GWEN.....

i always feel very lucky when i think about my daughter in law, gwen......i listen to a lot of my friends always finding fault with the wives of their sons, the mothers of their grandchildren and i often remark to brad how lucky we are that we don't have those issues.....i think you're really fortunate when the worst thing you can find to say about your dil is that she's from kansas......now, not that there is anything wrong with being from kansas....it's a lovely state and has a lot going for it, it's just that as a mother who watched her son follow his heart to kansas....well, that's a really long way from west virginia!.........i fell in love with gwen almost from the moment i met her.....she was easy to talk to and down to earth and liked a lot of the same things i did, starting with jj....and continuing with crafts and good food.......in fact, while they were dating, i used to chide jj that if he didn't marry her soon, i'd have to adopt her........

they've been married for a dozen years now and i'm sure like all marriages, they've had their ups and downs, their easy days and then those days when they could barely stand the sight of each other, but when you're around them, you'd hardly know it.....they have a close relationship, their own looks and language with each other......thru the years jj's built a remarkably successful business in kansas and although i will be the first to jump on the bandwagon about how smart and hardworking my son is, i also know that this would have been a much rougher journey for him without gwen's support, understanding, counsel and, most of all, patience...........they may be able to tell you different, but from across the miles between kansas and west virginia, i've never seen a time when she wasn't there for him.......what more could a mother-in-law ask from the woman who shares her son's life???....well, that and four beautiful grandchildren.......recently gwen was recognized in the emporia gazette as a gazette mom......it's a wonderful thing and a long overdue pat on the back for all the hard work she puts into her family......

Being home.....

It's crazy the way we are when we finally get to Lost Creek.....we're like hermits....carefully guarding our time at the house, savoring every smell, every bit of dust, every little creak in the old floor boards.......people say, "let's go here, let's go there", and we're like no, no...we've had enough of the "going", thank you very much......come here to us.....savour our smells, our dust, our creaks with us.......

first day at home is always a whirlwind of activity.....we come into a great looking space that Wanda has so lovingly dusted and swept, and immediately trash it with our stuff......we unload our dirty laundry, our truck bedclothes and rugs, all of our treasures we've garnered at stops along our travels, our life-sustaining appendages, (also known as our laptops) and all manner of other paraphernalia that makes it's way into our lives on the road......

first order of business is always our mail.....our little post office holds it for us while we're gone so that it isn't prey to anyone nosing around in our mailbox, and if Wanda hasn't already picked it up and has it waiting for Brad to sort thru, then he jumps into the blazer and heads off to retrieve it.....this is his "thing"....well, one of his "things"....he is anal about getting the mail.....we usually have at least two post office totes of it, after being absent for so long, so he is in heaven, sorting, stacking magazines and catalogs, neatly piling bills in one stack and "fun and personal' stuff in another....i swear, sometimes i think i actually hear him whistleing as he does this.....and, oh, my goodness....if you seriously want to make him sing, just let there be a package in there!!!!...especially one with his name on it!!!!!!!

next there's laundry......just imagine 3-4 weeks of jeans, shirts....i won't even mention the sox....oh, god, the sox......it's always like 10 loads of stuff at least.....you see, i just can't bring myself to use the washers at the truckstops......i know most women have an adversion to going to the laundromat and putting their unmentionables in washers where other's unmentionables have gone, ....now mutltiply that adversion by a hundred and you will understand why i don't use truckstop laundromats......an accident of catastrophic proportions has to occur in our truck before i will even consider it......thankfully, since our time out was extended this past trip, we had visits at Christmas with JJ and Gwen, and at New Year's with Karen, both of whom, mercifully, lent us the use of their washers and dryers......without that, we'd have been at walmart buying jeans and underwear......one of the things that will go on my list of 25 when i get to it, is that i secretly think all inanimate objects have a life of their own when we're not around....(a product of too many saturday morning cartoons in my childhood, i suspect)....but i imagine my washer and dryer lolling around in the weeks right after we leave out, dinning on ice cream and truffles, and then when they hear we're headed home, they're bulking up on fiber and protein, because they know the workout is coming........

the next thing i must do is make spaghetti......and "real" mashed potatoes.....not in the same meal, of course.......you just can't get decent spaghetti on the road.....if you're lucky enough to get a run across the Indiana tollroad and can stop at one of the plazas that has a Fazollis, then you can come close, but it's still not homemade.....and i won't even try to imagine the number of times i've embarrassed Brad with my quizzing a waitress on wether their potatoes were real or plastic......enough said........for Brad, it's getting to finally have a martini.....he really loves a good martini......he's so "James Bond" sometimes......

so here we are....hedionistically ensconced in the house.....in our little town that swells to 413 when we're home....and where everyone calls us by name...(so "Cheers", huh??)...and not by our truck number.....and loving every moment of it......tomorrow i am going to break the chain and head down to Parkersburg with Wanda.....she is having a mini-reunion with some classmates from highschool that she has reconnected with on facebook and she has enticed me for a ride-a-long with lunch at Olive Garden and a stop at Crafts 2000.......i'm not worried, tho.....Brad will be safeguarding all the smells, and dust and creaks till i get back.....

rant

ok, i've vented....i'm better now....bring on the weekend!!.....

cincinnati

tgif......one of the hazards of running the way we do is that you tend to loose track of time.....even tho you date your log every day, the days tend to run together sometimes and you, or at least i, do forget what day of the week it is......i guess it's because we aren't waiting anxiously for friday to come so that we'll be off for the weekend......but this week i can truly say i am thankful this is friday....this has been such a hectic and frustrating week......wednesday was the worst.......i hate to admit it, but i have a trucker's vocabulary......i try really hard to keep it reigned in, but it's hard to do when you're in an enviornment of hearing it constantly......at customers, on the radio, in the truckstops......one of my top resolutions on jan 1 was to work on at least toning down the trucker talk, and after wednesday i can say that i have probably come close to depleteing my entire year's alotment of cusswords, so i should be virtually profanity free for the rest of 09!......back in my extension homemaker days i took a number of classes on dealing with difficult and diverse people and several times in my trucking career i have had to put those lessons to use, but none so much as wednesday.....we attempted to deliver in cincinnati wednesday morning.....when i pulled into the customers lot i had a bad feeling about it....it's one thing to not be able to get straight in a customer's dock, but when you can't even pull on their lot straight, you kinda know it's gonna be bad.....i won't go into all the gory details.....let's just suffice to say that it got down-right ugly....to the point i asked for my paperwork back, informed them i got paid whether they took their crap or not and sealed the doors back up on my trailer........we did end up delivering it at another business's dock who told us, rather disgustedly, that they have to unload that customer's freight all the time because of the condition of their lot..........following that fiasco, we headed north towards dayton, where we were going to pick up another load that evening, and stopped just outside of cincinnati at the pilot for a shower and a sandwich......now, we eat subway on the average of 3-4 times a week......all over the country.....coast to coast....top to bottom......brad almost always gets the philly steak and cheese footlong.....four trays of meat...he has them put three on the sandwich and takes the fourth to go in the tray for babygirl.....well, evidently the women at subway are related to the guys at the customers we had just delivered at coz they proceded to tell us they could not do anything like that.....excuse me???????????????it's not like we were asking for something extra or difficult.......when i explained we always got it that way so we'd have a little treat for the dog, 2 of the women told us they were gonna send out a company-wide email informing other subways that it was against company policy to divide the meat that way......what????????????....i was like, yeah, i'm sure an email from the two of you are gonna scare the bejeezes outta them........still reeling from the nastiness of the previous stop, it took all the strength i could muster to keep from going over the counter ......i'm pretty sure that brad thought he was as close to seeing me open up a can of whoopass as he'd ever been......what ever happened to the customer being right.????...about keeping the customer satisfied.....?????.
......i told brad i think we need to stay away from southwestern ohio for awhile......i know you're probably shaking your heads.......looking back on what i've written, i get it if you don't get it....i guess it's one of those things where you just had to be there......although i really wish we hadn't been.......

welcome to my blog....i've wanted to start one for along time now, and was inspired by a facebook friend and fellow truckdriver to jump in and give it a try.....i hope you enjoy riding along with us from day to day....."us" includes me, ruth ann....my husband, brad and our "alternative child" , a 9 & 1/2 lb min pin named babygirl......we drive a tractor and trailer for us xpress, a fairly large trucking company based out of chattanooga, tn and we run all 48 contiguous states and canada, hauling a variety of freight from fed ex to electronics to farm equipment to farm products to victoria's secret....very diverse....always interesting.......

today we are running thru pennsylvania on our way to cincinnati, ohio. ...we loaded in swedesboro, nj.....this is a light load, about 20,000 lbs. and we are always happy about that!....we have been in alot of snow lately and although the roads are clear, the temperature keeps dropping...(it's down to a balmy 18 right now) and we have snow flurries....

we've been riding along listening to all the inauguration events on cnn.....this is some day for america.....i say that, not because i'm a big obama supporter, but because i am 'so not' a bush fan......i am happy to see a democrat back in the white house.....he was not my choice....i'm still a hillary girl....but we have him now .....and i hope that everyone will pray for his success at keeping even half of what he has promised to do for our country.....i am willing to tuck away my misgivings about him for now and give him the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove that he is more than just a good line of rhetoric......i believe it is our responsibility, as americans, to offer up our support with an open mind and a faithful heart to our leaders, as well as it is also our reponsibility to keep vigil that they remain honest and true to the promises they made to us.....
however it plays out, it is certain that the next four years will be an interesting ride.......