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.

Time change, new clock

Last night I was reading before going to bed. I looked at the clock and it was around 2 am. I did all the necessaries before going to bed and when I got there my new alarm clock said 3 am. I was surprised because I really thought it was 2 and how did it take me so long to get to bed? Oh, well, must have looked at the clock wrong. No big deal. Then this morning I realized it was the day for the time change and that my new alarm clock changes the time on its own! I need more clocks like that!

Cakes!

Today I will be baking two cakes. It is my oldest son's birthday on Sunday and he wants the German Chocolate cake that Nana used to make for everyone's birthday. Most of our family didn't like coconut (Nana included) so Nana would make the frosting from scratch and leave out the coconut. It is so good! I thought that everyone loved that cake so I picked up the tradition but last year I found out that my youngest son is just being polite when he eats it. He likes the white cake with frosting and decorated with roses and all that stuff so I am making both cakes. His birthday is in two weeks and I don't know if I will be able to see him then. I work weekends and those are his only days home. My job is shut down for this week and that is the only reason why I'll be able to do this. I'm really excited. If they turn out good I'll post pictures.

Also, my youngest son wants to learn to decorate cakes so I told him that I will mix up the frosting and take it to his house and we can both work on decorating together. It has been a few years since I have taken the time to decorate cakes so this whole experience could be very funny.

Wish us luck!

Time saving

I have been trying to diet by eating less carbs and I found that if I eat a beef patty in the morning I am not starving for hours! It really helps me cut out any snacking and I am slowly losing weight. My whole problem with pan frying the patty was the mess afterward and then I realized that I can cook it in my toaster oven on a piece of foil with the sided crumpled up to make a little "pan" of it's own and then when it is done all I have to do is throw the foil in the trash and everything is clean! I love it!!

Etsy shop

I have finally gotten around to opening an Etsy shop. I do have a problem though. I don't have a beautiful banner to use.
Well, come on over and take a look at it when you have time.

www.enchantedhills.etsy.com

I've been busy

I have been very busy making soap lately for a large order I received from a gift shop. I think I have enough made with a large enough selection that people will be inclined to buy more than one. The bars are small and so the price is low enough that people are able to many fragrances without killing their wallet.

Here are the pictures:

Apple

Black Raspberry

Island Delight

Lavender

Oatmeal, Goat's Milk and Honey

Patchouli/ Lemongrass

Plumeria

Sandalwood Rose
Spearmint Eucalyptus Salt Bar

Sunday Dinner (Pioneer Style)

I was just reading Robynn's Ravings where she was telling about how easy it was for her mom to kill farm animals. It made me think of a story my Mom told me about when she was a young or pre-teen living in rural South Dakota.

She told me that every Sunday her Mom would kill a couple chickens and fix a big Sunday dinner after Church. She said that there was a space in the back porch steps that her Mom would slip the head of the chicken in and then hold onto the legs so that the chicken was upside down. She would then give a good yank on it and that would kill the chicken. Easy peasy.

One Sunday my Mom decided that she didn’t want to go to Church and Grandma tried to make her go but she refused. When Grandma decided she couldn’t force her to come without dragging her she told Mom “Ok, you can stay home but you will have to kill the chickens and fix the dinner. Have it fixed by the time we get home” and then the rest of the family left for Church. I am sure that Grandma and Grandpa got quite a chuckle thinking about what was going on at home.

Mom said that she chased and chased the first darn chicken all over the yard. She slipped and fell and was all skinned up but she wouldn’t give up. She got it in a corner and thought she had it but it let out a squawk and flew out over her head and the chase was on again. She was running bent over at the waist with her arms spread out trying to catch the darn thing and she ran head first into the wooden fence of the cow pen and fell backwards onto her rear. The cows were watching her with what looked like to her…with amusement. Her dog was following her and barking and adding to the chaos and not being much of a help. She got herself up and dusted off, rubbed her forehead, wiped her tears and got more determined. Finally the dog scared the chicken and it flew into the air and Mom was able to catch it by a leg as it flew past.

She then had to fight with the chicken to keep it from pecking her as she put the head in the space in the porch steps and yanked. Nothing happened. The chicken lived. She kept trying and it just wouldn’t die. She really wasn’t someone that could just kill an animal and this was very hard on her to keep trying to kill this poor chicken. After several attempts Mom gave up and put the chicken in a cage for Grandma to deal with and went inside. There was no thought of going after a second chicken.

She cleaned herself up and fixed the big dinner minus the chicken.

She was the first one out the door to go to Church the next Sunday.

Jail Break!

This morning I got a knock on the door and since I am expecting a package I thought it was the mail lady. Instead it was a man that lives a couple miles from me telling me that there are three horses loose on the highway, and did I know who they belonged to. I told him that the horses that live at the next corner always get out. He didn't seem to think these were the same ones but he left. Another neighbor has horses across and over from me so I called her and told her that two sorrels and a bay were out, were they hers? She said she didn't think so but she would come up and take a look. I met her out there and she said they weren't hers and the horses that always get out were still in so we decided to move them to the corral across the road from me. This is right on the highway and this way when the owner drives by they will see them.
The plan was for me to walk behind them and heard them into the lot. They were so tame that me walking behind, yelling (not really yelling but talking out loud) and waving my arms didn't move them at all. Then I tried walking ahead of them gently talking to them and making clicking noises. One of them started following me and that got the others to follow. Then they stopped so I went to the side of the road and pulled some dry grass and held it out to them. They looked at it and went over to where I pulled it and started grazing. Hum. Not what I was trying for. Then the mail lady came driving up and they still didn't move. I thought that she might be able to heard them to the gate but they made her stop. She told us what road they had come from which was an entirely different place I thought they would have come from.
The girl that was helping me drove up to me and I got an empty feed bag out of the back of her 4 wheeler and shook it. That got their attention and they followed me right on in and she shut the gate behind us.
We then went driving around to see if we could decide who's horses they were. We decided they belong to some friends of mine that have moved to another state and have someone else watching them.
Now phone calls are being made to the guy that is taking care of them and to the man who's corral we put them into but they are safe and no one will hit them on the road. They are in very good shape and I am loving watching them run and play across the road.