My Little Elf Village

Hi,
Do you have an elf village? I do sometimes. Whenever the toadstools, or mushrooms, grow in the yard, I have an elf village. I took pictures of it this summer and showed them to my nieces. I explained that little elves live under mushrooms like this. "Can you see them?" I asked. They looked and looked, and so did I!


A few weeks later, my nieces were over here with a friend of theirs. I went outside and saw Lauren showing her friend my mushrooms and telling her about the elves. They were looking really hard for them. I wondered if they found any, so I asked. Unfortunately, the elves were in hiding for the day!


I love elf poems and elf stories. If you look closely, maybe you can see the elves in my little elf village, too~

The Bathroom is Finished!!

I will attempt to put pictures in here, so that they appear in order. Arlene says that the first picture has to be the last picture entered. I always do it in a crazy, mixed up, long way by copying and pasting. I am going to try it a new way. Perhaps I should put all of the pictures in first, and then I could write what I have to say about them. I have been trying to download quite a few on Picassa since last night. I ran out of online disc space, so all of the pictures couldn't get downloaded. I decided to buy more space, in order to have more room. They are still running as I type! By the time that I am ready to finish this blog, I am sure they will all be downloaded.
A few hours later...the pictures are downloaded, and now I will try to do what I have been waiting to do for over a week ~ show you my bathroom from start to finish!!
Here I go! Well, they won't come from Picassa, so I have to get them on my computer somehow. THAT took me a while to figure out. I think I have it now. Seriously folks, I have been working on all of this since 4 pm. It is now 10:30, and I am still not finished.
Well, it doesn't work ~ I'm trying to get them from Picassa web albums, but that isn't happening. I have been working on all of this for HOURS! I even tried to 'self clean' the oven while downloading pictures. That was a disaster, because it sets itself for four HOURS not minutes. It took me forever to figure out how to get the door unlocked. I finally found the manual, and it said that the door would open when it was cooled off. Well, I was supposed to be baking a cake for 3D's first birthday tomorrow, so I panicked. I had already mixed it up and put it in the pan. (like the song goes, I can bring home the bacon....fry it up in a pan). I digress....sometimes I think my students' ADD traits are rubbing off on me.
Now, the house smells like burnt oven cleaning stuff AND oil based paint from the hall and bathroom! Oh well. I am trying to do a lot of things all at once, and it is crazy around here as usual.
(a while later)
I feel like I just gave stage directions!
I finally got the cake baked. I just took it out of the oven. After the stove cooled off, I was able to put the cake in. Now, I am DETERMINED to get this blog written!

SO, the saga started last Monday, and this is the next Friday! The guys worked on the bathroom for days and days. Here are a few shots of the bathroom as it has been for oh so long. As Amelia says, please don't judge me. I just couldn't get it done any sooner. Construction is expensive. I do feel better, though, without all of that mold and rotten wood, etc. The first three pictures are of the tub.
















Here are some pictures of the wonderful floor, with most of the tiles out and the floor a rotten mess!














When I got home the first day, the floor had been torn completely out. If you look closely, you can tell that what you are seeing is "THE GROUND". You can also see Rachel checking on the work and taking pictures!



(I am not sure why this next stuff is in blue and underlined. There is no telling what key I hit while I was doing my copying and pasting!! I will just have to leave it like this, because I do NOT know what HAPPENED!
I think I have been smelling too many fumes!!

Oh well, back to the saga...)

The tub was out, the walls were torn down, etc. Well, when you look at the before picture, you can see why. The holes in the wall had created lots of rotted wood. The floors were rotted out, etc., etc. So, the room was pretty much gutted.
Alan, the boss guy, said that they could put a new toilet in the bedroom where we took one out, or they cut tear out the wall in the bathroom and make the room bigger. I opted for that. Little did I realize that plaster dust was going to be EVERYWHERE after that. The two young guys who were working had quite a fun time tearing out that wall, hammering and pulling and knocking things out! Adam would have loved doing that! The dust was not apparent until the next day. Boy, oh boy was there a lot of it! It had all settled in overnight. A lot of it is still here, because I haven't had time to clean it up! They worked on the room for 8 days. I asked the guy Monday to please get the toilet in, because I had to leave very early the next day for a faculty meeting. Also, the next day was my birthday, and I wanted to at least have the toilet in. The tub had been in since the second day, but I couldn't use it, because he hadn't put up the shower curtain rod. So, he said he would get that in for me, too. Thank you! No more running across the street to Daddy's house for a shower and the facilities! On Wednesday, I finally had a finished bathroom. The tub is nice and clean (except for little cat pawprints every now and then), the floor is solid, the toilet stays still (rather than rock and roll, fall backwards, and almost make you fall down), and it looks pretty nice. The floor was so messed up that the toilet couldn't stay hooked down! My old, old house has settled so much, that the floors were NOT even. They tried to help that out a bit by 'jacking' up the house. When they jacked up the house, some of the plaster walls cracked big time. So, they put sheetrock up and fixed and painted the hallway and trim. They even fixed my bedroom doors that were messed up! That is why the house smells of oil based paint and stuff, though. They put it on the doors and the trim. Whew! I could smell that stuff all the way outside at my car Wednesday when I came home! It was pretty strong. It still smells, but not as bad.





I do believe I am going to just leave the rest of the pictures as they are. You can see the various progress that was done. I put them all in at once, and now I am getting tired of toggling back and forth between pages, pictures, etc. I have been copying and pasting, just like usual, so my new little inserting trick didn't really work very well. SO, you can just peruse the pictures and see the progress as it happened. A lot of work was done in a pretty short amount of time, really. The holes in the ceiling were made when they tore out the extra wall. I forgot to mention the new floor. I picked out big tiles in an Arizona sand color. The first pictures of the floor are of it the first day, with the little space holders in between the tiles. The walls are Yellow Buttered Corn, or Buttered Yellow Corn. Does it look like buttered corn?
You can see that this house is very old house by looking at the big wooden beams and stuff. They don't make beams like those anymore. You are lucky to get a little 2x4, much less a heavy, strong beam like in these houses. My house was built in 1929!! Anyway, I wanted to put the pictures up in order, but I seem to have gotten off track. Like I said, the fumes are getting to me! I have to make a bunch of icing for the birthday cake, too. I made a rocking horse. They bought him a giraffe, but I don't have a giraffe pan. I am going to use the colors on the giraffe and put them on the horse. I hope it turns out okay.
I am freezing myself out of the house right now, because I have the air on really low to try and get the smells out of here!! Hopefully, the fumes will dissipate in a few days. They are already much better than they were!
Here are the rest of the pictures.





















It is 11:25 p.m., and I am really tired and hungry. I think I have corrected all of my typos. I cannot figure out how to get the hyperlink off, because I do not know how it got on in the first place. Sorry about that. There is a whole section that is hyperlinked. As you read that part, you may see lines under the words and colors changing. The time stamp is incorrect on this blog, also. I need to figure out how to fix that. I did it once, so I should be able to fix it again!
I am just tired and goofy from paint fumes, so I will call it a night! I just hit some crazy keys, so I don't know what I just did to the rest of this blog.
Have a great night!

Before and after, what a difference!!





a

Cakes

I have been learning how to decorate cakes. I have always loved to bake, ever since I was a kid. I make birthday cakes for everyone, but my decorating skills have been Oh So Amateur. Everyone always laughs at my "decorations". This picture is of the one I did for my 'graduation'. You can see that I put a little bit of everything that I learned: clowns, roses, leaves, sweet peas, shells, etc. I thought it would be fun to put a hodge podge of things on there. It was for fun anyway. I am not one to go by the book or pattern for anything, so I make my own "designs", if you can call them that. Anyway, I signed up for cake decorating classes at Michael's, and I had four lessons in the basics of decorating. I actually learned some neat things. I can make a rose now! Of course, I make quite a few to get just one. haha!
I will put up some pictures of the things I have done, including my birthday cake for Sunday and the one for tonight.

This is a cake that I made for my cousin, Mina. I worked all night trying to make those roses, and I finally got four good ones.


This is my birthday cake,
a PINK LADYBUG. I think it turned out cute.


This Sweetheart Cake is the one that I made for my actual birthday, today. I worked on it late last night. I finally got several good roses, and I got a great pink color.
I have an 'order' to make a cake for 3D's first birthday. 3D is my nephew, and he will be one year old Saturday. I will eiher make a teddy bear, a rocking horse, or a dinosaur, or a giraffe. I have been collecting character cake pans over the years, and I am anxious to try some of them out.


Here I am tonight with my birthday cake. Rachel told me to hold it up. I think she was halfway kidding, because they always get on me about taking pictures of anything and everything! I posed anyway.


Here we are. One is of me and my dad, and the other one is me with my children.
Happy 54th birthday to me!

Rude doctors

Why are doctors so rude sometimes? Why do they think the earth revolves around them? I had a call from the nurse at my doctor's office yesterday morning to tell me that one of my tests was a bit abnormal, and I should come in. She asked me all sorts of questions and asked if I had taken the flu shot yet. I told her that I have never had a flu shot, and she asked me if I wanted one today. I said that I would like to talk to him about it first. Then, I tell her about something else that has been going on with me, so she told me to come on in and made an appointment for me. Well, I get there and he says, "What brings you here today?" I told him that the nurse called me and told me I should come in. "No, it says here you have heart flutters. I don't usually see people for blood in the urine." I said, "Well, Georgia called me at work today to tell me about my test results and said I should come in." "Well, we will take care of one thing today. Describe the flutters." I didn't even dare ask him about my blood pressure or even the flu shot the nurse talked about! He acted put out that he even had to talk to me. I also showed him the medicine that the gastro guy gave me on Tuesday. I told him that I spent $40 on them, and they make me sick! I wasted $40. The meds gave me the big D. I said that I wasn't sure which one did it, so I quit taking both of them. He said that both of those meds can give you that. Then, he decided to do an EKG and left. While the nurse was in there doing the EKG, I told her that he acted mad that I was even there, and that he acted like the blood in my urine was no big deal. I also asked her if he could talk to me about the rest of my tests, since I was already there. I had an appointment scheduled for next week to go over my blood pressure and my tests, and it would be nice not to have to take another afternoon off from work. She said she would ask him. So, when he comes back in, he acted even more put out than before. In his drone voice he tells me that the EKG was normal. I can wear a holter, (I thought it was halter), with a heart monitor if I want. The only thing he can do for the blood thing is to run some other test where I bring in two samples - two weeks apart. Then I asked him if he could tell me about the tests, since I was already there, and I wouldn't have to come back next week. He said that the two medicines both cause D. Sometimes we take you off of one or just give you one. He didn't really want to talk about that. He said, "Here's the thing. I'm on call. I only saw you because of the heart flutters." AND THIS IS WHAT GOT ME Y'ALL....That's not how we do things around here. CAN YOU BELIEVE HE SAID THAT!!!! THAT'S NOT HOW WE DO THINGS AROUND HERE! He said that I was there for a sick visit, not a well visit. My goodness gracious! What if I told my students that on Monday I couldn't talk to them about a spelling test, because it wasn't spelling test day!!!!!! I have heard of well baby checkups, but not well adult checkups. I did not know that you could only talk to a doctor about ONE thing PER visit! Did any of you realize that?? He read the results of everything and it took his precious THREE seconds to do that, and he acted SO PUT OUT about it all. I told him that I was also supposed to see about my blood pressure and my medicine. He didn't even talk to me about that. I said that I had seven more sample pills. He said he would give me some more and left. My sister just loves this guy and rants and raves about how nice he is and how he talks to you and listens to you. He has never been like that to me. He as never been quite this rude, but not overglowing either. I was upset, I started to cry, and the young girl who came in to give me my papers and prescription asked me what was wrong. She wondered if I didn't like what he had to say. I told her that I probably would NOT be coming back, and that he had been rude to me. She tried to calm me down and took me to her desk to make the appointments for the heart monitor and the urine sample things. Then, the nurse walked by. I tapped her arm and told her that I might not be back. She asked why, and I told her how rude he was to me. "He is very stressed out today, because he is on call. I will talk to him about it." She is very nice, but stressed out doesn't cut the mustard. I had already paid THREE copays this week AND the money at the pharmacy. I really didn't want to have another copay next week, when I was already at the doctor's office, and he could just tell me what he had to say about my tests! As my sister always tells me, THEY work for YOU. See, she used to work in Human Resources at the hospital, and she dealt with all sorts of people. She always tells me NOT to let people run all over me, because I am paying THEM for their services. Doctors should remember that. I am paying them, not visa versa!! Well, this is my rant for the day. I was really, really upset yesterday. I am calmed down a bit now, or I would be using stronger language.
On a better note, I finally got someone to come look at my bathroom. They have to take out all the walls and the floor and replace everything. It is a good thing that I have an equity line of credit on my house already. I will have to use that to pay for this. The room has been like that for eight years. I should have fixed it this summer, but I put it off. Now, they will have to work on it while I am at work. I do not like people in my house when I am not here, but maybe it will be better that way. I will not have a bathroom for about a week. It is a good thing that Daddy lives right across the street! My sister suggested using my mom's portable potty that she had while she was sick. I think I will do that. As for baths, I will have to go across the street. The work starts Monday. As for my doctor, I think I will look for a new one.

Music

I have been using old music videos as my contributions to facebook lately. I have been thinking of music that talks about whatever day it is. I think it is kind of fun to do that. There are lots of songs that mention specific days. There are a lot of them for Saturday. I actually posted three of them today! The one that sticks in my head is Saturday in the Park. I found an off the wall song by the Jefferson Airplane, though, about Saturday Afternoon. I thought it was kind of neat, so I posted it. This particular one was from a performance done at Woodstock in 1969! Whew! With the 40th anniversary of Woodstock being held recently, I thought it was most appropriate to use that song. I wonder if YouTube lets you share things on a blog... Oh well. Anywho, I have enjoyed finding songs to fit the day. I had a great one for yesterday, but I couldn't load it from my phone. I will try to put that song on facebook again when the day is like it was yesterday - RAINY!
School has been in session for a couple of weeks now. The bad thing is that my blood pressure has decided to go sky high. I think it has been like that before, but I did not realize that it was the pressure that was making me feel the way I was feeling. I think I will just 'chill' to some music next time I decide to stress out about work or anything. My music used to be a big part of my life, and I need to get back my joy and my song. Both of those have disappeared for a long time, but I am focusing on trying to get them back. I wonder what kind of song I can find for Sunday? Stay tuned!!!!!!

My Adam

September 5, 1984 was a glorious day in my life, because my little baby boy, Adam, was born!!!! He was a big one, at 9 pounds 6 ounces. Adam was delivered by a planned C-section. As with his sister, he was too big for me to deliver, so the C-section was in order. My pregnancy with Adam was a lot of fun, just like with Rachel. I always loved being pregnant. I think pregnancy is a wonderful experience. With Adam, though, I did not have the fluid gain and no-salt diet, thank goodness! I ate LOTS and LOTS of tomatoes that summer, since we were living in an area that supplies tomatoes to many places. They were always so good, big, and juicy. Adam loves tomatoes to this very day!! HA!HA! I wonder if there is a connection. As time for delivery came closer and closer, I did have a lot of pains and a few scary moments, but I was fine. Adam was always a very active little boy. He loved to be naked! I can remember one day in particular when he was about 2 or 3 years old. I opened the front door to look out or something, and this little thing just shot out beside me like a bullet. It was like I only saw a white flash as he went by! He ran outside stark naked and just kept running around and around and around in circles all over the front yard!! It was SOOOOO Funny!!!! He was always such a tiny little thing that he almost looked like a little bee or something buzzing all around the yard. I don't know how I ever stopped laughing at that one. Adam has grown into a very fine young man. He is a Marine Science major and will graduate this spring. He loves the ocean and fishing, and he is doing a terrific job in all of his classes. He is a true scientist and mathematician! I am so extremely proud of him. Adam is a true gentleman and a wonderful son. He is also a good little brother. He is very attentive to his girlfriend, Vicky. He and Vicky are good for each ther, and they are both good to me. Adam has always tried to help take care of me when I needed him, and he is still a very conscientious and caring son and young man. He is a courageous person who is growing up to be an extremely wonderful man and human being. I love Adam very, very much. Adam is the best son in the whole wide world!!!!!!

My Rachel

August 21, 1982 was a wonderful day in my life. My daughter, Rachel Morel, was born!! She was a big one, at 9 pounds 3 ounces. Needless to say, a C-section was in order. I went in to the hospital on the 20th to get the process going, but she decided she wasn't ready. So, 24 hours later, the doctors decided to do a C-section. I had gained a lot of weight during the pregnancy, and I had to go off of all salt! The doctor thought I was pregnant with twins for a long time, because I gained a lot of weight really fast and constantly. It was finally decided that I was just holding a lot of fluid, thus the no salt diet. Being a short person, I got pretty big! My tummy really stuck out a lot. The little bundle of joy that came out early that morning was well worth all of the weight gain, the fat tummy, the swollen ankles, the pains, etc., etc. She has been the light of my life ever since. She has taken care of me when I was sick, physically or mentally. She has kept me in good spirits when I was down. She cooked for me when she was only in the second grade, and I was going through some really difficult times. Rachel has been a good nurse to me, with all of my physical impairments. She has driven me on trips when I couldn't see well enough to drive. She has kept me sane through a lot of trials and sorrows. Rachel is one superb human being, and she is my little girl!!!! If my other computer was working correctly, I could get a lot of pictures on here of her. I will get them on soon, but for now, I want to get the writing part done on her special day. 27 years ago today, my life changed forever and for the best!! Rachel has grown up to be a magnificent young lady. She is a terrific Math teacher, and she has her head on straight. Rachel has been married to Don for 3 1/2 years now, and she has created a wonderful home for the two of them. She is one of the most gracious people I know. Words can never express how terrific Rachel is. She is a wonderful granddaughter and thinks of others much more than herself. Rachel is one of the most courageous people I know. Thank you, God, for giving me the best daughter in the whole, wide world!!!!!!!!!!!