I woke this morning at 6:00 to the sound of my front door opening and and a booming baritone voice yelling, "The powers off!"  Why thank you daddy (the benefits of living next door to your parents).  In point of fact, it has been off since 2:30 this morning.  I know this because that's when the sky lit up and the big 'BOOM' hit.  And I, like and idiot, was standing on my front porch peering into the darkness to see if I could find Tess who was outside on a hunting expedition.  I jumped 3 feet, flew back in the house and was plunged into darkness.  Well until the power out flashlights I have plugged into the walls came on. 

 

At 6:00 am I'm lying in bed thinking about how I'm supposed to get ready for work with no power.  There's no window in the bathroom that's on the west side of the house.  Since my water is from a well and has an electric pump, I have no water.  No water means no shower and I can't wash my hair.  ( I hate not being able to wash my hair!!) No bottled water.  I did manage to get my teeth brushed!  The toaster doesn't work, the microwave doesn't work, the oven is gas but has an electric ignition.  Since I don't drink milk, I don't have any so cereal for breakfast is out.  The iron doesn't work. 

 

So here I am at work with dirty hair and body in a wrinkled shirt trying to find something positive about the day and wishing it were 5:00.

 

It is unfair to plunge people into the dark ages when their entire lives are ELECTRIC!!!

 

Now I'm going to be grumpy

I consider myself to be a rather old fashioed gal.  Now, that's not 18th century old-fashioned, we're talking early 20th century.  Hello, I do like modern plumbing.  But when it comes to this new information super highway, I can't seem to find the on ramp.  Perhaps that's why I don't blog well.  Only today did I figure out how to put a picture into my profile picture spot and that's not even a picture, it's our company logo.  I suppose if I was more into it, I'd take the time to learn the difference between tif and pdf and what a zip drive is.  When our IT guy mentions these things I just look blankly at him and say, "I haven't a clue, it just started talking. Could you fix it, please."

 

I tend to do things the old tyme way.  I actually write letters and mail them to people.  I don't have a regular telephone in my house ( I must confess that I do have a cell phone; however, I rarely answer it when it rings), I don't even have cable television.   I still write a grocery list before I go to the market.  I pay my electric bill in person and in cash.  I'd probably pay all my bills that way if it were feasible but my house payment goes to Texas and my car payment is in Iowa.   I remember when I was a little girl my grandmother carried a little brown pocket book.  She'd cash her check and then we'd go from place to place and pay the bills.  When she was all done, we'd go to the market.  It was a weekly ritual and a fond memory. 

 

But I  guess we must continue to evolve or we will stagnate but I do love the simplicty of yesterday.

Although March 21 was the official first day of spring, it didn't actual reach us until now.  Spring has definitely sprung and the bug has bitten.  The spring cleaning bug that is.  For some reason I have an overwhelming desire to clean.  This morning I was late leaving for work because I just had to put my shoes in order in the closet!  I'm not usually overly concerned with the location of my shoes, as long as the location is the closet, I'm happy.  But not this morning,  today I had to put all the sneakers together and then color sort all of my shoes  from darkest to lightest.  Good thing I already had my dress shoes sorted.  If I'd had the time I would have ironed all my workshirts and put them in color order as well.  

 

I've also been bitten by the gardening bug.  Flower beds must be cleaned, fertilizer applied, areas cleared for new plants.  I'm anxiously awaiting my first trip to the nursery.  I often refer to the nursery as my happy place.  When I'm having a bad day, going to my local nursery always seems to brighten it up.  All those lovely plants just waiting for a good home and I have yet to leave when several didn't come home with me.    This year is especially exciting as I just bought a new house and my yard is a blank slate.  It is a bit intimidating but I'm ready for the challenge.  Now if I can just make it look in real life like it looks in my head, I'll be okay.

Why is it that 3 days away from work is only 24-hrs long?  I'm sure there's some scientific explination for this phenomenon.   I had my entire weekend planned.  Friday I was going to paint my accent wall in my bedroom and then I was going to tackle those QC files.  Well, I managed to get the wall painted in between trips to my parents' house where my niece was spending the day.  She called and said  "T, you come now."  And, of course, like any good Auntie off I went to do the bidding of a 3 year old.  She was very excited as it was her birthday weekend.  She would be 3!!  She's not sure what that means other than she gets to have multiple birthday parties.  She must have 1 at daycare, 1 at Grammy and Poppa's house and 1 at home.  So I spent my Friday looking at what came out of the ninata (that's pinata to those who don't speak 3-yr old) and then bouncing in our new Jump-O-Lene in Grammy and Poppa's living room.  So we had to move 1/2 the furniture out to get it in.  We had to jump and it was raining outside!

 

Now with regards to my accent wall.  I love to watch Debbie Travis' Painted House.  She's always talking about an accent wall to set the room.  So I decided that I would have an accent wall.  Off to OSH I went and picked up the Gold Leaf Metallic paint that I would use.  It would look perfect against my cinnamon bedding.  And I was right.  However, there is one thing that Debbie forgets to tell you in her program, and that's when using Metallic paint, you should call her.  It's not like regular paint and you have to stay with it every second or you get drip marks or roller marks.  Lucky for me my mother is somewhat of an artist and has suggested that I use copper metallic paint to do some shadowing that will hide all those imperfections.   I'm hoping that Mom will help in that dept.

 

Saturday I had scheduled the painting of the master bathroom as Mother Nature was being cruel and it was still raining.  I decided on yellow, specifically "Lemonade."  It would be bright and cheerful.  Well bright it definitely was.  I've never seen lemonade quite so YELLOW before.  I should have paid more attention but it doesn't always look the same in the container as when you get it on the wall.  So I painted and painted then I  turned on the 6, 75 watt clear bulbs that hang over the mirrors (they came with the house) and almost blinded myself, I decided that I didn't want to be bright and cheerfull.  So Sunday, I re-painted the bathroom in Barley.   And my vision is almost back to normal.

 

 

Last night I decided that I would tackle several projects at once.  In the academic world, I'm told this is called multi-tasking.  So after unloading all the boxes from the QC Department out of my truck and placing them in my living room, I went to my parents house for dinner.  Where my dad prepared tacos, one of his specialties, the other is hamburgers.  I ate and visited with my dad and after dinner I kissed him good night and left him to clean up.  Since it was still light out (thanks to daylight savings) the girls remained outside where they could hunt and chase bugs around in the yard and I prepared cookie dough.  While the cookies were baking, I put in a load of towels, changed into my pj's and went to work sorting boxes of files while watching CSI on DVD. 

 

I have to say that I spent more time watching CSI than sorting files and only managed to get 2 little bundles done before letting the girls into the house for the night.  Once they were in filing or sorting was definitely out of the question (Did I spell it right, Mike?)  Unfortunately, they wanted to help and since they can neither read nor staple they were basically just in the way.  Oh well, I didn' t really want to sort all that stuff anyway.  I did manage to get the cookies finished and put away before they discovered there was anything interesting in the kitchen and 2 loads of laundry folded and put away.  You have to be quick, any laundry left in the basket suddenly becomes the bed they've always wanted.

 

All in all, I'd have to say it was a fairly productive evening.

As you can see, I'm not much of a blogger.  I sit down in front of my computer and my mind goes completely blank.  Absolutely nothing of any interest comes to mind.  To me this is odd because in certain circumstances, I can talk a blue streak about absolutely nothing.

 

I am in good spirits as I am once again home and shall be for another 3 weeks!  Happiness abounds!  I love my housesitting jobs because of the animals that I take care of but I miss the girls and just being at home.  Downside is I don't have a maid or a gardener at home and believe me, the work piles up.  For some reason, weeds grow whether you're around or not and I have yet to teach the girls to dust or vacuum.

 

Tonight I am in a mood to make cookies.  I haven't done that in a while and I think while I'm organizing the quality control paperwork for the plant (we have an audit coming up) I'll multi-task.   Unfortunately, I'm not supposed to eat them.  I'm hoping this "problem" will clear itself up soon.  I really miss pizza.

 

 

Dog or cat - 2 precious cats which I refer to as the girls (Tess is my little huntress and Willa keeps the house safe from dust bunnies)

Essential electronics - Hairdryer ( is that considered electronic?)

 

As I stood outside in the pouring rain last night in my night shirt and tennis shoes with a jacket draped over my head because I couldn't find an umbrella anywhere in the house (what kind of people don't have umbrella's?!?) waiting for Sandy, a much loved golden retriever, to find the "perfect" spot to do her business, it occurred to me that dog's have a great life.  At least the dogs that I take care of.  That's my side job.  Housesitting for people while they're on vacation.

 

They have warm beds or they sleep on the owners, toys to play with, food, water, treats, and when mom and dad are gone, a babysitter that spoils them rotten.

 

This morning, like every morning, I took the dogs (whom I will refer to as the kids hence forth) to the park to play before I went off to work.  The wind was blowing like a banshee and the small puddle at the far end had grown into a lake.  This did not stop us from our appointed tasks.  We must play ball, roll in the grass, and chase birds as they fly by and of course, we MUST get into the water.  Retrievers LOVE water so it is a given that she will eventually wind up there. Luckily all the neighbors know me.  I'm the crazy dog lady. So no one is surprised to hear me as I shout "No Sandy, No, no, no."  Which translates in her mind as "yes, yes, yes, please get into the water and splash around for 10-15 mintues."  All the while watching to make certain that both kids have poo'd and said poo is located for the ever favored task of removal.  Now tell me, what other species has someone that walks around behind them and picks up their poo!!?