Forward from South Africa. . .

Received an email from a friend in South Africa that I thought was worth posting:

A man was standing outside of a building with a sign written: 'I am blind,
please help'.

A 'creative publicist' was walking by him and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in a few more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign, turned it around and wrote another announcement. He placed the sign by the blind man's feet and left.

That afternoon the creative publicist returned to where the blind man sat and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had re-written his sign and he wanted to know what he had written on it.

The publicist responded: 'Nothing that was not true, I just wrote your sign out a little differently.' He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: 'TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT.'

Sometimes you need to change your strategy when something does not go your way and you'll see it may just be for the best. Remember, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got...

Namaste.

Feeling Better. . .

I was able to get into our Health Clinic on Monday and found out that I had strep.
I was out of commission for awhile, but with almost 4 days of medication in me. . .
I am back amongst the living again!

That is a good thing as we have decided to refinance the house.
That is a really good thing as we have to have an appraisal done ON MONDAY!!!
Keep in mind that we are still in the middle of remodeling, so the house looks like a construction zone.

The goal is to finish up some remodeling projects. . .
A year to get molding around the pantry door isn't too bad! :)
It will be nice to have the shoes contained in a closet, though how to combat the smell. . .

We also decided to pull ahead our "spring cleaning". . .
MaBell and I attacked two rooms last night.
I'm hoping to attach two more tonight between MaBell, OB and myself.
MBB has homework to get done and I'm hoping that he'll tackle the basement in his "free" time.

It dawned on me how many buys/refinances/etc the kids have been through. . .
When I said that the house was being appraised, the reactions I got were: "Noooooooooooo!"
I didn't have to even say the word "clean".

Posting will probably be light between now and Tuesday, but I should be able to post some "finish" (except for the floors) pics after our marathon run.

Namaste.

Plans? What Plans?

I had lots of plans for this weekend.
Things I was going to get done.
Places I was going to be.
Lots of items pulled off of the "To Do" list.

Then. . .
Reality took over.

Starting late evening Friday, I was down with a slight soar throat and headache.
Saturday morning found me with a temperature, bad soar throat and splitting headache.
By Sunday night, I was luckily to find hour pieces where I could eat without crying due to the timing of the medication I was taking.

Today, I am attempting to head to work and will be seeing a doctor somewhere. . .It's not fun not being able to swallow without grimacing in pain!

Namaste.

Success!

I love sales!
I love coupons!
I love that Kroger will email the weekly sales to me.
I love that Meijer posts their weekly sales on-line.

I really love when I save more money than I spent!!
Yesterday, I stopped by Meijer after seeing their sales for the week. . .
I left carrying eight bags after spending $35.99 on groceries.

My savings?
$43.51
That's 54.5%!!!

My Big Finds:
Strawberries (saved 66%)
Combos (saved 56%)

I also saved 68% on a loaf of bread, but I don't count that as a big find because I spent about the same amount on bread that I always do - just got a different brand.

Namaste.

Issues?

I am seriously fighting some issues. . .

Issue #1:
I am always exhausted - not mono exhausted, just didn't get enough sleep exhausted. I've been getting to bed at the normal time, but for some reason have been waking up in the middle of the night and can't always get back to sleep easily. Who knows why - although the cat nudging my face that one time may be explainable (and it was some hard nudging!!!).

Issue #2:
I can't seem to get things done. I'm not sure why I am getting so overwhelmed, but taking vacation time didn't even help. This is driving me nuts! I even thought about tracking my non-work hours to see where all of my time is going and how I can get better organized and get "stuff" done. Then, I realized that was a little too OCD and it would just be another thing on my list to do.
In the past, I'd give up some sleep time to get things done. . .See my first issue!

I'm sure there are other issues I could find to list here. . .See my second issue!

Namaste.

It's Patty's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
For those who are heading out to celebrate - have a green one for me and arrange for safe transpo!

Why do I like St. Patty's Day?
I can trace a few of my lines back to Ireland. . .Even traveled to one of the home counties awhile back.
My roots may be deeply planted in America, but I am definitely Irish.
And, as some of you may know, I love Celtic knots. . .Even have a tattoo of one.

So, for this Patty's Day - enjoy this beautiful Celtic knot that I found on-line.
I give all credit to THIS site - they would probably love it if you visited over there too!
Namaste.

Slacking. . .

I feel like I'm slacking a bit on the blog front lately. . .
Luckily, I'm not slacking on the remodeling bit!!!

Yesterday was a huge - "How much can I work on?" day.
> Second coat of poly on our closet doors
> First coat of poly on both sides of the pantry door
> First coat of poly on the inside of our bedroom door
> Massive scrubbing on a few kitchen cabinets (then we sanded and polied them). . .it's amazing how a bit of elbow grease will lighten the color of wood
> It was such a nice day out that we turned off the furnace and painted the front door.

My arms are a bit sore, but the doors look so much better!

Sorry, no pictures right now - I'll try to get some of them downloaded off of the camera soon.

Namaste.

On A Mission. . .

MaBell is missing quite a bit of school this week.
Her assignments were being sent home last night via a high school friend to OB on the bus.

When he got home, he didn't have her book bag.
When we ran over to her friends house, she didn't have her book bag.
There was no book bag.
The friend had left the book bag in the back of the bus and told OB where it was.
(That may seem weird, but trust me. . .With the way they run buses, it makes sense.)
The problem?
OB didn't hear her, so he didn't get the book bag.

MaBell and I both went into slight freak mode.
Me because her book bag / books / assignments were MIA.
MaBell because she is bored out of her mind and wants something to work on.

What to do?

The crazy person that I am seemed to remember seeing the bus parked somewhere awhile back.
So, I racked my brain, called MBB (but he didn't remember seeing it), racked my brain some more. . .
And got on a mission.

Yep, MaBell and I decided to take a field trip of our own. . .
We drove to the spot of my hazy memory and knocked on the door. . .
And got her book bag.

Yep, ladies and gents!
The gal who still doesn't know many of the roads in her county (and it's a BIG county). . .
Who knows even fewer people in said county (OK, so not that many people). . .
Located the correct house with the correct bus and the correct book bag still on said bus.

Am I the only one who finds this a little loony and humorous???

Namaste.

One of those weeks...

It's been one of those weeks. . .Again.

I took some time off of work on Monday and Wednesday to get some work done around the house. Wednesday contained more running than work: MaBell has been fighting an illness on and off for the past two weeks and we decided enough was enough.

The doctor was pretty convinced that she has mono, but took the test just to be sure.
We should have the results back today or tomorrow.

It's going to be pretty fun in our house. . .

Namaste.

Yeager Bomb

Yeager Bomb likes to nap in various places around the house.
While I was painting OB's room, he decided to crawl in between lots of blankets, stuffed animals and a warm-up jacket.

He was comfy, content and happy. . .
I had to snap a picture!
Namaste.

It's Done!

When OB asked for a Yin Yang on his wall, I didn't think much about it.
"Sure - I can do that!!!"

Then, I saw how big it was going to be.
I thought that I may have to eat my words.

I truly didn't realize how difficult it would be to paint a Yin Yang onto the wall.
It took three coats, three different size brushes and a small roller. . .
But it is done!
Namaste.

He's Got Hops. . .

Rockstar that is!

We looked out the window to see that he had jumped up on top of a huge hay bale to take a nap.
Namaste.

It's Been A Year. . .

. . .Since my clothes had a closet to call home.
It's been a few months since MBB's clothes had a closet to call home.

We finally have a closet big enough for all of our clothes!!!!
A few more details (lights, molding, door knobs) and it will be complete!
I'm doing a happy dance. . .
Namaste.

Not Good...

We are having some serious computer issues right now. . .

My computer (in the den) went down a few weeks ago. MBB hooked it into the living room computer and grabbed all of the files off of it and put them on our external hard drive (yes, we have lots of technology in our house).

This past week, the living room computer has started to have tantrums. . .
MBB was working with our external drive so that he could get rid of the tantrums (doing something the right way that has worked before) and we got another huge tantrum - a BIG ONE!

In a nutshell, the computer wiped out our external hard drive.
The one with EVERYTHING on it - all of our personal files, pictures, etc, etc, etc.
My hero had a program that helped recover the files, BUT. . .
We don't have anywhere to restore it EXCEPT the external hard drive (this is not a good thing).

Wish us luck - MAJOR LUCK!

Namaste.