Lunch with a friend

Monday I met an old friend for lunch. We grew up in the same neighborhood and I've known her for most of my life. We occasionally get together for lunch and it had been a while. I had a delicious grilled chicken salad with curly fries. We spent over 3 hours chatting and catching up.

 

The flip side

So I finished the other side of that chalkboard that I showed you the other day. I'm not entirely happy with it but it is what it is. The front side had fall and the back side has Thanksgiving. The turkey and the pumpkin are stickers that I had in my stash.

Happy Monday

I need to seriously enjoy today because this is going to be one crazy week. I won't get another day off until next Monday. I do however get to leave early throughout the week so that my overtime is kept to a minimum. 

Yesterday I got to leave work at noon which felt really really strange. The other thing that felt strange was that I was training the boss's wife in the deli bakery area. She will be helping out and filling in where needed. Technically she's the new owner of the store but I believe it will be her son who will be doing most of the day to day work. 

On another note, yesterday was incredibly hot. Even sitting in the Ann cave it wasn't as cool as it usually is. Then thankfully the wind picked up and we got a nice cooling rain. I put Gibbs's harness on and we went out front for a little bit

We both enjoyed the cooler temp while it lasted. After the rain stopped it didn't take very long for it to heat back up. 

A little crafty

Yesterday was pretty much a lazy day. I started out with reading blogs and drinking coffee. Then I decided to be a little crafty. I know we're still in summer but I made something for fall. I decorated this Dollar Tree chalkboard. First I painted the wood an orange color then I cute vinyl for the words and the pumpkin

  

Right now the back of it is blank but I plan on doing something to that as well

Looking back

 I jumped way back in time to 2012 and picked up a few pictures I took.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

Emily Dickinson

You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted.

Kevin Costner

digging

Amanda frequently sends me pictures in text messages. A lot of times she'll tell me I can use it for my blog. I decided to go digging for things she's sent that I haven't used. 

This first one is from the last time we went shopping. I think this was in Christmas Tree Shops. Someone in quality assurance didn't do such a good job. This says Holly instead of Holy. Then again, maybe it was caught and that's why it was at this store for such a low price.

 

The next one is a picture she sent of one of  the birds that visits her feeders out in her yard. 

She's been sending lots of fall craft ideas lately. I thought this one was super cute. 

 

Two days in a row. I'm going for a record.

 I don't really have a whole lot to talk about today. I thought I would answer some questions from yesterday.

I've also got a link to my boss's obituary if anyone is interesting in seeing who I worked for.

William E. Corbin

Ginny said that I need to be the new manager. I was a store manager for a while but after Wade and I got married I went back to the bakery. I really didn't like that job. I don't mind helping out in any way I can though.

Andrea asked how old he was. He was 61. Just a year older than me. His birthday was just a few days after mine.

Lots of you commented on my plumbing problem. I'm just glad it's done now and it didn't cost me a fortune. I think the hardest part for me is knowing who to call and wondering if I can trust them. Wade always either knew how to fix things himself or seemed to know someone to call. 

So the ret of this week, today and tomorrow are going to be so incredibly busy. Friday especially because I have 2 big orders to do.

Next week should be interesting because we have a girl in the deli going on vacation. One of the night managers went to the boss's son and told him she would cover the hours. Um, hello? You're going to add overtime hours on to  your paycheck? Well I went to the boss's son with a proposed deli schedule for next week that divided the hours among the 3 part time deli girls and didn't include any over time at all. I also told him I would work the Saturday that the deli girl going on vacation normally works in bakery. I'll work that day and cut hours where I can throughout the week. He liked my solution way better and he used that to do the schedule for next week. Night manager may be upset with me but she didn't think her plan through very well.

I'm back, kind of, I think

 

Excuse my absence but as I said the other day I was dodging curve balls. The biggest of all was the unexpected death of my boss. I talked to him on Friday and he was fine. Saturday morning he had a massive heart attack and was gone. A group of us will be going to the funeral home today. 

The second curve ball was the plumbing issue. I blogged about my plumbing problem back on July 5. It took until Monday August 1st to finally have it resolved. I had a leak in my bathroom faucet. I called a plumber on the same day I had posted about it. He came that same day and looked at it. Then it took forever for him to look for a part before he called and asked if I wanted him to order it. Finally he says he's ready to come. Now this could have gone either way. It was either going to be an easy fix or it was going to be a major job where my whole tub would have to be pulled out. Needless to say I was worried that it was going to worst case scenario. So this past Monday he came and luck was on my side. He was able to fix it all for $250. 

There are some other minor issues that I need to take care of. The dog still needs to get to the vet and There are some doctor/hospital bills sitting here that need to be paid. 

On another note, I use feedly for reading blogs. The past week, give or take, there have been very few blog posts in my feed. I just assumed that people were busy and not blogging. Turns out posts just aren't showing up for some reason. If I haven't been commenting on your blogs it's not because I took time off from that, I just didn't know you had been posting. I'm trying to get to everyone so if I've been missing you let me know.

Taking a day or two off.

 Life sometimes throw us some curveballs. I'm taking a few days off to dodge them.

LOL

I'm feeling a little bit too tired to do anything more than a quick post using Facebook finds.

crafty

So on Monday when I made those ornaments that I showed you the other day, I also cut out a few vinyl designs to add to other ornaments.

So far this is all still sitting waiting for me to get my act together. But I did do another ornament that I'm not completely happy with. This one I started by decoupaging  a Christmas themed napkin to the wood. Then I added the merry Christmas vinyl design. My biggest problem with this one is that the red vinyl didn't show up well enough against the napkin. I had to outline with a black marker

Hydrangea

 I can't believe I haven't taken pictures of the hydrangea yet this year. It seems like it's rather slow to get blooms though. It doesn't have nearly as many on it as it has in past years and they're really just starting.

The smaller one that the lawn guy put next to it doesn't have any blooms on it at all

I need to get out there and clean up the siding. It's looking terrible.

Here are a few of the blooms.

Pioneer Woman Wednesday.

 Pioneer Woman is getting in on the Corelle craze. I recently saw these at Walmart.

July 25th

 Since yesterday was the official Christmas in July day I thought I would spend my day off doing something Christmas related.

I recently purchased some blank wood ornament from Amazon. Some are totally plain and some have a red and black buffalo plaid design around the outer edge with a blank space in the middle for decorating.

Yesterday I worked on some of the buffalo plaid ones.

I did these two

These were easy peasy. I simply cut the design from vinyl on my Cricut machine and then applied it to the wood.

In keeping with the Christmas theme, I hung these on the lamp post my daughter gave me. She liked it but didn't have the room for it at her place. 

A lack of grace

Yesterday, while at work, I was rushing around the corner to go grab the phone. I rounded the corner by the sink and tripped over a box that had been sitting on the floor. The offending box is no longer there . I took the picture after the girl I was working with moved it 

 

When I hit the box I went down like a rock. I ended up cutting my arm and had to go out in the store and buy some of the super jumbo Band-Aids.

If you're a bit queasy you may not want to look at the last picture. But here is my arm with the Band-Aid off.

Other than my arm I scraped up one of my knees. All in all though I really wasn't hurt. I think my pride took the biggest hit.

The day really didn't get better after that. I had to deal with an employee with a major attitude problem who doesn't get how it works. Apparently after I left the father called the store wanting a meeting with the boss to straighten this out. Let me just say here that this is not a minor child, this is an adult we're talking about. I use the term loosely because while her age makes her an adult, she has the maturity of a spoiled teenager. I honestly hate dealing with this kind of crap.

Lily

I can't believe I haven't shown any pictures of my lilies yet this year. Every year I tend to take a million pictures of them. This year not so many

screened

Recently I was standing in the basement looking out the window and noticed the dried up flowers on the iris in my front yard. I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures. What amazed me is that I was able to get a picture through the screen without the screen showing. First a picture of the screen to show that it really was there.

And here are the ones where I was able to focus on the plant without the screen showing.

moth sighting

Recently I spotted  a moth hanging out on my kitchen window screen I grabbed a quick picture from the inside.

Then I headed outside to get a better look at him.

I never seem to be able to get pictures of butterflies because they're always flitting around so fast but moths are a different story. They seem to like to find a spot and chill.

a Christmas in July craft

I purchased this Christmas tag diamond painting kit a while back. I did a couple of them the other day. There are several different Santa Claus tags in the kit, each looking a little different. These will be nice to either put on a gift or inside a Christmas card

Pioneer Woman Wednesday

The last time I was in Walmart I spotted these Pioneer Woman bath poufs.

 I couldn't resist buying one but I have to say I really don't like it very much. I always use the poufs rather than a washcloth but even though this one is pretty I don't like the fabric covering on it

a crafty Monday

Monday was a gloomy, overcast kind of day. I started off with coffee and visiting my blog friends. From there I decided to do something crafting. I had downloaded a free file for a layered Christmas card so I gave it a try. This came from Craft with Sarah

 I messed it up from the very beginning because I didn't line up the first two layers very well. No sense in giving up though I finished it up and then did a little bit of playing with it.

 I used some metallic, glitter, and pearl crayons to add some highlights. Now I just need to add it to a blank card. 

I started and now I can't stop

What is it that I started?

 

I have been watching Christmas movies just about every single day. Some I've seen before and some not. Now, I will be the first to admit that a lot of the Hallmark Christmas movies are pretty much you've seen one you've seen them all. Even still, I enjoy watching them. I find it funny though. The one night I watched one where the actor and actress were dating. The next movie the exact same actor and actress were brother and sister.

. There was a new one that came on last night called Campfire Christmas . 

What's next? Will I start making Christmas crafts? Maybe, maybe not. I can guarantee you though that I won't start decorating until after Thanksgiving

Out back

 Yesterday morning when I let Gibbs out for his morning routine, I spotted a cat sitting by the dead tree that sits just outside my property line. I grabbed the camera and took some pictures. After all a visiting cat is perfect blog material.

Of course I also took a picture of the weeds growing around the tree. I think they look kind of pretty.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time in photoshop elements trying to do something creative with this picture. In the end I decided it just looked better if I left it alone.

Before giving up completely, I did go to the guided edit and played with changing the background. I think kitty looks like a giant in a miniature Chinese garden (or maybe Japanese). Either way, trying to spark my creativity was a big fail.