My crazy life

I've been gone so long from this blog, I think I'm a different person. Certainly older and dustier! I kinda lost my mojo on the Hawaii posts for now, but I will give you the Top 10 rundown of what has been happening lately.

 1. It's hot. Crotch-pot cooking kind of hot. Like almost 100 degrees yesterday.

 2. Daughter Liz moved back to Tennessee from Nevada and brought her evil twin cat Tabitha. I made a sign to greet them at the airport.

Tabitha didn't enjoy the trip in the pink bag too much, but she thanked me for the sign!

This has been a big project for Liz...getting rid of most of her worldly possessions and mailing the rest home in boxes. The mailman and the UPS guy both hate me now.

Liz's writing about the experience in She's Gone Country.

3. I cut back on working this summer to help Liz find an apartment near Memphis once she got a job. Okay, the EPA was also complaining about the dust buffaloes in my house affecting the local air quality, but I think they are exaggerating! Anyway, she got a great job about 30 seconds after arriving home and now we are trying to find or make furniture since none of hers fit in the mailing boxes. More on this later, (Trust me. Yeah, right!) but here is the headboard we made from a screen:

The mattress had just been delivered.  Usually she has sheets too!

 4. Fourteen cows and a donkey escaped the neighbor's property and decided to mow my lawns. Liz was fascinated but prayed they wouldn't attack her.

(Me photographing Liz photographing cows.)

(This one is just an a$$)

(Defending the garden with the buggy.)

The cows chewed grass, left calling cards where I could step in them and finally wandered off down my trail. The owner had find them in the woods at the back of the 192 acres and herd them home. It took hours.

 5. I've got a limited garden this year. Have I mentioned it's hot? I did manage to grow some iceberg lettuce and they actually formed heads.

Of course, now that it so hot (have I said this yet?), the lettuce tastes like rubber cement. Don't ask how I know that.

6. I woke up one night to the smell of something burning and found sparks shooting from the air conditioning unit in the laundry room. I didn't know if I should shoot it with the fire extinguisher, call the fire department, or just run screaming from house and hope the dogs could keep up.

I settled for turning the system off and calling my heating guy. One of the great things about living in the country is that service people will come out at all hours to fix stuff, and never charge a premium. It took until 3 AM to get the system up and running. Did I mention it is hot here?

7. I spend waaaayy too much time on Pinterest.

8. The great-landscaping-and-mulch project of last year continues. I am working on the walkway to my abandoned-and-forgotten shop.

9. I finally got to harvest some peaches before the critters stole them all. Maybe a dozen or so, but they were sweet and I felt like a real homesteader eating my own home-grown fruit.

10. There was a big-a$$ snake by my garage door who eventually slithered off into the backyard. I don't do snakes. And I may never go into the backyard again.

That's my life. There may be more posts before the turn of the century.

Please don't hold your breath.

Thank you.

A little getaway

Stud Muffin and I scheduled a last-minute escape to Hawaii. It kinda fell together all by itself, without his girl having to call my girl, which is the best way to travel. Low stress.

Okay, so we stayed at the Kahala, as we have for 27 years. There's more to the name, but since it keeps changing ever so slightly (first a Hilton, then a Mandarin Oriental, then who knows,) I just call it the Kahala.

Throughout it all, they have kept some of the classic features and I love them for it!

The lobby with original chandeliers from the 60's.

The waterfall where every wedding couple gets their picture taken.


The orchid wall is still on the stairwell, but I don't have a picture of it. I was already on Hawaiian Time (Do it today, do it tomorrow) and it never got done!

Our room was awesome. Literally. Check it out.

And the view! To. Die. For.

Jealous yet? Yeah, me too now that I'm home again!

We got in during the afternoon, so we went out to dinner and just chilled for the evening. The next morning, we were awake quite early and watched the sunrise as we ate breakfast.

Seriously? Could you ever get tired of this view??

From this patio?

The restaurant in the hotel is our favorite breakfast spot. They have a great buffet that only costs an-arm-and-a-leg, plus menu items like Eggs Benedict. (Warning: If you know me, food features prominently is any vacation!)

Juice and water.

Fruit and salad bar.

Okay, you see that fan over to the left? There were actually two of them to keep any flying critters from enjoying the fruit without paying for a full buffet. Just out of sight next to the strawberries was a big bowl of locally-grown lettuce. No matter what technique I tried, every morning as I "tonged" some greens, leaves would fly all over the restaurant in the fan breeze. It was embarrassing, I tell you! I'd try to shield my plate for the release (nope), tried to time the fan cycles (nope) and finally just died of humiliation and threw some on the floor hoping to appease the salad gods.

Papaya with a squeeze of lime is a must. A little fresh pineapple (for Clint) and a tasty little sugar-covered dough ball called a Portuguese Malasada. More about the malasadas later, but just to let my family know, these were Kahala-sadas dusted with a bit of Li Hing Mui powder. Ono!

Salad caught with a butterfly net, sticky rice and Portuguese sausage. Yum! No picture, but imagine steaming cups of Kona coffee...some of the best on the planet.

We took a walk on beach after breakfast and met a new friend.

We saw this sweetie every morning with his Dad, carrying his mini Frisbee and digging in the sand.

After the Frisbee was good and sandy, he'd plop down, dunk his head under the water and shake his toy clean. It really was too cute!

After a little clean-up of sandy feet, we headed out to enjoy the sights and do some shopping. But you'll have to wait for that.

I'm baccccckkkk!

Miss me? Didn't even notice I was gone? Well, how could you when I never post anything and didn't tell you I was leaving?

So, I'm back from an impromptu vacation with Stud Muffin. I won't say exactly where we went, but...

there was suntan lotion and fruity drinks with little umbrellas involved!

Got to get ready for work, but I'll fill you in on more of the trip soon!

Signs that Spring may come once again

1. The dogs are full of hell and enjoy racing around the yard and stealing each others toys.

Nick

Sassy


2. Pink blossoms on the peach trees.

3. Daffodils setting blooms by Steve the Shed.

4.  Dripping, itchy eyes.  Of course, that could also mean my house is dustier than I'm willing to admit!

5. I need a spray tan, cuz I'm scaring myself and the neighbors! See above photo.

6.  Garlic shoots.

7.  I think the strawberry plants died, but the weeds are looking fantastic. Let's hear it for fall fertilizing!

8.  The soil level in the raised beds has sunk to a new low.  Might have to buy a truckload of planter's mix to fill them back up.

9 & 10. I can't think of the last two. I took some antihistamines for my eyes and now I cant think straight. See number 4.

I figure we're still in for some horrible spring weather, but for now, I'll enjoy the signs that time is marching on towards warmer temperatures.

Doings and Goings-On

Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a bad blogger. So y'all can come to my house to beat me up, and then maybe I'll have something to blog about. Deal?

A couple of weeks ago was the graduation of my nursing class. You know, the one I am no longer a part of? It was bittersweet, but I was so proud of my peeps. It is not a job I want to do, but I have personal experience of the hell they went through to get to this point. I couldn't be prouder of them if I had complete the program myself!

I'm pretty sure there was a uniform-burning party after graduation.

Usually, my role in this process is to let my friends bitch about assignments, occasionally quiz them on topics, and especially, talk them down from the ledge right before a test. But with finals, standardized tests and the all important exit exam looming, I decided something else was needed. So, I cooked.

The "exit exam" is a comprehensive test covering EVERYTHING you learned in the WHOLE program, plus stuff they never got around to teaching. It is required that you get a passing grade, or the school won't process the paperwork that qualifies you to take your license exam. Mega important! I figured bringing dinner for the night before the test was something I could do to help.

And so I trashed the kitchen and made mac-and-cheese and chicken enchiladas with Mexican rice.

It was fun, and I felt like I was contributing in a positive way. Usually, I just tell them I think they're crazy and that I'm decorating their rubber room at the asylum. This time, I fed them.

In the run-up to Christmas, I completed a bunch of jobs setting up displays and auditing gas stations. Sometimes on the same day, but not at the same time. Obviously.

Fascinating, huh?



And then Christmas was here and so were Courtney and Clint. Or C & C, as I call them behind their back(s). (Don't tell, k?) So, there was eating, and football watching and more eating. When we got tired of that, we went out. And ate. Oh, and saw a movie.

Today, Stud Muffin, C & C and I went and saw the new Mission Impossible movie. At a movie theater. Haven't done that in forever. Good movie! Then we tried to get into the Cheddar's restaurant at 2:30 PM, but not even a shoehorn and sticks of Oleo were going to squeeze us into a table. So we went to Chili's. And ate.

Clint is watching the TV above my head at the Chili's. I took another picture once he noticed what I was doing, but it was pretty blurry.

I think I'm detecting a theme in this blog post. Anyone else?