Monday, December 18, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec.19, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec. 19, 2006
There are two kinds of people in this world -those who send Christmas cards and those who do not. I am one who does not. It is not that I do not like cards it is just that I can never get them in the mail. I can get them purchased, written on, signed, addressed and, yes, even stamped. But, to get them to the mailbox seems to be an impossible task to accomplish. I could lie and tell you it is just Christmas cards that I do not get in the mail; it is all mail in general. I still have Jennifer’s birth announcements to get off. I think that after 25 years that maybe I should take the stamps off and throw them away. Besides most of the people who I was going to send them to, either have moved away or have died. It is somewhat depressing when you think about it.
But Christmas cards are fun to receive. Christmas cards show your personality. Dad always agonized on picking out the right cards. He ordered from the Leaning Tree Company and he chose different cards for different people. Then he and Mom always wrote a little note inside. If he received a card from someone he had not sent one to, he made sure that one would be in the mail to them within a few days. He just loved getting pictures of families and school pictures of kids.
I just love the cards that people send that can make anything-sound good. Such as: a jailed son, has been away for awhile; if a family member is a wanted felon it could read like this- my sister and her family are enjoying living on an exotic island, not mentioning that there is no extradition there. Or when your daughter has gotten the father of her children to marry her it could read like this, our daughter has married the love of her life.
We have received the cards that do the opposite- Everything is doom and gloom. They report every ache, pain, and bad thing that ever happened to them. Instead of telling about a recent marriage of one of their children- they tell that they are having financial problems they had as a result of an over priced wedding that their daughter just had to have when a trip to the judge’s office would accomplish the same result and not drained their finances for the next ten years and they will never get their credit cards paid off. Not mentioning that she was lucky to find a man who loved and adored her. Or they would write about the child who would not leave home and was a parasite who was sucking the life out of them instead of telling about how nice it was to have someone who lived in the house who could help them out and drive them to their numerous doctor appointments. They might tell about their vehicle problems, instead telling about the nice neighbor that helped them out while stranded along the road- they tell about how the car factories cannot produce a good product and the repair cost more than the lousy car was ever worth. They may write about their near death experience, instead of telling about the great care that they received from the hospital staff and the EMT who arrived in just minutes of the call, they tell about how no one ever stays home anymore and they just spread germs and plagues everywhere they go. Instead of telling about having the grandchildren over and playing with them-they tell how tiring the kids were and they are not taught to mind. They are getting just a little bit tired of being a free babysitter.
I get a real kick out of those who love to tell about all of their misfortunes. However, when you think about it- Life is too short to dwell on the bad so I guess I prefer the optimistic to the pessimistic.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec. 12, 06

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec. 12, 06
Have you gotten your Christmas shopping done? I think that I might have a couple more to get. One year we did not start until Christmas Eve. Waiting that long is not a wise idea. However, it is all over very quickly. It is like ripping the band-aid off really fast instead of the slow painful way.
One of my favorite things that I received at Christmas time was a little wind up dog. It really is not the dog, but the story that goes with it. Mom always tried to make everything equal among the three of us. Dad always purchased what he thought someone would like. This particular little wind up dog caught Dads eye and he bought it for me. Mom had thought that she was done with the gift buying then Dad showed her what he had found and she was irritated that she now had to even up the gifts once again. I do not think that she wanted Dad to go back to town in fear of what he might find to buy not just for me but anyone of us. I do not think that anyone enjoyed buying more gifts than Dad.
He always was asking me what I thought Jim might like to get for Christmas or his birthday. He would say after he asked me, “I want to get him something that would really tickle him”. I told if I knew the answer to that I would get it for him myself. I have decided that there are different gift stages in your life. When you are a child toys are the thing that you receive then as a young adult you receive clothes and gift certificates. As a wife you get sweepers, mops, pots, pans and other useful items. As husband you would receive ties, tools, shovels, others things that the wife would like for the husband to get done for her and the tools to do it. Then as you get older you start getting toys again.
What we bought for Dad, was any kind of toy that would move, wiggle,light up, or make music. If you could find one that did all of the above, that would really please him.
By now I hope you are through with all of your shopping and that you can sit back and enjoy the Holiday Season. HO! HO! HO!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec. 5, 06

By the time this article comes out we will only have a few days of rifle deer season left. I hope that you all survived it. This year it seemed that there were more out of state hunters looking for a place to hunt. I am surprised that someone would come from a long distance to hunt without any plan of where they are going to hunt or stay. It seems that some have no idea of our limited services and that most places are spoken for. All of us have family and friends who enjoy hunting and have promised our hunting to them. I have always said that hunters are the one thing that can reproduce without procreation and the gestation period can vary from just a few minutes to years and the number of offspring can be from one to twenty.
Dad had a cousin that came out during quail season and I loved it when they came as we did not get a lot of company. He and his son came out and I thought that it was nice that a father and son shared the same interest. They had bird dogs which I thought were really neat. Then in a year or two they started to bring out friends and business associates. The next thing we knew we had a bunch of guys out in our yard on opening day. Do not get me wrong we liked the cousin and all of his friends but Dad liked having his cousin come, so they could have some time together, but it got to where we did not even get to visit with him.
When they would bring in the quail and pheasant to clean, I always wanted one to see if we could save it. It bothered me that sometimes the birds were still alive. I thought that it must have been awful for the bird to be put in a bag with other dead or severely wounded birds. I know that I humanize the animal world a little too much but just think how terrifying it would be to be the quarry and be put in the vest or a bag with your fellow mates not knowing what would happen next. It always reminded me of the story that was told about my Uncle Gene Cary. He was in World War I and had gotten gassed. The military had put him in the morgue as they thought he was dead and when he came to he saw two dead guys next to him. Right then and there he decided to go back to his beloved home state of Virginia and he did. Because of the gas he always had breathing problems from then on. But he was lucky to be alive. So I always thought that when you shoot a bird go ahead and kill the poor thing so he will not suffer anymore. However, I am glad that they did not knock poor ole’ Uncle Gene in the head before they put him in the morgue, so I guess it is your call.