Slowing down....waaaay down!

My life is really busy. Well, let me rephrase that. I MAKE my life really busy. I just like being occupied and to be truthful, even when I am not working at a workplace, I am busy. Running a small farm and trying to get a home based business up and running, is more than enough to keep me busy.

But I realized this past month how disjointed I am when not working a 9 to 5 job so to speak. It has been a real eye opener for me. Problem is, as observant as I am in some things, it has taken me a MONTH to actually get it together and REALIZE it is okay to not be doing a basic 9 to 5 job.

When I gave my notice at my "9 to 5" job, (that was really a 12 to 18 hours a day job), I didn't have another to immediately step in to. As a matter of fact, the day before my very last day at work, I finally made a call to the company I am now working with. Working with medicare in a Skilled Nursing Facility, or SNF as they are referred to, is a LOT different than working with a home health agency that works with Autistic children. The timeline is different and there are penalties if you don't make those time lines in the SNF. In this particular home health situation, it can take awhile before everything gels correctly and you actually get the patient on your case load. And you are not penalized for that sort of a deadline, a lot of the scheduling is directed by the parents and how quickly they get on board with the Plan Of Care. During the time that I was working 12 to 18 hours a day, I would get home, complete what I needed to do with my animals and then collapse. Cleaning house or doing laundry was relegated to  the "You are out of forks and underwear so you need to do something" files.

And therein lies my problem. I don't know how to stop running at top speed. Or at least CHANGE that focus from running top speed at my job to running at top speed at my home. And I did not realize how EXHAUSTED my poor little body and mind were keeping up that crazy schedule!

Yesterday, for the first time, I finally relaxed and let God take over and do His thing. I don't know why I stress so! He has never let me down and all things that happen to me, let me stress that, ALL THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO ME, happen once they have been sifted through HIS fingers of love. Perhaps I was headed for a stroke or heart attack and that was why He slowed me down in this manner.

I had ONE patient yesterday in a town an hour away. Oh there are more patients in the area, but there again, it takes time before those kiddos will actually wind up on my schedule. This child was an absolute delight and the hour I spent with her sped by quickly and I faced the hour long drive BACK to my little town.

My little town, Kingman, Arizona is what one would refer to as "Podunk". Podunk USA. Redneck USA. If you don't drive a beat up pick truck, have a rebel flag either flying from the bed of your truck or posted somewhere else and listen to country music or rap, you are considered odd at the least. And though I LOVE living here, still the one thing I truly miss is the shopping. We have a Wal-Mart, (K-Mart and Sears closed last year) 2 Safeways, a Maurices and a Ross Dress for less, along with a multitude of thrift stores that you most likely don't want to shop at because you KNOW what your neighbors have and you don't WANT it in your house. So getting out of Kingman every now and again is good for my Gypsy Soul. I miss traveling. This job fits me just fine, causing me to leave my little bubble and get out once again to SEE.

They have a Hobby Lobby in Bullhead City where I was yesterday! And THIS is what God used to make me realize that not only is it OKAY to slow down, I NEEDED to slow down!

OH how I miss Hobby Lobby! Even if all you do is hang for awhile and gather ideas and get your creative juices flowing again, it is totally worth going to Hobby Lobby! And so I did.

They are gearing up for Christmas, Thanksgiving is in full swing and Halloween/Fall is waning but still with plenty of stuff on sale in that holiday. Oh. My. The Christmas ornaments had yet to be picked through and I was enthralled!

Aisle upon aisle of sugar plums and Santa's and Nativity Scenes! I love Christmas! For me, Halloween and Thanksgiving are wonderful, but Christmas? That is in a league all by itself. I LOVE Christmas and have a child-like wonder in all things Christmas. I love the decorating of my home when it comes!

The past few years, I have focused on getting a core of Christmas decorations together and for that base color scheme, I chose the colors of pink, champagne, white, silver and pale gold. They had an entire section of those colors alone!

The whimsy of dolls and baubles from tennis shoes to unicorns was simply amazing in their amount of imagination.

There was a particular Cinderella's pumpkin carriage I especially loved, although it was in bright orange. Love orange for fall, but that color is not for my Christmas decorations! Once I find it in silver or gold, then we shall consider it for my tree.

But seeing all of this, this year, I plan on adding another color or two to my decorations. I have already come home, whipped out that computer like a fast draw gunman and saved several possibilities. I LOVE color and it is time to begin embracing who I am and what I love for my home again. It has been too long living in the swamp land of 12 to 18 hours a day jobs, missing the fact that my home no longer holds the laughter of children, and not having time enough for my animal family and gardens.

And leave it to my Heavenly Father, to not only slow me down, but give to me a job that will be less time, will be spent in the company of children, and with a great deal more compensation in the monetary part of the equation. WOW.

So here is to slowing down. Taking the time to smell the horses. Laughing with my new children. Gardening and decorating my home.

All thanks to my AWESOME God.

Purple door and no one cares

We are supposed to be doing important things with our lives. Making changes. Helping others. But...

The past 2 months I've been in a stalled mode. Not moving forward. Forced to wait while others do their jobs so that I can do mine. Frustrating for sure and for certain. I am not one to wait well. What is that old saying? "Idle hands are the devils workshop"? And it is not like I don't have things I couldn't accomplish right now, the problem is? I am in a stalled mode.

Finally roused my asstibula to do SOMETHING. And this is what I did..........

YES. I always paint my front door purple. There are lots of ideas and theories about why weird people paint their doors purple in this world. Some say it is a regal color and signifies ROYALTY. Warm and inviting. Some people even believe that it signifies a WITCH lives in that house. That doesn't count for me unless you are counting my foul mood. Even then you would need to change that W to a B for it to fit me today. I just happen to like this shade of purple so I paint my front doors with it. It doesn't always go with the color of the house I am living in but I don't really give a rats behind. But yes. I will eventually paint the house too.  I WILL need to change the door hardware eventually also. Right now it is 1980's bright gold and looks odd. Anyways, I love the copper detailing I did to this door.

Unfortunately detailing means taping and actually being careful and steady with your paint brush. Which I was not in the mood for but did anyway. I loved this so much that I had a little light bulb over my head that pinged and said, "Why do just your FRONT door? WHY not do your BACK DOOR too? So I did. But that meant extra taping on not just one but TWO doors, because they are French doors.

I did one door at a time. Because I can do that if I want to and no one can stop me.

One down. One to go.

Miss Elizabeth Bennett was not impressed. Come ON Lizzie! Purple is a GREAT color! Now to actually WASH the windows. Then I can accomplish cleaning off that nasty back porch, pulling the old flooring off, replacing it correctly with pressure treated decking, painting the decking, adding the porch posts and covers, painting that and THEN. Start on the front porch. After I paint the house. But before I re-do the floors in the living room.

I wish I kept booze in the house. I'd totally drink it.

Lovely

It is lovely that I can come here and spout anytime I care or need to.

I just met someone who knew you. Asked me if I were related. Totally random. But it was rather shocking since it sort of slapped me in the face, so to speak. It was my chance! I could tell them anything I wanted about you! I could vindicate myself from all that you did to me! Without any preamble, I simply answered, no. I'd never met anyone by your name. Now this might seem a little harsh or even nasty, but truth often is.

I have exactly 3 things to say about that.

I still get the creepies when I think about this.

Ooops. I forgot to think about you until your that person reminded me.

 Where I don't live any longer.

They say you know you have healed when you have the chance for revenge and you don't take it. Sometimes it just hits you. I AM FREE! Bwahahahahahaha!

I love my life.

Stupid people. Can I just slap them???

I don't understand people. Let me clarify that. I don't understand STUPID people. CARELESS people and people who just don't care.

I just read a post by a woman on Facebook in a local animal group I belong to. She was upset and cussing and quite honestly, she had good reason. Someone, driving too fast, had run over her Siamese cat. She and her young son had witnessed it. How absolutely horrible!

I am a cat person. Truth to tell, I am just an all around animal person. I have more animals than I ought to have, but it seems that they just find me. Not long ago, driving down the dirt road into my place, I found an emaciated pot belly pig. Ham Solo now resides with me, but that is a story for another time. But you see, I don't have to LOOK for animals. They just happen to me.

 I have a total of SEVEN cats. Only one of them was purchased through the Human Society and that was Moki, my baby kitty Siamese. No way was I leaving her behind. All the rest were strays that needed homes and because I was worried that they would end up like that ladies Siamese cat, I brought them home with me. *sigh*

But my thought and question is, why, when you live in a city, do you let your cats roam the streets??? Sorry, but that is just STUPID. And I am sorry for your cat most of all. That is NO way to die! As I said, I have SEVEN cats. I live in the country and ALL my cats are indoor cats. Because being torn in pieces by coyotes is also no way to die and because I took all these cats into my care, that is exactly what I am supposed to do. CARE FOR THEM. KEEP THEM SAFE. That is my responsibility.

And I will gladly do it. Even if it means putting up with hair and scooping cat boxes and hair balls that I inadvertently step on when I get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Eeeewwww.

Hey. It's life with cats. What can I say???

A Rose in Winter

Today was a perfectly splendid fall day. Cool and clear and windy. Blowing leaves and hay and dirt everywhere. Not a day I wanted to spend out of doors for very long at a time.

There are only 5 more paydays until Christmas. Thanksgiving is only 39 days away. And the40th day is the day after Thanksgiving. The day my Christmas tree goes up! Yayness!

This year, I am going to complete that idea that has been in my head for the last 5 years. I am finally going to make those lovely paper roses I have wanted for my Christmas tree. For the past 5 years, I have planned but time got away from me and no roses were completed. But this year....I am actually doing it.

 I am going to start now, so that they will be ready. 40 days. I only have 40 days. I am hoping that will be enough time to accomplish what I see in my head.

This past Mother's Day, I taught some of my ladies at the nursing home how to craft these beauties and we made the most beautiful Peace roses you have ever seen. Beautiful pinks and vibrant oranges and cheerful yellows. Everyone was just enthralled with them.

Martha Stewart has a lovely pattern for paper roses made from coffee filters. They are a lot more complicated then what we did for Mother's Day but they are extremely pretty also.

Marthat Stewart Video for Coffee Filter roses

I don't want my roses to be so bright that they take away from the rest of my tree and to be honest, I am not sure I actually HAVE room to put them on the tree. My tree is pretty full as it is, but I have been dreaming of doing this for years. No need to put it off any longer, especially since I am not working a gazillion hours any more and actually have time to pursue things that I enjoy doing.

I have all the stuff because I have been collecting for FIVE FREAKIN' YEARS so I don't have to purchase anything to actually make them. Now I just need a kick in the pants to actually do it.

These are more the shade I think I will attempt. Maybe a little more pink. I haven't figured it all out yet, so I will play around until I hit on the correct shade. I will make sure to snap some photos of the construction process to catalog here.

So here is to having Sugar Plums dancing in your head and Happy Christmas Crafting!

RATS of a day

You know........when you are hanging on by your fingernails and then all of a sudden Murphy jumps in and blows it all to heck? Ever had one of those days?

Yeah. Me too. And today was that day.

Working at the SNF today (because I really want to go to Disneyland for my birthday) and about half way to work, my oil light comes on. So I stop and check the oil. Well howdy doody it is fine. What the hay? So I get BACK into my car and start it to find......the oil light is off.

Start back on the journey to the work place and yep, there it is again. So I did the everything above again. And again and finally on the fourth time I just went ahead to work. Had a FABULOUS day at work, and when I got into the car and started it, no oil light! Yayness!!! And then right in front of KFC it goes on again. Swerved into Auto Zone to have it diagnosed to no avail. All it says is that a couple of knock sensors are acting up. One on tier one and one on tier two.

What in the heck are KNOCK SENSORS??? And what the heck does that have to do with oil??? Weeeellllllll....exactly nothing.

So my mechanic neighbor is looking at it tomorrow to see if my old beater can be fixed. I hope so because I don't want another car payment.

Sheesh. I need a vacation!

Experiment in odors....ick

Back in June I officially gained my title as 'Crazy Cat Lady'.

                                Sprockett and Tuki

Believe me, I never had the intention of having this many cats at one time, but it happened. 2 feral kittens needed a home. And sooooo....I took them and named them Freddie and Flossie. From the Bobbsey Twins when I was a kid. I mean after all, when you have five cats, what's two more???

Well STINK!!! That is what two more does! I added another litter box but even WITH the Arm and Hammer Slide litter that has GREAT odor control, it gets stinky very quickly. It also gets very expensive very quickly. A large box is about $23.00 and I am going through one and a half boxes a week. I really have a problem paying for clumpy dirt for someone to shit in. (I shouldn't have used that word. Sorry.) But I do! Bad enough I have to clean those boxes twice daily, but to pay that much money is nothing short of irritating.

So looking over my options....I can't get rid of any cats! I love them too much. I can't go to a cheaper litter. I actually like to LIVE in my house. As it is with the Slide litter, there are nights I sleep in the living room because the stink of someone laying a new bomb in the litter box is enough to make me gag. It is getting to the point where I need to wear a gas mask to sleep in my own bedroom! Add to that the fact that the stupid litter clumps and gets into the cat paws between their little pads and they track it EVERYWHERE. I have tried every mat out there and nope. I still got kitty litter on the floor, in the sink, in the bathtub, (cat boxes are in my master bathroom), on the carpet in the bedroom, on the book shelves, in my bed. Wait. What? Yep. I have a couple of cats that love to hide beneath my covers and when they can finagle it even WITH me tucking in the sheets so tight you can bounce a penny off of them, those little buggers still manage to get between the sheets.

Enough is enough when you have to wash your cats paws to get the clumping litter from between their little pads. Sooooooo......

I finally had an epiphany. My barn does not smell and I only scoop there ONCE a day. Why is that? So I finally went out and got a bag of wood burning pellets that I use for bedding in the stalls. (I use the wood burning pellets because they are about $5.00 a forty pound bag whereas the Equine Pelleted Bedding is $12.00 a bag and it is exactly the same thing. Probably safer because the wood burning pellets have to be rated for humans.

I replaced all the cat litter with pellets. They are not so small they get stuck between their little pads and they don't track them all over. A few on the floor now and again, but it isn't as bad as stepping on Legos. The pellets dissolve into saw dust once they get wet and that stuff sifts to the bottom of the litter box. I still have to scoop poop out of there, but I only have to do that once a day now. At first I was sifting all the pellets and dumping all the sawdust, but I finally came to the conclusion that it is easier to just leave it and dump it all and put new pellets in every 2 to 3 days. Just depends on how much those cats drink I guess, but it is working! No more horrid smells wafting through the house. And no more clumping cat litter between my sheets.

I thought I was such a genius. Until a video came up on my YouTube feed. DOH. I guess people have been doing this for some time now. They are actually layering pans, drilling holes in the top one and sifting the sawdust out. Which is a lot easier than taking out the intact pellets with a pooper scooper like I was doing. Whatever.

I just like the woody smell. Much preferable to wearing your prepper gas mask to bed each night.

Revenge

Today was windy. VERY windy.

Which is not all that unusual for the area I live in. We are known for our winds. Yayness. Wind means that all the trash from my Bozo neighbor blows up against my fence and is plastered there until it makes its way up the fence and over. And then I get to pick it up and actually dispose of it.

I love my place. I do NOT love my neighbors. And shame on me because as a Christian I am supposed to be doing just that. And I know I am not supposed to make excuses but I find it very difficult to LOVE someone who poisoned my German Shepherd. And the bastards made sure I was not there, able to help her. My poor pet sitters! Yes. My sweet Vanna is no longer with us....I just cannot handle it without wanting to jump my fence and beat the flying crap out of them. I also know that I am not supposed to take revenge. Vengeance is MINE sayeth the Lord. But I am having difficulty with that.

Precious one. My sweet Vanna. You were the bestest companion and protector I have ever known. We ALL miss you very much. I miss your goofy antics and your frantic excitement to do whatever I asked you to do. I miss the security you brought to my home as well. My life is forever changed because you were a part of my family and I promise you, I PROMISE YOU, that I will adopt another homeless and abused German Shepherd in your honor and remembrance. Once I get a privacy fence up to insure safety. And yes. I promise I will follow God's command and leave the vengeance for Him to take care of. I am torn between praying that it happens and praying for their souls. What kind of soul could be so cruel and have no conscience?

I am just glad they cannot hurt you anymore and that you are not hurting anymore. The only thing that is hurting now is my heart. I love you. I always will.

 I'll see you when I get there NanaBanana.

Butterflies

It has been sometime since this has happened. I have butterflies in my tummy. Don't have a reason to have them, I mean it's not like I am going to Disneyland tomorrow or any adventure really. But they are there and it makes me happy. Happy to know I can still feel things like hope and happiness.

Sometimes, things get so rough in life, you forget about cool stuff like that. I hope that I can experience stuff like this as long as I live. It is difficult to live your life without hope!

I recently changed jobs. It wasn't something forced, I wasn't laid off or fired or booted out, nothing nasty. Well nothing nasty on my part, but I was just fed up and without a job lined up and a trip to Colorado planned, I simply did it. I put in my 2 weeks notice and although it was not something I looked forward to, I worked that notice out and left with my head high. The day before I left that job, I had another in my pocket and would start when I got back from Colorado. Talk about good timing! I just made a phone call and there it was. A job in my pocket.

Sometimes you just wonder, on the down side of it that is, WHY you worry at all. Or WHY you would put up with a workplace that treats you like a pile of dog poop in a cantaloupe patch. All I know is that a job that I dearly loved was made intolerable by others who thought and fought against me. Even though I saved their butts from getting closed down. On the upside, I am just glad to be away from there and in a job that is quite possibly going to be the best I have ever had.

God is good! So here's to butterflies in your tummy! I pray that you get them too!

HOW in the heck is it already OCTOBER?!?!

Life.

It moves so quickly. Sometimes it feels as though it moves with the speed and determination of The Terminator. Seeking to destroy. But here I am. Still hanging on and running for all I am worth!

Fall is forever my favorite season but I will never understand why the biggest changes in my life happen in the fall. This fall is no different. I am grateful to my heavenly Father for this upheaval in my life, for it is a good one. Me? I am a rut person. I enjoy the same old-same old, so to get me to make an actual move requires God to really allow something icky to happen in my life to pry me out of the comfortable rut I have made for myself. But I gotta say I LOVE this move....now that I know what is happening that is. Didn't exactly like all that icky stuff to get me here, but know what? Good riddance. And on with the career move!

Problem is icky stuff makes me not want to write in my little blog. I just cannot see clear when all that stuff is going on and although I really dislike all the happy-happy-joy-joy-never-ever-say-you-have-bad-things-happen garbage that you read on so many blogs, I don't really want to be the one who gripes all the time. So I just don't write. But writing is good for me as to write helps me to settle my thoughts, so I have determined that I just need to write more. I need to use this blog to remind me of where I have been and catalog my thoughts and plans and dreams.

So here I am. Hopefully to stay active and while not all the time happy, at least stay positive. We shall see how far this goes.