IT'S HOT AS ...

The past two days we have stayed inside because of the heat, well, except to have meetings with the DOT people and contractors about the road situation. Now, the county has had DOT build huge "planters" that look like interstate walls, and wouldn't you know it, one of the six is right here at us. Now we can't see to turn out of our driveway without subjecting ourselves to grave danger. This all started Friday. DOT is suppose to be making us a driveway from our present drive over to the street just past where we live. As of this afternoon they don't have the gravel down. We have informed them we are not going to drive through all that dust, or mud, if and when it rains. We have involved the county's transportation department. They are being very attentive to our concerns. The gentleman sees the safety issues and liability issues as well. We have learned that lots of other people are real unhappy with the "walls" up and down the road. Will this ever pass. The project is already a year behind schedule. We are looking at the middle of 2008 before completion.

Today I have finally typed all of the Hubby's stories he has written about his childhood. They are a hoot. I thought I would share one of the short ones. After finishing he was sharing another "event" that I've never heard before. I was laughing like crazy when he was telling me the story. He's promised to put this one on paper as well.

THE CAR LOOKS BAD

We had an old 1946 Chevrolet Coupe that looked really bad.

My Dad wanted to have it painted before we went on vacation to Panama City, Florida, but didn't have the money. My Mom had an idea. So she ordered two gallons of pain from Sears. One gallon of beige and one gallon of powder blue. She and my brother, Denny, painted that car while Daddy was at work. It looked like it had been painted with pine tops.

You should have seen the expression on my Dad's face when he saw that car, let alone the words that came out of his mouth. Words that I could never repeat to this day. After circling that car for a couple of hours he finally came in the house and said, "you know, it does look somewhat better." He fell asleep in his favorite easy chair with the newspaper in his lap after he had killed a six-pack of beer before ten o'clock that evening.

We never heard another word about our fiasco point job.

This incident occurred in the early 1950's so Hubby would have been about seven or eight years old and his brother would have been about 14 or 15. I'm not telling his Mom's age.

Why am I so tired?

This has been an extremely busy week. Dr. appointments for my Mom, lunch with close friends, I had to work one day for the county, which is actually a real job, however, it's only one day per month, fishing, cleaning house for a Lia Sophia Jewelry party, whee, I'm exhausted! Then this morning we got up early to pick beans before it got really hot.

We picked and picked--22 lbs. of greenbeans and a very large basket of tomatoes. I've been stringing beans most all day, and I've managed to put a gallon of tomatoes in the freezer. This is so much easier than canning them, only thing when I get ready to use them this winter, I'll have to cook them, better in the winter than heating up the kitchen in 90ish degree weather. Monday I'll have to can those greenbeans. Last week we picked 16 lbs. and I ended up canning 11-1/2 qts. I suspect I'll have close to 15 qts. to can on Monday.

I've started to make a record of quantities and times for these type tasks, it took me about four house to can those 11 qts. from start to finish, that included cleaning the stove, putting away all the big pots and pressure cooker.

Tomorrow is our day of rest, literally. When we owned our own business we made Sunday our day of just church and rest. It has carried over into retirement, but it's a nice change to recharge for the coming week.

As of right now we don't have one thing on our calendar for next week, well, getting those greenbeans into cans. The Hubby has been testing his nail gun on pieces of the Hardiplant we have, so we probably will work on getting the remainder of the siding on his workshop. I would really like to take ONE. more. day and complete that project. Then we'll have to paint. Once thing calls for another. Now he's talking about adding on to his shop. I DON'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED in that project! How is it I always get involved in HIS projects? I did make him help me clean house Friday before the jewelry party, so I shouldn't complain.

We always look forward to church. Our pastor has been preaching some awesome sermons the past month, not that his sermons prior to that haven't been good, but he is really being bold in his stand on the word of God!

Blessings!

This is not my idea of fun!

In 1973 when we bought our property, where we live, we built Hubby a workshop. Two reasons, we were wanting to "test" the material we planned to use when we build our house and we needed a place to store some of our "stuff" when we moved from our other house to an apartment during construction of the "big house". Oh yes, there was a third reason, Hubby wanted a workshop and figured if we waited until after we build the big house we wouldn't be able to afford the workshop. So the workshop was built. We had NO clue what we were doing, but my Daddy gave us a book, "How to Build Your Dream House for $3,500". Guess when it was published! After the foundation was in place we would literally sit and read that book to figure out what we had to do next in building that structure. It took us months to just frame the thing mainly because we had to read the book FIRST and, we could only work on the weekends at that point in our lives. You understand we were young and we had to work.

Well the squirrels decided they needed a change of menu, so they started to EAT the siding off of the workshop! We are in the process of relocating squirrels, lots of them. They ate almost all the siding off the back and nibbled along the edges of both sides and front as high as they could ready, which was about three rows of siding. So, now we are having to replace the chewed pieces of siding. I don't know how I manage to get involved in Hubby's projects! I think because he says, "will you help me take off the old siding, I can't do this by myself?" Of course I'll help him, I'm in!

So, for the past three days we have been working on taking off the old siding and repairing rot and carpenter ant damage. We had never put in a proper door sill, so we have laboriously removed the old "sill" and installed a new one, a real door sill and threshold. THREE DAYS it has take us to do that one thing! Now the door won't close because after installing the threshold it's a bit too high with the little piece of rubber to keep out the rain, so NOW we have to remove the door and plane it down so we can close the door. I hope that's not going to "justify" another tool, like an electric planer. I suggested the belt sander would work very well, after all, it's a tool justified by another project that had to be done.

Just wait until we get that Hardiplank siding on the building! Just let those little devils, I mean squirrels, sink their little teeth into that concrete siding! They'll be on their way to the dentist, I'm sure.

I'm off to the workshop. We can't do this everyday, I'm getting too beat up. I have bruises all over my arms and hands and a blood blister on my thumb where I hit it with the hammer. OUCH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

I know this is a bit late, but here are some photos taken at the 4th of July parade in a small town in south Georgia. Our dear friends, George and Charlene, live here and the parade has always started in front of their house. We had a wonderful day! We sat on the front porch, visited with friends and relatives and just enjoyed all the activities. Most of the people in the parade threw candy to all the people standing along the street. It was so much fun!

View of the porch.

View from the porch

The log cutting contest.

Every parade has a fire truck

Then there were the sack rack.

After the parade there were activities around the courthouse square. The weather was perfect! It was warm, but the humidity was low, which is EXTREMELY unusual for Georgia on the 4th of July and as you can see from the photos blue sky with light fluffy clouds.

In 1776 when the colonies declared independence from England, John Adams said every 4th of July all the towns should have a great celebration with parades, games and fireworks. My prayer for these great United States is we will be able to celebrate another 231 years of independence and freedom. We honor all the people that have fought so hard, even died, to give us that freedom today. GOD BLESS THE USA!

The Big Rock

That's the name the locals in Metro Atlanta have given to Stone Mountain, which, by the way, is the largest exposed piece of granite in the world.

Today we pulled our boat over there to fish. It was fun! We actually caught fish, in fact, we RAN OUT OF BAIT! That's not fun when the fish are really biting. The weather was nice, not real hot, don't misunderstand me, it was very warm, but without the humidity we usually experience here in Georgia.

Here are a few photos with our view from the boat. If you look close you might see the carving on the side of the mountain of the Confederate Generals and the cable car approaching the top of the mountain. The photo to the right are young Canadian geese. They were beautiful.

This is the greatest part of retirement. We make our own schedule and some of it is really fun.

King of Tidewater

Well, Oscar, King of Tidewater has decided that his new favorite place to nap during the day is upstairs in one of the guest bedrooms. This means next time we have company I'll have to wash that bedspread before they arrive. You never know who might be allergic to cats. His other favorite place is under our bed. I have a pillow under there for him and he loves it. He's out guarding mole holes or chipmunk holes all night long, it's he job, you know, so he's what you call a day sleeper. At least when I have to use the vacuum he doesn't go crazy.

We finally had a little rain this week, which helps our garden and our grass. The grass has finally turned a little green, rather than the dried brownish color it has been as a result of all the dry weather. It's amazing how just a little rain water helps. It's going to be hot the next several days, getting up to the 90's, but the good news is, the humidity has been low which is highly unusual for the deep south. The hot weather is fine UNTIL the humidity arrives and it's absolutely unbearable. It just saps the energy slap out of you!

Tomorrow we are going fishing. I'm sure it will be hot, but there will be a breeze. I can assure you if we get out on the lake there WILL be wind. Absolutely! It makes it difficult to fish in one spot with the wind, even though we do have anchors we get blown around and around. Well, there is another factor involved, we have umbrellas for both of us. When Hubby decided to turn the little jon boat into a bass boat I insisted he purchase umbrella brackets for the back of each seat. You see, I don't fish in the sun! You bake your brain. So we both have nice golf umbrellas to keep us out of the sun and they tend to act as sails when the wind blows. That's okay, I'd rather be blown around a little on the water than bake my brain and cook my fair, freckled skin and end up being a crispy critter and my pasty white hubby getting sun poisoning, again.

I'm off to fix our lunch for tomorrow, we'll have a nice little picnic while we are out giving the fish the sore mouth.

LOOK WHO WON!

Did Paul Potts win? Check out this link to see the clip from the finale of the UK has talent.

http://www.marcandcharity.blogspot.com/

Watch the entire clip, because the winner will perform at the end.