Retirement Home Part 2

Hi again, I promised more pictures of our retirement home and its surroundings. It actually is beautiful up in that neck of the woods(woods being the important word here....did I mention my fear of spiders?)at any rate the following are a continuation of our place in Eden.

When you start to feel overproud about your home then sure enough someone else moves in and does their place up nice like yours.( I think they must have some envy going on) The community of hunters mostly live in vacation homes like the one below. Stan got me on his 4 wheeler and took me for a ride. I really had a good time. My only dissappointment was that I didn't get a picture of me on the back. He has several deer stands and 2 of them needed repair. The picture below is one that he repaired the top cover on. Apparently someone else was using his stand while he wasn't there and shot a hole in the canvas... can you say 'drunk'... poor ole' boy got excited when he saw the deer and missfired or else that big ole' buck sprouted wings and was flying overhead!
The next picture is looking down the road from where his stand is located. This really is pretty country all joking aside. Stan hunts from a stand but alot of the hunters use dogs. They drop their dogs in at one section of the woods and the dogs chase the deer thru past the deer stands of the other hunters. Stan doesn't do that, he creates a feed plot and when Bambi et al come to eat, he shoots them. I am pretty much teasing Stanley here because if I didn't have deer sausage in my freezer I wouldn't be very happy and he does keep me supplied in sausage. Now we take our dogs hunting as evidenced below. They have never seen a deer unless you count the leftover sauage that they get as a treat. I would pretty much guess that they would bark alot prior to fainting if they came in contact with something big with horns.... what my babies are doing in this picture is slowly riding around the center of the camp ground with Stanley going about 2 miles a hour... they are hunting, hunting for leftovers.

Last but not least is a picture of Stanley with his 'baby'. Words cannot express how spoiled this dog is for Stan. She weighs 55 lbs now but will always be known as "the baby".
I hope you enjoyed the visit to our home away from home. If you get a chance read Retirement home part 1 to fully appreciate what we have here. Honestly Stan has done an incredible amount of work on his camper and it is comfortable... the spiders are few but still there and I am always on the hunt for one. I have yet to see a roach and no mice. Folks you haven't really lived until you go to sleep wrapped up in bulldogs on a bed slightly bigger than a single. Have a lovely day.

Retirement Home Part One

For those of you who have trouble with coveting what your neighbor has maybe you should just pass on by to another blog. I sure do not want to be the cause of you having the 'I-wish-I-had-what-she-has' coveting bug.... It is ugly to be jealous. For those of you pure of heart feast your eyes on this.....MY NEW RETIREMENT HOME IN MISSISSIPPI. Stan is a member of a hunting club and picked up this little white beauty for a SONG!!!!! He wanted to make it more roomy so he added the addition(the black part) this summer so that we could have a more formal area to entertain.(I do so love to entertain)
You enter in the white door and find yourself in the den then go thru another door to the kitchen. It has hot running water, a gas stove(the burners work...woohooo) and take a quick right into the refrigerator.
Now between the stove and the refrigerator is the bed. Its a pretty tight squeeze when you count on me, Stanley and the dogs but is is really really cozy. The guest Bedroom is directly above the bed in the loft... if you look close you can see it.

Here is the best part. The john. Its kind of narrow so you sorta have to have your pants down before you go in and if you have larger thighs you have to kinda stand to clean .... if you get my drift. BUT it also is a shower.... you just pull the curtain around and let 'er rip with the hot water. To save time you could go and wash at the same time.I can just imagine what you all are thinking. It's hard not 'git the envy' on but you know what.?!?! You all are KIN, or friends, or kin of friends so ya all can just come on down and visit when we retire. Stan and I are thinking about renting it out for the next few years.... you know put it on one of those time share thingies... maybe I could retire early... but since you all are friends you can come and stay for free!!!!!
watch out for tomorrow and retirement home part 2 will be out with additional pictures

Thanksgiving and Things for which I'm Grateful

It's been awhile since I sat down to blog. I was sick. I couldn't talk...and I know you are thinking that my laryngitis probably didn't affect my hands. It didn't except from the standpoint that I was so dadgum depressed that I was having trouble thinking. Illness seems to do that to me... I am not sick enough to stay home so I go to work and share my wondrous personality with those poor people that I work with. I also cry. A lot. I cry about everything. The low grade fever that I had seemed to settle in my joints particularly my wrists( I have been having tendon trouble in my wrists...whine, whine, whine) The low point was when I couldn't get out of the car because it hurt to damn bad to twist my wrist.... so I sat there and cried.... till I figured out a way to get out of my car. This long intro brings me to my first thing I am thankful for and that is my sisters. I talked ( in a painful whisper) to Barbara and I cried. A lot. She notified Patti and she called and I whispered to her for a while and cried. A lot. Both of them cared about me and I could feel it over the phone. I think they wanted to beat someone or thing up for me to make me better...isn't that great!! They love me and I am so thankful for that love and caring. There is no one who can really make you feel better than your mom... and if your mom is gone like mine is then it's your sisters, and God gave me some really first class, gold star, A #1 sisters. Thanks God!

During this same time I would walk into the house and start to cry for no good reason... maybe the sink was full or there wasn't enough milk for my coffee..WHATEVER .. and this brings me to the #2 thing I am thankful for and that is Stan. Nearly 28 years of marriage has taught this man to make sympathy noises and to stay out of the way AFTER he has done the hug, shoulder patting thing. He really makes an attempt to find out what is wrong and pretty much knows whatever it is is made much worse by the fact that I don't feel well. This time he convinced me to go with him to his hunting lease in Mississippi for my two days off( my next post will be about the hunting lease with pics... not to be missed!!!)AND he sweetened the pot and volunteered to get my 23 boxes of Christmas decorations out of the attic when we got back. This is really huge because just seeing the multiple boxes of Christmas things makes his blood pressure go up! Stanley cooks. Isn't that the best thing. He really cooks well. Not only that but he can hunt for our food if necessary. One of my best Thanksgiving/Christmas time was in Texas and my Mom was staying with us. Stan killed a wild turkey and we stuffed it with wild rice dressing. It was fabulous and mom talked about that meal for years. Stanley loves me too..... and at one point I think he would have beat someone or something up for me just to make me feel better. Thanks God for Stanley.

The next thing I am thankful for is my children. When I was feeling really bad and still at work my daughter came to visit me with Shane. Now the big thing here is that she had gotten off at 11 from her bad night to come and give me a kiss and a hug and to tell me that she loved me. It made me cry. A lot. Joshua had been hugging me a lot the first day or two I was sick and made all the good noises. The day after Becky came to see me, Joshua came upon me sitting eating cereal with the tears rolling down my face.... and he yelled at me. That made me cry more but I listened to what he had to say and it was good. I needed to get off my butt, start exercising, stay on my diet and get enough rest and STOP crying!!!. Sometimes yelling is really good and Joshua picked a good time because I woke up feeling better, and was able to talk again. I know that my kids love me and would go the extra mile if I needed it. I am so grateful that God picked just those kids for me. I look at my children and the people that they have become and I am so happy that I have had part in developing who they are. My 'babies' are my joy. Thanks God!!!

Well let's see.... I am thankful for my sisters, husband, kids... that is a pretty short list(it is the most important) so let me just name a few more items..... I am also thankful that I can still get up and go to work, that I have a job that I enjoy, that I have dogs who make me laugh, that I CAN laugh at most anything especially myself, that I have a house to live in, and that I love holidays. I am thankful for the food at my table, my patio, my new tennis shoes, Gavalia coffee, and my tap shoes and Ebay. I am thankful for my country, my freedom, my health and most of all Jesus.
Thanks God!!