Happy Halloween

 “DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE; FIRE BURN, AND CAULDRON BUBBLE.” – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“A PERSON SHOULD ALWAYS CHOOSE A COSTUME WHICH IS IN DIRECT CONTRAST TO HER OWN PERSONALITY.” – LUCY VAN PELT FROM IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN

Two days of spooky

 Ok so spooky may be overstating it a bit. I dug in the archives to find Halloween related pictures for today and tomorrow.

Today is supposed to be rainy and cold all day so I've yet to decide if I want to venture out to take care of some errands or stay home and hibernate.

cake 2 of 2

No fall colors on this one. The customer requested a blue border and yellow flowers 

I wonder what Mel did that they were thankig him for.

Cake 1 of 2

There are two cake orders that I did recently at work. Since I have so little to blog about I'm spreading it out into two different post. So here is cake 1 of 2

Shoes

No, I haven't found any shoes yet but this is a story involving shoes. After I picked out the dress my daughter asked me what color shoes I was going to get and I said black. She suggested that I could also wear silver. Well, personal thought on that was, where exactly am I ever going to wear a pair of silver shoes again. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a black pair. 

Any way, I headed to The Shoe Department in the mall to see what I could find. I saw this pair of shoes in the window.

I took a picture of them and as a joke, sent it to my daughter figuring I would get a response like "mother are you kidding?". Nope, her response was those come in silver too. She was checking the stores website to see what they had. Then I even saw the silver ones on the shelf.

My thoughts on these shoes? I would kill myself wearing a heel that high.

The dress

I was going to post this yesterday. I got home from work Sunday and took the pictures but that's as far as I got. I didn't sleep well Saturday night so by the time I got home Sunday I was pretty tired and fell asleep easily on the couch.

So here it is today. For now you only get to see it on the hanger. The color in the picture isn't really accurate. In person I think it's more of a greenish blue 

There are two layers, the bottom  and then the top lace layer. Then it has sequins all over it so it gives it a little bling.

Dress shopping

Yesterday morning was dark, rainy and gloomy and all I wanted to do was curl up under a blanket. Instead I forced myself to get dressed and get out the door nice and early to go dress shopping. I only have about a month left before Amanda's wedding so I needed to find something.

First I went to Kohls and would you believe I didn't see one dress in the whole store. I may not have been looking in the right spot but there was nothing. Next stop, Target. Same thing. Well almost, I did see a few but they were so totally wrong.

 

My next stop was the Millcreek Mall. There I would be able to check Boscovs, Macys and JC Penney.

Luckily I found several to try on at my first stop which was Boscovs. I tried on 5 or 6 and the one I liked the most was of course the most expensive of them all. I took a picture in the dressing room to send to Amanda but I'm not about to share that one here. Maybe I'll take another one of the dress and of course the day of the wedding I'll get a picture. Now to find shoes.

A quick question for you

How do you annoy a skeleton?

 

You can't! Nothing gets under their skin.

Q&A

 Lets end the week with a few questions or comments that were made throughout the past week.

Monday there were some questions regarding my daughter getting married. I guess I never mentioned it but yes, she's getting married the day after Thanksgiving. Just a small gathering of family.

Wednesday a few of you commented on talking to other players while playing games. The nice thing about the gin rummy that I play is that while you can talk to your opponent, you can only choose from a list of words and phrases what you want to say. That way like Ginny mentioned, you don't get people hitting on you when you are trying to play a game. I normally choose to just ignore the other person if they try and chat with me.

Andrea mentioned that sometimes she wonders if the people she's playing against are sometimes automated instead of real people. I've often wondered the same thing. It's possible that if they can't find a live player they just put you up against the computer.

Yesterday I talked about my new schedule and having to close a couple nights a week.

Ginny asked if I refused would they have fired me. Honestly, no, I do believe so. He has very few "good" employees and he told me recently that me and the deli manager are about the only two in the store he can count on.

Sandra asked what time does the store close. We are open from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. so yes, closing would definitely mess with my sleep. I'm normally in bed sometime between 8:30 and 9:00.

Sandra also asked and Rose wondered too if I would go in late on the days I closed and if the days would change. Yes, I would go in late it would likely be a 1:00 to 9:00 shift and once the days were set it wouldn't change unless someone needed a day off.

Beside the Babbling brook asked if I really had to do this or if I was just being nice. I did tell the boss that I didn't want to do it but I would and that I wanted it to be temporary which he said it would be.

Well he handed me a schedule the other day and I wan not happy about it at all. This was just for next week while I did a couple nights with the manager who's retiring. I've closed before but things have changed so I need a refresher. 2 nights would have been enough. Any way I complained about how he had it and asked if I could edit it which he said he figured I would. I gave him my suggestions and he didn't say much. Wednesday I asked him if I was supposed to post the schedule the way it was and he said no. Yesterday he brought me a new schedule with my hours back to normal. Apparently he worked something out and now I won't have to do the nights. YIPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Just stuff

Tuesday morning when I left for work it was only 43 degrees and when I was on my way home it was 70. The nights are getting much colder and I actually broke down and turned the thermostat up in my house. I don't normally let the furnace run this early in the year but it was feeling extremely chilly. Monday on my day off I made sure to get all the storm windows put in to help keep the cold out.

Sunday at work I had another cake order to do. They wanted an orange border and light purple flowers

So we have a manager that works just 3 days a week. This was a job he started after he retired from working as a prison guard. Well he's decided that he is ready to retire completely and his last day will be Oct 26. Unfortunately for me, the boss wants me to take over closing the two nights a week that the other closing manager is off. I told him I don't want to but I'll do it. So there goes my schedule again getting all messed up. I told him this better be temporary because I hate doing this. We shall see.

My opponent

One of my favorite games to play on my phone is gin rummy. You play against other people. Everyone creates their own character that they can add whatever skin, hair color they want and add different accessories.

The other day the person I was playing against a guy who's name was C.g. but it looked remarkably like Sandra's husband Bob if you ask me.

witchy

On a recent trip to Walmart I wondered down the Halloween isle and saw these witches. I thought of Anni right away.

something old

I got a text from my daughter Saturday saying "So I was wondering if you might have something for "borrowed" or "old" I have blue and new.

Well honestly jewelry was the first thing I thought of but I'm not a big jewelry person and most of what I have is junk. I dug into what I had though and found these three things. 

The ring I bought for myself when I was in high school.

The heart pin I think was my great grandmothers. It's missing a stone but has the letter A and my great grandmothers name was Anna

The brooch I'm not really sure who it belonged to but I'm pretty sure my mother gave it to me a long time ago.

 

Then I found this.

This belonged to my dad. It still has the picture of his parents on one side. Whatever he had on the other side is missing. I'm assuming it might have been a picture of an old girlfriend.

The back is engraved with his name and maybe his serial number from when he was enlisted.

fall décor

Just a quick look at some of the fall décor I have sitting on top of my basement desk.

This may sounds weird but when I sit here at this desk, I can picture Wade when he used to sit here and play games or do whatever else it was he did when he was at his computer. I think he would be happy that I am using his space again.

So yesterday was dark and rainy all day long. It was the perfect day to sit in front of the computer for far too long, drinking way too much coffee. I did eventually get moving and got my laundry done and cleaned up a mess I had in the kitchen. Other than that it was a nice day to sit and read. 

There were supposed to be two

I had two cake orders to do at work yesterday but I forgot to take a picture of the second one I did. So instead I'll just show you two pictures of the first cake I did.

This was supposed to be scheduled to publish at 12:30 a.m. however this morning I come to my computer to find it still sitting here waiting for me to finish it off. I think my brain is on overload.

Disappointed and dicouraged

 First the disappointment. When I ordered the fire tablet I also ordered a Bluetooth keyboard case. That item shipped separate and was supposed to arrive yesterday. When it didn't I went to track the package to see where it was. 

First I see this

Well that was annoying so  I did further investigating and found this

So on Sunday it was in California and on Monday they sent it back to Amazon? But why? I suppose I'll wait to see if there is a credit on my card before I try and order anything else. That just really ticked me off.

Now for the discouraged part. 

When I first started tracking my weight after beginning the slim fast, the first two weeks I was perfectly satisfied with my progress. The third week was a struggle and this week I started off being up from Saturday then it was two days up one day down a bit and then back up again. I'm ready to give up. I don't do well when I don't see progress.

Are you hungry?

I've got lots to choose from.

 

You could make a sandwich on a fresh onion roll. These smell amazing when they come out of the oven. 

 

Maybe you want something sweet instead. I've danish in either raspberry, apple or lemon. 

Men at work

 I'm heading home yesterday, I get to the stop sign and all I need to do is make a right and I'm the first house on the right. There is a road closed sign sitting there because they are working on resurfacing the road. The flag girl sees my turn signal and heads towards my car. I roll down my window and tell her that's my house right there. She says ok and lets me go through. 

After letting Gibbs out I went out front and took a couple videos because why not? It's blog material right?

sky high

I snapped a picture when I was leaving work one day lat week. Gas prices have gone up again.

 

What is the price where you live?

just the facts

I thought I would tell you about the computer I got and what better way than to show you the box with all the facts

I did a thing.

 Actually, I've done a couple things lately that have been all about ME. I decided that this year I would buy myself Christmas gifts, wrap them, and put them under the tree so Gibbs and I can open presents on Christmas morning. Silly yes but who cares. I already have a couple things ready. I purchased two things recently that I didn't really need so I decided I would save them to give myself for Christmas. I just realized as I was typing this that I'll have a post for after Christmas to show all the gifts I got myself.

Any way, yesterday I was on Amazon. I've been wanting a new fire tablet because my kindle is getting pretty old and my Samsung tablet bit the dust. I had gotten an email advertising a deal on the latest fire tablet so I went to check it out. With the deal they were offering, the cash back points I've earned using my Prime visa card and the $50 gift card I got from a sweet friend (thanks again) I made the purchase. I think I'll save this for a Christmas gift even though it's scheduled to arrive on Monday.

The other thing I did happened after I had that really BAD Friday at work. I've been wanting a computer for the room formerly known as the man cave. Wade's desk has sat empty and if I want to use my computer I have to go upstairs. Well, you guessed it. I purchased and all in one computer. I'm loving that room more and more all the time. 

Here's my cozy little corner for hanging out on my computer.

And here's a view from the steps looking down into the room.

You'll notice my faithful little companion is right there too.

walk in my shoes

Go ahead. They're really quite cofortable. 

TGIF

Yay it's Friday! I have two choices I can either skip logging again or I can post some stuff I found on Facebook. I'm going to do that

Recent comments

 First off from the comments on my post about the most recent cake order I did at work.

Andrea said Oh how fun, Ann, and a very good suggestion. Our local mom 'n pop grocery store does character cakes all the time. I wonder if they're breaking the law?! Probably!

Actually, you can do character cakes under certain circumstances. I can purchase either an edible image or what's called a deco pac which contains various pieces to put on a cake. These are ok to use no matter what character it is. However, if I freehand draw a licensed character that is considered copyright infringement.

On my post regarding the shower fizzies a lot of you confessed to doing similar things. It's nice to know I'm not alone. 

On my post regarding my really bad day at work last Friday Catherine said Ann you need a 2 week vacation, some place restful but beautiful - away from both home and people. 

Well Catherine, I couldn't agree more. It would be wonderful to go lounge around somewhere having people wait on me and not having to worry about anything.

Well that's about all I've got for today. Maybe some time before this week is over I'll have something more to blog about.

Yesterday.

 Yesterday morning it was dark and dreary. It was the perfect day for sitting around with a good book. Aside from a few small household chores, reading was pretty much all I did. I ended up getting drowsy and took a little nap. When I woke up around 2:00 the sun was finally shining. By 4:00 the dark clouds were forming again. All in all it was a good day off.

Depending on how you have your comments set up, I might not be able to comment today. It seems that anyone with a pop up comment box comes back with an error message if I try to leave a comment. I am reading though.

The latest cake order

 I had a girl order a cake for her daughters birthday. She wanted something with Dora the Explorer but I didn't have anything. I told her I couldn't copy anything because that would be a copyright infringement. I suggested doing a cake that looked like a beach with palm trees and she could add her own Dora figures.

This should make you laugh

I am by no means a genius, however, I do consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person. With that being said, the story I'm about to tell you may make you question that statement.

A while back, on a whim, I purchased some shower fizzies at Dollar Tree.

 I envisioned a steamy shower with the scent of eucalyptus and spearmint filling my senses. I open the package and put one of the tablets in the corner like the directions said. Then nothing. No scent, no fizz the darn thing didn't even melt. My initial reaction was oh well it was only a dollar. I should have picked it up and put it in the garbage right then and there but I left it lay there. A couple weeks later the thing is still sitting there. I decided I better throw it away. And that, is when I realized my stupidity. When I picked it up I discovered that the tablet was tightly wrapped in plastic. Had I taken that plastic off I'm sure it would have worked just splendidly

I'm glad that's over.

 Yesterday started out good. Then I got to work and it was all down hill from there.  One thing after another annoyed me and then people were involved and it only got worse. When I left work I made a quick stop to pick things up so that I didn't have to go anywhere today. I waited in line forever because Walmart will only open 2 registers with a live cashier. Then when it's finally my turn, my credit card says "can not process request." I tried it three times before it finally worked. The final straw was the jerk who was tailgating me on the way home.

Today is going to be a no people day. I doubt that one people free day will be enough to refresh me but it'll have to do.

Facebook Friday

WOW, it's October 1st already. Before you know it we'll be moving into a new year. 

Anyway, I went to Facebook to help with todays post