Fall Cleanup

Well Sunday I had a church meeting at 4:30 that lasted until 6:30ish and then zipped home to walk the "wild child" before it got real dark and cold - and forgot to do a post.  So a few days late - but here goes.

 

My hibiscus were still looking pretty good on 10/27/12 - check out the pictures below.  It took me a few seconds to realize what was in the upper right corner of the first picture.....Cruz' nose.  She's such a goober.

 



 

I treated myself (no pun intended) to one of this year's Life is Good Halloween tees.  I wasn't going to get it but somehow the image makes me think of Cruz.......or maybe how she would look with a sheet over her head and body.

Saturday I finally decided I had lost enough leaves in the backyard that it was time to mow (hopefully for the last time this year) with the bag attached to catch the leaves.  I waited until early afternoon for it to be as warm as it was going to get, and the sun started shining, so that helped with the work I had to do.

Lately I had been feeling somewhat sorry for myself that I had to do everything around the house now that Mike is gone.  Take the garbage out - me or it doesn't get done.  Lawn work (or soon to be snow blowing) - me or it doesn't get done.  Cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, dryer finally konks out - you name it - me or it doesn't get done.  And now being in my 50's, that just made it worse in my mind.  But I read in "The Names Of God" that I don't own any of my possessions (home, car, appliances, etc.), everything is God's and He has given me the stewardship to take care of His possessions.  That really hit home when I thought about it and put things in a totally different perspective for me.

So after working on the front lawn Saturday, I headed to the back lawn.  I had used my rechargeable blower in the front yard to get the leaves and pine needles out of the planters and on the grass so the mower would bag everything and when I was finished in the front yard I took the battery out of the blower to recharge it before doing the backyard.  So I headed into the basement to walk over to Mike's workbench to get the battery for the blower and walked smack into one of the overhead vent pipe deals from the furnace - yow.  I have NEVER run into one of those things before but Saturday I made up for it.  I started to cry, grabbed the battery from the charger, muttered to God about being thankful in all situations and kept crying a little as I started to blow the leaves off the rocks in the backyard.  Of course I had no kleenex on me so I used the next best thing - the sleeve of my sweatshirt to take care of my running nose and tears.

I kept plugging away mowing, emptying the bag from the mower into lawn bags and mowing some more.  Then I found it - part of a dead snake.  I just stared at it thinking, "so that's how far you got into the yard after I completely covered you with wasp spray a couple of weeks ago".  And it wasn't that far from my patio - ick.  So I looked at the snake body, and looked at it, and looked at it and finally told myself to stop looking at it, cover it with one of the lawn bags and keep working - so I did.

I have no idea how my handyguy connected my two hoses this past summer but for the life of me (and my niece too) I could not get them to come apart so I could drain them and put them away for the winter.  So I had texted one of the guys from church early Saturday morning if he could help me with my hose issue - he said he could Sunday after church.  I asked him at church Sunday morning if he would be able to pick up a snake body and get rid of it - he said he could.  So after church over come Jim and his wife Katie to help with the hose and snake.  I had my two plastic WalMart bags double-bagged for the body with paper towels ready for Jim to pick up the snake.  I had barely gotten outside, and he had the lawn bag that was sitting on the body as the marker to where the body was - moved, and had started to pick up the snake before I could say "here's a couple of bags for you".  I took one look at what Jim was doing and threw the bags at him and I went the other way - blick, blick, blick.  And before I could say that Jim could put the bags with the body in my trash can, he buried the bags in my lawn bag.  I'm like, "you can't leave the snake in my lawn bag" and his reply was that it would decompose or something like that.  I just looked at him.

He was also able to get my hoses apart - using vice grips - and we stretched them out so they could drain.  After he unhooked the one end from the house he told me I needed some type of cover to go over the spicket (sp?) for winter.  I'm thinking that I hadn't covered either spicket in front or back of the house the past two winters........oops.  So off to True Value the three of us go to find the syrofoam spicket cover dealie.  Got two - one for the front and one for the back.  The front went on slicker than snot but of course the back spicket is not a normal configuration so the cover didn't work.  I went to True Value Monday night to talk to them about what was going on - and showed them the picture of my spicket - they have ordered another cover they had in a supply catalog and we'll see if that works.

And as I headed out to my meeting late Sunday afternoon, I drug my trash bin to the curb placing it by the lawn bags.  I looked at the lawn bag where the plastic bags and snake body were buried, and could just barely see the top of the plastic bags.  I found a stick in the lawn bag that I could unbury the plastic bags with the body, loop the stick through the handles of the bags and dump the bags with the body in my trash bin.............blick, blick, blick.

Girls Weekend and Cruz (of course)

To say work has been stressful the past couple of weeks is a definite understatement but I had my annual Central College Girls Weekend to look forward to this weekend.  My niece was kind enough to say "yes" to coming up and staying at the house with Cruz when I asked her.

 

Friday morning I saw Yellow and Red both had blooms on my hibiscus plants.  I've moved them inside to my enclosed back porch, and they still seem to be doing fairly well.  Check out their pix below.

 

 

 

So I left work at 12:30 on Friday, got some gas and Mickey D's and off to Newton to pick up Jenni.  The last one of us rolled in around 4:30ish.  So after unpacking (somewhat) we headed out to supper a little earlier than we normally did on Friday nights.  After eating at Olive Garden we went to Dress Barn and TJ Maxx for some shopping, then back to the room to get caught up on what's been going on the past year plus look at pictures that some of us brought.

 

Our hotel had a complimentary breakfast so we all funneled down to the eating area at different times Saturday morning.  Then off to Kohl's by the mall on the other side of town.  I was looking for a couple of things - shoes (to replace one of the pairs Cruz had ruined) and long/tall pants for work.  Let's just say at the end of the day I was the only one without a single shopping bag.......and I was disappointed. 

 

If we have time we do a movie at the theater and this year the choice was "Argo".  It was based on the story of bringing out the six Americans that had gotten out of the US Embassy in Iran as it was being overtaken in 1979 - and these six Americans lived/hid at the Canadian Ambassador's house for like 70+ days.  Ben Affleck was in it and he's...just ok in my book but I was pleasantly surprised in both the movie and Ben.  They were both good - and Ben even looked like a hottie with that awful 80's head of hair.

 

Back to the hotel to order Momma Nick's pizza and decide on an inroom movie to watch.  Sometimes our movies are trial-by-error and this year was not that great - Arbitage.  We figured Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon would be good - let me just say if you haven't seen this one yet - don't bother renting it.

 

This morning after breakfast, a little more gab time and settling up the bill with the one that put the rooms on her credit card - off we headed.  Jo to Madison, WI - Claud to Minneapolis, MN - Linda to Rockford, IL and me dropping Jenni off in Newton.  We are thinking of doing something special next year - we had talked about doing it this year but it didn't work out.  We're thinking of VEGAS!!! :)

 

So when I walked into the house - this is what I found in the downstairs back hallway.  That would be left to right starting with the thing by the outlet toward the left:  Kong bone, the white, plastic cosmetic bag that Cruz has been chewing like crazy sitting in front of half of Foxy one of the stuffingless toys (I still haven't found the other half of Foxy....poor Foxy), a mop cover, Squirrel (a grey stuffingless toy), the arm cover of my brown recliner from the living room (this is new) and the Army bag in the foreground that sits on the flowered carry-on bag you can see under the shelving unit in the picture.

So I had laundry to wash, leaves to deal with in the driveway and run to WalMart for groceries along with other things to get done once I got home.  First off I used my rechargable blower to blow leaves off the rocks in the backyard and found a baby garter snake - great.  I did get a chuckle out of blowing the baby snake all over the place as it wanted to get away from all that air....  Anyway - while at WalMart I found a new stuffingless toy for Cruz - Ducky.  Check Ducky out in the picture below in front of Cruz and her crate - and check Cruz out....she's such a goober!

 
I found the picture below on Facebook from a German Shepherd group that I liked.  I saw it last week and immediately burst out laughing because of Cruz and how she gets my kitchen door open.  You can't read the caption in my blog but it says, "Can't open the door they say.  Doesn't have hands with thumbs they say.  I'll show them." 

Digital Scrapbooking ~ Mike's Birthday ~ and More

 

Wednesday would have been Mike's 65th birthday - it was his third one since he died.  It just amazes me how the years are flying by since he's been gone.

 

I'm taking care of my Butler tattoo - done with the hot shower/washes and on to the two weeks of Lubriderm lotion.  The top layer of skin has come off in a couple of rounds and the tat itself doesn't look the best right now but it will.  And the itching came on board last night - I had hoped I would luck out and not have that stage with this tattoo.  Nope.  At least I remembered to slap it - you can't scratch it during this stage.  So I slapped the poo out of my leg last night - and again some today.

 

Chrissy, my niece, stopped by Friday night to learn everything she needs to know to watch Cruz for me next weekend.  I'm off to my annual Central College girls weekend in Waterloo.  I'll leave work around 1:00 p.m. on Friday and get home around 1:00ish on Sunday afternoon.  Before Chrissy drove up I saw the black squirrel in the park running around like crazy and it made me smile - I'm always happy to see that little guy to know he's still alive and kicking.  I hoped he wouldn't run up a tree and disappear before Chrissy got here and he didn't - so she got to see him too.

 

I warned Chrissy about looking for toys in the back stairway and if for some reason when she came in the house and Cruz wasn't in her crate - and the kitchen door was shut - Cruz had gotten herself stuck on the back stairway - what a goober.  I told Chrissy to not even attempt walking Cruz because she can still get a little weird with me at times on our walks.  So when I get home Sunday after being gone all weekend - I think the first thing I'll have to do after unloading the car is take someone for a nice, long walk to "blow off her stink" to use a phrase of my Dad's.

 

Yesterday I spent most of the day at Croptoberfest - a Creative Memories event to work on a digital scrapbook.  I started the book that would be my first vacation without Mike - back to Branson the first time without him from 2011.  That year my sis-in-law and niece went with me and we had a good time - there were some bittersweet moments for me on that trip - but on the whole it was a lot of fun.  I have most of the book done - need to finish it and get it ordered so I can see what it looks like.

 

The last two weeks at work have been crazy - working long hours and not really getting a lunch most days.  Some nights I fall asleep during the evening and then have to wake myself up to go to bed.  Last night I was all excited to watch the NASCAR race that was on ABC and missed over half of it because I fell asleep.  Today my body said "enough is enough" and I just could not get going.  So I ended up not going to church but I did watched church tv.  I'm pretty discouraged about the job situation and some other personal stuff - so my emotions are pretty close to the surface at times. 

 

But seeing Red in bloom on my back porch today made me smile.

 

 



Butler Tattoo and More

While the adventures of Wubba continue - mostly with Wubba being in the back stairway whenever I come home - evidently the white, plastic cosmetic bag that normally lays on my carry-on bag in the downstairs hallway is traveling.  Here it is by my front door when I got home the other day.

 

 

 

Thursday I had my six-month dental appointment.  I love my dental group, they are so friendly and make you feel like they really care and are a part of a little family.  Probably 8 out of 10 times Karen is the hygenist that works on me and I was hoping she would be who I was with for this appointment.  She always asks about Butler and this time I would have to tell her about putting him down and all about Cruz.  Well - the first words out of Karen's mouth when we got into her room were, "You look great!  What have you been doing?"  I'm like "Nothing......but thanks."  :)  We then had quite the talk about Butler and Cruz.

 

Then I had to be at Mid Air & Ink for my 6:30 tattoo appointment.  I got downtown a little early so parked and walked around the Court Avenue district.  I was amazed at all the loft living places that are down there now.  Shortly after I went into Mid Air & Ink my friend Lori showed up.  Lori had gone with me when I got my hibiscus for Mike so she was the first one I asked if she wanted to be there for Butler's tat and she said "yes".

 

I learned from last time when I handed Tattoo Dave (that's what I call him) my phone with a picture of my hibiscus saying this is what I want him to do.  He looked at me and asked if I had any pictures printed out for him.  I'm like nope, sorry, didn't know I had to do that.  This time I had pictures to show him Butler's markings along with the greyhound bus logo that I wanted to be the basic design of this tat.  Below are a few pictures from the experience.

 

I printed the greyhound bus logo out to the size I thought I wanted my tat and colored it in to be "Butler" and then taped it to my leg to see what I thought.  I thought it looked ok but maybe a little too big - so I wanted to get Dave's opinion since he was the pro.  Dave thought the size was perfect - any smaller and there wouldn't be much detail.  I wanted to show Butler's markings where he was white but I didn't want him to have a real white face like he had when he was older.

 

I had decided how I had cut out the greyhound logo didn't work when I taped it to my leg so I cut more around the dog to get a better idea.  Above is Dave starting to free-hand Butler on my leg.

Free-handing is all done - and three Sharpie colors too.  Time for me to look at what Dave had drawn in the mirror to see if I liked it before this became permanent.

Here we go, first jab with the needle.  Dave never lets you look at the tattoo while he's doing it so while I've got two tattoos, I've never seen a tattoo being done in person :)  From the first poke to cleaning off the tat it was right at 30 minutes.  Not too bad - my hibiscus took 2 1/2 hours.  There were a few times when it really hurt but for the most part it was tolerable.

 

I think both tats look pretty good.  Dave decided to do some purple highlighting in my hibiscus - he didn't tell me that until after it was done.  I'm doing the two hot showers each day for five days right now - man that can sure sting when the hot water first hits the tats.  Tuesday I'll be done with those.  Today I started to put Lubriderm lotion on it.  It will eventually itch like crazy and I can't scratch it - I have to slap it.  And then if things go like they did with the hibiscus, I'll lose a very thin layer of skin like peeling from a sunburn.  Dave was really pleased with how the color has held up for my hibiscus.  It helps that neither tat get any sunshine - even when wearing shorts you don't see them.

 

Friday night when I made my usual run to WalMart after work and I was in the Health and Beauty section, I got a little melancholy when I realized I didn't need to buy any more Poise pads now that Butler was gone.  While it was just a little embarassing to have the jumbo package of Poise pads in my cart - I would continue to buy them if Butler was able to be with me.  And I realized I wasn't buying near the paper towels and Duct tape anymore either.  Duct tape to tape his Speedo around him and paper towels to clean up his accidents.

 

After working 5+ hours at work yesterday I came home and decided it was time to attack all the leaves that were in my front yard from my neighbor's tree.  Luckily his tree is almost bare and I gathered the leaves the lazy way - mowing with the bag on my mower :)  I even got to use my rechargable blower to blow the leaves out of my planters.  But even with doing the mower/bag deal I still had to do a lot of bending to pick up leaves to put in my lawn bags because of so many leaves in my driveway - three bags total for the front yard.  Then this morning when I left for church - my tree in the parking decided to dump a bunch of its leaves last night in my front yard and driveway.....

 

I had brought White, Red and Yellow hibiscus inside my enclosed back porch the other night when we were going to have our first hard freeze.  They are all three doing pretty good and enjoying being back outside for this afternoon.  Unfortunately Pink didn't look too good, so she is in the dumpster.  I also decided to bring in my solar fountain yesterday.  Got the bowls all cleaned and stacked together and found a place for them to stay in the basement for the winter.

 

This morning I helped with one of our children's groups at church - Waves which are K-2nd grade.  We learned about King Solomon's wisdom and how the Queen of Sheba traveled to meet Solomon and asked him lots of questions.  The pictures below are the kidlets making their crowns so all the girls could be "Queens of Sheba" and the boys could be "King Solomons".  There were quite a few kids missing today too.  After church we took our annual church photo outside - I had hoped the pic woul be on LWF's Facebook page so I could save it and put it in my blog today - maybe next week.

 

Lastly Wednesday will be a little emotional for me - it would have been Mike's birthday.  I can't believe this is the third one since he's been gone.