A Reason to Wake Up at 5 am

When I drove a truck, waking up at 5 am any day of the week was special to me. I was able to get out of the truck before the sun began to heat the air. On the western slope of the Colorado mountains, the quiet of the high plains was a time to be able to think and clear my head before I had to climb into the truck, start the engine, and sit all day. With the quiet of no truck engine rumbling in my head, and no smell of diesel smoke to take away the wonderful odor of clean mountain air, I could see clearly, and be thankful to our creator that I saw the creation and all its wonder right before my eyes. It was time to scan across the mountains and see if I could spot any mountain sheep, or other animals and just enjoy the sight of them grazing unhurriedly. It reminded me that I would rather have been home just getting out of my own bed.

The smell of fresh coffee drifted slowly across the parking lot and began to entice me to come on in and have a cup. I walked around the parking lot stretching and trying to coax the stiffness out of my muscles from the day before. It was a particularly tough day of driving. There had been those long hours of nothing but strong headwinds from WaKeeney, KS to the Tomahawk at Watkins, CO, and the truck wouldn’t do over 40 mph. I stopped for breakfast at Watkins, CO, and got to Denver just in time for rush hour traffic. If you knew Denver in the 70s, you knew what their rush hour was like. It was about 20 cars traveling at 45 – 55 mph from the east side of town, to the west side of town. Then there was a lot of traffic from Morrison to Glenwood Canyon. A lot of I 70 hadn’t been finished through the mountains yet, and I had to travel over the old passes, taking even more time. The stop-and-go construction zones through the mountains from the unfinished

Eisenhower Tunnel all the way to this little truck stop outside of Grand Junction was tense and tiring. Why did I ever think this was going to be fun, sitting in one position for 10 – 12 hours maneuvering the truck safely from point A to Point B? I ought to have my head examined I thought to myself.

Well, that was behind me and I felt much more relaxed and ready to start a new day. The smell of fresh brewing coffee coming from the small truck stop I shut down at the night before kept beckoning me to come in and have a fresh cup. After about 15 or 20 minutes of walking slowly around the parking lot, I would head into the truck stop for some hot coffee and a little breakfast in the quiet of the early morning. I always managed to finish breakfast before the truckers began to wake up and get stirring. I’d nod at the drivers coming in as I was leaving. Anxious to get ahead of the hassle that some of the drivers give me each day is why I try to finish breakfast before they get stirred. One quick check of the tires, the springs, the oil, water, hoses, and belts, and it was time to climb into the truck, turn the key, and slowly pull out of the parking lot and onto the road once more.

The sun was up and shining brightly in the sky and I began a new day. I have to admit that the new day always felt good after some sleep. The scenery on the high plains was awe-inspiring, and the red formations through Utah were spectacular. This was what I found the attraction of truck driving. Beauty is everywhere you look, and animals can be spotted in an instant. I just drove along with my eyes on the road and every now and then scanned the scenery and admired God’s handiwork.

I may have paved the way for women to drive trucks, but it was no picnic, and I did them no favors either. There were few of us out there, it was a hard life. The roads were rough, the seats were adjustable air, and there were a lot of gears. The mountains were steep and there were very few escape ramps on the downside of the passes. In fact, many of the passes were still two-lane roads because the interstate highways were not finished yet. I had several female friends killed in the mountains of Utah, CO, and PA. during the 80s, but life goes on. I saw many accidents trucks and cars alike. People fall asleep at the wheel and when their car finally stops, they climb, out if they are able to, and when they’re asked what happened they all say the same thing. “I don’t know, I was just driving and the next thing I know, here I was.” They fell asleep at the wheel and didn’t realize it.

The first five years it was kind of fun driving a truck, sort of, but after that, it was just a job, a job that I was doing in a man’s world. I got harassed by a lot of drivers and followed by the cops through the truck stops, I had to find an employee of the truck stop who was not real busy and post him in the men’s room so I could take a shower. There were very few women’s showers in the ’70s. The waitresses treated me like dirt because they sometimes refused to believe I was a truck driver, and not a lot lizard. More than once I pulled out my ID, medical card, fuel tickets, and log books. They never even apologized for doubting me. The funny thing was I never really looked like a truck driver either.

The one thing that was guaranteed was that you had to do the same work, but you got the same pay for doing it. When I think of what truck drivers make today, in comparison to what we made in the 70s. Back then, most of the goods were not on pallets they were floor loads that I had to load and unload myself. I did hire a lumper most of the time, but there were lots of places that didn’t have any hanging around, and I ended up doing half the work, while one of their workers did half also. I kept up fifty-pound box for the fifty-pound box. Many times, on the delivery end they would supply a worker to help me unload or load. They’d take a break but I kept on because if I stopped, I’d never get started again. Every muscle in my body ached when I was finally loaded.

Don’t thank me or the handful of us that did pave the way just yet ladies. Wait until you are in your 40’s and 50’s. You’ll have no cause to thank us then. Your bodies may already be showing the damage that driving a truck for years causes. I’m sure sorry I was a part of paving the way for you.

new site: iworkfromhome.info

Lesson 1 Free

Cursor

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I apologize for the delay in the video lesson. Please bear with me while I keep trying to get this on the air.

I wasn’t going to talk about the cursor in the first lesson, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw the need to put it first because you can’t do anything without the cursor.

In the first lesson: we will learn about the desktop, left and right clicks, folders; files; apps (or programs), icons

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This is what the cursor looks like, you all probably know that and can do some things on the computer already. email, surfing the internet, but I am going to get down to the very basics of the computer.

Only two things are important to remember when using the mouse. The two buttons on top portion of the mouse have two clickers they each do separate and distinct things. If you can remember the two functions you will learn things quickly.

Left click: always chooses something – click on an object an outline appears around it. The left click always chooses.

Right click: if you right click, you will always get a dropdown menu. The menu that drops down, will give you choices to do something. You choose one of the functions so you left click to choose a function on the dropdown menu.

Now let’s take a quick look at icons. An icon is one of the “whatcha-ma-call-its” that I used to call “the little picture thingees on the thing that opened when I turned the computer on,” Is what I would tell my brother. ICONS is so much easier, and I don’t trip over the words when I say it – icons.

When I say that these lessons will be very easy it’s, because you will understand the everyday language I tell you and show you how to do things. As you can see, it will be easy to understand because I break down the lessons into bite size pieces.

Two more things I would like to cover in this chapter. One is the navigation or action bar, and the other is the taskbar.

I will have the video part of this lesson on by tomorrow at the very latest.

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Twinkle

(rewritten)

it used to true whenever Bill would look at me, 
he’d always have a twinkle in his eyes 
and I came to expect to see his smile 
every time, 

but now I wait for even his eyes to shine 
as they did before, for a while I noticed 
his eyes still shined, but that beautiful 

smile didn’t follow as it did before. 
A small upward turn of his lips is all he
 could manage, but soon even that will be gone. 

For now, his eyes don’t even shine they just look blank, 
they just stare straight ahead, not even 
the small upward turn of his lips is he able to manage. 

The tears well up in my eyes, but I just smile 
at him and many times he’d grab my hand 
in desperation, for fear that I’d leave him sitting 
there just staring straight ahead because he no 
longer knows what he is supposed to do. 

He took care of me as long as he could, but he has forgotten. 
He thinks I don’t want to be with him anymore 
He's been dependent upon me for the last five or six years of his life

, and I hate to admit it but it did become burdensome 
and I feel guilty, and did I lose some love for him? 
but my sister tells me that I loved him 
and took care of him ‘till the end 

She said I did it so well, and I did it out of love and 
respect for him. I don’t feel that way sometimes, 
but it is true. 

He's forgotten much of what he used to be, a man
 so capable of being alive and enjoying the life
 he lived and the many things he used to do. 

He did love me with all his heart, and he never 
looked around to find greener grass. He saw
 me at my worst, and my best, 

and he loved me deeply through every single 
moment of it good and bad. My sister reminds 
me of how much in love Bill was with me. 

She said she wishes that I could remember
 how much it showed in his eyes when 
he looked at me. I start to cry, the tears just flow.

 I know I did love him too and many times my eyes
 would show it when I was looking at him. 
He never minded my tears; he’d always hold me 
when I cried and he’d say 

hat he didn’t know what to do for me 
or how to help me. I used to look at him with
 the love and appreciation for all the many 
things he did through the years out of love for me. 

I would tell him that he was doing it, just holding
 me and letting me cry on his shoulder was all I would ever need. 
Oh, how I still miss him. I find myself smiling
 because I hear people outside my apartment 
and think it is Bill coming home, just for a moment, 

and then I remember that he is sleeping in death. 
It still stings after all these years. now I know 
why Jeremy had such a strong hold on me for so long. 
I miss Bill still, and I wish he was still here to be 
my loving husband the same as he was for 30 years.

1. 
   cm writes on Self pitySeptember 2, 2022

   This was a good post. I enjoyed reading it. Alanon is good for everyone who joins. I never did receive…

Shimmer

(Rewritten)

When I was a child, I was shy and very soft spoken. Now those of you that know me, quit laughing, I was too shy, and I was very soft spoken also. Many children were, not so much today as they were 50 years ago. I felt that I was inferior to everyone. I played normally, most of the time. Red rover, 123 redlight, mother, may I? and all the other games. I was a tomboy and good at running and climbing trees and hanging upside down by my knees. I hated being inside. In any case, I grew up despite my inadequacies. Along the way, there were far too many bumps, I thought. When I grew up and look back at my childhood there were some good times, and there were a few times that I did shine in my own right. There were a few times that I did fit in with the rest of the kids. Remembering an assignment that we had to do on the spur of the moment, the teacher asked us all how we would act if we found a mouse in our slipper when we got out of bed. The teacher called on each of us in no particular order. She usually called on me last and this time was no different. Each student did nothing but yawned, stretched, put their slippers on, ran and screamed. I am so glad that I was last because I thought the way they were all doing the same thing was stupid. When finally, my turn came around I yawned too, but I also wiped the sleep from my eyes, stretched, and yawned again. I then picked up one slipper put it on and put my foot back on the floor. I then slipped my other foot into the other slipper made a puzzled face wiggled my foot, and then I picked up my slipper, looked in it shook it. As I watched a mouse drop out of my slipper and scurry away down the hall I took a deep noisy breath, made my eyes wide open, and then I made my face scrunched up in disgust, and then I yelled out “Mom, Mom, and threw my slipper on the floor. My teacher  applauded me and said that what I did would happen in a real  situation. Well, it only made sense to me that you had to look and see what was wiggling in your slipper first. She praised me in front of the class. I did shine inside and out. It made me feel so happy the rest of the day. This class was on public speaking and I loved it. Another time I shimmered was on an assignment of comedy. We were all to write about a funny way something was invented. I told my dad I was stuck and didn’t know what to write about. My dad said he had an idea. I could write on how the twist was invented. I asked what he meant he said maybe an ice cube had somehow fallen down into a fat lady’s dress. I thought about that and since it was freezing cold while it was melting, she turned one way and then other just trying to get the ice cube out of her dress without reaching inside her dress. As she shimmered this way and that, all the while screaming OOH, OOh, it finally fell out but not before the kids were laughing and they started doing this new dance. They started calling it the twist and from now on, the twist has been a big fat hit. The other kids in the class loved it and the teacher was howling. Of course, I acted like what I thought she would be doing. All were  laughing so much. I walked to my seat and had to pass the teacher. I remember her asking me if I had thought of that myself. I had to admit that my dad came up with the idea, but I wrote the story. She had an A in her book, but she marked it down to a B-. I still gleamed that day, so there was another shimmer in my life. I’m sure there were other times I sparkled too. I just can’t think of them right now. Somehow as time went on, I grew from a shy child that could hardly speak above a whisper to a woman who had no problem voicing her opinion. It was time, circumstances, and effort that brought me out of my shell and blossom into a writer that is able, as are many  others, to put down thoughts that are understood, heartfelt, is able to touch hearts and sometimes tickle funny bones. Isn’t life great?

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“I really enjoyed the lesson. I certainly would recommend this to total beginners and to people like myself who wish to become unafraid that I will mess up the computer or break it. I wanted to know what I was going to do wouldn’t get me into trouble.”
– Beth S.

“The lesson was excellent and well structured. I now have a much better grounding in basic computer skills. Now I am confident that I can read the instructions and be able to follow them since I know what things are called now. It was the best way to flatten out a steep learning curve!”
– Mason D.