Feel Like Complaining

I dread this time of year. It's when the yard turns brown and ugly because we put away all things Summer. The beans have long been yanked after a very productive yield. I have some in the freezer when we're needing a taste of summer this winter. The last of the red tomatoes have been picked and I despise having to buy the hard red orbs the grocery stores call tomatoes until we can plant again. I have made fried green tomatoes 3 times this year but it's really a chore so I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of the green ones. We had a fair amount of cukes, enough for us I guess, but not as much as in the past. My husband gave away some of the larger zucchini to people he would see at work. One promised him some zucchini bread but he never saw it. Then production almost stopped so we didn't get many for ourselves. Our small patio has to be cleaned out to make room for a grill, yard swing, buckets of bird seed, and the snow blower. Our antique cast iron benc...

I love my little blogger family. It's great how we feel free to share our triumphs and downfalls (personally had a lot of these lately). One triumph I'm happy to share is that our own Mr. Shife has written a book; a compilation of his blog posts as well as personal thoughts. He was kind enough to send me an autographed copy last week. You can buy the paperback through Amazon , as well as a digital copy, which will be for sale on the 31st. Not to brag Mr. Shife, but you know I wrote 5 books about my blog. Ok, I just had them printed online and only 1 for each year and I kept them all for myself. But still :) What's cool about Mr. Shife is that he will be donating part of his book sales to the Idaho Veterans Network and the Utah Friends of Basset Hounds. I've been reading Mr. Shife's blog for several years now but like many I read, I don't know who found who first. And I didn't get in on the early years of Awesome Shifeness, so for me this book is a ni...

ORI.EN.TA.TION....loosely translates into 'cramming as much information as possible into a human head.' My head was spinning, but it was over. Our instructor said we would be overwhelmed and she didn't expect us to remember anything, for now anyway. But it's the law and they have to do it. I passed my food handlers test, and filled out more background check papers and had fingerprints done a few days later. TB test and a Hep B too. But it was all for nothing. I am embarrassed because of all the well wishers. I am embarrassed because I couldn't do it. And I feel like I let everyone down that gave me excellent references. Let me tell you why. I arrived on time at 6:00 am and clocked in. The cute little girl that was to train me must have been 30 years younger; I'm sure that played a big part in it. There were instruction on making tons of coffee and how to set up the sides. Sides? The facility consists of a main dining room with 2 wings (or sides) where the re...

The last month has been stressful, very stressful. At the same time my husband lost his job, I knew I would have to start looking for work. So as my husband started looking for work, so did I. Every night we look on CL and send in our resumes. He has had no nibbles, which honestly doesn't seem to bother him much (which leads to more panic for me). After our last visit to a facility I got to thinking about the company's website and if they had any server openings. When we used to have dinner at Hubby's ex's place (owned by the same company) I always was impressed and thought it would be a good place to work for. Low and Behold there was an opening for a server at one of the 3 facilities in town so I sent in my resume. This place is smaller and different as they house only memory care residents (Dementia and Alzheimer). I didn't really notice that until later and  kind of freaked out wondering if I could handle it. I got a call two days later from I assume the...

Little Speedy is only one of the cartoons that have bitten the dust on Network Television. Just this past weekend, CW was the last hold-out to stop airing cartoons on Saturday mornings. Oh sure, you can still see them on cable and most of them recently weren't worth a hang anyway. I'm talking about the older ones that we grew up with; The Jetsons, Bugs Bunny and gang, Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, Bullwinkle, Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner and friends, Mr. Magoo, Micky Mouse, The Flintstones, My fondest memories of Saturday mornings is when our daughter was about two or three and she would crawl into bed with us early and we would watch cartoons while drinking coffee. But only after we had brushed the cat litter out of the bed (gross, I know). We had a cat that slept with us but wasn't tidy enough to shake her feet off after leaving her box. So we had to clean out 'litter land' as we called it before the kid climbed in. We would cuddle and laugh until we had to get up and...

You've heard those old sayings, 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and Everything happens for a reason'. I've always thought they were pure bullshit and it's just what people say when they don't know what else to say. It's no secret that I am not the most positive person in the world. I come by it honestly though my Mom. Other than genetic, it's also environmental. The constant beat-downs take their toll on a person's psyche. And it just got another whoopin'! My husband got a call from his boss last week who said they were letting him go. It was kind of out of her hands as one of his delivery spots didn't want him to deliver anymore. The courier business is complex. Because everyone can't be in the same place at the same time to pickup/deliver, they hire independent drivers to help connect the dots. My husband's company was one of the few left that had their drivers on salary, most are independent. And often the inde...

Awhile back Grumpy's blogging partner wrote about why it's always best to hire someone to do some work for you. Basically it's for sanity's sake and to keep from murdering your spouse. During our recent storm we had a lot of crap that just stopped working. It could have been coincidence but still our surround sounded ended up dead as did our wired desktop in the basement. It refused to connect when all other devices in the house had no problem. I tried to call tech support about the computer first then found out our phone line was down too so I used my cell phone. First I get a guy that has absolutely no intuition or computer knowledge at all, he's basically typing in what I say and waiting for an answer. Unplug this, plug it back in, run upstairs and do the same with the phone. He was clueless so I gave up. Ok, had to call someone about the phones and two days later, the drop in the alley was repaired and we had the phone back. Back to tech support. I got the s...