Loser Blogger Raise Your Hand!

I am a loser. Yes, we all know this and I will shamefully take on the title. I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a month. I have been in a major life slump and I haven't been wanting to do anything that wasn't necessary for survival. Alas, blogging got nixed for a bit. Hopefully, I am back and my little moment is over.

Biggest news in the past month is that Mandy has had her second baby. Porter was born on October 2 - I hope that is right. I am the suckiest sister in the world if it isn't. Amy and Mom were able to make it for his grand entrance. Mandy had a hard time with Trey, but Porter came into the world easy as can be. Mandy is doing great and everyone is home and happy.

We are in L.A. at the moment. Our load to Baltimore should be ready any minute and then I get to fight Saturday afternoon L.A. traffic. Not as bad as Friday night L.A. traffic, but no fun. We should make it to Baltimore by Tuesday morning if all goes well.

Our health is good, Taz is good, Life is good. Only thing not good is snow is starting to fly and I HATE IT! My dream would be to drive our butts off from late March thru mid November and then take the rest of the crappy weather months off. Maybe someday, hah! Who am I kidding?

Oops, I think our load assignment just came thru, Talk to ya all later, I gotta get our of here as quickly as possible. Later, will be worse traffic. Hope you are all well, and love and miss everybody.

T

Reading

Sometimes I kinda regret reading a book. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is one of those kind of books. I had a really hard time with this one. It is very dismal and depressing, and even when I try to think of deeper meanings, it is still dismal and depressing. This book is about a father and son traveling south after the Apocalypse. I am sorry that I can't recommend reading this book. I can only think of a few people that might enjoy it - Steve being one of them.

I have also finished Gilead. It was better, a bit slow, but enjoyable. This book is basically the observations and lessons learned of a small town preacher to his young son. I am always interested in seeing another's perspective on the world.

I am half way thru The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. Then I will get a new batch.

We are in Middlefield, Ohio right now. Our load should be ready in a couple of hours. We will take it to Atlanta and then go back up to Dalton for our next load. Which will probably be our load for the weekend.

Hope all is well with everyone, T

THIS WEEK HAS KINDA SUCKED

Morning,
Well, I guess running up and down I-5 has given me a renewed appreciation for those who do it all the time and reminded me why I hate it. We have had to run solo runs this week and that means, so far this week we have done 2200 miles. That is usually our total for 2 days. It is Friday morning and who knows what crap we are going to get today. We are being unloaded in Portland right now. I told Steve that I hope they don't have any freight and we sit here over the weekend. We could go see my Dad and Kristi if that is the case. Even if we don't get out of here until Saturday, we would be able to call them tonight. Lets cross our fingers. Knowing our luck this week, we will end up with a crap run that we have to "hurry" and pick up and then it won't deliver until next week. Can you tell I am a bit cranky? I am sick of this week and I want to get a good run and actually make some money. I hate being out here for no reason. If we can't run, what is the point? Truly?

Okay, I will stop whining. Hope everyone is well and has a good weekend. I will write again when I am in a better mood and I am not such a downer.

Love, T

Morning, Morning. . .

Morning,
Happy Monday to Ya'll. We are sitting in Lakewood, Washington waiting to find out our next load. Steve brought us in here last night and got us docked all nice a pretty at our terminal. Now we get to play the waiting game.

I HATE CRAMPS! and being a girl. I am just sayin' that today and for the last week I have hated being a girl. Okay, whining time is over. Also, I don't think I want to be a boy either. I guess my options are kinda limited. Oh Well.

Bye fer now, T

Pulitzer Prize Award Winners

I wish I could say one of my new goals was hatched in my little brain, but it wasn't. I willingly give all the credit to my friend Jacque. She is reading all of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Books and I thought that this was a great thing to do, so I jumped on the bandwagon. I am very excited. I got on the computer today and bought a few of the ones I want to read first. I have read a few of the PP Winners thru the years, but embarrassingly few. I am going to get some brain power flowing and read some good books. I am going to keep a list of the ones I read on a sidebar on the blog, just for my own information, I am sure it will be boring to everyone, but this is about me. heehee! Like everything should be!

Love you all, T

2008 The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Waoby Junot Diaz
2007 The Roadby Cormac McCarthy
2006 Marchby Geraldine Brooks
2005 Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
2004 The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2002 Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2000 Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
1999 The Hours by Michael Cunningham
1998 American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1997 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1996 Independence Day by Richard Ford
1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1994 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1993 A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1992 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1991 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1990 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1989 Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison
1987 A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1986 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1985 Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1984 Ironweed by William Kennedy
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1982 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike,
1981 A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1980 The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1979 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1978 Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1977 (No Award)
1976 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1975 The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1974 (No Award)
1973 The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1972 Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1971 (No Award)
1970 Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
1969 House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1968 The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966 Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
1965 The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1964 (No Award)
1963 The Reivers by William Faulkner
1962 The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1961 To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1960 Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1959 The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1958 A Death In The Family by James Agee
1957 (No Award)
1956 Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1955 A Fable by William Faulkner
1954 (No Award)
1953 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1952 The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1951 The Town by Conrad Richter
1950 The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1949 Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1948 Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1947 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1946 (No Award)
1945 A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1944 Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1943 Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1942 In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1941 (No Award)
1940 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1939 The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1938 The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1937 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1936 Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1935 Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1934 Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1933 The Store by T. S. Stribling
1932 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1931 Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1930 Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge
1929 Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1928 The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1927 Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1926 Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1925 So Big by Edna Ferber
1924 The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1923 One of Ours by Willa Cather
1922 Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1921 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1920 (No Award)
1919 The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1918 His Family by Ernest Poole
1917 (No Award)

Just Drivin'

Good Evening All,
All is good in the Big Red Truck today. Nothing exciting happening. I guess that is good, exciting things while your driving are usually not good things. I am sad that we will be missing 2 big event this weekend. Trish is having her family shindig this coming weekend and it sounds like she has a lot of fun things planned. Also, Jenny and Mike are blessing their baby this weekend in Utah.
The worst thing about this job is missing everything. It is amazing how many activities and family events that I took for granted. We hope that in the next few years we will be able to take a couple of months off in the winters and just visit family and then go back to work. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I can always hope.
Man, I sound awfully whiny tonight. I guess I have been for the past few days. The gas pains of being a new vegetarian are not fun and I guess it is getting to me. Was that a bit T.M.I!? I am enjoying eating this way, but by about 2 p.m. I am dying and gasing poor Steve and Taz out of the truck. Oh well, this too shall pass. Ha, I just got the joke I made. I am so freakin' blonde sometimes.
Anyway, I am going to head to bed, hope ya'll have a nice evening, T

Hidee Ho Ya'll,

Well, we are in Bakersfield at the moment. We brought a load into L.A yesterday and then needed to fill prescriptions and such, so we took a day and drove up to Bakersfield. We got our drugs, I have given Barbara's kitchen a work out. I made gazpacho, vegetable soup and barley salad today.

I am doing the vegetarian thing lately, due to reading a pyscho book called Skinny Bitch. I thought it was going to be a kick ya in the butt, eat good food, motivate you diet type book. NOOOO! It it a vegan fanatical tirade, but something got into my head and I haven't been able to eat meat since. It has been about 2 weeks. I know, it is crazy, but everytime I try to eat meat, I want to throw up. I guess things could be worse. Maybe this will help me more than I realize. I have already had to change some of my meds for my diabetes, so that is a good thing. So, we will see what happens.

We will be heading back to L.A. tonight and heading out in the big truck, to where we don't know yet.

Hope everyone is well, love and miss you all,

Tiff

Long Time No See. . .

Hiya Yall, I wouldn't be surprised if no one is checking our blog anymore since I haven't written in so long. I actually have tried to post 3 different times, but we have been in crappy internet service areas and so I lost my posts. So, hopefully today will be better.
Fabulous news!!! Jenny had her 4th baby!!!! Yeah. She was induced yesterday, and all went well for mom and baby. 7 1/2 lbs, girl, named Katrina. That's all I know at the moment. Haylee will be soooo glad that she didn't get another brother. This is the 13th grandchild for my Madre, jeez, my procreatin' sisters. 9 girls and 4 boys. Our next addition will be in October, Mandy will be having her second baby, another boy.
More good news, Steve's sister, Sherri and her family are okay after the earthquake in L.A. yesterday. The epicenter was literally just yards beyond their backyard. Very Scary! But, they are all okay and the house didn't get hardly any damage, Sherri said that people farther out got more damage than they did.
We are currently in Hopedale, Mass., (just a bit southeast of Boston). We delivered our load of carpet this morning about 3 a.m. and now we are just waiting to get dispatched out. Steve has gone to bed and I got to sleep in. Very nice. I am not really looking forward to leaving, because I usually have to go thru New York City, which is usually not very fun.
Well, I am going to let Tazzer out and have some breakfast. Talk to ya all later, Tiff

Good Evening All,

Long, Long Day! I have spent most of the day trying to get from Massachusetts to New Jersey. This means, no matter what roads you take, you are stuck in traffic, and tonz of it. It was Friday and that means it was hell. I finally got to New Jersey. 200 miles took me 8 1/2 hours. Fun, Huh! Anyway, I am done for the day. Steve is going to sleep a few more hours and then we are going to pick up our load going to Dalton, GA. We will deliver it to the terminal tomorrow night and grab our load going to Kent, WA. Last time we were supposed to go to Kent the company stopped us in Missoula, I guess we will see what they do this time.

Sorry, I don't have any fun stories, it has been a very long and frustrating day, and I am not in a very good mood. I will try to take a picture or two this next week, so that there will be new scenery on this page. Anyway, I am gonna go so I don't get pissy and whiny.

Have a good weekend, Love you all, T

It Is HOT!!!

Hey Ya'll,

We are getting ready to leave Bakersfield. Steve had to go to the doctor the end of last week. His bloodwork came back with wonderful results. 6 months ago his triglycerides and cholesterol numbers were insanely high. They were higher than the charts go. Not good. He has been on some massive meds and we have had to watch his liver function because the meds were so intense. The med combo has worked, His Triglycerides are at 252, normal is 42-193. His Cholesterol is 135, which is actually low, WooHoo! His A1C, that is a blood sugar test, it tells what his blood sugar average has been over the past 3 months. His is 6.4, non diabetics are between 4.3-5.8, so this is wonderful. He is doing soooo good, I am so glad.

We will get down to L.A. this evening and leave on our next trip early in the morning.

We have been running like crazy and we will be again starting tomorrow. It was good to have a few days off in Bakersfield. It has been really hot, but we got a few things done for Steve's mom and a few things done for us.

Steve bought me a fun present while we have been here. I got a Sony EBook Reader. I love it. Steve got one last fall and I have been wanting one, so he went and got me my own, since I had kind of taken his over the past few weeks. It saves on us having to haul lots of books around with us, we just buy them digitally and this little machine stores them and we read from it just like a book. The screen isn't lit like a computer screen so you don't get the same type of eye fatigue, so you can read like you do a regular book. It is great.

Well, I will let you all know where we are headed in the next day or so. Hope all is well with everyone, love and miss you all, T