Well!

It seems blogging isn’t really my thing.  I do try to keep up with it periodically, but thanks to my executive disfunction, I’ll forget to post for a few days, feel bad for not posting, and then not post for nearly 2 years.  Yep, that’s just how I roll.  But nevertheless, I keep trying.  So much has happened since I last posted!  Let’s see, where to begin...

Well, the Little Flower has had not one, but TWO baby brothers since I last posted.  Wee Hook was born in October, 2019, and young Stair was born in February of this year.  Stair has a cleft lip, but just the lip, and despite it, he nurses like a champ, and has since the day he was born.  So now DIL is nursing two wee boys, and going slightly bonkers in the process!

Also, in July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Oldest Son and his family packed up their van and moved to Ohio.  That lasted about a week, and then they moved to Pennsylvania.  They lived in a nasty, run-down house with no bathroom (there was space for a bathroom, but it only had a toilet in it, and it was partially open to the garage, so the water in the toilet would freeze over during the colder months) from the end of July until the end of February, when CYS was called because DIL went to the hospital to have the baby, and her brother’s mother called them on the family.  But in the end it worked out for the best.  They’re in a MUCH better living situation, Oldest Son found a job as a groundskeeper at a local hotel, and things are going well.  So that’s VERY good.  

Now, as for my little family, well...  Sweet Miss V has been doing virtual school since the end of 2019, thanks to medical problems, and, thanks to the novel coronavirus COVID-19, Young E has been doing virtual as well, since March of 2020.  Prom for Sweet Miss V was this past weekend, she went with her best friend, and she couldn’t find a dress that fit her properly, so, despite my misgivings, I made her one.  And she looked aMAZing!  I’m so happy that she actually looked _REALLY_ good in it!

Big E decided, if February of 2020, to open a restaurant.  WELL...  it’s been over a year, one thing after another, after another has gone wrong, and he is STILL not open yet.  But the less said about that, the better, I think.  

That’s all for now.  I might try to keep this up again, but who knows what will happen.  I might forget to post for 2 weeks and spiral into self-loathing until I decide I do t NEED to write anymore, and then pick it up again in 2 more years.  The year is young, there’s still time to waste!

Again with this car!

Yep, car problems again!  One would THINK it would be passed time to replace it, but sadly, I can’t afford that at the moment.  So I’m stuck trying to keep this old bucket of bolts running for as long as possible until I can afford a replacement.  This time it’s the speedometer, which CAN be fixed, but as no one has the part in stock, I have to wait nearly a week for it to come in and get fixed.  🤦🏻‍♀️  But it is what it is, and I’ll manage.  I always do, don’t I?

Oldest Son made it down south around 6:30 in the morning on Friday, and basically went straight to sleep once he got into the house.  So he obviously didn’t see his Pop that day.  And with the approaching storm (which will probably be over by the time this posts), he’s not staying down there as long as he had planned, which means my little family will all be together when the storm does hit.  I’m honestly not expecting too much from it, but we’ll be prepared regardless.  We have a pantry full of pastas, so I’ll get some cans/ jars of premade sauce (premade means less to refrigerate), as well as some other staples and water, and we’ve been making ice and filling jugs for a little while already, so hopefully we’ll be fine.  Well, that’s all the excitement around here.  Have a great week!

Keeping on...

Hello out there!  Is anyone reading this?  I’ll admit, I’m probably not the most scintillating writer on the planet, and I’m not full of sunshine and rainbows all the time like a lot of blogs, but I do hope someone reads this and at least thinks, “hey, at least my life isn’t as bad as hers!”  lol

Had to make a decision last week, along with all 5 of my older siblings, regarding my dad’s health, and I feel very positive about it.  My brother talked to the doctors and nurses about it, and we all believe the right decision was made.  And shock of all shocks, all six of us agreed on something for once in our lives!  lol

This week, my Oldest is going down south to see his grandfather, and though he’s been told his car is perfectly safe to take, he’s still apprehensive about it.  But I totally understand why.  His main concern is that his grandpa won’t recognise him.  And, while I couldn’t tell him that wouldn’t be the case (because it is very unlikely his grandpa will remember him, sadly), I did tell him that his Pop didn’t recognise me or my other two kids when we were down there several months ago.  Which, oddly enough, actually made him feel a bit better about it, to that’s good. 

Anyway, that’s all that’s really happening around here lately.  Hours have definitely picked up, and things are looking a little brighter around here, even if it does mean I have to be awake far more frequently than I prefer.  lol  Hope you all have a fabulous week!!!

Cautiously optimistic

My hours have picked up a bit at work recently.  This is a good thing, because I need more hours, because more hours mean more pay, and more pay is always a welcome thing.  But I still need a better job with more stable hours, so I’m still looking for that.  I’m sure I’ll find it eventually, it’s just getting rather tiring looking and not finding.  But it is what it is, I guess.

This isn’t going to be a very long post, because there’s really not much that’s post-worthy going on up here.  The kids started back to school last Monday, and we’re settling in to a routine of little to no sleep again.  They’re not used to doing homework, and in truth E doesn’t like doing it anyway, so I have to get on them about that.  Oh, and then there was the hair incident on Friday...

You see, while stuck in Fort Lauderdale with her dad, Miss V bleached her hair on half of her head to blonde.  To even it up, we went out and got a 40-weight peroxide formula and doused that side to make it all the blonde she wanted.  Well, the Sunday before school started, we were staying at a local hotel because the AC in our house broke.  (It was a simple fix, which took less than an hour to repair, thankfully, but couldn’t be done until Monday, because everywhere was closed over the weekend.)  Well, the hotel had a pool, and when I got back from work on Sunday, I joined the kids in said pool and we all had fun swimming around.  However... V’s hair soaked up the over-chlorinated water, and turned a lovely shade of aquamarine.  But only PART of it, and only on the blonde/ damaged side.  

Well, last Friday, she whined and complained, and complained and whined, until I finally gave in and put more of the peroxide on her hair in an attempt to remove the now-faded green colour from her hair.  And that’s when disaster struck.  After just a few minutes, her hair was HOT, and her head was under the shower head, as she frantically tried to wash out all of the peroxide.  By the next morning...  she had lost a good 6” of hair on the left side of her head.  She was absolutely beside herself.  But, after some car drama (I’m telling you, I really need a new car, this one I’m driving is more trouble than it’s worth!), I was able to take her to the Walmart hair salon (the only salon open on Saturday around here) and get her hair fixed.

In the end, she probably lost a good foot of hair, but the stylist was really good about it, gave her some really useful tips on how to take care of her hair now, and the cut is SUPER cute on her.  So disaster recovered, and eventually she’ll get used to it.  Oh, and in solidarity, I had a good 6” cut off my own hair, and now it’s in a complementary style to hers, but one that looks good on me.  🙂

Well, that’s all for now.  Have a great week!

So...

Remember the issue I was having with my car?  Well, last week, before we did open house at Miss V’s school, she had to go a couple counties over to her hair stylist for a haircut.  I allowed her to drive there, since she’s been complaining that I don’t let her drive enough, and boy, oh boy, that car was ROUGH!  It really was SCARY being a passenger in it, to the point that I told Miss V I would be driving home, it scared me so much!

So we left, and I drove us straight to the mechanic.  I explained the problem, and he told me to come back in about 2 hours, so V and I ran some errands, and went back.  We sat in his office (a nicely air conditioned building with TV and everything!), and within less than an hour, he came in smiling, holding a little black thing.  It was a second coil pack (the car apparently had THREE of these little things!) that had gone bad.  Well, being skeptical, I said okay, and thank you, and headed out to my car.

Much to my surprise and delight, it was running perfectly again!  No stuttering, no smell of gasoline, nothing!  It even accelerated like a DREAM!  I was SOOO thrilled!  So now my car works properly again, yay!!!

Well...

I think I’m getting better at this whole blogging thing.  It takes time and patience, and sometimes I don’t get that time until it’s 3am, but even that is okay.  It means I’m still trying.  And I am.  So that’s what matters.

So, Oldest Son and his love have hit a bump in their road to eternal bliss, and are currently not together.  I don’t know how long this will last, but I have a very strong feeling they’ll be back together before long.  We had a play date with my Little Flower the other day, and she seemed to enjoy it greatly.  After clinging to her mother and father for the better part of the first hour we spent there, she opened up and started playing with Miss V, which pleases Miss V to no end, as before she went south in May, Little Flower would barely even look at her without hollering at her.  She even went to Miss V when her popsicle slid down the little tube thingie it came in and she couldn’t get it anymore.  Miss V was THRILLED by this turn of events, as you can imagine. 

Then, because it was excessively hot outside (it IS still Florida, after all), Little Flower and her older cousin decided to play on the trampoline with the hose shooting at them.  Miss V played with them for a while, and they all had a TON of fun!  However, somehow I neglected to take a single picture!  I was so upset with myself!  But then, on the way home, her mama sent me this sweet picture of what happened less than 10 minutes after we left.

Yep, she plain tuckered herself all out, and was asleep on their couch!  lol

So, that’s all that’s happening around here,other than work and cleaning, both of which need to be done more than they’re getting done at the moment.  But it is what it is, and that’s that!  Have a great day!  🙂

And the hits just keep in coming...

So, the day we FINALLY got our dryer hooked up, the boys and I spent about 3 hours outside with my neighbour, cleaning up the property around the house while he mowed the yard for us.  This was a HUUUGE deal, because it hadn’t been done in over a year, since our mower(s) quit working.  So about 8pm, on the Tuesday before the 4th, I went to take a shower, because working outside is gross and sweaty work.  So there I was, standing just outside the spray from the shower head, with my hand in the stream to tell me when the water is ready, and it NEVER warmed up.  Shit.  So I wrapped up in a towel, and went to check the display in the kitchen.  Now, I should probably mention here that we have a Rinnai tankless propane water heater that has served this household well these last 13 years since it was installed.  This will be important information later. 

However, on this day, the display was blank.  I hit the power button.  Nothing.  I had Oldest Son go outside and unplug it, wait a few minutes, and plug it back in.  STILL nothing.  So, I ended up taking a very short, and very COLD shower, determined to call a plumber to come out the next day to fix it.  So that’s exactly what I did.  I left a message that night for one of my local plumbers, and he came out the following day to check out my problems.  Because of course, if I’m having a plumber out, I’m ALSO going to have him check the leak in the dishwasher as well.  So he came out the next day, and... he couldn’t help me.  With either of my problems.  

The dishwasher, he said, was a problem with the solenoid, which in theory should be covered by the warranty (that’s a whole other post, that is!), and he couldn’t figure out the problem with the water heater.  It had power, the problem was that said power wasn’t getting where it needed to be.  He suggested I contact the company that provides our propane.  So, since the farmer’s co-op provides our propane, I called them.  It was 5:03 on the Wednesday before the 4th, and they were closed the following day.  

And, did I mention their technician only works at this particular location, and in this particular county, on Tuesdays and Thursdays?  So I waited until Friday, figuring I would hear something, at least, by then, and I get told the tech wouldn’t be able to come out until the following Tuesday.  So, yay!  More FREEZING cold showers!  But still, ever optimistic, I figured it would be an easy fix, and things would be back to normal on Tuesday.  Boy, was I ever wrong...

So Tuesday arrived, and I eagerly awaited the tech.  He met me around back, fiddled with a few things on the water heater, and told me it’s the PC board, which is basically the brain of the hot water heater.  So it was effectively brain dead.  🤦🏻‍♀️  That was NOT what I needed to hear...  So I messaged the ex, to get his opinion on what was going on.  The tech told me the new board would be about $300 for him to get, then another $100 to install, or $1500 for a new system, plus the $100 for the install, so I told him I would call and let him know what we would do.  So now we’re already at a week with no hot water.  We couldn’t run the dishwasher, and hand-washing dishes involved filling pots/ pans with water and heating it on the stove/ in the Instant Pot to get water hot enough to clean with.  The following day, the ex and I agreed that we should have the tech order the part.  Now, he had said it would take 2-3 days for it to come in.  And do you remember what I said about the tech’s hours at this branch?  That’s right, Tuesdays and Thursdays ONLY.  So yep, another WEEK of cold showers for us.  So much fun!  

I’m not sure when the part arrived, but that second Tuesday morning, I had alarms set from 8am-9am to make sure I was awake to call and make sure he would be out to fix it THAT DAY.  I called over, and was told he was on another job at that moment, but that he would call and let me know when he would be out to fix it.  I did not get that call, simply because I forgot to turn off my Do Not Disturb after I hung up the phone with them.  And I’m not sure how, but apparently even the dog didn’t react when he knocked, because next thing I knew, it’s nearly 11am, and my phone was ringing.  Knowing it was the repairman, I answered it quickly, and he told me he was all done, and it should be working.  So I ran out of my bedroom, and sure enough, the display was all lit up again!  So I adjusted the temperature, turned on a faucet, all with this very kind gentleman still on the phone with me, and yep, hot water!  Yay!!!  I took a shower almost immediately, and even allowed my 17yo the rare treat of using mama’s shower to bathe himself.  (I don’t generally let the boys use my bathroom for anything apart from taking the occasional pill at my sink, lol)

So at least that’s one problem I don’t need to worry about.  Now I just have to figure out how to pay it off. 😫  And, on that note, I’m going to leave you with some of my favourite pictures, those of my sweet Little Flower, this time with a very large, very PINK ice cream cone.  lol

Can’t win...

The past few weeks, my car has been acting strangely. Hesitating, not accelerating properly, having difficulty starting, and generally giving me a hard time actually letting me drive.  Well, the other night, as I was to Walmart (about 28 miles away and off the highway), while on I-10, my car just stopped accelerating altogether.  Then, it started slowing down.  Finally, I pulled off the side of the road (into the grass, because I don’t believe in stopping on the pavement when I’m on a major highway) and stopped.  And freaked out.

Thankfully, I have friends in the area who were able to come rescue E and me, and my mechanic towed it in the next day.  But the problem now is, the mechanic keeps saying there’s nothing wrong with it when there is very clearly BUCKETS of stuff wrong with it!  So, until I can afford to take it to a different mechanic, I’m stuck driving a half-broke car.  🤦🏻‍♀️

And on that note, because there’s really not much else to say, here are some pictures of my sweet Little Flower from the 4th!  Ooh, her sweet smile just makes everything right in my world...  ❤️🥰

It’s official!!!

So, for months now, as we’ve been cleaning up the house, I’ve been going through all of the clothes and sorting out stuff we’re keeping from stuff we’re donating.  And my biggest problem has been the baby clothes.  Naturally, in the normal course of things, all of these sweet little baby girl clothes would have been donated, either to other ladies having baby girls or to the local Humane Society thrift store.  But, naturally, this doesn’t happen when mama is expecting number two, so we’ve been holding on to them, all over the house, waiting to find out what gender this newest baby actually is.  And, as it turns out...  *drumroll, please*

IT’S A BOY!!!  So the baby girl clothes are going, and now we get to welcome baby boy clothes, yay!!!  Naturally, we’re all VERY excited, and can’t wait for him to get here, but of course we WILL wait, because he’s not ready to be here yet.  lol

So that’s our newest news!  Have a wonderful day!!!

FINALLY!!!

That’s right!  It ACTUALLY happened!!!  The parts for the dryer arrived the other day, we got someone from our local co-op, the nice people who provide our liquid propane, to come out and now we have a working dryer again!  And I absolutely LOVE it!!!  It’s so efficient, and even has a timer that lets me know how long it’ll be before the clothing in it is dry!  It is SOOO good to have a working dryer in my home again!!!  Now we can REALLY work through all the old clothes so they can go to the local animal shelter for their thrift store.  Do any of you have an animal shelter with a thrift store attached?  I much prefer to donate there, knowing that the proceeds go to helping our local no-kill shelter be able to support the animals they’ve taken in.  It’s a great idea, in my opinion.  But that’s all for now!  I’m so happy to have a dryer again!!!  Obligatory dryer picture!!!  lol

Dryer Update!

Missed a call from Home Depot the other day.  Turns out, the part that we have been missing is FINALLY no longer on back-order!  So he had the company ship it directly to me, and as soon as it arrives, I’ll be able to make arrangements to have my dryer hooked up.  And it’s about bloody time, too!!!  I can’t WAIT to have a working dryer again, being without one has totally sucked!  And of course, obligatory baby photo!

Dryer Disaster

We’ve been without a dryer for over 2 years now.  So, when I got my tax money this year, among other things, I got us a new dryer.  However, I was stupid and listened to Big E and got a gas dryer.  I honestly don’t know WHAT I was thinking, doing that.  The dryer we had before that was a gas dryer, and it did a lovely job, but it stopped working, so it needed to be replaced.  So the kids and I make a trip up to Valdosta to go to Home Depot.  We find what we need, and THREE TIMES I told the lady helping us that we had propane, not natural gas, and would need an adapter for this.  She apparently didn’t get it right in the system, and I was charged for I honestly don’t know what, but they didn’t drop of a natural gas to LP tank converter like they were supposed to, so I’ve effectively had a large paperweight in my laundry room for the last nearly four months.

Well, I called them today, and told them, it’s time.  I’ve been more than patient, but it’s now been nearly 4 weeks since I was told the part “should be in any day” and no part has arrived.  So I’m done.  The very nice and patient manager that I’ve been dealing with told me he would come out and get it next week, so once it’s gone and my money is returned, I’ll be getting a nice, used electric dryer for my house.  And I will _NEVER_ let anyone tell me I should get gas again, UGH!  

This has been awful!  We’ve been taking our clothes to the laundromat for MONTHS because we have no dryer, and it’s really cost us a lot!  So I’m hoping to have that all settled and nicely tied up by Friday, so that we don’t have to worry about it anymore!  Wish us luck!  Oh, and gratuitous baby picture, of course!  lol

Life keeps moving along at a slow, steady pace around here.  I’ve spent the last few days that I haven’t been working gathering information and trying to find out how to get things done on our little farm.  Sadly, most of the help I’m trying to get depends on ME owning the property, which I currently do not own.  So, though I was hoping for a grant to do so, I may have to settle for a loan to buy it from my dad’s estate.  Which I don’t necessarily want to have to do, but it is what it is, and if that’s all the “help” that I can get, then I guess I have to go with that.  At least then the property will be MINE, and no one, except the bank, can take it away from me.

I’ve also been battling a fairly deep depression lately.  It makes me want to sleep all day, and makes it VERY difficult to get ANYTHING done around the house, but I’m still trying.  I have a friend coming over to help me set up my laundry line, which will mean we can start doing laundry at home again, instead of having to go to the laundromat all the time.  We’ll still need to go to the laundromat for some things, like comforters, and maybe the king-size sheets for my bed, but it’s better than having nothing, and that’s what we currently have, is nothing.  I own a dryer, but the part I need to hook it up to the propane was never sent with it, so it’s basically useless, as I can’t hook it up.  But I’m fine with a clothesline, and we have PLENTY of sunny days, so it’ll be fine.  

Other than that, really, there’s nothing more going on.  So here’s a few pictures of my Little Flower to appease the cuteness factor.  🙂

Ooh, she is such an angel baby!  ❤️🥰

Glasses Update

I mentioned the problem with my glasses to one of the techs when Oldest Son went to his appointment.  She looked at them, said they’re definitely too high, marked them up, wrote down a bunch of stuff, cleaned my lensss, and told me they’d be ready within two weeks.  I got a call on Wednesday that they were in, and so Friday, when I was off work, I went in and picked them up.  MUCH better!  So at least I have that going now.  No more blurry driving, or walking, or, really, much of anything!  Yay!!!

My house is not the cleanest place on Earth.  Far from it, in fact.  However, when BE and Miss V left to go down south for the weekend, a trip that it seems may be extended an unspecified amount of time due to familial issues, I was suddenly struck with the urge to rearrange the living room.  But in order to rearrange, first we need to clean.  So, that’s exactly what we started to do, and then by Sunday, we had enough done to finally move the furniture.  Now we just have to clear up the remaining debris so that the living and dining rooms are completely clean.  And boy, oh boy, I can’t WAIT for that to happen!  

We’ve been working on it little by little every day since Thursday, and already it looks SOOO much better in here already!  With the furniture moved from where it was, in the middle of room the way it all was, the living room looks positively huge by comparison!  I’m so glad I decided to do this!  Once it’s completely done, I’ll be sure to post pictures!  🙂

Our Home...

Our home is in danger.  Not from invaders or wildfires, or natural disasters, but from a much more insidious villain.  Money.  You see, in order to keep our home ours, we need money.  Pots and pots of it.  My siblings are talking about selling it, and I’m simply not in a position that I can buy it at the moment.  And I really, _REALLY_ want to be able to buy it.  We’ve started a GoFundMe (link HERE) to try to buy it, but so far, we haven’t even made 1¢...  its really disheartening, and I’m seriously afraid we’re going to lose our home, and have nowhere else to go to live.  It’s really scary to think about...

But on the bright side, my old man still loves me, so I have that going for me.  lol

Wow!

So.  Remember the embroidery stuff I’ve been working on?  Well, someone asked me to make her one that she could then appliqué onto a pillow.  I gave her a price, she was happy with it, and off I went to start working on it.  It wasn’t terribly difficult, I don’t think it even took me 2 hours of total work to complete it, and when it was done she LOVED it.  So I’m glad of that!  And here it is, in all its glory.  It really is a simple project, but it made her happy, and that’s what matters.  🙂

I hadn’t unhooped it yet when I took this picture, as you can tell, but I’m glad I could make someone smile with something so simple.  It really is the little things that can make all the difference.

Finally!

Well!  I’ve been working on an embroidery project for several weeks now, and I am pleased to say that I am FINALLY finished with it!  It was much more detailed than the simple ones I made for my sister and friend, but SOOO worth it!  And I’ll admit that several times I put it down and didn’t touch it for days/ weeks at a time, but now that it’s done, I can show it off!

It took so much to get this done, but I’m so proud of it, too!  I just hope the intended recipient likes it when she gets it!

Glasses

So, among other things, I wear glasses.  This isn’t unusual, a great many people do these days.  However, when I went for my exam this year, I found myself admitting to looking under and taking off my glasses entirely so as to see things up close.  So the eye doctor recommended I get... bifocals.  😳  I was not best pleased with this plan, but at the same time I kinda understood the need for them.  I do a lot of up-close work, especially when I’m working on an embroidery project, so it kinda made sense.  

Well, I picked them up Monday afternoon, and have been attempting to adjust to them.  They’re WEIRD!  And I find I keep running into “the line” at the top, where they change from regular glasses to readers, and that just makes things worse.  But I haven’t gotten a headache from them (yet, lol), so I suppose that’s a good thing.  It’s just adjusting to them that’s taking me some time.  I had to drive to Tallahassee on Monday, so THAT was certainly an interesting experience.  I kept trying to look through the reader portion while driving, but everything just looked blurry.  lol

But having decent vision up close is slightly surreal.  I don’t think I’ve had that in ages, not since before I started wearing glasses, in fact. So here’s an obligatory picture of me with my new specs, what do you think?  🙂

Cooking

I have to admit something.  I absolutely _LOVE_ to cook.  And I’m not too bad at it, either.  Before Big E moved back in with us, I did about 85% of the cooking, with E doing the remaining 15%.  That boy LOVES to cook, though it takes him forEVER to put a meal together and get it on the table!  Anyway, I also like using my slow cooker for cooking, because, well, it doesn’t use propane or a lot of electricity, it doesn’t generally heat up the house, and we have dinner at a reasonable hour when I manage to get the food into it at the proper time.  

I also like the IDEA of slow cooker freezer meals.  The problem I have with most of the most of the ones I find?  They’re written to serve 2-4 people.  That’s IT!  Not only would a meal that small burn up in my slow cooker, but that wouldn’t feed my family!  Not even half!  There are currently 7 of us, with number 8 due in the latter half of October (yay fall birthdays!!!  And yay more grandbabies!), and 2-4 servings just will NOT cut it!  

So I’ve decided I need to search out a bunch of slow cooker recipes to feed 8+ people, then figure out how to freeze them for later use.  That way, I can test them out one by one, and link them all together in one place, so that if anyone else needs something like this, they’ll have a whole list of recipes to choose from.  And just because I can, here’s a picture of my Sweet Little Flower.  🙂

Ooh, I love those sweet cheeks to PIECES!  ❤️🥰