I'm going on a walkabout....solo....oh yes, I am...

...and I can not wait!  I'm going to drive the back roads of Arizona.  Take any damn road I want, at any time I want.  I'll stop and haul out my camp stove, perch it on a hunk of petrified wood and make a cup of coffee, or read a book next to some random red rock in the Painted Desert.  I'll make a campfire and fry me up some raccoon!  Just joking about the raccoon BUT I will drive where the road leads and as my daughter Jo would say, I'll "stay the course"!   I'll go until I want to stop.  Maybe I will camp or take a little quaint cabin in the middle of nowhere.  Maybe I'll just drive down some dirt road and find an open meadow with a lovely stream and stay there for the duration of my 14 day journey.  Who knows.  Who cares!  I've started my list of all necessary items needed.  Yes.  A type of a bucket list for my summer 2015 adventure because I'll need things I don't possess  at the present like, well, a kayak.  I'm going to need one of those for when I come upon a glassy blue lake and it beckons me forward with an almost audible sigh of longing and loss from years of deprivation!  Who suffered the deprivation, me or the lake?  Both I think.
I urge everybody to start your year with plans for an adventure.  A solo adventure would be the best, but if you're new at this, perhaps bring along a buddy.  But make damn sure that he or she makes no demands of you and they absolutely CAN NOT have any influence on your decisions or desires.  This is your trip.
Now, off to search for kayaks.  Stay tuned....

If I were 21 again...

...what would I do you may ask?  Well, this is what I'd do.  I would go to New York, I would go to San Fransico, and I might go to Rome.  I would visit the countryside of Iowa.  I would ride a horse through the farmlands of Idaho.  I would swim in the Great Salt Lake.  I would camp out under pine trees so high you may wonder if night has really fallen.  I would hike gorgeous trails and fish beautiful rivers in incredible states like Wyoming and Montana and Utah.  I would take all the dirt roads I've passed and thought..."hmmm, I'll drive that road one day."  Yep, all those dirt roads leading off into mountains that had a hint of green on them, but I knew they promised great things once I arrived.  I'd just keep exploring and see what life brought my way.  These are some of the things I would do if I were 21 again.  But, only if I could have my family that I have now.  Without my kids and grandbabies, and my sweet husband, I don't know that life would be this wonderful.

Forgotten Picnic Tables?

You know, wasn't I just talking about old picnic tables hiding in some forgotten forest?  Well, we took a little ride up the Lemmon (Mt. Lemmon to you non-Tucsonians) yesterday.  It was gorgeous and cool and perfect.   We drove just off the main road and low and behold, there amongst the 'piney' woods we found two old picnic tables.  You know the kind I mean....the old wooden tables.  Beautiful.  We set out lunch on one of them and had a great picnic, took a nap under the cloudy sky and pine trees, had a little walk, collected some pine cones and headed home.  What a beautiful day.

A Gypsy Soul

My son-in-law tells me I have a gypsy soul.  I kind of like that.  He says this because of my unsettled ways I guess, like my constant searching for the ever elusive career.  That has never materialized for me.  I've started a million different jobs, ended each and every one of them.  Something was always 'not right', so to speak.  I say my career was raising my kids.......does that count?  As a career I mean.  I'm saying it does.  Why not, right?  The only difference is that I don't get a pension, unless you count my grand kids.

So, a gypsy soul.  I like it more and more.  Maybe I feel connected with that because I always want to take off to the mountains, I don't know.  The mountains sort of beckon to me, calling to me to throw down whatever stupid dust rag or vacuum I happen to be keeping company with, and crawl up underneath some big pine tree and watch the clouds.  Picnic tables are like beacons, especially ones that have been grown over from years of disuse.  All dark, hidden in some forest, tucked among the trees like a silent testament of long ago sojourns.  Oh, I love that.  So mysterious.  If possible I'd stop at every one of them, haul out my camp stove and make a pot of coffee.  Maybe start a fire if I'm there for a while.  Maybe pull out a sleeping bag too, who knows.  So much to do.  You see, somebody who thinks this way has very little chance at holding down an 8 to 5.  In fact, that is an impossibility.  My mind simply cannot allow that.  No way to breathe.  I should have become a forest ranger.  hmmm.  But only if I can pick where to 'ranger' at.  It would need to be spectacular, cool, and maybe a little off the beaten track.  Oh, there goes my mind again.  Sometimes it just won't stop.  Maybe I"ll just buy an old wooden wagon, paint the outside in colors that suit my fancy (for that day anyway) and hit the road....it would need to be a dirt road.  I'll need to take my dogs, and my husband too, only if he will be a sport and wear an earring or two and tie a scarf around his head, otherwise he might not be able to trail along with this crazy gypsy lady.  I'll need to thank my son-in-law....I have found a new purpose.  Crazy old lady Seng does have a gypsy soul.  I'm going with that!

Time For A Fall Apron

The picture says it all!  It may only be September but we all know the holidays are right around the corner.  Who doesn't need a new hostess apron?  This little apron may be a Redneck Girl original but in this case, redneck and elegant go hand in hand.  Black scalloped lace ruffle, totally lined and piped, blinged, and barbed wire top-stitched, this classically beautiful apron is my favorite!  Check it out at
http://www.redneckgirlaprons.com/

Buckeye, 50 years later

Buckeye Union High School 2011

Nothing stays the same.  Especially when you go back 50 years later.  Little ol Buckeye, once just a small town with a main street lined with local businesses like a bakery, Clay's Department Store, Wolf's Department Store, Vansykes Hardware, Compton's Foods, a lumber company, drug store complete with lunch counter and other places that have long since vanished.  There was only one place left that looked the same.....Saba's Department Store.  Even the store front looked the same, as if I was back in the 1950's in some time machine.  It made me sad to see Saba's but also happy that it is still there, still hanging on even with all the encroaching strip malls that have started to blight Buckeye's beautiful farmland.  You see, what is happening to Buckeye is happening all over our country.  It is the sameness, the lack of the entrepreneurial     spirit, the freaking monotony that America is becoming.  Every town and city are the same now. You see the signs, the huge mega malls screaming at us with their blazing oneness....OFFICE  MAX/TARGET/WALMART/OLIVE GARDEN/SUBWAY  and blah blah blah.  Every place you go, it's the same thing.  These giant corporations are edging the small guy out, making it nearly impossible to own a small business, let alone, make a go of it.  Right out there on the edge of Buckeye is a Walmart warehouse.  I am quite certain it is so huge it can be seen from the moon.  It's sitting out there where I use to drive as a kid, taking my parents car out through those cotton fields that were cooling off in the evening air.  The smell of those fields was just incredible, and the beauty of it all is but a memory.  That's where the ginormous warehouse sits.  Does anybody else see this or is it just all ok?  Are well all just being cloned into the same person?  Living the same lives?  We go into the Olive Garden and eat ginormous meals that are served to us on a platter that 50 years ago would have fed the entire family, now it's just for one person.  Then we head over to Walmart to shop for things we really don't need....more stuff.  Take it back to our subdivision home, throw it on the counter, flop down in a Lazy Boy chair and turn the TV on to watch the same old garbage.  It's all the same.  No wonder people are depressed, fat, unmotivated and discouraged.  We've forgotten who we are, because we are all turning into the same person.  We are all walking the same path.  I think it's time we break away from this incredible sameness that is sweeping our country.  That is why I love Saba's Department Store.  Still there, still working, still part of the Buckeye that once was.  It just makes me feel good.  Saba's isn't part of the sameness.  It doesn't really matter what you think about Saba's, whether you like it or not.  What does matter is that they didn't fold and I admire that.  All in all, I still have my memories of Buckeye, when it was really Buckeye.  And nobody is going to morph me into anything else, thank you very much!   Now go out there and do something different today!  Make a difference.

Looking Back, Again

Summer in Buckeye, circa 1962....The swimming pool in the city park.  It's Sunday.  My dad put a pot of sauce on the stove and my mom took us four kids swimming.  Heaven. I had one swimming suit.  I can still see it.  A little cotton one-piece with a ruffle.  When mom said we could go to the pool, it was like I died and went to heaven.  We rushed around getting our suits on and were ready to go in about 25 seconds.  Mom didn't believe in bringing towels so didn't have to bother with that.  My sister Molly and I usually had one pair of thongs (those were flip flops back then, not panties!) to share between us, so divide that and you get either the right or the left thong, the other foot is bare.  We would always walk the block to the pool, and our foot (feet!) would practically sizzle off getting there and coming home.  But once we were there, life was sweet.  The water was always perfect and I would try and dive to my mom, then try and hang on her.  She really didn't like that and after a minute or two she pushed me to the side and enjoyed herself too.  I loved watching the other kids swimming, I loved the smell of the pool and I was entranced with the lifeguards.  One thing I never understood was why some of the ladies wouldn't get their hair wet.  What was up with that?  Now, of course I know why...it was so they didn't look like drowned rats in case somebody cute was around to see them!  I always had an eye on the refreshment stand, not that we were allowed to ever get anything.  That's probably why I had an eye on it!  My big brother Pookie always went on the diving board and that made me proud.  He was pretty sure of himself, or so it seemed.  Molly never seemed like she mixed well with the water, kind of stiff and uncomfortable.  Sorry Molly, but that's how I remember it.  Dominic, well, if you know what an 'eenew, weinew' is, that was him.  Just an ennew weinew, kind of cute in a little boy way though.  We'd swim until we were prune-like then mom would tell us to get out.  I always resisted, jumping in and out at least 10 more times before she got p'od.  The icing on the day would be dinner.  We hopped, ran, skipped our way back home, got dressed and ready to eat in the speed of light.  I could smell my dad's sauce from outside our home and the anticipation of having spaghetti would practically drive me nuts!  And after swimming, for some reason, hunger is extreme!  So we sat down and had my father's incredible pasta. Perfection.  The thing of it is, I KNEW how lucky I was to have a day like that.  I knew those days were special, and they must have been because I can still remember them.  The smells, the swimsuit, my parents, my brother's and sis, and Buckeye.  I don't care who says what, Buckeye Arizona was a wonderful place to grow up in the 50's and 60's.  I was one lucky little girl.