Graduation Tassel Christmas Ornament

We're getting some more nice little t-storms this evening, lots of good rain after a good day of sunshine.

J came in after a 48-hour shift (24/24) and had a massage appointment midday, so it wasn't much of a work day. Usually I don't plan any kind of project/work on days after he works 48 hours, so that we did anything at all was a win.
There was some trim and paneling left on the carport ceiling he finished tearing on out, then we finally went down and pulled the destroyed pool cover off the pool.
It had gotten ripped nearly to shreds....last year, or maybe the year before?...during a severe storm with some big winds. I was afraid it was going to go ahead and shred on apart and end up sinking in the swamp  pool.

Otherwise, I did a Pin project: a Graduation Tassel Christmas tree ornament.

Some time back, when I first started sorting and de-hoarding, I had rubbermaid tubs for each of the boys that I put some of their more important keepsakes in, but apparently my oldest's graduation tassel had gotten left on his graduation cap instead of put in his tub.
I had been going to keep all their graduation caps and gowns, too, but then decided just keeping the tassel was enough.

A few days ago, I was upstairs going through some things and saw the tassel hanging around and remembered this project to do with it.

I had some clear glass ornament balls and removed the cap, inserted the tassel, fed the cord through the slit in the cap, and replaced the cap.
The year charm wouldn't fit in the hole, so I took it off and, for the moment it's safety pinned to the hanger loop, until I get some jewelry chain or something to hang it from eventually.

Because I Have No Garden Journal

I have meant, and keep meaning, to make a Gardening Journal, where I can record all those things I always forget, like how much it rained.

Even after all this time, knowing good and well I can't remember stuff from hour to hour sometimes, much less days later, I still find myself saying "I'll remember it later".

I've been recording a lot of my gardening things here in my blog so I can look back and find it again later, but not every time it rains.

For the past week (or so) we've been having weather similar to July:  bright, clear sunny mornings, temps in the upper 80's - low 90's, and a chance of a pop-up thunder shower in the afternoon/evening.

I know we didn't get any rain yesterday, or the two days before that, and I think we didn't on Memorial day. Before that, no idea.
There were a couple of days where we only got thunder and no rain. That happens here a lot. We live in some sort weird weather circle where it will rain north, south, west and/or east of us, but not here.
We've literally watched rain on the radar move in from the west, hit the Georgia line and split apart, going north and south of us, and we won't get anything.

Many times, I've told J a million times about this but I think he thinks I'm nuts, storms will build up/develop right in our back yard and go rain on the county to the east of us.

Thunder storm building in our back yard.

J works in the county to the east of where we live, so he pretty much sees rain nearly every day over there. When he's at home and it clouds up like in the picture above, he starts readying for rain. He'll tell me we have to hurry and do whatever we're doing to get finished before the rain comes, or if I hang laundry out on the line he'll say like I better hope it don't rain on it.

But I know if it's clouding up in the backyard, most of the time, we're not going to get anything here.

(The picture doesn't do it justice, but the sun was shining so bright and pretty on my clean, white sheets yesterday. I thought I hadn't such a beautiful sight in such a long time.)

I'm not claiming to be any kind of weather-predictor or such, but it's not exactly rocket-science to figure if there's a chance of scattered afternoon showers, if you do your laundry in the morning and get it hung out early, it'll be dry well before any showers pop up later in the afternoon or evening.

Today though, was something different. I can't really explain it, but this morning outside just looked...sickly, or something. Yellow-y, but different from Sunny, or watery maybe. I don't know how to describe it, anyway it was different.
So when I washed a small load of whites this morning, I dried most of them in the dryer, and the 2 t-shirts and sports bra I wanted to air dry, I hung on hangers and hanged from the ceiling fan on the back porch.

Sure enough, about 2 in the afternoon, it started thundering, and got dark, and came a lovely downpour.
I ran out and set my buckets and watering cans out to collect rainwater, and set my plants near the edge of the porch so they could get a good splashing.

We got a good downpour, but they had Severe thunderstorms to the East and North of us, with big lightning and even some hail. Which is why I don't complain a whole bunch that we don't get the same weather as everyone else around us, even though it leaves us kind of dry at times.

After the storm rained out and it cleared off again, I went out on the back porch to check things out, and I would swear the tomatoes had grown a few inches just since a few hours ago. Also the Catawba (worm) tree has bloomed with flowers that I'm pretty sure weren't there this morning.

Garden Update

Our tomatoes and peppers this year seem to be loving their new garden spot.

But, it may not be the new garden spot as much as we've just had some nearly perfect gardening weather this Spring (as evidenced by the profusive and lush growth of mine and others' Roses this year).

Whatever the reason, our tomatoes and peppers are coming along pretty well.

We lost a few of the peppers at first, to cats or squirrels, or I'm not sure what, but we have 6 of the Datil peppers left which should still give us a cartload of peppers.

In addition to the Datil peppers, J also planted a row of Serrano Chili peppers yesterday. They, and some Habanero peppers, are ones I didn't intend to grow this year, but I accidently got the seed package wet and I was afraid they would germinate and not be any good.

The peppers aren't growing as quickly as the tomatoes, though, and I'm afraid I'm going to have the tomatoes come and go before we even get any peppers. I need both at the same time to be able to make Salsa.

Or I need to figure out how to "preserve" the tomatoes for a few weeks or a month until I have the peppers ready to add to them.
(Apparently I can freeze them. Gardenweb is so awesome.)
(I can also use the Bishop's Crown peppers I froze last year...if I remember to!)

As far as the Three Sisters garden, na-da. No corn ever came up. I don't know if it's too late to keep trying at this point or not. I would try anyway, if I could ever remember to buy new corn seeds while I'm at the store.

Technical Difficulties

Earlier in the month we started a project tearing the old pecan-paneling off of the carport ceiling, and adding some plywood "flooring" up in the rafters to make an attic for some extra storage out there.

The first day we worked on it, we tore down (most of) the paneling off the ceiling, and got 2 sheets of 1-inch plywood up in the rafters.

The next time we worked on it, which was one day last week, IIRC, J cut out a bunch of randomly nailed up boards, and we got the other two sheets of plywood up in the rafters.

So now there's an 8-foot by 16-foot floor area we can get up in there and be able to walk (if very scrunched over) and be able to store things.
Mostly I'd planned to store our camping/outdoor stuff and my excess glass/canning jars up there. Things we use, but not all the time.

Before I can start hauling stuff up there, though, we still have to brace up the ceiling/roof.
We've been needing to do that even before I decided to make an attic in the rafters.

It's a pretty large 2-car carport, with probably 20 feet between the house and the storage room on the other side, and the original builders never put any kind of support post(s) in the middle of the spanse.
There is no center support from the ceiling to the floor, nor from the rafters to the roof.
Therefore, we have a dip in the roof up top, and the carport ceiling has a sag.
Therefore, we have to jack the sags back up and put in support posts.

J wanted to put in 6x6 wood posts, but due to the age of the house/carport addition, steel poles felt more right to me.

You know, the steel poles like you find in most basements-garages?

Via

Or, at least you did at one time? What are people putting in their basement/garages now?
Apparently it's not steel poles, because everyone I asked about them yesterday looked at me like (1) they didn't have a clue, (2) I was crazy and/or making such a thing up.

I know Home Depot used to have these - right along with the porch columns they also apparently no longer carry - because I've looked, because I've known for awhile we were going to be having to do some work on both the carport and front porch.
It didn't occur to me to buy ahead everything we'd need because who would have ever thought they would stop selling the things!?

When HD didn't have them, we called a local Building Supply place, who also didn't have them. Then we tried a vintage old Hardware/Dry Goods place (they still carry Mobile Home parts), but no basement support poles. Then we tried an Ace Hardware, just for the heck of it.

That guy sent us to a Metal Roofing place, who just happened to have some scrap steel tubing they'd had left over from an old lean-to shed addition job. It's rusted so we have to sand and paint it, but we got 18-feet for $30.00, so I'm not complaining (too much).
They also sold us the plates that go at the top and bottom of the pole for $5.00 each, but we have to find someone to weld them on.
The guy offered to weld them but J didn't know the length he's going to end up having to cut the poles after we get the roof/ceiling jacked back up.

So what I thought would be a simple, go buy a pole and jam it up under there job, has turned into a lot more involved project, that's going to end up taking us who-knows-how-long to ever get done.

In and Out and In and Out....

A few days ago (I lost track exactly when) I wanted to wash the bedsheets, and decided it was time to change out our Winter Flannel for the smooth, cool, Summer Percale.

But first, I had to find them.

I don't currently have a linen closet, except the bottom shelf of the upstairs bathroom closet where I kept the boys' twin sets. Ryan's full size sheets, and our Queen size sheets have ended up in a few different places randomly. Some live in a clothes basket in the laundry room floor. Some are in plastic/zippered bags like you buy new sheets/blankets/curtains in stacked upstairs in the big room with the blankets, quilts, throws, etc. I found one stacked on top of the beach towels (stacked on a table by my sewing machine).

I dug around everywhere and pulled out every sheet (sheets, sets, mismatched, pillow cases) I could find. There were a couple of garbage bags with them, too, that I got from the lady (cleaning out the Grandmother's house) off Freecycle a month or so ago.

I unfolded and inspected and went through all of them, and ended up parting with a good garbage bag full of old sheet sets, misc sheets, and odd pillow cases. (Non Percale)
There were also (3) no-longer-working heated blankets I had piled up in the laundry room to get rid of, a couple of small throw blankeys, and a red velvet throw pillow I had been going to make a new cover for.
I loaded up about 3-4 bags of bed linens and took to the thrift store and donated it.

There was also a pile of clothing on the couch one of J's friends had given after his son had cleaned out. Unfortunately, neither my oldest pudgy-wudgy nor two skinny-minnies could wear most of it. I bagged up two bagfuls to pass along to my sister who has more "normal" sized boys, and one bag of clothes I also donated to the thrift store.

In the end I couldn't (yet) give up the boys' old bedsheets from when they were littler.
Toy Story, Aladdin, Rugrats, Blue's Clues, Pokemon, Power Rangers, Goosebumps, Spongebob, Pirates of the Caribbean (not pictured) and NWO Wrestling sheets/blanket set (also not pictured)(they were in the washer).

I also still have a Sesame Street and Barney toddler bed set I can't (yet) let go.
Since I've had the Toddler bed set(s) for...let's see, the Barney set was Ryan's and he's - how old? About to be 24, I think - yeah, that long, it's probably a safe bet that barring any catastrophic events, I'll probably never let the sheet sets go.

Oh well, one day I'll be dead and gone and they can do whatever they want to with them.
In the meantime, I crammed them all into a plastic tub and they'll be tucked out of the way up in the attic.



*Though the Title of the Post was referencing stuff coming in, and stuff going out, in my head I was singing the line from The Who's "Mama's Got A Squeezebox". Heard it on the radio the other day. I had no idea how dirty that song sounded when I was a kid, lol.

If You Fall Off the Wagon...

...just get back on it.

Back-slipping during a time that you're trying to change your ways isn't a tragedy.
Frustrating, yes, but not the end of the world.

Whether it's Hoarding, drinking, smoking, dieting, exercising, or whatever you're trying to do better, just take a breath, and start again.

Here's a lovely Summertime picture for you to enjoy:

MIA *Warning Language*

It's been another week...or so, but this time it wasn't so much that the time passed by so fast (although it did fly by pretty fast), as it was that I've been in a....moody mood.

Not a bad mood - things are going generally okay and I'm keeping up the positive....as long as I stay off the internet.

I think I finally decided that it's just too stressful being "normal" in such a mentally-screwed-up world.
And considering how "dicked in the nob" I am myself, that's saying a lot.

I'm just so tired of the way people are...screwed up. You never know what's going to offend their over-sensitive, delicate little sensibilities.
They take offense when it isn't intended, twist shit up, make it into something it's not, make themselves into offended victims.
It just gets so.fucking.irritating.

It makes me want to really give them something to be offended about!

Sorry. Usually I would post my rants in my "Bitch Blog", vent it, get it out, blow it off and be done with it.
But last week I saw one of my posts had nearly 300,000 +1's.
As I understand it, that means that many people read the post, and (google's version of) "Liked" it.
I didn't understand, because according to the blog Stats, the post had only had 2 visitors, and I'm pretty sure both were me.
I tried to figure out where the +1's had come from, where the post might have been posted, or showed up somewhere in Google for the general public to see, but I couldn't find anything. I don't know how Google works anymore, with the whole Circles thing, and all the connecting accounts - whether you choose to or not.

Anyway it freaked me out. I could just see someone taking one part or another of the whole post, post it on some Godforsaken slasher site like Huffpost, and everyone taking swipes at me.
Mostly I don't care what people think, especially people I don't know, but I know I would take it personally, and bad, if that ever happened to me.
So I deleted all the posts, and hope it doesn't show up somewhere later, and quit posting altogether.

I guess I've had the internet version of constipation since then.

Usually I can just laugh and say, "HaaaH! What an idiot!" and scroll on.
Now it's more like, "Can you possibly be any more fucking retarded?!", start a response post, delete the response post because all it would do would piss them off. No one wants to hear the truth anyway.

Not even me.

Seems my hoarding issue is out of control again lately.  I am bringing in way, way  more than is going out. Holy shit, I even filled up my Mom's back porch the other day, because there was no way all the stuff was coming in here. I am back at bursting the seams full again.

Mussssst stahhhhhhp.

I had an extenuating circumstance, though (haha, don't we always?).

Long story short, the man whose house and cats I sit on occasion was ready to clean out his late wife's sewing-craft-storage room. He told me to look in there and take whatever I wanted, and he was going to carry the rest of it back to the Goodwill.

I know you probably won't believe me when I say I didn't really want it all, but what happened was, I didn't feel right picking through the stuff just for what I wanted (which, I admit, turned out to be quite a bit, considering even though there was stuff I didn't really want I kept thinking of family members I thought would. So-n-so does quilting, I bet she'd like these bags of fabric squares, So-n-so crochets, I bet she'd love all this yarn and these hooks...) and leaving the rest for him to have to deal with.

It went from, taking stuff I (or my family) wanted, to "he won't need/want/use this", I'll go ahead and get rid of it for him.
The room was absolutely packed with stuff. I'm talking like 24 Office boxes of fabric, metal shelves stacked with arts and crafts and sewing stuff. The bed was piled up with plastic bags of projects and pieces and parts, the closet was filled nearly to the shelf with more fabric and curtains and sheets and the random glassware hidden away inside a box here and there.

He also mentioned checking the attached bath. I hadn't even realized there was an attached bath. I tried to open the door, and it wouldn't budge! I went around to the hall half-bath and opened the door at the back of it that I had thought was a closet, to find the bathtub room - stacked up with crafts stuff - and then to the left of that was another door, which was another half-bath (toilet and sink), also piled up with more crafts stuff, board games, Yoga things, toiletries, etc.

There was just so much, with no room to do any kind of sorting or organizing, I just started hauling it out and piling it the car. I carried 2 huge loads to my Mom's house up here (they stay in Florida mostly) and brought another huge load home, to be able to sort through it all. Some I'll keep, most I'll give away, and some I'll probably end up donating to the Thrift Store.
I figure his poor wife bought the stuff, she'd probably like for someone to be able to get some use out of it since she can't, rather than it going back to the same place she bought it, to be sold again. (Probably a good 80% of the stuff still had Goodwill tags on it.)

But I left him with a nice, clean, minimalistic spare bedroom and bathroom.
I didn't just take the things out. I also swept cobwebs, the floor, dusted, cleaned the heck out of the bathrooms, getting on my hands and knees to wash the floors.

It was a heck of a lot easier to clean out someone else's place.
Well, especially since it was coming home with me, I guess.

And then I had another extenuating circumstance (I know, right?!).
When I posted about Freecycle recently, I said how I was frustrated knowing that right now there are people cleaning out and getting rid of Christmas things, but instead of thinking ahead and starting now to gather these things and having them for Christmas, people will be all over the free sites come December begging for people to provide them and their kids with a Christmas tree and gifts.

Then I had the idea that *I* could take in the Christmas stuff and toys and keep them and be able to give the people stuff when they're begging for help come December.

I knooow, awfully Democrat/Liberal of me, right??

Never fear, I'm not doing it out any real compassion or generosity or any such muckety-muck.

I saw a meme the other day (that I can't seem to find again) that was Jesus telling the People something to the effect of, "I told YOU to help (the needy), not create a Government (to steal from....)". I can't recall the exact wording.
Anyway, it was right.  *I* should be helping more, if I want to have a leg to stand on when I say the Government should not be in the charity business.

I'm all about helping the truly needy, and do, but I'm often bitter (which makes me tight) when I'm constantly being begged for money and more money from all these millions of charities, while the Government is taking a good chunk of our paycheck in taxes to fund their "aid" programs. Knowing there's little to no oversight in Government, that so much money is misappropriated, wasted, goes to people who aren't really needy, and often ends up in Government employees pockets.
Local, private aid charities would work out much better. People would be more generous - they would be able to afford to be - if they were giving voluntarily, rather than be extorted from by the Government.

Anyway, thing is, I was raised on the saying, "God helps those who helps themselves". (If you don't believe in God, just "Help those who help themselves".) In other words, if someone was a sorry, lazy sombitch, they were (mostly) left to make it on their own. The theory (which worked pretty well, I think, for thousands of years, up until just pretty recently) was that the person would decide if he was hungry enough and wanted to eat, he'd better get off his ass and work. If he didn't want his children or wife to starve, or end up sick or living in a muddy ditch somewhere, he better get off his ass and work.
For the most part, this worked out well. In a community, more (able-bodied) people worked than didn't.
Often times were hard, and people had to help each other out. But everyone was expected to contribute, including the one(s) being helped.

Nowadays? People sit back and expected to handed to, without trying to help themselves, or even help anyone trying to help them. Many of them are not even so much as grateful for the help.
I just do not understand it, at all.

Anyhoo, now that I've gotten older, and have seen and learned more in life, I have come to realize/accept that Stupidity is a legitimate handicap.

Some people need help because they are too fucking stupid to be able to help themselves.

I have the ability to be able to collect the free Christmas items and toys and make sure those people in need come December gets the stuff, so that's what I feel like I should do.

No joke, not long after I decided I was going to do this, I had gone to the grocery store, and on the ground outside of some of those bins that say "Clothing and Shoes Only", "Do Not Leave Items Outside the Box", was a pile of Christmas items, just waiting for me to pick them up.

The boxes of Balls were just stacked up there, not in a bag, as was the big wreath. I couldn't believe someone else hadn't already grabbed the stuff. I even went in and did my grocery shopping and it was still there when I came back out, loaded my groceries, and left, stopping to pick up the stuff on my way out.

I couldn't believe someone tossed all this stuff out. It's all like new. I don't think some of the Ball ornaments had ever even been opened/used. I wonder what the story behind it is.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I also ended up picking up a bag of perfectly good, clean, in excellent condition toys.

There was this whole wooden train set:

And some other random train toys, a toy racecar, and a Matchbox toy.

I put these miscellaneous toys in the yard sale pile, but boxed the complete(?) wooden train set in the Christmas...Hoard.  Some little kid might really like getting it for Christmas.

Earlier in the week I picked up a 7-8' artificial lighted Christmas tree someone was giving away because the lights didn't work, and they were "too lazy" to try to figure out which bulb was causing the outage. SMH.

Um...Thursday.

Daaaang, where did the past week go?

Well, let's see, according to my calendar I keep by my desk so I can kind of keep track of what's going on/has gone on in my life since otherwise I would completely forget...J worked 24/24 last Thursday and Friday.

Weather/rain was moving in on Friday, so I decided to try re-planting the corn in my Three Sisters garden that didn't sprout the first time.

The seeds are the same age as the others - old - so they still might not sprout. I didn't soak them before planting this time. I don't know if that would help or make no difference.

On another note, our potato condos are growing potatoes. I didn't dig the potatoes out of a couple of the bins last year, and now we have new plants growing. I didn't know they would.
It makes sense when you think about it, I guess. I'm just so used to growing plants one time and when they die, they're gone.

Most of Saturday was still nasty and rainy....I say nasty, but I don't mean that in a bad way. I like when it rains every few days, it waters my gardens. But it's just a day you don't want to get out and do stuff.

I've mentioned before that I belong to a couple of local Freecycle groups. Usually I'm acquiring items from people giving stuff away. Sometimes I offer stuff I'm giving away, but not as much lately because I hate waiting for someone that might or might not show up. People are notoriously undependable. I've just been carrying stuff to the thrift store and getting rid of it at my convenience.

Anyway, the other day a person posted looking for some items, a few things but I only remember they needed a table and chairs and were looking for some certain books.
I decided to give them the table and chairs that I had gotten through Freecycle from another person a few months ago, and I had three of the books in the series they were looking for.

They live about half an hour from us, but she was having to go to another town to borrow a trailer to come pick up the table and chairs, which in the end would make it like a two hour trip or better, and many miles out of the way.

As it happened, we've been working on cleaning out Ryan's room (poor thing is a near-hoarder like his Mom) so he could put in a desk and build the super-nice computer he was wanting to build.
A year or so ago (which, given my memory, could have been several years or so ago) J had been given a large, black and brown, corner office desk. Free. We didn't really have a place for it, so I thought my Dad would like it for his office room, but turned out it ended up on the sunporch holding doo-dads and knick-knacks.
Ryan decided he could use it as opposed to spending money on a new one, and Mom's place is not far from where the lady wanting the table and books lived, so I told her we would bring it to her instead of her having to go all that way out of her way to have to come get it.

So we delivered the table & chairs and books, and picked up the desk. Worked out nicely for all.

J worked on Mother's Day - not that it made any difference if he'd been off....I'm not his Mother. Just the Mother of his children, but that means nothing to him.
Oh well, I had a better Mother's Day with him not being here.

For some reason I can't recall at the moment (and likely never will) I decided to start watching Dexter.
Probably some FB friend or other had been talking about it...not that that means a lot, people are always talking about tv shows that I still don't feel interested enough in watching, so I don't know what made me decide I felt interested in watching Dexter.

Anyway. It's okay. Not riveting, like I have to watch it all right.now. Truthfully, I'm in the 3rd Season now, and I might not make it all the way to the Finale. I feel like I'm losing interest.

J's been working and/or sleeping (or sick) so we haven't worked anymore on the carport attic project. May be another week before we get a chance to, with his work schedule this week.

We had a nice few days this week, sunny, warm (some people are already complaining about being hot. Bah).
Between the nice rain showers we get every few days, with days of warm sunshine, my rose bushes are absolutely gorgeous this year.

These look pink, on account of the light, but they are actually as Red Velvet as the others. 

The rose bushes are in the front yard, which doesn't get a lot of sun, so generally the roses are fairly scraggly, compared to my across the street neighbors whose roses and other flowering bushes are generally amazing. 

But while I was out looking at mine, I looked over to see how even much better I bet hers looked, and they are all gone! WTH? I guess they mowed all her flowering bushes over for some reason?

I found some other things in the front yard, too. A blackberry bush, maybe?

I've not seen a blackberry bush out there before. We used to keep the yard mowed down and wouldn't have seen a lot of things, but we didn't mow last year and I don't remember seeing them out there then.

Honeysuckle

Wild Strawberry

Oh look, the roses I've tried repeatedly to tear out/kill.

I can't seem to grow roses I want to, and couldn't get rid of roses I thought I didn't want.

Gone Fishing

 I have a To-Do List that's about 5 years long. But as I was attempting to do some cleaning off the back porch and carport, it occurred to me, again, that there's a 2-car-garage size of wasted space above the carport that would make some great storage space for things like our camping stuff, coolers, boxes of jars. Probably even Rubbermaid tubs of household stuff.  I don't think it'd be much different out there than it is up in the attic. Except more room.

The house wasn't originally built with a carport, it was added later, and whatever Do-Do bird did it, used interior 1970's pecan wall paneling for the ceiling. Years and years of wet/dry weather later, the stuff is just crispy. It was peeling apart in layers, or letting go and half falling down. We knew we'd have to replace it eventually, so I said, tear that crap down and let's make some storage space.

So yesterday we worked on tearing that nasty old paneling down (I wish it wasn't ruined and could have been re-used as faux planking in the house, but it was just a disaster).

And up in there, was some strange hodge-podge of nailed together boards and scraps of plywood. They weren't holding anything up, so I'm not sure what their purpose is, or was. But they are nailed within of their lives, and J's going to end up having to cut them out, after nearly flinging himself out of the rafters trying to pry the wood pieces a part.

I told him he should go on to the home-building store and buy 1" plywood sheets that we can use for flooring up there, then he can stand on them to work on cutting out the weird nailed in scrap stuff. So he did (and holy cow, plywood is freaking expensive these days!) and me and Kev shoved them up, while J pulled from the top while trying not to fall out of the ceiling.

Amazing how what seemed to be a fairly simple job - laying some floor on some joists to make a storage area - turned into such a dangerous, nerve-wracking adventure.

We could only get two of the sheets of plywood up until he is able to cut some of the boards out, but at that point I had had enough. I was exhausted and he was hot, and anyway he had to work all night and needed a nap, so I called it off for the day.

He worked on the ambulance all night, but it wasn't too busy, so he came in this morning ready to work on the project some more. But not ready like, excited to get at it, or like it was his project he was anxious to finish. More like a dreaded chore he didn't really want to do, but if it'd shut me up...

But I'm not a slave-driver and I didn't want to feel like he was forced into doing something he didn't want to when he was tired and achy from yesterday's work.
So I said, it's Wednesday, reckon they (Georgia DNR) stocked the creeks?

He didn't know, but said he knew a place that wasn't too hard to get to, but hard enough that not a whole lot of others go there, so there might be some fish.

So he threw our bikes in the truck, we packed our backpacks, grabbed his pole, and off we went.

We drove to a place along our local walking/biking trail, the Silver Comet trail (I got to calling the Silver Comic trail and now it's a habit I can't stop, lol).

I thought this sign at the trailhead where we parked the truck was funny. It actually warns drivers to watch for bicyclers and walkers, but on our particular adventure, J had said we'd have to bike part of the way and walk the rest, so it looked like this sign was saying, bike, then walk.

We rode for just under 2 miles.

Then walked a lot shorter distance.

He didn't tell me we'd be crossing the creek. He just tromped through with his shoes on, but I didn't want wet, soggy shoes so I took mine off and waded across. It was sandy on the other side, like a private little beach. #BarefootInNature
(But next time I'll take along some flip-flips because my poor feet aren't as tough as they were when I was a youngun and ran the summers barefoot.)

J says trout aren't smart, but after he snagged two of these, the others stopped biting the hook. We went to a different place and he caught two more, and the others stopped biting. Tell me they don't know what's going on.

It was a gorgeous day, warm but not hot/humid, clear, sunny, blue skies. Birds singing, and a bunch of other noises nature makes.

I just love water.

Small water-spill coming down creek. Love the sound of a rushing creek.

After the fish quit biting, J was ready to go home, so we were walking back out and I saw another trail and asked him where it went. He said he didn't know, he'd never been down it. So we went down it, and found this. It's not a real waterfall, coming through a man-made tunnel, but it sure sounded like one.

It was good to get out, away from all the stuff needed doing at home, into nature. J says being out in the woods relaxes him, and he enjoys fishing, plus he caught dinner for himself and the guys at the fire station the next day.

Salsa Garden is a Go

For the past year or two or maybe three, our garden hasn't done too well. A few years ago it did really well, then after that, one or two things did okay, but mostly it was a flop.

Last year we planted tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes didn't do any good at all. The peppers took forever, and I ended up not even doing anything with the last batch I picked.

This time, we decided to try gardening in different areas of the backyard and letting the regular garden rest or recover or whatever.
So this time the tomato/pepper garden is up in the yard closer to the house, next to the clothesline.

It's on a slope, which may help with drainage, if drainage has been a problem? and still gets plenty of daily sun. I don't believe it's ever been gardened in this area before, or at least not for many, many years, so maybe the soil has the vitamins and nutrients growing gardens need.

A few years ago we raised some very nice tomatoes near this area, but I'm not sure if it was the ground, or just because conditions were favorable. A few years ago, conditions were favorable for the big garden down back, and then something apparently went wrong, so maybe it won't be any better in the new area, either.

I really need to work on a Garden Journal and see if I can figure anything out, since my memory is so bad.

Anyway, you may remember from over the past couple of months my Black Russian, Rutgers, Beefsteak, and Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and Datil Peppers.

J mowed out the area we decided on, then tilled up 5 rows.

Yes there's still grass between the rows. He may till it later, or I'll keep it cut with the push mower. Or something.

Row of (2) Cherokee Purple, and (5) Beefsteak tomatoes

Sometimes I forget, or I guess it'd be more like I don't realize how much space we actually have in the yard. Even with this rather large garden area, there's plenty of room between it and the back porch, and there's still a fairly wide trail to the gazebo/pool (or, pond as is it now), between the garden and clothesline.

Contrary to how it looks, J didn't do all the work on the garden by himself, lol.  I did some push-mowing, and also helped with planting, until I got injured.

The reason I said I didn't think this area had been gardened before is because of the amount of broken glass we dug up.

I'm not an expert on the history of garbage disposal, but from what I understand, back around the supposed age of this place (1930's-40's), there wasn't much garbage, very little waste.  Most items came in glass, tin, and paper/cardboard containers. The paper/cardboard would have been burned, and the glass and tin containers re-used. Apparently when the glass (and glass/ceramic/china dishes) broke, they were buried out in the yard. Maybe the tin containers, too, which may have rusted away by this point? At any rate, we have found tons of broken glass, ceramic, pottery, and/or china pieces all over the yard every since we've lived here.

Yesterday we dug up a whole pile of it. J was disappointed, he'd thought for sure he'd found someone's Mason Jar buried bank(s), lol.

Anyway, I wasn't being as careful as I should have been, and dug into the dirt to scoop out a hole for planting, and a thick piece of broken glass caught my finger and sliced it open.
It started bleeding, a lot, and I started whining and moaning because I don't like blood, and especially not my own.
After that my hole digging time was over. Because I had an injury, with a bandaid on it, I couldn't get it dirty, see. Not that I was terrified it might happen again or anything.

Other gardening Update:
It's been 6 days since we planted the corn in the Three Sisters Mounds, and so far, no corn.
It rained/was overcast for about three days after that, so I'm not sure if that has delayed them or not. A FB friend posted that they'd had corn sprouting 3 days after planting theirs, but that wasn't at the same time as we planted ours.
I can't decide whether to wait a little longer, or go ahead and re-plant.

Freecycle

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had scored a pretty large haul from Freecycle this week. A lady (cleaning out her Grandmother's house, though I didn't know that at the time) posted a white metal full/twin bunk bed, some Christmas decorations, and some old sheets and towels.

I wanted the bunk bed set and Christmas decorations, and told her I'd also take the sheets and towels off her hands if she'd like. Some people are picky about spreading their things among many people, others just want it gone and if one person will take it, all the better, they don't have to make arrangements 3 or 4 or however many times. This lady just wanted it all gone, and if I would come get it I was welcome to all of it.

This isn't a picture of the bunk bed we got, because it's not put together yet, but it's identical to it.

Some random items found in with the Christmas decor was a ceramic clock gee-gaw, a nose-shaped pencil sharpener, and an Imperial Glass Purple Slag milk/water pitcher.

The Christmas Decor included:

A Giant stocking, (Donated)

 A DIY decorated wreath and lots of bows to decorate more, (Passing on to Crafty Cousin)

Several strings of Mini-lights, and Blue Stars Garland, (Undecided)

Red, beaded ball ornaments, gold garland, gold and red ribbon, (Kept ball ornaments, passing rest to Cousin)

Boxes of glass ball ornaments, (Kept)

A lovely glass Finial Ornament, with it's purchase receipt still in the bag. Holy cow, who pays $15.00 for a single ornament?? Eeeek!

Then there were 2 more of the same Finial Ornaments in the bottom of the bag...that's $30.00 worth of broken right there. Jeeeez lou-weeez.

There were about ten bath towels, a couple of hand towels, some Christmas handtowels, and a bath mat. I kept about three of the bath towels (no, it doesn't gross me out. I wash used things well in hot water) and the Christmas handtowels. The rest I'll carry up to the Animal Control shelter and give to them.

There was a red, microfiber pillow that I kept as an insert and I plan to try to make a pillow cover for it this Summer. The blue/grey neck pillow I tossed in the donate pile.

Many of the sheets were exactly what I would have hoped for, if I'd been hoping, which I wasn't, since I didn't know it was the lady's Grandmother's house at first.
A good many of them turned out to be vintage and/or Percale sheets, which I tend to collect.

Vintage embroidered Mr. & Mrs. pillowcases.

Not sure what it is with elderly people and pillowcases. Several years ago I had acquired a bag of bed linens from an older person and it also contained a random stack of pillow cases.
I like them, but all my pillowcases came with sheet sets.

In the bottom of one of the towel or sheets bags was a couple of shirts and a bathing suit. The shirts are my size, and I'll definitely wear the John Deere T, but not too sure the spangly top is my style.

The bathing suit is my Mom's size. (No, still no gross factor. Just wash it well in Tide and hot water, it'll be fine. Anyway, if it was the Grandmother's, she was 99 years old when she died. I'm going to guess she didn't have Syphilis or anything. If it was the lady's that I got it from, she looked clean and healthy.) It's a really nice suit. I'd wear it myself if it was my size.

While we were loading up this stuff, the lady said she also had a bag of toys and did I want to take them, too? I didn't need toys but I could tell she wanted to get rid of them so I said sure, I'd take them.

In the top right of the top picture is a baggie of plastic, magnetic letters, which I had been wanting some of so I could spray paint them like this Pinterest project, or use them otherwise in some letter-art project.
I had almost bought a package of them at Dollar Tree, but held off, so that was cool to end up getting a bag full for free.

I also kept the Frankenstein mask because I have a Halloween costume collection, and the Barbie dolls.
The rest I had put aside to take to the Thrift store, but as it happened, J's cousin showed up bringing us some eggs, and he has 3 to 5 kids (3 of his own and I'm not sure how many his Woman has, one or two, I think) so I sent it all home with him.

Freecycling is about the best thing since cornbread and pinto beans, you ask me. It may not be walking into a store and getting exactly what I want, but since I don't have too many particular wants, I'm pretty easily satisfied. Plus, if it's not something I want, since it's Free I don't feel bad about passing it along to someone who would.

Okay, so some of you are probably thinking, "But you said you were a Hoarder, and were trying to stop". Both are still true. I still like Stuff a little too well. And more especially Free Stuff.
I have gotten better about when I bring stuff in, I have to take stuff out.

But mostly I share these posts of my Freecycle scores so others can see that it's not always necessary to have to spend and buy to be able to get things you want or can use. Furniture, clothes, toys, Vintage decor, and so much more.

You just have to be open to accepting something maybe a little different than what you might have had in mind...What's better - the $1600.00 diningroom suite you wanted, or the Free one that will work just as well?

My sister (surprisingly enough) furnished my niece's nursery in odd, yard sale and free pieces. My brother-in-law just cleaned up and painted the changing table, dressers and night stand white and put matching pulls on the drawers.  You'd never even have known it wasn't new or non-matching furniture.
(I was really, really proud of them for that. I would have expected her to want all brand new, expensive everything, to be honest.)

I just get really frustrated at Christmas time, when there are so many people on the Free boards begging for someone to give them a Christmas tree, and toys for their kids because they can't afford to, when right after Christmas people were giving away artificial trees and unwanted decor and ornaments right and left.  Right now people are Spring cleaning and getting rid of tons of toys and outgrown clothing.
Why don't they think ahead and start getting ready now? They could have the best, fanciest, richest Christmas ever, and not spend a dime, nor have to beg.
(Although I don't think it bothers a lot of people at all to beg. I don't think they see is as begging, but that they are telling people what they want and are entitled to be given things for some reason. I never will understand some people, I guess.)