but you can't take the south out of the girl.

This month makes 11 years since we made the decision to move to Iowa. Having been raised in Texas during my most formative teenage years and living in the south until I was 30, there are many times I miss Texas. I was, and still am, proud to call Texas my home state, and husband has been recently been talking about moving to Texas once we get the business to the point where we don't have to be working in it every single day.

This morning, I was reading a fellow Texan's site, and she really made me homesick for Texas, bless her heart, as she was talking about things Texas girls say, like "bless her heart."

While the folks down south don't think I sound Southern anymore, the people in Iowa do. I still say "fixin' ta" and "ya'll" and I still call people Sweetheart and Honey. When we first moved here, I called people Darlin' and Sugar as well, but after getting called on the carpet a few times by my boss (sexual harrassment issues, y'know) and having been threatened to have my butt kicked because I was hitting on somebody's man, I have deeply curtailed the terms of endearment.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I thought I had lost my accent, but my husband and an employee both piped up rather emphatically, "No you have not." Apparently, it is extremely evident when I start rantin' and ravin' when I'm mad at someone. And of course, John (my hubby) had to bring up the fixin' ta.

When I go down south to visit now, my family is always asking me to say Iowa. They think it's funny the way I combine those vowels and it sounds so "Yankee." When we were kids, my mom took us on a trip to Wisconsin to visit her family, and all of our cousins and aunts would introduce me as "Cousin Debbie from Texas." Then they would proceed to ask me to "say Howdy" because they thought that was so funny, even though I have hardly ever in my life greeted someone with "Howdy". Occassionally, yes, but it has not ever been a popular choice of greeting for me. I believe I've said Howdy more in things like, "Well, that's a fine howdy-do," when I was upset with someone or something.

I did "borrow" the following from Laura's blog, which I just love (after all, I am a G.R.I.T.):

Texas girls know bad manners when they see them:

1. Drinking straight out of a can.

2. Not sending thank you notes.

3. Velvet after February.

4. White shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day.

Texas girls always say:

1. "Yes Maam."

2. "Yessir."

Texas girls have a distinct way with fond expressions:

1. "Yawl come back."

2. "Well, bless yer harrt."

3. "Drop by when ya can."

4. "How's yer mama?"

5. "Love yer hair."

Texas girls know their three R's:

1. Rich

2. Richer

3. Richest

Texas girls know everybody's first name:

1. Hunny

2. Darlin'

3. Shuger

Texas girls know the movies that speak to their hearts:

1. "Gone With the Wind"

2. "Fried Green Tomatoes"

3. "Driving Miss Daisy"

4. "Steel Magnolias"

Texas girls know the three deadly sins:

1. Bad hair

2. Bad manners

3. Bad blind dates

G.R.I.T. = Girls Raised in Texas !

BRRRR... the temp here this morning is -6°. This is not unheard of for January in Iowa, but when we've been having temps in the 40s and 50s for the past couple of months, I haven't had a chance to acclimate myself to it either (although I'm not sure I'll ever be acclimated to below zero temps). And that is our actual temperature. The windchill is like -20°. My husband will walk to work today, as he likes the exercise, but I'm glad I'll be driving in these temps. YIKES!

I do feel for all you guys in the deep south that are still getting hit by the ice storm, especially if you end up without power. I'll be praying for you.

I always knew there was a reason I was afraid to get too close to a plow.

A woman was sitting next to a man. When he saw her pull out her Bible, he gave a little chuckle and went back to what he was doing. After awhile, he turned to her and asked, "You don't really believe all that stuff in there do you?"

The lady replied, "Of course I do. It is the Bible."

He said, "Well, what about that guy that was swallowed by that whale?"

She replied, "Oh, Jonah. Yes, I believe that, it is in the Bible."

He asked, "Well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside the whale?"

The lady said, "Well, I don't really know. I guess when I get to heaven, I will ask him."

"What if he isn't in heaven?" the man asked sarcastically.

"Then you can ask him," replied the lady.

The endorphines are flowing and I feel GOOD!!! Hubby and I shoveled the walks and driveway this morning. We got up at 4:30 a.m. so we could get it done. We moved to a house with a corner lot this summer, so we've got the length of both sides of the property to do, plus two walks coming up to the house and the driveway. It took the two of us about an hour to get it all done. I then came in to shower and get ready for work while he went up to the store to get those walks done before anyone else comes in. It's now shortly after 6 a.m. and I've showered. I'm still running on a high from the exercise. Why is it that I don't like exercising if it feels like this afterward? Oh, yeah, 'cause I like to sleep, too. Ha! Besides, with shoveling, it was something that had to be done and I felt like I was accomlishing something while I was exercising. Maybe I should take up gardening come spring - I'll see how many plants I can kill while I try to make my lawn look pretty.

While I was shoveling, though, I told John to slap me for wanting to move into a house. At least with the apartment building, someone else did the walks (although it wasn't usually to our standards).

There is at least a quarter inch of ice outside under the inch of snow that has already fallen to the ground. All of the schools around us are delayed at least two hours tomorrow, some are closed, but our school superintendent yet to make that call. She always waits until the last possible minute to call off school, which drives me nuts. I have employees with kids that go to school and it would make it a lot easier on them if they'd know tonight whether or not they have to make other arrangements for their children's care tomorrow.

We've had freezing rain on and of since Friday, and it started snowing here about 4 p.m. They aren't big flakes, but they are coming down hard and it's supposed to keep up until late tomorrow morning. This is more like the weather is supposed to be in Iowa this time of year. There will probably be a lot of wrecks tomorrow because no one has had to drive in it this year. We had a little snow that made things nice and slick on Christmas Eve, but it didn't stick very long, and it really wasn't anything measurable. By morning, we are supposed have 1-4 inches on the ground. John said they are saying we are supposed to hit below zero for nighttime temps sometime this next week. Yikes! Winter is finally here in Iowa. This is the part I dislike about this state. I do have my Yak-Trackers this year though, so walking on the ice should be a piece of cake.

I do truly feel for the folks in Oklahoma (and probably other states, too) that are without power from the ice storms there.

Whew! The winter party is over. It was enjoyable, but only because my husband and mother-in-law helped me get the house ready. I had wanted to take off work early both Thursday and Friday, but there was just too much to do to get out of there at a decent hour. All day Friday I worked with the notion that I was going home early, but before I knew it, I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 - so much for those plans.

I went to the grocery store last night and bought the food for our party. Instead of paying high dollars for not-so-fresh vegetable tray, I bought my own veggies and some party sour cream (it's yummy on both veggies and chips). I decided I would go ahead and order a meat and cheese tray for sandwiches. I found some nice mini-loaf bread that was perfect party size. When I got to the deli counter I was talking to a guy who has been a customer of ours for years. He was asking me if I wanted cracker cut and I told him no. Some other girl working back there said I wanted a conversation tray, so that's what he wrote down on the order I was supposed to pick up at noon today. Turns out a "conversation tray" is cracker cut.

I went to bed about 10:30 last night. I knew I was going to be too tired to clean when I got home from work, so after a dinner of take-out Chinese and putting away all my groceries, I prepped most of my veggies last night. The only one I didn't pre-cut the day before was the cucumber because it tends to go soft awfully fast.

I slept in this morning, and started cleaning right away. John helped by picking stuff up and vacuuming between commercials as he watched his usual westerns. I left about 11:30 to take soda cans to the redemption center (in Iowa, we pay a nickel deposit per can, and only get it back after we turn them in to a recycling center). I went straight to the grocery store after collecting my pop can money, only to discover that they made the wrong type of meat and cheese tray. The lady apologized profusely and offered to make me a sandwich-cut tray if I didn't mind waiting. I figured it would take about 15 minutes, so I agreed. Over half an hour later, I was just picking up my tray, which was beautiful but much more expensive than I had anticipated, and was heading to the register to pay for it and a few other last-minute items I had forgotten yesterday.

I paid for my goods, and had the meat and cheese tray balanced on my cart between the handle and the back of the child seat. I had walked from the back of the store to the register with the tray perched in such a manner without a problem. However, the sacker knocked it off while putting the rest of my groceries in the cart. I was annoyed at the thought that I would have to try to make it look as pretty again when I noticed that a whole stack of the cheese had fallen out and to the floor. I wanted to cry. One of the employees offered to make another, when I cried out that I had waited over half an hour for that one and I had a party in less than 4 hours to finish getting ready for. The girl offered to deliver a new tray for me, and I sucked up the near-tears as I wrote down my address and phone number for her. I told the sacker (a guy) that I wasn't mad at him, I realize it was an accident, and I was just stressed.

No sooner had I gotten into my vehicle did my phone start to ring. I hadn't even buckled the seat belt yet. It was the store manager, apologizing profusely and offering to deliver it for me. I told him that I knew it was an accident and I was just stressed and I really appreciated their willingness to deliver. He promised delivery within the hour and told me if I thought of anything else I needed, just let him know and he would be glad to deliver it, too. I explained the tray was the last item I needed and thanked him again.

A while later, here comes TWO guys to my door, one with a vase of roses and the other with the party tray. I opened the door, thrilled that they would go to such lengths. The store manager apologized again, and held out a bottle of Iowa wine "for the party" as well. It was so nice for them to go such an extra mile. I thought it was great that they were willing to deliver the tray, but to bring the extra stuff that really set off the table was fantastic.

John decided he didn't like the wine (he's really particular that way), but I enjoyed it myself. We were the only two brave souls to try it. It was a fruity red wine. The bottle said it had a cherry and blackberry flavor to it. Whatever it was, I enjoyed a couple glasses of it. I enjoyed more the hospitality in which it was delivered. The roses made a great center piece on one of my food tables. There are lots of leftovers to enjoy, some of which I think I'll take to my shut-in church friend.

In the meantime, my ankle is killing me from being up on it all day, so I think I'll take a couple of Tylenol PM and hit the hay.

Oh, and before I leave, I'd like all of you who are praying folk to keep my brother David in your prayers. Please pray for God's provision for this mission trip to Thailand he's feeling led to go on. he's been on a few mission trips and really has the heart for them, but this one is the most expensive one he's ever been on. He needs to raise a couple thousand dollars to pay for it.

One last closing thought (thanks to David), it's nice to know I'm still young at heart, even if my body doesn't look or feel like I'm 24 anymore...

You Are 24 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

I am still alive, just up to my eyeballs in work. We also have a company party at my house this weekend, which I am regretting now. Someone on the board thought it might be a good idea to forgo the normal "Christmas" party for a more politically correct "winter" party, offering that it would be a less stressful time in January. HA! They are not the ones going in at 6 a.m. and coming home at 7 p.m. trying to get bookwork done that we got behind on during our period of being way short-handed on employees. The only reason we are not having this party at a restaurant is because the party fund isn't large enough to pay for it. We pay for these things out of the money earned in the vending machines, of which there is less than $100 at the moment.

I do plan on taking off work early today, like shortly afternoon, so I can get some of this stuff done.

I also found the time to call my sister to wish her a happy birthday yesterday. And I have been indulging myself in reading an "O" magazine this week. I would not normally purchase such a thing, but there were a couple of articles about diet and exercise that caught my eye, so I paid the $4.50 price for the thing. I must say that so far, every article I have read has been rewarding and I am impressed with the level of journalistic integrity shown.

Back to the grindstone.

Oh, speaking of which, I remember learning where "keep your nose to the grindstone" comes from. If the milstones were set too close together for the grain they are milling, it would begin to burn the flour, so the miller had to keep his nose to the grindstone to be sure to catch the first hint of any burning in order to adjust the stones before the whole batch was ruined.

My head is full of useless trivia.

I'm sick *whine*.

I spent the better part of today in bed. I started feeling bd the night before last. About 6:30 I started feeling a little odd, by 7 p.m., I felt awful. I took the last dose of  NyQuil I had in the house and went to bed around 9 p.m.

Yesterday morning, I got up and went to work. I warned everyone I wasn't feeling well and stayed back in my office most of the day. I took off for a couple hours in the morning to buy some groceries, including replenishing my NyQuil stock. I asked the pharmacist for the NyQuil with the old kick in it. She brought me out their store brand, which is fine, and I went with it. I also bought some Tylenol Cold Daytime. I took a couple shots of it during the day and it got me through until about 4 p.m. I still didn't get out of there until after 5 p.m. because people kept needing things. I ate supper at home, took another shot of NyQuil (of the store equivalent) and was in bed by 8:30 p.m. I woke up this morning when someone called shortly after 7 a.m.

I felt like death warmed over today. I stayed home from work. I'm thankful that I have enough employees now that I could, but if two of us end up sick at one time, we'll be in a pinch. I slept most of the day. I stayed up for a couple hours this morning watching "Charmed" before I started falling asleep again in the chair. I was back in bed by 9:30 and the phone rang shortly thereafter. It was someone from work. The newspaper was looking for the OK on a co-op ad. I gave instructions for how to handle it and went back to sleep until 1 or 1:30. I sat up for not quite an hour watching some show on the History Channel about the books banned from the Bible. That was kinda interesting, but not interesting enough to keep me awake. I went back to bed and woke up about 4:45. I called to check on the status with the co-op ad, since it was past the deadline for the paper to get it into print. Turns out we never did get approval on it from the company. Our rep told one of my employees today that their ad department doesn't just sit around waiting to approve ads. I thought that was kind of rude. See if I bother screwing with your co-op money anymore if that's how you are going to treat us.

John is still at work trying to get a couple computers built before Christmas. I am going to see what I can scrounge for supper. I do feel a lot better, though not 100%. Hopefully, I'll be able to function at work tomorrow.

I found this on my mom's blog, and just had to put one on my own. Please leave your gifts for me in my Christmas stocking.

Deb's Christmas Stocking

leave a gift for iowa_deb your username: your gift: (30 characters or less) get your stocking

I cannot sleep. I had intended on going to bed at 9 p.m. and getting up at 4 a.m. so I could get into work a couple hours early and get a head start on ordering product so I can make sure it get ordered in time to ship out tomorrow, too. If the order gets placed after noon, then it doesn't actually ship until the next day.

Why is it that the night before we have to get up really early, we cannot sleep. I actually laid my head down on the pillow around 10 p.m. I had fresh sheets on the bed and I sank down into them so snuggly. I love fresh sheets, when they are cool and clean and smooth with not a wrinkle to be seen.

Anyway, I thought I was going to drop off rather quickly, but then hubby comes in the room and decides to read. Normally his bedside lamp doesn't usually bother me, but on occasion it does. Tonight was one of those nights that it did. No matter which way I laid, it still seemed like it was shining in my face. I cannot stand having something over my face - not blankets, not sheet, nothing - but I tried putting one of the pillows loosely over my face. It seemed like it was going to work for a little while, but it wasn't long before I was getting hot. Finally, he turned off the lamp around 11 p.m., but I still laid there trying to go to sleep. It just wasn't coming to me.

Finally, around 11:15, I got up. I had a box of framed photographs I have been wanting to hang on the wall (that's right, after 5 months in this house, I'm still not unpacked). I bought some of those Hercules Hooks the other day. They are only supposed to leave a pin-sized hole and hold up to 150 lbs. on one little wire. Yeah, right! Those holes are a lot bigger than pin-sized, and you better have a LOT of air behind that wall to get that sucker to go in. I ended up going back to my old standard nails I usually use to hang photos. You know the kind that are only about a half inch long. Problem is, at midnight and 1 a.m., I'm hammering nails into the wall. But he is still in the other room snoring away. Here his stupid little 60-watt bedside lamp was bothering me, and me banging nails in the wall doesn't seem to bother him. Must be from sleeping along airport runways in the war or something. Or maybe it's just a man thing.

I think I've finally worn myself down enough to try going back to sleep, but I don't think I'm going to be getting up at 4 a.m. like I was planning on doing. At least my sofa that we rarely use now has the boxes cleaned off of it and my family is proudly displayed on the dining room walls. Tomorrow I'll see about getting John to help me move the sofa into the computer room/office so the nephews can come in here to watch TV or play their video games on Christmas day when they are bored with the adults.

Oh, BTW, the Christmas party at the county home went really well today. They were all so happy and openly expressed their appreciation. This one old man, who loves to flirt with the ladies, was telling me how he's getting to go to his nieces for Christmas and he's going to have HAM. He likes ham, and he said that one word quite pronounced - HAM. It was very cute. We also went caroling to some of the folks' from church who are homebound. We took them fruit baskets and they sure seemed to enjoy it. One lady even had tears in her eyes. It was a very rewarding afternoon.

It has been a crazy, crazy week already. Too many things keep popping up to rob me of my time. I went and did a little Christmas shopping tonight, finishing up for the family and a couple of friends, as well as buying a few gifts for the residents at the county-run nursing home. There are a few of us that are going together to buy gifts. I've asked for donations at church but so far haven't seen anyone donate except the lady that I drive to church from time to time. The others who are giving do not go to our church. Three of us have baked cookies (some diabetic) to take out there and one lady bought some soda. The residents really like it when they get soda. Usually we sing a lot of hymns, someone gives a short simple message, we sing some more hymns and then we eat treats brought by this one lady. She normally doesn't let anyone else help her with the treats. It's like her mission. She brought little 6 or 8 oz. cans of soda one month and we had so many people come out the next it wasn't funny. It's a way to get them up to the cafeteria where we can share the message of God's love with them.

Anyway, lots of junk going on at work. It's a really busy time, and then our point-of-sale software company decided to force everyone into an update on Monday, only we went in really early (6 a.m. for me and John was 15-20 minutes earlier than me) to get caught up on some stuff, but couldn't because the program wouldn't let us in. The tech support guys didn't come in until 7 a.m. Arizona time, which was 8 our time, and we spent until nearly 10 getting everyone back up online so we could sell stuff. Then on Tuesday the power was out for about a 12 block stretch. We were told today that someone took out a utility pole on a street several blocks down from us. When you are a computer business and everything is basically on the computer or on the Internet, having no power pretty much shuts you down.

Being short-handed isn't helping. Today I spent at least half my day up front doing sales when I have more than 2 days work non-stop to be doing in the back.

I need to go to bed and try to get in a little early tomorrow morning. Both John and I were wiped out the past couple of days so we slept in this morning and let the employees open up. I left at 7:30 tonight and John didn't get home until after 10 p.m. He made sure to IM one of the employee's machines (one who was razzing us today about coming in at 9 when we open at 7:30) so he could see how late we stay there at night sometimes.

I need to get my house cleaned up before Christmas, too. We are having the family Christmas dinner here. Only two of us have homes big enough to host it and the other person had Thanksgiving at there house, so it's my turn. I haven't decorated at all yet, unless you count the red and green basket I bought today at the Dollar Tree to put my Christmas cards in. One of the cats is already trying to chew it up. John thinks she'll have it eaten by morning.