This is going to be one of the best Thanksgivings we have ever celebrated here. With Celeste and Little Joe now new members of our family, we have a great deal to be thankful for. They have brought so much joy into our lives the we are truly blessed.
Blessings come in all shapes and sizes. I find a new blessing every single day and more than one in most. We have a full house but we also adopt a few local families for Thanksgiving Dinner too. We’re having turkey of course, deer roast, and all the extras that everyone has. Desert is of course pumpkin pie, coconut cake, carrot cake, and banana pudding.
I hope and pray that each of you has a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving too.
Well it looks like it’s going to be a great Labor Day weekend The weather is supposed to be warm and sunny, and we have been invited to my brother’s house to hang around his pool and enjoy some grilled burgers and chicken. We plan to bring a nice grape salad to chip in with the food.
I hope that each and every one of you has a safe and happy Labor Day. Unfortunately it’s also the sign of Autumn beginning but that’s okay. All things must change!!
When I split up with my first husband, I let him keep all of my vinyl records. I did that because I had agreed to let him keep the house, and I was having a very hard time getting people to help me move out of the house. I had hundreds of albums – a lot of money was spent on them! Now I have mixed emotions about having let him keep them, and I wonder if he listens to them at all, or if they have all been given away, destroyed, or just taking up space in some vinyl record storage case somewhere. And I know that if I had them now, they would probably just be taking up space in my basement, gathering dust, not being used at all.
I think the reason that I feel so melancholy about this is that those albums represented many years of my youth, and leaving them behind was a lot like leaving my youth behind. And I really don’t like that feeling very much at all!
It all became too clear this weekend why Celeste took Little Joe and left home. Her father found out where she was, got drunk and came beating on my door last night. I could smell the liquor on his breath as soon as I opened the door. He demanded to see his daughter and I told him that he was not welcome here and to leave. That didn’t go over very well.
This crazy man shoved me out of the way and started up the stairs yelling for Celeste to come down right that minute. Celeste locked herself in her room with Little Joe and Grace, my faithful friend and help around the house called 911 as soon as she heard what was going on. By the time the deputy sheriff got there, he was trying to break down Celeste’s door and I had my shot gun on him asking him to stop or I would shoot.
They got him cuffed and as they were taking him out of the house, he yelled to Celeste that she was not taking HIS grandson from him. He then called her every kind of low person you can imagine for having a baby as young as she was and not married. She was not only abused physically by her father but he was also abusing her emotionally. My heart stopped when it hit me. I went to the sheriff’s department and took a restraining order against him so he can’t come back.
Now to help Celeste and Little Joe never have to go back to that crazy man again. That is no kind of life to live! After a lot of tears and some talking, I told Celeste that I would take her to a lawyer and get custody of both her and Little Joe if that’s what she wanted so she would not have to go back there again. So we have an appointment with my lawyer today to see what we have to do to protect them.
Oil change (free clip art)Today I pulled into the Valvoline quick oil change place near my house. I deliberately waited until after the lunch hour so the the place would not be short handed due to their oil change technicians being off for lunch.
I though I had timed the trip well because there are 3 bays and each bay had 1 vehicle in it. One of the tech’s came up to my car and instructed me to pull in behind the pickup truck in the first bay. I don’t know what they were doing to that truck, but it sure seemed to be taking a long time. It was not just an oil change, that’s for sure.
Another car pulled in and was directed to the 3rd bay. About 5 minutes later the vehicle in bay 3 drove away and the car that arrived at least 10 minutes after me pulled into that bay for an oil. Another car pulled up and was directed to wait at bay 3. The car finished and drove off and the new car pulled in. All together, those were 3 cars got their oil changed while I was stuck sitting behind the truck being worked.
The car in the second bay had it’s hood up and no one seemed to be working on it at all. No cars were ever directed to that bay while I was there. Forty minutes after I had arrived I was STILL sitting behind the truck in bay 1. The Assistant Manager came up and apologized and asked me to move to bay 3. I pulled right in and he promised to give me a $10 credit on my bill.
They changed my oil but because I had a coupon for half price, they did not give me that $10 discount that I was promised. I asked if they would replace the burned out light bulb instead of the $10 credit, but they said they could not. WTF?
I totally feel ripped off and taken advantage of. I don’t think i will be going back to Valvoline again. I’d rather go to Firestone and sit inside their customer waiting area and drink free coffee and watch the TV or read a magazine instead of being held hostage in my car for 40 minutes waiting to pull into a Valvoline bay.
When Aunt Jackie told me that she had no idea where to even start to look for an agent to buy car insurance from in her new town, I offered to help her out as best I can. Aunt Jackie is a sweet lady who has never bothered to learn how to use the Internet for anything other than reading and sending emails. Fortunately, I was able to help her look for burlington nc car insurance from here without ever having to leave the house! Just a few minutes online and I was able to hook her up with several options. I sure do love the Internet!
My favorite way to listen to music is with the online service called Spotify. You can use it for free, but I pay a small amount every month to get extra features. I’m not sure what the difference is, but I love Spotify and I don’t mind spending $5 a month to support this service.
Tonight I will be listening to the Oldies while I clean house and do the laundry. The weird thing is that my definition of the Oldies might be different from what you call the Oldies. There are actual Oldies radio stations, but they play really old songs, like from the 1950’s and 1960’s. That’s before most of us were even born. In my world, Oldies means the songs of the 1980’s.
The 1980’s songs were so fun for dancing and the best days of heavy metal bands. All the great Metal bands were forming their sound in the 80’s – like Metallica, Guns and Roses, Kiss, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, etc., although the genre got it’s start in the late ’60’s and 70’s. I think the 80’s were the hay day and I love the loud, upbeat music while I am busy scrubbing floors and washing dishes.
Sometimes I wish that I lived in an area where it was a constant seventy-six degrees out. Someplace that had no natural disasters, and where it only rained at night between the hours of 2am and 4am. Where the economy is good, the government is good, healthcare is good, and people were friendly. I take that back – I don’t wish that sometimes – I wish that always! But I don’t even know if a place like that exists, so here I am, stuck in a location where it gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I am lucky to have a furnace to keep me warm when it is cold out, and air conditioning when it is hot out. And if I need a repairman to either the furnace or air conditioning, a phone call to Cary air conditioning takes care of that problem in short order.
Yes, I do love the creature comforts of climate control in my house! I have become quite spoiled!
fireworks (free clip art)I sure hope you guys are having a ‘blast’ today. We have a special July 4th package deal going on where the whole house is decorated for the 4th, and we are having a huge picnic type dinner for everyone in the community too. The other local businesses like the tubing guys up river are throwing in with me and offering tubing and canoeing along with my package.
It’s kind of a bring your own fireworks type display and everyone brings a side dish too from the community. Watermelons are in the river getting good and cold and so is the beer. We always have the best time, and the house is booked solid for the whole 3 day weekend.
My neighbor came over yesterday and told me that they wanted to buy a new car. They’ve been looking into sedans and suvs. She wants something that has plenty of space, good gas mileage and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. She told me they are going to send their old car on an auto transport to their son in California.
I asked her why she was going to ship it instead of driving it across the country. Apparently with the price of gasoline car shipping is actually cheaper than driving it yourself. If she were to drive it she would not only have gas fees, but also fees for hotel stays and food. These additional costs can add up quickly.
I bet her son is going to be thrilled when he goes to pick up the car from the car transport pick up location only 5 miles from his house. He’s been without reliable transportation ever since he got laid off last fall. My neighbor, Karen, is happy to help him and she gets a new car out of the deal too!
