I was so mislead!

I can hang with it!
We went to the concert last night. YAY!
I have been to this concert arena before, but the last time was YEARS ago, and I got to go by default. I worked at the hardware store close to my house, (1 whole mile away) and I had an old friend working for me. I hired her as cashier. She eventually began dating one of the other managers. He knew she liked country music and bought tickets to go see a Toby Keith concert...well in advance of the concert. Lo and behold, they got into a fight and broke up. He, still holding the tickets. Mind you, the tickets cost him a fortune! So, not having a date, not knowing what to do with the tickets, knowing that I like country music too, asked if I wanted to go with him! Do I hear a hell yeh? The seats were down where if I really wanted I could have hopped up on stage with Toby and sing with him...that close. I loved it, every minute of it!
Spring forward to last night...my girlfriend and I are single moms of grown children. Her daughter graduated from medical trade school last year and is now working for the county and doing well, living on her own with her fiance. But there are still apron stings to be untied, so the money still bleeds from my G/F. You all kind of know my situation...OD in college, MD vying for the laziest girl in the county, and a out of the picture for now YD. I bleed money from every pore. So the tickets? Um well, what we can afford for a once in a great while little vacation.
Can you picture me and G/F at the completely other end of the spectrum from my last concert attendance? Nose bleed area of the grassy seats. Yes, we sat on "The Green" for three hours. I am stiff, and sore. The hips are screaming, "What the "f" were you thinking?" We did have to stand for the last hour, cause everyone else did. I guess that is what you do at some of these things. If we hadn't stood, we wouldn't have been able to see the last act (???).
The mislead part...My G/F said Cheap Trick, Heart, Tom Petty. We saw Cheap Trick, Heart and Journey. Oh yeh...good venue. Cheap Trick...eh...I am not that into them, but Heart? Ann can belt out those songs today as well as she belted them out in the day. Journey was great. They have a new (I am not sure of how new though) lead singer. They found him on Youtube. He was singing Journey songs and sounded like the old lead singer and they signed him...he is fantastic! It took me a little while to get past the "he really doesn't look like a Journey musician, and to the "hey! this guy can sing and dance and entertain like a Journey musician!" He's from the Phillipines. There were a lot of proud Phillipinos there last. Can't say I blame them.
Us old ladies got home around 1:15 AM. I hope I don't get into trouble with the kids, I was out well past my bedtime!

Calgon...take me away!

Good Lord! Ya'all know I have three daughters, right? Two of them live here with me, one is away for a while...can't talk about that one yet. That's not the point. The two who are here are simultaneously trying to drive me completely to the nut house, I swear they are. They both have great days, and then they have their not so great days. It can get to be high drama around here at times.
Then I go to work. I work with people of all ages, men and women, some boys and girls. There are mainly college students, with maybe two high school students, and then there are the "adults" That's what some of them call themselves. Two in particular are trying to drive everyone else to the nut house. Simultaneously, completely. These two have been bickering, for days, and two of the days the bickering got really stupid. Like today.
These are adult women. Control freaks! (I am a self admitted control freak, but I never went this far) One of them is my wonderful, generous, kind and funny bff, the other bugs me. They got into it today and it seemed like they literally seeked me out (in my little corner minding my own business) to tell on the other and what she did to aggravate the one who was snitching. AACCKK!!!!! I just want to work and get through my day and, stay in my little corner...no drama. Thanks I get enough of that at home. Since I wouldn't respond to their liking, they both in turn went from one manager to the other to...snitch, all the time saying "I didn't do anything, I am not wrong, I apologized and she doesn't want to hear it"...cause like you said "I'm sorry, but..."
My answer to someone getting in my face is to tell them straight up...you are in my face, I don't like it. Get out of my face. Then there is no bickering. No drama. No driving to the nut house.
Calgon, take me away!!!!!

So can I go work with horses now? Please? Can I can I? They are much easier to deal with.

I did a lot!

And didn't even realize it. It's hot here today too. Or as my MD says hot for you...(meaning me, cause I don't like hot) It was probably 75 degrees here, yep hot for me!
So like the other day my girlfriend calls me and asks me if I still need a washing machine. I thought I had told her I had gotten one, maybe she forgot, there's been a lot going on around here lately. She told me that they have her grandmother's brand new Maytag and the grandma only used it a couple of times.(How hard can a grandma be on a washer???) Well, even though I just went and bought that washer and dryer a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't very well say no to a brand new Maytag, now could I? Besides, I never did get the damned dryer running...the electric one anyway. So my friend's brother and nephew brought the washer over yesterday. I had started cleaning out my garage, cause I knew he was coming. He offered to let me clean out his garage as well. Um, I declined. I just had them leave it in the driveway, cause I tore up the garage cleaning it and had to wait for my MD to come home or get up, I forget which. So, when she did whatever it was she had to do, we tackled the washing machine hook up again. We're getting good at this; two times in a month!!!
This washer is big and has all kinna bells and whistles on it. Oh and buzzers. This one tells you that it is finished. I never had a washer do that before. My dryer tells me, but never my washers, I guess they just like me to guess or keep on coming out and checking on them.
So, we got that running, and I said well, it's high time we tackled the gas dryer and it's little problem. I let MD get down on her belly and disconnect the part that was in need of replacement. I pointed my finger and said things like, "that one, no, not that one, that one!" And she pointed to different things until we were both talking about the same that one at the same time. By the time we got that out of the way, all the parts places were closed or not cooperative SEARS being one of the uncooperative types. Without asking me, they moved all their service and repair dudes and dudettes to a place 60 miles away from me and would appreciate my business through the order desk. No, I do not think so. I want a part and I want it TODAY, thank you very much. MD found someone who was only 11 miles away and having the part. We went over today, picked it up she put it all back together and I have been very merrily catching up on laundry...YAY!
I wanted to give my girlfriend a little something to say thanks for once again thinking about me when there was something good to have or fun going on. So I baked 4loaves of bread and 4 loaves of banana bread, so I could take some over for her and her family.
Now, I gotta give my dogs a bath and then me a shower and call it a day. YAY! I'm pooped! But I only have to work three days this week. The same girlfriend and I have a concert to go to on Saturday and I took Saturday and Sunday off. We're going to see Cheap Trick, Heart and I think it's oh crap I forgot the third person. I can see his face, but not his name! I hate when I do that! I am second guessing myself on my time off. I may go in Saturday morning, and leave early, then work Sunday afternoon, or not, I don't know...we'll see how I feel when I get there.
Gotta go, baths and showers are a calling my name! Have a great rest of the week kiddos!

I just remembered who it was...It's Tom Petty.

I'm kind of pissed

I don't listen to the news much. I know, I know...it's like sticking my head in the sand. But I am tired of the politics, the economy (politics), the war (politics), the election...(politics)
Wall street is nervous! WTF do they think I am!?! Jees! All I am trying to do here is etch out a little postage stamp sized space for myself here in the world and live. I don't want to bug anybody. I don't want any body doing for me, I want to just go to work and come home and relax, and buy my groceries when I need them and pay my bills and just LIVE! Maybe watch a little TV now and then.
But some stoopid assed big companies have to go and get greedy and yea...then talk normal working assed people into being a little more greedy with promises of big things to come and then get these people to get in over their heads because we all know that if you get in over your head the company will be the first to make a profit on it...and then it all backfired on said greedy big assed companies, and WE, you and me, and any other person who is just working away at life are going to suffer. WE are going to pay for it in the short run and in the long run. Why the F**K do we have to bail them asses out? Why does our government have to intervene? (Don't answer...it's just rhetorical)
I'm pissed and I'm nervous and I'm scared. My kids are going to have an even harder time than I originally thought, I'm not getting any younger and my income is crap to begin with...what the hell am I gonna do? (Again...rhetorical)
Okay I am venting, and I probably don't make much sense, and I am probably off on some facts, but it is what I hear and I don't always hear right. But I am still nervous and I am still pissed.
'Nuff said!

Funny stuff

my OD found these:

What the...?

It's a Jack Russell-alope. Or something to that effect. No telling what my dogs will do next. Tootsie was some kind of into these antlers that a coworker gave me. She whined for about a half an hour after I put them up where she can't get them. I want to make a coat hanger from them...and chewing them up won't make them as nice to hang coats on. Don't mind me, I have a weird decorating sense.

It's but a memory

Just a stump now. And a big mess to deal with next weekend.
I got a lot done on this thing this weekend. I worked on it yesterday, and then after doing laundry, MD and I went out to tackle what was left from my adventures previously. I really got a glimpse into how differently we work and think. I want to go along and do one branch at a time. You know, cut it off, trim it up, and chop it into easily handled pieces. MD wants to get it down, deal later. Which is her life always, I should have known that. Just do the fun stuff and worry about the important underlying stuff later. She really liked playing lumberjack just a little too much. Scary. At least I had her help for the bigger heavy stuff. The tree was about fifteen feet tall and pretty weighty at the top. All the wet leafy stuff is up there. Plus it had entwined itself a little around our cable line coming in. Gawd forbid we take out our cable!
I'm glad it's down (for the most part) Now I just have to drag it all into the back yard where I will cut it into bitesized pieces and toss it into the wood box to await the winter chill. Hopefully, we'll get more warm weather to help dry out that sucker.
That has been my life this weekend. I didn't clean much. I did get to the dishes last night while my stew simmered. MD and I had gone to the grcery store while our clothes were drying and I saw winter vegetables and started craving a good hearty stew. It was good. I have some left over for lunch today. MD made cornbread to go with it. MMM good stuff.
In a while I am off to start my late day at work. I am starting to move "furniture around, because I got some new products in and want to highlight it. I have to place pads of various types of drawing, painting and drafting papers so that they don't get ruined. Standing them up bends them up on the corners and no one wants them. So I am trying to place them so they can be laying down. I'll have to see how it works out.
My friend is back to work after a year off fighting breast cancer. I had forgotten how much fun that woman can be. She's a big flirt with the guys, and some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth just floors me! I thought I wasn't prudish, but I guess I am! It is just heaven to have her back. I knew I missed her, but I really MISSED her!
So off I go! Y'all have a great day!

Banana Bread and Chainsaws

I gotta pay up here. I offered a banana bread recipe I found on the internet, can't remember where, and I am sorry person, but I am just passing on the love. Rice and Beans Chic asked for it a while ago, and I am sorry it took me so long to get it on here. I am sporadic at best. Here's the banana bread recipe:

1 C. mashed bananas (I used three)
1 C. sour cream
1/4 C. margarine
1-1/3 C. white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour one 9" x 13" baking pan or 2 7" x 3" loaf pans.
Combine bananas and sour cream. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir int he vanilla and banana mixture.
Combine the flour, soda, baking powder, and salt; stir into the banana mixture. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pans Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
Wait just long enoug for it to cool a little tiny bit, cut it into slices and try not to eat it all right then and there.
I could NOT follow those last directions. I am currently waiting for some prefectly good bananas to get a little too ripe so I can make some more! I am even bribing people at work to bring me their overly ripe bananas...I can't get enough of that stuff!





Here's where the chainsaw comes in. The ugly tree. The pictures aren't all that great, but you can see where this thing is taking over. It just wrapped itself right up to and then around and over the eaves. I've been playing chop, chop on the tree for a while so this is not the whole original tree. I had only taken off about a third of it when I took these pictures. Tomorrow I will take more pics. By the time I got done cutting and pulling, and then cleaning up and putting my toys away it was getting dark. I did a lot of work on that side of the house today, it is only a slight dent in what needs to be done. Tomorrow I will just take pictures and do my laundry. I know already I will be suffering for what got done today!

The drive home

Today was a gorgeous day as the last five or six days have been. We are in our Indian Summer season now. I love it and I don't. It's beautiful, but it is too hot for my liking. And as I get older, the hot (anywhere from 70 to 80 degrees, I know, I'm a pansie) is just too much more to bear.
My ocean in this kind of weather is just flat...flat, flat, flat. And glassy, like a pond. When I fished out here commercially in my (so much) younger days, I loved this time of year. Of course, that is because in our regular weather I was always freezing and soaking wet. When it got like this I was warm and only slightly damp.
So today, I am driving home and kind of swearing cause it's Saturday and everybody and there gall blessed brother, sister, cousin twice removed, MIL's and FIL's and ALL their friends are on the coast enjoying the weather I had to work in. I wasn't really enjoying it, cause they always forget to turn on their turn signals long before they turn. (They just stop and turn from the middle of the lane! Thank Gawd I have good brakes) N.E.WAY...I started noticing that there were quite a few cars parked along the coast side of the highway and people all standing up on the cliffy parts with their hands up to their brows to ward off sun glare. They seemed to be watching some fascinating something out in the ocean. I'm thinking some fool got all messed up on a boat and they were watching a rescue. (happens a lot here) But I dared to look at the ocean as I went by a lower spot in the cliffy thing. And what I saw was fantastic!
I saw whales playing! Humpbacks on their way to Mexico to get married, or have their babies. I saw people for about five miles along the coast watching, so I finally pulled over to watch officially. Of course, my camera has been in my truck for weeks and the battery is dead and my cell phone is useless except for my daughter taking pictures of her face on long road trips. I was kicking myself for not keeping my batteries up and I was looking and one lone whale broached right in front of me! It was fantasic! I thanked him and went on my way.
I have seen these things so many times. (Remember the paragraph above about me fishing commercially?) We used to get our own personal show from the humpbacks, although it was really scary, cause we were right there with them on the same water level. BUT, I will never stop being in awe of this beautiful creature and it's ability to jump from the water and swim around so playfully. Maybe tomorrow, I will have my camera with me and I can get some (not so great) pictures. (cheap camera)

My New Toy

It's a dangerous new toy. But I say, the more dangerous it is, the more fun I can have with it. I mentioned it before. It's so cute! (I am a sick puppy, I tell ya) It's a little tiny chainsaw at the end of a pole. I don't even know what it's formally called, and the box is sitting out in the garage, but I am too lazy to go and look at it.
So today, I got home at a half way decent hour and decided to put my toy together. (some assembly required) I am no good at this stuff. I wanna just pull the thing outta the box and fire it up and cut things, but no, I have to assemble some stuff first. So I get the parts out, and the little book, skip over all the safety tips and precautionary notes, cause y'all know they are just there cause the company's lawyers said put 'em in or you'll get sued. The directions and all the other B.S. they write in those books is in three different languages. Now, I don't mind (well, I do, but this isn't the issue here) that they put the damned instructions in three languages, but it's the format they used. They could have put the three languages on separate pages in their own little sections of the book. BUT NO, they had to go and put the three separate languages in their own little PARAGRAPHS all on the same DAMNED page!!! Do you know how frustrating it is to be holding a sharp blade in your fingers while you are trying to find the directions in ENGLISH that tell you what to do with the blade now that it is cutting your fingers. (Yeah, I know, they warned me about wearing gloves while I was doing this part)
Well, I finally got it together and went about trying to find where I last used my extension cord. I swear, someday I will know these things when they first pop into my mind! I found it, and then spent the next ten minutes untangling the dang thing. So I finally got to plug it in, and cut away at that damned tree. Then the chain came off. I broke my new toy. Not permanently broke. I told you I'm not good at this sort of thing, I have no patience for some assembly required. So, tomorrow, I will have to go through all those languages again to find out what step I missed.
It was fun while it lasted. The tree smelled good when I cut what branches I cut. (Like a Christmas tree kind of smell) I can't wait to go at that tree this weekend, cause it's coming down baby!

I Can't Believe I Did It!

I baked two loaves of banana bread this morning before it got hot! Um, well, the girls and I have already eaten one of the loaves. Eeck! But they were SO good! Oh man...you wouldn't believe it! If you want I will post the recipe, I got it off the internet.
I don't like to do work and then sit and wait for the results of that labor. But the store where I work brought in some really, really pretty flower bulbs last week and I couldn't resist. Now, normally, I buy the bulbs and then they sit until they are all dried up and useless. Not because I love throwing money away, but I have brown instead of green thumbs. I bought the bulbs and was determined to plant the dang things before they were garbage.
And I did!
Of course, I picked one of our hottest days of the year to go out and pull the weeds and sweep up the walkway, to prepare to plant those bulbs. I just did the weeding, and took a break. Then I swept the walkway and took a break. It took a while longer than it should have I am sure (But I don't know really, because I have no reference point here)Then I dug and dug and dug. Eight inches is freakin' deep! Oh stop laughing! But I got those bulbs planted and I even put some small redwood bark over the top of the place I planted. Next paycheck I will purchase some of those cute little fence thingys, you know the border things, to put along the edge to keep the bark in place and hopefully the kitties out. Now, I look at that one little tiny spot in my front yard and then turn and look at the rest...oh my...I think I have started something I am going to have to keep going on with. Believe me when I say, the yard looks like CRAP! I do want to do something, but I never know how my energy and money will hold out. It does help that if I planned it right, I could get a lot of the stuff for the front yard from my sister at a more reasonable rate. My neighbors would love it. I need to do something that doesn't require a lot of maintenance.
I came in and gave the big dog a long cool bath and water massage. He just stood there in the bathtub and took it like a champ. Of course, I am sure that the water massage was what kept him there. Now he's all dried off and fuzzy furred cause I washed all the natural oils out of the fur. It'll be back by morning. He seems very content right now.
I just put a roast in the oven. Yeah, I know, crazy...it's hot and I have the oven going on. Can't answer for my cravings. I saw chuck roast on sale so bought one. I put condensed cream of mushroom soup on top of it and then sprinkled dry onion soup mix over that, added some burgundy wine to the baking dish, covered it loosely and popped it in the oven for an hour. I can almost taste it now. Add some steamed rice and your favorite vegetable and you have a dinner fit for a king...or queen. It's one of my mom's recipes that was always my favorite.
While that is cooking I'm going to wash up the dishes and then give the little dog a bath. She doesn't get a massage, I can't bend over the bathtub anymore. I gotta hitch in my getalong now from all the other bending over I have done today. She gets her bath in the washtub out in the garage, so I can stand.
Tomorrow is normally my late day at work, but I traded hours with one of my coworkers, so she could go to an appointment and not miss her hours at work. It'll be nice getting off at a normal hour. That meant I had to call another coworker who I give a ride home to. He's cool with it..he's only seventeen and can take the bus. (I say that like I am above taking the bus, but I'm not, I would, but jeez, I'd get home by 9:30!)
Anyway, you all have a great day tomorrow!