another day

Yesterday the video I posted was not necessarily how traffic is all the time. That was at around 2:30 in the afternoon and lighter than normal. With that being said, even on the worst days, traffic is not bad around here. Now if I go to the next larger town it will be quite a bit more.

The whole point I'm leading up to is that yesterday I got stuck behind a school bus and then a big truck hauling logs. When I had to stop for the bus I took a picture here and there.

Here's one of them. It's kind of blah so you know what comes after this picture right?

It's the edited version.

Ride along

I thought you might like to ride along with me to see the kind of traffic I deal with on a regular basis.

You may want to turn the sound down because I didn't have the radio on and I wasn't talking except I did say oops when my cell phone fell over.  Just so you don't worry about me doing this while driving I pulled over and leaned my phone up against the dash then set the camera to record before pulling back out on the road.

Oh and I apologize for my no show yesterday. I had it scheduled to come up saying I was taking the day off but somehow it reverted to draft and never posted.

The art of procrastination

It would appear that I am becoming an expert at it. Ever since the fair ended and my vacation began I've been putting off all kinds of things and opting for more sedentary choices.

I've tried to do some crafting and although I have the materials needed for the projects I can't get myself to work on them.

I have photos that I could edit and prepare for posting yet I scramble to find one at the last minute. Except for yesterday, I never even got that far.

Am I becoming too lazy or am I preparing for the dormant days ahead?

Sorry if I disturbed you

It wasn't my intention to bother anyone with my mournful cries this morning but I was overwhelmed with grief at the passing of my vacation. It is with a heavy heart that I return to work today.

It was the laziest, most perfect vacation. I did a wee bit of crafting, a wee bit of shopping and mostly sat around sipping cold drinks and reading. It was a flip flop week and it really sucks that have to put on socks today.

From the back yard

I looked out back the other day and couldn't figure out what I was seeing near the back of the yard. I grabbed my camera just in case it was something worth taking a picture of.

I thought they were rather interesting looking so I took two pictures. I've never seen any like these before.

Another jar.

I did a second candle jar that I haven't gotten around to showing you yet. This one has a Halloween theme.

And here it is with a candle in it.

Well my weeks vacation is almost over. I didn't make any plans but I did think I would do more crafting than what I have. I've been pretty lazy most of the week and it's been very nice. The weather has been great but quite humid and it's kind of sucked the energy out of me. I did go in to work yesterday to do my order and pick up my check and  I was able to catch up on all the stuff going on there. It seems there's been a bit of excitement going on with one person dropping 4 deli trays that someone ordered and saying "oh well, not my problem" then calling off the next day. Then there was another one who called up Wednesday night to quit with no notice and she was scheduled to open on Thursday. And here I've been just lounging on my deck enjoying the day.

I'm being colorful

Every now and then I like to do selfies using facebook messenger because there are so many fun things you can add to your pictures.

I took a bunch the other day and this effect was so cool and colorful. The colors keep changing until you snap the picture so you get a different look every time. I made a collage of 4 of the ones I took.

I guess I lied

I know I said yesterday that it was the end of the parade pictures but I changed my mind and I'm doing another.

How could I not show you our home town floats.

Or this guy. I would be afraid of falling off that thing.

Then of course there are all the little ones who are just so cute.

This little girl was adorable

Last but not least this picture just cracked me up. It makes me think of one of those movies that has the really mean girls. The blonde on the left looks like she's yelling at the girl on the right. I can hear her saying something like "What is wrong with you, you are stepping with the wrong foot"

Last of the parade

I have lots more pictures but I'm making this the last day for parade pictures then I'll move on to something else.

Since this is a very small town we don't have the great big elaborate floats. Around here they are hay wagons that either just have a sign hanging on the side of them or in some cases they are decorated up with a nice little setting.

Aside from that in our parade you'll see...

Marching bands

Tractors of all sizes

Monster trucks. In these parts it's become a big thing to take these out muddin'. Don't ask me to explain muddin' other than you go out run your truck through mud and get it really dirty.

And last but not least we have horses. Normally the horses are somewhere in the middle of the parade and then being that horses leave calling cards, those behind them have to be careful where they step. They finally got smart and the horses were at the end of the parade.

Going to the dogs

I double dog dare you to say this isn't cute.

This guy is sitting pretty while he rides in the parade.

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a dog but those are some pretty odd looking back paws. They look more like webbed duck feet.

Yesterday Jerry left this comment: Did you let Gibbs out in the yard as the parade passed by? One of the most delightful pictures you took of Duke had him up on his hind legs watching the horses as they passed by. Please forgive me if that resurrected a painful memory.

I had to go in search of the picture he was talking about. Duke loved a good parade. Unfortunately Gibbs is not as good at being a good spectator. He would bark non stop and be generally disruptive and annoying. He has to stay inside when the parade is going on

I don't know about you but...

...it really gets my goat,

When people are clowning around in the street.

I took 178 pictures of the fair parade as it passed by my house. Now I just need to get some pictures ready to post.

Day 1 of my vacation yesterday was spent doing very little. We did go to the fair and eat and then a little walking around. The weather was perfect for it.

Home stretch

Finally I'm on the last day of the one week a year I hate the most. I'll be doing a happy dance at 2:30 this afternoon.

Just a little chart I made myself for what had to be done plus one scribbled order

I had a total of:

10 dozen cookies
29 dozen cake donuts
10 dozen assorted donuts
206 loaves of Italian bread
180 club rolls
72 hoagie rolls

For some reason when I type it all out it doesn't sound like it's all that much and honestly it's much less than it has been in past years.

The bulk of this will be done before I leave today. The only thing that they will have to do tomorrow is 6 dozen cake donuts plus an additional 4 dozen assorted donuts.

Oh my stars

A new ornament this year. I saw these crocheted stars on pinterest and really liked the way they looked.
The pattern I found for them came from a blog called One Dog Woof

I'm planning on doing them in different colors

So far I've done red and sort of a tan that has flecks of other colors in it.

Gibbs says that nobody wants to see stupid crocheted stars when they could be looking at him. I hate to admit it but he's probably right.

You gotta eat a lot of potato chips

The project I'm going to show you today starts by eating some potato chips. I've shown these before but I sold all but one of them at the last craft show so I'm making some more.

These are made with a small single serve Pringles potato chip can.

This is actually the one left over from before. The ones I made Monday aren't completely done. I still need to make the lids, plus I'm painting them this time. Or at least I've painted two and want to see which way I like them better. The barrel slats are clothespins that have been taken apart and glued to the side of the can.

3rd times a charm

I'm off to work today but yesterday I spent my day off doing enough to be able to schedule three posts for this week.

For today, although it's still not perfect, the third attempt at putting that napkin on the glass jar worked much better. It's wrinkled which is ok, but there aren't all kinds of tears and holes in it this time.

The top edge was a little rough but I was planning on adding the jute twine any way.

I took it in the dark bathroom so I could do a night time version

As a side note, Some of you mentioned yesterday that they should have had my oven fixed for fair week. Actually it's been having issues for a while and they have been working on it. It was fixed and then we had a brown out that messed things up. They ordered new parts that took forever to get there then something else went on it. It was fixed a week ago and then the last few days it had started acting up but was still usable. Sunday it decided it just didn't feel like working at all. I stopped in the store yesterday morning and the guy who works on it was there so hopefully it's going to behave when I get to work today

Fair week

Tomorrow is the start of fair week in our little town. Those of you who have been with me for a while know what that means for me. For anyone who's new around here let me explain. I am the bakery manager in the one and only grocery store here. The closest grocery store to us is roughly 15 miles away. Any way this week I do lots of baking for the fair. To make it even worse this year one of my two ovens isn't working. It's going to be a long week and if I don't post you'll know that I was just too tired or stressed to put the effort in to coming up with something.

I'll leave you with Gibbs for now. At least I know that when this week is over I'll be off all next week. I'm starting my countdown now.

Not everything goes according to plan

I'm always happy to show you my completed craft projects. If they make the blog I'm at a minimum satisfied with how they came out. I probably give you the wrong idea about my crafting adventures though. 

Today you get a rare look at a failure.

I bought these jars at Dollar Tree. I liked the lid with the tea light holder attached and knew they would make a great craft show item once decorated. For $1 how could I pass these up

The plan was to cover them with with napkins using mod podge. It was a good plan that went terribly wrong. This is what one looked like after I tore half of the napkin back off because I ripped it in several places and it looked horrible.

As long as I'm revealing my failure here I'll be completely honest and tell you that this was the second time I tore a napkin back off. I had another one on there and I had the same problems as this one so I washed it all off and the picture above was the second attempt.

If anyone has any experience with doing something like this I would greatly appreciate any pointers you might have

Now that's a Friday

Yesterday was the best Friday I've had in a very long time. I think I should have every Friday off. But then I also think that I should have 7 days a week off too.

I went out early and did my weekly Walmart trip a day early. I came home and did laundry. I finished putting together the sheep ornaments so I now have 12 completed. I started some new ornaments and have 3 totally done and 2 almost there. These are all felt

I was going to stuff them a little but then changed my mind. I also considered sewing them on the machine but then opted for hand stitching them instead.

Aside from all of this I managed to do a little reading as well. Then of course there was making dinner which was sausage sandwiches with peppers, onions and mushrooms. Yum yum.

Hopefully today will be as productive.

Maybe, maybe not

Lately it seems like there is at least one night a week where after dinner I just can't keep my eyes open and I end up falling asleep on the couch.

I think that Gibbs is zapping me with his laser eyes

If you find yourself disagreeing with my theory there is a good possibility that he's zapped you too

Donut look good

Ok so I'm being lazy and if you follow me on facebook you saw this yesterday.

I snapped a picture of a tray of donuts yesterday morning before I put them out in the case.

Everything in this picture is fat and calorie free. Maybe if you could eat the picture it would be a different story.

What is so difficult about that.

More and more I'm seeing people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. Nothing is ever their fault or they deny being involved at all. It's not just younger people either. It's all ages. What is so hard about saying I'm sorry, I was wrong, my mistake, I try my best not to do that again?

One such case of passing the blame is just far to funny for me not to pass up telling. Being a deli/bakery area, nail polish is not permitted while working. We tell people that and it's even posted on a dress code policy that is right over the time clock.

One girl came in with it on and because she kept gloves on I didn't notice it but was told after the fact that she had it on. She came in again with it on and the deli manager caught her and told her it was not allowed. Her response was that she was told it was ok because it was the gel kind and it doesn't chip off. She was told that was incorrect, no nail polish of any kind.

Fast forward to her next shift, a Sunday, working with me and she comes in wearing nail polish. I told her she couldn't work with it on. She acted totally surprised and said "I can't"  I told her she had already be told, it's posted over the time clock and I could not allow her to work with it on. She tried a few excuses that it would take her a long time to get it off and she needed special stuff to remove it. I said I was sorry, she could come back when she had it off but I couldn't let her work with it on.

Two days later I heard that I was totally out of line for sending her home, I should have just written her up and I needed therapy for my anger issues. This came from another part time deli employee.

How did this turn from an employee breaking the rules to me needing therapy?  Sometimes I really do feel like I work with a bunch of preschoolers.

That's a lot for doing nothing

There may not have been any laboring yesterday but I accomplished quite a bit. I took two walks, I read and I worked on making some ornaments.

I've made these before but since I sold the last of them at the craft show I decided to make some more.

The body is a single crochet around a shower curtain ring. The head is cut from felt and the legs are twigs found in my back yard. I also glued a little bit of the yard to tops of the heads. I had six that were comletely done and at the time this post was composed I had 6 more that just needed to be assembled.

I got the idea for these a long time ago from a lovely lady named Marie. She used to blog at Spun by me but hasn't posted in a long time. I believe these days she's mainly doing facebook and instagram

No laboring today

Happy Labor Day to all my U.S. readers. No laboring for me today. I'll be enjoying the day off doing as little as possible.

I found a picture of the store I work at online and borrowed it for this very short post

This and that

Yesterday was cold and windy. After I had my morning coffee and got myself moving I decided it felt like a goulash kind of day. It might not look all that good in the picture but it tasted pretty good.

Even though this is a long weekend for most people in the U.S. with it being Labor day weekend, it isn't for me. It's just an ordinary weekend like all the others. I had yesterday off, work today and have Monday off. Just like every other week. I do get paid for the holiday so I get another day off during the week since the holiday falls on my regular day off. This time around I have Friday off so this coming weekend I'll actually get two days off in a row. Looking forward to that.

Yesterday Pam from Life through My Eyes asked how old Gibbs was.

Gibbs is 3 years old. As a matter of fact he just had a birthday not too long ago. He was born August 23, 2014.

Yesterday I tried to do some playing in the craft room. I picked up a few things, started some things but all in all, it was not a productive craft day. I guess I just wasn't in the mood. I opted for reading instead.

Back to school

Tuesday was the first day back to school around here. There were a lot of happy mothers that day. Me, it doesn't make much difference any more. I did enjoy the first two days of school though since I managed to avoid all the buses. I guess they were running a little behind.
Yesterday they were back on schedule and now I remember how much I hate getting stuck behind one.

Back in the day, our entire neighborhood met at one end of the block and that's where they picked all of us up and dropped all of us off at the end of the day. Now they will stop at the end of each and every driveway even if it is 3 or 4 houses right in a row. It makes me crazy.

On a side note, where did August go? I can't believe it's already September 1st.