Kissing Turkey Butt

Yesterday a coworker posted on facebook that he was getting ready to head into work.  He works as a cashier and in the office.  No office yesterday so he was cashier.  This is his first Thanksgiving working here.  He posted that it would probably be boring and that if he had 25 customers he'd kiss a turkeys butt.  Ive been there long enough to know what the sales are really like for Thanksgiving day.  Everyone forgets something and of course you get the procrastinators. I replied that he had better start puckering up because we usually get slammed.  We had over 600 transaction between 7 and 3 yesterday.  He didn't work today but he does tomorrow.  I'm going to buy him a chapstick and send him to the meat dept.>:)   I'm not the only one who saw that post.  We have it in writing and we're going to hold him to it.  If I get a pic Ill put it on here.

Im Still Here

OK. I give up.  I'll just write when I feel like it and I wont beat myself up when I don't.  If you follow me and read what I write then I really do appreciate it and I'm sorry I don't really have that interesting of a life.

I love Halloween and I really like Fall and Halloween decorations better than Christmas.  But anyone who works retail knows that once Halloweenhits its pretty much hell at work til January first.  The sales numbers are great but people are really at their worst and they treat people trying to help them like dirt.  I wonder if it makes them feel important and big to make some one else feel small. 

Here are two cakes I did for Halloween.  The one with the ghost and tree I do every year and Its my favorite.

The orange and black one is done with orange airbrush and then a Halloween place mat with cut outs used as a stencil and black airbrush.

Not much else going on right now.

Summer Is Over

I know its been a bit since my last post.  I attended the fall food show for work on the 5th.  Here are some pics from this one.  No cake contest with the fall one.

Work is also switching over to being an IGA.  They had a huge grand opening for all the Evansville stores including mine even though our remodel wont start til January.  They didnt want to do all that construction over the holidays.  Since all the big shots would be wandering the area they expected us to be perfect.  I was there from 530 in the morning til 8 that night.  I lived there for a bit.  Ive been on vacation for the past week.  I go back to work tomorrow.  I dont want to go. I feel like kicking and screaming NOOOO I DONT WANNA. Like a two year old.

I found out that my new phone has gps and geocaching apps on it.  So i found two geochaches thias past week.  One was on one of the buehler lots!  One was les than half a mile from my house.  I didnt find the one I really wanted to get though.  Its ain a really old cemetery and I think it was so overgropwn I didnt even find the cemetary.  Im going to try for that one again.

Can anyone tell me what these flowers are. Im sure they are something really common and simple. I just dont know what they are.  The neighbor lady gave them to me when she moved cause I like the color so well.

I took down my hummingbird feeders today and cleaned up and put out my regualar feeders and suet cages.  I cleaned up the flower beds and yes I have the poison ivy again.  On my neck and my eye.  I look so cute again. I am doped up on benedryl and my spellcheck does not seem to be working so excuse any typos please.  I really dont want to go back to work.

Did I mention I dont wanna work?

Restless and ready for a change

It has been a rough couple of weeks at work and it may be rougher the next few.  I am going to have to make some unpopular changes on how things are and I may be the only one left standing.  I need to live up to my name and haul out the axe.

I am restless and not really sure what it is I'm wanting.  The season changing is part of it.  I get this way every spring and every fall even more so.  I think I'm setting up to hibernate for winter.  I want to redo all my rooms with warm, darker colors.  I hate that in the winter I go to work in the dark and I come home in the dark.  There are days that go by that I don't see daylight at all.

I am still sitting at that 18 pound weight loss.  It really is harder this round.  It doesn't help that I eat when I am stressed out.  I have been so under stress here lately that I think I could twang in the wind.

No room to breath

You really have to watch what you say.  I put challenge out out to the universe and it came back to smack me in the face.  I didn't do it on purpose.  At work the next few weeks are going to be totally insane.  In the next three weeks I have two meetings for all employees.  One is off site and has two times so everyone can attend one and one on site. I have the fall food show on what is usually my day off. I have two employees on vacation, one each on the following two weeks.  I have 12 hours of online classes that must be complete before the 9th of Oct. I am walking in the race for the cure on Sat.  All this is to be done with no overtime, everyone getting to the meetings and the online class time turned in also but not if it makes me go over 40 hours.  I actually had a schedule written that accomplished everything. Had everyone off where they needed to be off, had all the shifts covered, gave me time off to get the online stuff done and no overtime.  This is where I made my mistake.  I said to my boss that it seemed like the powers that be wanted to see how much crap they could throw at me and I still be able to write a schedule that would be approved.  I told him I did it but that there was no room to breath at all.  Well last night my newest employee walked out for who knows what reason and totally snarled things up.

I ended up staying and working a double last night which threw off my hours to do the online stuff.  I had to pull on of this mornings workers to this evening to cover his shift tonight. That left the morning shift horribly short.  I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do the walk on Sat since he worked a shift there as well.  I was getting mad because I have a team of 16 from this store and one other location walking with me.   Its important to me.  I asked one of my employees to work a double that day.  She'll do it cause she just bought a house and needs the money.  She works anywhere and any shift I need her to.

I also had to completely rewrite the next weeks schedule which had no room for error to begin with.  I did it.
It is rough and I'm sure we will all be grouchy and tired by the end of these few weeks. I told one of my employees that I really need to change this blogs name to The grouchy Bitch cause I sure am one lately.  I have vacation coming up in about four weeks and I am ready.  I don't think I have to worry about hiring a new worker.  I have the demo girl who would like to come back into the deli and also a guy they moved out of the meat dept that's willing to come back and work in the deli.  Hes been filling in where ever they can use him for right now.OK enough of that.

I think I have a bunch of hummingbirds traveling through on their way south.  My number seems to have jumped alot.  I have four feeders and I had four hummers circling one feeder the other day.  I tried to get a pic of them but they dart around way too much.  I got alot of pictures of the feeder alone or with a couple of blurs next to it.  I have one male that every year his favourite hobby is chasing everyone else off the feeders.  That is why I have four feeders.  No matter what he only has site of two at a time.  There are always two out of site that the others can go to.

I have now lost 18 pounds. It is way harder to get it off this round compared to early last year.

Im Back

OK I know this is way past Wednesday.  I went to Illinois to see my parents and I didn't think it was good idea to post online that I would be gone for a few days. 

Alan drove the truck up with the two dogs who like going to see grandma too, while I drove up with my daughter Jamie and my granddaughter Lexi.  I just got my car cleaned out today.  It looked like I had a daycare in the back seat. While we were there we went to see a high school friend of Alans.  He lives out in the country and Lexi got to see his animals.Sorry the pics aren't great I really couldn't see what I was clicking at the sun was glaring too much.  Lexi got to pet a chicken.

                                     

  She got to see a llama, a donkey and a miniature horse.  And lots of chickens.  She also got to see 4 very large horses and too feed them corn.  I didn't get any pics of them.

  My pumpkins are a complete bust this year.  I only had one getting any size on it and it was rotting when I got home.  Ill just have to chalk this up as a bad year and try again next year.  My window boxes however are doing great.



When it was first planted.

Look how full they got this year.

This is just a very large spider living in my flower bed.

Last day of August

Not much to write about this week.  Have been invaded at work by our techs, vendors and our two merchandisers for the deli/bakery.  They are rearranging everything and adding new products.  They were stressing me out.  Too many chiefs and not enough indians. They were stressing out my employees also.  Boring week otherwise.

Squirrels, pumpkins and crazy dogs

My dog Holly can not stand squirrels. The sight of one turns her into a barking crazy dog frenzy.  The squirrel above seemed to love tormenting her.  He got a whole ear of corn from the field next to us and took it up to this branch right outside my kitchen window.  Of course Holly went bonkers and was having a barking fit right under my computer desk.  I know he could hear her barking as he kept looking at her and ignoring her.  I finally had to send her to her crate to calm down and wait for rotten Mr. Squirrel to clear out.  This is Holly.  It's very hard to get a good picture of her because she is always underfoot.

This is Jazzy (Jasmine).  She doesn't go crazy and bark at the squirrels.  She goes crazy and barks at Holly barking at stuff.  She also thinks she is a chihuahua and want to sit in your lap all day.  She doesn't fit.

I am taking a trying a new medication to help with the grouchiness and the mood swings.  It is supposed to take a few weeks to build up in your system but I think I am feeling somewhat better already. If its a placebo effect, who cares.  I feel better. I Haven't felt like going off into a crying jag for no reason most of this week.

I now have 3 pumpkin bumps.  One on the regular pumpkins and two on the jumbo vines.  The largest is about the size of an eggplant.  They may make it yet.

Tomorrow is going to be a crazy day.  I have way too much crammed into tomorrow.

Humpday

Its Wednesday and here I am.I know Wednesday is called hump day for a lot of people it means that the week is half over, they are on the downhill side of a work week.  How many people actually work a nine to five, Monday to Friday work week anymore.  Unless you work in an office I'm thinking that that concept went out in the fifties.  People are all working all different shifts and have many days off in the middle of the week and are working on Saturday and Sunday and overnight.  It kind of aggravates me when reading magazines that say get out of work early on Friday and give yourself a long weekend.  Or talk about taking a little longer lunch on a stressful day to sooth out.  They obviously don't have a clue that the majority of their readers do no have that kind of lifestyle, work environment or schedule.  Even the radio announcers talk about hump day and the work week being half done.  No it isn't. Sorry.  Told you last time that I'm grouchy.

I have poison ivy again.  Third time this year.  I really don't think its actually poison ivy since all I've done is work in my flowerbeds.  I think its just something that my skin is sensitive to and makes me break out like poison ivy.I spent all last Sunday working outside since it was such a nice cool day for a change.  We've had such a string of scorchers.

I went to make a spice cake for tomorrow and forgot to spray the pan for the first layer.  It did not work well.  So we have a single layer spice cake for tomorrows dessert .Rhonda and Brian are coming over here tomorrow for our 25th anniversary.

In a Funk

OK. Lets try this again. I wrote this entire post out last night and blogger lost all but the first sentence.  So here we go again. 
I know its been a while since Ive posted. I haven't been in the greatest of moods.  There were four of us from my company that were going through cancer treatments the last year and a half. Two of us with breast cancer, one with an extremely rare form of cancer that is untreatable, and another bakery manager who had leukemia.  She had a liver transplant last year.  She developed a massive infection and just couldn't fight it.  She died a couple of weeks ago.  The pill I take has some nasty side effects including grouchiness and depression.  I am always irritable and my mood swings are horrible.  Sometimes I just want to cry for no reason. I don't think I'm depressed. I'm just pissed off at everyone and everything.Well that's enough griping.

I plant pumpkins every year and usually do OK with them. I have enough for fall decorations and Halloween and such.  I usually just throw the seed out and let the pumpkins do their thing.  This year I decided to try growing some jumbo pumpkins also.  This year I put them in some really good dirt and Ive been giving them plant food.  Since it has been so hot I have also been watering them quite frequently.  Out of 8 vines, 6 jumbo and two regular, I just now got a pumpkin bump on one of the jumbo vines.   Lots of blooms but no pumpkins.  Is this a bad year for them or what? The little pumpkin isn't even the size of a golf ball yet.

I'm going to try and post more regularly.  Since I am always off on Wednesday I'm going to try and at least post then every week.

Graduation

Last Wednesday my youngest Ashley graduated from Rogers beauty school.  She got a job on Friday at Borics salon.  My parents and my sister and brother-in-law came down for the day also.

This is the cake I made for her.  It didn't survive the trip over to the school.  It was hot and the air does not work in my car.  The icing started to melt and the borders started to roll.  She said she wanted lots of pink so that's what she got.

Frustration at work is getting worst.  I received my hours and sales projections for the next quarter.  They took 32 hours a week away from my dept.  Of course they are still expecting the sales to be just as high or higher.  I am becoming more and more stressed.  Then I found out that a deli/bakery manager from another store had put her notice in and was taking another job.  They gave her a dollar an hour raise to keep her from leaving.  She is making the same as me now.  She hasn't been with the company even two yrs.  Ive been there for 14 and haven't received a raise in over 5 yrs.  I was told that Houchins thought we were making too much already.  I am mad.  I know that she could use the money but it seems they reward those who don't deserve it and the ones who have paid their dues get nothing.  I keep making less and less every year as everything else goes up but my pay.  I feel like a tube of toothpaste.  They have squeezed all they can get out of me.

Last Day of 46

Tomorrow I turn 47. Some days I feel like Methuselahs grandma and other days I feel like I should still be in my teens.  Last Friday night Alan and I went over to Rhonda and Brian's house.This is Rhonda.  She is my best friend in the world and our schedules are so insane we never get to see each other.  Fri we couldn't even meet til 8:00 pm.  I'm used to getting up at 4 or 5 am so I am usually conking out on the couch by 9.  We had a great time eating Pizza and watching a couple of movies. Dogma and Letters to Juliet.  We didn't head home til 1 in the morning.  Been a long time since I was out at that time.  I forgot how many drunks are out at that time.

Its going to be a rough week at work.  I had one quit last week and I have my asst deli manager on vacation.  They have us cut down on hours so much now every day is is an exercise in frustration.  I write a list of what needs to be done.  I try to do the top priorities and as much else as I can, but everyday I know that somethings are not going to get done.  That's with me staying over at least an hour everyday.  I'm just tired and burnt out.

Time to catch things up

OK. I have to go back to work tomorrow.AAAARRRGGGHH!  My surgery went well despite a couple of glitches.  I got poison ivy across my upper chest, up my neck and across my face and on one eye.  One eye was pretty much swollen shut.  I had to call Dr Doepker to make sure that it wouldn't delay my surgery.  He said it was OK since it was above where he was going to work and he gave me a prescription to help get rid of it.  He also gave me a patch to use for the surgery.  It originally is used for people going on cruises to  help with motion sickness.  They are beginning to use to to prevent the sickness some people get from anesthesia.  You place it behind your ear the night before and it lasts for three days.  It didn't help me.  Ive never been that sick before after surgery.  The afternoon after the surgery I took the patch off since it wasn't doing a thing for me.  Later on I couldn't figure out why I was having trouble focusing.  I looked in the mirror and one eye was dilated as big as it could go.  It looked really strange.  I had one eye messed up with poison ivy and one that  looked like something from a horror movie.  I had to call Doepker and he sent me to the ER.  The doctor on duty said that since I didn't have a concussion and I hadn't had a stroke then I must have come in contact with some sort of medication.  Bingo!  I got residue from the patch on my finger and then into my eye.  And the effect would last 3 days.  Oh boy!  But eh surgery did go well.  Doepker is an artist.  This time next year no one will be able to tell these aren't god given.  Even nude. He is good.

Since I couldn't do much work in my garden the past couple of weeks I worked on some sewing and craft projects.  The pillow above has been long overdue.  The front of it is the front of a sweatshirt I used to love.  I wore that thing till it was wore out and the cuffs were fraying.  I just couldn't get rid of it so I cut the front off to make a pillow.  That was close to 30 years ago.  Yeah. This was a sweatshirt from the 80s.  I hauled that fabric around for a long time.  My granddaughter would like to take off with this pillow.

I also worked on this bag.  Its a premade canvas bag from Michaels.  The teal color is spray fabric paint also from Michaels.  The stencil I used is actually a scrap booking paper.    I also use those as stencils on cakes with food coloring airbrush.  Paper doilies also work well for that.

I am also working on this bag.  I liked the peacock design from my cake so well that I decided to embroider it on a black bag using metallic embroidery floss.  When it is done I will never use metallic floss again.  It looks great but it also is a pain to thread and it tangles easily.  I am also doing some bead work on here since I hate doing french knots.

Cake Chick.  This is for you.  I have tried and tried to leave a comment on your blog and never got it to happen.  I don't know if I'm not doing it right or Blogger is having probs.  I wanted to tell you that your cakes look great.  You have a talent for it.  If you lived closer I would hire you to work in my bakery.  One of these days Ill post some pics of some other cakes Ive done.

All Clear

My scan last week came back clear.  No evidence of any cancer.  I do however have many ovarian cysts.  Ill take cysts any day over what they could have found.  First of May I started back on watching what I eat again.  The Tamoxifen makes it hard to lose weight and makes some women gain weight .  That's no reason for me to throw in the towel and turn into a blimp.  Ive lost 6 pounds so far.

I am going to get blood work done tomorrow after work for surgery on the 18th.  I forgot that Doepker doesn't do the lab work in his office so I only had my arm poked twice last week. I will be glad to be done with these hard as rocks expander implants and get the nice soft gel ones in.

I was able to work outside on Sunday and today.  First time this year that it wasn't raining on my day off.  The weeds and the ivy were trying to take things over.  I was able to get a lot done but still have more to go. I need to get some things done before the surgery or it wont get done.  I wont be able to do any digging afterward and by the time Ill be allowed to it will be to late to do anything this year.

Little Of This And That

A little while back I was returning some books to the library when I saw a paper on the bulletin board stating that they were having a beginning blogging class. Yay!.  It was last Tuesday night and I had a great time and I learned a couple of things. I also met a couple of very cool ladies.  Marissa who is the library director and also ran the class and another local woman who wants to blog.  I wont put her name on here since I don't know how private she wants to keep herself and her blog.  I have Marissas blog added to my list and would like to add the other ladies also.  I cannot seem to find it at all.  So if you've found mine and are reading this please leave a comment so I can chase it back to your blog.

Wednesday night Linda and I went to the Spring Card Party at the St Phillips church.  I was hoping a couple of other friends could make it but Wednesday night is a bad time for them.  I didn't do well this time but I have done very well in the past so I was due an off one.

I hired a woman with alot of deli/bakery experience and she starts this next Tuesday.  That would be great except for one thing.  Last Wednesday our deli case went down and took the Grab and Go case with it since they are on one compressor.  It is too old and not worth fixing so we are getting a new case put in.  That wont happen for a week and a half to two weeks.  Going to be hard to train that way.  We have access to all the salads from our back up coolers in the deli but only a limited amount of our meats and cheeses since those are stored all the way on the other side of the store from us in the dairy cooler.  We only have a very small amount of cooler space to just keep the ad items and a couple of our best sellers in the deli. Hope she has a sense of humor.

Tomorrow morning I go in for a CT scan. I have to drink a bunch of Gatorade with iodine solution in it so they can see if any areas light up and show that they didn't get all of the cancer.  Then when I'm done there I'm going on into work.

Wednesday I have an appointment with my oncologist Dr Cook.  Its a regular check up but I'm hoping she'll have the results from the scan too.  Thursday I see the plastic surgeon Dr Doepker for a check up before my exchange surgery later this month.  Busy busy busy.  Why is the calendar like a desert for months at a time then every thing hits at once.

I want to give a thank you to Reality Jayne for giving me a shout out in her comments:).  I picked up another reader who also does cakes and thinks mine should have won.

Living At Work

I have been stuck at work late every night this week.  Since Houchins doesn't want to pay overtime I think I only have maybe 4 hrs left to work tomorrow.  Getting out early on a Saturday sounds nice but for one               thing.  I have something like 10 hrs of work to do.  Since I need to head to bed soon tonight I am going to put on some of my favorite websites.                                                                                                                                                   

Ok Blogger is being a pain about the spacing tonight.

customerssuck.com
Great site for anyone who must deal with the public.
also along the same idea
notalwaysright.com
thatsmyboss.com

facebook

psimadethis.com
copycatchic.com
high end looks for cheap

amazon.com
I have a list of probably over 100 books on there.

Before I head to bed I saw my first hummer on Wednesday.

Last Day Of Freedom

Last Friday when I went to Evansville to pick up my check and do some shopping I saw this atrocity of the english language.  This is on a sign facing the Lloyd expressway.  I really wasnt joking about the bad applications that I get.  I think I should drop a bunch of mine off for them.  They are obviously a match made in heaven.

This is my last day of vacation and my last day off till next weeks Wednesday.  I am really not going to want to get up tomorrow morning. 

Spring Food Show

Had a busy last week.  We had the spring food show for work.  This year they had a cake contest for the bakery managers.  It had to be on a quarter sheet and do what ever we want on it.  The venders were the judges and the cakes only had a number on them to be fair.  The pic above is my entry.  I adapted an idea I saw on cakewrecks.  They had it done with light chocolate on dark chocolate and on a round cake.  I wanted some color.  No I did not win.  Darn. 

Our food shows are a blast.  As you can see above its a huge room with all the goodies our vendors have to offer us.  Not just Deli and bakery but also produce and meat depts.   They cook up a bunch of the stuff for us and what ever is new to offer and we get to eat our way through the show.

The best part of the show is the end.  When it is over we get to haul all of it away that we want and can load in our cars.  All the hams, turkeys, cheeses, fruits, pies, cakes, pastries and cookies we want. Its a free for all.  It is fun to see the vendors also.  This is the only time we get to see some of them.  The rest of the year we only get to talk on the phone when they have prebook deals for us.

The food show was on Thurs and that was my last day of work till next weeks Tues.  I am on vacation.

Friday we went to the local home show.  I was rather disapointed in it.  Im glad we had free tickets becase I would be mad if I had paid to get in.

Today I cleaned up all my hummingbird feeders and made some sugar water.  I got all the feeders out because the hummers should start moving through soon.I also cleaned out my fountain and started it up.

Once again I am blogging away when I should be going to bed.  It has been a very stressful past two weeks at work.  The kind of weeks where you want to pull your hair out or get into a really big fight with someone on purpose.  I have the sign up stating that we are now hiring again which I hate because of all the idiots I have to deal with.  They really need to have classes in high school on how to go about getting a job because most seem to have no clue why they are not called in for an interview. These are a few examples of the applicants we have had in the past.

On the sign saying we are hiring I also state that you must be able to work any time slot and any day.  I always get a bunch of applicants that do not want to work nights or weekends.  Ive been with the company 14 yrs.  The employee that acts as my asst. manager has been with the company 17 yrs.  We both work nights and weekends and some one just walking in is not getting better shifts than us.  I had one guy tell me he could work anything and after working two weeks informed me that he could no longer work nights.  I informed him that he would no longer be working then.  I guess he thought if he was already working that he could pull it off. Sorry.

I have applicants that cant even spell deli right.  I had one applicant put down that she was a wacheris at her former job.  That's a waitress if you couldn't figure it out.  I have had applicants who have had a different job every 3 months and have listed the reason for leaving each was being fired.

I have had them drop off their application and  start telling me their history like I was interviewing them right then and there.  I had one girl call and when I answered the phone "Dena speaking",  she said"I put my application in and was wondering what my chances of getting hired were."  Since she gave no name and she was just a voice on the phone, not good.  I have had them come up to me while I was off the clock and trying to do my shopping to start spouting all their great job skills.

The employees that I have had for years are great.  They know to tell anyone calling or stopping in to check on their application that if I am interested I will call them.  We also tell them that we do a police background check.  That weeds out a lot of them.

They really do need classes on how to conduct yourself in the real work of work and that annoying the hiring manager every day or on her own time is not going to get you hired.  And if you are not good at spelling use a dictionary or spell check.

Really Good Day

  Just had a really nice day today.  The sun was shining and it wasnt too cold outside.  I cleaned up the house from one end to the other.  I even cleaned the three large windows in the living room inside and out.  I had to drag the ladder around out side to do it but sun shining in nice clean windows was worth it.

I love having my computer in the kitchen window.  I can watch the birds at the feeders and all across the fields by the house.  I love my new camera.  The above pic was taken from behind my desk and through the window to the feeder outside.  I tried to get a pic of a ladderback woodpecker but all I could see was a big furry head so I took the big furry heads pic instead.  This is Thomas O'Malley and he loves having the desk there as well because he gets to get attention and watch the birdies too.

Why is it every Sun I am still up at this time when I know I get up at four on Mon.  Its even going to be worst this time thanks to the time change.  I gotta go to bed.

  Are you a glass half full or glass half empty type of person?  Are people born with one disposition or the other or do they learn to be one or the other?  Do optimists always end up married to pessimists? I consider myself to be a glass half full optimist.  Of course I married a pessimist.  I wouldnt call him a glass half full type because he goes beyond that.  He doesnt have a glass half full,  he doesnt even have a glass.
  Of course that means we get grouchy at each other because I get tired of the rain cloud that he has hanging over his head and he thinks Im Pollyanna and naive.
   Im not too sure what this post is for other than people are who they are and you should love them despite that.:P

Hallway Redo

Had today off but didnt get much done.  Had to have the repair guys in to look at our pellet stove.  It still isnt working right but they cant come back till Mon.  I did get the hall way cleaned out some in prep to redo it.
The bench hat is there under all our coats and my workbag usually spends summers out in my garden.  I dont think its going back there.  I plan on painting it and keeping it there.  Im going to put up a row of hooks in the right hand corner to hang the coats on.  I have an old 4 pane window that im going to also paint and hang over the bench with a valance to fake a window.  Im going to put a small shelf under it to put candles on and other decorative things.  I want to put a runner down the hall also.  The walls have paneling put over what I am sure is old plaster walls and I want to put a nice fat baseboard up with wainscotting and then use some of the paintable wallpaper over that.  This is going to be a long drawn out job as I can only do it as I can afford each part.  I will post pics as I go.

Sisters and shoes

I have an awesome sister though she may want to smack me after reading this post.  See the very cool looking shoes in the pic?  She bought those for me and had them shipped from Texas to Indiana because she was worried about my crappy knees at work.  She read the post where I said I needed new work shoes and money is tight.  My work shoes went on sale a couple of weeks ago for more than half off so I was able to pick up a pair then.  So..... I really dont need any work shoes but,  these can replace my Nikes that I wear when Im not working.  I really do like Nikes and my old pair is over 3 yrs old and these new ones are so comfortable.  They make me think of licorice allsorts candys with the pink and black coloring.  Thank you Robin.

Now for the part that may make her want to smack me.  The reason I have such a good pic of the shoes is because of my new camera.  Ive been stashing a little bit of money every week since before christmas towards a decent digital.  Last week Target had one on sale so I took all of my stash and also $30 in rolled up change to have enough and got it.  Now I can put pics on my posts much easier.  Ill pic up a memory card for it when I get my overtime money next week.

Once again its late Sunday night and I have to get up at four tomorrow so its off to bed for me.

New Outlook

I am moving where my computer is set up later this week and I cant wait.  I wont be in the dark hallway anymore looking at a wall.  I will be in my nice sunny kitchen looking out a big window where I can watch my bird feeders and the field on that side of the house.  Sometimes deer run through there.

In about four weeks I should have enough stashed back to get myself a decent digital camera so I will be able to post pics on here. Yay!  Then I can post some before and after pics of the house and garden.  The house is a hundred and one this year. When we bought the place a divored man lived here and it had not been updated since the 70s.  The 70s style is not a good fit in a queen anne style cottage. 

Well thats it for today as I should already be in bed.  Mondays I get up at 4 am.

Looking Normal

Thursday night I had my hair cut for the first time since going through chemo.  It needed trimmed badly sine it wasnt growing in at an even rate and it was also coming in wavy.  My hair was always stick straight before.  Now when I am in public and some one sees me the first thought wont be "Cancer Patient"  I just look like a red head with a cut pixie cut.  Every day slowly getting back to being myself and feeling like myself. Now I need to find a new pic to put on here.  That one no longer looks like me and I would much rather be behind the camera than in front of it.  I hate having my pic taken.

Im Boring and A Bit of a Rant

For anyone who ever stunbles across my blog and read it, I am sorry. I read alot of other blogs and Im afraid mine is going to be boring at best. I really dont do anything but work and stay home these days. I am on the computer a good bit of my free time. I am on facebook everyday as it is the only way I have of keeping up with some people. I read alot of books. I will read almost anything but romance. I cant stand those. I am a magazine addict. I watch alot of TV. BOOORING!

Lack of money is a huge part of not doing much else. Doctor and hospital bills are huge with cancer treatments. I have 8 different doctors who all need paid and the hospital also. Even with insurance its alot of money. So I have no extra money to spend. I swear that my husband and I got into a one-up-manship fight over whos work shoes were in worst shape and needed to be replaced first. I really want to get a digital camera so I can post pics on here but that is a long way off. I really want to say I am not feeling sorry for myself cause Im not. Im just a bit aggravated at the lack of funds even though my husband and I are working our butts off. I also

hate being stuck inside all winter. I really do feel better when I can get out and work with my flowers and plants. Told you this was a bit of a rant. Im boring and bored and wanting to do something fun.

Day off and sleeping in

Today I slept in til 10. It was great. I get up at 4 on Mondays and at 5 the rest of the week so sleeping in til 7 or 8 is all I can do. I really needed the extra sleep and I really did sleep good and deep. Of course some credit must be given to the benedryl I took at bedtime. But still really good sleep is really good sleep. I wonder if that means Im getting old when a really good nights sleep makes me so happy. Or its just because I havent had a good nights sleep for a very loooong time. What ever it was, it was a great start to a very nice, no stress, day off from work:)

New Year Starting Over

This is my first post and its very scary to do this. I have kept journals for years but unless someone has been sneaking peeks at them, they were for my eyes only. I dont know which would be worse, someone reading what I write or no one. What ever . Here I am.

Starting this year just like I started 2010. I think that 2010 was cursed for me and 2011 is going to be better. I started off with the same old resolution that many people make of losing weight. I set up a plan for myself and stuck to it. By mid March i had lost 18 lbs. Thats when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Losing weight had lost its top priority spot. I had a double masectomy at the end of March and went through chemo through all of the summer. I ate wheatever I felt like and what ever tasted good to me at the time. I have never been a fast food eater but Mcdonalds 1/4 pounder with cheese, fries and a large tea was what I wanted after every chemo. By the time i finished radiation this fall I had gained my 18 lbs back. So I am starting over again.

So here I am trying to make changes in my life that are for my good. The weight is part of it so Ill feel better about myself. I also plan on doing some changes for my mental health. Number one on my list is that I will no longer bring work home with me. It will be done at work on the timeclock only. My time is no longer free. Its valuable to me so I am no longer giving it away.

I am also not going to let something thats bothering just simmer in my mind. If I dont like or dont agree with something being said or done I will speak up!

I am also decluttering. Clutter stresses me out. I like order. I read somewhere that you should imagine that youve lost everything in a fire. You only keep those things that you would replace.

Im sure everyone has things in storage that they dont even remember having.

Well this is it for my first post. I hope it gets better as I continue.