AND THE AWARD FOR “WORST WIFE EVER” GOES TO…

ME!

Yesterday was my 32nd wedding anniversary.

And how did we spend it you ask?

Pretty much like how we have spent the last 32 years…Scott was gone when I got up, came home for a couple of hours (brought me flowers, pizza, cheesecake and donuts) and then when it came time for me to “die to self” and do something nice for him,  I dropped the ball.  I had told him that my gift to him was that I would go with him to the trade show we are doing and help man the booth for five hours.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I could no more sit and make small talk with hordes of people who I am hoping will buy something from us, than I could run a quarter-mile (actually I would do the quarter mile more readily because it would kill me faster).

So instead he ended up taking a neighbor lady and I stayed home and ate pizza and watched TV.   At least I was up when he got home (which depending on what his schedule is may or may not happen that often) and we sold a bookcase and a Wannigan.  (A wannigan is a box that fits into a canoe and holds your gear or food or whatever.  We make stands for them so they can be used as side tables or coffee tables and come in small, medium and large….two large and the small are shown….mediums are sold out as of today)

This is a wannigan. It is made to go into a canoe to store gear or food. You can also use it as a coffee table as we have.

As unusual as our marriage may seem to others, it works for us.   I think one of the fastest ways to destroy your marriage is to look at other marriages and compare yours to their’s.   We went through that for many years but once we decided to just focus on what works for us, we are much happier.

Scott has a tremendous gift for serving others.  And I am so blessed daily by his gifting.  He also allows me to be “me” and if you know me or follow my adventures on this blog, you will understand how much patience and understanding he has!  He also has come to realize and laugh about my complete and total lack of common sense.  (An example: The day that we set up for the trade show, we had to take two vehicles and I had to follow him into Duluth to the DECC since I had no idea as to where to go.  No problem there…followed him right up to the unloading zone.  He brought me right up to where we were to set up while he and some guys hauled everything in.  Then he had to go move our vehicles to the parking area.  Took us five hours to set everything up and by that time I was a little “pain drunk” and couldn’t wait to get home so I wasn’t really at my best brain function.  So Scott showed me where my car was parked and he went back into the place to bring back a cart.

SIDE NOTE: my car is slowly falling apart and Scott has no time to fix it and since I am a semi-recluse it really doesn’t matter too much UNTIL I go to use it and I find out that:

A: the hood is wired shut since someone did not shut it properly and it flew up and smashed the windshield while going 70 plus mph (had I been driving, I would not be here to tell the tale as I do not do well in most emergencies…I scream, I call out to Jesus, I shut my eyes, and I slam on the brakes)

B:  Since the hood incident, the lights on the dashboard suddenly go out leaving you literally in the dark as to how fast you are going, how much gas you have,  and everything else the gauges tell you.  Plus, the lights go out on the gear stick thingy so you don’t know what gear you are in.  Oh, and the brights don’t work and you can’t get to the windshield wiper fluid holder since the hood is wired down and the windows are really dirty.

C:  the same person who did not properly shut the hood also has a tendency to not shut the hatch-back door all the way so as you drive the rear roof light keeps popping on.

Ok, back to my example…..so I leave the parking area only to discover that the way I thought we came in has two huge red-lettered signs proclaiming NO EXIT and cars are coming IN and I am attempting to go OUT.  So I panic and make a quick U-turn in front of the oncoming cars and see a small sign that says EXIT so I follow that past a huge empty parking lot and I come to a place to get out but it has those guard arm things and I have no ticket to put in it to make them open up.   So I backup, which is not easy when your hatchback window is filthy and the damn light keeps popping on and I make for the empty lot to sit and figure out how on earth I am going to get out of this place and thank God I don’t have to pee (every woman reading this will totally understand that statement!)  Suddenly a truck drives by headed to the arm-guard exit and I watch them stop and the arm goes up and I wonder if they had the magic ticket or not, so I drive back up there and cautiously pull up to the arm and EUREEKA it opens up and I am free!!!!  Had that truck not come by, I would still be sitting there because I follow the rules so I would never have tried to go out the NO EXIT place since there were people in those little booths to see me and had I had the four-wheel drive vehicle I may have, in frantic desperation, gone over the curb and ground next to the arm-guards but in my already fragile-bodied Matrix, I knew better than to attempt that!  I am ditzy, not stupid!

So now I am tooling down the freeway hoping that I am going somewhere near the speed limit, that I have enough gas to get home, that the roads are dry so no one splashes more dirt on my windshield cause I am having to look between the smear marks as it is and that flippin’ light in the rear keeps popping on and off and it is driving me cray-cray so I get off the freeway and pull over and jump out of my car to go and close that stupid hatchback door and for one heart-stopping moment I wonder if I accidentally locked the car door (I’m afraid it would not be the first time) and there I would be….stranded in the dark and cold….no phone….no money, too much in pain to be able to walk anywhere and you know I would instantaneous have to pee…..but God in His mercy allowed my brain to function and I had not locked the door!

So back on the freeway I go….letting everyone pass me so I know I am within the speed limits, hoping I was in Drive and not 2nd and trying to see the few feet in front of me that my dirty low beams were allowing me, praying there were no gangs of punk teenage deer egging each other on as to who could dash out in front of a car and make it across the road.. I know they do this because everyone I know has hit one or more of these juvenile delinquents and we all have the dents on our vehicles to prove it!

Finally I pull into my driveway and I realize that I have driven both to town in the daylight and back home on the lit freeway with two child-sized mannequins seatbelted next to me in the front seat and no one gave them a second look, not even the cop who drove towards me during the day.   I then wondered how many people get into accidents with mannequins and how freaky that must be for the rescue folks and if I was happy not to have had an accident or a bit bummed cause it would have been kinda cool to see how the cops would have reacted to seeing two blonde plastic kids on the road dressed in winter and summer clothes (see….this is how I think and my husband knows this and still loves me and is rarely afraid to go to sleep at night eventhough you never can be sure what might be in store for him when he awakes!)

So I had to take a photo of them:But my winter kid had it’s hat over it’s eyes and so in the dark I pulled it up and took another photo and when I looked at it, it scared the crap out of me!

Their heads are NOT moveable and I swear it was looking right at me…..so I left them in the car for the night, hoping my mailman would not have any packages for us, since he often leaves them in our car if we don’t hear him beep for us to come out to his car.   I’m not sure if he would have been surprised or not, since you can imagine all the weird things he has delivered to me over the years….but I will save that for another blog post!

So next time you see my husband, give him a pat on the back and tell him he is is true saint and God bless him for staying married to me for all these years!

I LOVE YOU SCOTT HENRY!

Your Queen,

Robyn

 

ARROWHEAD WOOD PRODUCTS AT THE DULUTH BOAT, SPORTS, TRAVEL AND RV SHOW PHOTOS

HERE ARE MORE PHOTOS OF OUR PRODUCTS THAT WE WILL HAVE AT THIS SHOW FROM 5PM TODAY (2/17/16) THRU 5PM SUNDAY (2/22/16).  WE ARE LOCATED IN THE BALLROOM WHERE THE DEER EXPO ALWAYS IS.  WE ARE JUST DOWN FROM THE SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS STAGE.  THERE IS A WATER-SKIING SQUIRREL TODAY AND TOMORROW…YA GOTTA SEE THAT!

CEDAR BOAT SHAPED BOOKCASE

WHITE ASH FOLDING DIRECTOR CHAIRS

WOOD BURNT PLANKS

WHITE ASH ADIRONDACK CHAIR WITH SNOWSHOE LACED SEAT AND BACK

WHY I CAN NEVER BE A GYPSY

IN MY MIND I AM A GYPSY SPIRIT….but in reality, I am a Couch Potato or actually, my title should be Recliner Recluse.

This has never been more evident to me since trying to set up a 20×10 foot area for a trade show yesterday.  And I didn’t even have to do any of the lifting or carrying in stuff.  All I had to do was tell people where to put stuff.  Easy peasy, right?

What I need to tell you at this juncture is: I cannot envision where to put things, I need to have them physically moved from place to place until the placement feels “right”.   My husband is used to this and understands that there will be a lot of effort involved.  Other men expect me to keep a piece such as a bookcase in the exact spot it just took two of them to place.

After thirty minutes of their help it was decided it would be best for everyone involved if Scott and I just stayed and set the booth up ourselves.

I have a tendency to get overwhelmed by all the disarray and need to just stand with a look that I am shell-shocked for about 10 minutes then I slowly start to put a thing here and place a thing there.  Scott, on the other hand, is like a Tazmanian devil, a whirling dervish.  We are much like Aesop’s “Tortise and the Hare”.

Once all the bookcases were in place and the large wood planks hung up, I could do my thing much better.  It took us five hours to do this and we did not fight once!!  I think we need some kind of award for this.  We will celebrate 32 years of marriage tomorrow and us working together for five whole hours without a “heated exchange” is pretty rare.   High five, Scott Henry!

So this is how the booth looked last night when we left.  If you come by and it has changed, you will understand why we did not argue last night….Scott just decided to let me have my way and then changed it the way he wanted when he got there today!

 

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCKING ON ROBYN’S DOOR…

Someone just violated my 1st rule of friendship.

Robyn’s 1st Rule of Friendship….(it is also my only rule….I am just so easy to get along with!).

THOU SHALL NOT DROP IN UNANNOUNCED….

I live out in the country so drop in company rarely ever happens as you probably aren’t going to drive 30 plus miles to my house from the city and not be sure I am home, but it does happen every few years or so by someone who really doesn’t know me that well or who thinks it will be ok for them to just pop in.

Nay, nay people.

Because my life is not in any way, shape or form, “normal”;  I do not keep normal people hours nor is my home in “company ready” shape.  Only if I know you are coming will the bathroom be clean and some of the clutter picked up and if you are really lucky, the dust tumbleweeds will either be swept away or glittered up to look like fairy-dust tumbleweeds (depending on my energy levels).  Nine chances out of ten I will have nothing to offer you to eat (my daughter says I am not really a grandmother since I don’t have a house full of goodies…tho, to look at me you would think I was a top-notch baker who sampled every bit of what she makes).  And since my husband often leaves for work while I am sleeping and returns home after I have gone to bed, more often than not, I stay in my pj’s (I prefer to think of them as “resort wear”) all the live-long day!

 

Now you may tell me you don’t care what I look like or what my house looks like and I truly believe you don’t but much to the amazement of my husband, I CARE!   I still have a shred of vanity left in this old body that cares if my breath smells cause I haven’t yet brushed my teeth or if my hair is all askew and my “resort wear” has last night’s pizza stains on the “chestal area”.

I wish I were more like my mom.  Everyday, she is fully dressed,  make-up on,  not a hair out of place, matching jewelry and even has on cute shoes and she may not even plan on leaving her house!   My mom will climb out of her deathbed and get herself dolled up so she looks her best when she dies.  Her house is ALWAYS spotless (for those who do not know my mom, she just turned 84 but acts like she is 24 and is in tip top shape….I am 61 and as my dad would say, “I have one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel”!)

So  while I appreciate your total acceptance of me and my current lifestyle, please, please, please, do not drop by without calling me first.  And not from my driveway.  I need minimum of two hours notice (two days would even be better) because I will not answer the door (tho, I may peek to see if I recognize your vehicle in my driveway but that does not mean I will answer the door).   I love you, I love that you want to see me but you will be much more appreciated and welcomed when I KNOW you are coming and have planned for it.

Otherwise this is the face you will see if I open the door:

The clown of Death

And to the person who stopped by today, I am sorry I didn’t answer the door, I did look and I did not recognize your vehicle.   If you are my friend, you have my phone number, please call first as I am sure I would have loved visiting with you, whoever you were!

 

DID THE STEEL PLANT STEAL OUR HEALTH?

FOR YEARS I have been wondering if living next to a steel plant and a cement plant has caused us to have more diseases and odder illnesses and to die earlier than the folks living just a few miles away?

I would love to know what the cancer rate is for those of us who were born and raised during the heyday of US Steel.   Say from those born from 1916 to the late 1970’s.  And what about our children?  Even if we had left the area after high school, did we carry damaged genes and pass them on to our children, especially if we married someone who had also grown up in the steel industry area?

In my own family, my dad was born and spent his whole 58 years living next to the plant and he got prostate cancer at age 50 (he also had his first heart attack at age 36 and had had two open heart surgeries between the ages of 50-57 but I believe that was a genetic factor not environmental.).

My sister got a super rare disease back when she was just in her mid-thirties and I have had Fibromyalgia for three decades and now have just figured out that I have been living with a super rare disease since my teens that is called Decrums.

My mom, on the other hand, is the picture of health at a few days short of 84 but did not grow up next to the steel mill but moved there in 1954 and has lived there ever since.

So what do you, that grew up in the Gary/New Duluth/Morgan Park/Smithville/Riverside, areas think?  Have you or your family members died early from cancers or other illnesses?  Have you or a family member been diagnosed with an uncommon illness?

As far as I can remember, no one has ever done a report on this and I wonder why?

Please comment on this….inquiring minds want to know!

Love from your Queen who feels like the Tin Man before he got oiled!

OPINIONS ARE LIKE NOSES~EVERYONE HAS ONE

I am curious.  How influenced are you by the opinions of others?

I just had a conversation with someone who was so excited to get a new hair~do but when she showed the photo of this new do, family members told her, “it isn’t you”.  So now she is second-guessing herself on her choice.  And it breaks my heart.

If you know me at all, you know I rarely ever ask for the opinion of others when it comes to doing something that I perceive to be “my domain”.   It’s not that I feel I know more than others, but I do feel that when it comes to something I have to live with, my desire outweighs what anyone else has to say.  In some cases, even my dear husband gets no say in my decision.  (But I have a pretty special husband who allows me certain freedoms in our marriage because he understands that I am “unusual” and to try to make me more normal makes us both miserable….cause if “Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody gonna be happy”!)

If you are a pretty normal person and are truly happy just that way, then I stand and applaud you!  My tears are for the folks who are living someone else’s version of themselves.  I think there would be few things sadder than to be at death’s door and to think, “Dang, I wish I would have had the courage to dye my hair, get a tattoo, get a piercing, try acting or singing, taken that trip alone, or any of a thousand small or large things.

I’m afraid we always assume we will have the time to do the things we are putting off.   (Insert WARNING ALERT sound here).  I hate to be the one to break it to ya, but we are all walking time bombs.  There is no time but the present to act on your desires.   But I am getting a bit off my topic….

How many of you cannot make a single purchase without getting someone else’s opinion?  How many opinions do you need before adding them all up and going with the majority?  And what if what the majority wants, isn’t your first, second, or even third choice.  Do you abandon your desire because you are afraid to trust your own instincts?   I believe most folks lose their confidence in their own choices way back in grade school.  The first time you color that tree purple and the teacher says it is supposed to be green (I do hope that over the years more and more teachers have allowed purple trees and green dogs, etc) or when you dress yourself and your mom asks you, “You’re not really going to wear THAT, are you?”

If I had a supernatural gift, I would love for it to be the ability to give everyone the gift of self-confidence.  To impart the freedom that comes with having the confidence to swim against the current.  To dance to the beat of their own drums.  To sing with the notes of their spirit even if those notes are not listed in the music scales!  To have the courage to paint those trees purple and to delight in what they have made and not care one whit what anyone else says about their abilities.

Do you ever allow yourself the right to be yourself?  To fly when everyone else is walking?  I sure hope so even if it is just a few inches off the ground, it is a start!

So to my friend, if you are reading this, go for the hairstyle and the colors that make your heart sing and your family might just say, “Wow, I like it”! And you will just smile because you really didn’t give a rat’s a$$ if they did or not!!!!

I would love to hear about a time where you bucked convention and just went with what your own heart desired.  Or a time when you didn’t and now wish you would have!

Much love from the Queen who is DVRing the Super Bowl so I can skip the football and just watch the fun stuff!

 

WHEN YOU PRAY FOR SOMETHING AND GOD SENDS IT, CAN YOU ASK HIM TO FRONT YOU A LOAN, TOO?

If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you will know that I have a dream of having a small shop/studio in Cloquet.  I have a mental picture of exactly what I want and I always figured that if/when the Lord wanted me to have it, I would come across it.  Oh, and I had a rent figure in mind, too.

Last week Scott was driving in Cloquet and lo and behold, right smack dab in the middle of Cloquet is my dream shop building….for rent!  It has everything I had envisioned, I mean EVERYTHING.  Scott got a hold of the owner and he gave him a tour and Scott took photos and I was blown away by what God had provided for me. Problem is…..God must have not gotten the rent part of my prayer.  (We have awful problems with electronics/computers/TV’s/etc. at our house…I think we live on an iron ore vein or are getting signals from outer space that disrupts any kind of waves that are trying to reach our house or leave our house).  So the amount of rent I had told the Lord I needed either got lost or was sent out four times cause the rent of my dream building is beyond what I could come up with even by selling my blood as many times as I could in a week! And I think selling a body part is still illegal in the US.

So now what?   To my friends who share my beliefs, I ask this question…what the heck is God thinking?  Why would He show me my “dream” and yet know it is out of my price range?  And the owner wants a three year lease.   I know that sometimes God gives us bigger things than we ever imagined and asks us to trust Him to work the logistics out but I can’t even come up with the first months’s rent so how do you decide what is “stepping out in faith” vs “putting God to a foolish test”?

Scott is up to his eyeballs in his own business pursuits and ever-increasing stress of a railroad conglomerate gone mad…absolutely bat-guano mad….and so he can not commit to another business financially or even emotionally.  So God’s timing on this is also very confusing for me.

We have discussed looking for another business to share the space and rent but after talking with a dear friend who has always been behind me on any ventures I have dreamt up, I was reminded of what my dream was and sharing my space was going to encroach on what I want to do.   I don’t just want to have a business (I could easily do that online) but what my heart wants is a place to teach and share my love of creating with others.  To have other creative folks hang out with me and share their love of what they create with others.  I love, love, love the process of creating but I do not ever like to keep what I have created.  I am all about the process not the end products so to keep creating I have to sell what I make.  It is never, ever about the money.  If I had been born rich instead of drop-dead gorgeous, I would just give my creations away and put on free, everything included, classes just for the absolute joy of making others happy!

But alas, no windfall has befallen me, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerburg have not bestowed parts of their fortunes on me no matter how many times I have”shared” their posts on FaceBook.  The Publishers Clearing House has not knocked on my door (or if they had, I have not answered cause I was probably still in my ratty pink chenille robe even at 4pm) nor have I won a cent on the lottery.  So I must make money to live my dream just like everyone else.

So folks, I sure could use some advice today.  Any and all opinions will be gratefully accepted.  What is your take on this?

Here are photos of my dream space…..