Lilly Sway

My family and I went on a sort of vacation this week end, my husband travels from town to town and usually makes it home once every other week or so, and well you have to do what you have to do. I worry all the time about the road, the hotels,(bed bugs Yuk), and the drivers that aren’t so road friendly. This time when he came home I noticed how really tired he was and his next run was a whopping 6 to 15 hour drive to 3 towns in South Texas starting at 3 AM the next morning. The trip was stopping only after the first job was assessed, and then he was to set conditions, meet deadlines and keep all of the balls in the air while balancing the budget.

He accumulates a mountain of paper work for his verification process to each active project and when he stops at a rest stop it is usually to answer e-mails and tend to emergency task that require immediate attention. His phone rings at least once every minute so he gets no rest at all, Please let me say that we are very grateful for the opportunity to be busy and have work. The projects active at this time are 9, and when 4 shut down for the day the other 5 start the evening shift so he is on call and makes at least 1 appearance to each site by the morning, when the others start up again well I guess by now you get the picture. I have done this run before well into our 30 plus years together It is tiring, unrelenting, and extremely demanding.

When we were young and not so young just about a couple of years ago we always worked together, it was almost a manageable chaos. the work, the travel, the good and bad foods and the job site it self in beautiful towns, and in ugly towns, in a nice area of a city or in the worst you could imagine. Eventually when the summer came around all of us would go and help out on the trip. My children learned to drive on the trips, they learned an array of things like about how to travel, and take a phone message, where to go to the bathroom and most importantly where not to, how to greet people, how to find the nearest hospital in case of an emergency, what safety measures there were to take in consideration at rest stops, and gas stations, and the various hotels motels and places that rented rooms for the night.  I decided to make it a family trip and jumped in the car with him  last Thursday so he could ride and visit with the kids and I would drive.

The kids are now in the teens only one is eleven they have spent virtually every summer and vacation time on the road with us for the purposes of work, but my children other wise could know very little of their father if we were home all of the time. Traveling was some times nightmarish with toddlers in diapers, or ill and I will not bore you with the teething process on the road. Just so that we are on the same page as to my mind set for travel (I do not like it at all), but I will go and go, and go if it means that my family can learn that you can have a chance to absorb from each other the good the bad and the ugly and still come out of the experience with love and appreciation for each other.

My children never go to bed with out saying good night to us, they take the time to text or call their dad every evening. They even can guess what town he might be in by the time they go to bed. The way we have lived was never ideal and sometimes I could pull my hair out for the things that we went through on the road, but I know that my husband has had just as much of my children that any working dad can get He is very grateful for that. He a;ways says ” hey remember” something or other about their learning to walk or their first words and it is comforting that they can know him as well as they do.

I was non to happy on the summers and holidays that were in strange towns or a different state when it was just he and I, but when we took the kids, well they were challenging to say the least, but we were really to busy to notice the things that we did not like about the traveling. My children like all children liked to wonder and ask about every little thing they saw, their curiosity was never ending. They gave us a new perspective on our travels  and we just grew into this automatic packing and unpacking way of life. My oldest can name any model and make of almost any vehicle by 5 years of age. He would say hey mom look at the color of the 94 Chrysler that’s ugly don’t you think? I would just say oh I guess it passed me before I could see it (I had no idea then or even now what make and model a car is).

We have come to travel with a large cooler, our back packs, our own blankets, pillows, and very important our own individual music at least the kids call it music. We have eaten any where and every where and always try to take pictures for the sake of memories. we had a very extravagant meal on this trip I have to share this because it is summer and some of you may be thinking of getting out there to see this great state we live in called Texas. The place we ate at (if you like fish and shrimp) was called Kings Point off of highway 77 heading south before you get to Riviera on the left is a big blue sign it states you can travel to the water and than your there about 8 or maybe 10 miles in.

This was the best I have ever tasted and I grew up fishing I could scale, gut, and fillet a fish by the age of 8 with out so much as a blink, my mother hated the very smell of fish so my sisters and I learned to cook , boil, saute, bake and most assuredly fry fish by the book from any cook book we could find, we eventually added our own spices and had great recopies to share. So when I say that it was the best I have ever had it means a lot to me. The most succulent ocean scallops, the biggest gulf shrimp, the tasty fish itself left me in awe, but the start of the meal was a simple salad with a platter of big sturdy sliced tomatoes and the salad was covered with a whole sliced avocado and yet my tastes were challenged by their homemade tarter sauce nothing like it anywhere in Texas or any place else. I have been through most of the states in our country at one time or another but this was very different from what I know tarter sauce to be. It was a cross between a pate’, and a puree of a medley of the best combination of (you were not allowed to ask) the secret ingredients that you could possibly pallet.

My kids took pics by the water and ate until you could not eat another bite and the portions were so generous, you can only order by the pound no menus just great food by the pound trust me it was great. The prices were steep for our budget, but well beyond worth the price. I had to share this quaint restaurant because the secret is out the file of cars we passed on the way out of the parking lot coming down that long, lonely, seemingly your lost road was never ending until we got back to highway 77 where you should try to stop if you can for the best bite of fish and tarter sauce you have ever tasted.

We have eaten at many places that looked to be good and were not and places that looked as though you would not want to stop there, but you really can not tell a book by it’s cover. My kids now older and very knowledgeable talked about the food for the three days we drove and my husband slept all the way home. I am tired and want to get a little rest Today he is back on the road doing a little ring around the roses again for his work, maybe a little rested than before, and we just text-ed him what I made for dinner. I think I maybe would try to work in some travel this summer,  just another couple of months are left before all of our lives change again. The school runs, my son leaving and the daughter that wants to drive her siblings for me this year. My husband said that he knows things have to change, but he missed when the kids were little and it felt as if they would always need us to take care of them. I love that man and I can tolerate the road for him any day.

Food for The Mind

Lilly’s Way   www.lillysway.com

I am asked very often here of late first off why do I choose to write about the personal things in my life, and then the second most asked  statement is that I seem to change my point of view, I really and I might add rarely change or contradict myself. I write and I do believe that I have stated that it may be of use to someone, anyone for that matter to share what has transpired in my life. If I seem to change my view to something then the things in my life have changed to guide me to what will come next. Please remember I am living my life as I write what happens, so I must encompass all that applies to what I do next, or the way I feel next. I do not cater to someone else’s whims, or candor when I live what I live. I write about the day in “my” life as it pertains to me.

Every day is different and then by way of that avenue do I concede to what and how it will affect what I do. Am I predictable no, and by no means should you expect me to be so. Am I just fickled no I am not that either. I don’t ever see if my last day to write was offensive of just plain silly or even if I did not seem to be the same, because I am as different as the day is, every day. Oh and I thank God for that. I love to try things that I read about and I read every day. I want and hunger for the knowledge that could possibly be what I need that day.

Things are a world apart of thoughts from person to person. I think that there are as many different ways to live according to what one thinks as there are blades of grass on this earth and I do not think that I am all knowing and that we will all conquer with my point of view or with how, and what makes me tick. I do although think that if we share as human beings, we then give of ourselves enough that we may impress on  someone with the same conflicts, or triumphs that we are doing good to find those crossing paths. These thoughts and mistakes  make us who we are and they help us be what we are. It is the humane thing to share knowledge and to brighten someone else’s path from time to time with that knowledge.

I love that we have the Internet and that I can reach out to someone anyone and that they can reach out back to me. I read about the things that are important to someone else and I do not say oh that is wrong, for you it may be a rock solid point of view as mine are to me. In fact that is what draws me to sit and write , so that when I grasp a way to handle something or share how I did it. Life will keep on its track and time stops for no one. I have met so many people on line that I am a better person and I have grown in many ways from that connection. If you are willing to share I am willing to listen, but I hope you don’t think that I will agree with everything you say I most certainly know that you will not always take my point of view as always right.

Food For The Mind

Lilly’s Way  www.lillysway.com

I have always been a believer of perseverance, and tenacity, but most importantly a believer of what it is to live being a decent individual. Here lately things have seemed a bit harder, or it may be that I am feeling a bit chided from the constant, of the battle just to win through all of the web of chaos that has enveloped my life. Coping is what living is, for me any way, just doing my best and waiting for the turn of events that will lead me to the revaluation of a secure outcome for my children s future. I work freelance at most anything that I know I can do, and take the jobs I know that I can learn quickly so that the temporary position I occupy will not find me out before I can grasp the wheel and take control.

It may be a little crazy but I do find where there is a will there is a way. I, although dedicated to my plight am facing adversity in just the simple challenge of being able to walk in to an opportunity with out seeming to, in need and conceding to what ever I can get until the next time of opportunity. This I can tell you is a recipe for disaster. I still rise up to what comes and fight until the task is complete. I have been idle now for a month and becoming alarmed as to what my husband can do for us on his own. He just keeps on going as if the energizer bunny starting over and trying to keep afloat at the same time is hard, but he just does what is presented to him at his job and keeps on going.

He has worked as a painter and in construction since he was 10 that’s right he gave up his education at the end of high school to support his family since his dad became ill. He worked as a painter for nine years at the age of 19 he found a good paying job that required us to travel for the projects to be completed were always in another city much as they are today. He did not mind and I became used to the travel, we were young so adventurous was the name we gave our livelihood, but if you have ever worked with your hands in a struggling economy you know that checks come irregular and usually at the end of a project, so we got used to saving real quick.

I learned not to use credit ever, and only buy what we need, and only by way of cash or you could run into trouble. Our creditors were the utility companies who would not ever work out a plan for the kind of payments we made according to our income, and if were in need of a vehicle we would save enough for a two thirds down and maintain a small note. These were the tricks to how our lives worked then, and how mainly we have to live now. The flat industry of our way to provide income for the family was a bust for our bank account and our very livelihood.

I paid virtually every doctor visit for my little ones cash even the astronomical train of shots required through out their early years. This because the cost of any insurance was way out of our grasp and when we got steady work the tide never would let us make any sort of regular payment, but what the heck you make do with what you have and keep moving towards the goals you can still accomplish, and put the others on the back burner. This gave us a good but simple life and a challenge to stay afloat.

I know that anything you have that is material has only the value  you place on it as an individual, but I do not flip my nose at my home. This is where my children have learned all that they need to come out a bit better off than the people of my era. My children have learned to educate themselves to the up most that their imagination will allow them to achieve. My husband and I both came from families that did not endear education, but through our struggle we learned that the knowledge availability of today will drastically turn the tide for our children and their future if well educated.

I stay up nights and can not find a restful minute as we are being scrutinized by our mortgage company’s evaluation of our ability to get a second chance to keep our home. We were on target even with the lack of work we still paid our mortgage note. but our note was sold to seven (7) different mortgage companies or banks until we ended up with the clause of a balloon note that kicked in two years ago. We have a large note but one we could live with since we did not indulge in credit cards and had our lives in control until there was no work and then my husbands illness, but we were floored at the prospect of coming up with a mortgage of $2,600.00. Monthly no less.

I tried to get a different loan and as I well knew since we had no steady checks we were not even considered for the mortgage refinancing of our home we have exhausted all of avenues the “saves” that the government had issued were for the people who lived beyond their means, and the people who were in  credit card  debt, so we have kept on the slide toward loosing our home for the past year we have worked and lived, but we did not get into the debt that would possibly save us from loosing our home now.

I felt a bit chastised from our mortgage company for not having the credit card debt that would save our home. In fact they wanted us to see if we had used our income to pay off credit cards and we could use that for our save, of course we had none. I don’t quite know what to make of the way you can ask for help, is it only after you have been bad, or done wrong can there be help for you when you need a helping hand? We are not asking for anything that the other people in debt are asking for we are working and have been applying all we have towards the saving of our home, but is it a wrong to have lived within what our means afforded us to?

I have a matter of a couple of weeks to the resolve of this consideration from our mortgage company. I am not holding my breath, but I am on pins and needles. I can only pray for the best and hope that we have a reasonable evaluation performed on our twelve page packet. I sent out nothing but zeros on almost all of the questions, as 65 % of the questionnaire pertained towards the credit card and loan debt. I really think that the forms were ridiculousness to say the least. We had no work and now we have work that would afford us to make a decent note. As I write this today my heart is heavy I know that it could go either way maybe 50/50 but I feel way down deep in my gut that maybe we should have over extended ourselves and we could have a better chance of being saved ha! go figure.

I am perplexed at the way things are at the moment and I know that I may have to start again, as I look at the trees and the sun on them this morning my smile came almost instantly just for the beautiful view I have for now. My children lay sleeping in their beds and they ate breakfast this morning while I drank my coffee, and soaked my knee in an epson salt pack. I remember all the good, all the bad, and all of the wonderful things as clearly as when I first set foot in this, my home. I felt as if I was always meant to be here. My son asked me if I had slept well, because of the pained look that had come out on my face, that had just come over my face since the probability of loosing my home crept in along with the appreciation I was giving it in my thoughts. I said that it was my knee and did not let on the fear I was hiding.

I was trying to tell my husband last night that I had not much faith in the packet, but he was glad to hear that I had got the packet off and with cheer in his voice, said he had to go because he was looking for a hotel close to the job site. I did not have the heart to tell him what my thoughts truly were and maybe it is for the best that I wait and not tinge his day tomorrow which is today with worry. He said that he felt good and that maybe we have taken a turn for the better this time. I said that I loved him and hung up the phone.

I have never heard my husband, I mean never heard him say I give up, on the contrary he always just says “lets see what tomorrow brings us”. He has much more faith than I at this point, I have an over whelming sadness that I am hiding today, the tears are there, the flushed look. I can be a very strong willed individual, but I am not infallible, nor am I with out fears. I guess the mind can ponder all of the bad as well as the good I just feel a little beaten hear of late. His way my husbands way is to always look at the bright side. I have strayed a bit and can not seem to fathom the will he has, but I am going for that second cup of coffee and I will again try to stay the fight until it is over. One way or the other, I will seek out that faith that is eluding me today.

Food for the Mind

Lilly’s way   www.lillysway.com