WIthout Electricity

We had a storm a few days ago and were under a tornado watch. Fortunately, no tornado just high winds which knocked our electric out around 10 pm. The electric company called around 4:30 am and said all was restored. Not true! There were 3 of us in the neighborhood who were still without electric. So we all 3 called and 2 days later we have electric.

In the meantime everything in the refrigerator and upright freezer had gone to waste so today I will be cleaning both out. I am treating this as an early spring cleaning and long overdue. It will be fun to go grocery shopping to replace some of what is lost. We will not be turning it in to insurance as the dollar amount is far less than our deductible (which I recently increased to cut costs) and would just end of increasing rates again.

So we spent 2 days and 1 night at my Mom's house which was great. During the day I was alone (Mom was out of town) and I really enjoyed being at her house. It is beautiful and very relaxing. I packed up some of my rubber stamping stuff (very minimal compared to my complete stash) and created 2 cards. One for my Stampin' Up! (SU)stamp club meeting next Saturday and the second using a new stamp sheet I received from Hearts In Touch (HIT).

The card shown in this post was created using the HIT Patterns rubber stamp sheet; SU real red, naturals ivory and basic black cardstock; SU real red and basic black ink; a button and organza ribbon from my stash; a rectangle Ranger Fragment and the scallop and perforating blades for my paper trimmer. I perforated the front of the card (not really visible in the photo) since it reminded me of the tracing wheel used in sewing projects.

I hope you enjoy this card as much as I enjoyed creating it.

I do not have a photo of the second card. I saw a couple of things on it I want to change and will post picutres then.

Valentine Printable

Lisa Vollrath has a fantastic site and is offering free collage sheets. Be sure you read the details before downloading. Follow this link http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/ and see what she has so far. Lisa's offer began Februray 1st and will continue through Valentine's day.

Lisa offers some great items for altered arts, ATC's and any of your creative projects. She also hss How To Lessons on her website with excellent instructions.

So try her lessons and items by going to gomakesomething.com. She also has two other sites, LisaVollrath.com and TenTwoSecondsStudios.com.

Enjoy.

It's Time To Go To Work

WOW! The new year is here and the job search gets serious. I have applied at a place for a couple of positions and no call yet, not even a return call. I have heard it is a hard place to get into so I am not discouraged at this point. I will be worried toward the end of January if I don't have a job.
One position I applied for I didn't get as they were concerned with my work experience and salary record that I would be bored. Since they changed the hours, I was okay with that as I could not work the new hours.
I did begin volunteering at the health campus where my father lives (he is suffering from Alzheimer's) today and will be working there M-F 8:30-3:00 for the next couple of weeks. I just need to get active and back into a routine. After the 2 weeks I plan on working the same hours 2-3 days a week.
I will continue my job search and something will come along.
I have enjoyed my time off even though I haven't accomplished as much as I would like to. My craft room is still a mess, I go up there look at it and turn around and walk out. I have no clue where to get started. I need a professional organizer to donate time to help me get started.
Well that is it for now, I need to help with homework and relax.

What I've been doing since retiring.

I have cleaned my house and kept it up pretty good-no show place but not embarassing most of the time when someone drops by. I have been cooking more than I use to which was easy to do since I only cooked on the occasional weekend, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have been watching the Food Network and love Paula Deen, Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) and Rachel Ray. I've made mac and cheese from scratch, salisbury steak, peach cobbler, ribolitta soup and shepherd's pie is next on the menu.
Just to put my cooking in perspective, my son has made several comments on my cooking. The first was "Mom, you can cook! Now I don't have to lie when I tell everyone at school you do the cooking." He thought it would be embarassing to let everyone know his Dad cooked. I reminded him Chefs are men and I am sure they cook at home. The next comment was "Mom, I hate to admit it but you are a good cook." Shocking that he would be so surprised! I also surprised him with homemade chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven after school one day. He liked that and said that was how after school should be. He has commented on liking me being home and his teacher even stopped me to say she had noticed how much happier Tanner seemed this year. I think a lot of it has to do with no daycare which he hated.

My husband has also enjoyed my being home since our house is clean more often. I have also started doing more of the cooking, laundry and dishes which he doesn't have to do. He did struggle with staying out of the kitchen at first. He would be right beside me while I was trying to cook and I kept bumping in to him. I finally just asked him if he wanted to cook? He said no do you want me to get out of the way? I said yes, that would be good. He still hangs out in the kitchen but doesn't try to help as much. He will ask if I need help at times which is good. I really like to cook by myself.

My husband took a weeks vacation to install all of the plumbing and wiring for a wood furnace. It is a little shed like building that sits outside and burns wood to heat the whole house. We are buying one that will heat not only the house but 1-2 out buildings as well. He thinks it would be great to finish the garage and heat it, I think a nice out building for crafts is still in my future-we will see. On Monday, as he was digging the ditch, he cut the phone line around 10:15. I called the phone company and they repaired it Tuesday afternoon. No phone or internet for over a day-what was he thinking! He also laid the concrete foundation and hooked everything up to the hot water heater. He spent quite a bit of time in the basement this week-YECK!!!! We have so many cobwebs down there and it is musty smelling. I told him I would come to the top of the stairs every so often to make sure he was okay, but he shouldn't expect company. We have lived here for 8 years and I have only been on the 3-4th step going down into the basement once and that was the day we looked at the house and before I knew how bad it was. I have no idea what the basement actually looks like but know on that day the webs were thick looking down the stairs and the floor and walls were dirt. I haven't been past the door since then and don't plan on it. He only has the thermostat to install and that is is until the furnace arrives. With any luck that will be next week. It is very cold in our house, we are not buying propane this year and will be calling them to come pick it up next week. We haven't even built a fire in the wood stove and believe me it is cold. Our house is so cold I was dressed for winter inside while Don was in short sleeves outside.

I am very much enjoying being at home but do want to get out some. I volunteered to help out in the office at my son's school when the office staff is out of the office and begin training Tuesday. I will be on an as needed basis and I am looking forward to it. I am also going to volunteer at the nursing home where my father is. He has Alzheimer's.

My craft room is still a mess but I still have it on my to do list. Today I am working on the projects for class tomorrow, at least I am getting it done earlier than usual. I am usually up until 3-4 in the morning or getting up early the day of and getting them done. I also have the computer corner in our room to clean out so my new desk can be taken upstairs. Mom bought it at an auction and then didn't want it. It is larger than the one I have now and will help keeping it more organized in that area.

Well that is is for now. There is so much more to add but will save that for another time.

Update

It has now been a little over two months since I retired. It has been a good two months. I have cleaned most of my house, something I didn't devote time to when I worked. I used all the usual excuses, too busy, not too bad, etc... It feels good to have the downstairs and my son's bedroom cleaned. I still need to do our room and the craft room.
We had quite a few spiders (old farm houses with dirt basements are good spider homes) who did not like my cleaning so they tried to take over. We set off bug bombs and they appear to be gone. We also sprayed around the outside of the house and hopefully that will work. We tried two old remedies before that didn't really work to well. We brewed tobacco in water, strained it and added lemon scented dish liquid and put that around the outside of the house. It appeared to work for a few weeks but no longer. The second was hedge apples in the house and they didn't appear to work at all. They just turned bad and we threw them away. So the bombs and outside spray appear to be the best remedy.
I have put off tackling the craft room since there is quite a bit of stuff in it. I am not good at organizing and to be honest, am not sure where to begin. I may buy some tubs and sort things in them just to get the room cleared and then start putting things back. It may take a while.
My goal is still to stay off until the end of the year and then in January begin looking for a part time job. That will allow me to be home when my son gets out of school and help with his homework which was my original objective.
Well, enough for now more later.

A Bat in the Living Room

Last night around 11:30, I turned the light off in the living room and saw something fly in front of the TV. I watched and waited and saw it again. I turned the light back on and saw something black flying around the room. I finally saw very clearly that the black flying thing was indeed a bat with a wingspan of approximately 5-6 inches.
Since husband had already gone to bed and had worked that day, I didn't want to wake him. Son was watching TV in family room and had fallen asleep.
I watched as it landed on the top of the curtain and settled there. While I didn't want to go to bed with it lose, I also knew I wouldn't be able to stay up all night and watch it. I decided to stay up a while longer, with the light on of course.
Since son already occupied the couch in the family room, I decided I would need to sleep on the floor where I could keep an eye on the living room curtain. I was torn between leaving things as is or waking son and making him go upstairs to bed. I wasn't sure if we had more "house guests" or not and decided the current situation was the best.
I don't recall what time I finally fell asleep, but know it was after 3. I woke up at 6:45 this morning and looked at the curtain-no bat. I looked around the family room-no bat. I went to the kitchen and there it was hanging from the ceiling. My son woke up at 7 and I told him, heard husband stirring so son went up to advise him of the situation. Son comes back down and wants to see a bat so very quietly goes into kitchen. Starts laughing and comes back to advise my kitchen "bat" is really an old fly strip that I didn't get torn completely down and husband hasn't removed. Sone continues with jokes and I keep telling him I really saw the bat in the living room last night.
I go back to the living room and bat is still on curtain just in a different spot. Husband comes down and starts morning routine which includes a cup of coffee and then out side for morning cigarette (husband is still a smoker but does not smoke in house or around son).
Husband comes in with net from fish pond and traps bat but net cannot be removed so I get husband newspaper which he uses to "catch" bat in net. Net is against wall with bat still inside. Husband gets bat caught in newspaper and takes it outside. Fortunately happy ending to bat story for all.
I am not sure how the bat entered the house, however husband thinks it is through the window where the air conditioner is. Making note to get air conditioner taken out today or tape opening.
Keeping my fingers crossed that this is my first and last experience with a bat. Son looking forward to going back to school to tell his summer "bat" story.

Cleaning the Fish Pond

Yesterday we cleaned our fish pond which has needed a good cleaning for a few weeks. It was being taken over by moss and we couldn't see the fish.
This year we started the pond with 3 small pond fish purchased at Walmart. We added 2 more in July that were given to us by a friend from work.
Imagine how surprised we were to learn our pond now contains 31 fish of varying ages. After cleaning the pond and replacing the water, we placed the original 5 fish back in the pond (1 looks as if she's pregnant now) and 12 of the babies that appear to be thriving. The remaining babies are being kept in a tank so they can be monitored since they do not appear to be doing too well.
Our pond is not large enough for 31 fish and the 17 we have in there now will be too many as the 12 continue to grow. I am going to call around and try to donate some of the smaller ones so all will have a better chance of survival.
The pond was created in the summer of 2006 and we had 3 fish given to us by the same friend who gave us the 2 this year. Those original fish survived the winter of 2006 and 2007 but died in the Spring of 2008. I believe it was due to our weather where it would get warm and then cold again and they just couldn't keep up with the changes.
We have also added some ferns and flowers to the pond which we will be transplanting later this week-they are in pots right now. They were given to us as the garden store felt they were on their last leg. However Tanner has nursed them back to health and they are now ready to be planted around the pond.
We have several hostas around the pond and they are growing. We've had those since the summer of '06. I wanted some of the tall grass plants to put behind the pond but haven't found any that I want to purchase at this time. I would also like to add a small fence accent behind the pond at some point.
I am getting ready to clear a spot to put lawn furniture so we can enjoy the pond more. This is probably the first year I have taken an interest in making more of an "outdoor seating area". I think it has a lot to do with my retirement in July and how the priorities in my life have changed.
I find I am becoming more focused on family and home than in the past where I thought work was most important. My priorities were really misplaced and they are now God, family and home. I am looking forward to concentrating on these priorities more and improving in all areas.