We Have Shower Capabilities and Other Randomness

After two days and countless trips to Home Depot, buying parts, returning parts, buying parts, returning parts, we have the ability to once again take a shower. You don't know how much you depend on something until it's broken, let me tell you. And, it's a good thing that Keith knows plumbing, or we would have spent THOUSANDS instead of 'only' next week's grocery budget on this little repair. Being without a shower was almost like the day we spent without a toilet, but not quite as bad. The day without a toilet is a whole other story, though.

Here is our $85.00 faucet, which was one of the cheap ones, believe it or not.


It is all wet because I just finished taking my first shower in a day or two.

This is the other side of the wall, where it was necessary to cut a hole in order to get to the pipes and all so that the guts of the faucet could be replaced.

Keith installed shut off valves so that next time the faucet needs replacing he won't have to shut off water to the whole house. This hole will eventually be covered up with a removable panel so that next time he won't have to cut another hole in the wall.

This repair took a long long time, with parts having to be cut, soldered, gooped, tightened, the piece of wood added to screw the whole mess to so that it wouldn't just be flopping around inside the wall. A long time, like two evenings worth, and Keith didn't get to take his shower until around midnight last night. And, as he was taking his shower, I noticed water spraying out from the hole in the wall because he forgot to tighten one nut.

Then, after working on the shower until midnight, he had to get up at 4 am this morning to go to work. I was trying to convince him to call in exhausted and not go to work today, but they don't have sick pay and he already used up his vacation days and we really can't afford for him to miss a day's pay. So, off he went in the dark this morning. But, at least he was clean.

My new bra is very uncomfortable. I got one that is cotton but it has the underwires and side support and all and it feels almost as if it is made of iron rather than cotton. So, that was a waste of $15.00 there.

Poor Harri the cat is so stressed out from Buddy and Lucy tormenting her by chasing her around the house that she has started to vomit whenever she sees them even thinking about stalking her. I've been trying to keep the squirt bottle handy so that I can spray them when I see that 'let's get Harri' look in their eyes.

They did a study that shows that texting while driving is dangerous. Duh. Why they have to pay someone to do a study of the obvious is beyond me. Do you think that this study will convince people to stop texting while driving? Maybe I should convince them to pay me to do a study on whether or not people give a crap that they are endangering other people's lives by texting while driving.

I need to go clean house, now. Not that I have any ambition to do much of anything these days, but at least I can take a shower after I get all sweaty from cleaning the house.

Today Will be a Sweat Free Day

I am going to take it very very easy today and not do too much moving around or going outside into the heat. I don't want to sweat today because our shower is broken!

Here's the story. Yesterday I did a lot of cleaning, vacuuming the house, dusting all the books and knick knacks in the living room, and then scrubbing and cleaning all the cabinets and appliances in the kitchen. Which makes me sweat. A lot. So much sweat that the scrunchie rubber band thing holding back my hair was sopping wet. Housework on a hot day just plain old makes me sweat a lot.
So, I took a nice cool shower at about 1pm yesterday. Then Keith came home and we had to run a couple of errands. Even riding in an air conditioned car makes me sweat when it's hot outside.

Then I had to fix dinner, which makes me sweat because of the hot stove and all, and I was doing a stir fry so I kind of had to hover over the hot stove. Even eating the dinner makes me sweat when it's hot outside.

After dinner I went over to Target because I have been living in the same five worn out bras for two years now and I really needed a new bra. I also wanted to look for a shirt to wear because I have also been living in the same 4 or 5 summer shirts for the past two years and they are getting really gross with sweat stained underarms because I, you know, SWEAT so damn much!

So, I found a bra and a couple of t-shirts to try on, which also makes me sweat and I really hate trying on clothes but hate having to return things that I didn't try on, get home to try on, and find they look like crap or don't fit. So, more sweating in the Target dressing room.

Back home and time for another shower. As I'm turning off the shower, the whole handle COMES OFF IN MY HAND! EEEK!

Keith spent an hour taking the handle thing apart to see if he'll be able to just buy parts to fix the handle, but of course everything is all messed up inside the handle so it will be a huge time consuming replacing the whole guts of the shower faucet type thing. Repairs around this house are never simple and end up taking hours and hours. He's going to have to cut a hole in the wall to get to all the plumbing to fix the handle.

We discussed the possibility of showering in the back yard with the hose, but I'm not sure that I want to stand naked in the back yard and shower with cold water from the hose, so I'm going to do my best not to sweat today and am hoping that he will be able to fix the shower sometime this evening. At least the toilet still works.

City in the Hills

Once upon a time, in the big city of Bakersfield, the housing market was booming, house prices rising daily, and new housing developments were springing up like weeds. A developer decided to cash in on this boom and build an exclusive community outside the city in an area of rolling hills with views of the mountains in the distance. A community of houses and parks ideal for raising a family or spending your golden years in the 55 and older section of the new master planned City in the Hills. Great idea, right? Until the economy crashes and you are stuck in your $400,000 dollar house with empty lots next to you, un-built parks, and a view of half built houses in the distance.

We had heard of this City in the Hills, but had never been to visit, and after seeing numerous ads on TV for the Four Seasons 55 and over development, with houses starting in the low $100,000's, decided yesterday to go see what a new house in the low $100,000's looks like. Our weekend was pretty boring, so for just the cost of gas to drive about 20 miles out to the City in the Hills, it sounded like cheap entertainment to us.

The City in the Hills is located on the east side of Bakersfield on Hwy 178, which leads to Lake Isabella in the mountains, which sounds like a pretty lake but in actuality is barren and really hot in the summer. I was not impressed with Lake Isabella at all.

Anyway, we get out to the City in the Hills which sits in (you guessed it) some rolling hills, which currently are that lovely brown dead grass color since it hasn't rained here in about 6 months. The entryway to the development has some weird kind of half done curving building with arches in it and glassed in booths on each end. Sentry houses? Toll booths? I couldn't figure out what the purpose of it was supposed to be. A litte further up the road was a concrete basin with big rocks around it that we assumed was originally going to be a little lake with a waterfall, but is just rocks and brown hills at this point, no lush trees or water in sight.

On up the road and into the 55 and over, which they call 55 and better so as not to offend any old people I guess, and into the parking lot for the model homes. On the other side of the lot was a huge building that they call The Lodge, meaning clubhouse, with party rooms, game rooms, a fitness center, a theatre, an outside pool, tennis courts, bocci ball courts, horseshoes, paddle tennis, shuffleboard, a 'botanical garden', you know, all those things that us old people like to do?

There were 10 model houses to look at in 3 different 'collections', a veritable smorgasbord of houses. Whee!

We started on the expensive side of the street, the ones in the mid to upper $200's, and oohed and aahed our way through, marveling at the amenities and huge bathrooms, and fancy kitchens. I love the way they decorate model houses, with all sorts of impracticle doo-dads and upscale over sized furniture. We loved all the expensive ones except the one that was decorated in black and white with swirly black and white wallpaper and small black and white checked floors in the bathrooms, floors that made you feel a little like you were inside an optical illusion.

And then, on to the smaller low $100's houses.

This is from the brochure because I didn't feel like lugging around my camera and didn't know if they allowed picture taking inside the houses, which are all wired with security cameras so that you don't steal anything, use the toilets, cook a meal in the kitchen, or take a nap in the beds, or whatever.


This is residence one, obviously. Notice you don't see a front door? That's because it's around the side of the house by a little courtyard on the right of the house. These are also those zero lot line types of houses, where you have just the one bigger side yard instead of two useless side yards and a back yard. What's in the back of the house, you might ask? The garage! It took us a few minutes to realize that these houses have no driveways in front. I love it! The front yards look just like the picture, just sidewalks and grass.

The two front rooms are a bedroom and kitchen, and you could have an optional patio and french doors off of the front kitchen wall, which I would really like because it's always nice to have your coffee on a patio in the mornings. Plus you can sit out front and be a nosy neighbor.

I loved the courtyard in this one, there were french doors leading from the great room and the master bedroom onto the courtyard, so it's totally usable and somewhat private.


Number two has a front porch, another great selling point when you like to spy on your neighbors. This one also has a courtyard behind the left side of the house, again with french doors leading to the courtyard from the master bedroom, great room, and optional third bedroom or den.


And, lastly, residence three, with a courtyard in the front of the house, again with french doors leading from the great room out to the courtyard. This one has the master bedroom in the front and the other bedrooms/dens in the back.

These three were smaller than the more upscale, more expensive houses in the 'collections', but I really liked the garage in back feature, the front of the house just looks so much nicer. They also had park benches here and there along the sidewalks, you know, because old people need to rest more, and water fountains with low fountains for your dogs, because, you know, old people and their poodles get thirsty.

The whole development was almost uncannily quiet, too, no traffic noises, no children screaming, very peaceful. But, there is nothing else out there at this point, no shopping centers and only one gas station down on the highway, so you'd be doing a lot of driving every time you need things like food.

Oh, and the association fees are currently at $230 a month. Yikes.

All in all, though, nice concept and nice houses, too bad you'd have to drive by an unfinished lake and empty lots every time you came home, though.

Butterfly Garden

When we were picking out flowers for our backyard, we looked at anything that was colorful in the hopes of attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. Our backyard is still not finished because we ran out of money, but the flowers and plants that we bought in the spring seem to be doing pretty well even in our 100+ temps this summer.

I don't remember what this plant is called, but it has spread to be about five times the size it was when we planted it, and this butterfly seems to like it.


And, in other backyard news, the dove is still patiently sitting on her nest.

Our Version of Digging in the Couch Cushions for Spare Change

Seriously.
This is just sad.
We had to use tongs to try and get at the three stray dollar bills that were in our change jar because we needed some cash.

Digging.


Almost there.


Success!

Times are hard, folks!

Drink Your Milk

We were watching the news last night and a story came on about the decline of the small family owned dairy farms here in central California. Farms that have been in business for generations are now spending more money to milk the cows than the milk brings in at market prices. For every gallon of milk produced, the farm spends $1.50, but they only get $1.00 in return. So, instead of losing money every day these farms are rapidly going out of business, selling off the cows which are in turn killed to reduce the supply of milk cows, closing the doors on the barns, then trying to sell off the land or just letting it go into foreclosure.

Why is this happening you may ask? (or may not if you really don't care). The demand for milk is still there, but people have cut back on the milk products that they can live without, like yogurt (no wonder Jaime Lee Curtis is pushing her go poop yogurt like there's no tomorrow), cheese, butter, and ICE CREAM. What?!? People aren't buying as much ICE CREAM?!? Now that's downright un-American! Are they eating their apple pie straight, no more a la mode to save money? No ice cream sundaes on a Sunday afternoon? No milkshake with their hamburger at the local drive in? This is terrible, people!

So, folks, I know this is going to be hard, but please make the sacrifice and help save our dairy farmers by EATING MORE ICE CREAM!


You can do it!

Keep Calm

So, today I log onto etsy and what do I see on the front page but yet another one of these posters. These posters originated in the UK during WWII, kind of like our Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam posters from back then.



Which I am totally sick of, but apparently nobody else is because these things sell like hotcakes at around $20.00 each. (Damn, why didn't I think of this first!) There are currently over 1400 keep calm things listed, some shops sell nothing but these posters and are doing pretty well at it.

This reminds me of the 1966 poster which EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY had in their bedroom next to their Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin posters (black light of course) in the late 60's, early 70's. Pop culture at it's best. Yes, I had one of these posters.


If you don't want a print of the keep calm sentiment suitable for framing, you can wear it out to lunch or to work on casual day in the form of a t-shirt.


Or around your neck in yet another scrabble tile pendant.


But, if you want to really express your opinion on the state of the world today, here you go.

Nesting

Remember the dove that built a nest in my bike basket?


Well, now the ever resourceful doves have built a nest on top of the ladder that Keith had left leaning against the back of the house.


It looks like they started on the lower rung and decided the top would make the best spot.



Keith says that they better hatch their eggs pretty soon because he's going to need to use the ladder.

The back of the house just bakes in the sun every day so I have a feeling that these eggs are going to get hard boiled way before they hatch.

Sad Day at the Animal Shelter

We had to take mama and baby kittens to the county shelter this morning. The little black cat that has been begging for food fifteen times a day had moved her kittens from the yard across the street to our woodpile alongside the house. Thursday morning I opened the front door to find this waiting for me:


Mama had either brought this kitten over or it had followed her. At first the kitten hissed at me but after it saw me petting mama and found the food, it let me touch it's back and eventually pet it. Soon it was rolling on its back and letting me pet its belly. One of its eyes looked infected and its whole little body was crawling with fleas. During the day it and mama stayed on the porch and whenever it got scared it hid under the ice plant by the house. Once I found it wandering around by itself, and here comes mama from around the corner of the garage, with another kitten following her. As soon as they got around the corner, the other kitten ran back the way it had come, so I followed to investigate and found the other three on the side of the house, hiding behind the woodpile and other assorted junk that's out there.


Later in the day, I snuck around the corner of the garage and saw this:


The other three were getting their lunch while the first little kitten hid in the ice plant. The one kitten stayed on the front porch with mama all day, letting me play with it, but still running off to hide every time it got startled by strange noises or the kids riding their bikes on the sidewalk.


Little goopy eye.


So, since there is absolutely no way that we could afford to take any of these sick flea ridden animals to the vet, plus we have no room for five more cats, we rounded them all up last night, hissing and spitting, got them in the cat cage, got mama in there this morning, and took all of them to the shelter. Where unfortunately, they probably will need to be put down because the shelter is overrun with cats and kittens and not enough people want to adopt strays.

While we were there a batch of seven kittens were brought in, another box of newborns that were abandoned by their mama, and another cage with one half grown feral cat in it. Plus our five that we brought, all in the space of 5 minutes. Poor Keith was standing there wiping his eyes, it just tears him up to see all of these strays.

So, people, get your animals spayed and neutered, please! One cat like the black one from our porch will have a litter, have another one a few months later, then another one, and each of her four or five kittens will reproduce, overrunning a neighborhood with feral cats in the blink of an eye.

How to Make a Million on Etsy

Sell this:


Over 2000 sold at 9.95 each? And with no cost for supplies, no shipping materials needed, and you don't have to actually make anything, why not?

Hot and Chinese Food

Is it politically incorrect to call it Chinese food these days? Do you have to say Asian instead? Just wondering.

I was doing the ever fun grocery shopping at my new cheap grocery store, Winco, last weekend and while I usually just speed through the store without doing much browsing, just grab what I want and get the heck out of there, I happened to glance around a little in the Chinese food section, or Asian section, or whatever they call it these days, and saw these little packets of Sun Bird seasoning for Chinese/Asian dinners. Hey, these look kind of interesting, and as I'm reading the back of the packets, kind of easy to fix, too. I'm all about easy when it comes to cooking, because I just really really don't enjoy cooking, so easy and fairly cheap with only a few ingredients works for me. Sure, I could buy fresh ginger and the special spices and make my own from scratch Chinese/Asian dishes, but then you're stuck with a big hunk of fresh ginger and spices that will sit around until you find them buried at the back of the cupboard in a year or two or whenever you get around to cleaning out the cupboards. Which in my house is definitely not a priority.


So, a little under $1.00 packet with everything you need to season a Chinese/Asian dish in it and complete instructions on the back for making that Chinese/Asian dish works for me. I got the Chow Mein and the Lemon Chicken versions of it and tried out the Chow Mein one last night. All I needed was boneless chicken breasts, which are cheap over at Winco, a carrot, some celery, onion ( I buy the sweet vidalia onions because the regular ones seem to give me indigestion and are just too strong), some chow mein noodles, and a pan. The recipe calls for bean sprouts, but bean sprouts just gross me out because they remind me of WORMS so I don't eat those nasty things. Chop everything up, stir fry the chicken, add the vegetables, stir fry some more, mix the seasoning packet with water, a little sugar, and some soy sauce, and add that at the very end. The sauce thickens up in just a few stirs all by itself and you're ready to eat.


You could get creative and add whatever other vegetables that you like, and you can use beef or pork, or tofu or whatever if you're not a carnivore.

And the taste? Very good! Sun Bird, I'm sold.

And now for the HOT part of today's post. This weather report is not too far off the mark.


It does feel like it's about 877 here today. But it's a 'dry' heat.

Freaked Out Lucy

Last night I went to Target for a new box of cat litter. We're trying out this brand called Swheatscoop that's made out of wheat instead of the usual perfumed dusty litter that we've been using, thinking that we all don't need to be breathing in the dust that the old litter made, no matter how well it worked. This stuff just smells a little like a piece of bread, that kind of yeasty baking smell when you pour it in the box, and actually seems to work a little better and last a little longer than the old litter.

Anyway, Keith takes the box into the workroom to put it in the litter box and Lucy totally freaked out, hackles raised and just staring at the box of litter. What the heck? Oh, there is a life sized picture of a CAT on the box of litter. She thinks there is a strange cat in her house.


So, she stares and stares at this box of litter, while Mimi nonchalantly walks by, sniffs the box and checks it all out, then wanders away.


Those are Keith's legs in the background, he's waiting to clean out the old litter and add the new.

Lucy is still staring.


Pepper comes in to check out the box as Lucy starts slinking closer.


Lucy kept inching forward and was finally brave enough to confront the box.


This was a first for us, none of the cats have ever gotten freaked out like this before, and most of the cat litter boxes and food bags we've brought into the house have cat pictures on them. Lucy finally figured out that this new cat was not a threat, and the litter boxes got cleaned and filled.

Dogs Are GROSS!!

I was sitting out front drinking my coffee this morning when around the corner of the yard comes the little white fluffy toy poodle from next door, Bella. She sniffs around on the front walk and finds a dried up earthworm, which she proceeds to eat. It must have been nice and chewy because she chomped away on it for quite a while. Then, after her snack, she spied a fresh pile of cat poop! Which she proceeds to roll around in with great joy.

Yes, I shooed her home and told her owner about her rolling around in the poop and eating the worm.

My cats may leave hair all over the place but at least they don't roll around in each other's poop.

Finally

After only 18 months of not having a finished hallway and having bare concrete for a floor, the hall and entry way are finally finally pretty much finished. Finally.

A note about the carpet. Don't ever buy this stuff, it's totally not worth the money. It's carpet squares from Legato and the concept is great, tiles of carpet with foam backing that fit together like puzzle pieces and need no installation other than laying it on a clean floor. Like I said, great concept. We used it in the mobil home and it looked really good and is about half the price of real carpet. And, if a square gets totally ruined by a stain, you just pull it up and replace it with the extras that you had the foresight to buy. But, the newer version of it doesn't have as high a pile, so no matter how long it lays there and how much you follow the instructions, and how much you vacuum it, you can still see the tile shapes. They just don't blend together like they are supposed to. We're not real happy with it, but when you are poor and can't afford real carpet and the old carpet that was in the house was so incredibly nasty, you've got to work with what you can afford.

Anyway, the hallway is finally painted and carpeted. Since it took so long (18 months which is 1 1/2 years, which is a long long time) the carpet that was already in the living room all this time looked way older and dirtier than the new that (finally) went into the hallway. So, today I steam cleaned the living room carpet with my handy dandy little green Bissell steam cleaning machine, which, by the way, is SO worth the money. I vacuumed first, of course, but apparently our vacuum doesn't quite suck up all the cat hair because I ended up with wads and wads of wet cat hair that the steam machine sucked up. So, I guess I need to either A: Vacuum more often or B: steam clean more often or C: a combination of both. And don't tell me to get rid of the cats, we're still hoping we can get a reality show or something out of them. You wouldn't like it if I told you to get rid of your children because they got the carpet dirty, would you?

So, I'm exhausted now, but at least the hallway looks good.

This is the view from the living room, with the entry way and the front door to the left, and the hall to the bedrooms and bathroom to the right.


The lovely CD rack and mirror were handmade by Keith, by the way. The mirror used to be in my bathroom in the mobile home.

This view is from inside the living room, showing the archway that he built around the doorway.


This shows the front door which we decided to paint the brown of the trim. For the first few days after this was painted, at night time we kept thinking the front door was open because it was so dark down there.


The weird little indentation in the wall is just totally useless, I guess the builder of the house wanted to add some 'architectural interest' but it's not good for anything but a vase or something, and I'm just not a vase type person.

And the awesome sign on the wall is one that we picked up last year at an antique show. Back when we had expendable income. It was too cool to pass up.


This is the view as you walk in the front door. Notice the chic cat condo.


The chic cat condo that nobody is using right now because they prefer to sleep on the nice freshly steam cleaned carpet. That dark ball by the sofa is Pepper. She is supposed to be sleeping on the nice cushy blanket that is on the couch so that the hair gets transferred to the washable blanket instead of the carpet.

This is down the hallway with closet and bedroom on the left, bathroom straight ahead. At first, I didn't want to do the trim in a different color that the walls (too much work) but I really like the way it came out, so I'm glad we did it this way.


And this is my other awesome sign, which we got years ago in an antique store in Fillmore, CA. It makes me smile every time I look at it. Kids, no having fun at the circus, dammit!!


If we ever need to repaint this hallway, I'm hoping that we'll be better off financially by then to just pay somebody else to do the work.

Pricing

I'm in the midst of a quandary about how to price my goods. I try to set a price that I would feel comfortable paying as a buyer but also pricing high enough to make a profit on what I'm selling, not that I've been selling much of anything lately anyway. Some of the things that I make don't cost a lot to make and don't take a whole lot of time, but if it's priced too low, does that make people feel like it's 'cheap'? As in poorly made? Do buyers see a perceived value in things that are priced a little higher? I see things on etsy that I know exactly how much it costs to make and exactly how long it would take to make it, and then I see what to me is a fairly high price for it, and then I also see that buyers are buying it, so it makes me wonder. A good example is a necklace like this:

Very pretty and priced (and selling) at 39.00. Now, I'm not sure how much the chain costs, lets say less than 5.00, and I know the flower is less than 2.00, because I've bought some from a seller on etsy. So, all you have to do to make this necklace is drill a hole in the flower, put in a jump ring and put in on the chain. You may also have to cut the chain to length and put a clasp on it, but I'm thinking 10 minutes to make, and that's a stretch at that. So, let's say 7.00 in supplies and 10 minutes of labor and you're making a pretty good little profit at 39.00 a pop. Now, would I spend 39.00 on such a simple little necklace? Um, no, but that's just me I guess.

Well, I have my own version of this necklace, where I've sugared up the flower with glitter, but used a ball chain which is cheaper than other chains. So, I had this necklace priced at 8.00, thinking that buyers would jump at it, being such a reasonable price, but then got to thinking that if they'll pay 39.00 for a necklace like this, maybe 8.00 is just way too cheap and they need to see a higher price before they'll buy. So, I've raised the price to 12.00, feeling kind of like I'm ripping buyers off with such a high price (to me anyway) for such a simple easy to make necklace.

I went through my shop and raised the price by a dollar or two on a lot of things yesterday, so we'll see if higher price=higher percieved value or not.

I'm also thinking of getting away from just jewelry and trying some other ideas, like the embroidered hoops in yesterday's post, but it's hard to spend money on new supplies when money is so very tight right now. I know over the course of my etsy career I've wasted huge amounts of money on supplies for things that didn't sell or didn't come out the way I had envisioned. Good thing I can write all the mistakes off on my taxes, though!

I Guess

I should get my old embroidery hoops out. Except that I think I got rid of my embroidery hoops a long time ago in one of my 'clean all this old crap out' frenzies. I've noticed that embroidered hoops seem to be making a comeback and are once again new and hip.

Years and years ago, back in the country decorating craze, where we all had ducks and chicks and ruffles and gingham, making embroidered hoops to decorate your country walls was quite the rage among us crafty types.

The embroidered hoops I've seen on etsy aren't quite so country these days, though.

This one was on the front page today, at a rather pricey 45.00 or so. To me it looks like something you would find in a tupperware container that's been hiding in the back of the fridge, but it's supposed to be moss. Terrariums and mossy grassy stuff is big on etsy right now.


This one is pretty, but 50.00?


This one reminds me of the ones that we used to make with the country theme, and it's 'only' 25.00. And it's only 4" across.


After seeing these hoops, which are really easy to make, and you just use the hoop that you did the embroidery in to make the frame, my mind is thinking up variations for doing something like this. Only I don't have my embroidery hoops, fabric, or floss anymore, so it will mean a trip to the store and I don't have any money until I sell something on etsy.

If You Are Going To Have a 4th of July Barbecue

At least have some food for your guests!

On Saturday Keith was busy all day working on the baseboards for the hallway, measuring, cutting, nailing, running back and forth to Home Depot for putty, nails, and other odds and ends, and going in and out from the house to the garage where his big saw is. That was about the extent of our plans for the day until our neighbors invited us to come over for a 4th of July barbecue complete with fireworks. Sounded good, right, and do we need to bring anything and what time? Oh, just whenever, and bring whatever you want.

So, the day goes by and we see tables and the barbecue set up in the driveway, but not much other activity, so we keep doing what we're doing and keeping an eye out for hamburgers being slapped on the grill. Along about 7 pm we're getting really hungry and there's no sign of food anywhere and no sign of the husband next door who's supposed to be grilling the food. Well, it turns out he spent the afternoon drinking at the bar with his buddies, and the Mrs. is getting a lot annoyed and I'm sure all the kids are getting pretty hungry too. We are absolutely starving, so we sneak off to go get a hamburger at Carl's Jr on the pretext of going to get beer and potato chips for the barbecue.

Finally the party gets started, with other neighbors coming over, beers being opened, chairs set up on the lawn, the kids clamoring for the fireworks to start, but still no food. Just the potato chips that we brought and coolers full of beer. Beer is filling, though, right? But I'm still wondering if anyone fed the kids.

So, fireworks get played with and beers get drunk, and along about 9 pm the Mr. finally starts the barbecue, but it's too hot for any food to get put on it. The food finally gets thrown on the grill about 10pm, and all I can say is I hope the rest of the guests went to Carl's Jr, too, before coming to the party.

The fireworks were fun, but drinking parties are just not that much fun when you really don't drink anymore, and you don't really know these people all that well, and everyone is at least a decade or two younger than you, and everyone is getting pretty drunk, and drunken conversations are not that interesting unless you're drunk, too. So, after the food finally went on the grill and it looked like the fireworks were over with, I was getting pretty bored and went home, leaving Keith to drink beer with the rest of them. He ended up staying until about 1 am, the host finished cooking whatever it was he was cooking and then had to go inside and pass out, the kids were high on firework fumes and sodas, and who knows if they ever got anything to eat, but I guess everyone had fun by the looks of the trashed yard and the huge piles of empty beer cans the next morning.

Keith didn't feel all that good on Sunday (hmm, could it have been the many many beers he drank?) so the baseboards are still not finished.

So, if you got invited to a 4th of July barbecue, I hope you actually got to eat something!

Happy Fourth?

Barbecues, parades, red white and blue, fireworks? It's too stinking hot up here for any of that, so we're not doing anything out of the ordinary, but whatever you're doing today, I hope you enjoy it!

I got a nice surprise in the mail the other day (thanks, Mom!), a little cancer awareness bracelet with all of the colors of the beads representing a different cancer. It's sad that there are so many different cancers that we need a rainbow of colors to represent them, but there are few people that cancer hasn't touched in some way. Whether a sister, brother, mother, father, spouse, relative, friend, co-worker, friend of a friend, most of us know someone who has had cancer.

The bracelet is on the stretchy cord so that you don't have to fumble around with a clasp, I like that!
So much more attractive than those rubber cuff type bracelets!

And 5.00 from every bracelet sold goes toward the fight against cancer.