A Little Bit About Me

I guess if you're reading this blog, you'd like to know a little bit about me. My name is Carla and I live in Missouri, in the Ozarks. I live at a lake, but in a very small town. It's one of those places you go on vacation and think "I can't believe people actually live here year-round!"

I live near the campground and several of my neighbors are "weekenders," meaning they own property here at the lake, but live somewhere else and only come here on the weekends and holidays; usually with a bunch of their redneck friends who camp out in the neighbor's front yard, which just happens to be right across the street from me. Nice view from my kitchen table and living room. I'm sure I'll talk more about them later and maybe even post some pictures.

I am divorced (twice), but I have a boyfriend and he lives next-door. (He gave me flowers on Valentine's Day!) I have two big kids from my first marriage, a 23-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter. My daughter has two children, my grandson and granddaughter. I also have two little guys from my second marriage, one is 9, the other will be 8 next month. The two little guys are the only one's that live with me, but they spend most weekends at their dad's house. I'm sure I'll talk about him later. Maybe not.

I live on one acre of land, in a double-wide mobile home. It's not as bad as it sounds, really. I used to be a snob and never dreamed that I'd be TPT (trailer park trash), but being poor makes you change a lot of things. Besides, I don't live in a trailer park and my house looks like a real house, with shingles and wood siding and all. It's not metal and I don't have a couch or a refrigerator outside. I do have a big silver, shiny quonset hut next to my house. I'll talk more about that later, but it's my storm shelter (for now).

The boys and I live on a very tight budget, so we do things like heat my house with wood instead of propane, which saves me about $100/month. We also eat at home every day, since the nearest McDonald's and other fast food is 25 miles away!

Our town is very small. I'm guessing we have about 300 people that live here year-round. The entire lake has quite a few more than that, but that includes several small towns, of which mine is probably one of the smallest. We have a post office, one convenience store, a boat dealer, two small beauty shops (one beautician at each place), a dog groomer and a junk store/flea market. We have to drive 10-12 miles to get to a grocery store.

Now that I've bored you to death with some of my details, I hope you look forward to reading more of my blog in the future. I'll be talking about life at the lake and as a single mom. Oh, and what it's like to live in a town like Mayberry.

Happy Valentine's Day

I just finished reading The Almost Daily Exploits of Me; from her link, I ended up at The Art of Manliness. It's very interesting reading and as the mother of two young boys, I plan to do a lot of reading of that blog for pointers on ways to make my boys the kind of men that girls will be happy to have as a husband. Unlike their father.

Being a single mom means that there's no Mr. around to send me flowers or take me out for a nice Valentine dinner. The boys are with their dad this weekend and I'm at work, trying to figure out what to do this evening. This is one of those times I hate being so frugal and wish I had Cable TV!

Maybe I'll dig out some of my VHS tapes and have a pity party while watching When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. [big sigh]

From Snow to Tornado

Do you know what they say about Missouri weather? If you don't like it, stick around for an hour and it will change.

Until last week, it was cold, icy and snowy here in the Ozarks. The past few days have been beautiful, with near-recordbreaking temperatures in the upper 60's. Tonight, they're predicting severe weather, including the possibility of tornadoes.

At the first sign of bad weather, I'll be taking the boys and heading to the quonset hut. It's supposed to withstand 150 mph winds, so we'll see how that works. I know one thing, it's going to be safer than sitting inside my double-wide mobile home, which is fastened to the concrete slab foundation with some thin metal straps.

My next house will have a real storm shelter; not a giant metal caterpillar building.