Ratting Buster Out

What is this?

Itsa chick?!

MOM??  Buster is BOTHERING me!

Poor Buster can't win for losing  :-(

Back at the Camper

I spent 24 hours out of the 'tin box' and have returned feeling much better.  I think I am seeing happy again.  I am only going to post a quick blog tonight, but tomorrow, I should be back to normal.  So here goes; the good news and the bad news...

The good news is the dogs did not eat the chicks:

The bad news is, they wanted to:

They really wanted to... well, maybe it was just Goofy, but he was a drooling fool.

 

The good news - and the bad news - is our grand daughter is growing up:

 

 

She is becoming as cute as a bug:

 

 The bad news is she is going to be a heart breaker.  

The good news is daddy will have to have a big baseball bat and her mommy will have band-aids.

Being 'home' with things nearly normal was good for me and I had a great time.  I had girl time, friend time, 'home' time, quiet time and nature time.  I spent hours outside enjoying ALL the girls and their backyard... it was noisy, active, beautiful and peaceful.

I will share more tomorrow.  Stay tuned for the details and of course - pictures.

Update... and Owls

I still don't have it in me to post.  But I am gonna try.  Bear with me please...

As you know, we are still in Mississippi while Steve does this job for Singapore.  He is having trouble with workers/welders - he walks away and they facebook, call friends and family, surf the internet, talk, cut up... whatever they can do but work.  When he is standing over them, they are doing everything they can to stretch the job out - working v.e.r.y.  s.l.o.w.l.y.  Not giving a crap that *he* has other places to be.  There are guys that go out and get drunk and are 'too sick' to come in to work.  He has guys that say they will be there and don't come or come and claim to have pulled their backs even though everyone knows darned well they have had a bad back for years - BUT he will have to pay the medical bills now.  This SUCKS.  He says 4-5 men get work done 1 man could do in half a day IF he tried.  When he walks away from this job, he will not be looking back.  I know how sick I am of it and I am not dealing with all the crap HE is.  He is so ready to go to the new job - hopefully he will not have to deal with this crap ever again.

*vent over*

My depression hangs on.  I try not to yap about it too much, but some days I just feel like crawling into a hole - and I know it is because of the 'status quo' we are in.  This too shall pass, but for now I am in the hole - a zombie putting one foot in front of the other.  I can hardly even think the darned cloud is so low right now.  

So what have I been doing?

Making stuffed owls

For a special day

To be announced at a later time

They are still in the planning stages, but they are developing personalities... if I do say so myself.

I have the gardening owl:

The lightning car owl:

The dancing owl:

 

... I am still trying not to put a belly button jewel on her tummy  ;-)

And the dinosaur owl:
 

Each made with a particular child in mind; their favorite thing, color or animal...  I cannot wait to see their faces - even if I have to see pictures of their faces - it will be fun.

As I said, they are coming around.  Part of my procrastination is dragging out supplies, spreading out over my 2 foot of counter space, needing a glass of water... moving everything to get the drink, redistributing it to work, moving it to cook, pulling it back out, moving it to... yeah, you get the idea.

Living in a camper has its limitations.

But I *will* get this done this week.

I went to see my uncle Danny again a couple of days ago.  I surprised him with a call and we met for an ice cream cone.  An hour drive for a great visit with my uncle.  I love seeing him!  He and Aunt Carole are going to visit my aunt in Selma and my other aunt from Hawaii is going to join the fun.  They asked me to go, but I gotta tell you - it sounded like a whole bunch of people going a dozen different ways.  Change is not working well with me right now (wonder why?) so I bowed out. Instead, I offered to 'cook dessert', and bought them an apple pie; pre-made, complete in a plastic shell and shipped up with Uncle Danny.  He said he was going to tell them I laced it with something strange so they would stay away from it - he wanted it for himself.  If he was smart, he ate it before he got there  ;-)

So that is where we are, we are making it and I will be fine.  Steph invited me to come play with their baby chickens, so I am heading out for a 24 hour trip tomorrow.  I will get pictures of the new 'family members' so I can share them.  It should be entertaining and I will get a different view of the world - oh, and I will get to see the girls.  I should be my bright and cheery self by Monday.

I promise I will find my happy cap - just you wait and see.

Spring Has Sprung

 I had to run to get embroidery floss for my owl project yesterday and I went the back roads.  I enjoy doing that - it breaks the monotony of the highways.  As I was driving I was enjoying the flowers and realized spring is here!  The flowers are beautiful!  

I actually stopped and took pictures of a couple of them:

The clover outside of our camper is in full bloom:
 

Even the leaves are new and shiny:
 

I found a great I loved, but I have no idea what it is:
 

 These are the flowers on it - do you know what it is?
 

I stopped at a random place on the road I was going down.  It was just a little pull out with a walkway, a few docks and lots of wetlands:
 

It also had some beautiful weathered wood:

I have an iPhone, and I Googled geocaches - guess what I found?  Do you see it?  Very well hid!
 

I saw a few signs of the times.  This was one of them:
 

Cate, do you have something you would like to tell your mommy?
 

Finally, I came home to find a couple of bulls having a discussion - or maybe it was a standoff:

The black bull won.  Yes, it was my 20 minutes of outside live entertainment for the day.

I am enjoying working with my owls.  I will post a few more pictures soon.  I do get frustrated that when I go to reach for something I need it is either in storage or I have to go 25 miles away to buy it.  I am sick of driving that highway to get 'stuff'.  One would think the simple things like embroidery floss would be nearby.  Today I went to reach for gray and white - and guess what?  I don't have it.  Do I really feel like driving 50 miles for 2 forty cent pieces of thread?

On the other hand, my claustrophobia on a scale of 1-10 is 50.  I go crazy in the camper alone, but when I go out, I have anxiety attacks.  Not sure what is up... well, I sorta do, but I guess I should say, I am not sure how to get control over what I am feeling.

Anyway, that is what is up.  Not feeling much like writing - for some reason I feel more like crying.  Thinks are really not that bad... I am just lonely, and the depression is oppressing.  However, I gotta tell you, the weather is beautiful and the flowers stunning.  I miss my garden and am looking forward to finding a place where I can start living again.  

I never seem to be happy do I?  I am sorry.  Gotta get a grip on that.

 

Whooo Loves Owls?

Punkin' loves owls!  

Punkin' has loved owls forever!  This skirt was made by her mommy - it had owls on it and she loves the skirt.

Her birthday is coming up soon.  I decided to make her and her friends owls for her birthday party.  Today I got up thinking about how fun it would be to create owl friends.  They could keep me company here, right?  Ok, I admit it, I am desperate, but creating is what I do second best.  So, with my trusty little scissors and some felt I picked up yesterday, I pulled out a pattern from a blog...  and I went to work.

Within 45 minutes (thanks to the pattern) I had created this little guy:

I thought about putting a little green caterpillar in his beak with his purple eyes looking down toward the caterpillar, but I am afraid it might scare the kids...  my whole thought was to add a bug to each owl so it was personalized for punkin' - we all know how much she loves bugs!  If you don't, then go to my favorite blogs on the bottom left of my main blog page and look at Stephenie's blog.  You will see her love of critters - in particular bugs - there.  

Be sure to look at the top of the blog - at the Monarch Butterfly Project.  You will be amazed!

Back to the Owl Project; of course I still have do the hand stitching and sew it, but I think I might have found something to occupy my time.  I wonder how many I will need to make for the party?  I could easily make a couple of dozen, but I think I will start with making all three of our grandkids their very own owly friend or - "a hooter" - as punkin' calls them.  Yep, I am making hooters.  

This is gonna be fun  ;-)

Follow By E-Mail Now!

Didja see it?  You can now follow my blog by e-mail!  Blogger added a new gadget to do so!  

You can find the place to enter your e-mail under my picture on the left.  Just letting you know if you would like to do so.

Today is another not so good day for me, so I think I will pause blogging for one more day.  I need to work on getting my spirits up.  I also have to go do oodles of laundry.  Fun stuffs.

See you tomorrow!  I promise to find a picture or two and something fun to blog about... please bear with me... these times are difficult for me to even find anything wonderful to yap about but I promise to put on my happy face tomorrow.  Going to dig it out now.  

Well, maybe after laundry. :-)

No Pictures Today :-(

Just a quick update about where we are right now - I keep getting lots of questions about it.

The news is we are still here in Mississippi, and he is till working on his job.  The good news is he is actually WORKING on this job.  The shipyard drug their feet and were not ready on him even though they told him they were.  When he got here with his crew to work, they had to do some busy work while they waited on the shipyard to prepare the space for the unit.

The job actually started last Monday, so we are a bit over a week into it.  He should be finished in the next two weeks - he hopes.  Remember I said he had to go after that to Louisiana to tie up the loose ends of this job?  He does... still... but the job he is leaving (the Singapore job) has asked him to do something else for them.  They want him to go to Venezuela to do a survey for them.  Soooo that means, he will still have to go back to Louisiana for a couple weeks and he now has to go to Venezuela for a couple of days to do the survey.

In the meantime, I am going freaking crazy.  I am fine, just bored out of my mind and cannot for the life of me make myself go on an adventure by myself.  It is not fun doing that.  This has been a real challenge for me.  Me?  Sitting still?  God is certainly testing my patience.

Finally, we have started working with a new real estate agent in Tulsa.  We will see how that works.  It is so difficult reading who someone is through e-mails and websites.  Her website is written third person:  The website has "My Bio" with lots of she's and her's - not me and I's.  It is really odd after looking at other agents who boast what is important to them and for their customers.  I am trying to be optimistic but feeling a bit apprehensive.  

The first e-mail had warm fuzzies - the rest have been cut and dried and I find maybe a bit... well they lack warmth.  There is very little interaction, and what we have had has seemed very rushed and... cut and dried.  She did tell me she has "been a full time mulit-million dollar producing agent for 7 years"  but no sweet "you will be looking real soon!"  "how is it going?"  "Are we getting close yet?"  "have you found a house/property you love?"  "looking forward to working with you"...

  

.... nothing.  She sent us 4 listings to begin with.  We went to her site, entered the same criteria we gave her and got dozens of listings.  Steve talked to her that day and commented on the fact she only sent 4 and her own site gave us dozens.  The next day she sent dozens of listings from where we wanted to live to over a hundred miles away with a snarky (?) remark that in order to get what we want, we might have to travel over an hour away and another pointing out that the properties with land had significant price increases... k... like we wouldn't know that... ?

I then sent her an e-mail asking how I would find out when new listings as they came out and it was then she told me that if I would send the cities we would consider she would add us to an auto mail that would update us daily.  Did I really have to *ask* for that?  I mean, the other real estate agent we had worked with seemed excited to help us.  This one... she just seems like we are a *chore* and it seems like I 'feel' the eye rolls.  Not sure what is up with that.  To be honest, I wish we could continue with the other agent - we at least felt like we were worth the effort of working with.  But as I said earlier, maybe it is just because we are working through e-mail.

Am I expecting too much?  *shrug*  I don't know.  I am a bit bummed on this.  Maybe it is just my state of mind, but I think not so much.

Today is one of those days I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, cry and stomp my feet.  I am having a crappy day; I want this part to be behind us and am damned ready to move on.  I have been patient (how long?) and am so OVER it.  He got transferred in January and we still have not even gone to his new job site yet.  While he is working, I am sitting, getting lazy, gaining weight (yes I said it) and I feel horrible physically and mentally.  I hate being alone, hate being out in the middle of nowhere, I am not a shopper and don't like enjoying doing adventures by myself.  This is the pits.  

I am off my soapbox now.  Yes this sounds like a broken record, yes I feel like one.  ;-)

But I keep gazing at the light at the end of the tunnel.  Quit moving it!!!  

Or are you stretching the tunnel?