Happy Independence Day

 Independence day, or the 4th of July is a federal holiday celebrated in the United States. Today we celebrate the approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress  on July 4, 1776. 

Today I think many people just see it as another day off of work and a day to have picnics and watch fireworks. 

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement. ~Nelson Mandela

Whether you live in the U.S. or somewhere else, no matter how you spend your day, I hope that you have a good one.

Year 2 week 3 drawings.

 Here we go with another week of drawings.

Interview day

 Friday June 20th, I had 2 interview scheduled. One was for Aldi's and was a half hour in one direction. The other was for a place called Holiday Financial and was a half hour in the oppposite direction.

The Aldi's interview was first. It was called a group interview but what it actually was, was a bunch of people who were interviewed in the order in which they arrived. I was second. It turned out that it would likely be an evening position which would mean driving home at 8:30 at night. I wasn't crazy about that. She scheduled me for a second interview on the following Sunday and said I would receive a text message confirming. I never did get the text message so I didn't go. I ended up getting an email from them thanking me for my interest but they were going with another candidate. Good because I didn't want it anyway.

Next was a 40 minute drive to the second one but I had plenty of time to kill before the scheduled time. I went to lunch at Burger King. I grabbed my tray of food and this was stuck on it.

While I was sitting there a guy pulled in driving a nice looking car.

Went to my second interview and this one sounded more like something I wanted. It's for a loan company that is owned by PNC bank. The position is for a customer service representative. The hours are 9-5 Monday through Friday, no weekend and all bank holidays off. I though it went well. The next day I got an email from another person in the company to schedule an online interview for the following Monday. 

Garage sale

 Wow, here it is July already and we're starting the second half of the year. Time sure has flown by.

June 21st was the Albion area yard sales. I've wanted to have one for a long time but it was just too much effort when I was working full time. This year, since I was off, I decided I would participate. I gathered things that I wanted to get rid of. The closer I got to the sale I was getting nervous that it would be a total flop. I had nightmares about not selling a single thing. 

Two nights before I put everything in the living room so all I had to do Saturday morning was drag it out the front door. There was more than this because I also still had stuff down in the basement.

Friday night I didn't sleep and I was up at 3:30 Saturday morning. By 5:30 I was dragging things out to the front yard to get things set up. I think I was ready in about an hour or so then it was sit around and wait for 8:00 when the yard sales were supposed to start.

Everything was across my sidewalk and I had more stuff set up under the tree. I got my first customer of the day and I made a whole dollar. Things picked up and got pretty busy for a while. I had lots of people coming through and lots of people buying. I was willing to drop prices if people asked. By the end of the day I had made almost $190. I threw some stuff in the garbage and put a bunch of stuff at the curb with a big free sign

Within minutes of putting this stuff out there I had people going through it. The next morning this was what I was down to.

By garbage day all that was left was the cardboard box and 3 baskets.

The day after the sale, I got a text message from a lady who used to be a good customer at the store I worked at. She wanted to know if I still had baseball cards. I told her I did and she asked if she could bring her 12 year old son over to look at the. When she came she asked how much I wanted for all of them. I  said $25. (there were a lot but I wanted to get rid of them) She said that wasn't enough and had her son hand me $50. I tried to give money back but they wouldn't take it. I was more than thrilled with how well this all went. Will I do it again next year? I highly doubt it.

Down the road

 I took a walk the one day and on my way home I snapped some pictures. This is a building that used to have a small store in the bottom part of it. Someone is now living in it. They change out the big front windows for all the holidays and seasons. 

This is what the building looks like. It's pretty old and really not much to look at.

Those windows are delightful though. Some of the displays they put in there are pretty impressive.

I spy with my wandering eye.

 I was out in the back yard with Gibbs the one day and spotted this.

We had had quite a bit of rain the day before so there were actually quite a lot of these all over the yard. Of course I had to grab the phone and get a closer look.

A few days later I got another picture.

Just for the heck of it.

 It's been a while since I've made a cell phone bag. I didn't have an order for one but wanted to see how some fabric I had would work. This is sort of a wool like fabric. Definitely a wintery looking bag.

I thought it came out pretty good. The fabric is a little heavier so the slide on the adjustable strap is a little on the snug side. It still works though. I probably should have tried to find a bigger slide buckle. Either that or made the strap thinner. 

One last post on peonies.

 We've had a couple of rain showers since the peonies bloomed and they are now done for. They did last longer than usual though with the help of the cage around them to keep them standing straight.

In the pictures there are still plenty of petals on the flowers but now they are totally gone.

Year 2 week 2 drawings

This weeks 2 of my drawings are in the 4th sketch book. I decided I would make a change and use colored pencils instead of markers on those. These are in no particular order. Can you tell which 2 I used colored pencils on?

Lunch out with a friend

 I was feeling a bit down the one day because I had just gotten a call that I was not chosen for a job that I interviewed for. I texted my friend that I used to work with and told her I didn't get the job. She asked if I needed some human contact and suggested we go out to lunch.

We went to a place that neither one of us had ever been to. It's called the All Aboard Dinor.

The place isn't much to look at on the inside but the staff was friendly and the food was good. It sits right next to the railroad tracks and we did watch a train go by while we were there.

The train was also running inside the dinor. The track runs all the way around the whole place.

When we went to the register to pay they had a sign saying they offered a senior citizen discount for anyone over 60. I said to my friend, that's me. Enough said because the girl gave me the dicount.

A day with Presley

 My daughter-in-law asked if I wanted to take Presley the one day and of course the answer was yes. It wasn't the best day weather wise so we spent most of the day inside.

She wanted a snack so we made popcorn and then settled in on the couch.

She pulled out a chest of toys I've had and I decided to disguise myself and we got a selfie.

She heard the camera take the first picture and then looked at me like "what are you doing" I of course played innocent and said I had no idea what she was talking about but of course snapped another one.

She was pretending to be a famous chef and cooked me an excellent play doh meal

Crafts in the Country

 There is a little store not far from me called Crafts in the Country. It's on the owners property and she doesn't have regular business hours. She does however occasionally hold an event with other crafters. Amanda and I went recently to check out what was there.

Amanda bought these 9x13 carriers. One for her and one for me. They are like a bowl cozie for 9x13 dish.

I bought some of this flavored chex mix. It was kind of a rip off for the price and even though I had sampled some, it wasn't as good as what I had tried. 

There was a nice selection of items available and of course it's always fun going out and doing something with Amanda.

Peonies

 The last time I posted about my peonies, they hadn't bloomed yet. These pictures were taken on the 7th and 8th

You may recall me posting that I used an old tomato cage turned upside down to try and keep these from ending up on the ground. It never fails. After these bloom it rains and they all end up laying on the sidewalk and that's just about the end of them. This year, as usual, it poured after the peonies bloomed. Thanks to the tomato cage, they are still standing tall and looking beautiful. They may be a little crowded in the cage but at least they are lasting longer.

Drawings year 2 week 1

 I can't believe I'm still doing this. Here I am in my second year of drawing almost every single day.