Grumpier Old Woman

For some reason the last couple of days I have just been grumpy. Maybe it's knowing that we didn't get very many miles this week to turn in so next weeks paycheck will be small. Maybe it's that they had us drive 800 miles empty and gave us 3 days to do it and that makes for a very boring time. I'm not sure....poor hubby (half the time because the other half he deserves it!) I have been grumpy with him. Maybe it's that normally I take every emotion I have out on people and get it out rather than letting it fester inside of me so I get grumpy LOL Who knows. Right now we are headed from Chicao to Sacramento to drop off this load so we can get hubby back home on Thursday or Friday for drill this weekend. It will be his first time back since he came home from the sandbox. We had his patches for his uniform that we were suppose to sew on by now showing First Class but of course SOMEHOW in our truck it gets lost....he swears they are somewhere but we can't find them and lord only knows where in this 8 foot sleeper area they could be LOL So he will have to figure out how to get it sewed on so he's the correct rank by Saturday Morning. I am going to take the truck on rather than take time off because I have to stay home during Valentine's Day because my parents are going on vacation and so I will be driving by myself for a few days....I'm not worried...After all half the time I get free meals because drivers are so sweet LOL J/K Kinda....

A Truck Driver Nap

Hubby and I got home (which we are now and that is why I am publishing some of these posts that I haven't had a chance to put up yet) and we got some chinese food (okay it's Panda Express but nobody delivers to our area anymore that we like their food) and then we thought we would lay down for a short nap because I had only 4 hours of sleep after driving and being up for a total of 26 and he had been up and driving for about 10 hours and hadn't slept that much before that. So we lay down and figured afterwards we would get up and do some house cleaning and other things we needed....well we lay down....and 10 hours later we wake up LOL Damn now it's 3 am!!!! Great so now we are totally off on our sleep...of course had we kept driving he would have been on schedule but I would have just been going to bed....But we got lots done...nothing on TV but we ate some chinese (we got extra because you have to have leftover chinese to eat later) and I got all my printing and stuff done off the computer I wanted to get done and cleaned the kitchen...yikes living room next! The house is a mess because when we left to go drive we left 2 days before we thought we were going to and tore through the house gathering up everything we needed and haven't really had any time at home since then to clean up our mess. So it's off to fold laundry and mop the wood floors for me I guess!

Florida Rest Areas

Florida has the nicest rest areas....very clean! We happened to stop at the same rest area 2 times in one day....this is a rarity but it was because we delivered near it, had to stop for a conference call I had for the Navy, drove down the road and picked up a load near by then drove back to the rest area to let the dog out but that's not the point to this post. They were cleaning it both times we were there!!

But they also have security which patrols at night...which is very nice...especially for myself because I have the bathroom flashlight that I take with me (I used to take the leatherman pocket knife that hubby had but now we have the flashlight) because when I was driving years ago by myself there was some "incidents" that caused me to restict my use of rest areas at night if I can help it. I'm not sure if they (the FL DOT) care about the people at the rest area so much that they put the security there or the crime is so HIGH that it is a public need. I like to think people care!

Question regarding florida if someone can answer it for me though. One of those things you wonder as you drive along....the exits are soooooo far apart in some areas near Tampa...is this because they spread the exits out or the towns are spread out because there is so much land that is non developable or because the government owns a lot of the land and that is why there is no building on it? I wasn't sure if it had something to do with wetland preservation or maybe it just wasn't able to be built on because of the wetlands and couldn't sustain a community. Just a thought that came across my mind as I was driving...this happens a lot and maybe I remember to write them down...some are quite interesting...and some are not!

Fire & Lust Books

When I was younger I read every book I could find. Now i'm not talking about being like 8 but when I was older I started reading Romance novels. Just mainly because I had read every book in the juvenile section of the library and they were the biggest books I could find in the paperback section. I would read about 1200 pages a night (*6 hours*) so one day I decided I would write a book. My grandma (*who I absolutely adored and was my best friend, mentor and the person who believed in me 100% unconditionally*) was going to help me. But she always referred to Romance books (*she read them herself*) as Fire and Lust Books because she said only the good ones had a half naked man in tight breeches, a woman with a tight dress with a low bodice and a billowy skirt and the either the word Fire or Lust in the title! So *sigh* I never ended up writing my Fire and Lust book....but I continued to read them until the time that I found other things to occupy my time.....

Well the other day I saw a book on tape (*because we are driving it's the only way I can get to "read" a book*) called "Tin Angel" and it was 10.5 hours long which would get me through a driving shift and sounded interesting. So I rented it...started listening to it while my daughter and I were driving through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana. It got to be very interesting and as I was driving sometimes I drift off and I hear it but I don't really hear it...I get absorbed into the story....suddenly I realized that this book on tape was NOT PG13!!!! It was definately a "fire and lust book" and there was a LOT of FIRE and a lot of LUST in some of these scenes. Now it was definately tastefully written but NOT for a 10 year old to listen to. I'm a big one to push for you to talk to your children about sex and educate them on such things because otherwise they will learn about it some other way...but the lessons this book on tape was giving was NOT the ones that she needed to learn! So I turned it off for awhile till she went to bed...of course hubby was in the back in the sleeper trying to go to sleep but the story (*which it was a very good story and a great read for anyone who didn't mind the sex scenes in it and it definately sucks you in to the story*) sucked him in and he was like "CHANGE THE DISK...COME ON WHERE"S THE REST OF THE STORY?!?!" So we ended up finishing the story once my daughter was off the truck and we listened to the last couple of hours while he drove from Wyoming down to Salt Lake where we live. Maybe one day I will write my Fire and Lust book and dedicate it to my grandmother...With a heroine that looks like her from the younger days with red hair and a billowing dress and of course her dark ruggedly handsome man with tight breeches on the front!

Southern Traditions

Okay i'm all for traditional food...i love grits, sweet tea, pecan pie and trying other traditional food from all over the country. Well NOT Rocky mountain oysters but hey I tried them once and that was enough! But we stepped into a gas station and i'm looking around for a snack down in Georgia/Florida area. I opened up a pot of "something" since I wasn't sure what it was although it advertised "A Southern Tradition". Hmmmm how to describe it....I thought as I looked down into the pot that it looked as if someone scraped the bottom of the sewer drain and added water and then put it on a steam tray to keep it warm...and it smelled even worse than that. It burnt my nose and then made me actually catch myself as I almost jumped back and threw the lid. I swear the smell stayed with me and I contemplated sticking my head in the toilet to wash off the stench. When I smell tequila (*i drank a little too much when I was younger so now I can't stand it*) it gives me the shivers up my back and this did the same thing but gave me the full body tremor's. What is it that caused me to lose my appetite and wish I had never lifted the lid to this pot of horrors?!?! BOILED PEANUTS! Now i'm not saying that they are disgusting...perhaps this place just let them sit for too long...or maybe they ARE this disgusting but MY GOD never have I been so disgusted in my life! The key to dieting....keep a pot of boiled peanuts going in the kitchen! The sign advertised "Picked green and quickly boiled to ensure the best green peanut taste"....apparently I'm not a fan of "green peanut taste" nor of this "Wonderful Southern Tradition". I will stick to the grits I guess....as I turned to the right to find something that might make me forget the look and smell of the Boiled Peanuts I ran into "Fried Chitlins (sp?) with SKIN STILL ATTACHED! now i love the pork rinds but now that I have seen deep fried pig skin...I'm rethinking the pork rinds. Needless to say I walked out with coffee and no snacks (300 calories saved for the day!)

3's Company

Well we are now sitting at home because we have a load that doesn't deliver till Tuesday in Reno and we live about 500 miles from there and ended up coming through the house. We were lucky enough to be able to have my daughter on the truck with us from the 27th-1st of January. It was great and she loved it. Although my mother will probably be cursing me because her sleep schedule is all messed up now! She was awake till about midnight or 1am and then sleeping till noon on the truck! LOL She stayed up with me while I drove and played video games on the laptop or listened to books on tape (She said she hated them but once we started listening to one that she found interesting she was telling Dad what it was all about when he woke up LOL) It was a bit more crowded than it usually is with just me, hubby and our dog but it was worth it to be able to spend time with her.

Christmas was great although we did get more money than presents because most people did not know what to get us LOL After all last year and the year before it was mainly just house remodel stuff....now it's stuff for the truck that we want. Which is fine because money always helps out with some of the big ticket items we want to purchase. We didn't get to see his son though which is sad...we have yet to see him because it's so hard to "schedule" time with his mother...but then I won't get into talking about her at this time! I hope everyone that reads this is doing good and I am headed to Reno...My mother said to put 50 cents in a slot machine for her...too bad it will be my 50 cents that wins and not her's LOL