As The Year Ends

Wow, where does time go, I can't believe it has been such a long time since I posted anything to this blog. I am going to try to do better in 2012. As most of my blog friends know I had a really rough year the last half of 2010 and most of 2011. I am hoping 2012 rings in brighter. I've never really talked about the path my life has taken me down on this blog, and won't go into all the details now, but I will for the sake of bloghood touch on it.
In June of 2010 I made a life changing decision to move out of the house and leave my marriage of almost 10 years to move in with a man I had been previously involved with 12 years prior. This move also broke up his marriage and since this is our second time around his wife didn't take it very well. (not saying that I can blame her). Out of hurt and bitterness and scorn she has taken him for over half his pay check each month and has caused him financial ruin by dumping all the unpaid bills they incurred on him. Lots and lots of drama over the past 18 months which I won't go into. Her behavior has been the main cause of why I shut my other blog down and don't update this one often. Simply put my life is none of her business. However I have given it some thought and have decided in 2012 to keep this blog open and to update it at lest once a week. I am tired of her having control of my life and of what I do with it. Let me start by saying Happy New Year and I am looking forward to getting back to blogging

There Are Angles Amoung Us

Sometimes angles come with wings, sometimes they come in human form. Mine arrived very human in the form of a facebook friend, and thanks to him we now have a washer. I am so grateful. It seems that a facebook pal noticed my post saying my washer had broke. He came to the resuce by offering me one he had just changed out with a new model of his own. We had a 100 mile round trip to pick it up, but it was well worth the ride. We also did a little geocaching along the way, and stopped before coming home to tour Rosewell Ruins.

Wash Day Blues

Darn the bad luck, my washer went out this week. It's back to the laundry mat for me until I can replace it. I hate the laundry mat. It just takes so much darn time to get things washed, dried, and folded. I'm not sure if I have mentioned it before but it takes me between 35 minutes and eternity to get home each day. I say eternity because I have to come across the Hampton Roads Bridge and tunnel which has a very bad habit of having traffic jams. I am not sure why. It just seems that people don't like tunnels and slow down WAY DOWN when driving in one. Then of course there is the idiot who will slam on there brakes, causing a fender bender and tying traffic up for hours. Those are BAD days. Anyway my point is when I get home I'm already tired. I still have dinner to prepare and just don't have time to go to the laundry mat. I don't have money for a new washer so it isn't like I can just call Sears to deliver. I do have a lead on a used one that I can get on Saturday IF it hasn't sold, so cross your fingers.

Catching up

It seems every time I sit down at this blog it is to only catch up with what has been happening since the last time I blogged. BORING. I really need to find my muse again and write. When I had my other blog I found myself writing about things. Not just gibberish. So lets see the boring stuff is. I haven't done anything but work and sleep.
The somewhat interesting stuff is:
Hurricane Irene blew though our area about three weeks ago, leaving a mess. Being in a mobile home we were smart enough to GET OUT. We had several days warning so we packed an over night bag, grabbed our cats and went to stay with my mom. Thankfully she is only a few miles away and in a much sturdier home. We settled in to what we hoped would only be an over night stay Not to be. FIVE days later we finally got to go home.
The wind from the storm had knocked a branch down from the tree in the empty lot behind us. It hit both the electric wires and the roof of our trailer. The transformer blew and so did power.

While we were waiting for the power company to come out, we cleaned both our yard and my moms.

She had also lost a huge tree branch, but thankfully hers did not hit anything.
Once we got the yards cleaned it was just a sit back and wait. We enjoyed time with mom and she really enjoyed spoiling our kitten. Really spoiling our kitten!! She fed him constantly PEOPLE FOOD. We do not feed our cat people food. It got to be funny after a few days because she babied this cat.
He quickly learned people food taste good and followed her around meowing. She would talk to him and announce that he must be hungry because he was meowing, so she would find him some type of tidbit to eat. I am not kidding I know that cat must have gained at lest two pounds that week.

(enjoying the last bite of dip from the jar)
Needless to say when we got home we were tired and the kitten was missing his 'grandma' because it was back to dry food..

To blog or not

When I sat down a few months ago to start this blog I really intended to write in it. I am sorry to say I haven't. No excuse, just life in general I guess that keeps me from opening up. To be honest it is a trust issue. We have  had such problems with my boyfriends (soon to be ex) wife that I just don't want to give out much information for her to use in any type of mental or financial attack. I hate giving her this power over my life. It makes me angry and I resent that I feel limited in what use to be a fun thing to do (blog). I guess I need to rethink this whole put it on paper thing.

I will be back

Flying By

Can you believe it is August already? Where is the summer going? I don't feel like we have done a thing. I wanted to travel to Richmond VA yesterday but mother nature spoiled my plans and let it rain, so we just stuck around the area and did a bit of Geocaching. We always have fun with that. We were on a  what we call quick park and grab day. This is where you only go after the caches that are hidden in easy to find places like light post skirts or metal utility boxes that hold little magnetic ones. We managed to add 22 finds to our day and now have over 300 total. Small numbers by geocaching standards but a lot for newbies like us. I personally like the caches that are hidden along the trails in parks or the edge of the tree line somewhere, but the ticks are so bad this year along with the chiggers (see previous post for what happened to me with them) that even using OFF we try to avoid them until fall. We did manage to see this guy yesterday.

Some one told me it is a weaver spider but I'm not sure what that is. I just liked the web. He/she spun it down instead of around.
Saturday my daughter had been by with the grand kids and my new grand dog. They got an American Eskimo  Spitz pup. It seems the dog was lost and after searching for the owner for more than a week with no luck decided he will make a good pet for the boys. I think every kid needs a dog (even though I am more a cat person) and this is a nice size for the family.
Today is my third day in a row off which only happens once a month so I am taking advantage of it by doing a bit of cleaning and laundry. My next Sunday off will be two weeks from now so maybe we can get up to Richmond then. I really want to make another visit to  Hollywood Cemetery http://hollywoodcemetery.org/
 The old tombstones are amazing and there are lots of Civil War graves there including the dead from the battle of Gettysburg.
Anyway that is about it around here. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Two Words

Only two words for today's post. IT'S HOT...I hope everyone is staying inside and staying cool.

Mid July update

I have been so bad about updating this blog that I do believe I am talking to myself since I noticed no one commented on my last post ha ha. I can't believe the summer is flying by this fast. It seems all I do is work and sleep. We did have a nice July 4th long weekend. My daughter and the boys came and we cooked out, and my sweeite and I snuck in a bit of geocaching. Other than that life is nice and peaceful. I'm working on Saturday but plan to check out a new campground on Sunday. If we like it we will leave a deposit and go back in two weeks.  We don't get many weekends off together and want to take advantage of the few we have together. We both love to camp but due to the tight schedule thought we would look for one close to home. I hope this one works out.  More later

Summer is flying

Can you believe this weekend is the fourth of July weekend? The summer is flying by. Other than the trip to Gettysburg nothing much is happening around here except work and sleep. We do find time to do some geocaching, but after what happened last weekend we are putting certain area's on hold until winter when the bugs die. Unfortunately we managed to find a nest of Chiggers, or I should say they found me. Just look at my back and under arms. I am eat up with bump. I have bites where I shouldn't have bites and won't talk about in polite company.

The bumps are slowly getting better, but now I have scabs and bad bruising from the intense itching especially around the top of my thighs and tummy area. If you saw my there you would swear someone had beat me. Needless to say we won't get around any more bushes, woods or pine needles for a long time. And no we were not naked in the woods ha ha. I had just failed to spray myself down with bug killer. I laid down on the pine straw to search for a container in some thick bushes..
Ok enough on that. I am sure everyone is itching by now..ewwww

Did I tell you we got a kitten? I think I might have mentioned it in a previous post. His name is Smokey and he is about three months old. The people across the street from us have the mommy and they were/are living outside.He has adjusted well to being an inside cat as you can see from the photo below.

Him and our other cat Bella have finally become friends and sleep and play well together. Speaking of sleeping my daughter and I talked last night about my youngest grandson. It seems he is going through a very bad stage. He is throwing temper tantrums every evening and she is really having a hard time settling him down for bed. He is 16 months now and has had a real problem adjusting to day care this last few months since she went back to work. I feel so helpless not living close to her now. It takes me about an hour to get to her so I can't just pop in and help with the kids.  On the bright side she plans on bringing the kids out to see me this weekend. We will probably have a early 4th of July bbq and just relax and hang out. I hope all of you will have a great weekend too, and I will try and update again soon.

Yes, it's me!

Hello blog world. I can't believe I have let another month pass without blogging. I told you I am bad *giggle*. Actually things are going ok. My sweetie and I just got home from.....you guessed it. My favorite place. Gettysburg PA.  We only had time for a quick weekend camping trip, but really enjoyed the time we were there. We had bought a new tent and thankfully it didn't leak, because we got a little afternoon rain both days.

Here we are putting it up

 

All moved in (notice a smart woman never goes anywhere without her purse)

While in town we got a chance to do a little geocaching http://www.geocaching.com. We had read about this one ahead of time and I was very excited to be able to visit this old cemetery. Some of the graves there went back to the Revolutionary war. We also found a cache at this old barn. It was used as a hospital for the southern soldiers after the battle.

Of course we also took time to visit the battlefield and on this trip we decided to stop by the monument that is dedicated to the brave men from Alabama. I recently learned that an ancestor of mine fought in Gettysburg with the 13th Alabama (read more about this unit here) http://history-sites.com/civilwar/units/5albn/Beginning%20Gettysburg.htm

He was a great great (how ever many greats) Uncle of mine, so that answers a lot of questions as to why I feel so drawn to Gettysburg. Thankfully did survive the war.

The weekend went to quick and unfortunately we did not have time for a ghost walk this year, but maybe next time..

I promise to try and update more often and will try read some of your blogs soon

No Excuses

I am really really bad about this blog. When I started it a few months ago I thought I would update more often. The only excuse I have is I really am not in a place in my life *YET* where I can talk a lot about my personal life. As you may or may not know I am going through a divorce as is my sweetie. To be perfectly honest I can't trust that his soon to be ex-wife won't get access to this blog like she did my former one and raise all kinds of havoc. For a while she was stalking me, copying everything I said on the Internet and mailed it to me under stupid names for return addresses. She admited to the letters and actually my sweetie had her arrested at one point. So far she is being good, but being good only means she is being silent. It doesn't mean she isn't plotting. I will be back to update, but have to find time to sit down and find something to blog about that won't set off the wicked witch if she reads it..Be patient..I'm around

Playing catch up

Wow am I behind on my blogging. I swear every time I sit down at the computer I find a thousand other things to do besides write in this poor neglected blog. Not a lot to update but here is what I've been doing.

Don't you love the little fish! I had not been fishing in years so my boyfriend and I took a day off to relax. This was my "big cactch"
Not much else in that lake so we took off to Newport News to my daughter's home and grabbed my grandkids and went to a different area.
As you can see the lake here is quite nice.

My oldest grandson Cody managed to catch several fish while Noah watched from the comfort of his stroller. All in all we had a great day

I think I have mentioned before that my boyfriend and I are avid http://www.geocaching.com geocachers. We go out to find the little hidden treasures every chance we get so last weekend we went to our local downtown area. i was so thrilled when I realized the cache was hidden in of all places an old cemetery. Now you followed me on my older blogs you know that I LOVE old cemeteries.

Saint Paul's Episcopal Church also known as (Borough Church) is a historic church in Norfolk, Virginia. Built in 1739, it is the sole colonial-era building which survived the various wars that Norfolk has witnessed. The church has played host to several different denominations throughout its history. Originally an Anglican church, the building was home to a Baptist parish in the early nineteenth century and was finally converted back into an Episcopal church.

 Just take a look at some of the old grave markers

In wartime

Cannonball in the wall of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church

Following his defeat at the Battle of Great Bridge, Lord Dunmore attacked Norfolk from the sea as he fled Virginia on January 1, 1776. In retaliation, patriots set fire to the homes of loyalists; however, the fire became unmanageable, and nearly the entire town was destroyed by the flames. The church was the only major building in the city to escape substantial damage in the assault,though a cannonball (purportedly fired by the Liverpool)did strike its wall.^[By the 1830s, the cannonball was no longer embedded in the wall. However, it was discovered buried in the yard of the church, and returned to its original resting place in the 1840s, and remains there today.During the Civil War, the building acted as a chapel for the Union army, and was returned after the surrender of Robert E. Lee, though it required extensive repairs.
Visiting the church while in Norfolk during World War II, Lord Louis Mountbatten is reputed to have said that Dunmore's cannonball "damn near missed" its target.

All in I really enjoyed the visit.

In my next post I will tell you about the rest of the day

Time to catch up

Hello Blog World. I really didn't get lost. It just seems that every time I plan to sit down and write a post something gets in my way. I'm off today so maybe I can finally catch up. Life is good here in the hood (trailer hood), no drama and almost bordering on the edge of dull ha ha. I'm thankful for boring since things could be much worse considering all the bad weather that hit here last week. Tornadoes ripped into North Carolina and parts of Virginia hitting the town of Gloucester and killing three. One of my co-workers lives there, and thankfully was not hit. I was working at the mall late that night and I don't mind telling you I was a bit nervous. Where  I work is about 30 miles from it and that is to close for comfort. My house is 30 miles in the other direction but my boy friend said the trailer did some rocking. Whew. Anyway with that behind us the weather is finally trying to clear up and make way for spring. The azalea bushes are in full bloom

As you can see the yard needs some work, but I'm just happy to have one. It's been over 15 years since I have had a space to call my own. My side yard has a few things growing (including these little trees seen here that have to be cut down)

Hopefully by fall we will have this area boxed off and mulch put in. I am trying to get phlox to grow on the other side and will take some photos of it next time.

Miss Bella Kitty (Isabella named from the Twilight movie) has taken a liking to the porch and wants to spend her days when I am home out there.

I can't say that I blame her, as it is becoming a favorite of mine too..

  Well gang that is about all the news around here, just wanted to check in. I need to get my self motivated. I hear laundry calling my name. I need to finish it up and start cooking tonight's dinner (spaghetti) so when my honey gets off work we can get in a bit of geocaching before dark. I hope everyone has a lovely day and a blessed Easter Sunday.

Things that make me go Hmm

My first bill for my cable/telephone came today, and I have to tell you that I was a bit taken back by the amount. It was almost double what I had expected. When I called to question why I had an extra 50 dollars due I was informed that it was a "standard" charge for installation. Hmmmm I thought to myself. isn't it funny that the young lady who set up the appointment and quoted me the price when I went in to ask for installation just "forgot" to mention that they charged this. Not a good way for the local company to do business in my eyes. I live on a very tight budget and now I have to pay out money I had not counted on.  Oh well guess it has to be paid.
On the bright side I am enjoying my week off, but it is going much to fast. I can't believe it is Friday already. I did manage to get out in my yard and plant some gladiolus bulbs. I hope they come up this year. The yard itself is in as bad of shape as the trailer was when we moved in and I know it will be next spring before it is in any kind of shape. I just don't understand why it is that some people do not take pride in there home and yard. Just because this is a trailer park and not a million dollar neighborhood is no excuse. I won't even begin to talk about how run down some of the homes in here are. Each to there own I suppose but I don't plan on living like I am a slum somewhere. Ok enough said.
My mom and my son came for a visit a few days ago. Mom had not seen the trailer at all and my son had not seen it since before we moved in. He couldn't believe how much we had done to it. He really didn't want me to buy it when he saw it the first time, but I think now he is feeling different about it.  Mom of course sat with me on the couch and dreamed of laminate wood floors throughout and pretty white kitchen cabinets. I guess it must be a girl thing.
My sweetie and I have managed to get in a little geo-caching this week. We always have fun with that, and have plans this evening to attend a pot luck for the local cachers in our area. Last I checked about 100 people had signed up to go. I got up early this morning and baked corn muffins. Chili is the main dish for tonight along with some awards for how many finds people have done. It should be fun.
Tomorrow morning will find us on the road, we are heading to North Carolina for the weekend to visit David's sister and her family. It's suppose to be a beautiful weekend and I am looking forward to the trip. We will be back late Sunday night. I still have Monday off but then it is back to the real world. I'm not ready. Sigh!

Anyway I have been trying to remember the last few post to put a couple of photos of the inside of my house on here so everyone can see what it looked like before what it looks like now so here they are..Catch you in a few days

Living room walls before

dirty carpet and walls (before)

This was my bedroom wall

Had to replace all the plugs they were falling out of the wall

Looking at the same front door with walls painted

Where did the nail holes go?

Wow we have a clean kitchen

Just a few of my chickens

Pitter Patter

I woke up this morning to the sound of the wind and rain hitting against the trailer walls and roof. Both are made of metal, and when the rain hits them your going to wake up. It makes it sound much worst than it really is. Even though he has been gone 6 years now My first thoughts when I woke up were of my dad. As I was growing up I can always remember him talking about how much he loved the sound of rain on a tin roof. I suppose it made him think of his own youth growing up in rural Georgia. My grandparents were share croppers and I think now what a hard life they must have lead. They moved thirteen times while raising two daughters and a son. I'm sure most of those old houses they lived in had tin for the roof. Cracks in the floor boards and fireplaces to keep warm. While I don't have cracks in the floor, or sadly a fireplace (since I would love to have one). I do have a metal roof. I think it is a bit stronger than tin, but metal neither the less. These thoughts took me to my porch where I sat for several minutes with my cat Bella, just listening, thinking about my life and how blessed I really am. I have a place to live, I have food, I have a man I am deeply in love with, I have two children and three beautiful grandchildren. Life is good.  With all of today's modern conveniences I think most of us take simply things like a warm home for granted. If we want heat we simply hit a switch. Air, just push the button, pick up the phone and talk to a friend. Or turn on the computer and find out what is going on around the world.  While I would be lying if I didn't say I enjoy this life, I do long sometimes to live in a different time. One where you grow your own crops, raise your own chickens and sit and listen to the rain on the roof. Instead I hurry, hurry hurry.  Thank you daddy for coming into my thoughts today so I could slow down.

Vacation has arrived

I'm on vacation this week. Yeah. I'm so happy. I haven't had any time off to call my own in a very long time. I have EIGHT glorious days off to do absolutely nothing in. Of course that is not going to happen because  I have a list a mile long that I want to accomplish this week. Things I simply must get done, so if I know this why am I finding myself laying on the couch being lazy. There is still a mountain of boxes in my spare bedroom that need to be unpacked and sorted out. Clothes to be hung in the closet and laundry to be done. I have books that need a home and dust bunny's giving me the evil eye. Well you get the idea. I need to motivate. I need caffeine . I need to move, ugh. Ok first step, sit up, ok that wasn't do hard. Now put both feet on the floor..Oh that was a bit harder. Stand up, put one foot in front of the other, head down the hall. Pretend I am the little  train engine going up that hill. I think I can I think I can, I know I can..ok. I'm up. Later everyone.....

Where did it go

Spring played tricks on us this year. It came for a quick visit then ran back into a cold dark cave somewhere to sleep awhile. In it's place came rain and cold. Brrrr. When we bought the trailer we knew that the heat and air was not working. In its place are several electric heaters. This work great and keep us nice and cozy, Hopefully the window unit that is in our bedroom for air and the ceiling fans will work equally well for summer. If not we are going to be wishing for the cold cave. On the bright side I have flowers coming up in the yard. Since this is our first spring here I have no idea what they are other than some kind of bulb planted and forgot about by the previous owners. I suspect in the next few days (If Mr. Sunshine ever decides to join us again) that they will bloom.  I work tomorrow, but then I am on vacation for about 9 days. I have some daffodil bulbs I got from my mom and plan on putting them along the side of the trailer closest to the street, then plant some gladiolas in the flower bed. Hopefully this time next year we will be a sea of beauty in the "hood".
Also we have plans to do a little geocaching this weekend. If your not sure what that is look it up at http://www.geocaching.com. We have so much fun with it, and it keeps us on our toes trying to find these treaures. We are trying for our 100th find. I will let you know how we do

Life On The Super Highway

It's amazing how spoiled I was to the Internet and didn’t know it. I have been on line on and off for about 20 years now and have come to depend on my computer for everything from a simple chat with a friend to checking my bank account. When I made the move to “the trailer-hood” I didn’t have money to hook back up right away. Finally today I got a house phone and internet installed. Woo hoo. Now I am riding on the super highway again. To bad I still can’t find an insurance company. GROWL

Who'd have known

Who’d have known that five gallons of white paint could make such a difference. The trailer is actually looking pretty good these days. Once we got it cleaned and the walls painted we felt like we had hope to make this place a real home. All the curtains I had from the apt. fit here with the exception of the kitchen which has huge windows. I managed to find some I liked at a local discount store and with everything in place even I had to admit it is starting to feel like home. I have a few more things to hang on the walls but for the most part the front rooms are finished. Our biggest obstical so far has been getting insurance. The company I choose is a nationwide chain, cheap rates, good service and a royal pain in the butt. I’ve been trying for two weeks now to get the paper work in order, I was told they would do it, not a problem. Then I was told they needed photos, and the person they used was sick, could I take photos and send them to them. Sure not a problem, snap snap, in they go, Then I get a call. Oh you don’t have back steps, you need back steps. So off into the hood we go to “borrow” a set. Snap snap, more photos, Ohhh sorry those won’t work, you need steps with a hand rail. so off to the hardware store we go to build a hand rail. Snap snap, more photos. Ohhh sorry, you must have permanent steps not removable steps. Ok now wait just a darn minute here. First of all this is a TRAILER,  a 1984 bluemoon damn metal trailer. The kind that uses metal TRAILER steps. I do not want nor do I plan on building a deck at my back door. I tried to very calmly explain to this idiot on the phone that we are not handicap, nor do we have small children. I honestly don’t think we will EVER use this door. The company’s logic is we might open the door at night and fall out. Come on give me a break. To my knowledge I have no sleep disorder that causes me to sleep walk, and I know that I am not going to dream that I have a pool in my yard and that I am going to use the trailer to dive into it. Grrrr. She promised to have an agent call the underwriter one more time. That was Thursday. I plan on calling a new company on Monday.

Ready Or Not

Ready or not I am moving into the trailerhood. I signed all my papers this week and we have been over there everyday cleaning and painting. I swear I have never seen so much dirt in one place. I don’t know how the previous owners could live there.  I am talking really nasty dirty. I scrubbed the  tub and shower area for at lest an hour. I have to admit it does look better but I still feel like it is dirty. David is going to put new caulking on it soon and that will help.  The walls in there are green, flat paint and sooo ugly. I suppose if I had to pick a room though the bathroom would be my favorite. It is far above the brown walls and gray carpet we found in the living room, or the gold walls with blue carpet in the master bedroom. of course the smaller bedroom being an dark purple doesn’t help, but at lest that room has new tan carpet.
The kitchen was also brown with a gray and white title floor and stained cabinets. Or so we thought until I started to wash them down. The stain came right off to reveal a funky color yellow underneath.  When I realized what was happening I didn’t finish, so all that is facing us to finish up.  I’ve learned Awesome spray and Clorox Bleach are my new best friends.
That along with a five gallon bucket of white paint has done wonders. The windows in the place are so dirty that the paper towel came out pure black dirty.  There is no way that they were cleaned for many years. The blinds are bad, but do have to be taken into the shower and at lest sprayed off. Why they bothered with them is beyond me, no one can see in or out of the nasty glass. Sigh!
We streamed cleaned the carpets last night and they turned out ok. Not great but ok. There is still a ton of work to do and to top it off we already have plumbing problems, The tub and toilet are stopped up.We are pretty sure the problem is in the main line and if so that is maintained by the mobile home park. We called them last night and they are suppose to be checking it out today.
In the mean time while all this is going on I am working and trying to pack out the apt. clean and organize, and I am sooo exhausted. I have to go to work today and work the closing shift which is 10 pm..Ugh

Maybe Maybe Not

I’m getting cold feet over buying this trailer. Finances are at an all time low and my concerns are if I’m making the right choice. Looks like a room mate might be in order. Either way I have to pack. Wish me luck.

Hello World

Wow there has been a lot of changes going on in my world since the last time some of you have heard from me.  I can't go into all of them today, but the most current change is I am moving into a mobile home. A really old run down moblie home Fun Fun. NOT!
Actually I am looking forward to it. It will be a lot different way of life than I am use to but I know that like life changes can be bad or good. I intend to make this one a good one. So come join me, follow the adventures of my life as I move forward into
THE TRAILERHOOD!