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 |  All about my thoughts. Be afraid! |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I know I look a bit scary, but I don't bite, much  This is my blog. A place to torture people I don't know with rants, opinoins and just plain babbling so I can keep a few friends in the real world. If you like torture, come join me. Fix a cup of tea or coffee and sit back while I tell you about the time when.... |
           Got the youngest son's grades in the mail today. He passed the second semester by the skin of his teeth, and I do mean skin. Many Ds. I don't understand him. The boy is smart. I mean top 90% of his class smart. Nearly Aces all his tests if he is willing to look at the material, yet he will not turn in his homework even when he has it done. When he comes home, he is a well mannered son, he cares about how we feel and he knew when the grades were do that the very least he would get out of this is a lecture. If asked to do a chore, he does it almost always without complaint. He is a good kid, in my opinion, but I can't seem to make him understand the importance grades play for him at this time. (Sigh) I have a theory that he is actually quite bored at school and knows he doesn't have to put much effort into his school work to pass so does not. I, unfortunately, do not know how to motivate him. Grounding won't work because he will not be bullied and he feels grounding or taking things away is bullying. (last time I threatened him with taking away his computer, he got up and moved it right out of his room--it stayed out of there for a month and I finally put it back to get it out of my hair.) He won't be bribed, my mother tried. I refuse to beat him. What's left? Oh, lectures. I don't think they are being as effective as I would like. I know he gets this from his dad. I have talked to my mother-in- law about my husband's grades. She said, he drove them a little nuts too. Same problem. Please know that as I say this, I am not angry at my son, just frustrated with him. Maybe if I could make myself angry it would help, but I don't see it being affective before next school year. Okay, enough about the boy. We are having an inspeciton at work. I think that is the title I started off with before I wandered away from the computer on one of my many other lines of thought. This year they are actually targeting the Activities department to watch. This is a first in the almost two years I have been there. I did leave today feeling extra stressed. But instead of complaining about it, much, I am preparing for tomorow. I already have a couple of activites planned. I doubt I will get to them all, but I will try to get everyone I can involved. To be on the safe side I am taking in extra things. In other news. I was eating my popcorn last night and bit down hard on an unpopped kernal of corn. I must have done something to my way back upper left tooth. It has ached ever since. Thank goodness for oragel and ibprofen. After my second painful coffee this morning I called the dentists. Yes, two. The first one, the one I prefer, can't see me till Mid July. The other dentist, he is okay, will see me Thursday Morning at 11 am. I should be able to survive till then. Well, that is today's news. I need to find some stars to print off and then I think I can go to bed. I have to be up bright and early tomorrow. Ick. Be well, Hugs |
| Yes, you read the title right. My babbling tonight will start with the story of my gardening with the chickens. I share my back yard with three chickens. I gave them individual names: Betty, Wilma and Pebbles. Betty and Wilma are hard to tell apart, but it can be done if you remember that Wilma has more red on her face. Pebbles is easy to identify as she is all or mostly black. Usually, though, I call them 'the Girls'. This afternoon I happened to peer out my window and saw one of the girls strutting back and forth. Apparently she saw something outside the coup that she wanted. She seemed quite frustrated not to get at it. The rain had let up and I thought to myself that this was as good a time as any to walk the garden. So, out I went and released the girls. They hesitantly came out and started scratching around. I figured that since they were out and I needed to keep an eye on them anyway, I might as well hoe and pull weeds. I picked a spot away from the girls and started hoeing away. Then I moved to another spot. Lo and Behold, they went to where I was origonally hoeing and started pecking and scratching. We repeated this for about a half hour almost uninterrupted. I did have to stop for a couple of minutes and take some fencing and put it around the cauliflower plants as the girls find them very tasty. When it was time for them to go home and me to go in, I went and filled their food container and placed it in their little hutch. One of the girls rushed right in, the other two had a hard time finding the door to the coup, but once they did everyone ate well. Later this evening the hubby and I decided not to let a slight misting stop our walk. We headed down toward the river, me holding a bottle of water and him an umbrella. The walk was brisk, but pleasant. Ayron used the umbrella twice when the rain picked up a bit. We cut the walk a little short because of the rain, but I think we still walked about a mile. As it has been every night that we have walked, we talked and joked. I hit him up for a new last name for my female main character in my first draft that needs rewriting. He came up with some doozies, but none that actually fit. Oh well, can't have the hubby doing all the work for me. Now I am once again staring at the screen and pondering the inponderables.  I tell people that I am not a really deep thinker and I usually am not, mostly because I don't want to take myself to seriously. I think that I need to be able to laugh at myself even if I don't get it when other people laugh at me.I honestly shy away from 'deep' thoughts. Who am I to delve into the deep well of intellect or morals? Who am I to judge? I shall stand by the way and hold all that mental power in check until the day I really, really need it and not before. It is time for me to say good day hugs |
| Today was a quiet contemplative day for me. I was rather surprised to find myself awake at 8:00 this morning. Instead of trying to roll over and go back to sleep, I crawled out of bed and began my morning computer communications. I checked in with WDC, Facebook and my writing class. No one else was on. I moved on to cleaning. Then I even got on World of Warcraft. The first time in about a month maybe longer. I played for less than an hour then the hubby and I decided to go watch TV. I know most people sit in front of the TV and just watch. Not me. We do have a no talking while the movie is on rule, but that doesn't mean we can't talk during commercials and it definately doesn't keep me from crocheting. Tonight while watching NCIS, I finished the last baby blanket I am making for coworkers. Now I can move on and did to the one I am making for my niece who is having a baby in the fall. I usually just make the blankets one big Granny square and give it variaty by using different colors. I have also gone to adding a crocheted rose to each corner. I think they come out quite nice. I am even considering making and selling a few. I read over at another blog about someone who put a sampler in the county fair where she is at. Maybe I should do that with one of baby afgans (I have talked about doing it for years). It wouldn't matter if I won. I would get exposure and maybe requests. I will think on that a bit more; I have till the end of July and it takes only a week or three to whip up a Granny square blanket. In writing news, I pulled out and dusted off Alien Encounter and used it for my final piece to be critiqued. I am kind of interested in what the others will say about it. I did do a final revision of it and think I covered what they are most likely to say would be problems. We'll see if I got it close to right. What I haven't done is my assignment for this week. Argh. I have kind of avoided it because I am supposed to come up with three different beginnings to a story and to me, at this time, that seems really hard. Of course, we often make things harder for ourselves than they have to be. Well, I guess I should go. I have reading to do and writing. Sooner or later I have to do it. As the house has quieted down and I have ran out of excuses not to, now may be a good time. Have a great day or night as the case may be. Hugs |
| I started to write earlier in the day, but nothing had truly happened so I waited. Unfortunately, my day has been rather mundane. You know the usual, get up, plod around aimlessly till you wake up then off to do the weekly shopping then home again and vegging in front of the TV. At about 5:30 I hopped up and asked the hubby if he was ready for our walk. He was. So, the highlight of the day is we took a long walk on the walking trail around a half mile or so area by the river. The best part of it was the talking. I am amazed at how much we talk while we are walking. Most of the time at home we are busy doing our own things and don't sit down and just talk unless it is at bedtime or right after work when we need to vent about the day's activities. Today's topic was one of my favorites. What would we do if we won the lottery. It was interesting to discover that other than paying off bills and buying one or two dream homes, we really don't have a lot of wants. I did decide that I could be enticed to buy a brand new car at least once and we both agreed to give some money to each of our children, siblings and parents. After that the wants are minimal. Still it is fun to play what if and ask where would we live if we could live anywhere? What kind of house would be your dream house. Mine is pretty close to what I have already just a tad bigger with a master bathroom and a green house connected. The big change would be that I would want an acreage that was either by a nice stream or had a pond built on it. How about you. What would you do with a few million dollars to spend? |
| Just logged in and went to say hi to people and no one has written anything (sadness). Well, sadness for me. If everyone is too busy to blog then I guess that is a good thing. I take it to mean they are out making happy memories to share in their blogs at a later date. I, on the other hand, am just a boring middle aged woman with a little too much time on her hands. A while back I arranged it at work to be scheduled only three days a week and every 4th weekend. The new schedule is great for me and it brings in just the right amount of money. I promise that I have not been truly bored on my days off though. I have had so many projects this spring and summer that I fear if I had still been working more hours I would be far behind. As it is, I feel like I am barely keeping up. To be fair some of my projects wouldn't even have occurred if I was working more, so I wouldn't have been behind. Does that make sense? In more straight forward news, I had a hectic day at work yesterday and was very, very glad when the day came to an end. Remember I work in a nursing home and we have a dementia unit we call the Light House. In the last week we have gotten two new residents and yesterday one that wasn't well came back from the hospital. Adjusting to new things is hard on us that have mental issues. Yes, I said us. I have depression and I hate change. The change can be for the best, but I still have a horrible time adjusting to it. I don't want to, but I do. I can only imagine how much worse it must be when nothing else really makes sense either. I work in the Light house every day for a short period of time. I don't know how I got the assignment, but I did and now that I am used to it, I like it very much and don't like it when I get pulled away, which occasionally happens. Well, yesterday I had the choice of working in the light house or going to a staff meeting. I chose working in the Light House. By the end, I was thinking I should have chosen the staff meeting. It was a zoo in there. Funny thing was it wasn't the new residents. It was one of our more needy older ones. We can't make him understand that he has to stay in his wheel chair. He keeps trying to get up and walk. Nothing we did would convince him otherwise yesterday. Sadly, I was more than ready to run from the light house when my time was up. When Bingo time came, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I was ready to head towards it. My first two volunteers, though, where a man and his little buddy. I could tell as soon as the child got within smelling distance one of the reasons he needed a big buddy. That little boy's parents need some lessons in hygiene. I don't blame the boy he was only about 7 and nice, he just really needed a bath and some clean clothes. Soon the rest of the big buddies and their kids came and the wiggle fest began. Actually it was just one little girl who could not sit still for anything. At first I was annoyed with her for 'misbehaving' but then I saw she was trying so hard and the residents she was helping were really enjoying her company. Why should she be punished for not being able to sit still? Not everyone can. Toward the end I went and gave her a hug and told her we only had fifteen more minutes and if she made it till then there would be treats. She made it. Funny thing is, when I think back I was a wiggle worm too. I even got the darn thing pinned on my cot on several occasions when I was trying for all I was worth to lay still cause if I did I would get a treat after nap time. I am very, very impressed with the big buddies who take these children under their wings and help them. I am impressed with the children who come and help us whether they wiggle or not. Learning to care for others is a big deal and I think that it should be 'taught' much more to children when they are younger. Well, I have a chiropractor's visit at 10:45 today and then I made an appointment to go visit a friend on her farm. I am going to get some stinky gold for my garden today. Woot. Oh how it makes the plants grow. I am wishing all of you a wonderful day that flies on the wings of productivity no matter what you are doing. hugs Auntynae  |
| I woke up to a rather dark day. When I checked, I discovered that it is raining. Not a bad thing for the plants and yard, so no complaints from me. As a matter of fact it gave me a reason to be a tad smug. Last night out of no where, I told the hubby we needed to take a walk. He was a tad reluctant, but being the terrific guy he is, he decided to humor me. We walked down to the the bike trail by the river and then to the southern bridge, across the river and back to the northern bridge and then headed home. We walked at least a mile and that was great. I realized right away that I was doing much, much better than I would have a year or so ago. Just walking down to Caseys would have been enough to send me straight to bed. As it was that was the first stop we made because my tummy was being naughty and also to get a drink for each of us to take on the rest of our walk. A year ago I would have been huffing and puffing the whole way and wondering why anyone would want to walk anywhere. I also would have said something about my feet screaming at me. Now-a-days my feet rarely complain loudly. Oh sometimes they ache a little, but back when I was working at Caseys I would come home and dreaded having to stand back up because I knew how much it was going to hurt. And no matter what kind of shoes I bought the feet hurt. I remember complaining about a heel spur and thinking I needed surgery. Turns out that has eased back to nothing with all the actual walking, not standing, that I do. In other news I am on my second to last week in my writing workshop and have hit my instructor with a few questions. She is a published writer. So, I was surprised to find that she works a full time job. I asked her why because I figured that if she wrote then she would be kind of well off. She told me that writing doesn't pay as well as people think that the average annual income is around 10k a year. If you can prove differently let me know. Yes, I know that JK Rowling is a millionaire several times over, but she hit it big, big, big. Not all writers do. I honestly am not into writing for the money though I won't complain if I ever get it right and make money from it. I want to write to entertain people, and to be honest to be remembered. I have stubbornly stuck to trying to write science fiction -fantasy, but maybe I should try romance. I have definately read enough of those books too. LOL. Back to the GWW instructor and some of what she said to me about writers. She said that most writers work full or part-time jobs as well as wrote or had a spouse that supported them while they wrote. Well, that is me. I work a part-time job. At the moment I haven't really been filling in my contract with myself to write the other 20 hours a week, but I hope to improve with time. And My husband is the major bread winner for the family. So, I guess, in a sense I am on track. Well, though I could keep babbling for another half hour, I think I will stop here so that you can actually finish reading this before the end of the day. LOL Have a great day. Hugs |
| You all know of cabin fever, where people have been trapped inside most of the winter and start getting cranky and snarky, well what do you call it when people start acting that way in the summer? Heat rash? Um, just plain pissy? It has started at work again. People are getting cranky over little things and I expect this will last a week or three then things will settle for a while. It seems to happen every summer, usually in July, so this could be a false alarm or just plain crankiness, but I know it is coming and for real, soon. I will even admit to having caught a bit of the crankies this week. And again, just little comments and things done that are wearing on my nerves. Things I should be able to just let go with a shrug and can't. Maybe there are some emotional viruses out there and I caught one. All I know was yesterday was rough and cranky. I half expected two or three people in the break room to just get up and walk out of work. I didn't really say anything, that I remember, but one nurse in particular was upset. Another made a comment that she wouldn't be with our facility much longer because of the way the higher ups are treating her. And from what she said they aren't being fair with her. How did I handle all of this? I came home last night and at abuot 9:30p.m. I drank a wine cooler. I enjoyed the gentle tingle that enveloped me. (yes, I am an extremely light weight drinker) and crawled in bed by 10:30. My plan to fall to sleep early was working liked a charm. I felll asleep almost as soon as I got my pillow adjusted properly and slept soundly till around 3am. Then the pain in my hip woke me. Grrr. Up I got and out to the kitchen did trot. I took to ibprofen and crawled back in bed, but the rest of the night was restless. (sadness) So, you can guess that I wasn't thrilled to wake up just before seven knowing I had to get up. Two coffees later and I still want to crawl back into bed.  Not an option and now I have run out of time to even complain about it. Work is beckoning. Have a great day and I will try to do the same. Hugs |
| Good evening folks. This will be another free writing blog. I have very little to say today, but the urge to babble is with me. I know ain't that just great. A while back I mentioned that I had started a Gotham Writer's Workshop. At first I was very excited, but now, not so much. I am kind of disappointed in the participation of both the instructor and my fellow students. We started off with a full class and now are down to about three students. That saddens me greatly. I really had high hopes for the group. But never one to give up easily at least not after becoming an adult. I am looking into a creative writing course through one of the state colleges. I figured I could take one course a semester and maybe some day get a degree - in twenty years. Who knows, I might even learn to write something decent to read. I am not putting myself down. I do enjoy the idea of writing and even occasionally actually doing some writing, but if I have gotten nothing else out of my workshop it is that I have a lot more to learn. An example would be POV which most people in writing circles knows stands of Point of View. Yes, even I knew that, I can even tell you a couple of different kinds, but when it came to actually being able to do them I had difficulty keeping things straight. One cure is to practice. But how can one practice if they don't have someone to verify whether they are doing it right or not? My big thing about college is that I love learning. When I went to become an Administrative Assistant, it was great and would have been even better if I hadn't started having diabetes related problems at the end. Till my last semester I held an A average. It dropped to a B the last semester. (sadness) First though I have to hear from the college and see what it is going to take to start classes. I believe I can afford one class a semester at this time and I should be able to keep up with the work too on top of my job and the projects I am doing around the house. In painting news. I got the mirror off the wall today and painted behind it. I also got the last coat of paint over the shower area. If time allows, tomorrow I am caulking the top of the shower. In a few days when that has dried I will redo the bottom caulk. Hopefully all will go well. I have one more area to paint blue in the bathroom, it is the shelf area. But the bathroom is tiny and space limited so I needed to get other areas done first so I can move things around for the painting. You have a wonderful day, evening or night and I will be back to bore you tomorrow. LOL |
| I do love the new emotioncons. Maybe they aren't really new to you, but to me they are. I like to spice up the writing with them sometimes. The new setup takes a little getting used to, but it is doable. Yesterday and this morning have turned out to be good. After work yesterday, I came home and started painting the bathroom. Three coats later and I have decided to add one or two more coats to the shower area. The reason is that when we bought the place it came with a nice new fresh paint job. Unfortunately, the painter, who "knows" how to paint and was/is married to a man who paints for a living decided to paint the bathroom in flat paint. Now, I, who am not a great painter can read the can where it strongly encourages people to use semi gloss to paint bathrooms and kitchens. I am told the previous owner was frugal. That may not be a stong enough word for that. (sorry, I don't mean to sound bitter, but I have fought for three years to try not to accuse my ex friend of taking advantage of me, I failed). I am living in a house that glittered when I bought it, but is now not so pretty because of a leaky roof, I can't afford to fix because I pay too much for my mortgage because I trusted a friend to do right by me. (sorry, getting bitter, I need to drop this subject) Painting didn't bother me, I enjoyed it. Just thinking of why I have to put on five coats gets to me just a tad. I also worked on the last afgan I have to make for co-workers. I don't know if I will continue to make blankets for pregnant people at work. Some seemed a tad ungrateful. You know, kind of yeah thanks, thats nice-- oh great, what do I do with this. It is easily 8 hours worth of work to make one of those things. I am easily giving them a gift that is worth $50 or more. Wow, I am coming off very cranky today. Before sitting down to write, I had no idea that I felt so strongly, especially about the blankets. As for the house, I walked into this with my eyes open and fairly well informed. I can't blame anyone, but myself for getting taken advantage of. I looked at this place and it was pretty and clean and newly painted and apparently that included the ceiling, which now has spots on it from the roof leaking and I wanted it. I knew the price was high, but I thought with my check and Ayron's we would make due. Not so. Next thing I knew we had to rent the upstairs out to make the payments because Ayron lost his job-- then there was no fixing the roof, no money to repaint the bathroom.... So, I started out to tell you I had a wonderful day yesterday, which I did and I am, for all my complaining, having a wonderful day today. And we have in place a plan to slowly replace the roof which is good. But for some reason, all that other stuff kind of spilled out. Part of me says erase it, but as much as I want my blog to be entertaining, it is also a release for things that can build up and make me a less happy or pleasant person. |
| The week just flew by. You would think that having Fridays and Mondays off would give me enough extra time to actually get a lot done so that I would have my weekends free. Apparently not so, or at least not so this week. I spent all day yesterday cleaning. In fairness to the house, I spent the whole time my eldest son and his girlfriend were living with us ignoring the livingroom (5 months). By the end I had reduced my cleaning to the Bedroom and the Kitchen with an occassional swipe of the bathroom. Just so we are clear here, I am NOT complaining... I feel the satisfaction you get when you finally get something clean again. When I was first married, all I did was clean. I even waxed the floors. My first born did have some difficulties learning to walk thanks to that, but with my husband's help I embraced my inner messy person. I may have embraced it a tad much because for some reason my boys are of the impression that the only time you have to do a thorough cleaning is if there is company coming. So, everytime I want to really clean, they want to know who is coming over. Yesterday, I did the basics dusting, mopping and laundry. Then I loaded up my mother's truck for that fateful trip I wanted to make to the dump. Interesting thing about this dump, it is actually a very large building and it is a dumping facility. Another interesting thing about the dumping facility, it closes at 3pm during the week and noon on Saturdays. Now, guess who showed up at 3:20 yesterday. Final guess. Guess who gets to go today? You probably got it wrong. I have to go to work. The hubby gets to go today. LOL I go to work in 15 minutes. It looks like he is going to head out nice and early today and get that out of the way so we can get my mom's truck back to her. Maybe today will be the day that I start painting the bathroom. I have wanted to do so for some time, but with the house over croweded it seemed like a bad idea. Now that we have access to the upstairs bathroom, maybe we can finally get a few bathroom related things done. Upstairs bathroom belongs to the upstairs apartment, which we had rented out to the crazy lady, but now have rented out to my son and his girlfriend (fiance'). Well, now that I got all of that out of my system, it seems like a good time to head off to work and earn my three hours worth of pay!!! |
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