove out to Lowe’s and Home Depot to look at carpet. I got the wonderful idea to rip out the deck altogether, and replace it with vinyl decking. Uh, no.

Carpet for the deck, $75. Vinyl decking, $900. Me no job. Scott no job. But, rather than settle for recarpeting, the gent at Home Depot got us to look at some deck paint. For just a little more than the carpet, we can paint over the deck, and it’ll look great.

It’ll also protect us from slivers.

Took Nikki for a bath! She’s SO pretty! And they put an adorable “Autumn Theme” bandana on her. A.DOR.able!

Daily Gratitude

My daily gratitude today is for some of my cousins, namely my cousins on my mother’s side.

I grew up with B, D & K. Though, B was a bit older than I, so I spent most of my growing up years with D & K. As I look back an the 60s, and perhaps the early 70s as well, it seems as though I didn’t do anything if it wasn’t with D & K. Yes, I had my own friends, but momentous stuff was with the cuz’s.

I don’t remember how old I was, probably about 4. My family got home from something, I don’t know what it was. And I honestly don’t recall how we came to know that my cousin D had “run away”. He was nowhere to be found! Sure enough he was hiding in one of our forts, a cluster of bushes in our back yard. He couldn’t have been much older than 2, but he’d walked over 6 blocks to reach our house!

Is that why I’m grateful for him? No. I’m just grateful for all the fun and all the love we shared over the decades.

The same is true with K. She and I got along about as well as snakes and mongooses for most of our childhood. When we got together, it seems, arguments, and all out screaming matches were sure to follow. I had the gift, it seems, of riling her up something fierce. But, hey, we were family, and we loved each other as fiercely as we argued.

I recall an event 26 years ago. Perhaps I shouldn’t share it, but I will. K & I had one of our hellacious scream fests… I think it was the last one we ever had. At the end of it, I told K “I think I might be gay.” She put her arm around me, held me close, and suggested she and her husband take me down to downtown Phoenix and buy me a prostitute, because all I really needed was “to know” a woman. (Not her words, but the only way to put it delicately here.)

Nearly a decade later when I finally DID come out to her (before I came out to my parents) she was totally accepting… her husband of the time is a different story!

And then there was B. I looked up to B. She had cool friends who could really draw! And she was pretty! Oh, my goodness she was pretty. She was truly my first crush! Well, my first girl crush… and one of the few, as well! And when she spent the night, once or twice, she made a really cool breakfast that I loved, too!

B had a ranch between Omaha and Blair, and on this ranch she bred Arabian horses. I loved going out to help in whatever limited way I could. Most of my memories revolve around working on her ranch. B was the first person in my family that I ever told, definitively, that I was gay. Oh, how scared I was. It was a total non-event!

B passed away due to cancer in about 1997, if my memory serves. I have always credited my Mom & Dad’s eventual acceptance of Scott and me to B’s influence!

Anyhow. B, D & K… whatever may befall, I will always love you three for being some of the best cousins the world could provide!

Prayer Intention

For this week’s quote, I paraphrase one I saw somewhere not long ago, but can no longer find:

“One can do much after first praying. One should do nothing before first praying.”

We carry on with our week’s them of “Caring”. Care is helping others, being mindful of those in need.