From the Redneck Diva:

When I think about being a woman, I think how absolutely blessed I am. Along with the fact I am prettier, I also can pass off all major decisions to my husband. Now that we are the proud owners of two teenagers, when one of them (or both! ACK!) wants to go to a party I get to recite off that “Daddy’s the head of the household” speech and therefore take all weight off my own shoulders. It’s the ultimate “good cop, bad cop” scenario and this time, I get to be the good cop. When it comes to homework and chores, it’s always me that plays Mel Gibson (crazy and unstable) to his Danny Glover (level-headed and calm), but in a party/social event situation, I can swoop in and say, “Oh honey, I know. It isn’t fair…(insert heavy sigh), but Daddy is the head of the house and ultimately his decision is final,” making him the heavy when in all actuality I am going “YESSSSSSSSSSS” inside. Hey, don’t judge me. I never said I played fair.

We, as women, can cry for no apparent reason whenever we want to and really, no one thinks too much of it. In fact, my husband has come to expect it and is training our son the fine art of laying chocolate at my feet while mumbling words of adoration and apology even though he probably hasn’t done anything wrong. The kids don’t think one thing if I cry, they just solemnly hand me the box of tissues. If Daddy cries? Everyone starts looking for the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Of course, there are downsides to being a woman. Our legs aren’t expected to be hairy—even if that’s how mine are most of the time, especially this time of year. I considered trying to start a national movement to be more like the women of Europe, but decided if it took off, all the men would move to another country (certainly not Europe), so I let the ruckus die down.

Probably the worst downside to womanhood—besides the sneeze pee—is chin hairs. Oh yes, I’m going there. See, I never had chin hairs until a few years ago. I honestly and truly believe I made fun of my mom and sister’s chin hairs one too many times and God said, “Alright then, young lady, we’ll just nip this right here,” and, poof! I had chin hairs. I must have made fun of them a lot, too, because I don’t just have a hair here, a hair there. No, I have a patch here, a bigger patch there, a straggler over there. Oh, and you can’t forget the lady-stache that accompanies the chin hairs. Well, of course you can’t forget it—it makes you look like Tom Selleck!

The first time my husband caught me plucking chin hairs, he walked down the hall to find me standing in a ray of sunlight in the foyer with a hand mirror in one hand and the tweezers in the other. He stopped, cocked his head to one side and said, “Whut are you DOING?” I explained that in order for me not to look like a billy goat I have to pluck the lower half of my face occasionally. He shrank away from me like I was suddenly coated in toxic waste and said, “I could have lived my entire life without ever knowing that!” Now it is simply unspoken. It’s the “don’t ask, don’t tell” of facial hair.

I know I’m not alone in my hairiness, though, because at a couple’s retreat a month ago we had to fill out surveys about our spouse. The survey asked things like “What is your spouse’s favorite movie?”, “If your spouse could have dinner with one celebrity, who would it be?”, and the like. One question toward the end of the survey was “What is the one thing you know about your spouse that they think you and the rest of the world don’t know, but you really do?” Now, we are a pretty open couple; we have been together 19 years and know each other probably better than we sometimes wish we did. I didn’t answer that one because I honestly couldn’t think of a thing. Oh, my husband answered, though. His answer was “CHIN HAIRS”, written just like that, in all caps. Of course, this made every man at the table cringe and avert his eyes. It made every woman at the table bust out laughing and then we got sidetracked for the next few minutes discussing and comparing growth patterns. The men were apalled. We women, though? We bonded.

I’m not perfect. I know this. However, I do know that I was fearfully and wonderfully made by my Creator and I am a masterpiece! I might be a chubby, wrinkly, hairy masterpiece, but I am one all the same. In spite of the gray hair, chin hairs, wrinkles, cellulite (and that extra weight I’m still blaming on the kids even though the youngest is a month shy of turning 10), we women need to remember we are amazing. We are beautiful. We need to embrace the dark circles under our eyes from lack of sleep, the aching back and hips after we try playing “Just Dance” on the Wii and discover all too late it was a bad, bad, bad idea, the un-manicured fingernails, and the sloppy ponytail that has become part of our uniform. We need to remember that paying the bills, scheduling and re-scheduling a family of five, and doing the endless laundry is important to the running of our household. We should know beyond the shadow of a doubt that our job—whether secretary, assistant, nurse, police officer, doctor, stylist, teacher, mechanic, dispatcher, clerk or one of the countless other jobs we do—is important and it matters.

So ladies, now that we’re all empowered and have read the last half of this column toying with any errant chin hairs that escaped the last tweezing, I urge you instead just to sit back and breathe a sigh of accomplishment. You’re awesome. Really. You are.

(And here’s a hint: if you avoid direct sunlight usually no one can see ‘em.)

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

When we found out we were going to be parents we came to an immediate agreement: I was going to stay home with our kids. Shalom. Amen. It is well with my soul and all that. It was never even discussed that my husband would stay home, what with him being a redneck and all and thinking that beef jerky is a food group and totally okay for a 4 month old as long as you “hit it real good with the blender for a few seconds.” No, I was the nurturer, I was the caregiver, I was the prime candidate. It had been set forth in the stars many, many moons ago when the great wooly mammoth tromped across the barren tundra with my ancestors. I’m pretty sure my 20x-great-grandmother Oggina was a nurturer, too. I had babysat since I was 14, told anyone who asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up that “mommy” was top of the list, and just generally wanted to take care of my home and babies just as my mom and both grandmothers had. My husband has always worked hard to take care of us. Sure, we do without some things because one income isn’t always easy these days, but we have never regretted our decision.

With the said agreement of my domestic occupation also came other parameters, rules, and guidelines. One of those rules was that my husband would take care of the outside of our house and I would take care of the inside. This wasn’t a huge issue when we lived in town and had a yard the size of a postage stamp, but now that we live on 40 acres, I am totally thankful I am not in any way bound to mowing—whatsoever. This rule also included trash duty, although he has tried many times to push that boundary saying that technically the trash is inside the house. A few times of me setting it outside and a neighborhood cat or coon tearing it apart set him straight real quick-like. I mean, seeing as how the yard is outside and, oopsie, now so is alllll that trash.

One of my domestic occupational responsibilities is sick kids, or as we call it Couch Duty. Couch Duty has morphed and evolved over the years from Newborn Duty, otherwise known as “Our Child Doesn’t Sleep Through the Night, But You Don’t Have a Job to Go to Tomorrow and Can Take a Nap in the Afternoon Duty, So You’re Up, Slugger” of yore. Oh, of course, there were times I would lay our newborn child in my husband’s arms as he confusedly yawned while asking why I was sobbing uncontrollably, and I would tearfully snap something like, “Because YOUR son has decided that screaming is better than sleeping and I am just so tired I think I may vomit, so you HAVE to take care of YOUR son right now or you may wake up dead in the morning, just saying!” and I would go lie on the couch for awhile until that screaming son of ours had screamed for what seemed like hours lying next to my snoring husband, seemingly undaunted by the shrill cries emitted from his progeny. Since I wasn’t getting any sleep what with the irrationality of sleep deprivation telling me that if someday he fails Algebra it will be my fault because I let him cry one night just a little too long and a neural pathway didn’t connect somewhere in his little brain, guilt would take over and I would do the unthinkable: put our son in bed between us where he would promptly stop crying, sigh deeply, and go right to sleep. Then, finally, I would drift off to sleep and dream of all the articles in the parenting magazines relating the pros and con of co-sleeping, the greatest pro of all being SLEEP.

Couch Duty is different than Newborn Duty. Newborn Duty, while exhausting, is more of a “meet their basic needs” issue, rather than “make sure they don’t, you know, die” issue. Now, die may seem like a horrible word to use, but if we’re all honest, I don’t think there’s a parent out there who hasn’t worried about that very thing at 3 a.m. when that fever is 104.8 and your baby is as limp as a dishrag and you can’t do a darn thing for them other than pray. Couch Duty is a completely different kind of exhausting.

There has only been one time in our 15-year career as parents where my husband shared in Couch Duty. It was the time all three of our kids had a violent, horrific, Stephen King end-of-days novel type stomach virus, and I simply could not do it alone. At the time, our youngest was not much more than a year old. Our other two were four and six. The boy had started puking long before bedtime. The oldest began shortly before bedtime. The baby, well…she just likes to do things her own way and what we found in her crib that night was something nightmares are made of. After a quick bath to clean her up, I draped my husband in a sheet and a towel, handed him a trash can, plopped the baby into his lap and made it to the couch just in time to squat in front of it, a trashcan in each hand, as our oldest two children proceeded to hurl. That scenario repeated all through the night. Somewhere around 3 a.m., both of us veritable zombies, he with a sleep-sobbing baby in his arms, me leaning wearily against the couch with sleeping, pale-faced kids behind me, he said, “I don’t remember this being in our contract.” I looked up, blinked a few times, and said, “You got a contract? I wasn’t aware there was a contract!”

For those of you newbies out there, who are blissfully expecting or are currently childless and ignorant of the joy that awaits you the first time your child meets up with a dastardly germ from a Walmart shopping cart, here are my pointers for a successful bout of Couch Duty:

Couch Duty consists of, firstly, draping the sofa in a protective covering, usually that sheet in the back of the hall closet that, if ruined, is okay to throw away. It’s easier to wash a sheet than it is a couch cushion. That lesson I learned the very hard way. It’s also easier to just throw away a sheet than a couch as well. That epiphany came to me courtesy of my husband. His ability to think while sleep-deprived is just a perk I discovered well after I married him. He gave me that nugget of wisdom as he saw me crying over the washing machine, alternating sobs with gags at the wretched smell emitting from it. He also bleached the washing machine for me after he threw away the sheet and tucked me in to get some sleep and checked on the sick kiddo. He’s good people.

The second part of Couch Duty is procuring the barf receptacle. Some folks use a brown paper grocery bag. A friend from church uses a big bowl that is eternally designated as the “puke bowl.” (It makes me leery of large salads at her house.) We just use a trash can with about five Walmart sacks in it, plus a layer of paper towels in the bottom for extra reinforcing absorbency. Also, you must drape the already draped couch with another protective towel that is strategically placed directly under the sick child’s pillow and extends to the floor and under the barf receptacle. This is to protect the protective covering AND the carpet. Or maybe my kids are wild, rogue pukers, I guess, but better safe than sorry.

A wet washcloth must also be placed somewhere within the child’s reach. This is mainly to prevent the child from hollering at you as soon as they barf, asking you to hand them a washcloth. They probably will holler anyway and you will gently remind them that they have one right there and then they will probably burst into tears and you’ll go ahead reach over to hand it to them, but it’s nice in theory. One of these days I’m sure it will work.

After the child is settled into his or her protected end of the couch, it’s your turn to make your little nest on the other end. When they were toddlers and preschoolers, my nest was nice and roomy. I actually had room to stretch out and sleep somewhat comfortably—albeit, usually awakened every thirty minutes or so. But the naps were moderately comfortable. Now, my baby is a long-legged little thing and my oldest is taller than I am. This means that these days I find myself crammed into the corner of the opposite end of the couch, my feet placed on the ottoman, which moves every time I do, as I sleep sitting up. Well, I would sleep sitting up if sleep were possible in that situation. I usually end up refreshing my Facebook feed every 30 seconds on the iPod, seeing who has insomnia or a drunk ex who is stalking them, or if there is another unfortunate soul crammed in the corner of their own couch with their own puking kid.

How do you think this story got started? School’s been in session a little over a month, and I’ve already had Couch Duty twice.

If you’re pulling Couch Duty, the perk is that your kid isn’t going to school the next day and you aren’t working either. This means a day of cartoons and naps! Well, between the puking episodes, of course. Couch Duty is also how I justify cobwebs in the corners, either piles of laundry in the hallway and dishes piled shoulder high in the sink. Of course, those things obviously were works in progress long before the virus secured its grip on your child’s guts, but if you and your child look pitiful enough, your husband will overlook the obvious and let it go. If he looks like he’s on the border of really calling your bluff, just take your child’s temperature again. And as you look at the readout on the thermometer, shake your head and, if necessary, grab that gigantic Portable Pediatrician from the shelf and look very worried as you thumb through it.

The good thing about Couch Duty is that it is completely temporary and usually within 48 hours you and your now-aching back can go happily back to your own bed—which will soon very likely have its own trashcan sitting next to it because the Domino Theory is alive and well. Especially in homes with school-age children.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

After a hastily spent summer filled with church camps, trips to see family in The City, sleeping in more mornings than we didn’t, Vacation Bible School, the procurement of two new puppies, and a float trip to round it all out, things are finally settling back into routine here at the Redneck Diva Headquarters. My vacation was appreciated and my editor assures me I still have a home here at www.WelchOK.com. I guess if you’re reading this, he wasn’t joking.

This year I have one child in elementary school, one in middle school, and one in high school. This will only happen one more year. There’s no award for such an accomplishment, but it sure makes parent/teacher conferences a joy what with all the running to three different buildings. I guess I should probably count myself fortunate that we live in a small district and I’m not finding myself running across town to separate campuses altogether.

I’ve thought a lot lately about my years as a fourth-, seventh-, and ninth-grader, and some of those thoughts bring back smiling memories of my carefree youth. Others bring back cringe-worthy moments. Some bring back tears. Most make me very thankful I am an adult now.

In fourth grade I had a curly perm. And not a pretty spiral perm with bouncy curls and ringlets. No, yours truly sported a ‘fro that would make Little Orphan Annie jealous. And I’m talkin’ the 1982 version of Annie, where Annie petitioned Oliver Warbucks to love her all the while looking like a young Carrot Top, not the 1999 version where Annie apparently had a Chi iron at the orphanage. Fourth grade was the year I thought my mom had forgotten I was supposed to dress up like Martha Washington for some assembly thing at school and made myself physically sick over it and ended up having to be picked up by my mother who had been home all morning furiously sewing said Martha Washington costume. It was also in fourth grade when I slid across the wooden bleachers to chat with my friend Kristy Fink and ended up with a three-inch splinter in the back of my thigh and had to have it removed by a doctor. Fourth grade ushered in a three-year period I now refer to as “The Chunky Years,” during which I became a pro at eating my feelings. My fourth grade teacher had been my mother’s fourth grade teacher. She really liked my mom. I like to think she would’ve liked me even if she hadn’t taught Mom first. In fourth grade I tried desperately to lisp when the lady from the speech lab came to do speech testing, but she totally saw through me. Fourth grade year, I also had a 110 camera and took a lot of dumb pictures of my dog.

The summer before seventh grade I had managed to drop about 30 pounds, thus beginning my junior high career as less of a social leper than I had been the previous few years. My seventh grade year was the first year we could wear shorts to school. It was also the summer my mom had spent furiously sewing my sister and me pair after pair of “jams.” I started my seventh grade year wearing a white t-shirt, a pair of red jams covered in tiny teddy bears, and a pair of Keds with hand-painted teddy bears on the toes. I began my junior high career with a mullet—a lovely, “feathered” lady-mullet. My favorite outfit that year was a pair of loud, floral jeans, a forest green plaid shirt, and a pair of slouch boots. I think it goes without saying that fashion and my own personal sense of style was very important to me, even while it was insanely hideous. I started the year with braces and ended it with a retainer. Michael J. Fox adorned the walls and door of my locker, and he had Bonne Belle lip gloss prints all over his face. The new girl, Lottie, in the locker below me had the same passion for him I did, and when she mysteriously checked out of school one tearful afternoon not knowing where she was going or why, she sobbed as she solemnly taped her favorite poster of him into my locker and hugged me good-bye. I still think about her from time to time. I tested for the gifted program and got in by the skin of my teeth. It wasn’t that I wanted or needed an intellectual challenge—I was just scared of a mean girl in P.E. and knew if I could get out of the gym I might make it through the year with all my teeth. That year I thought boys were stupid and kissing was gross.

My Freshman year is kind of blurry. I don’t have a lot of specific memories from that year of school. I look back at pictures from that time and cringe—a lot. Sun In was a popular thing to do to your hair during that time, and I did it with much gusto and fervor. Essentially I dried my hair out with so much peroxide and lemon juice that it was not only the color of summer hay but also the texture. I finally grew out the mullet by my freshman year and began my first set of baby mall bangs, not knowing that by the time I was a senior I would own those six-inch high bangs and be the envy of underclassmen. Freshman year was the first time we could eat off-campus, and one day while chugging back my Diet Coke as I ran toward the building as the bell rang, I swallowed a yellow jacket who had just wanted to partake of the diet-y goodness himself. I was the talk of the school for about four hours because my tongue swelled up to science-fiction proportions. Freshman year was the year I finally realized I was never going to be any good at playing the flute and moved to the percussion section where I put my seven years of piano lessons to good use by playing the bells [Editor's note: bells are a sort of marching xylophone, for you non-band types]. That is, until the bass drum player quit, and I was recruited to haul around a giant drum my 5’2” self couldn’t see over, around, or past. I saw a chiropractor for the first time that year. I learned to program the VCR so I could record Saturday Night Live and decided it was the funniest show on earth. I also got my first kiss. I still thought it was gross.

Now with my own children at these ages, I take great parental satisfaction in sharing the photos of myself and my friends from those times in my life. They moan and groan and cringe some along with me, declaring that they will never regret their fashion decisions, which right now are shirts with a giant cartoon character’s face covering the whole front, sloppy buns piled high on top of their heads making them look like homeless ballerinas, long basketball shorts and tall cowboy boots, socks with sandals, and wide plastic bracelets with sayings like “AWKWARD” and “I <3 sparkly vampires” on them. They watch a kid-friendly show full of sketch comedy and quotable skits, and instead of having to manually program a VCR they just fill my DVR up with episode after episode of “So Random.” My kids have had their fair share of bullies and rather than begging and pleading to have their intellect tested to avoid the conflict, they have all met the challenges head-on and are better people because of it. Granted, my son had to serve a Saturday school for boxing a kid in the face when he was cornered, but funny, that kid doesn’t bother him anymore. Principals are still grumbled about, teachers are still “unfair,” and algebra is still hard. Friends are still fickle, the cafeteria food is still iffy, and the bathrooms still smell the same: a combination of industrial cleaner, heavy floral air freshener, and hormones.

I can’t believe my daughter, who mere years ago was a Pre-K dropout, is walking off-campus with her boyfriend, away from the scrutinizing eyes of teachers who only wish to squelch any exchange of kissy-face or tonsil hockey, and is eating Cheez-Its and convenience store chicken strips for lunch. I plead with her to eat a piece of fruit occasionally, for cryin’ out loud. She just rolls her eyes and digs the toe of her cowboy boot into the carpet, but I’m pretty sure she’s really wondering if I will enforce a mandatory fruit rule and dock her some coolness points by adding fiber and antioxidants to her diet.

I look wistfully at my son’s orthodontically embellished mouth and think that soon after that metal comes off, he will start shaving that little boy face and will start thinking about tonsil hockey even more than he does now. I also get a little misty-eyed when I think back to last winter when my husband and I told him that rubbing his upper lip would cause his mustache to grow in faster. The kid walked around for a week with his finger continually to his face before his older sister spoiled our twisted glee. He’s not always going to be so innocent and gullible. He does have a pretty sweet right hook already, though.

That nine-year old of mine has no Little Orphan Annie curls to speak of, but the homeless ballerina bun on top of her head will be giggled and groaned over just as much someday. She will soon be met with the challenges her older siblings have faced already, as well as generations before her. She’ll have her own bullies, fashion faux pas, orthodontia and, much to my chagrin, she will more likely than not receive her first kiss from some boy who will probably be wearing something stupid like socks with his sandals. Or maybe by then the trend will be underwear on the outside. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Schools may have started out with the purpose of educating, of molding young minds into the people who will change our future, of helping youth find a purpose and a meaning for their lives, but today it has morphed into a place we send our fashion-conscious children for seven hours a day so they can learn how to plank, send a text message without ever looking at the phone they have stashed in their hoodie pocket, and become champions at playing tonsil hockey while their friends are on the lookout.

Really…things haven’t changed. Much.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

My husband is 10 years older than I am—when we got married, I was on the verge of turning 20 and he was nearly 30. Neither of us had been married before; however, both of us had been engaged. He had lived on his own since he was 17 years old. I went straight from my momma’s house to being the mistress of my own domain. We were as different as peanut butter and lemonade.

As a teenager, my first “real” boyfriend came along when I was 15. He was 16. And oh, how we could fight! I don’t know why we stayed together for 2½ years because we argued all the time. Maybe it was fear of being alone after having known what it felt like to be part of a couple. Maybe it was stubbornness, a matter of who will stay hooked to the wagon longer, neither of us wanting to tap out. It doesn’t matter now. His enrollment in college took care of the storm that had been brewing. And there I was in the midst of my senior year of high school, single.

I didn’t date anyone steadily for more than a month. No matter who I dated, I argued with them. And now, as a wizened old 38-year-old woman, I marvel at this because I am not an argumentative person. I hate confrontation, and drama gives me the diarrhea. So why did I fight with every guy I dated back then? I’m going to chalk it up to immaturity. And insecurity. And the fact that I had real issues with males at that juncture in my life.

My husband no sooner slipped the ring on my finger than he got laid off from his job. I was working at the bridal store making minimum wage. We lived in his grandmother’s house rent-free, smoked a lot of cigarettes, ate a lot of macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper, played Nintendo all night and well, you know what else newlyweds do a lot of…

…we argued. What were you thinking?

The first big fight was over money. He didn’t like the fact that I spent it. He was infuriating and in an instant I was so enraged over a comment he made I saw red and before I realized what I was doing I hurled the checkbook at my darling groom. Now, if you’ve ever thrown a paper object, it seriously lacks flair and impact. Well, unless you’ve thrown an Encyclopaedia Britannica. Then you might make some impact. But as it was, the checkbook just kind of fluttered at him, hitting him squarely in the chest, the register flopping out, the ink pen dropping to the floor, ultimately doing no physical damage whatever. However, the anger it induced was phenomenal. I will never figure out to this day how he made a half-pound checkbook fly as fast as it did back at me and make a far greater impact than my lobbing of it had made on him.

Later that night we made up and did another thing that newlyweds do a lot of…

…we ate cookie dough straight from the mixing bowl while playing Super Mario Brothers. What were you thinking?

Fast forward about six years when we had a three-year-old and an infant. I was a stay-at-home mom, emotionally tired and physically worn out. He was working 60 to 80 hours a week at a physically grueling job. The kids and I never saw him. When he was home all he did was sleep. He was exhausted; I was exhausted. One night he popped off something hateful and stormed down the hall where he said he was going to sleep until he woke up. He was going to SLEEP? When I hadn’t slept a night through in over THREE YEARS? OH NO HE WASN’T! And before I knew what I was doing I gently laid down our freshly bathed, still-in-the-towel infant son, carefully capped the bottle of Baby Magic lotion I had been holding and threw it at my husband, the father of my children. It hit him in the small of the back. And to this day I cannot figure out the man managed to turn around as fast as he did, retrieve the bottle from the floor and hurl it back at me as fast as he did. And with such force for a man so tired!

It’s been years since we’ve thrown anything at each other. Thank goodness. We rarely even argue anymore. I think this is mainly because we both don’t care to exert the energy it requires to have a good fight. If he doesn’t like the balance in the checkbook he may gripe about it, but the checkbook never gets thrown. Snide comments are made, but objects do not go airborne. If I get tired of the little red beard whiskers he leaves on the bathroom counter and in the sink like DNA-wielding confetti, I just mumble and grumble under my breath and make comments about hygiene and pride in our house, but I never throw the bottle of Formula 409 at him.

Maybe it’s because we now have children who don’t gurgle and chew on their toes while Mommy and Daddy fight, but instead pay attention to every detail and every word thrown in anger. Then they go repeat those words to Grammy or their principal or (gasp!) Sunday School teacher. We have a teenager and another on the cusp of it. We have two daughters, one son, all of whom look to us for how they will handle their relationships as adults. If they only see us screaming and slamming and throwing, they think that is the only way to handle a disagreement. If they see us merely spraying cleaner and grumbling while we clean up the other person’s mess, or making snide remarks about someone’s inability to manage money, or how we used to eat more than grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, then the kids are seeing that…well, they’re seeing how passive aggressiveness is applicable in an every day use. Hmh. Maybe those aren’t the best examples either.

So how do you fight effectively and without scarring your children for life? Do you ignore minor infractions and pretend that life is perfect? Do you just let it all out, going down that mental list of annoying infractions you began preparing while you scrubbed the dried toothpaste splatters off the bathroom mirror that morning? Do you invite Dr. Phil’s wisdom by way of the DVR, recording the episodes you think will just show that man the error of his ways? I just wonder if there is a truly “right” way to argue. I’m sure there is. I think I recorded an episode of Oprah about it.

The other night, the kids were in bed, my husband and I had just finished watching WWE Monday Night Raw and were talking about the drama that had unfolded during the night’s bouts. (What? You don’t relate your lives to the lives of the wrestlers on WWE?) I kind of chuckled and said, “Boy, we used to have some doozies back in the day, huh?” He didn’t say anything, just spit in his spit cup and nodded. I said, “Remember when I threw that bottle of baby lotion at you?” He smiled then and said, “Yeah. That really went all over me. I think I scared you at how hard I threw it back.” I agreed. I reached over and patted his hand and said, “Ya know, we just don’t fight like we used to. We hardly argue at all anymore. Why do you think that is?”

Again, he spit before he answered. “Probably because neither of us have the energy to put into that kind of fighting anymore. Plus, you ain’t changing ,and I ain’t changing. We’ve just learned to deal with each other.”

He hit the nail on the head: we’ve just learned to deal with each other. I love him with every breath that is in me, even if he still hasn’t gotten that whole raising the toilet seat concept down pat. He loves me even though I don’t run the vacuum as often as I should. I don’t understand why he can’t just put his boots in the closet, but then, he doesn’t understand why I refuse to turn his shirts right-side-out before I fold them. It’s those annoying little nuances that I find frustrating, yet endearing. If he was a big talker, I’m sure he’d say the same thing. Those little things aren’t going to change the fate of the free world, so why make them an issue? We agree to disagree, we back each other up, we get frustrated but we go on. And at the end of the day, we turn out the lights, check the doors to make sure they’re locked and the children are safe, then we go to our bedroom and do what couples who have weathered many a storm, who have seen the good and the bad, who know each others’ best and worst and love each other anyway do…

…we sleep. What were you thinking?

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

I’m trying to remember the first dining room table we owned as a couple. My husband lived alone for 12 years prior to our marriage, but he lived in a bachelor cabin and his table was an awful, metal-legged, Formica-topped, probably-rescued-from-the-dump piece of furniture. It went nicely with the gigantic wire spool he used as an end table in the living room. No, I’m not even kidding.

When we moved into our first house together, there was a table already there, so that’s what we used. It wasn’t until we moved into an apartment in town that we bought a table that was ours. To be honest, I don’t remember what it looked like. It was probably the wooden cousin of Paul’s previous metal-legged, rescued-from-the-dump table. However, I do remember sitting at it with an insurance agent when we bought our first life insurance policy. We ate many a plate of Hamburger Helper at that table. It was on that table that my repentant husband set the first and only dozen roses he ever gave me after a fight that prompted me to pack a bag and declare I was going back to my mother. I have no idea what we did with that table. It probably ended up in a garage sale. Or the dump where it had previously been headed before its brief sojourn at our place.

It wasn’t until we had our first child that we got a real table. It was a used table, but it was a grown-up table. It was the table that had been in my mom and father’s house when I was growing up. It was understated, definitely nothing fancy. Most of the time it was round until Mom sent Sis and I back to drag a leaf or two from under my bed when we were expecting company. It was wooden with a wood-grain Formica top so it was safe to set a sweaty glass on, color on (with markers!), slide the salt shaker across trying to imitate the bartender in the Western we’d just seen who had sent a mug of beer sailing down to a thirsty cowboy, and it was where the portable typewriter sat when it was time to write a report for school. It was a sturdy, virtually indestructible table, and it was perfect for our little family. It was the table where we set Abby to open presents during her first birthday party. It was the table where my daycare babies ate macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly and colored countless pictures. It was where I balanced our checkbook—or at least tried to balance a checkbook that stayed perilously close to “in the red” in those early days. It was where a group of my friends sat and laughed while we painted sweatshirts, made soap, and crafted handmade Christmas ornaments the year we all desperately needed to find ourselves again when we all had toddlers and young-married stress.

When we moved into the house we live in now, the table came with us. It was the table I set Sam on when I was doctoring a scraped up knee. It was where I set Kady’s car seat while she snoozed and I cleaned the kitchen. It was occasionally draped in quilts and magically transformed into a cave for my kids’ imaginative pleasure. It was the table where I one day found my barely one-year-old youngest child standing proudly after she had fashioned a set of steps out of a box, the step-stool, and a chair and practiced being a mountain goat.

Eventually the legs got wobbly, and we decided to send the table back to Mom.

The next table at our house was a small butcher-block topped table. I think they call them farmhouse tables. It was abused as only a family with three small children, a Brownie troop who sold 47,000,000 boxes of cookies, and who-knows-how-many birthday parties can do. The top was water-stained and had crayon marks galore. It had nicks and dents, and the legs had boot scuffs from our son’s stint as a budding cowboy. It was eventually sold in a garage sale.

Then we bought a table from one of Mom’s friends. The top resembled paneling—as in, there were grooves running from one end to the other. It made for holes in papers, crumbs that would stick and stay and it was so gigantic I felt like we were preparing for the Last Supper every time I set it. I’m pretty sure we all gained weight while we owned that table because I was compelled to fill it with food, and the area was so spacious. We didn’t have that one long—my husband started threatening to fill those grooves with Gorilla glue.

The table we have now is a special table. It was actually used as a desk in one of the mines in Picher and weighs approximately 90,000 pounds. Seriously, it took five people to move it into my dining room and we all needed chiropractic intervention afterward. It is a furniture force to be reckoned with. I don’t dare attempt to move it when I mop. I just mop around it. Wait. I don’t mop. But if I did, I wouldn’t attempt to move it. Not only did the table come from the mines in the town where I spent many a day as a child, but it was also my Papa and Memaw’s table from the farm up the road where I grew up. I ate many a slice of butter bread (Roman Meal bread with hard squares of real butter laid on it because you couldn’t attempt to spread that stuff) at that table . I spilled Ovaltine on it on a weekly basis. I sat there and colored or played with my Colorforms while Mom did Papa’s laundry or took care of Memaw when she was sick. My cousins and I played Old Maid at that table. I would sit at the far end and gaze out the window at the cows or the garden or Papa on the tractor. I ate many meals with my Papa at that table, him quietly listening to me rattle on about nothing in particular, nodding or grunting when he felt I needed a response. Memaw’s oatmeal cookies tasted better at that table.

Now the table sits in my dining room, covered in a red tablecloth. Nightly my family of five gathers around it for dinner. It’s the table where I first heard my husband pray and ask the blessing for our meal. I have painted our daughters’ fingernails there, decorated Valentine’s boxes, helped our oldest with Algebra, practiced the third-grader’s spelling words. I gave the puberty talk to my two youngest at that table. We played a game of Spoons there once that resulted in property damage, bloodshed, and much, much laughter. At Thanksgiving and Christmas it is covered from end to end with food. The groceries are dumped there after a trip to Walmart. I eat there. I pay bills there. I counsel there. I pray there.

We’ve gone through many pieces of dining room furniture over the past 18 years, but one thing has stayed the same regardless of the size, the condition, the color, or the shape—the fact that we are a family. The dining room table is the hub of our home. We use it for gathering, for discussing, nourishing, loving, laughing and being who we are. I doubt we ever get a different table than the one we have now. For one thing, it’s too heavy to move again and has probably settled into the very foundation, but in all honesty, the one we have is perfect. It’s old, weathered, nicked, and dented, but oh, the memories housed in that giant piece of wood.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

Today I made one of those rare trips to town by myself. Usually I have a kid or four in tow or at least a husband, but today’s trip was a solitary one. I have been on the puny side and didn’t really feel like going to town, but our pantry was down to canned corn, peas, some brown sugar and cinnamon Poptarts no one in the house will eat, a few packets of oatmeal, and six packages of Ramen noodles. We were even out of crackers. My trip was not a leisurely shopping excursion but a mission for nutrition.

Here we are recently past Thanksgiving, and I’ve been feeling especially blessed. Thanks to the kindness of an anonymous person I have four brand new tires on my van. The Christmas we thought was on the verge of not happening is shaping up to be the most blessed one yet. I have found two women who have ministered to me and prayed with and for me in the past few weeks, helping me see I am not alone, I am important, and there is a plan for my life. God is blessing my family in ways that continue to amaze me, and—believe it or not—have left me speechless many times lately. My husband is still in awe that I can actually be struck speechless. In 18 years he’d never seen it.

This perpetual feeling of happiness has been with me for weeks now, even in the midst of a blowout on the turnpike, hay that no one will buy, and sickness. Today was no exception. Even though I really wanted to be curled up on the couch, getting reacquainted with my DVR, I was happy that I was well enough to drive to town on those four new tires, in a van that may not be the fanciest but gets me where I’m going. I had money—granted, not a lot—in the checkbook and well, doggonit, I was just happy. I was merrily hefting two gallons of milk into my cart when I realized I had parked it right in a gentleman’s way. I quickly moved it, apologized, and smiled. He looked at me grumpily and mumbled, “No problem.” Undaunted by the Scrooge at the milk cooler, I moved on to the butter where I randomly asked a man how he was today. He literally blinked twice before he broke into a grin and said, “Honey, I am doing just fine. I’m walking, aren’t I?” I agreed that walking was a pretty good indicator of wellness. Then I moved on to the chips. I plopped my selection into my cart and started to move on when I saw an elderly woman on a motorized cart, looking up at a shelf she obviously could not reach. I left my cart, walked to her, and bending over to her level asked, “Is there something I can help you with, ma’am?” The look of absolute relief that spread across her precious wrinkled face just lit her up. Her voice was very quiet, either from age or illness, and I leaned closer to her to hear her speak. She smelled like a grandma, kind of like powder and vanilla. She whispered, “I need Cheetos. Two bags please.” I reached up where she couldn’t, placed the two bags of cheesy delightfulness in her cart and said, “There you go, dear.” She whispered a thanks and smiled a smile that just gave me goose bumps. She was truly thankful.

I went back to my cart and started down the aisle, but was stopped by another elderly woman who put her hand on my arm and with the other, pointed at the woman on the cart. Her voice full of emotion, she said, “That. That right there. More people need to do that. Your momma taught you right. That’s how all mommas should teach their children. You hardly ever see that anymore. Thank you.” I smiled, patted her hand, and said, “You’re very right. My momma taught me to respect and care. I hope I’m teaching my kids the same thing.” She gave me a squeeze and said, “Darling, I’d just about bet you are.”

As I continued on through the store it hit me just how rare random acts of kindness are. There was an uprising of them back in the ’90s, if you remember. There were billboards, bumper stickers, and PSAs admonishing us all just to be kind without being prompted, without reason, and with genuine care. How sad we needed a publicity push to make us do the things we should do without even thinking. I am not saying I’m a saint; I get caught up in my own world just as much as anyone else, but I try very hard to reach out to people in need—needs big or small, monumental or seemingly inconsequential. They don’t have to be big ticket things like giving someone hundreds of dollars, filling their car with gas, buying their cart full of groceries, or purchasing a set of tires for someone who just can’t afford them right now. Yes, those are indeed noble and kind, but kindness can be as simple as taking a casserole to the exhausted young couple with four small kids so the wife doesn’t have to worry with dinner that night. Or buying your mom’s favorite gum for her and just dropping it in her purse for her to find one of these days. It can be paying the toll for the car behind you at the turnpike gate—or putting a couple of bags of Cheetos into a stranger’s cart in the chip aisle at Walmart.

Few things make me happier than seeing my own children do simple acts of respect and genuine care and concern for someone. My daughter picked up a cup that missed the trashcan the other day. I didn’t tell her to, she probably didn’t know anyone was watching, but she did it anyway. It was a small action, requiring very little effort on her part, but to the older gentleman who had missed the trashcan it meant he didn’t have to bend over to pick it up. My son has carried in groceries for his grandmothers without my husband or me prompting him. My oldest daughter is making hair bows for the girls at the Baptist Children’s Home in Owasso. I am so proud that my children are compassionate and giving. All three of them have commented at how good it makes them feel to do things for others. These small, selfless acts may not change the world—but then again . . . maybe they will.

What if we all did for someone else every day? Would we change the world? Would we at least change our neighborhoods, communities, and most importantly ourselves?

Here’s hoping.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com and http://therhok.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

For as long as there have been people, there has been news. It probably started when Og thumped his saber-toothed tiger bone on the cave wall to alert the tribe his wife had just had their first boy-child. Then he graffiti’d up his cave walls to tell future generations. It progressed to squires dashing across the countryside to alert the neighboring village of a dragon attack. Then years later came the Pony Express where brave men on strong horses galloped through the prairies to deliver the news of stage coach robberies, train robberies, and bank robberies. Eventually came the invention of the telegraph. Then the telephone. Then television. (This is where the oldsters would add “and tell-a-woman!” then slap their knee.) And the finally the Internet.

Unlike our ancestors we don’t have to wait for ponies or pigeons or smoke signals. We just log on, sign in, and boom! we’re connected to a virtually endless source of information and news.

But is it too much?

I have written before about my addictions to Twitter and Facebook and how I have deep meaningful relationships with most of my electronics. But sometimes even I wonder if I’m too connected. Back in June I decided to cut myself off from Twitter. I made the decision after I realized I had gotten so used to my phone chirping that I didn’t even hear it anymore. My husband said he heard that ringtone in his sleep. But that may have been because it was going off while he slept. I turned off all mobile alerts and even updated less. It was strangely refreshing. I have since begun tweeting more, but the mobile alerts have stayed off. I check it from the Web and that’s it. It feels pretty good, even though sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on something. When I feel that way, though, I just tell myself that there really was a time in my life I wasn’t digitally connected to the 361 people I follow on Twitter—only 56 of whom I have actually met in real life. This isn’t bad, the gratuitous sharing of information with 305 strangers…I don’t think it’s bad anyway…is it? Let me ask my 361 friends and I’ll get back to you.

And then there’s Facebook. Facebook is a little more personal for me. I know virtually every one of my Facebook friends, except for a few who follow my blog page and friended me from there. And here’s where my quandary begins. Is Facebook too personal?

In the past few weeks I have read about the death of a teenager who was tragically electrocuted, a nine-year-old who fell off playground equipment and passed away, and a 15-year-old who was killed by a drunk driver. Now granted, I probably would have learned about these accidents on the local news if I weren’t a Facebook user, but because of Facebook I knew about these accidents mere hours after they happened, some in great detail, and all were splattered on update after update, page after page.

If it were my child, how would I handle such information being broadcast in such a sensationalized way? Would I embrace the outpouring of concern that immediately followed the news? Would I be angered at how flippantly people talked about the accident, not thinking that maybe I don’t want to see the news—my news—over and over and over, written and re-written by people I don’t know, and will likely never know?

The day after the playground accident I followed a trail of comments out of pure curiosity as to how a family member was handling the death that was being made so very public, so very personal, so very constant. I landed on the little girl’s older brother’s page where he was lamenting not being able to hug his sister ever again. He was thanking everyone for their concern, their offerings of help, their prayers, their words of comfort. And while I was happy to see that he was seemingly okay with the outpouring, I didn’t stay long. I felt like I had stumbled into a room where I knew no one and was a total stranger. It seemed like I was intruding.

And then it occurred to me: I was.

For as long as I’ve been alive I’ve heard the phrase time and again, “What’s this world coming to?”, which is usually uttered when you hear of people leaving their babies in hospital doorways and walking away. Or maybe when an elderly woman is mugged while putting her groceries in her car at the grocery store. Or perhaps when neighbors hears a woman being beaten inside her home by her boyfriend or husband, but no one will help her or call for help for fear of getting involved in a situation that is none of their business. All of those instances where one certainly has to wonder where is the human good? Where does it hide in times like that? Have we watered down all of our goodness until it’s merely apathy?

Or have we taken it to another extreme at the same time?

We are a society where we are in each others’ business all the time. Friendships are torn apart by gossip and slander on someone’s “wall.” Teenagers’ reputations are destroyed by cyber-bullying. Comments are misconstrued. Emotions are splattered across the Internet like so much paint in a ceiling fan. We know things about our friends that we shouldn’t know. We know where they are, what they eat, when they go to bed, when they are alone, and when they aren’t.

Is our concern so bipolar that it flips from non-caring to too much caring in cycles? Do we turn a blind eye to the homeless man asking for work or food or diapers then that same afternoon not even hesitate to gossip about our neighbor, intrude upon grieving, or comment on a subject about which we have no business commenting?

I don’t have an answer to these questions. I would like to think we could find a nice balance of concern and empathy and compassion, but I’m not sure we can. I think we are a society of extremes. It’s all or nothing, baby. Can we change? Can I change?

Maybe if we all took our laptops off our laps for awhile, drove to a friend’s house, and face-to-face asked them, “How are you—really?” we might be able to find an answer.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com and http://therhok.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

I’m 37-years-old and fact is, I still haven’t figured out exactly what I want to be when I “grow up.” Right now I’m a stay-at-home mom and have pretty much made this my job and focus for the time being, but realistically I know there will come a day when I will more than likely have to leave the house (gasp!) and get a job out there in the world (more gasp!). When that time comes, what will I choose to be my vocation?

Oh, I’d love to be a school secretary—or better yet, a church secretary. I would like being a secretary of any kind really. I think they may call them “administrative assistants” now, but me, I’ll just join the typing pool and learn shorthand, wear my hair in a sensible bun, and carry around a stenographer’s notebook. I’m kind of old-fashioned that way.

Maybe I’ll be a greeter at Walmart. Oh wait . . . I think one has to be relatively happy and sociable for that job. Maybe I’ll work in a bank. Oh wait . . . I hate numbers. A job in a bank would most certainly cause me to spend the better part of every day in tears. Or the fetal position in a corner sucking my thumb. So let’s see, what are some other options . . . butcher? (Ew, the smell of meat makes me queasy.) Baker? (That one actually has promise.) Candlestick maker? (What, will I work at Silver Dollar City?) Doctor? (Ew, blood. And barf. And other oogey things.) Lawyer? (I’m non-confrontational and can’t argue without bursting into tears.) Indian Chief? (I don’t think being 1/128 Cherokee would qualify me to be chief.) Maybe I need to think on this some more.

All this talk of careers and growing up was actually prompted by my 11-year-old son. He has been saying for the last two years that he is going to be an actor. Since the age of nine he has informed those who ask (and some who don’t) that he is going to Julliard and is going to be a famous actor. He told my husband and me awhile back, “You know what, Mom and Dad? When I’m famous, living in New York City, doing all kinds of acting and stuff, I’m going to make sure I take care of you guys back here in Oklahoma.” Of course, we grinned and asked how he planned on taking care of us. I secretly hoped it involved a housekeeper. He stuck out his chest and said, “Every year at Christmas I am going to send you guys TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS.” We sat there smiling waiting for the “and,” and there wasn’t one. God bless him, he’s convinced it is a phenomenally HUGE amount of money. I won’t be the one to tell him. Growing up will school him on that soon enough.

Here lately, though, he has started talking less about acting and more about being a lawyer. The other night I was drawing up a contract on the computer. He watched me without a word and when it came out of the printer he snatched it up before I could. He waved me away and said, “You’d be wise to let your attorney look this over before you send it.” Well, of course, I probably would, but I’d prefer my attorney to have also completed puberty, as well. He looked it over and eventually handed it back to me with this suggestion, “It looks okay to me, but you really should sign it.”” Aha, yes, well, I would’ve, son, had you not snatched it away from me before I could.

Our oldest daughter talked for an entire year about opening a salon with her little sister. They had a name picked out and everything. They said I would get a discount. Now, considering I had that second one without so much as a Tylenol during labor, I’d hope it would be more than a discount, but a discount is what I was offered. Now, though, my nearly 14-year-old has decided a salon is “lame” (as are most things she encounters are these days) and is thinking seriously about becoming a police dispatcher. She is extremely level-headed and would do that job well. And considering that I had to call 911 myself last week and the dispatcher sent the police to the wrong address that didn’t even remotely rhyme with the actual address, I would hope my daughter would do a bit better than that. I’m almost certain she could. Provided, of course, that the emergency wasn’t “lame.”

Our youngest daughter goes back and forth between still hanging onto the dream of a salon with her big sister to becoming a totalitarian dictator of a small third world country. Either one she would be able to manage quite well. She also talks about owning a farm, having a web show, being a teller in a bank, and working in an ice cream shop so she could give her ice cream-loving big sister free ice cream any time she wanted. (Momma gets discounted hair products, but sister gets free ice cream? Where did I go wrong?)

I guess when you’re 8-, eleven- and thirteen-years old the world is wide open to virtually any possibility. I don’t care what they do, frankly, as long as they are happy. They are amazing, intelligent kids with limitless potential and if they want to be sanitation engineers, brain surgeons, or alpaca farmers I will be tickled pink. I just want my kids to be happy. For now I’m content to sit and listen to them talk about their dreams, their hopes, and what they think their future will hold. Those hopes and dreams will likely change several times before they finally grow up, whether the growing up comes at 17, 37, or 57.

And you know, just in case by the time they’re adults I still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up and they feel compelled to send along that $200 at Christmas every year, well, that would be okay, too. I don’t care if it’s postmarked NYC, Tulsa, OK, or the alpaca farm up the road—I’ll just need it to pay for my ice cream and non-discounted visits to the salon.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com and http://therhok.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

I am largely a non-political person. This fact drives my very political family insane. Many family members have campaigned for various candidates over the years and they are all are active in the various calf fry events, bean dinners, ice cream socials, and meet-the-candidate dinners held throughout the county and state.

We here at the Redneck Diva Ranch usually just stay home. It’s not that we don’t love our families; we just don’t love politics.

See, one side of my family is hardcore Democrat and the other side is dyed-in-the-wool Republican. My husband’s family is part Republican, part backwoods redneck, with a few liberals sprinkled in. I hope you can see why we choose to just stay out of the soup. I am also very non-confrontational and don’t like discussing things that might cause a ruckus. Yes, I just used the word “ruckus” while discussing politics. Again, see why it’s best I just stay as uninvolved as possible?

That all being said, I am 70 kinds of patriotic. I love the USA, my country. Your country. Our country.

It ain’t perfect, but it’s ours.

I love Jesus, Main Streets, drive-in theaters, mom and pop fried chicken restaurants, puppies, soda pop in a glass bottle, Sunday afternoons, school mascots, flip-flop tans, fireflies, the sound of my kids giggling, and the smell of my husband’s cologne.

I love all of those things and more, and I am free to do so because of where I live—in the United States of America.

The state of our country is a serious one. The healthcare crisis is truly a crisis. The economy is a mess. And yes, I have a very Pollyanna-esque way of thinking, but I still love my country. I pray for our leaders whether I agree with them or not. I wouldn’t want to move to Canada even if they did give us Michael Bublé’. I don’t tan well, so Mexico’s out. I can’t live in Europe because my hair dryer won’t work there. See? America is the place for me. I started out here and will finish here, and I am completely happy with that.

I can send my kids to virtually any school I want and at that school they are educated by caring people who are there because they want to be there. I can shop at the stores I want to shop at and buy all the strawberry Pop Tarts and toaster waffles I want. I can go to my church on Sunday morning without fear of being questioned, imprisoned, or murdered.

Yes, America has its flaws. Americans themselves have their flaws. But I love where I live and where I came from. I am truly blessed. I am thankful. I may not be an asset to any particular political party, but I am an American. I am an Oklahoma. An Ottawa Countian. A member of the Hudson Creek community. The matriarch to my little clan of freckle-faced rednecks-in-training. I ain’t perfect, but I’m theirs.

I think Erma Bombeck summed it up quite nicely:

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

You know, Sunday we celebrate our country’s independence. As you eat a charred hotdogs and wave away the flies while warning your kids not to blow their fingers off with a firecracker, maybe just take a moment to forget the flaws our country may possess and just thank your lucky stars that you have a place here….in America.

Happy 4^th, y’all,

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her online at http://www.theredneckdiva.com and http://therhok.com.

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From the Redneck Diva:

Technology is a wonderful thing. I am personally involved in a very deep, meaningful relationship with all of my electronic devices. It might even be safe to say I love them.

I haven’t always been this way, though. I was very technology-resistant for a long time. I was the teenager who obnoxiously declared to my high school boyfriend that I would never own a CD, that cassettes were going to be around forever, and those little discs he played Guns N’ Roses on were a passing fad. In my defense, though, it was 1989 and I was 16, so you really can’t hold it against me.

The first time I had really worked on a computer was in my gifted class as a seventh grader. They were Commodore 64s. They didn’t have a mouse. We wrote code as classroom assignments. It was so beyond my hormone-laden comprehension at the time that I didn’t really enjoy working on them. Apparently I wasn’t “gifted” in that department. Or maybe I was too busy thinking about boys to concentrate on computer code.

We were actually one of the first families at our little school to get a home computer, and my father was so excited about the fact it was an “IBM clone,” whatever that meant. I’m sure that meant it was cheaper than an IBM; a knock-off, so to speak. I’m surprised we didn’t buy it from a guy’s trunk on the shady side of town. [Editor's note: her whole town was shady.] What Sis and I remember most about that first computer was that you had to load approximately seven floppy disks (and I mean actual floppy floppy disks) to boot it. It was an old-school, DOS-using, mouse-less, one-color-on-the-screen (green) monstrosity—and the printer was a daisy wheel dot matrix. We were in high cotton, folks.

Fast-forward to the beginning of the digital information age. Fast-forward to Windows. Fast-forward to the mouse. In 1999, I had a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son. I was a stay-at-home mom who spent the majority of every day watching Blue’s Clues. For some reason, my sister got it in her head that I needed to learn how to use a computer. I wasn’t sure why she thought that since a computer wasn’t needed to turn on Nickelodeon, change a diaper, or wash a load of laundry, but insist she did. She hauled a gigantic computer over to my house one day and set it up for me. I looked at it blankly and said, “I don’t have a clue what to do with this thing. You know that, right?” She laughed and said, “Mmmhmm. Now…here’s the mouse.” I squealed and jumped on a dining room chair until she explained she was talking about the computer mouse. That first time using the mouse was…interesting. I couldn’t control it: the dang thing kept making the cursor disappear, and it was way too fast for my brain, which was at the time running at toddler-speed. And the windows? I think one time after the whole dang thing locked up and I had to call my sister, she found 15 windows open. I didn’t know you had to close them.

Shortly after that I started hearing about this fancy thing called “Internet” and the “World Wide Web” and it intrigued me enough to ask my mother-in-law if she would consider helping us buy a computer “for the kids”—because, you know, all preschoolers need a computer. Well, they do now. Back then they did not. She didn’t know that, though. She bought us a Gateway desktop with like a Pentium ¼ processor. This thing was a behemoth with a monitor the size of Guam; not the screen, the actual housing. I got us hooked up to the World Wide Web the day after it arrived. I insisted on calling it the “World Wide Web”, not “the Internet” or “the Web”. No, I would nonchalantly say, “Well, you know today when I was surfing the World Wide Web…,” and boy, wasn’t I just full of awesome. I’d get up to get a drink in the middle of the night and check my email or see who was online on ICQ. (Does anyone remember ICQ? No? Just me? [Editor's note: Me!]) I think it’s safe to say I was addicted to the Internet.

One day my three-year-old proudly announced to a living room full of family, “I loooooove cheese. Cheese -dot-com!” This came directly after her daddy and I had spent the larger part of one evening typing random words followed by “.com” just to see what kind of websites we’d find. Strangely enough, there was hammer.com, clouds.com, cows.com, and yes, cheese.com.

Because I really hold very little back when it comes to my online presence, I have been recognized in public, and it thrills me to hear someone tentatively ask, “Are you Redneck Diva?” People have called my mother to ask how one of the kids is feeling after I’ve posted, updated, or tweeted that I’ve got a sick kid at home for the day. A woman once asked my sister in the checkout line at Walmart why she was buying cat food because I hadn’t mentioned anything on my blog about her having a cat. My mother was convinced for years that someone was going to kidnap me, hack me into pieces, and bury my dismembered body in 55-gallon drums in their backyard. She’s settled down a little now that, after six years blogging, I still have all my body parts. She even admits to reading the blog every now and then, but she’s much more open to reading here at WelchOK.com because it’s a “news site” and not just bloggy silliness [Editor's note: We knew your mom was good people.]. And y’all know how serious and business-like I am here at the Diva Dish.

I recently became a contributor to a collaborative blog with five other Oklahoma housewives, and because we’re insanely busy with all of our soap opera-watching and bon bon-eating, we can’t always get together in person for brainstorming and scheduling meetings, so we are all on Skype. This morning I was in a Skype chat with them while I brushed my teeth. I also switched the laundry from washer to dryer while typing one-handed on my iPod Touch in the chat. I felt positively professional standing there in my ratty paint-splattered shorts, minty foam around my mouth, discussing upcoming events and important topics (No, not All My Children vs. Days of Our Lives) while providing clean clothes for my family. Well, I felt as professional as one can feel with Colgate dripping out the side of her mouth.

I sleep with my iPod and cell phone on the nightstand and yes, I have been known to check Facebook at 3 a.m. occasionally, but not often. I mean, eating bon bons all day just wears me out, so I sleep pretty well. When the weather gets stormy and it looks like we’ll be visiting the cellar, the laptop is one of the first things to go to the fraidy hole. My cell phone is usually in my hand at all times or at least in my purse. I tweet in Walmart, the doctor’s office, while shoe shopping, and while on the treadmill, but those treadmill ones are usually nonsense because of the lightheadedness that usually occurs while walking on it.

Today I’m a little less obsessed, with technology, but not much. While I haven’t been in a public chat room in years, now there are blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. I am so connected to everyone around me I might as well claim them as tax deductions. I know who drinks coffee in the morning, who hates Mondays, and who can’t spell worth a darn. In return, though, everyone on my friends list knows if I take a nap in the afternoon, if my kids are driving me crazy, and what I fixed for dinner. Is it too much information? Oh probably. Ask my mother what she thinks.

Diva

Kristin Hoover is the Redneck Diva. A local blogger and stay-at-home mom, Kristin has won Okie Blog Awards for her humorous take on the rural life of a natural-born diva who married a redneck and produced three offspring. Visit her blogs at http://www.theredneckdiva.com and http://therhok.com.

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