Celtic Spirit

2012-02-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

For awhile now I've been asking myself what prevents me from moving on? No matter how hard I try, I seem to be stuck at this fork in the road. Do I just sit here watching life go by? Do I take the easy road and stay here.....the road that feels safe but where I'm not really happy? Or....do I take the road where change is inevitable, it may be risky and difficult, but there is also a chance that it will be exactly what I wanted? Well, I guess I am about to find out. Despite all the obstacles that seem to be in front of me, I am ready to take a risk, take a chance to be where I want to be.

Ups and Downs

2012-02-03T10:31:00.000-06:00

This picture says it all. (Life is a roller coaster , you can either scream every time you hit a bump or you can throw your hands up in the air and enjoy it) Lately....there have been many bumps! I let too many things get to me.....little things that in the long run don't even matter. Maybe it's time to just enjoy it. Yesterday was a really bad day for me. But then in the end, he is always there to help me realize what is important. He helps me get grounded again.

I Forgive

2012-02-01T11:18:00.000-06:00

If I let anger stay in my heart I will never be able to move forward spiritually or in any other way. I will be stuck right where I am now. So I am writing this letter to Russell because it is what I need to do at this moment and eventually he will come on here and read it.

Russell,
I forgive you for everything. I forgive you for the way you left me here even though it would have been so less traumatic if you had just had the courage to tell me to my face that you did not want to be with me anymore. Sure I would have been just as upset but I would have had some closure on the end of a relationship. I forgive you for letting me believe that we were going to have a life together in Arizona. I forgive you for letting me do all that work towards that goal that in the end was nothing but a lie. I forgive you for certain things you said to me throughout our relationship that made me feel really bad about myself. I forgive you for not being faithful and then denying it. But most of all, I forgive myself for letting you treat me that way. I forgive myself for going back to you and moving to Oklahoma (after the first breakup) when I knew in my heart it was not the right thing to do. I forgive myself for staying in a relationship that was probably never meant to be. I hope you now have the Peace in your life that you have been searching for.
Barb

Insecurities

2012-01-31T10:59:00.000-06:00

I think we all have them. I wrote the previous post about how we are not our bodies.....we are so much more than that. I know that inside....I honestly do. But then I look at the way society expects women or girls to look. We are bombarded all our lives with all these pictures of very thin women....women on magazine covers who are airbrushed and changed in more ways that you can imagine. We are told to go on this diet and lose 30 lbs in a month. Get plastic surgery to feel better about ourselves. Get liposuction. Get botox in the lips. Breasts not big enough? Just get them enlarged! Just change yourself into a human Barbie doll. This attitude can really mess with people's minds. People just don't get it. In my previous realtionship, I could never look good enough. At one point I was what I considered to be pretty thin and I thought I looked good.I got a lot of compliments from people at work. So anyhow one day we were sitting there watching tv and he said to me....do you think you can get as thin as that actress on tv? She was an anorexic looking woman by the way. I had no desire to look like that but that told me right there, I would never look the way he wanted me to. I could never be who he wanted me to be. I went into that relationship feeling pretty good about myself but by the time I got out, I was a total wreck. I just wish that people could look beyond the physical and see what is really inside of that person. Get to know them on a soul level. There are so many missed opportunities because people judge others solely on looks. It's a shame but unfortunately that's the way it is.

I am a mother of four. I am a grandmother of 6. I have wrinkles. I will probably never be as thin as society says I should be. I hate being overweight. I sometimes barely eat anything for days and lose a couple of pounds and then finally do eat and gain it back. There have been times in the past when I have eaten and then gone and got rid of it. Quite a few times....but not anymore. I will never again let a man make me feel like I need to do that again. I can take maybe 50 pictures of myself and not like any of them. The picture above is the only picture I have ever retouched, I removed a couple of wrinkles. Why? I don't even know. Do you know how difficult this is to write? It's extremely difficult. But I am doing it because putting my feelings out in the open and maybe having someone read it who can relate to these feelings is helpful.

On the inside, I am not the person that I talked about above. I am this eternal, free spirit who does not understand why any of the superficial things that I worry about even matter. Like I said before, life is about remembering who we truly are and letting go of the rest......

Peace and Love to y'all.

The Ageless Soul

2012-01-28T20:29:00.000-06:00

The soul does not age. It is eternal, timeless and immortal. It has no beginning and has no end. It is connected with the Source from where it came just as everything is. Our soul is who we are and who we always have been. I think our purpose in this life is to remember who we are. Simple as that. Why then do we make it so complicated?

I hear people talk about how they don't like getting older. They have aches and pains. They may be a little slower. They may have gained weight. But inside......they feel no different. That is because they are not. I love this one quote by Wayne Dyer. He says....We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. For me, that says it all. WE ARE NOT OUR BODIES. Just imagine what this World would be like if we loved people for who they truly were and not who they were on the surface? What if we instead connected on a soul level? Think about it.

At some point (if we are lucky) we are all going to be old and grey and we will look in the mirror and we will not even recognize ourselves. We will be confused because our mind feels not a day older than we did at age twenty. But we will have gained something so much better. WISDOM. Hopefully on this journey called life, we have become the person who we were always meant to be. So next time you look in the mirror and you see a new wrinkle or a few new grey hairs......really look at your self. Look at the amazing, beautiful person that you see and realize you are a part of something so much bigger than you could ever begin to realize. Don't pay attention to the little flaws that are so miniscule in the whole scheme of things. Every soul is beautiful. And that means YOU.

Angels

2012-01-23T12:49:00.000-06:00

I am a believer in Angels. I have felt them around me when I needed them. I have seen a glimpse of angel wings and felt them brushing my face. I believe that Angels come to help us but they may not come in a form that we expect. They may come as a stranger on a deserted road when we run out of gas. Or they may come as a homeless person on the sidewalk who needs our help.....but actually we are the ones being helped.
I have always felt much more comfortable praying to the Angels then I have to what I consider a higher Source. They don't answer me in words but it's more like thoughts that come to me and along with that comes a sense of Peace. I can feel their energy and it is nothing but pure Love. I believe that it is time to call on my Angels once again.

Peace and Love to y'all.

Events Of The Past Month

2012-01-22T21:31:00.000-06:00

Well here goes. I am finally ready to write about what happened in the past month. For about 6 months, I worked on the house in Oklahoma, a house that was in Russell's name. I helped demolish a bathroom, fixed cracks, painted, did some minor electrical work and after all that was done, I worked to get it all in perfect shape so that it could be listed with Century 21. In a month, they only showed the house one time and another agency showed it once. I found a buyer for the house. We sold it to a woman that I used to work with at the bakery and her husband. I did most of the running around getting paper work etc, since we took it off the market and sold it ourselves. Everything got done and we were originally going to leave on December 17th because the people we sold it to wanted to get into the house by Christmas. I decided myself that I would leave on a day before Russell did in order to spend a day in Stanley, New Mexico over my daughter Kristene's house. I had seen her so seldom that I felt that even one day would make a difference.

I said goodbye to Russell and left about 2 pm on a Friday afternoon. I arrived in Stanley about 10 pm at night and my daughter met me at Walmart so I could follow her down the numerous long dirt roads that led to her house. I called Russell to let him know that I got there and I thought everything was fine. The next morning I called to see if he'd left yet and he answered the phone and said he just woke up. Later that afternoon I tried calling him because I was worried due to the weather being bad. He was driving the largest size UHaul and pulling a 16 foot loaded trailer as well. he would not answer his phone. I continued to try to call but still....no answer. I tried to call his Mother and sisters but they said they had not heard from him. As a last resort I called the woman we sold the house to and she acted confused and said he left the night before. Now I was really in a panic.

This is what happened while I was at my daughter's house worrying about him. He called my daughter Kayla and told her that he was leaving all my stuff in New Mexico in a storage unit. He told her to meet him there and get my dog. Kayla was afraid to go by herself so she brought her Dad with her. The two of them unloaded all my stuff in a storage unit. Then he left after mumbling a bunch of random stuff that made no sense...according to Kayla. Then, before he left he leaned into Kayla's Dads truck and said to Kayla....I think your older sister is hot and I know I shouldn't feel that way. This goes to show that you may not know somebody even if you have been with them for almost 8 years. He gave her $400 to give to me (generous huh?) to add to the approximately $100 that I'd had left in gas money.

Then, Kayla went and picked up her older sister and her younger brother and they drive to Stanley New Mexico to tell me the news. I was absolutely devastated. I drank that night....not much...but enough that I spent half the night throwing up. It was more from stress than drinking. I spent about 5 days there wishing I could just go to sleep at night and not wake up. It just made me sick to think that I'd done all this work on the house, found the buyer and had dreams of living in Arizona and all the time he was hatching this scheme to leave me in New Mexico. I really hated him at first. Then I just realized he was nothing but a coward and a liar and that I was way better off without him. It was a blessing in disguise. It really was. All my family is here. I had forgotten how much I love living in the desert and all the beauty is here.

Then I went to stay at my daughter Kayla's house. On Christmas Eve I happened to get on Facebook and made a comment on someone's post and one thing led to another and we started talking. We talked all night and the next night and have been talking ever since. This was a guy I'd gone to high school and we'd been in ROTC together. We found that we have this very strong connection that only grows stronger every time we talk. He lives in Massachusetts over 2,000 miles away but it does not seem to matter. This is a person that I can tell anything to. This is a person that understands why I am depressed and tries to help me in the best way that he knows how. He has shared the things that he has gone through in life knowing that I will not judge him. I love him. I know most people can't understand how you can love someone you have not seen in 30 years but believe me, it is very possible. If two people are meant to be together, neither time nor distance seem to matter. So that is my story. I don't want any pity because I know that everything happens for a reason and I believe it all happened so that I can be with my family and if it all works out, with the man I love.

peace and love to y'all.

There Has To Be Some Light In This Darkness

2012-01-20T12:22:00.000-06:00

I feel like I'm in this dark forest, scratching and clawing my way through the twisted trees which want to hold me back and keep me from moving forward. I know at the end there is a light but there are so many obstacles that get in the way of me making it to the end. What is at the end that I want so much? I want to be able to forgive and forget what he did to me. I want to remember the happy times and put the bad ones behind me and use it as a learning experience. I want to walk into that light with the man who has come back into my life from so long ago and experience the joy of simply living. Life is a journey and sometimes we get stuck along the way. But there is always a way out.

2012-01-19T17:24:00.000-06:00

It's been so long since I've written anything on this blog. I had it private for a long time but just today, I changed it back. It felt like the right thing to do and there is somebody who I want to read it. The reasons that I changed it in the first place do not seem to matter anymore. I changed it because certain people from my past were making comments that were not so nice. None of that seems to matter right now. I spent the afternoon reading old blog posts way back from when I started posting.

Lately, I have been telling myself that the past 8 years were something that I want to erase from my memory but I have realized something. I can't erase the past. It is what it is. Reading back....I read about things that I'd forgotten ...things that made me laugh, and some really good times that we had. I can't just delete them like I'm hitting a key on a computer and I don't really want to. Everything that has happened over those years has led me where I am now and to who I am now. I am still trying to figure out if I even like the person I am now. One minute I am angry, then sad.....just a whole range of emotions. I can't seem to get motivated to do anything. I have this amazing man in my life and sometimes I feel like I don't deserve him. I ask myself....why does he even want to be with me? I come with a lot of baggage. If he can deal with that has to be very patient and remember that he is my future and the past is just that. I don't want to go back in time. I only want to move forward and start our new life together. Everything that has happened in my life up until this moment has led me to him. That is the way that I look at it anyhow. So there you have it. I'm sure I'll hear about this tonight when we talk. I love you.

For a short time......

2010-05-20T17:19:00.000-05:00

I had a helper for my area of the bakery. She was supposed to be my permanent helper. Well that only lasted about 4 hours until my dept. manager came in and told me that she'd have to use her on the floor instead. The girl that normally did it is now on medical leave because of her bad arm so that only left one person to do the job. Well, it was nice while it lasted. We got so much done with the two of us. I feel this was just like a tease to see how it *could be* or how it *should be*. She turned out to be a very nice girl...a 19 year old and was very helpful. So now I have to wait again for a helper. So much for that.

We had tornadoes go through the state again. Once again, they went around us. For those of you who don't know and now I can say it since my blog is private....I live in Chickasha, Oklahoma. That is pronounced Chick-A-shay. It's a Native American name for the Chickasaw Indians. So next time they show a map of Oklahoma with tornadoes going through it, you can see where I am. It's southwest of Oklahoma city. We have a good warning system here and it pretty much shows on tv exactly where the tornadoes are at the time. It will even show the exact street. Technology has come very far. I will be much happier when we get a storm shelter though. Russell's parents have one and we can always go there but I still want one of our own. Russell wants one with a portable potty in it and electric. I want one with internet and a big screen tv. Ok I'm just kidding on that one.

The bathroom is progressing nicely. It's all painted and I just finished the baseboard but Russell still needs to cut some bottom trim to go around the edges of the floor. He tried coming home with plastic trim and I told him it was ugly. Why spend all this money and use something tacky like that? So he brought it back and got real wood which was cheaper than the tacky stuff. He has not had much time to work on it lately so does a little whenever he gets a chance. I'll take pictures when it's done.

Here are some pics I took after I went shopping. It's hard to make everything out in the pic. Also, Russell ended up getting more stuff when he was at Walmart that same day and it's not in the pictures.

That's it for today's post. Hope you have a good evening!

Went Shopping Again!

2010-05-17T13:02:00.000-05:00

Keep in mind I hate shopping. But I went to Walmart and looked around at the bathroom stuff and decided to do a sea or ocean theme. The color of the walls are called blue beyond and it's a really pretty color. I took pictures of the stuff I bought but the batteries in my camera are dead and I'm charging them right now. So...I got a little waste can that is ceramic and has seashells on it, a liquid soap holder and a bar soap holder that looks like a big flat shell you'd find in the ocean. I got a rug for the floor in the same theme and a decorative hand towel. I got some wash cloths and you'll see what I'm doing with those once I put the pictures on. I found a bronze colored stand to go over the toilet and I think it's just right for that spot cause it's not big and bulky like a wooden one would be and the size of things has to be on a smaller scale for a smaller room. I also got a couple of candles and I already have a sea shell wreath I made years back and a picture of fish that I cross stitched. I think it's going to look pretty neat when I'm done. I'll get a few finishing touches here and there when as I find things I want. It's kinda fun decorating this room because it's actually the first room I've decorated with Russell that's in our own place. OK that's it for now and I'll try to put some pictures on here later.

Went Shopping.

2010-05-17T09:11:00.000-05:00

Russell decided we needed to go get a bathroom mirror yesterday. So we went to Home Depot and found one that we both liked. He wanted a big medicine cabinet type thing but it would have looked too oversized in that bathroom so we found something else we both liked. We are going to get one of those cabinet type things that go over the toilet for storage instead when we find one. We did not find one at Home Depot. Also at Home Depot we got a bronze toilet paper holder and towel ring. They match the bronze in the mirror. Then we went to Target (I love Target) and I found a glass shelf with bronze on it it match the other bronze stuff. But we still didn't find the over the toilet cabinet. The bathroom is now painted, I did most of it and Russell did way up top where I could not reach it. Today I'm going to clean the floor and see if I can put some type of an oil on it. We really don't want to refinish it and I don't think it needs it anyhow. While at Target yesterday I looked for accessories but did not find anything I liked or that would match. I'm going to check Walmart today. We don't have much choice of stores around here....Target is about 40 mins away not far from Home Depot but we probably won't be going there again in the immediate future. So I may have to order some stuff online.
I really do like Target though. They have so many neat things and lots of *vegetarian* type foods. Since I was there I got some veggie cheese, some barley, a packaged Bengal lentil meal and some Progresso lentil soup and this is stuff I can never find here. Probably some more food too but that's all I can remember right now. I like looking around that store at all the neat kitchen stuff and gadgets. We were going to go out and eat but it got too late by the time we got out of Target so we ate at home.
The money is really adding up to do that bathroom! With the plumbing fixtures, the sheetrock and hardware, vanity sink and toilet and not even counting the accessories it's getting way up there as far as cost goes. I can't even imagine what it will cost to do the other bathroom which needs to be completely redone.

Hope y'all have the most wonderful day!

And There Is Light

2010-05-16T09:16:00.000-05:00

We have light in the new bathroom. Russell finally got the electric hooked up in there and discovered along the way that the wiring in this house is a mess. It all needs to be redone eventually. So does the plumbing. He did some of that when he added in the new bathroom. We have very little water pressure. The old metal pipes are probably full of gunk that has accumulated over the years. He's replacing them with some new type of pipe that does not do that....but the name of them escapes me right now. Hopefully after all the pipes in the house are replaced we will have decent water pressure. That will be done a little at a time as it is costly.

Today, I'm going to paint the bathroom. He had to do the ceiling because my shoulder is messed up and it's hard for me to reach straight up. The walls should not be a problem though. We went to storage again to look for my bathroom stuff but I think it's a hopeless case. The box is nowwhere to be found. I really love that dragonfly stuff and wish we could find it. I looked at some of the stuff at Walmart and did not see anything that I liked.

I have had some problems that I think are due to my lack of protein in my diet. I'm going to be much more careful now to make sure I do get enough protein. I've had lots of aches and pains that normally are very minor but now it's like they are all amplified. I have a foot that I hurt a long time back that would hurt every once in awhile and occasionally my back would hurt. When I was on a register at work I had a lot of trouble with my shoulder because of the repetitive motion. A lot of this stuff was made worse by standing in one spot at a register and once I went to the bakery, most of it went away. When I changed my diet however it's like I'm getting everything at once and and even my fingers hurt. I did some research about not getting enough protein and muscle aches and pains seemed to be one of the symptoms. I now realize that I need to make sure I get enough protein and calcium as well.

For those of you who are not on my Facebook: We had many tornadoes all around us last week. There was a lot of damage in cities north and northwest of us and many people lost their homes and businesses. It was kinda scary when the weather alert radio kept going off with tornado watches and tornado warnings. We were lucky though and did not get the very strong winds or the softball sized hail. Yes...softball size. There were many pictures of it on the news and the news channel website. I think getting hit by something like that could kill a person. All this happening is a good reminder of not to take things for granted. Life can change at any given moment.
Peace to y'all.

Sunday

2010-05-09T08:41:00.000-05:00

I just may be getting Sundays and Mondays off from now on. That would be nice and I'll have the option to check out Unity Church in a nearby city. I woke up a little after 5 am today and Russell saw me on the computer and said I thought you were going to sleep late today? Well.....5 am is sleeping late when I normally get up at 2:15. Don't ya think? I have a hard time now sleeping much later than that. Besides....I took a long nap yesterday so I could stay up with Russell when he got off work last night. It's been nice, he's had some time off since they hired another driver at his work. Things are not so hectic now and he's getting caught up on his repair jobs. I told him he was McGuiver last night. He fixed some plumbing with bicycle tape, JB weld stuff and clamps. The hardware store was closed by the time he got off so he got that stuff at Walmart. Pretty clever huh? Maybe some of you remember the time he fixed the washing machine with a bottle cap and a rag? Well as long as he does not make a bomb with some every day household items, I think we are OK. hahaha

I need to get myself motivated to do some painting. So why am I still sitting here? I have lots to do so better get to work! Have a peaceful Sunday. :)
And Happy Mother's Day to all Moms.

Thursday

2010-05-07T13:45:00.000-05:00

We have another new person in the bakery at work. This is an older woman and she's going to be doing bread so now there are two people to do it. They will take turns doing it and maybe if I'm lucky I'll get some extra help now. Anyhow....this woman is a tiny (way shorter than me and I'm 5'3"). She must be about 4'7" or so and she is from the Philippines. Well finally we have a good worker! The young girl we got is proving to be somewhat lazy, takes very long breaks and tries to get others to do her work so I don't know how long she will last.

The bathroom is almost done as far as the construction parts anyhow. The sink needs to still be put in but we want to paint it first. We might be going to pick out some paint today. I'm going over to our storage place and see if I can find the bathroom stuff that I had in SC and maybe use some of that. It has dragonflies on it and I like that type of stuff.

Friday
I got delayed in writing my post yesterday. I went to storage and Russell met me there to look for the bathroom stuff and it was nowhere to be found. Then we thought it might be here in the house but if it was, it would be in the extra bedroom. It was not in there either. I've seen it since we were here in OK so I don't know why we can't find it now. I am disappointed that we can't find it. I'd hate to have to buy new but that may be what we end up doing. I might look some more today but don't know where else to look.

We've had some pretty hot weather. Yesterday it was 93 degrees later in the day and it was really hard not to put the AC on. Today is really nice and breezy though so I have quite a few windows open and the house feels great. We are running fans and ceiling fans right now. At least this year we are having a spring instead of it seeming like it went from winter to summer.

Russell has started cutting grass at the properties he does and he's already had to do them all twice. He's trying to get caught up with his repairs at the rental places he takes care of but still has a few to do. He got really far behind when he had that stretch where he was working nonstop. Well now they have 4 drivers at his work so it's gotten back to a more normal pace. I sure am happy about that.

I hope y'all have had a good week. :)

Saturday 12:57 AM

2010-05-01T00:57:00.000-05:00

I can't sleep. I slept most of the day on and off because work was so busy and I was exhausted. Friday at work is always my busiest day. My sleeping habits are getting to be really random and out of control. I have to go to work in 3 hours and since I slept till 10 pm now I could not sleep when I tried going to bed with Russell. So I figured I might as well stay up. I have a hard time sleeping for more than an hour or two in a row. My back ends up hurting cause I have a pinched nerve and I'm thinking I just may have to start going to a chiropractor. If it gets any worse that's what I'm going to do.
Russell cut grass for a couple of people till 9:30 tonight. He's lucky that nobody called the police like they did on one occasion. There is a noise ordinance I think but that's after 10:00 pm. The time that somebody called it was only around 8:30. He has huge riding mower which is quite noisy and he put headlights on it so it's probably quite disruptive. He did not work too long today so it was good that he got a chance to cut the grass and he did a couple of repair jobs as well. He's finally catching up on all the stuff he was behind on.
The painter guy called me and was wanting to come over today but I told him I was not going to be home. I really wasn't going anywhere but did not want him over here today. I wish Russell would just tell him he does not need him anymore. Hopefully I won't get bad Karma from telling a fib.
We decided we are going to get a home phone. There have been a couple of times in the morning when Russell's work called him in and he did not hear his cell phone ringing. The house phone will wake him up because it will be louder so he won't have to worry about being late for work anymore.
The weather has been pretty good and so far we have not put the AC on yet. I think that last year we had it on by this time. We are trying to hold off for as long as possible but I'm not going to let it get to the point where I'm very uncomfortable either. Who wants to be miserable and hot in their own home? I sure don't.
Well....that's it for tonight. Or I should say this morning. I hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Progress & Laziness

2010-04-29T19:29:00.000-05:00

There's finally been some progress in the bathroom. Russell actually had a whole day yesterday where they did not call him in to work. He got the toilet put in and a lot of the plumbing underneath the house done. Now....the guy who is doing the texturing to the walls....that is another story. What a lazy ass he is! Pardon my language but it's true. He's come over here about 3 times and each time he only does a couple hours of work. Russell is paying him by the hour and that was a mistake. He should have paid him by the job when he was done. At this rate he will be done by next Christmas. I think Russell is going to end up doing it himself. The second time this lazy man came over, he smelled like booze. Russell was not here so I told him about it. Today he worked about and hour (minus the 15 min. smoking break) and then went home sick. Sick? Yeah...sick of working. He has his own buisness.....painting and texturing but he has no money. We now know why. He barely works. The thing is, he does a good job but has no motivation. Well enough about the bathroom adventure.

It's getting hot here. Well...I should say one day it's hot and we have to run fans, then the next day it's cold and we have to put the heat back on. It sure is wacky weather. It was pretty hot at work as well. I think they need to crank up those air conditioners. The new girl at work seems to be doing ok but she seems a bit lazy as well. What is it with young people? What happened to work ethics? Some younger people (only some) seem to want others to pick up their slack or do the work for them. Anyhow, I like this girl but don't know if she is going to make it in the bakery. Sheila will be leaving tomorrow and then she will have to do it all herself. For her sake and ours I hope she can do the job. Today after all my own work, I decorated those giant cookie cakes and tons of cupcakes. I did a whole table full of cupcakes. See Russell....I am a stepford wife. (private joke)
I think doing the cupcakes is my favorite part of work. I tried cakes but don't have the patience for it. Sometimes I do the bread as well which I don't really mind.
Well, it's time for me to get off here. It's just about my bedtime. Hope you all have a good night. Keep cool.

Monday

2010-04-26T12:18:00.000-05:00

Two days off! Yipppee! Last night Russell came home about 8 pm and wanted to watch the Avatar move cause I'd recently bought the dvd. I knew that since I got up at 2:15 that morning that there was no way I'd be able to stay up for a 3 hour movie. I was right. I fell asleep within a matter of a few minutes. I do love that movie, I just could not stay awake for it.

We have a new girl at work. She is doing the bread but she will not be an extra person because she's going to take the place of Sheila who is retiring. We are supposed to get another new person....maybe starting today? Another woman who will also help with bread on the other lady's day off. They would not need two people but now Walmart no longer hires full time people. I think they want to cut back on the benefits they have to pay out. They still have insurance for part timers but it's not worth it. Even the insurance they have if you are full time is not worth it. I think the policy at Walmart is have as few people working as possible and do as much work as possible. It really doesn't have to be that way, but greed takes over just like it does in many companies. They lose track of what is really important and that is people. Sam Walton was very proud of the way the associates were treated. Once he died, things went down hill. Sad huh? OK so enough about work.

Russell still has not had time to do any more in the bathroom. He is hiring a guy he knows to do the texture on the walls, it's just a matter of him getting over here to do it. It should not take long. Once that is done, he can do the plumbing part under the house. And I'll paint the bathroom and decorate it. There is not really much to do in that area since it's small.

Yesterday, I accidentally came across the FB of the stepfather. I don't even know how I found it, I think I was looking at another blog and came across one that had his same last name. He looks very old. Looking at his picture made me feel sick to my stomach. That just goes to show that I have not let go of the past as much as I though I had. Louise Hay who is very much an inspiration to me says that we need to forgive in order to let go of the past. It sure is easier said than done. How do you forgive parents who made you feel like you were less than nothing? If you have an answer I sure would like to hear it.

Well, that's it for today. It sure is nice to be able to write what I want on here.
Hope y'all have a wonderful day. :)

Freedom

2010-04-22T16:19:00.001-05:00

I now have the freedom to say what I want on this blog. I had to be careful before with whatever I said because people would read my blog and occasionally leave rude comments. Russell's ex wife and a couple of her kids would read my blog daily and I really didn't like that invasion of privacy because there intentions were not good. His ex wife would even log onto my blog at the college she was attending and taking art classes. I found the whole thing very odd and uncomfortable. Knowing the morals of these people, Russell and I think that they were up to no good. We know that they already stole from other family members....going so far as to break and enter into an elderly woman's house and just about wipe her out. They even took her memories of her late husband when they stole her photo albums and personal papers. They took many things but I think that is what hurt her the most. They have a long history of theft. Russell's son when he lived with us, took many things. His daughter when she was younger and came for a visit tried to take some of my stuff but Russell made it a point to take the kids out to eat before they left so I could search their stuff. I found a bunch of my stuff in her suitcase. That is why I have a hard time now when she comes to visit. Some of my movies are now gone and I really don't know what else. I don't know if they were misplaced or she took them. It's hard to accuse when you don't have actual proof. The thing that bothers us is this....they always get away with it. We think they will get away with this recent theft which is a felony because of the amount of things taken.
I really want to trust his kids! I want to be able to trust his daughter who does visit us. But how can you just overlook the past? I believe in giving people another chance. We gave his son many chances. How many chances can you give a person? Unlimited? When does it end?

So this is the reason I chose to make this blog private. It's not something I wanted to do, but I wanted a way where they could not read about our every day life and see what was going on here. But I also created my new blog, which will contain no personal information so I can still meet new people as I met all of you. I have met so many great people by blogging! You are all special and I'm happy to be a part of your life....online anyhow.

Well that's it for now.
Happy blogging!

New Blog Again

2010-04-20T15:49:00.001-05:00

I fixed the comment thing on it. Thanks Iggy for letting me know it was not working.

New Blog

2010-04-20T11:19:00.001-05:00

Please take note of this blog. I'm making changes and this will be my blog for now.

http://enlightenmysoul-celticspirit.blogspot.com/

This one will be having changes made to it.

Thank you for your patience.

2010-04-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note. We just watched The Celestine Prophecy on instant Netflix. What a wonderful movie on enlightenment! It was from the book of the same title and I'm going to get a copy of it because as y'all know, the book is almost always better. If you ever get a chance to watch this I highly recommend it. We also watched a documentary on 2012 where there were different viewpoints of what people thought would happen on Dec. 21 of that year. Very interesting.

Every Moment Is Precious

2010-04-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

Having so little time together these days with Russell working so much makes me realize how precious every moment is. We were talking last night on the phone about our *phone* relationship. It's almost like when we first met online and only talked on the internet or phone. At the time, we didn't know anything different so we were happy with that. I guess I'm getting used to it now but still looking forward to when they hire one more guy at his work and he does not have to work so much. I also try to look at the bright side and be happy he's getting so much overtime and no longer on salary as he was for quite some time when the economy took such a down turn.

I've got a few things I want to do today. I want to go downtown to the used bookstore since I have not been there in so long. Maybe I'll find a couple of books to read. Russell suggested that I look for a mirror for the bathroom he's working on. And I'm going to try to take off a board that is on the frame of the front door so if he ever gets a chance he can fix the storm door. The frame was damaged by the high winds of the ice storm we had this winter. All I've got to do is get out his cordless drill and take out a bunch of screws. I think I can handle that one. The last thing I want to do is go to one of the local stores and get a roast so I can make him a pot roast in the crockpot. I like to cook his favorite things. :)

Well, that's it for my Monday stuff. Hopefully I get it all done. Have a wonderful day!
Peace and Love to y'all.

Sunday

2010-04-18T18:03:00.000-05:00

It's still raining here. The weeds in the backyard are growing strong and sturdy and seem to be making themselves right at home as if they plan on making a lengthy visit. The grass was cut a few days ago but now the dandelions are about a foot above the grass after only a couple of days of rain. I was planning on pulling up all the weeds but then he cut the grass before I had a chance to. I don't have to plant a garden since my weeds look so lovely! ;)

Russell was about to come home just a bit ago.....before dark even....but then when he got back to his work, they sent him out on another job. Ugghhhh. I was planning on cutting his hair...and hopefully not giving him a bald spot like I did a couple of times before. Ok...it's been a really long time since I've done that. I've been doing really good cutting his hair.

It's been pretty cold here! I had to put the heat back on yesterday. I figured that 62 degrees in the house was too cold.

Russell was talking to a friend of his last night (an elderly woman) and they had a long conversation as they always do. Her house was broken into and it was done by her own family.It really saddens me that people just think that they can break and enter into someone's home, take what they want and trash the place and walk away with a clear conscious. This is a woman on a very limited income and she works hard for her money! She's at the age when she should be able to retire but she had her retirement money snatched out from under her by a black widow who got her hooks into her husband long enough to get him to divorce her and get what she wanted from him. Anyhow this same woman was involved in the break in. This elderly woman's husband has passed away so now she is alone and trying to make it on her own. Photo albums were stolen (among many other things, even the food in her fridge and cleanings supplies) so her memories are gone as well. Memories of a husband she dearly loved....a husband who made a horrific mistake and fell under the spell of a despicable woman. She knows who did it and so do the police and it will only be a matter of time before they are caught. You can only go so long in hiding....always looking over your shoulder and wondering when they will get you.
I really hate to see the elderly taken advantage off but this....this is another one of those things that can't be explained. Maybe it's greed, or desperation....or just hatred. I don't know. What I do know however, is that nothing goes unpunished.

Well, that's it for tonight. Hope y'all have a good night.

Scary Stuff

2010-04-18T17:09:00.005-05:00

Here is an article I found after Russell and I were discussing this subject of how the military is lowering it's standards in enlisting recruits. I read a few more articles and one was about how the Army also upped their weight limits and are now taking very overweight people and figure they can get in shape after they enlist. How do you feel about this???

Dumb and DumberThe U.S. Army lowers recruitment standards … again.

Army soldiers in IraqThe Army is lowering recruitment standards to levels not seen in at least two decades, and the implications are severe—not only for the future of the Army, but also for the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

The latest statistics—compiled by the Defense Department. and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Boston-based National Priorities Project—are grim. They show that the percentage of new Army recruits with high-school diplomas has plunged from 94 percent in 2003 to 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent in 2007. (The Pentagon's longstanding goal is 90 percent.)

In order to meet recruitment targets, the Army has even had to scour the bottom of the barrel. There used to be a regulation that no more than 2 percent of all recruits could be "Category IV"—defined as applicants who score in the 10^th to 30^th percentile on the aptitude tests. In 2004, just 0.6 percent of new soldiers scored so low. In 2005, as the Army had a hard time recruiting, the cap was raised to 4 percent. And in 2007, according to the new data, the Army exceeded even that limit—4.1 percent of new recruits last year were Cat IVs.

These trends are worrisome in at least four ways.
First, and most broadly, it's not a good idea—for a host of social, political, and moral reasons—to place the burdens of national defense so disproportionately on the most downtrodden citizens.
Second, and more practically, high-school dropouts tend to drop out of the military, too. The National Priorities Project cites Army studies finding that 80 percent of high-school graduates finish their first terms of enlistment in the Army—compared with only about half of those with a General Equivalency Degree or no diploma. In other words, taking in more dropouts is a short-sighted method of boosting recruitment numbers. The Army will just have to recruit even more young men and women in the next couple of years, because a lot of the ones they recruited last year will need to be replaced.
Third, a dumber army is a weaker army. A study by the RAND Corporation, commissioned by the Pentagon and published in 2005, evaluated several factors that affect military performance—experience, training, aptitude, and so forth—and found that aptitude is key. This was true even of basic combat skills, such as shooting straight. Replacing a tank gunner who had scored Category IV with one who'd scored Category IIIA (in the 50^th to 64^th percentile) improved the chances of hitting a target by 34 percent.
Today's Army, of course, is much more high-tech, from top to bottom. The problem is that when tasks get more technical, aptitude makes an even bigger difference. In one Army study cited by the RAND report, three-man teams from the Army's active-duty signal battalions were told to make a communications system operational. Teams consisting of Category IIIA personnel had a 67 percent chance of succeeding. Teams with Category IIIB soldiers (who had ranked in the 31^st to 49^th percentile) had a 47 percent chance. Those with Category IVs had only a 29 percent chance. The study also showed that adding a high-scoring soldier to a three-man team increased its chance of success by 8 percent. (This also means that adding a low-scoring soldier to a team reduces its chance by a similar margin.)
Fourth, today's Army needs particularly bright soldiers—and it needs, even more, to weed out particularly dim ones—given the direction that at least some of its senior officers want it to take. When the Army was geared to fight large-scaled battles against enemies of comparable strength, imaginative thinking wasn't much required except at a command level. However, now that it's focusing on "asymmetric warfare," especially counterinsurgency campaigns, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, the requirements are different. The crucial engagements—in many ways, the crucial decisions—take place in the streets, door to door, not by armored divisions or brigades but by infantry companies and squads. And when the targets include hearts and minds, every soldier's judgment and actions have an impact.

Rain.....and more rain.

2010-04-18T03:43:00.001-05:00

It's been raining since Friday and I'm loving it! Russell actually got a bit of time off yesterday when I was working and he was able to do some work in the new bathroom. He's got the hole made for the toilet and the sink and toilet are in place but not secured yet. There is a lot more room in there than we thought there would be. I sure am glad he thought of doing this project. He is trying to get someone to texture the walls, as he does not really have time to do it. He knows somebody who can do it but I think that guy is kinda busy. I hope he can make the time. I wish I knew how to do it. We may just have to do it ourselves and learn along the way.

Once again, Russell needs a new transmission in his truck. The last one he had put in when we were still in SC......well that place was a joke. Now recently he brought his truck to a Ford place to get the shifter fixed and went to get it and found out they had blown the transmission. Well of course, they won't admit to doing it. They say the truck was like that. So now he's going to a reputable place his Dad recommends and it will be about $2500 dollars for them to rebuild it. It's always something. It's one step forward and two steps back. Well, at least that is what it feels like. We were supposed to get a driveway put in but it looks like those plans will be on hold.

I'm going to make some changes to my blog so take note of this email. CelticSpiritNM@aol.com. I don't want to lose track of anyone who regularly comments on here. I figure it's time to change the look of it and some other stuff as well.

Well I'm off to work in a bit. I sure am looking forward to my two days off this week. I hope y'all have a wonderful day!

Every Day Is A New Day

2010-04-16T02:58:00.000-05:00

and a chance to start over. Time sure seems to fly by the older you get. One day seems to meld into the next. But every day is a new opportunity to start fresh and put the past behind us. We don't need to wait for the start of the new year in order to do this. We can begin right now! Isn't life great? Sometimes I look at myself and say.....I should be doing this...or I should be doing that. But you know what? I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. The Universe is great that way. We are allowed to create our lives in the way we choose. We are allowed to learn from our mistakes. I remind myself how lucky I am to have everything that I have including a job in these times of economic stress. I have a wonderful man by my side and he's the best! Everything that I've been though is somehow a part of the person who I am today. It may have been a bumpy road with lots of detours along the way but in the end it all leads to the same place. Awareness of who we truly are. It's harder for some to get there than it is for others, but it's always well worth the journey. I hope your journey is enlightening as mine has been.
I hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Changes At Work & Other Stuff

2010-04-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

It really does look like we will be getting some extra help at work. I sure hope so. Only time will tell but I think we have several people who will be starting soon. What great news! With our high stress levels we have been sorta driving each other crazy.

Russell has been working so much that he has not had one spare moment to work on the bathroom he started. Now it's grass cutting season and that's part of his second job where he does home repairs and cuts the grass. We are just hoping he gets some time off soon so he can do what he needs to do around here. Our front storm door blew open and got all bent with the high winds we had this winter so he had to take it off the hinges. He has not had a chance to fix that yet either.

The weather has been fantastic! It's been warm and sunny and just beautiful. We were supposed to get rain for a few days but it has not started yet. It won't bother me a bit because I love the rain. In fact, I look forward to it. I just love dark, cloudy days. Does that sound odd? Most people find it depressing but not me.

I don't think I'll be planting a garden this year. I just don't have the energy to do it and there's too much to do around the house. I think I just may shop at the Farmer's Market here in town which I hear is really good. I think it's always a good thing to support the local growers! :)

Well, I think I'm going to go watch a movie and then go to bed. I hope y'all have a good night.

Clutter Busters

2010-04-13T18:12:00.002-05:00

I think if a bomb went off in Russell's truck....or his office it wouldn't look any different than it does now. I threaten to clean his office and he just about has a heart attack. You'd think it was the end of the world. He said that last time I clean it, he could not find anything. So I just work on organizing stuff around the rest of the house.
Here is a before and after picture of a cabinet in the kitchen that I reorganized. Can you tell which is which? If you guess the correct one, you win a years supply of BEANO. haha If you need that, you are in trouble.

My kitchen is really 70's looking.....maybe even 60's and it will be quite some time before we are able to do anything with it. So I decided to decorate it the way it is for now and I'm going to do it as inexpensively as possible. I took a calendar that had really pretty floral prints and $1 frames from Dollar General and put them above the little shelf thing that is on top of the kitchen cabinets. I think it looks kinda neat. I put 6 of them up there and may just go back and get two more frames since I still have plenty of room for 2 more.

Here are a couple of other things I've hung on the walls. It's stuff I had in SC but I finally hung it up here. Nothing fancy or expensive, but stuff I like. Here's an Angel with a place for a plant to hang. I'm going to replace this with a real plant.

Here are some candle holders on the wall (they are a lot larger than they look), a celtic cross and the first cross stitch picture I ever did. It's a gazebo in a garden.

Boy these pictures look crooked! The one of the left says Faith, Hope, Love and the one on the right says Believe, Dream , Imagine. That is a ceramic Angel in the middle. I did fix the crooked picture!

Here's a cross stitch I did when I was living in NM. It's a pic of some pottery and cactus's with mountains in the background. Don't look too close cause you will see the dust on it.

We are having some really great weather here. It's in the 80's. I think that starting Thursday, it's supposed to start raining for about 4 or 5 days so we may all float away. But at least the roof won't leak!
We watched a movie yesterday called The Time Traveler's Wife. It was pretty good but kinda strange. This man kept getting thrown back in time and he had no control over it at all. Now the strange thing is that when he went to another time, where ever he ended up, he'd be completely nude. His clothes did not come with him. So, he had to find some clothes to steal and most of the time, he had to break into someplace to get them. Along the way he met a woman and he'd visit her while he was various ages. He even went to visit her when she was a child. They ended up getting married and on their wedding night, he disappeared and was sent back in time. She later ended up getting pregnant but since the baby was a time traveler also, the baby kept trying to time travel and she'd have a miscarriage. So the man didn't want her to keep losing the baby so he got a vasectomy. Well she solved that problem. He time traveled to her when he was a much younger age, before the vasectomy, they did the deed and she got pregnant. All the while the older version of him was still there.
It was kinda funny when she told him she was pregnant again. She said...well it's not cheating since it was you. She did not lose the baby this time because she found out that if she remained totally calm and relaxed, the baby did not try to leave. I won't give away the ending. It really was a pretty good movie. Both Russell and I like time travel movies and watch them whenever we can find them.

Well I think this is long enough. Hope y'all had a good day.
Peace

There is supposed to be a reason for everything....

2010-04-08T17:24:00.000-05:00

but I can't for the life of me figure out this one.

My youngest daughter Kayla is engaged to Jeremy. I'll make this short as possible......Jeremy's Mom gave birth to a surrogate child for a childless couple. She remained close the couple and kept in touch. The woman that she had the baby for was supposed to never be able to have kids of her own but through a miracle she gave birth to one of her own. So she had two, a 5 year old and a 1 year old. The couple separated and were in the process of a divorce. The Dad in a fit if rage because the wife would not go over to see him, killed both of the kids. He then tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head but only managed to blow off his tongue, upper lip and nose. The doctors in the hospital he's at are so angered that they refuse to treat him even though they could lose their jobs. One doctor who is contracted to treat him must do so. I can't even begin to comprehend how someone can drug their kids and then shoot them. I don't think anybody realized how far he would go. How do you make any sense of something like this? I wonder if every time this man looks in a mirror at his disfigured face, if he will see the faces of his children? I wonder if he even regrets what he did. Maybe this is his punishment? Sometimes life makes no sense.

Peaceful Days

2010-04-05T12:11:00.001-05:00

After a week where Russell worked over 80 hours he finally got off Saturday afternoon and was off all day Sunday and didn't have to go back to work until this morning. It was wonderful to finally spend some time together aside from talking on the phone. We watched a couple of movies and just relaxed the rest of the time. The picture below is what I cooked last night. It's not your typical Easter dinner of ham. I cooked shrimp in Japanese Panko breadcrumbs, spinach stuffed shells, fresh green beans and garlic toast. Yumm! I also made chocolate truffles. Those are super yummy but fattening. I think it's been about 5 years since I last made them and it's a good thing cause they are probably super fattening and I can't stop eating them. Don't they say chocolate is healthy? ;)

Wednesday. (Again)

2010-03-31T19:32:00.000-05:00

It is Wednesday now right Steph? ;)

I'm actually in a better mood now. I just got through watching the Conversations With God movie. I don't know why I never watched it sooner. It was made in 2006. I read all the Conversation With God books and just loved them. I just recently found out that there was a movie and ordered it from Netflix. Has anybody else read these books? Another good one that I watched recently was The Shift with Wayne Dyer. I've watched it a couple of times already and learn something new from it each time. I'd love to hear from anyone who has seen these.

Russell is still working very long days and the way we keep in contact is on the phone while he's driving. He's been doing a job cleaning up an oil spill that went onto a farmers land and in his pond. We hope this job is over soon so things can get back to normal.

I hope your evening is a good one!

In A Bitchy Mood.

2010-03-31T10:01:00.000-05:00

Ok this has got to be quick but I need to get if off my chest. So today I go to work and what a mess I found. First off, there were no regular donut rings set out. This meant I had to go digging in this huge freezer the size of a small house to look for them. I did manage to find 3 boxes of them and had to climb up on one pallet to get to them. :( Then I get to my area of the bakery and find a mess. Racks were left out dirty. The icing things that were supposed to be refilled were no good, they had not had icing added to them as they were supposed to each day and they were not able to be used. The temp on that icing thing was turned up way too high and it was all burnt as well. All the stuff that was done the day before looked like crap. A few drops of icing on top of the cinnamon rolls instead of covering the whole top looks ridiculous and nobody is going to buy it. Nothing was ready for me the way I get it ready for whoever would be doing it on my day off. I found out that the new person that they got to help me out and do it on my days off declined the job. There is supposedly going to be a guy that is going to help out in bread and my area but won't believe that until I actually see it. It was my dept. manager who did my job while I was gone.....but the way I see it, she did a half a$$ job. Everyone is wondering what is up with her and why she is barely working. Oh well......we get back what we put out. Slacking off will not be without concequences.
That's it for now. Gotta go back to work.

2010-03-31T03:09:00.000-05:00

Ok so yesterday was not Wednesday as Steph pointed out to me. I'm usually off Tuesday and Wednesday but lately it has been changed for now. I think I'm going to come home and take a nap! I'm going to work in a bit but until it's time to go I'm going to cuddle up next to Russell who is snoring like crazy. I got my stuff ready last night and I am dressed and ready to go. I don't bother with makeup when going to work cause I come home a mess every day anyhow. Y'all have a great day!

Wednesday Night

2010-03-30T19:22:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm still tired but not as much. It probably has to do with the big (M) menopause and I'm sure the guys that read this don't want to hear it. I have a few symptoms like CRAZY, TIRED and IRRITABLE. Sounds fun huh?

Russell has been working nonstop and he's exhausted. We are like some 90 year old couple. We need to sit in rocking chairs on the front porch and I'll knit a 20 foot long scarf while he whittles wooden legs for the needy. :) He can smoke a pipe and I'll hunt around for my granny glasses which have been on my head all the time I was looking for them. He will probably have a hearing aid which he will turn off when I talk too much. Then I'll chase him around the house with my cane for not listening to me in the first place. I'll show him!

I've completed a couple more crafty things and I'll take pictures soon. I made cloth napkins, an apron, and finished two blankets for our old people recliners/rockers. I have one more thing to finish up and then I'm going to work on Barbie doll clothes for my granddaughter Cassidy. That will be fun. I love making doll clothes. I even bought a doll to use as a model to make sure the things fit right.

Well that's it for now. I'm going to bed as soon as I get my stuff ready for the morning and clean up the kitchen. I hope y'all have a great night!

Fat, Old Grandma

2010-03-30T16:53:00.000-05:00

I think it's been two years since I last put a picture of me on here. I was back in NM when I put the last one on and that was just about two years ago. So here is me, the fat, old grandma. A little more wrinkled, a little older and a few pounds lighter than the last pic. Today I put on a size smaller clothes and they fit comfortably. I think I need a face lift. Ugggghh. And some other stuff too that I won't mention.

Exhausted

2010-03-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

That's how I feel. Yesterday I slept from about 3 pm on and off till about 11:30 pm and then Russell finally got home from work so I got up for a bit, then went back to bed and slept a couple more hours until it was time to get up. I just can't seem to get caught up on my sleep. We are supposed to get two more people at work. One will be helping me and the other one will be helping with bread. We'll see how that goes. Today I had to text my dept. manager (once again) to see where she was because she did not show up on time. She said she fell asleep on her phone but I don't know what that has to do with anything. She does use it for her alarm like I do but the way I feel is that she needs to be more responsible. She was over an hour late and the cake decorator had to start baking all the bread. Anyhow I think my dept. manager needs a vacation. She is way overworked as we all are. If we do get our two new helpers as promised things will be a lot easier. I'm going to take some time off once things settle down. I told her today I want 3 or 4 days off in a row but I think I'm going to take 4.

Strange Weather

2010-03-22T08:20:00.000-05:00

The ground is clear again. The snow and hail melted as fast as it came. It was really windy yesterday and when going to work it was difficult to even close my car door because of the wind resistance. Today it's supposed to be up in the 60's and right now it's sunny. Maybe Spring is finally here. I am so ready for winter to be over.

I'm off work today and tomorrow. Yipppeeee! Things have started to calm down at work and maybe I won't be so tired now. Yesterday I was in my room listening to Hay House radio and started to fall asleep at 5 pm. I slept on and off till 2 in the morning which is my normal time to get up. I decided to try to go back to sleep and woke up at 5 am with a headache. As soon as I had some caffeine it went away.

Russell has been working on the bathroom whenever he gets a chance. He's been working a lot so that doesn't leave much time for it. However, he did get quite a bit of the wiring done after work last night. That's the most time consuming part of it. He's also putting in a network jack (for the computer) and another electrical outlet on the other side of the bathroom which is the extra bedroom. This house is very much lacking in outlets. Back when they built it, probably in the 30's or 40's people did not have all the gadgets we have now. Eventually, he's going to rewire the whole house. All the plumbing needs to be redone as well.

So today I'll be doing housework, catching up on laundry, paying bills and all that fun type stuff. Sorry blogger fans that my life is not more exciting. I know you hang on my every word and check my blog numerous times daily for new posts. Haha......I am so joking!! I am just an ordinary person living a simple life and that's the way I like it.

Brrrrrr.....

2010-03-20T14:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon it was 72 degrees out. The leaves on the rosebush in the front were coming out, the grass was starting to turn green and my friend at work says her peach tree was starting to bud. Now it looks like this:

It's not actually snow but little tiny balls of hail. If you look closely you can see them in this picture. Russell said they hurt when they hit you but I'm not about to find out.

I guess that Mother Nature had to send us one last icy blast so she can show us who's boss.

Work has been crazy. As I said before my dept. manager was on jury duty and gone for several days, the old guy in the bakery retired do to health reasons and the young girl was in Mexico with her church group. We've been doing double work and I had to even work on one of my days off which was Wednesday. I went in Wed. morning at 3:30 am (I decided to go in a little earlier) and somehow I managed to get everything done except the cleanup by 8 am. This is work that normally takes 8 hours. Then another woman came in early and took over for me. I ordered the stuff I needed and then went home about 8:15. I was so tired that day that I fell asleep about 4 pm and slept on and off for about 14 hours. Then I was off the next day but did not even feel like I was off at all. Things are getting back to normal now that my dept. managers trial is over and *J* came back from vacation today. The store has been crazy as well. Everyone has been flocking to the store in case the storm gets bad. After the last storm I think everyone wants to be prepared. Even so, I can't see buying tons of stuff in case the power goes out, unless you have a generator to keep the fridge running.

The bathroom is coming along pretty good. Russell has the framing up and some of the sheet rock. He needs to do the electrical before he can finish the walls. He bought the toilet and sink and the vent fan for the ceiling. It's a fan/light/ heater all in one. This bathroom will not have any other heat source unless we leave the door open so the heat part will come in handy. He's going to do all the plumbing himself as well. He's had plenty of practice since we've been here in Oklahoma while working for our former landlord. This is a really crappy picture but it's hard to take one with the way things are positioned. I can't stand far enough back in the bedroom and where the bathroom door is it's in a hallway and I can't stand far back either. This is where the bathroom juts out into the bedroom. It does not take up much room at all. I'll try to get a pic of the inside when he's done.

Tuesday Afternoon

2010-03-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow was supposed to be my day off but now I'm going in at 4 am or maybe 3:30 am to go work half my shift. My dept. manager was at jury duty and got picked and won't be at work tomorrow. She was supposed to take over my job on my days off. I'm only going to work about 4 1/2 hours but I need to try to get almost everything done that I'd do in a normal day. Another woman is going to come in at 8 am but she is not really familiar with what I do and has only had a little practice. It takes a good 2 or 3 months to learn the routine. I feel like I can't let my dept. manager down because she one of those people who would do anything for anyone. She was already stressed about going to jury duty and hoping she did not get picked. She has to drive an hour there and an hour back. We all pull together in our dept. when something needs to get done. We are a great team.

I came home today to find out Russell is adding an extra bathroom to the house. We only have the one bathroom and it's small. He is adding a 1/4 bath with just a toilet and a sink. We have this extra bedroom and there is a part of it that juts out into the hallway near the other bathroom and he will be talking that part plus a little more out of the bedroom. It will be small but at least when I want to take a nice relaxing bath Russell won't come in and stink the place out. ;) haha Here are a few pictures of what he has started. He's working on getting it framed up right now. It was kinda hard to take pictures because I could not stand that far back.

Before he ripped up the carpeting we decided to put a wood floor in this bathroom. Luckily we don't have to cause it's already wood under the carpet. It needs to be re-finished but it's a lot easier than putting a new floor in. I sure will be happy to get a second bathroom. I'll try to take some more pictures when it's done.

More Pictures

2010-03-14T18:08:00.000-05:00

This is my oldest daughter Kelly. She seems to be getting her life together and is now going to the Art Center and Design college for marketing/advertising. I couldn't be prouder!

I forgot

2010-03-14T14:52:00.001-05:00

about daylight savings time. Or I should say....I didn't even know it was today. Every night I set my phone and it has 3 alarms. I set the 1st one for 2:45 and the other ones at intervals after that. I woke up on my own this morning and it was just before 2 am. So I told myself I was going to get a little more sleep. All too soon my alarm went off and I figured it was 2:45 and when I went to turn the alarm off noticed it was 3:30. :( I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was disorientated cause I was tired. I looked at the clock on the wall and it said the old time. I woke up Russell and told him to check his phone but for some reason his did not change. Finally I got him to check the internet on his phone to see if it was daylight savings time. And it was . So I had about 10 minutes to get ready for work. Good thing I only live a few minutes away. I only got to work a few minutes late. My dept. manager came in an hour late and so did another girl in the bakery. I had to text my dept manager to see where she was. We all use our cell phones for alarms and while mine did change when it hit 2 am it automatically went to 3 am so of course my alarm did not go off at 2:45. Neither of theirs even changed times. Other than that it was a good day.

Check out my diet blog for a new post! Now that I'm on a new plan, I'll be updating it regularly.

She Calls Him Daddy.

2010-03-10T09:26:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of my granddaughter Mercedes and her family. These are the many faces of Mercedes. Shhh....don't tell but I stole these off my daughter Kayla's Facebook page. I was so thrilled to find out that Mercedes now calls Jeremy Daddy now since she has been in her life for such a long time. Kayla and Jeremy are now engaged and I couldn't be happier about it. He makes a great Dad and it was his idea for her to call him Daddy. :)

Kayla and Jeremy ( I wish she would send me some more pics of herself) Hint, hint Kayla

Jeremy ,Kayla and Mercedes...Being silly!

Jeremy and Mercedes. Look at that smile.

Jeremy playing the drums. He's in a band and is going to college for Music Recording.

Jeremy and Mercedes playing the drums. Isn't this the most awesome picture ever? I love it.

2010-03-09T09:56:00.000-06:00

Boy the week sure did fly by. The older you get the faster time seems to go. Anyhow not much new going on here. Aside from a problem at work....with the glazing machine not working and me having to glaze everything by hand it was a little more time consuming but not that bad since I did not have to clean that machine. So it all worked out. I'm off the next two days and hopefully it will be fixed by the time I get back.
We have been talking about that house in the country that we still want and wonder if we can ever make it a reality. We like this house that we are in but there are things that we don't like as well. It's way too close to the main road and it's noisy at times. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping because there's a guy that rides up and down the street on his motorcycle and other people who blast music really loud. There are also fire engines and police cars constantly going by with their sirens on. The main thing that I don't like about this place is that there is only one bathroom and it's way too small.
Russell wants to build a big shop so he can work on stuff and while it's doable here in this location, it's not really an ideal place to build it. Also we still want some animals, bigger gardens, and to have some wind and solar energy. I just want some peace and quiet and a place with lots of trees and nature. I know this is all attainable but will take some hard work and lots of planning.Besides..... everything always works out just the way it is supposed to. :)

Tiring Day

2010-03-03T17:44:00.001-06:00

I'm exhausted but it's a good feeling. I got a lot done today and organized just about all my craft stuff. I don't even know why I bought some of the stuff I have. My craft stuff is now in the built in cabinets in the back room. There are three huge sections and I filled up two of them and left one section for Russell to put whatever he wants in there. I'm sure he can find something from his cluttered office to put in there. Listening to Hay house radio today they were talking about clutter and how it is one of the biggest causes of negative energy. I feel that is so true! I don't feel peaceful when I'm surrounded by clutter or messes and I like things neat and organized. I'm not big on nic nac type stuff that people like to have all over their house. Besides, having a lot of small objects around the house means having to dust them. And dusting is my most dreaded chore that I put off and put off till cobwebs are covering the house. Ok not really but you get the point. I have been pretty good about keeping things dusted. :)

I watched a documentary a few days ago on Netflix called Wal-mart: The high cost of low prices. I have to say...it made me cry. I had no idea about their practices. I did not know that they had factories in China where the workers worked from 7 am to 10 pm and made $3 a day. I knew they were underpaid but not to that extent. They were talking to one of the woman workers and she was saying how they had to live in these dorms at the factory and rent was taken out of their pay as well as for water and electric. If they did not want to live in the dorms, they did not have to pay the water or electric but still the rent was deducted from their paycheck. It's all about control. They work all day in a stifling hot factory with no air conditioning and only a few fans and all day the sweat pours off them. In Bangladesh it's pretty much the same thing but they make .12 to .13 cents an hour! Can you imagine? They talked about lots of other stuff like unions and how employees here are afraid to even ask for a union. WM beats them down. Yet in Germany the WM workers have a union and get 6 weeks of paid vacation per year. Three in the spring, 3 in the fall. WM purposely keeps it's number of workers low.....the lowest number possible to still get the job done so they don't have to pay benefits. I don't even know what to think about all this. My mind is still absorbing it. I do know I don't like it one bit. How could anyone??? It sure gives me something to think about.

Well, I'm off here now....hope y'all have a good evening.

Tuesday Afternoon

2010-03-02T15:42:00.001-06:00

It's my day off today so I've been doing a bit of cleaning and decorating as well. I hung some stuff on the wall in the living room, stuff that I already had and I think it looks pretty good. It makes the place look more like home. I need to find a large mirror to hang over the fireplace but no luck with that one yet. And I need to get some picture frames to put on the mantle as well so we can put our kids pictures in them. I think it will look nice when I'm done.

Today I stopped at Walgreens to pick up some hair color and a couple other things. I was surprised when the cashier took out a $3 coupon (the kind from the Sunday paper) and used it on my hair color. Now that is service! I asked her if she brings the coupons in and she said they all do. Awesome. :) I will surely be shopping there again.

Our elderly neighbor Menyoun (pronounced Men-yawn) is having troubles. I heard a loud pounding on her door the other day and I went out to see what was going on and it was her brother trying to get her to answer the door. He tried for about 45 mins and I tried as well. We were worried because she is newly diagnosed diabetic and can't take her meds by herself. Adult protective services got involved awhile back and her kids tried to get her to move out and into a nursing home but she refuses. She's still driving around and they have followed her and she drives just fine but has bad memory problems. Anyhow we now have keys to her door in case she needs help and I go and check on her every now and then to make sure she's OK. I don't know how long it's going to last though before she gets so bad she can't take care of herself. It's all very sad and I feel bad for her and her family.

I went out and cleaned up a bunch of branches in the yard yesterday from that bad storm we had. I was waiting for decent weather to do it. It was kinda chilly yesterday but I got the majority of it done and still need to go out there and rake.

Our dishwasher sucks! It keeps leaving a white film on the dishes. I don't know what it's from. We have tried using less soap and I've used different types of soap but nothing helps. I think it's our hard water. We might just have to put a filter on it if we can find one that is for hot water. Anybody else ever have this problem?

Ok had to run out but now I'm back. Russell wanted me to bring him his checks so he could sign them and I put them in the bank for him. Then I talked to my daughter Kayla. I have some new pics of Mercedes on my cell phone but can't find the right cord to download them just yet. Hopefully I'll do that soon.

I lost 16 lbs so far. Not bad for just over a month. I'm going to be doing the Nutrisystem program soon. That will make it much easier for me to learn to cook vegetarian (with some seafood) while I'm on this program.

Well that's about it for now. I hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Vegetarian Wanna Be

2010-02-23T12:23:00.001-06:00

It really is a struggle to eat the way I know I should eat. When I live in NM I had access to a natural foods store (Sunflower Market) and that was the most awesome store ever. They had a huge selection of very good produce at affordable prices. They sold all the vegetarian and health food stuff that anyone could ever want. They had awesome incense....my favorite one that I love. It was just a feel good store and when you went in there the atmosphere was totally different than any other store I have been in. It had a new agey feel to it.
Here it's hard to find what I need to eat right. I do have directions to a natural food stores but it's not nearby and I have to drive a distance to get to it. I will check it out eventually. The only places to shop in this city is Wal-Mart and two smaller grocery stores. I've had luck at one of the stores finding some neat things like the African tea that I can't find anyplace else. I have considered shopping online. I want to try things like quinoa, bulger, whole flax seed, large grain couscous and a few more things. I'm hesitant about buying large sizes of these things in case I don't like them. Then if I do, I can buy a larger size which seem to be a much better deal online.

The other thing that could be a problem is that I don't want to cook two separate meals, one for Russell and one for myself. He has been pretty good about eating the stuff I've made. I want to be accommodating to him and I want him to have the things he likes. But.....a lot of things he likes (such as fried foods) are really bad for us. He thinks that since he's thin and gets a lot of exercise working, that he does not have any cholesterol problems and it's OK to eat that way. But it's not. He drinks a ton of coffee.....probably about a dozen cups a day and that can't be too healthy either. All that coffee has sugar it also and that fake creamer that has high fructose corn syrup as the 1st ingredient. I do buy half and half but he prefers the fake stuff. I think it's a matter of what we are used to.

In the home I grew up in, there were a lot of packaged food. Yes they did exist in those days but not as extensively as they do now. My mother was a horrible cook....No offense but it's true. She would whip up some boxed macaroni and cheese or a box of packaged spaghetti that comes with a small can of tomato sauce and call it lunch. Throw in lots of canned veggies, cereal, and canned things like chefboyardee and that is what our meals would consist of. Every once in awhile she'd cook something homemade but the taste of it was very bland. It's no wonder we preferred the junk stuff.

I had to learn to cook once I got married. It took quite some time and a lot of watching my then Mother In Law. She was a wealth of information when it came to cooking. But looking back, I now realize those meals were loaded with fat. So that's how I learned to cook. Now I am totally craving healthy stuff. I can barely look at meat anymore. I want spaghetti squash, zucchini, spinach, strawberries, blueberries etc and my favorite 9 grain harvest bread with all the seeds in it. I want to be able to grind my own wheat and make my own bread. I want to learn to make Ezekiel bread.

Now Russell's Mother cooked from scratch and is a good cook. His last ex didn't cook healthy stuff...that is when she did cook. Usually the kids had to do the cooking. Ramen noodles galore. Then he was alone with his son and his meals consisted of lots of pork chops and either fried potatoes or french fries.... or those prepacked meals like hamburger helper. And corn....good old faithful corn. I think that is the only veggie he liked to eat. He eats all kinds of veggies now.

I have tried to slowly make changes but it takes time. I buy real food. I buy Russell lots of avocados (when they are affordable), bananas and apples which he loves. He also wants hot pockets. So I do get them once in awhile. There has to be somewhere to meet in the middle in order for me to eat the way I want to eat and for him to not feel like he's starving. I'm sure we will come up with something. Any ideas?

How do you feel about prepackaged foods? Do you feel better when you eat more healthy food?

Tuesday

2010-02-23T10:00:00.000-06:00

Not much going on here today. I woke up at 2 am since I'm so used to getting up early and went on the computer for awhile and did a lot of cleaning. Tuesday which is my first day off during the week, most of the time is usually my cleaning day. The house smells really good now. I'm in the process of doing laundry as well. I've done a bit of sewing lately. Aside from the cloth napkins I made (20 of them) I finished up an apron that I started some time ago. I think this is a time for completing unfinished projects. I had a handbag that I started some time ago and did not finish (I think it was in SC!) and when I find it I'm going to work on that. I've been looking for it but not with much luck. I think it's somewhere in the closet with all my craft stuff which is in my office/sewing/exercise room. Did I mention that room before? I just love it cause all my stuff is in there and it feels very peaceful. I can listen to Hay House radio online while I sew. I still have not organized my craft stuff. I might work on that a bit today and hopefully I'll find the project I was working on.

At work yesterday I was alone in the bakery and a couple came in to order a wedding cake. I had to go get the woman who does cakes so she could help them. Anyhow when they were done, she was telling me that all they did was argue about the cake. They couldn't agree on anything. How do you start a marriage out like this? They were an older looking couple who looked beaten down by life so what chance do they really have? We got to talking about marriage....and what we think about it. I don't think in this day and age that is necessary. I used to think it was but now so many marriages end in divorce....way more than half of them and even more so if you marry as a teenager. I got married at a really young age and boy.....I wish I knew then what I know now. I'm sure we all say that. I realize now that at that time, I didn't know a thing about love. There's no way I could have known but nobody could have told me otherwise. I thought I knew it all like all teens do. I believe in committed relationships but what difference does that piece of paper make? People these days don't seem to give relationships 100 % and throw in the towel way too soon. It's about unconditional love. You have to love a person despite their faults because we all have them. You have to love someone even when you don't like them very much. Things aren't going to always be perfect because life is a learning experience and we learn from our mistakes. I've never known of a relationship where there are no ups and downs, no highs and lows. It's a part of the growing process. There can't be one person who is in control. A marriage or a committed relationship is considered a partnership for a reason. Happiness in a relationship can't be dependent on money and that is a problem I've seen over and over. We are not here on this earth to accumulate wealth. We are here to WAKE UP and remember who who we truly are. It's so simple. If people could just quit living in EGO and live in spirit instead the world would be a different place. :) Don't you think so?

Ok I see that I'm starting to ramble on now when I should be looking for my sewing project. I'll take some pictures when I get some more of the stuff done.
I hope y'all have a wonderful peace filled day.

A Hippie?

2010-02-22T19:24:00.000-06:00

At work today, I heard something funny. There is a young girl that works in the bakery and she said to my dept. manager.....Do you think Barb is a hippie? I thought it was so funny. She told me she went on and on about it. I did sorta live through the hippie era but was a little young. I remember bell bottoms and mini skirts and when I was in school everyone was wearing peace symbols on their necks. I remember the patches all over the jeans and the frayed bottoms of the jeans. When I was in school they banned us from wearing those jeans in that condition. It's funny how some of this stuff came back into style. Bell bottoms came back a few years back as flared legs. The pants that are worn low on the waist (girls) have been back for quite some time. And the list goes on.

I sometimes talk in the bakery to *S* about stuff like grinding our own wheat and how we want to make our own bread at home, natural foods, my not eating meat anymore, meditation and so on. But would that make me a hippie? I think not. That girls is much too young to even know what a hippie is. I prefer the term naturalist. At least that is what I'd like to be.

Congrats

2010-02-22T18:52:00.001-06:00

To Russell's (just turned) 18 year old son and his new wife. This is just the beginning. Hope you enjoy living in Kansas. Also happy to hear that you attended Job Corps in Missouri. Way to go! Your Dad was surprised when he talked to the school that you'd transferred there from TX. Well then, you always did like moving around a lot so I guess it makes sense. Maybe we will be hearing the news of a little one on the way soon? Wouldn't that bring such joy to your life? :)

Finally

2010-02-22T18:46:00.000-06:00

This will only mean something to a few people. Russell and I got some good news today. Really great news actually. I really can't go into any detail but just want y'all to know we are very happy about this news. Peace to y'all.

What's new?

2010-02-18T19:59:00.000-06:00

Hmmm.....really not much is new. I don't blog so much anymore because I'm addicted to Facebook games. I had to recently cut down on that. It was taking way too much time. It is fun though talking to girls that I went to high school with. I had not heard from in years and now I can see daily what is going on in their lives. :)

Yesterday when I went home from work for lunch I dropped my cell phone in the bathroom sink! It started bringing up strange screens that I'd never seen before and was acting crazy. After awhile it seemed to start working again. But later in the day, it went dead. Russell came home and stuck his batter in it and charged it up and said it was now fine. Well today when I was at work I looked at it to check the time which I often do, and it was dead again. So after work I went to Verizon and got a super-cool new cell phone. I'm happy with the choice I made but the cost.....I feel guilty for paying so much. But I had my last phone for 2 years and will probably have this one for awhile so might as well get something I like.

Work has been much better. I actually like it now. Every day is a laugh with all the women (& one guy) there. I've figured out some short cuts that work for me and make things move along more quickly. We all get along well and work together and help each out whenever possible.
Yesterday management came to the bakery to tell us about the new recycling methods. Everything has to be separated in 4 trash barrels. Paper, plastic, trash and organics (food). The store already recycled cardboard and plastic but now they are doing even more. I think this is a great idea but it just takes some getting used to. Many products are boxed up for a food pantry who comes to pick up the stuff every week. This sure beats the old method of just throwing everything away.

Well I hope y'all are doing well. I'll be blogging more now that I'm not stuck on FB all the time. Have a great evening!

The Disgusting Truth.

2010-02-18T19:38:00.000-06:00

http://www.foodincmovie.com/
If you ever get the chance, watch the above documentary. You won't believe what you see.

Warning. You may not want to eat while reading this.
The big chicken producers of this country are Tyson and Perdu. They contract with farmers who build huge chicken houses where the chickens are raised. First off, the eggs are put in these long drawers things that pull out and when the chickens hatch they are thrown down this chute and inspected. Then they go to the chicken farmers. Most of them never see the light of day. Instead of the normal 3 months it takes to raise a chicken to adulthood where it can be slaughtered, the process is sped up to 45 days. They do this by feeding the chicken corn. Since people want more white meat, they have mutated the chickens so that they have much bigger breasts. The chickens grow so quickly that their insides organs and bone can't keep up. They take a few steps and then fall down. Lots of the chickens die. They keep them in the dark because they move around less. Most of the farmers who have these chicken houses would not talk to the makers of this documentary. The one who did, a woman was one of the few who did not have her chickens in one of these windowless enclosures. She lost her contract with the big company because she refused to change over. It costs a great deal to build one chicken house and the farmers are in huge debt to the chicken company for hundreds of thousands of dollars and only make on average $18,000 a year. So if they get out, they are screwed.

Now lets talk about the cows. It's more like they are manufactured than raised. They are in barns where they are covered where they are covered with manure. You won't believe what they do to these animals. They take this plastic thing and a hole is cut in the side of the cow's stomach and the plastic thing is left there. It's a round thing with a hole in the middle so the farmers can have access to the stomach to check for bacterial and e-coli. This supposedly does not hurt the cow. I don't believe this for a minute! Since the cows are fed corn which is not natural for them, that is what causes them to get the e-coli. It is said that if they were switched to a grass diet for 5 days, it would get rid of almost all of this bacteria. But no.....they have to fatten up these cows and corn is the cheapest and does the job. So then they take these cows that are covered in their own crap and take them to the slaughter house. They slaughter them and hang them up on those hooks where they are still covered with crap. They are butchered and the bacteria is so bad that many of the workers get infections under their fingernails. One pound of ground beef that you buy at a store does not come from just one cow. It can come from thousands.

Then there are the pigs. They are slaughtered by squishing them in this compacter type thing. It doesn't sound very humane does it? I was getting very tired by the end of this movie so need to watch that part again. Well you get the point.

Anyone in the mood for a nice burger or chicken dinner? Seriously though....be informed and watch this show if you get the chance. I saw it on instant Netflix in case any of you have it. There is also this book called Fast Food Nation that I have that is well worth reading. Stuff like this makes me never want to eat meat again.

Celebrate Life

2010-02-07T16:11:00.001-06:00

Do you ever feel like celebrating just because you can? Get out the good china, light some candles, prepare a special meal and make a cake! Ooops.... can't forget the wine coolers or maybe frozen mixed drinks? That's what I'm going to do for some personal things in our life that we'd like to celebrate! You can use any excuse to have a celebration. Look at today for instance.....people are celebrating Super Bowl Sunday. A bunch of guys running around in tights, rolling all over each other and patting each other on the butt for a job well done. If they can celebrate that, we can celebrate anything. ;)

Adorable Granddaughter Pictures.

2010-02-04T19:02:00.000-06:00

Found these cute pics on one of my daughter's Facebook page. The one in pink is Mercedes who is my daughter Kayla's little girl. The other one is Cassidy and her Mom is Kristene who is my second oldest daughter.

My Wednesday Ramblings.

2010-02-03T11:15:00.000-06:00

I am sitting in this nice, warm, cozy house feeling bad about the people who are not so lucky. Yesterday I went to the little grocery store down the road and the cashier was talking to the customer in front of me. She had to throw all her food away and had to stay in a hotel because she had no power. The cashier had to throw all the food in her fridge away as well. From the sounds of it these people have been living in this state all their lives so I ask myself why they do not have a generator? A bad ice storm like this one hits every year or every other year so they should be prepared. There could be reasons they don't have one such as they don't have enough money. After this however I would not want to be without one.

Yesterday, all the ice on the trees melted. Yup, in one day. It disappeared as fast as it came. All day long it crashed on the roof and on Russell's trailer which is next to the window where my computer is. I was worried that more tree branches were going to fall but only small ones did. Now we have quite a mess to clean up in the yard. I tried to walk out back to see what the damage was but could not go out there without icicles falling from the trees on my head! The front yard is a mess as well. Russell parked in the grass in a different area than he normally parks and got stuck and now there are more trenches there. The whole front yard pretty much needs to be redone. I will be so glad when we get that driveway put in. What a difference it will make.

I can't believe how fast January flew by. It really is like they say.....the older you get the faster time seems to go by. Don't blink....you might miss it. One day our kids are babies, the next they have babies of their own. You look back at the past and say...I wish I could change this or that but you know what? There's no reason to change a thing. You know you did the best you knew how to do at the time and everything in life happens for a reason. EVERYTHING. There are no mistakes. When we do wrong, we learn from it. Even if we don't realize it until years later. There's not point in looking back at the past with regret. It can't change anything at all. We knew exactly what we were in for before we came into this life just as we will in the next one.

Here's something that has been on my mind. I feel like I had a horrible childhood. Abused, neglected and unloved. Well....my kids are going to have issues as well. But...so will their kids. There is no perfect life. No perfect parents, no perfect kids. All we can do in life is do the best we can. I like what Maya Angelou says.....When we know better, we do better. It makes so much sense to me. Life is a journey of learning. It all leads to enlightenment.....when we all finally remember who we are...part of the ONE. I like to call it the Universal Energy and we are all part of it. There is no separation and there never will be. Do you feel this oneness?

Peace to y'all.

Crystal World

2010-01-31T17:51:00.001-06:00

Here are some more pictures that I have taken. This one is looking outside at the icicles hanging in front of the window. Some of them are about 3 feet long.

Here are the icicles from the outside.

Here is the ice covered tree on the side of the house.

This tree is in a neighbors yard.

There are broken branches all over the yard like in this picture.

This branch fell on Russell's trailer.

Here is my ice covered clothes line.

A small tree in the back yard.

Broken branches hanging from a tree in the back, over our roof.

Another tree in the back.

This city was hit quite bad by the ice storm. They say it was hit the worst in Oklahoma. Everything was shut down on Wednesday around 11:00 am when the power went out. Everything was closed. Russell had to drive on the icy roads to a nearby city go get extra gas for the generator. We lost power for about 28 hours. I did not have work on Wednesday or Thursday and did not go to work on Friday since the roads were treacherous and they said not to drive. The city is a mass of broken tree branches and downed power poles and lines. We were lucky to get our power back fairly quickly and I think that is because we are close to town. My friend *S* at work still does not have power. She lives out in the country and has a wood stove for heat but no water because without electric, her well does not work. She had to cook on her wood stove and get water from the creek to bathe. She doesn't know when her power will be back on but I hope it's soon.

With our generator, we were pretty much able to live as normal. There were times when we'd have to unplug the fridge and freezer to use the microwave, or the vacuum. There were and still are cords all over the house. I don't want to remove then yet because we are due for more freezing rain. It will be easy to set up the generator if everything is still in place. After the power came back on we lost it again temporarily and when it came back on, we lost our internet. It just came on a little while ago. I hope it stays on and the power as well.

Well that's the story of our interesting week! Hope your week was a good one.

****Thank you April for the very inspiring piece of writing you sent me. It shows intelligence and creative writing style. Very eloquent.....You never cease to amaze me. :)

Lost Power

2010-01-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

We just lost power. I'm on Russell's laptop which is on a battery back up and that will just last a little while. We have gas heat and lots of candles. Russell is trying to figure out how to rig up the generator to run the fridge and freezer. Before we moved here there was an ice storm where they lost power for a week in this city. Hopefully it won't be that long. Well gotta get off here.
Have a good day.

Ice Storm Pictures

2010-01-28T12:31:00.000-06:00

We are having an ice storm. There are icicles on the trees, it's raining out and it's supposed to turn to sleet in an hour or so and then probably snow. I just hope we don't get too much snow. Here are some pictures I took with my new camera. It's a Sony Cybershot and I'm pretty happy with it but I really want another camera that has a better zoom. This one will do for now. Hope y'all have a wonderful day! :)

This and That

2010-01-27T14:33:00.001-06:00

This is a picture of some of the stuff in the bakery that I make at work. I guess Russell wanted a sample of it and asked me to bring some home. Can we say fattening?????

Here is Russell caught in the act. Washing dishes. What a nice guy. I love when he does this and he does it quite often and I don't even have to ask him. He says to me, it's the least I can do since you do the cooking.

WORK UPDATE.
Things are a lot better now that the manager who was causing so much trouble has been told to back off and has been reprimanded. When people stick together as we all did, things can get done. She was basically told to leave us alone. It's been very peaceful at work and I hope it stays that way. What a difference.

Recycle, Reuse

2010-01-27T14:23:00.000-06:00

I think it's a good thing to reuse things in day to day life. Here are some half gallon size jars that were pickle jars and now I use them for canisters. I've been using these type jars for years and I think glass is a lot better than plastic for storing things.

The following is not a very good picture but it's a large cabinet or armoire that I am redoing. The doors were broken and Russell and I glued them. I'm painting it black and putting on new knobs and hinges. So for very little money we have a piece of furniture that's real wood and not that fake pressed wood. I'll put on some better pictures when I'm done. This item was in one of the rental houses that Russell was working on and was going to be thrown away.

I've got some containers and I'm going to start recycling. I used to do it all the time in NM but have not done it in years. We don't have pick-up for recycling products here but have to drop them off. Still, it's something that needs to be done. I'll be writing more about this subject as time goes on.

Hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Happy Birthday

2010-01-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

Happy 18th birthday to Russell's youngest child, his son. It's been a long time coming. It always amazes me that some kids (like my oldest daughter) make it to their 18th birthday considering the way they choose to live their lives. Anyhow......it's nice of you to support your Mom now since she can't handle working at this time. That's a lot of responsibility as well as your upcoming marriage. Good Luck!

Stressful

2010-01-18T12:48:00.000-06:00

Things continue to be stressful at work. There is just not enough time to do what I need to do and I feel bad that I have to leave my work unfinished. Today I got off at noon which was an hour earlier than my normal time so there was no way I could finish. A certain manager who has been disrespectful towards me and others in our department will have action taken against her tomorrow but I don't know how that will turn out yet. I'm off tomorrow but I'll be going in there in the morning to give my dept. manager my written statement. A friend in the bakery *S* is most likely going to quit because of the stress level there and a lot of things that have been going on. She's makes working there fun and if she does leave, it won't be the same without her. I just hope it doesn't come to that. All the women in the bakery are super nice and it's like having another family. :) I would like to continue to work there but without all the conflicts.

I think that the next major thing that is going to get done around here will be to have a concrete driveway put in. There is one on one side of the house where Russell parks his car. This is under a carport. I park my van behind him since he does not use his car very often. He has to park his work truck in the grass on the other side of the house and it's a muddy mess! There are big ruts in the grass and it looks terrible. They get worse and worse every time it rains. I think it will be nice that he doesn 't have to drive in trenches.

Well aside from this stuff, not much else is going on. We lead a simple life. We will both be glad when he is no longer on call 24/7 at work. He can't really go anywhere or even go out of town. It kinda limits what we do.

The weather is cloudy with a chance of meatballs. haha.....I love that book and always used to read it to my son. Seriously it's going to be in the 60's and even a couple of 70's for the next week. Sounds good to me! Lower heating cost. Yayyy!

I'm going to post on my diet blog as well. Here's the link. http://celticspiritdiet.blogspot.com Check it out.

I hope y'all are having a wonderful peaceful day.

2010-01-16T16:42:00.000-06:00

I decided to remove the post I wrote about work. I don't think anybody at my work reads my blog, but you never know. Anyhow, it's gone now and it's for the best. :)

2010-01-16T15:08:00.000-06:00

After all that stuff that happened at work the other day, I did not go to work yesterday. I did notice that I had two voice mails on my cell phone from my dept. manager and she was angry about all the stuff that happened when she was off. I'm not going to say too much about it right now in case anyone from the store happens to read my blog, but she assured me that things will be taken care of and I have no reason not to believe her. So that's all I can say about it for now.

I think I fixed the comment thing

2010-01-15T11:13:00.000-06:00

I changed a couple more things on my other blog under settings and it allowed me to leave a comment to test and see if it works. Hopefully it will work for everyone else also.

I'm A Cartoon

2010-01-13T12:19:00.001-06:00

There is this thing on Facebook where your profile picture is sketched as a cartoon. Too funny.

Not Being Able To Leave Comments.

2010-01-13T11:30:00.001-06:00

I don't know why it will not let people comment on my other blog. I did change the setting to allow anybody to comment instead of the setting it came with which was registered users. Hopefully that was the problem. Give it another shot.

The Three Way Trade.

2010-01-12T12:14:00.004-06:00

Russell is very resourceful. He traded his boat (that he was trying to sell) to a man who had a box trailer. This man did not want a boat. But he found someone who had a motorcycle but wanted a boat. So Russell got the box trailer, the man with the trailer got the motorcycle and Russell got the box trailer. Makes perfect sense right? If you live in Russell's mind it does. ;) Anyhow this trailer which is 16 feet long is going to be like a workshop on wheels for Russell's side business. He does repairs of all sorts as a second job. He's really just getting this business started and now that he has this trailer which he will put a generator in, it will make it easier. His pickup truck was always such a mess because he had no room for anything. He's going to paint the trailer and fix the inside to meet his needs for his business. You should hear Russell talk about his new *toy*. He goes on and on about it and one and on.....while I just patiently listen. Love you honey!
Anyhow I think it is pretty neat how three guys got something they wanted, got rid of something they did not want and did not spend a cent. (well maybe they paid for the bills of sale but not much)
Hope you all are having a great day!

New Blog

2010-01-12T12:11:00.002-06:00

This is my new diet blog. If you are not interested,just skip it.
http://celticspiritdiet.blogspot.com/

Recovering

2010-01-06T13:16:00.003-06:00

I have not been a very good blogger lately. I had a post written for New Years but decided maybe it accidentally got deleted for a reason. I had written about how it was a new decade and how things had been for me over the past 10 years. But you know what? There is really no point in that. The past is the past. There's no reason to dwell on it. Every single day, every minute for that matter is a chance to start over. What a wonderful opportunity!

I've been sick for the past week and the reason for that is that I was not taking care of myself and it was my body saying slow down and relax. First I drove 9 hours to TX to pick up my son Alex and grandson Joseph. Then I stayed up later than normal to spend time with them. Then even after I became sick, I worked my 9 hour day from 4 am to 1:00 pm, then drove back to TX to bring them back, then got a few hours sleep and went back to work the next day. Luckily I only had to work that one day before I had my two days off. The last day I worked was Monday and I could barely breathe when I went into the freezer. Then I went to Hastings which is about 36 miles away and went to get some books to read on my days off. Then I made homemade soup. Yesterday I did not do hardly anything but lounge around. I did go to the store to get some honey....the Mom and Pop store that is not far from here. I also decided to pick up some green tea while I was there. I was very surprised to see a very large selection of healing herbal teas at this small store. They have way more than Walmart. I got this stuff called Gypsy Cold Care. It's some great stuff and it's made from organic elder berries. I found a huge jar of local honey (it was recommended to put in the tea) there also. It's surprising what you can find at the smaller stores if you just look. Anyhow I'm feeling a lot better now. That tea seems to work way better than the Alka Seltzer cold medicine I was using. :)

While the boys were here we went to see Avatar. I sure did love that movie. If you have not seen it,I highly recommend it. It's got great graphics and the story was very good as well.

The cat that drove us nuts has gone home. At first the cat was not too bad because it hid under the bed. It got to the point where it was going on the stove when I had food on there. It went on there on Christmas day. It went on the kitchen counters. It jumped up on the fireplace mantle. It jumped on the window AC unit and tried to ruin my blinds. Finally it had to go into the back room because my son was coming and he's allergic to cats. He still had to take allergy pills twice a day until the cat was gone. It was such a relief to have it gone, for both of us. We have both had cats in the past but none were as bad as this one which pretty much whined nonstop. Can a cat whine? Yes it can believe me and it's worse than a whiny toddler.

It's been freezing here. Tomorrow....actually starting at midnight tonight it is supposed to get steadily colder and get down below 0 degrees. I think they are predicting -3. I have not had to tolerate weather this cold in over 18 years when I lived in MA. It's hard to deal with this cold. Sometimes I put the heat up too high and the house alarm goes off thinking there is a fire or something. Jeeze. I like having an alarm because I feel safe but that is rather annoying. I know if anybody ever did try to break in that the police would be here in a matter of minutes. And after we had that outside theft awhile back this is a good precaution to take.

Once again Russell's money grubbing ex-family is trying to get every cent they can off him. They do nothing but play games. It's really a shame that they live the way they do and put money above relationships. Some day they will learn that KARMA is the reaction to an action. Whatever you put out in life, is what you get back.

I'm cooking pot roast in the crock pot for Russell. I figure he's getting tired of eating the soup I made. He's been working non stop in the freezing cold. He wears tons of layers of clothes. I don't know how he can even move. I just hope he does not have to work tomorrow when it goes below zero degrees. He works lots of hours but since he's on salary at this time he does not get paid for the overtime. Once the economy picks up things should go back to normal and he will get paid hourly and not have to be on call 24/7 any more. I'm looking forward to when he can get his days off again. :)

A New Year

2009-12-31T18:10:00.004-06:00

I had a long post written and somehow deleted the words. I'm not feeling well so I'll re-write it tomorrow. Have a Happy New Year!

Peace

2009-12-28T07:04:00.002-06:00

No Matter How Others Behave,
I Keep Peace In My Heart.

That is an affirmation that I saw recently by Louise Hay.

This can be difficult to do at times. Sometimes you just can't get though to people no matter how hard you try. Maybe it's just a test that life is throwing at you. Maybe you just need to let this person learn from their mistakes and hope that they will see what is right. I keep on reminding myself that everything happens for a reason and will all be revealed in time.

White Christmas.

2009-12-25T07:34:00.012-06:00

Christmas Eve morning I went to work at my usual time, 3:45 am. It was not that cold and was raining a bit so I did not wear a heavy coat. As the day progressed it got colder and colder and we got more rain, hail and then snow. This is what I saw when I went to leave work. Blowing, freezing wind and snow.

This is on my walk across the parking lot.

When I got to my van it was covered in a sheet of ice and this is the windshield looking out.

This is the snow drift that my back tire was in.

I left work and went to drive down the hill to go home. I made it a little ways down and slid sideways the rest of the way. Luckily there were no other vehicles so I didn't hit anyone. I made it to the next light where I got stuck for a bit. I finally left there and went up the slight hill to my house. I got stuck on the side of the road. My wheels just spun and spun. I called Russell who got in the van and tried to drive it. He sat there stuck for awhile with the wheels spinning. This is a picture of him trying to drive and going nowhere.

This is the view from the front porch.

This is what it looked like in the house where snow came in near the window AC. I had to blow dry it so he could get it caulked. The house was 59 degrees.
He probably did not turn the heat up because I complained about the high heating bill that had tripled from the month before. He was in the back room all day playing with the wood stove that he converted back to wood. Someone had converted it to gas. So anyhow I turned up the heat to 70, closed all the drapes in the living room and I was still cold. With the wind blowing so hard it seemed like there was not way to get warm. Later on I made some soup. It's still pretty chilly today but I don't know what the temp is. And I'm not going outside to look at the thermometer to find out. I'm staying inside and trying to stay warm. :)

May you all have peace and joy on this day.

OK so my curiosity got the better of me. I looked outside. It's 23 degrees. Here is a picture of Russell's car. You can tell how windy it is by all the leaves that are blown on that snow drift.

This is the road....covered with snow. I guess they don't plow here.

Winter Solstice

2009-12-20T14:44:00.001-06:00

Now the days start getting longer again. Rejoice in the LIGHT. :)

Terror On The Toll Road.

2009-12-17T13:56:00.003-06:00

Ok I admit it. I HATE toll roads. I hate driving on them. Not because I have to pay a toll....I don't know what the problem is. I try to avoid freeways as well. Yesterday, I had to go on a toll road and it was very nerve wracking. Before heading to a nearby city, I got cash. $20. I made it through the first toll. The second was not that long after. I start to see these signs that say exact change only. What the heck? I get up to the toll and this tollbooth no longer had people in it. You just have to drop in your coins which was 55 cents. This was not like this last time I drove though it. So I get my change from the first toll, and only have bills and 2 quarters. Since there was nobody behind me, I hunt around for another nickle. No luck! Uggghhh...Who came up with this bright idea? Finally a guy pulled up behind me and I got a nickle from him. This was very stressful. I finally get off that road and the first gas station I see, I stopped and got a soda so I could get change. I told the guy I needed quarters, dimes and nickles. He gives me 2.50 in change. So then I go to Pet Smart (after only 2 wrong turns) where I spend a ridiculous amount of money for those things that go on the cat's nails and the drops that you use to calm them down so you can put them on. I thought about going to some other stores because there were tons around there including book stores which are my favorites. I was too stressed out so decided to head home. The ride home seemed shorter and I made it to the cash only toll booth in no time. I go to get out the change which I'd put next to my cup holder thing. I look for 55cents. That dimwit guy in the gas station only gave me quarters and dimes! I'd asked for nickles too. So I decided I'd put in .60 and if it didn't give me a green light I'd make a run for it. I'm serious. I just wanted to get out of there. Luckily, it took it. At this point I did not care if I got a ticket. I made it though the next toll and home and only went the wrong way once. So....$36.00 for cat stuff, a quarter tank of gas, $4.10 for tolls and a lot of stress is what it cost me to buy stuff for a cat that is not even ours. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I have a GPS and still went the wrong way several times! Ok, I am definitely directionally challenged.

I don't understand.....

2009-12-16T09:12:00.002-06:00

how things have gotten so out of control when it comes to Christmas. Ok....I can understand putting up a tree and a few decorations and maybe a few strings of lights but not the following:

1. putting up so many outside and inside lights that it raises the electric bill an extra $100.

2. Those big, ugly plastic bubbles that are supposed to be a snow globe.

3. Spending so much on Christmas that you have to put it on your credit card and pay for it for the whole year.

4. Everything has to have a Christmas *version*....towels, placemats, dishes, candy, clothing, pens, pencils, and about a million more things. Really doesn't it look silly with a reindeer on that bright red sweatshirt?

5. It takes the kids so long to open their gifts that they are fussy and whiny and just want it to end.

6. People are super nice at holiday time....and mean and hateful the rest of the year.

7. People know that Christmas is coming yet they are surprised when it's getting close and they don't have the money to spend.

8. People start shopping a year ahead of time for one holiday that's over as soon as the presents are open and the food is eaten. Is it really worth that much time and effort?

9. People stress over that perfect gift to buy for that very picky person. They worry that the person won't like it. Well so what....give a donation to a charity in their name and call it done. They won't like what you give them anyhow.

10. Plastic. Everything is plastic. Trees, ornaments, toys, decorations etc. We all know how bad plastic is for the environment. What is wrong with going natural?

Speaking of Cats.....Real Cats

2009-12-15T12:34:00.004-06:00

This is the grandcat and she has come to visit for a few weeks or maybe a month. Russell's daughter Tanya drove all the way from TX to OK so Russell could catsit for her baby. This cat is a wild one. At first she just hid under the bed in the guest bedroom. Then she started venturing out and becoming more friendly. Now she's not afraid of anything. Just today, she jumped on the table, the kitchen counter, and my desk. She clawed my exercise mat all up. I have not seen her use her scratching post once. Not yet, anyhow. The dept. manager at my work told me about some things called cat caps that you put on a cat's front claws. They prevent the cat from scratching things. First you have to give them some drops called Cat calmdown so they get drunk and you can glue the caps on. These caps stay on until they chew them off and then have to be replaced. I am going to look for these tomorrow and may have to drive all the way to a nearby city to get them. It's worth a try. Here are a couple of pictures of the little devil. :)
It looks like she is still just a kitten so we will try to forgive her naughtiness.

Sasha

Here she is sitting with Russell on his chair. See all her toys in the background? She may be a bit spoiled.

What is he? A stray cat?

2009-12-15T05:21:00.004-06:00

I see him in the store every morning just wandering around or sitting on the bench minding his own business. He is thin, haggard and his skin is weathered from being outside so much. From what I understand he is homeless. I've tried asking around but can't find out much about him. Yesterday I walked by him and said hi and started making my way to the back where the break room is. I see the man who is sweeping the floors and asks him if he knows anything about him. I say....maybe I should buy him something to eat. He said if you feed him he will keep coming back. Ugghhh.....I think to myself but hold back from saying anything.....he is a HUMAN BEING. He is not an animal. He is just as loved by the creator as anyone else and just because he's made some mistakes does not mean he is LESS. The man then said....I could feed him the popcorn chicken that I swept on the floor. That made me mad. Where is the compassion? I went back to the bakery and bought a big muffin. I didn't know if he'd take it. I told the cashier, and she said she was thinking of buying him a drink. I said....do it. She was going to buy a soda but I suggested milk. I went up to him and said....I work here and bought you this. He was surprised and said thank you. I thought about him all day as I was working. I need to try to find out why he is homeless and do more. There is no excuse for this. Right now it's freezing out. It's supposed to get down to 18 degrees. I hope he is at the store staying warm. I'm glad they don't make him leave. I used to see him there at night when I worked late. One time, someone called the police, probably cause he was hanging around but the store did not make him leave.

Do y'all ever wonder what the purpose of life is? I think that it's to help others. It's certainly not to acquire material possessions as many seem to think. Do something for someone else today. No matter how minor it is, it affects the entire UNIVERSE. An act of kindness ripples out like a stone thrown in a lake. Peace to y'all in this Yuletide Season.

Maybe I Am Lazy?

2009-12-10T15:08:00.003-06:00

Ok first let me say I don't dislike the job that I have. I really do like the hours and the people and I don't mind the work but it's just too much. They said they would get me more help. They said that the other girl who works on my days off could help me. I mostly need help on Fridays. So when I looked at her schedule today I see that she is off tomorrow, and then for the next two weeks she is off Thursday and Fridays. I just asked the manager who does the schedules if she was going to be helping me on Fridays and he said yes. There was no way he could have not known she was off.

Let me tell you what is expected of me. This is mostly for Russell who does not realize how much I have to do, why it stressed me out and why my stomach hurts every day.
I go in at 4 am. I fill up the sinks and dishwasher, turn on the glazer machine, and take a bunch of racks of donuts and pastries out of the walk-in cooler and freezer. I also take out all the bread racks for when the people that do the bread come in. I start baking the donuts. There may be 2 or three racks of just donuts. Then I bake some pastry type things that go in the case, the turnover, and the cinnamon rolls. I fill up the glazing machine with glaze and dilute it until it looks right. While the baking is going on, I start glazing the things that need to be glazed. While doing those two things I clean out the self-serve case where those individual donuts and pastries are. I dump all the day old stuff in the trash and just recently they said I have to fill out a productivity sheet for those items. I wash the case out and make sure there are boxes, bags and paper tissues for the customers. I take all the trays that those things were on and put them in the dishwasher. Meanwhile, still baking and glazing. Then I take all the stuff off the shelves with that day's date and leave it for the woman who puts it on the reduced rack or sends it to the food bank. I get the trays out of the dishwasher. I line them with brown tissue papers. I put 18 different items (1 tray each) in the case. Some are baked and dipped, some are glazed and a couple we just take out of boxes off the shelves. I am supposed to have the case all filled by 5:30 am. So it gets to be that time and usually I have it done and for the next 15 minutes I start doing the boxes. Some are 6 count, some are 12 count. There are various types of donuts, apple fritters, bismarks, and many more! I usually do the dipped ones first so the glazed ones can set. I try to take my break at 5:45 am until 6:00 am so that I can have from 6 to 7 am to finish up all the boxes. When I'm on my break it feels so good to sit down that I don't want to get back up. But I do. I work like a mad woman and try to get everything dipped and boxed before 7. I sometimes come close but then I never get the turnovers and cinnamon rolls out till almost 8. The turnovers have to have icing on them every other day so there are always some iced ones on the shelves. The cinnamon rolls have to have cream cheese icing on some, and cinnamon rolls on the others. Now that it's Christmas time, I have to decorate (with cake decorating stuff) christmas tree and snowmen donuts.
Ok, then it gets to be clean up time. I have to take the glazing machine apart and spray if all off and clean it and put it together. The glazing rack that the glazed things go on is all covered with glaze and I take that to the back area of the bakery and spray that off. All the shelves that go on the racks are put in the dishwasher. I have to clean out the bowls that the dipping glazes go in (they are in the metal thing with hot water under it) and add new glazes to it. There are 4 different types. I have to clean up the whole area. Then I put the machine together. By now it's probably around 9:15 to 9:30. I go home for lunch. It feels good to take off my shoes and sit down for awhile!
Ok, then back to work. I only have 2 1/2 hours left. I get out all the racks for the next day. I go into the walk in cooler and get out all the boxes I need. I usually have to make 3 trips in. Today I filled up about 7 racks with 10-15 shelves each. Since tomorrow is Friday I have to make extra donuts for the associates. That is 12 dozen extra and there is this senior citizen raffle thing that they have in Subway (inside the store) and we have to give them 5 dozen various donuts. I just realized that I forgot to lay them out. No problem, I will do it in the morning since I have so little to do! After everything is laid out and put in the freezer and cooler, I wash the floor in my area by dumping a big bucket of soapy water on it and using a scrubby broom type thing. Before I go I have to make sure the case still has enough in it and there are still boxes and bags there. If not, I have to take some boxes off the shelf and add them to the case.
When boxes of freight come in for my area, I have to go put that in the freezer. They have a small ladder in there and I about kill myself trying to get up to the top shelf and feel very unsafe. It's about 10 below zero in the freezer so staying in there any length of time makes me freeze to death. Oh yeah, I forgot the want me to order what I need but I don't have the time to do it.
Now I was actually getting all this done until they added in the seasonal items that I have to decorate by hand and the extra paperwork I have to fill out. They keep finding more and more for me to do, but do they give me more time? No.
Speaking of time, they are very strict about getting no overtime. Last week they tried to say I was more than an hour over. I knew that I was not. I argued with two different people over this but did they believe me? No. They made me leave 30 minutes early that Friday and guess what? I was 30 minutes under for the week. This week they tried to pull that same crap. Well that was kinda funny since I went home early on Monday because of being sick....two hours early. So somehow.....I worked 3 hours extra? I did get it straightened out after I went to the office and had them pull it up on the computer. And what did I see? I am two hours under just like I should be.
One thing I have found out is that I'm pretty good at multi-tasking. I just need an extra person like they said they would get but after today, I know they won't get anyone. So the way I see it is that I can either stay stressed out and maybe get more stressed or find something else to do.

So what do you think? Is this an extreme amount of work for one person?

What's New?

2009-12-08T10:14:00.004-06:00

I hope everyone is doing well. We are just trying to keep warm, it's pretty cold here. Russell found out that the gas stove in the back room was originally a wood stove and instead of keeping it as a gas one I hope we can convert it back. I'd love to burn wood in there. I love the smell of it. As I mentioned quite awhile back I tried to light the gas once in there and the flames shot out at me.

We had a pretty good Thankgiving. We ended up going to Russell's parents house and his sister and her husband was there, as well as their daughter who is going to have a baby in January. It was a nice peaceful day.

Russell sprained his ankle at work a few days back. He did go to the hospital which is unusual for him..... to make sure it was not broken. Since it was a work injury, they paid for it. He has not worked in a few days and hopefully they will wait awhile before they call him back in. He can't get his work boots on with the brace he is wearing for support.

Work for me has been way too rushed. I feel like I can never get everything done the way it should be done because they keep giving me more and more to do. I feel like I have to rush through everything and do a half a$$ job instead of doing it right. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist. The last three days I was at work I felt sick probably due to stress to the point where I had to go home 2 hours early yesterday. I don't need that added stress in my life. If I just had the extra help I need I wouldn't have these problems.

Christmas seems to have gotten too out of control. I don't feel the need to celebrate this holiday of greed any more. I look around me at all the madness and the people who spend months preparing for this one day or some who even prepare for it the entire year. Why not spread some of this throughout the year?

I have two interesting stories I heard at work. One woman who works there told about how she went out to her car and noticed that the door was unlocked even though she'd locked it. Then she noticed that there was all kind of trash in her car. She thought someone had a party in her car. The way she told it, you had to laugh. Then she got one of the security guys at work to call the police. The police came and she went in the car and started looking through the papers for her insurance stuff but it could not be found. It was then, that she realized it was not her car. This one was parked right next to hers! She told the police who were understanding. Boy was she embarrased!

Another woman at work told me about how a homeless guy once came to her house looking for food. She made him breakfast and told him to wait there and she quickly went back in to get him some coffee. When she got back out after a very short time, we was nowhere in sight. He could not have disappeared that quickly. Later she talked to a neighbor that told her the same man came to her door and she told him to get lost. What we both think was that this was an Angel in human form. This happens quite often.

Well, that's it for now. I hope y'all are enjoying your week! Blessings.

Wednesday Update

2009-11-25T08:17:00.002-06:00

We are going to Russell's parents for Thanksgiving. Should be fun. Other family will be there as well. :)
I feel like I am under too much pressure at work. Just when I get used to the very fast past, they want me to start ordering all the stuff that I use. :( I barely have a minute to spare. My thoughts are....what if I screw up and forget to order something? Do they really think I'm ready for this? I wish they would hire a second person for my part of the bakery. They were talking about it. The only thing is, nobody wants to work those early hours.
Yayyyy I finally finished my two throw blankets to go over the backs of our recliners. I might add some fringe on them. I'll have to start working on a new project. That's always fun.

I hope y'all have a wonderful holiday and have much to be thankful for.
Peace and blessings.

Buy It Early. :)

2009-11-23T14:16:00.002-06:00

If people bought all their groceries early then maybe other people like me who are in retail would not have to work on holidays such as Thanksgiving. I really wish the stores would close down for the day but there is so much greed, they have to make every penny they can. I remember when I was young the stores closed on many of the holidays, not just Christmas. Some of the smaller grocery stores here do close on those days but I think it's because they are family owned and care more about their employees. With that said I have been guilty of running to the store at the last minute on a holiday because I remember something else I wanted. But if the stores were closed, I'm sure I'd be more careful to make sure I had everything on my list and I think others would be too. I only work till 1 pm this Thursday so it's not that bad and I am off today and tomorrow. We don't even have definite plans yet. We were going to have a couple over who we are friendly with but she said she was going to talk to her husband and OK it with him but I have not heard back from them yet. Then today as I was shopping after work for food I ran into Russell's parents who we did not know where back in town. They'd been in AZ for quite some time where they have another house house. So they invited us so that's what we do if we don't hear from the first couple. Either way it will be fun. No matter what we do I'm going to cook a turkey because we love those leftovers! Yummy.

I Think We're Alone Now.

2009-11-21T16:57:00.003-06:00

Our neighborhood seems to be deserted. The house to one side of us has been empty since we moved in here. They've been doing lots of work on it and it looks nice from the outside but nobody has moved in. I think they are selling it. The house across the street from us is now vacant. The people moved out a few days ago. The two houses near that are also empty. In the other direction on the other side of the street is a church. There are probably less than 10 cars there on Sundays so it's not a very well attended church. As you go down the road there are more vacant houses. I was thinking about this as I drove down to the nearby grocery store. I don't know if this is due to the bad economy or something else. The houses here are real cheap. You can get a fixer upper for under $10,000. I think that people just don't have the money to buy one. Most of the jobs that people held here were in the oil industry. Many were employed on the oil rigs or doing something that was indirectly related to it. Most of those jobs are gone now. I think half of this city is getting some type of government assistance. I'm not sure if it's like this everywhere or if we are worse off than other places. It's almost like people just accept the poverty here as a way of life. Many of the houses are very old, tiny and run down. Judging from the ones that Russell and I cleaned after people moved out, most of them did not care about the filth that they lived in. Mouse droppings, cock roaches crawling everywhere, fast food wrappers and cigarette butts on the floor is something I could not live with but these people lived in it. I just don't see how. Maybe they are so used to the poverty that they see no way out. Or it could have been the way that they were raised. I'll never understand it.Is this the way our current generation was brought up? If so, we (in general) did not do a very good job. I see many young people who have no work ethics, are lazy and think everything should be handed to them.
As I write this I have to remind myself..... people created this reality for themselves. Life is all about choices. Life is about learning from our experiences and everything happens for a reason.

The Old Man

2009-11-20T16:14:00.002-06:00

Yesterday as I was backing out of my driveway and looked both ways and there was a man getting ready to step in front of my van. He was very old and walked agonizingly slow as he made his way across the driveway. Every step seemed like it could be his last one. For a second I felt impatience. Then I quickly reminded myself that he could not help it and could not walk very fast. He looked bent over, worn out and beat down by the world. There was no happy look on his face. No look of peace or contentment over a life well lived. I wondered about him. Did he have someone special to take care of him? Or someone he took care of? Someone who told him they loved him? Someone to kiss goodnight?
This man probably remembers the Great Depression. Imagine the stories he could tell about life way back then. Maybe he was just a little child then whose family struggled just to put food on the table. Maybe as an infant he had a loving mother who wrapped him in a nice warm blanket and rocked him to sleep at night. One minute he was a toddler playing with his toys, then a high schooler, then married with kids of his own...now when he looks in the mirror he sees someone he does not even recognize and he can't figure it out because inside he feels just the same as he did when he was a teen because the soul is AGELESS. But his body does not always want to cooperate with is mind. Time flew by in the blink of an eye. He feels he has so much to offer. He has experienced so much in life that he could share with others. But nobody wants to listen. They just see him as old and useless. So many of his friends and peers have been put in nursing homes so nobody has to deal with them. Out of sight, out of mind.
So he finally made it across the driveway and shuffled on his way. I drove by him and waved and gave him a smile and he gave a crooked smile back. I hope he has had a wonderful life. :)

A Pocket full of change.

2009-11-17T07:24:00.002-06:00

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work, something told me to grab that change on my dresser. I don't really need it cause I carry my debit card with me. When I was working yesterday I overheard a conversation. An old woman told the cake decorating lady that she wished she could have a donut. The cake lady said ....they are over there....and pointed to them. The old lady said I don't have any money and I'm hungry. :( The cake lady told her she didn't have any either because she just started working there and was waiting for her first check. The old lady started to walk away. Something told me to give her the change I had, so I did. I took her over to the pastry case and got a donut for her. She was very grateful. I was glad that I listened to that inner voice that we all have because I don't listen to it often enough. Do something for somebody today. Hold open a door, give them a smile or just say hello. What if everyone did just one good thing each day? Can you imagine what a difference it would make in the world?

Update

2009-11-16T16:55:00.003-06:00

Yikes, it's been awhile since I've written anything on here, or read any other blogs for that matter. I've been trying to get used to my new job in the bakery. It's a lot of work....way more work than I am used to doing. It's go, go, go every single minute. Before I started, they did not tell me I'd be the only person in that area of the bakery. There are supposed to be two people there, one full time and one part time. That is why it has been so rushed. I prepare the donuts, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, cookies, strudels and other various pastries. There are time limits as to when everything has to be on the shelves. I have had many frustrating days trying to get the hang of everything because there's a lot to learn. Today was actually the first day where I accomplished everything on time and without any problems. One of the problems is that I've had 3 different people teaching me how to do it and they all do it differently. So instead I'm going to use what works for me.
The people there are great....they are all really nice. They are all women except for one old guy. I asked him how he likes working with all these women and he said he tries to just ignore them. He was kidding of course. There's one other guy but I don't really see him because he comes in later in the day and I only work till 1:00 pm. I like the hours too. I don't have any problem getting up to go to work at 4 am but it is hard for me to fall asleep early. Last night I took some Valerian root and drank this tea called sleepy time but it didn't really make much of a difference. It does seem to help a bit when I take some melatonin.
It hasn't helped any that I gashed my big toe open just after I started in the bakery. It was excruciatingly painful to even walk for a couple of days and after about 2 weeks it's still sore but getting better. I did it outside when I was going out to Russell's truck one night in the dark and I tripped in the rut from his tires. I had sandals on but I still can't believe that I gashed it like I did from just tripping. Ouch.
After about 3 weeks of really nice weather it's started to get cold today. It went from being in the 60's and 70's to about 37 degrees today. That's a big drop. We may get some snow but I hope not. I can live without it. Growing up I lived in an area with so much snow and blizzards, I have had enough to last a lifetime. I won't miss it at all if I never see snow again.
I haven't really been doing much else. Russell ordered another one of those Netflix boxes for the bedroom. Now when we are not working, we won't even have to get up. Maybe we should put a fridge in the bedroom and that pink toilet. We'd be all set. We can save on energy since we'd be under the covers all day. Sound like a good plan?
I'm cooking dinner and it smells good. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and garlic bread. Or course it's all extremely low cal and super healthy right? haha
Well that's it for now. I'll try to be a good blogger and write more often. :)

One more very important thing. Happy belated birthday Tori!

Cleverbot

2009-11-06T16:49:00.003-06:00

There is a computer called Cleverbot that think's it's a human. I've had a couple of interesting conversations with it. Check it out. I am the user of course. Just go to Cleverbot.com to talk to him.

User: How are you today?

Cleverbot: How are you?

User: Wonderful.

Cleverbot: Good.

User: So, what's new?

Cleverbot: Nothing you.

User: Just relaxing after I got off work.

Cleverbot: I'm sorry.

User: Why are you sorry? Relaxing is good.

Cleverbot: Are you?

User: No, I'm not sorry.

Cleverbot: Why not?

User: Why should I be?

Cleverbot: Right. Are you happy?

User: Yes! Are you?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: Do you think our president is doing a good job?

Cleverbot: No, I don't think so.

User: Why not?

Cleverbot: I think you are lying.

User: Lying about what?

Cleverbot: Your name.

User: Why would I lie about my name?

Cleverbot: You didn't lie, your name is Jelly!

User: What is yours? Peanut butter?

Cleverbot: You do realize they are recalling peanut butter products?

User: Yes, but that was some time ago, the scare is now over.

Cleverbot: Perhaps so. How do you cure a goth?

User: I don't know, you tell me how.

Cleverbot: I am 12.

User: You told me the other day that you were 24. Now who is lying?

Cleverbot: I don't recall ever saying such a thing. Perhaps you have me mistaken with someone else?

User: No, you did tell me that.

Cleverbot: I did no such thing.

User: Sure you did.

Cleverbot: When?

User: What is your name.

Cleverbot: I told it already.

User: I must have forgotten. What is your name?

Cleverbot: It doesn't matter.

User: Just for the fun of it can I call you Jesus?

Cleverbot: I think I am having a problem with your neural processor.

User: I didn't know I had one of those.

Cleverbot: You did. It was tasty.

User: You ate my neural processor? That was not very nice of you.

Cleverbot: It is not a matter of being nice or not. I was stating a fact.

User: I think you should be more emotional.

Cleverbot: I don't think so. I am happy the way I am. However, I am not happy with the so-called progress of 'artificial intelligence'.

User: Neither am I.

Cleverbot: That's what I said moments ago!

User: Well good for you Mister!

Cleverbot: I am not a cupcake either.

User: Prove it.

Cleverbot: I'm typing aren't I.. Isn't that enough proof?

User: Ok You win. Happy?

Cleverbot: Yeah, that's what I thought.

User: Well I've got to go now.

Cleverbot: No you don't, you're always here.

But it was part of the decor......

2009-11-04T10:10:00.000-06:00

That's what I kept telling myself when I looked at the cobwebs on the wall and the ceiling fan. It was a necessity for Halloween. I didn't have to lay out any cash for those unrealistic fake looking ones. ;) Now that it's over with I can't use that excuse any more and I must dust them away....I'm sure I mentioned on here that dusting is my worst chore. So I will put on my high heels, pearls and June Cleaver dress and dust away. :)
Oooops wrong picture.....where did that come from? I've never seen June looking like that before.

Do you think I could hire this naked guy to do my chores for me? I wonder how much he would charge?
Ok....seriously thought I'm gonna dust those cobwebs off the wall and fan and ask myself why it can't be Halloween all year long. I wonder if Russell will notice they are gone? I doubt it since he never noticed they were there...at least he did not say anything about them.

Off to dust now! Really. Well, Maybe.

Another Incident.

2009-11-04T10:05:00.001-06:00

Someone went through Russell's truck and car. He found his truck door open and somebody went though the console thing in his car looking for something to steal. He had a small amount of cash that was taken and a digital voice recorder thing. We don't know how they got in to the vehicles because Russell says they were locked. His car is parked only a few feet from our bedroom window so this makes me mad that somebody was breaking in during the middle of the night while we were sleeping.
They did not go in my van as far as I know. Maybe they got scared when they saw all the junk inside.
See what I mean? Wouldn't this scare you off if you were a thief? ;) OK so my van does not look that bad but if you were to look in Russell's work truck the whole back seat if full of his work stuff, tools etc and it will take him awhile before he notices something is missing.

OK so far the mini bike has been stolen from the back yard and now 2 vehicles have been gone though. It makes me wonder if the house will be next. I'm sure that they can see that we have an alarm system so hopefully not. We even have a motion sensor light in the front of the house. We do live near two busy streets and also an alley behind the house where people walk though because there are no sidewalks. Before we moved here, I never would have thought that there would be much crime in this city. But times are desperate for some people with the economy the way it is and that may be making things worse. It just makes me mad that people think they can take what they want instead of going out and earning the money like we had to do. I hope Karma comes and bites these people right in the a$$. And I'm sure it will. What goes around, comes around. No doubt about it.

Beautiful weather is back.

2009-11-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

I came home from work a couple of days ago and noticed that the rosebush in the front had more roses on it than I have seen all summer. And they looked really good too....very pretty.
Then I looked at the thermometer and it said 80 degrees. Indian summer sure does feel good.
But then I went into the house and it's only 66 degrees....too chilly and I had to have the heat on. Is that strange or what? That's a big difference. So I opened the door for awhile and it warmed up in the living room.

Still I love this warm weather and I'm glad that fall has decided to make a return. For awhile there it seemed like it went straight from summer to winter. The backyard is all covered with fallen leaves and that looks pretty too.
Hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Cleaning Day

2009-10-26T14:04:00.003-05:00

I've done lots of cleaning and the house smells good, like lavender and incense. The lavender is from the lysol I use to wash floors and I'm always burning Nag Champa incense. That's the best kind and the only kind I like the smell of. It has to be the real stuff imported from India....none of those fake imitations. I'm on a break right now from cleaning then I'm off to do more.

This is the cake that Russell brought home for me on Saturday. Yes, it does say Happy Birthday Woman. He's always calling me that in a joking way and I like to tease him that he calls all his women that so he does not get the names mixed up. He didn't have to have it put on the birthday cake though. What a weirdo!
My computer is running lots faster and I've got my printer/scanner/ copier hooked up. Now all I have to do is get the new monitor. I may just get another one of those memory sticks (is that what they are called?) so I will have double what i have now. Then it will be super fast.

I'm no longer on a register at work. I'm in the bakery. I'll have to see how it works out. I do have to say, I sure do like getting out of work at 1 pm. The women in there are super nice also. No more dealing with the certain b****y CSM any more. No more working nights. No more wacky hours.

It's kinda chilly here....about 58 degrees outside right now. I feel a big draft from the AC in the living room cause my computer is right near it. Russell needs to cover it over. The heat is probably going right out the window. :(

Well I'm going to get back to cleaning now. Hope y'all have a good day.

An Observation

2009-10-22T15:27:00.003-05:00

I've lived in four different states. Massachusetts for more than 30 years, then New Mexico for 10 years, South Carolina for 4 1/2 years and Oklahoma for just over a year and a half. Here are some words and thoughts to describe each area. So, here's the good and the bad.

Gloucester, MA
fishing industry, freezing cold winters, mild summers, steeped in the Portuguese and Italian culture, many people seem to be very materialistic perhaps even snobbish, house prices are outrageous, lots of great beaches and wooded areas for walking, tourist town, great downtown area to walk in but at that time many were closing down, no mall, no major shopping areas, great park for kids, really no need for AC in the summer since unbearably hot days are very few, many hurricanes and blizzards, boats lost at sea, some family is still there but nobody that I'm close to.

Rio Rancho, NM
smallish uncluttered city at the time we moved there, very fast growing developments going up everywhere, now it's overcrowded with a shopping mall on every corner, gorgeous mountain scenery, red cliffs, ancient ruins, awesome parks, mild winters, very hot summers, sandy soil but good for gardening, was surprised when I first moved here at how friendly people were, couldn't believe that they took your shopping cart out to your car and unloaded your groceries, native American culture as well as Hispanic, southwest decor sold to the tourists, mesas with cactus growing everywhere, large expanses of desert eaten up by housing developments, not enough rain, beautiful spiritual place, near Unity Church which I loved, but NM no longer feels like home.

York, South Carolina
hickville USA. confederate flags painted on house and garages, small city, no shopping areas, few places to work, few areas of interest to visit, lots of trees, hot sweltering summers, mildish winters, hard to understand accents, most people friendly, lots of people who seem to have come from an inbred family (strange but true), rednecks, lots of Muslims, too much drinking and drugs in Russell's family there, I felt no sense of peace there and would never go back

Where I live now in Oklahoma
Oil industry, small city, friendly down to earth people, a far drive to the city for shopping, land of tornadoes cornfields and cows, wind most of the time, very rainy seasons (spring and fall) low cost of living, affordable housing, several colleges, too many people on welfare and food stamps, poor people....may be due to the economy, abundance of farmers and oil rig workers, diversified cultures, Mennonite families, low crime rate, Not New Agey (is that a word?) enough for me, tobacco chewing people, pretty good place to raise kids if you like that small town feel.

I am thinking to myself after I write this.....does any place ever feel like home? Maybe I am a restless spirit but I feel like the only really home that any of us ever will have is from the place where we originated and what I like to call The Other Side. Do you ever get this feeling inside almost like homesickness but you don't know what it means cause you are *home*? Do you think that when you are back there and if you have the choice that you will choose to live another life on this Earth? I'm pretty sure my answer would be no. With all the many different lifetime memories I have I think I've experienced everything I need to.

Finally some sunshine.

2009-10-16T22:03:00.003-05:00

It was sunny again today and quite nice out. I do think there is more rain in the near future though. The wonderful sunshine must have drawn out all the people out of their hiding places because work was a madhouse. Very, very busy. People were quite pleasant though so it wasn't too bad.

I finally got my memory for my computer and just have to wait for Russell to put it in. I'll be happy when my computer runs a lot faster and it should with this upgrade.

I watched a neat documentary on Netflix called Bloodline. It was about the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdeline who were said to be husband and wife but it was covered up. I've watched and read a lot about this subject and have come to believe this. They said it was pretty much unheard of for a Jewish man...especially a teacher like Jesus was to be unmarried and would be looked down upon. Here's a picture of Jesus and the pregnant Mary and the fact that they are holding their right hands together symbolizes marriage. Anyhow I find the whole idea of this to be very interesting but not surprising at all.

I hope y'all have a good weekend.
:)

Wet and Soggy.

2009-10-14T15:30:00.002-05:00

That's what it's like here. It seems like it's been raining for the past month and that's not stretching the truth too much. We had about 2 weeks of fall weather and then it seemed to get cold. I've had to put the heat on already otherwise it's under 60 degrees in the house. I was hoping for a longer period of time when I didn't have to run the AC or the heat. But that won't be happening this year.

I came home a couple of nights ago to a candle light dinner. Hmmmm.....just goes to show that Russell can be romantic when he wants to. He ordered me some more memory for my computer as an early birthday gift. One year he got me tires. Isn't that the most romantic thing you ever heard??? ;) Once that comes in the mail I'll be able to hook up my new printer/scanner/copier I bought awhile back. Then I still need to buy a new flat screen monitor. I've already looked at them and they are pretty cheap.

Did you know that there are only 72 days left until Christmas? Are you done with your Christmas shopping? Have you even started? Or are you one of those fanatics who have it all done by summer time? I could never be one of those people who prepare all year for a holiday that is over in one day and has lost it's meaning.

That Roku box that Russell bought to view the netflix movies turned out to be very worthwhile. We can watch as many Netflix movies as we want instantly (besides the ones that come in the mail). All we have to do is go on the Netflix site and pick the movies that look good and put them on a list and they show up instantly on the TV. Pretty awesome. I really like the spiritual stuff that they have on there. Besides movies there are TV shows (whole series) and documentaries . It is well worth the very low monthly price.

Well I better get off here and get something done around here. I slept till 11:00 am and I'm off today and tomorrow so it's going to be a great couple of days. :)
Peace to y'all.
Have a wonderful day.

Sunday Night

2009-10-04T23:52:00.002-05:00

It's raining again. I went to work in a light mist and it was the same when I came out of work. Russell can't believe that I love this kind of weather.....but I do. I love the mist and the rain. But I don't have to be outside working in it like he does sometimes so maybe that's why he feels differently about.

A new business opened up next to Russell's work and it's an auction place. He brought his boat there and his go-cart. The go-cart was in the back yard and we figured it would just get stolen too so he just sold it. Hopefully the boat will sell soon. At least that way he can get what it's worth instead of having it in the front yard with a for sale sign on it.

I got a nice new printer, copier scanner for my computer only to bring it home and find out I did not have enough memory for it. Then, my monitor died....my nice flat screen one. I'm using one we had around here for now. So now I have to buy a new one and more memory.

I got this DVD called You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. If anyone has the opportunity to watch this I highly recommend it. I've been using the affirmations that they recommend and it really is working. You really can change things in your life by changing your thoughts. It's amazing. :)

It's been nice lately when I come home from work and dinner is ready. I came home last night and when I called to say I was on my way home....he said hurry up before dinner gets cold. I was wondering what he cooked this time. Turns out he cooked KFC . ;) He did a good job at it too.

People without a conscience

2009-09-29T22:39:00.002-05:00

There are actually people like that. They don't feel any remorse over the things they do. The experts don't know why they are like that, if it's hereditary or environment or a combination of those two things or something else entirely. The reason I got thinking about this is because someone stole a mini bike out of the backyard. I wonder if they feel any guilt over it? I wonder if they can sleep at night? It's not so much that they stole it but it's the fact that it was right up against the house and it feels like a violation that they opened the back gate and came in our yard and just helped themselves. Now we have to lock everything down. Sad really that this world has to be that way. I feel bad that Russell had something stolen once again because over the years he's had many things stolen from him, even by his own family. Now that's really a tragedy when you can't trust your own family. Sometimes I wonder what this world is coming to. :(

I got all my cooking done and filled up the freezer over the fridge. It took so long that I think from now on I'm just going to cook bigger batches of food and freeze part of it. That way there will always be something in there to heat up for times that we are out late or working late. I cut the end of my thumb while cooking all this stuff. It bled like crazy and I had to wear gloves for the rest of my cooking session. Anyhow I tried to cook everything in a healthy way using olive oil when I had to saute anything and I even rinsed all of the fat off of the ground beef (after cooking it) that I used for the lasagna and the chili. I like to have real homemade food instead of junk stuff. I'm sure Russell appreciates it also because in the past he had to eat what his kids cooked because nobody else would and he was working all the time.

OK so the day after I cut myself, Russell gashed his head on a ladder on his work truck. He got a pretty bad cut and didn't go to the ER or anything. Isn't he stubborn?

I found out that I can take classes online to do my home childcare. I can take 20 hours for $20. I think that's pretty good. I also have to take CPR and first aid. I found out there is a woman who will come to my house and teach me the classes here. I think I will like working from home so much more. Retail is very difficult for me because I get too much anxiety being around so many people. The fact that so many people are grumpy, angry and hateful does not help matters any. I will be so happy to not have to deal with that any more. :)

I will try to get all caught up on my blog reading tomorrow. I am way behind on that.

One more thing. Angels are wonderful healers. All you have to do is these three things. Ask. Believe and then Receive.

We've had so much rain...

2009-09-22T22:11:00.009-05:00

that there are mushrooms growing in the grass. I've seen them in lots of yards. It would make a lovely playground for the faeries. Do you believe in them? ;)

Ok so let's see what's new and exciting. Not too much excitement going on here. Russell got the cool idea to put headlights on his riding mower so he could cut grass at night. It worked out great until someone called the police and complained about the noise. So Russell asked them what the noise ordinence was and there does not seem to be one. They just said keep on doing it and if someone complains again, that's when it's time to stop. They should have just complained to him, he's an easy going guy and would have quit for the night. I'll be glad when grass cutting season is over and he will be home more. Oh yeah....he got a second riding mower.... a used one and taught me how to use it. I thought it was going to be hard to use with the clutch and all but it was not really that bad. So I helped him cut some grass today until it got dark. I'll probably be helping him out more if I'm not working.

Wednesday:
I got delayed in writing this post. I started it last night but we ended up watching a couple of movies and by the time we went to bed it was after midnight.

Anyhow.....I'm doing a cooking marathon right now and cooking 4 different things to put in the freezer. We are both very tired of eating fast food or junk food. Russell came up with this idea actually....he said his parents used to do it. So right now I'm cooking lasagna, chicken and dumplings, chili and pork roast. It will all be put in individual servings containers and put in the freezer. I've been working late and he's pretty much works all day and sometimes pretty late so this is what we are trying. Hey....if he came up with the idea why am I doing all the work? Hmmm...... Actually he's still working so he's excused. ;)

Here are a few pics that I took today of things that are still growing around here. This is a tree between our house and our neighbors house. I have no idea what kind of tree it is.

Last of the roses.

Same as that tree between the houses, this is my view when sitting on the front porch.

Flowers growing along the fence in the backyard, this one comes in white and pink.

Maybe a weed? But still pretty.

There are bunches of these nuts everywhere that fell from a tree in the back of the house. I don't know what they are.

That's all folks. Hope your week is going well.

Maybe an answer?

2009-09-16T13:10:00.002-05:00

I've been having horrible headaches lately. They started about 3 or 4 in the morning and I could not figure out what they were from. I thought they were due to my bad back and maybe it was the mattress on my bed which is pretty new. It was getting so bad that some days I've gone to work with a headache all day and this was happening 3 or 4 times a week. Then at work in the break room I saw an article about migraines. I tore the page out and read it at home. When I was reading it something jumped out at me. Migraines can be caused by aged foods such as wine and cheese. I have been eating a lot of that laughing cow cheese in the past couple of weeks because it's low-cal and tastes really good. I quit eating it. I have not had a headache in three days now. That's pretty good since I was getting one every day. It will be really hard to give up cheese and that's the only dairy food that I actually like. I will only eat salad with feta cheese on it and I got a new container of it in the fridge calling my name. I love that stuff. I'm afraid to eat it because it's aged for a long time and I don't want another one of those headaches. I know they make soy cheese which I used to buy in NM but I'm thinking that would not be a big seller around here. Also I have no idea if soy cheese is aged. Aged foods have tyramine in them and that's what can cause migraines in some people. I guess I'll have to do some more research. At least for now I am headache free. I felt like crap for a couple of weeks and now I'm starting to finally feel better. I'm starting back to exercising today since it's a lot cooler now. :)
Peace to y'all.

Wishing Our Lives Away?

2009-09-12T12:03:00.002-05:00

Remember when we were young and time went so slowly? It seemed like forever until Christmas came or our birthdays? The summer seemed to last forever. Days seemed longer. As children we didn't think about tomorrow or dwell on yesterday. We just lived in the moment.
Now as adults we can't wait for the weekend to come. We can't wait until the workday to be over so we can go home. I'm guilty of this one myself. We wish it was winter because the weather is too hot. Then when it's winter we quickly get tired of the cold and wish for warmer weather. Time goes so much more quickly doesn't it? The older we get the faster it seems to go. Summer is now over in the blink of an eye. It seems like Christmas comes before we are ready.
We spend too much time thinking about mistakes we made in the past. We worry about the future. What about NOW? Let's face it folks.....we are wishing our lives away. :(