A new spin on things

Recently I made a new card.

So what's so new and different from any other card I've made? Well just look for yourself.

And so it begins

I had to run to Walmart yesterday for a couple things and surprise surprise guess what I saw

 I'm not one for seeing Christmas decoration show up this early in the stores but it's a bit like a train wreck you don't want to see it but you can't help looking

A repeat

Years ago, I took pictures of all the cakes I made and created a book for people to look at when ordering cakes. It gave them some ideas for what they could have on a cake and they got to see roughly how their cake would look. Some cakes I've done numerous times. This is one that I've done at least three times that I can think of. 

A weighty matter again

 After a day off for sleeping on the couch after work, I finally got around to reading the comments from my post the other day. I thought I would use those for todays post.

Some of you asked if I remembered something called Metrecal. No, can't say that I have.

On the subject of packing up and saving off sized clothes. I wish I would have. I ended up feeling so depressed about my weight that I just knew I would never get back in to some of them and I had to get rid of them all.

How I do this. I substitute 2 meals for shakes. I have a shake for breakfast and one for lunch. Then I have 3 100 calorie snacks per day. I've found a variety of things I can have for snacks such as 100 calorie cereal bars, pudding or fruit cups, yogurt, and even single serve tuna packets. As for the laxative effect, it doesn't bother me too much but I've read that if you didn't have much fiber in your diet prior to using SlimFast that it could give you problems.

Amount of loss? I think the amount of pounds I lost was misrepresented in my last post. It looked like it said twenty two pounds but in fact it actually said two point two pounds. I wish it had been 22 but I'll take anything as long as it's going in the right direction. The actual total is probably higher but from September 1 to September 18 I didn't have a scale to weigh myself. 

A weighty matter

I have been unhappy with my weight for quite some time now. I tried over and over to change my eating habits and have failed each time. In the past I was successful using Slim-Fast so I thought I would give it a try again

 I started September 1st and although I don't know exactly how much weight I've lost, I do know that I have lost some. When I first started up I went to weigh myself but the battery in my scale was too low. It took me until this past Saturday to finally get a new scale. I've been weighing myself every morning to check my progress and each morning my weight has been just a tiny bit less. So far this week I have lost 2.2 pounds.  Since I started with the Slim-Fast I've been able to give up the sweet treats that I was eating way too much of. It also works well to curb my cravings.

The only bad thing about this is that a few months back I was feeling rather depressed about my weight and cleaned out all the clothes that didn't fit me any more and donated them. If I lose enough weight I won't have any clothes that fit me.

My lucky day.

Sunday at work I had two different customers give me a tip. The first came from a customer that I did a donut order for. The second was from a customer who had over $400 worth of groceries and I bagged them and helped take them to their car. I'm not a frequent lottery player but every now and then I will plug a few dollars into the machine just for fun. Since The $7 I received from the customers was simply extra cash I decided to buy a couple tickets.

When I got home from work I scratched my tickets to see if I had won anything. What a surprised to discover that one of the tickets was a $100 winner. After receiving my winnings I pocketed $80 and put 20 more dollars back into the ticket machine only to win $10 more. I put that $10 back in and won $25. That sure was a lucky $7.

High anxiety

Last Friday I got home from work tired and just ready to end the day. I grabbed the mail as I walked into the house. There was a letter from the Erie County Courthouse

I opened it up and started reading. SAY WHAT?

I immediately went in to panic mode. My house is being sold for back taxes from 2019 and prior? How can that be. The bank who held my mortgage was supposed to be paying those taxes and why was this the first I was hearing about this.

$4,285.80 in back taxes. I just didn't understand how this could be possible. My heart was racing, I was crying and getting near hysterics. I called the number on the letter and the woman asked me if the address for the property in question was different than my own. That's when I noticed it. The address was on Wayne Street in Erie. She explained that when they send out these letters in an attempt to reach the property owner they send them to any name that is even close to the property owners. 

I breathed a huge sigh of relief and was able to enjoy the rest of the evening. Had I not been so tired I may have noticed the property address on the letter. It sure had me scared there for a few minutes though.

While I was out

I was out running errands yesterday and came across this truck. I had to stop and get a picture of it

Q&A from yesterday

 There were several questions in the comments yesterday so today I'll answer those.

Sandra asked if this was the fair parade. Yes it was. Even if I don't visit the fair at all, I sit out in my front yard to watch the fair parade on Saturday. I love that it goes right by my house.

Ginny said "I be you didn't even get paid extra. Well I did work overtime so there was OT pay but the first 40 hours were regular pay. I did tell my boss that I should get a bonus. He told me to hold on, walked out and came back with a choice of either a roll of painters tape, a can of flex all or some calking. If nothing else my boss does have a sense of humor.

Ginny also asked about the candy being thrown. Yes, just about every organization that marches in the parade has candy that they throw out to kids. 

Anni said she'd rather have a beer while watching the parade. Since I can't even stand the smell of beer I stuck with coffee. She also asked about my having to make sure all orders were ready and out the door. Some were bakery orders others were not. There are two different organizations that order from us for the fair. The Lions Club has a chicken dinner and they order Italian bread from the bakery and they also get pints of milk that they sell as one of their beverage options. The other organization that has a food tent order just about all their stuff from us. They get milk, grocery items, hot dogs, water and a lot of other things too numerous to mention. I also baked pies for them this year.

Now that you've sat through all those answers, here's a short video of the horses that were in the parade.

I survived

I survived another fair week at work. I am so thankful that it's finally over. Not only did I have all the extra bakery work but one of the managers took the week off for vacation so I was covering office and making sure that fair orders were out the door when people came to pick them up. It was a pretty exhausting week and if I didn't fall asleep when I got home I had little energy left for anything but vegetating on the couch. 

Yesterday morning I had a wonderful slow start to the day. I read blogs and drank coffee until it was time to go out front and watch the parade go by.

I can tell you that very little candy is thrown at an old woman sitting alone watching the parade A little boy that were marching in the parade was sweet enough to toss me some.

Other than that I spent the day reading, watching tv and doing laundry. Unfortunately it's back to work today but at least I know there won't be quite as much work. Or at least I hope there won't be.

Here's two

Today just a couple of cakes I've done at work recently that haven't made it to the blog yet.

This first one they asked for fall colors.

I don't know why they wanted this one frosted green but I thought it looked rather ugly.

Something to avoid

I can't be positive about the ID on these but I took a picture using google lens and it identified them as Bittersweet.

This dead tree sits just off of my property line. The property belongs to the doctors office behind me. The people who mow for them mow around all the branches that have fallen off of this tree and the weeds are getting quite high around this tree. There are lots of these red berries around the tree so I went out to take a picture of them.

I could complain about this but a couple years ago I mentioned it to someone at the borough office and they told me to contact the doctors office. I even went as far as contacting the doctors office and they said they would look into it. The tree still stands, the weeds still grow. I'm done with it.

So true.

I may have down days like I did the other day but when it comes right down to it...

A relaxing day off

And I'm going to need it. This is fair week here. If you've been with me for a while you know that means extra work for me. 

My kindle has been drained for quite a while but I decided I needed to plug it in and charge it. Yesterday morning it was ready for me to settle in and do some reading.

I also attempted to charge my tablet but for some reason it will no longer charge at all. I'm contemplating upgrading the newest Fire tablet since I've had my current kindle since 2012. Maybe that would make a good Christmas gift to myself this year.

I just have to say

I love you guys. Your comments yesterday were so thoughtful and they really did help lift my spirits. I definitely liked the idea of eating those chocolates myself. 

I may not have indulged in a box of chocolates but I did cook up a pot of comfort food. I made Chicken Alfredo Tortellini Soup. The recipe came from THIS SITE. I didn't follow the recipe exactly but pretty close and it was delicious. I'll save this one to make again.

A post that shouldn't be written

 And yet, here I am writing it any way. I'm tired, I'm stressed and anxiety is setting in. When I get like this I feel very alone in the world. It's also when all the things that I can normally deal with seem to become extra large and weigh me down.  It isn't any one thing that has me feeling this way. It's a combination of things. If I don't post as much or suddenly do a disappearing act, you'll know I'm experiencing a mini melt down. 

So why shouldn't this post be written? Because I don't like my blog to be all "woe is me". And now that I have written this post I feel like I owe you some flowers and candy. 

Changing of the seasons.

This past Monday since it was my day off and I didn't feel like doing much of anything else I decided to change out some of the decorations in my house and move into fall. Here are just a few of the things I put out.

this is on a table in the Ann cave

On my coffee table in the living room

On one side on the top of my fake fireplace.

Through the window

I took a few pictures through my living room window the other day. Summer really is winding down. 

What does Gibbs think

Gibbs doesnt think much about bills. Rather than pay them he has other plans for them

Don't you just love the one eyed stare? As for the ruler on the floor, I have no idea what it's doing there.

The saga of the cake

 I thought yesterdays cake post was a one time deal but since so many were curious about it I thought I would continue the story.

The reason I know about the demise of the cake is because it was for an employee who was celebrating her birthday. She told another employee who told me the story. Let me just say that this girl and her boyfriend are a daytime drama all by themselves. Both are young, as in early 20s. The boyfriend has no job and is supported by the girlfriend. She frequently comes in to work with bruises and tells everyone about how he beat her up. She'll say that she kicked him out but two days later he's back. In the beginning I felt sorry for her but the more I hear I just can't any more. When she's telling the story about how he pushed her around, or tried to choke her or whatever else, she's smiling and laughing about it. Several of us have told her she needs to dump the guy because things will only get worse. 

Aside from the boyfriend issues, let me mention about the dog who sat on the cake. She just got the dog. Ok, so what's wrong with that? Who doesn't like to have a pet? Well nothing is wrong with getting an animal if you can afford it. This girl was crying that she didn't have any electric because it had been shut off. Call me crazy but getting the electric turned back on should come before getting a dog. 

cake

Just another cake order

The girl who ordered this picked it up and then her boyfriend wasn't paying attention when he put this in the car and their dog ended up sitting on it. Apparently it was destroyed before they eve got to eat it.

Taxing

Sorry about the disappearing act yesterday. I worked a couple of 10 hour days last week and I guess they were a bit taxing on my energy level. Friday was one of them and when I got home I made dinner and then it was lights out on the couch until midnight when I woke up and went to bed.

Speaking of taxes, this came in the mail recently.

That was the bill for my school taxes which was due 8/31 in order to get the discount. I got in on the 26th. The post it note was attached to my actual bill explaining what happened. Apparently it went to someone else by mistake and they took their good old time getting it back to the tax collector. It was a good thing I had the money in my savings account to pay it. A couple days before this came a Facebook memory came up where I had asked if you could drop these off to the tax collector any time or if it was only during certain hours. Had it not been for that I would have totally forgotten about them being due. 

Funny Friday

 

The happy couple

A while back my daughter Amanda sent me a text with a picture asking me if I could make something for her if she bought the materials. I went online, found the cut file and then purchased some signs from Dollar Tree to repurpose for this project.

Here is the finished project

Updated

This is the third and final time I'm going to show you this wreath that I made. I finally made a decision on what else to add to it to finish it off. 

The harvest blessing piece that I added to the bottom was taken off of a dollar tree sign that I repurposed for another craft project. Ill show you that tomorrow. Everything else I added were things that I found in my craft stash