Twilight

I don't know if I wish I had never heard of Twilight but, if I hadn't my house might be clean and I might have more money in the bank. I am totally obsessed with it. Me, a 56 year old, old lady can't get enough of it. It only took me three days to read a book and there are four books in the series. To top that off, they are not small books. When I finally finished reading the last one yesterday my eyes were as red as a vampire. I'm also obsessed with the movie. It is constantly playing. I have given up watching my soap operas and I don't know what I would be doing if Lost was still on. I guess I could bite the bullet for one hour.... I'm so looking forward to the new movie coming out in November but it is such a long wait and how will I ever wait until it comes out on DVD?

Adventure

This is what my road looked like last Sept. I couldn't go to work that day so I went around and took a lot of pictures.
The reason I posted this picture is to show you how it must have looked Friday while I was at work. When I come home from work I come in on the other side and at 1am I came home and found two big "Road Closed" signs covering the road. I knew that the road was clear by then because the rain had stopped hours before this but I couldn't get around the signs. I parked my car facing the road and walked around the signs to make sure the road wasn't flooded but I was on a hill and it was pitch black once I got out of my cars head lights so I chickened out, turned around and went back to the car. Since I had forgotten to fill my gas tank before leaving town I only had a quarter of a tank and we don't have many gas stations near that are open in the middle of the night. I decided I would sleep in my car and when daylight woke me up I would be able to get through. It wasn't cold and I had a jacket so everything should be good. Trying to sleep in the front seat wasn't good so I decided to try the back seat. I remembered I had a blanket in the trunk so I got that to use as a pillow. Turned out it smelled slightly of gasoline from when I got gas for the lawnmower. I still used it. It wasn't strong enough to give me a headache and I was so darn tired. Still it was very hard to get to sleep and then the wind kicked up and that didn't help me sleep at all. Finally I think I did sleep for about an hour. I woke up at around 3am and I was cold and I had to pee. I went back to the front seat and turned the car on and the heater. Now, what am I going to do? I am not going to pee at the side of the road. For one thing it was cold now and another thing I would probably end up rolling down the hill backwards, knocking myself out or something and being there with my pants down when people started driving around. I'd be the laughing stock of the county. Nope not going to do that.

So, I had to figure out where I could get gas and what direction I could go after that to get home. I had two options. North or South. Either way will take me at least 2 hours to get home. Mind you, I'm only 5 minutes from home where I am parked right now but I'm afraid to try to move the road signs. They look heavy and there are big sand bags on them to hold them down.

I decide to go South back to the town I work in to get gas at the 24 hour station. I drive about 20 miles and find that the road is closed because of something to do with a couple of BIG trucks. The cop tells me I have to go North. He also said he didn't have a problem with me making a U turn in the middle of the highway. Thank you very much. So I make the U and drive about 15 miles to the only 24 hour gas station on the way home in that direction. The price of gas was 10 cents a gallon more than at the town I wanted to get gas at!! That is a BIG difference! Before I got gas I went running in to the station to use the restroom. The women's door was shut so I knocked on it and a lady said she'd be out in a minute. Then I heard a lot of toilet paper rolling. And then a lot more. I realized that I really didn't want to follow her. I asked the guy working there if I could use the men's room and he said sure but there shouldn't be anyone in the women's and I told him there was and he looked at me really funny. I used the men's room and when I got done I saw she was still in there. I never did see her come out but I wasn't waiting around. I'm just glad that I didn't wait for her.

I got gas and drove off and made it home at around 5am. My best friend told me she passed me on the road and thought it was me. She thought I must have spent the night at a friends house. Nope. Stupid me just drove all night long. I got into bed at around 5:30 and got up at 9am to go back to work. I was surprised at how well I did at work with so little sleep. When people at work asked me how I got home I just told them I went the long way. I didn't tell them the whole story.

So, next time what will I do? Will I just go ahead and drive the long way or will I try to move the signs? I don't know. I really am a big chicken.

Missouri Tornadoes

I'm going to apologise right away for the bad pictures but I had to take them from my car. Lucky for me the traffic was very congested so we were moving slowly. I was only able to point and shoot though as we were crawling along and I was driving and alone. These are new very expensive homes across from the Jim Robertson's new car dealership.

I don't know how many houses were destroyed or damaged but it is very bad. The utility company was putting up new posts and lines but I was too close to be able to get a good picture. I guess I could have tried to take pictures out of my windshield but it is so dirty I didn't think anything would have showed but the dirt.

These are cars from the dealership. Their windows are broken out. They had been blown all out into the road but when I got there they had be moved back to the lot.

Their sign is gone and one of their lights is leaning.

A lot of Maytag's windows were blown out and the power lines are laying down in their parking lot.

They are saying that we lost 3 people in this storm and when I went to Wal-Mart I saw quite a few tears. I am just so very thankful that it missed me and my friends and family and my thoughts and prayers go out to all that have been involved in this tragedy.

I drove by my work and everything looks normal there and the parking lot is full so I still have a job!

Pictures of the Graduation

Daughter-in-law receiving her diploma.

Son receiving his diploma.

Son, his girlfriend and two of his three sons from his first marriage. The youngest boy ran to the car so he could play his video game. The wind was blowing really hard and big rain drops were falling.

Daughter-in-law trying hard to keep her hat on for the picture.

We gave up after this picture. We had just found out that there might have been a tornado in the town I work in and the storm might be coming towards us. It didn't and I was able to drive the boys home safely.

Congratulations Graduates!

My son and DIL are both Graduating tonight from the same college and I am so excited for them. Just to be a little confusing this is not a married couple. This is my oldest son who is engaged to be married on June 6 and my DIL that is married to my youngest son. I don't know how it worked out but both of them decided to take classes at the same time. These are not young kids so I was very surprised when they told me what they were up to two years ago. I'm also embarrassed to admit that I really wondered if they would be able to keep up with the homework and their families but they did it and tonight we celebrate!

I'll be picking up my son's 3 sons and taking them up there as a surprise. He was told that the boys' mother said they couldn't come. I hope he isn't too worked up about it. I can just imagine what he is saying and thinking about her. All I can say is that it wasn't my idea to tell him that. I am just the delivery person.

I'm taking presents and after I drop the boys off I will be picking up a cake and I suppose I should get ice cream too. I know it isn't a birthday but you can't have cake without ice cream. Can you? It just doesn't seem right.

Ok, I'll post this now because I need to get showered and dressed. I'll be taking my camera and hope to get some good pictures.

Bye

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope you all have a very nice Mother's Day!

I'll be working so let me know what I missed. OK?

Love to you all!

Flower day trip

These flowers were planted into a brick wall that had spaces for dirt. I had this plant in my yard but when I had my hysterectomy last year a friend that helped me out with my mowing did it in. It really isn't her fault. The grass was so overgrown that she didn't see it until it was too late. I'm not a very good gardener.

I don't know what kind of flowers these are but they are really pretty. Does anyone know?

These were really beautiful.

Can you see the little blue flowers? I love blue flowers.

My friends and I went on a day trip on a bus and I got to take pictures of some very pretty flowers. It was really nice to be able to spend the day with my friends.

We got to ride a bus for 4 hours one way and that was ....well.... interesting might be the word. Or maybe .... adventurous. Well, how about kind of scary?

On the way down there we stopped half way and got something to eat. When we got back on the bus my friend I was sitting next to and I somehow lost our seat. We couldn't figure out what happened. We knew who we were sitting in front of but there were a couple of women sitting where we should have been sitting. We stopped for a couple seconds trying to figure out what happened. Looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and went to sit in the back of the bus where the only open seats were. We had been sitting on the left side with me against the window. This time we sat on the right side of the bus with my friend against the window. Other people were watching us and wondering why we went back there to sit. They didn't realize our seats were taken. We weren't mad, just confused. I thought maybe the woman in the back sat one seat up and so that had everyone else going up a seat. No problem.

So, now we are on the right side of the bus, my friend against the window. We are looking out the window and there is a big truck with a load of blue pipes on the back and the back of the bus is weaving back and forth. It looks like we are getting really, really close to the truck and my friend tells me that we have to move to the other side of the bus. RIGHT NOW! I jumped up and sat in the seat across the isle and this time I am against the window. I liked it a lot better. She had gotten so scared she was almost in a panic. When we arrived at our destination the others told us that they saw the bus was moving a lot and they were sure it was worse in the back where we were but they were shocked when they looked back and we had been bounced across the isle.

I watched others come down the isle to use the restroom and was so grateful that I didn't need to. I don't ever remember using a restroom on a bus and with the way this one was swaying all over the place I didn't think this trip would be the time to test it out. My luck didn't hold out though on the trip back home.

As soon as we got done eating our sack lunch the bus pulled up and I didn't have time to go to the rest room before getting on the bus. I knew we were going to be driving at least 4 hours and I was doomed. My friend and I sat in separate seats but still in the back. For some reason our original seats didn't open up.

I tried to sleep as much as I could to try to keep out of the rocking restroom. It didn't work. I kept waking up and thinking about getting up but I would talk myself out of it. Finally I couldn't wait any longer. I stood up and almost fell back into my seat but I caught myself and reached the door. I couldn't find the light but there was some light coming in from somewhere. I saw the water and whatever in the pot and started worrying about it sloshing up on me. YUCK! I really, really had to go so I had to be brave. When I finally get my self situated I see that I didn't get the door latched! I tried to pull it but it wouldn't shut. I was bouncing around so much I was afraid that if I held on to the door I would just end up opening it so I left it alone. I couldn't even relax to pee from bouncing around and watching the door. Finally I was done and then had the worry of if I was going to be fully clothed when the door opened. I was being thrown around so much I had an awful time trying to keep from bouncing onto the door as I pulled my pants up and tried to zip them. That is not easy to do when bouncing off the walls. As I came out and was sitting down I told my friend "I never did find the light". She giggled. A few minutes later a lady from the front of the bus came down and when she came out of the restroom she said, word for word I shit you not...."I never did find the light"... if I hadn't just peed I would have peed my pants right then.

About 20 minutes later we pulled over where we had eaten in the morning. I couldn't believe that I all I had to do was wait for a few minutes and I could have used a stationary restroom! Then two ladies got up (the ones in our seats) and left the bus! It turns out that they gotten on the bus when we were there eating and that was why they were in our seats. They didn't know the seats were taken. Oh, by the way, the driver never turned the bus off and as soon as the ladies were gone we were driving again so it was a good thing I didn't wait.

I'm not planning on taking another long bus trip but to be honest I thought we were only going two hours away not four.

It's a Girl!

Here she is, just hours old! When I gave these pictures to Grandma I told her she wouldn't look like this anymore. Grandma said I was right and that her hair is darker now and her face isn't so chubby. Isn't she just the sweetest thing?

Carly Sue was born at 2:20 this morning! She weighed 7 pounds 15.8 0z and is 22 inches long. I won't go in to see her until later today. I want to give them time to rest.
Pictures later!

Expecting

I am waiting for a call from my best friend about the arrival of her first grand baby! I would love to be there with them but there would be way too many people so I am waiting at home. She is a week late and saw the doctor today and he put her in the hospital. I think it was around noon when she went in and it is midnight now. I am usually up until 2 or 3 am and they know that so I should get a call when it happens. I hope it doesn't take her much longer. She has got to be worn out by now.

I'll post pictures when I get them.

Ding Dong

Yesterday as I was walking out the door to go to work I checked my pocket for my car keys. They weren't there. I checked the pocket of the coat I wore the night before. No keys. It's getting late and I don't have time to search the house so I get the second set out of my purse, grab my stuff and head for the car. I get in the car, put my stuff in the passenger seat and then when I go to put the key in the ignition I look down and.......



get this.........








it isn't what you're thinking..............









I have a set of keys in each hand! What a ding dong!

Mrs. Shrek anyone?

I had my hair dyed at the shop on Tuesday and I hate it. To me it looks like a bad wig but everyone else tells me they love it. It is a light brown but to me it looks like it has a green tint to it but others act like they don't see it. My BFF is all excited about it because she says it matches my eyebrows and so it looks natural. I figured she would know by now that I don't really care for the natural look. With any luck it will fade out soon and I'll see what it looks like then. It shows golden highlights in the sun but I prefer a red tint. It might be the lack of red that makes it look green to me. Another friend from work says it makes my eyes pop. I told her my eyes hurt from all the popping.
I just realized that Mrs. Shrek is green but her hair isn't but that is as close as I could come to someone with green hair. Or might have green hair. Or who might even wish they had green hair.
I've known my BFF for 12 years and I have always had some shade of blond on my hair except the last 2 years I let it grow out and was grey and white. My BFF for all these years has been telling me that I need to color my hair brown because the blond didn't match my eyebrows and it didn't look natural. I really don't understand her fascination with looking natural but, she is from Missouri and I am from California. Nothing looks natural in California and I like it that way.

Good bye old neighbor

This old house has stood there for many, many years. People have lived in it until a few years ago when the elderly lady pass away. I only knew her for a short time but I liked her. I bought the little old house across the street from this one. Mine was only empty for about a year but that year took a tole on mine. With being of the "poor persuasion" it is taking me a long time to get my home in good repair but slowly I am getting things done. One day when I was visiting my late Dad he told me (in reference to himself and his house) that they should never let poor people own a house and sometimes I know what he means.

Some people bought the blue house across the road from me and tore it down and I took pictures of it going down. To me it was sad and fascinating at the same time. I had never seen a house being torn down so right away I ran over there with my camera and started snapping pictures. The owner teased me about working for the local TV station. I've known him long enough for him to know that I am a nobody and that I just like to take pictures.


Here it is as they are crashing in the top floor to the bottom floor. I took a whole lot of pictures of them smashing it to pieces. My best friend drove by as I was taking pictures and I'm not sure but I think I heard some loud cackling as she went by.

I love fire pictures and this is my favorite of the batch. Isn't it fantastic how a small fire can be made to look huge.

This is what it looks like now. There is still a hump and it is still smoking. I'm pretty sure they will level it off when it gets done smoking but I don't know how long that will be. There is a riding arena to the right and now that the weather is getting better I'm pretty sure the kids will be riding their horses in there. I am hoping that they might leave their horses there when they get the fences and everything else done. I love to watch horse run and play but there isn't a barn here so that might not happen. I'll be able to watch the horses when they bring them to ride and I'll just have to be content with that.

Paul Revere.....where are you???

While driving home from work this morning (I get off work at midnight) I heard on the radio that someone in these United States is trying to get a 10 % tax added to soda pop in order to slow peoples intake of soda and all the sugar in it. They seem to think that the drinking of soda pop is what is making our children and adults fat and that by taxing it I guess they think we will lose weight. It started with tobacco and now there are a lot less smokers. So it shows that putting a large tax on something will get people to stop buying it. Of course, there was also the new laws banning smoking anywhere on the planet but we'll let them think it all had to do with taxes. So, now in order to make us healthier they want to take away our soda pop (Ha! We'll show them, we'll drink sweet tea! No huge tax on tea! Paul Revere and his group put a stop to that a long time ago)(Yes, I am a big fan of Paul Revere and the Raiders but this isn't the group I am talking about right now. OK?). Now, back to my rambling.
We are still getting fat so next they will want to tax our Little Debbie's snack cakes. Well, ok, we all learn how to make cake at home and we don't have to buy snack cakes. So now we are happy at home smoking our cigarettes, drinking sweet tea, eating home made cake and still getting fat. They see that their high tax plan isn't working so they decide that since we are still eating and drinking stuff that makes us fat they will tax our sugar, flour and eggs. When all of the huge taxes on our food doesn't stop us from gaining weight where will it end?
Any bets that they weigh us and make us pay a "Fat Tax" every year?

Day trip postponed

Remember, I told you my friends and I had a day trip planned and how much fun we were going to have? Well, the weather on Friday was beautiful, the weather on Sunday was beautiful but this was the weather on Saturday. The flakes that were coming down when I took this picture were really big and you might be able to see them against the tree. The wind was blowing so hard it was really difficult for me to get a picture without snow getting all over my lens and my fingers were freezing off. Oso (my little doggie) snuck out the door with me and he soon decided I was crazy for wanting to be out there taking pictures. I didn't stay out there too long and he was happy to run inside as soon as I opened the door. If it had been a beautiful day I would have had a very difficult time getting him to come inside.

Today they tore down the old house across the road from me and I stood out there taking pictures of it. They then started it on fire and I got lovely fire pictures. Right now it is evening and they are stirring the fire to make sure everything burns. When it has burned as much as possible they then will bury it and level the ground as much as possible and I will have a much nicer view. Oh, lucky for me, the wind is blowing away from my house.

I'll post pictures later.

Am I supposed to?

My job was on lay off for a week and I was having a ball while I was off. I did some cleaning but mostly I had fun visiting friends and family.
I work weekends and was excited to have two weekends off. When ever we have a shut down we don't go back to work until Thursday. No matter how many weeks we are off it is always Thursday when we go back. Period. Never before that.
On Friday I went with my bff on her delivery route. We spent the day driving all around NE Missouri and SE Iowa and a little bit of Illinois. While in Illinois we stopped in Nauvoo and made plans to go back with some other friends in a couple weeks! Nauvoo is the town that the Mormons were kicked out of in 1846 during the winter and they had to cross the frozen Mississippi river on their way to Utah. I am really looking forward to learning more about what happened back then. My bff and I decided to go to the movies and see "He's Just Not That Into You" sometime this weekend.
Then on Saturday I went to breakfast at the historic school house in my little town. Afterwards I went to the "dog sale" which now is mostly a flea market. I was looking for baby Muskogee ducks for my DIL. She likes them for pets and only wants two or three but to order them you have to buy twenty. That can be very costly besides she doesn't want that many of them. I was out of luck. It is too early to have ducks and chicks there yet. Too cold. On the way home there was almost an accident between a truck and a train but I will post about that later. On the way home I was thinking so hard about the truck/train thing that I ended up turning right instead of left and ended up in a whole different town ten miles in the wrong direction. The reason I didn't realize sooner that I was going in the wrong direction is because I was in an area I don't usually drive in and it is all country side with maybe five homes along the road. After I finally got home I did a lot of cleaning. When it was too late to go to the movie I remembered that we were going to go. I called my bff and she had forgotten too so we decided to go on Sunday.
Sunday, I got up early and started doing more cleaning. Did some stuff outside and came back in. Then I got a phone call. It was my boss. I was feeling really good and was very bubbly and he was too. I was wondering, why is my boss calling me on my day off? Then he asked me if I was going to come in to work today? He said he looked but I hadn't asked for a vacation day for Sunday. While he's saying that I'm saying "Oh, my God! Am I supposed to?" He laughed and said that we are scheduled to come back on Sunday. He said some of the girls told him that I must have forgotten! He was very nice about it and told me not to hurry so much that I get into an accident. He was having a rough start up and the reason he didn't know that I wasn't there for an hour and a half was because only one of three lines were running so no one was complaining to him. I got there and everyone was teasing me but all was fine. It was silly because we only worked that day and now our shift is off until Thursday but the other shift is working.

ETSY

I just added sachets to my ETSY store. Check it out!

www.enchantedhills.etsy.com

New Hair!

I am so excited! I am a new woman. Really! Today I got my hair cut and.........get this..........COLORED! It has been white for a couple years and I finally got tired of looking so old and besides it is time to shock people and make them wonder if I have found a man.
Humm, what is she up to? She cut and colored her hair, Myrtle. Have you seen any different cars at her place lately?
Women, hold on to your men! Enchanted is Enchanting again! Whoooo Hooo!

Adobe Photoshop Elements

I scored big time with my oldest son! He was signed up to take a digital camera class at his college but he couldn't get the program the instructor wanted him to get so he dropped out. Lucky me because he gave me his Elements 6 book and all I had to do is buy the program and now I have an awesome book to teach me how to use it. Wish me luck.

Wal~Mart

I shop at Wal~Mart when I get off work at midnight and I always thought that was the best time to shop because there aren't very many people there. Then I started to notice just how much of a pain in the ass it is. That is when they are stocking the shelves and you have to shop around boxes all over the place but, I can live with that. I know that people have a job to do and that is when they do it. So, I can live with it. (Big of me, huh?) Another bad thing about shopping at that time is that is also when they are cleaning the floors. They have large blocks of isles marked off that you can't go into so you have to come back at a later time to get them. Ok, I prefer the floors to be clean so I adjust my shopping days so that I can shop a couple days and have the last day of work my final shopping day of the week. The one major problem I have with the night crew is one man. He runs one of those large floor cleaning machines. He's a menace and he needs to have his floor cleaning machine drivers license revoked! He's awful. I have learned to dodge down a different isle when he's coming because he will not slow down and will push you out of the way. I have not had any problems with the other people that use those machines. They will stop and wait for me to realize they are there and then I will get out of their way. They will also smile at me but not him. No smiles at all. Well, I got back at him the other night. I had a cart full and he was waiting behind me to buy his drink and something to eat on his break. Normally I would have let the person behind me go ahead if they only have a couple things and I have a full cart. I am afraid that I may have even snickered to myself when I realized I was able to get back at him and make him wait for me. I know, it was petty and I'm quite sure that he didn't even know that I was paying him back for being so rude but, it made me feel better. How grown up is that?

Flooded, again

It's a good thing I am off work today because we were flooded in again. I've lived here since '96 and the first time we flooded was this past Sept. and now we go again. I hope this isn't a trend.