Welcome to my $%!# show!

Call me Trish.  If you've read Moby Dick, that first sentence is hilarious.  If not, bear with me.  I'm hoping this blog gets funnier.

My name is Trish Charleston.  Actually Patricia and if I ever get published I might use my fancy name "Patricia Charleston" but for now...my friends call me Trish.  I am currently 48 years old but have been trying to write a book for over 10 years.  In those 10 years, my life has changed so drastically that it's probably a blessing that some jackwagon hacked my computer and erased all of my work.  I'm not the same person that I was then, but I know I needed to go through all of it to get where I am today.

Where am I today?  That's the kicker.  I went from being a paralegal for about 26 years to "top ranch hand," with just a phone call.  It seems I am very much like my father.  I can take a lot, but when I finally have enough, I blow.   I take and take and take but then when I'm done, I'm done.  In a nutshell, I had been at the same firm, which I loved, for 10 years.  I gave them an ultimatum, it didn't work out, and I quit.  I called my husband Kevin, from this point forward, referred to as, "The Cowboy", he said "Good.  You can run the farm." Ummmmm what???  He'd wanted me to stay home for years, but I had a lot of credit card debt and felt responsible for paying it all back myself.  I have worked since I was 15 years old and always had my own money and the thought of having to ask him for money didn't sit well with me.  A little piece of advice for you right here ladies.  If a man wants you to quit your job and stay home with your children, or better yet, stay home with no children JUST, DO IT!  Your kids are grown in a blink of an eye.  It's the best decision I have ever made in my life, and I did it much, much too late.

Let me give you a little background on me.  I grew up in town.  Not a big city, but a small town.  A small snotty little village and I was a spoiled rotten, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.  I got a Camaro for my 16th birthday.  It wasn't new, but it was awesome. Like all girls,  I loved horses and dreamed of having one someday.  I was wilder than a pet coon in high school and college.  I got married too young and divorced a year and a half later.  I loved to dance, dress in pretty clothes, wear high heel shoes and shop.  My goals in life were to be tan, skinny and blonde.  I'm not kidding.  My visions of ranch life were like scenes from the television show Dallas. I started working part-time in the Prosecuting Attorney's office while finishing my education.

Enter...The Cowboy.  I was at work one day, I had been divorced about 8 months and in walks this guy.  The lady I worked with had been trying to get me to go out with him, but I remembered him from high school, and he'd dated my sister.  He was this tall, lanky kid in school and a couple of years younger than me and I was having no part of it.  Well, let's just say, he grew up.  He had a discrepancy in his checking account and had to come to my office to settle the matter.  The best thing that ever happened to me in my whole life was his discrepancy.  He walked in, said, "Hello ma'am." To quote a classic movie..."He had me at hello.".

We immediately started dating.   I won't give you all those sorted details, but I knew within the first three days that I was going to marry him.  We only dated six months and got married.  All bets were against us.  "No way will they make it.  I give it six months.  She'll never live in the country. " Blah, blah, blah.

When we moved into our first residence, I sat on the floor with my mom and cried.  It had rainbow shag carpet, rats in the basement, mice, tree frogs shooting out of the bathroom sink and hanging on the walls, and the walls were so cracked my curtains blew in the wind.  Suffice it to say Route 1, Reeds ain't Dallas.  A funny friend of mine used to say "Reeds is real pretty at Christmas time when all the trailer houses have their lights on em."  NOT an exaggeration. It was rough.  But, it was love, and I would have lived with that man in a tent.

We wanted to be married at least a year before we had children.  I wanted to go to law school but I was 25 years old, and he said: "Do you want to be a mother or a lawyer?"  I  gladly chose to be a mother.  One year and exactly nine months later, Quincy was born.  We bought a piece of property and put a trailer on it.  He promised me if I'd live there for five years, he'd build me any house I wanted.  Two and a half years later, Emma was born.  2 years after that, we moved into our new home, and we still live there today.

I should have known when I married The Cowboy, that my life was going to change drastically.  Just how much, I wasn't prepared for, but I wouldn't change one single minute of it.   I went from spoiled town girl paralegal to wife, mother, poop scooper a/k/a...Equine Sanitation Technologist, cheerleader, chauffeur, dog walker, ranch manager, hired hand, Sunday School teacher, chef, gardener, babysitter, errand runner, launderer, bull hauler, bull sorter, feeder of bulls, horses, cats, goats, dogs, chickens, and Pistol Pete,  but mostly just a bull shitter, all in a blink of an eye. 

My first week away from the law firm was pretty rough.  I went from being around all kinds of people to entirely alone.  My kids were home in the summer, which was AWESOME, but during school, I WAS ALONE.  Being alone with your thoughts all day long after working for so many years is hard on a person.  I honestly contemplated just hanging myself in the barn.  The quiet will work on you at first.  But after I was able to grasp my situation and let it all sink in, I started to appreciate the quiet.  The sun coming up in the morning, the rooster crowing  ALL DAY LONG, the horses muffling their good mornings to me, it's a fantastic life.  You start to appreciate little things and God's amazing handiwork all around you.  Things you've never noticed in your life are popping out all over.  And then things started to get funny.

Humor has always been my coping mechanism.  I love to laugh. I love to make other people laugh.  And I learned how to laugh at myself.  This is where life has taken me, and my funny stories get me through the lonely days and soon I became a blogger.  I hope you will enjoy laughing with me as much as I enjoy laughing at myself.