A1A South

From Paco.

I never thought of that! I think I’ll set a pumpkin up and give it a shot. Heh. *thinking of SwampMan wanting to try and accidentally killing chickens, cars, and sheeps* Or not. I’ll just use a power tool.

It is granddaughter’s birthday today. I called earlier in the week to find out what I needed to get for her birthday. Something that she really wanted (that I could afford). Her mom said that she wasn’t home, she was off spending the night at another grandma’s house, but to tell her mom to tell me that all she really wanted for her birthday was for us to spend the day together.

It was like another stab to the heart. More time that I do not have to give because all of it is going to other people’s children!

I will call her back this evening, after her birthday festivities are over, and arrange a time when we can spend the entire day together. We will go shopping, go to book stores, go to craft stores, or wherever she wants. Maybe we’ll ride bicycles as well. Whatever she wants to do is fine with me, except maybe bungee jumping. I really don’t want to go there. And if I bring her home with blue hair, I think her mom would hurt me, even if her momma is just a little teensy thing.

Meanwhile, Mom is waiting for my visit. Her birthday is coming up. “For my birthday, could you please just come spend the day with me? I don’t need anything, just your company….”

And, of course, SwampMan is always complaining that HE doesn’t get to spend enough time with me. I don’t spend enough time with daughter and grandsons. Our in laws up in Georgia don’t see us enough. I haven’t seen my brothers in 10 years. My last aunt died before I got to visit.

Family is too important to be always put last.

My former daughter in law has been after me for ten years now to go into business with her. Maybe we (all the family members) should just all go into business together, spend the entire day together every single day, and then after a couple weeks we’d be so sick of each other that nobody would ever want to see anybody again!

Seriously, though, she has a point. My Momma is a GREAT painter, as in she creates beautiful decorative birds and flowers. I’m not quite as good. My mother in law makes gorgeous quilts. My former daughter in law sews creatively and makes beautiful ceramics. I do great faux finishes for walls, make concrete planters, carve wood, spin and dye wool, and can wallpaper the fool out of a room.

Together, we should have a business there somewhere.

Then SwampMan came walking out.

“Hurry up! We need to go.”

“Uh, where?”

“Home Depot, Walmart, maybe a few other places. Quit wasting time!”

I suppose I was wasting time. I was gathering eggs, checking out the chickens, and petting old Odie. I’m now supposed to be putting on actual clothes to go to town while he’s outside honking the horn impatiently. Guess I better go! At least the clothes that need ironing are ironed.

SwampMan and I spent the entire day outside yesterday working which is what we do when we have any sort of time. As usual, we had far too much to do for the time that we had available. Today, more work outside, some cleanup work inside, loads and loads of ironing of “professional clothes” for work, as well as time for review of tutoring for some new kids for next week.

So I had a brilliant idea! I’ll get even less sleep during the weekend! I got up at 4 a.m. to try to get everything done today while SwampMan isn’t in the way. The dishwasher is going, the tea is brewed for sweet tea, the dogs and cat and horse are fed, the ducks are fed, the washer is washing. I put some music videos praising God on the blog because Lord knows I won’t make it to church today. Not enough time.

I was rushing between my steamer set up in the dining room (where’s my gray shirt? I have to wear my gray shirt Monday in mourning for my lost weekend!) to the ironing board in front of the weather channel in the den (could my gray shirt be there?) when I tripped over the cord to the vacuum and stumbled into the mop in the kitchen. I went DOWN hard on the kitchen floor.

In retrospect, I should have put that damn vacuum cleaner away. I was all set to vacuum SwampMan’s dirty footprints off the carpet where he plodded across the den and living room with dirty shoes yesterday evening, but a brief moment of sanity intervened. If SwampMan was awakened by a vacuum cleaner at 4 a.m., he probably wouldn’t be very happy. He’d probably come out of the bedroom, ask me if I’d lost my freakin’ mind, drag me back to bed, and order me to stay there until dawn. It has happened before! So I mopped the kitchen floor instead (dirty footprints!) but hadn’t put the mop away either. Being disorganized hurts!

It’s dawn. The ironing is done, except for the gray polo shirt. It was mixed in with SwampMan’s work shirts. I HAVE to have that shirt. It’s charcoal gray with black trim, the color of mourning without being real obvious about it. So, another load of clothes is in the washer. Then outside to meander in the cool dawn with a cup of hot tea before attacking the carpet with the vacuum cleaner. And I gotta put that mop away before I fall over it again. Or maybe I’ll take a little nap instead.

I got information about a job opening the way I usually do, by walking up to somebody doing a job that I think I might like to do and asking about it. I have a name and phone number to call as well as a company name. I would be working part time, so I’d have more time for the maintenance around here that is NOT getting done. I would have insurance which has been SwampMan’s big objection about my leaving the school system. I’d need another vehicle because it involves travel, which I might actually be able to afford.

I came home to make the call to the person but started to feel guilty about pregnant daughter and two little grandsons, since I had been planning to take four years’ worth of accumulated leave time to care for them when daughter had the C-section. Uh oh. Mom guilt kicking in.

I called daughter. No answer. Dang.

Daughter called back later, too late for me to call the person about the job. I explained about the job. She said “TAKE IT!” I said something along the lines of “but I probably won’t be able to take care of the kids during the C-section…” “What are you, crazy from being among crazy people for so long? TAKE IT!”

So I’ll call about the job tomorrow after work, if it is still open. Keep your fingers crossed for me. And, uh, keep your fingers crossed that I don’t go setting bridges on fire and/or detonating them at work before I even apply for a job that I may not get, after all!

If I get the job, it will be great. I’ll be a lot happier, have more time to do the things that I like to do, more time for family, and probably drop a lot of weight because my cortisol level will be a LOT lower. I’ll also bring home more cash! If I don’t get the job, it will be great. I can take time off for SwampMan’s knee surgery (if he gets it), and take time off for daughter’s C-section and care for her little sweethearts during the summer months.

I was at Northern Tool yesterday and decided that I better get another flashlight, my last flashlight having been dismantled and “fixed” by the youngest grandson. Of course, I never remember that the flashlights have had last rites performed over them until I’m standing outside in the dark with a feed bucket in hand, feeling my way around in the barn. For some reason, I remembered the lack of flashlights in daylight! Well, the reason was probably because I was getting all anxious about getting home before dark to feed….wait! I can buy a flashlight!

So buy a flashlight I did! I did not know that you could get a flashlight/multitool. So now if I want to stab somebody (or something) with my flashlight, I can! If I want to saw something with my flashlight, I can! If I want to open a can with my flashlight, well, I can. I have lots of tools to flip out of my flashlight now. It can get confusing if suddenly I am confronted by a malicious stranger or neighbor in the barn at night. I’d have to ask him (or her) to hold on for a moment while I found the proper blade, depending on whether I wanted to stab him/her, saw a finger, or maybe stick ’em in the eye with a screwdriver. It would be totally embarrassing to intend to cut the femoral artery and instead pull the can opener blade out.

Gawd help me if littlest grandson ever gets hold of it. He’ll fix the furniture for sure, along with all the electrical appliances.

After fixing and delivering SwampMan’s lunch sandwiches to the barn, I returned to the house and fixed and ate mine. I decided that since I was gonna be shoveling chickenshit out of chicken pens for the garden and compost pile, I probably ought to change into shorts as the temperature was getting warm. Ooops. Gorilla legs.

I had intended to switch over from shaving legs to waxing legs this weekend, so hadn’t shaved during the week. Shaving my legs irritates them in the drier autumn air, but it is still warm enough to wear shorts, hence the waxing. I couldn’t just go outside and shovel shit with hairy gorilla legs. What if the church people came visiting? What if the neighbors leaned over the fence to visit? I mean, I might as well be shoveling out the chickenhouse naked for the comment that it would cause. “Did you see her shoveling out that chickenhouse with them hairy gorilla legs and pretending like she ain’t seen us up at the gate? Have you EVER seen anything so tacky in your LIFE? Say what? Are you SURE she was nekkid? I just thought she hadn’t ironed her clothes. A person that will be seen in public with hairy gorilla legs is liable to do anything.”

That’s when I remembered that I had bought DepilSilk (as seen on TV!) from the drugstore a couple weeks ago. I had done the patch test on legs and then forgotten about it. Product review time!

I left it on legs and underarms as per the label warning: NO LONGER THAN 8 MINUTES! I set a timer on 8 minutes after applying, so it was probably on my legs a good 10 minutes. I scrubbed it off in the shower, then emerged to put on my glasses and peer at the results. Hunh. Guess there was a reason it was on the clearance rack. It didn’t actually remove any hair. I still had gorilla legs and underarms, so back to the shower with the razor. It may have worked if I had let it stay longer on my skin (like 15 minutes!) but then there would probably be ugly chemical burns to contend with. I still have some left, so what the heck. I may try it next weekend if I don’t wax.

*sigh* And it looked so easy on television.

So now I’m all nice and clean and smooth and ready to get all filthy shoveling out the powdery chicken feces.