Hi all.
Trigger---Oh, I feel so bad for the kiddo. Those jelly fish stings are vicious. I will NEVER forget being in Ft. Lauderdale when I was about 8 or 9. Parents rented an apartment in a complex on the ocean for a vacation. The kid staying upstairs got hit by a jelly fish bad, he was about 5. He screamed all day and half the night.
Know what you mean about the overcrowded touristy camp sites, although they can be fun for a short stay. Haha, our kid LOVED the Camp JellyStone sites. Camp stores filled with candy and ice cream, tons of kids in the pool, lots of action Jackson everywhere you looked. We enjoyed that the kid enjoyed it but we never stayed for more than a night or two because hubby and I weren't fond of the experience.
Lori---Sweetest dang story about you and your hubby. Absolutely LOVED hearing it. I love the idea of "social clubs," old fashioned but so nice in so many ways. Sounds like just another name for a bar, but it really isn't, is it?
Community thing, chance for those not in big cities to get together and look around. And your hubby sure looked in the right place. The "butterfly kisses" part made my heart flutter. I remember. Nothing more come hither than a guy who takes his time, IMO.
Jaz---Phenomenal job on the grocery shopping! Worth every dime. I believe this WILL get you back in the zone. I mean who wants to crawl back up on that high wagon without a reward waiting.
Very cool that missy thought you so youthful. I can see why. Your skin and hair are gorgeous and so youthful looking. Not to mention the pretty brown eyes and the darlin' smile and face.
Haha on GGTD. Of course they're all skinny, it's Hollywood---except the one who owns the bakery. She is zoftig by Hollywood standards. Funny, but my least favorite is the star. She bugs me---I guess because she's making a career of being phony. But in the end, who cares, amIright?!? It's a glazer/dazer and fun to watch.
Nic---Hate that you're struggling w/vertigo. Remember you mentioning this once before. Does it hit you often? Is there anything you can do for it?
Just have to tell you pal, my library kindle books are piling up, after barely 2 weeks. And of course, much of my reading time has evaporated lately in the push we're on over the house. But it is still the coolest thing since sliced bread! If I can't read 'em all in the time allotted, they go back w/no fines, and I can just keep going or renew.
K-mom---Missing you. Know you'll come back when the time is right for you.
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Third day in a row of mission impossible, but today just hubby and I. Hubby went from sunup to sundown again. Honestly gals, if you saw him---handsome as he is, IMO, you'd think what a sinewy guy---nice word for skinny. But holy cats gals, that guy has muscles Popeye would envy. Which is why he never puts on weight.
He's in such fantastic shape and hasn't seen the inside of a gym since high school, and he hated it then. He does it the old fashioned way. Rides his bike whenever he can to wherever he can, has done all the work on our rather large property in all seasons for 30 years. And then of course, some of it's just genes.
Again today it was hot as hades as it has been thru our three day odessey. Worked with him hauling things to the dumpster till the heat felled me. Then went to the basement---MUCH COOLER---and stayed there packing boxes and bags, which he then hauled upstairs and to the dumpster.
30 square foot cubic dumpster. In case you can't visualize that, it is HUGE. We filled it up over the last 3 days. Again, gee, I thought we'd already done a ton of work. At 3pm, even in the basement, I began to feel woozy and retired from today's effort, went upstairs took a shower and collapsed on the sofa.
Hubby kept on going like the energizer bunny only w/a wheel barrow he pushed between our deck, the dumpster and the alley---more on this in a minute. Neighbor who lives behind us and often sits out on his back deck and reads said he just could not believe how hubby kept going. Again, it was hot and humid as hell today.
Meanwhile, hubby is kind of having a good time. Yeah. The heat doesn't bother him. He also wacked apart all kinds of basement furniture, BEFORE he hauled it upstairs and to the dumpster.
YEP. He is my hero. Although while I was working in the basement I was ready to slap him a couple of times for all the stuff he couldn't let go of. But he paid his penance for that in these last days, and in the weeks before when he cleared the attic almost single handedly.
I want to share how we have structured our clearing out, because it has been a grace note to both of us. SO MANY have said to us, why aren't you having a Garage Sale? You could pull in some good money.
My response is I did garage sales w/a pal for 10 years and used the proceeds to pay for our hotel in Door County. She made it fun, and boy do I have stories. Then she got sick. Did it one year w/out her, and NEVER, NEVER again. SO MUCH WORK, and the money you make, you make at an average of a dollar an item, if you're lucky. Oh, the weeks of gathering and pricing and setting up!
So, this time we decided we would pass anything of value on to the universe of those who need it, free. We started last spring by donating the best stuff we had but could no longer use or would not have room for the church rummage sale, where all proceeds go to the church.
Then in these last weeks we have continuously put things out in our back ally. We have a nice "staging" area that people see from the road back there. Often we wake up and everything we put out there is gone. If it is going to rain, hubby hauls it into the garage.
We filled the dumpster with stuff we didn't think it fair to dump on any charitable organization. But these last three days we have also kept a steady "store" going in our ally.
In the city, alley crawlers are a thing, so it's not the first time we've experienced this. But this time there was so much, and it was AMAZING. Of course not to hubby, who knows the metal crawlers and the copper crawlers and the antique crawlers, because he always gets out there and chats with them if they pick up something when he's out in the yard.
So, there was this one couple who are metal crawlers. They can sell it by the pound. They have an old truck that when full and stacked up and roped up, looks like something from "The Road Warrior." Nicest folks ever. Make their living selling metal by the pound. We loaded them up yesterday, and again today, and they were so thankful.
Then there's our neighbors who have been hauling away all kinds of things that suit their fancy. Then there's the guy whose all about old cassettes and beta videos. The guy who hauled all our brush turns out to do a flea market several times a year at the fair grounds, and as he said, for him, he hit gold with this job.
The kid next store is a beginning quilter, and she took all the fabrics I put out. I used to find old fabric books for cheap when I had my store, because there was so much you could do with even just the samples. She was SO happy to drag them all off, and her mom took a couple of lamps left over from my store for her office.
And really, on and on and on it's gone. Word is out in the neighborhood now, and LOL, we have "customers" who stop by every day and check out what's in the alley, and that will continue till we move. And every bit of it is free and happily passed on to those who will use it and enjoy it.
All clothing and books are going to Good Will.
And I am humbled and knocked out by how ingenious people are these days, how VERY HARD some of them work to make a living, or just adding pleasantries to their home they may not be able to buy--- in IMO, a country that does not favor those who struggle, but rather the very rich. Yep, going to just come right out and say that. Sure have seen a lot of it in these last days, not that I didn't know the truth of it before.
I feel so blessed, and so lucky. Sure I've worked hard but some of it really is luck, for many reasons.
Anywho, I haven't worked so hard, physically, in I don't know how long, and gals, boy am I out of shape!!! Not that I didn't know that, but easy to stay in denial when you don't test it often. It sure has been tested, with eye opening results.
After this part of my path leads to the next path, that is going to be a priority to me, getting in better, not all buff, but deffo better shape. I think it will be as important to me as my woe.
HAHAHAHAHA! You know me gals, it's either a period with a paragraph to show I'm alive (LOVE Jaz's innovation with the "period/dot" concept---so great when you don't have much to give, but you want to let your pals know you're still here!)---or it's a major opus!