Monday, April 30, 2007

Saturday, April 28, 2007

The weekend is here!

It's been a challenging but productive week. After all of the long hours and extra work, we finally shipped a 750 piece order to Iraq on Wednesday. It was the first on time order we've managed since last Fall and I will say...it felt GREAT. I did the final inspection with the Government Inspector on Tuesday morning and it really feels good to accomplish what we thought it would take another 6 months to do. Of course, now that we are back on track, we don't need all the extra help we were given and Thursday two of the girls were transferred to another department. I suspect a few more will be leaving us before too long. My job is safe because no one else wants the responsibility to do the Final Inspections with the Government dude. They all think he's scary. I know he has the power to shut down Production if he doesn't like something, but I am not intimidated. I make sure I have every thing dotted and crossed and I also have a hidden supply of chocolate to bribe him with. All you have to do is ask him about his grandchildren and you've got it made.

Because we shipped out order on time, our department was able to enjoy an entire weekend off. I also took Friday off as a Mental Health Day. I didn't get up until 7:30 and spent the morning drinking coffee and watching morning talk shows that I never get to see because I am working. Around 11:30 I headed out to run my errands and then stopped by my parents house for what was supposed to be a quick visit. I ended up staying for a couple of hours visiting with my folks, my brother and my niece and nephew. It was a nice afternoon. After I left there, I got some groceries and then came home. Cal got called into work so my dinner plans changed and I ended up reheating some leftover lasagna. I called my friend Rose and we spent a couple of hours on the phone. (She's doing very well btw and her hair is growing in really fast.)

I had lunch with some former co-workers this afternoon then went to Wal-Mart to pick up a new paper shredder. One thing I hate about Wal-Mart is it doesn't matter when I go into that store, I can never just buy the one thing I need. I always find things I want or could use on sale so of course what starts out as a quick trip in ends up as an hour long stroll through the store with a longer register receipt. But I have some nice new kitchen towels and new drinking glasses. I also picked up a nice picture frame for a friend who is having a birthday next month. Rather productive visit, I would say.
Lunch was pretty good. We went to an Oriental Buffet and Sushi Bar. I am not a Sushi eater but did manage to find lots of yummy items on the buffet. Not bad for $7. I seriously doubt I will need dinner tonight.

The rest of my day is free to do some housework (which I am NOT doing as you can see) and maybe watch the Baseball game a bit later. The NY Yankees and Boston Red Sox are always a good rivalry game to watch. The Sox have won the last 4 games between them this season. Let's hope they can win again today.

I guess I better get my butt in gear and get a few things done around here. The dust doesn't remove itself for some strange reason.

Me

Friday, April 20, 2007

TGIF

Wow another week in the books. I got paid today and enjoyed my dough for about 2 hours. LOL I paid some of my bills, picked up some Hydrangeas for my mom's birthday today, wrote a check for Sara who's birthday is tomorrow, and put some cash in my savings account. I still have to pick up my prescriptions tomorrow.

I stopped at my parents house this afternoon and dropped off the pot of Hydrangeas. I didn't know if my mom even liked them but I saw them in the flower shop and they were so beautiful, I couldn't resist. There are 5 huge blooms in the pot, bright pink, and she can plant them in her garden when she's ready. They should bloom again every year.
She has always had a green thumb, unlike me, and she normally has a very colorful array of flowers and plants all around her front and back yard. I wasn't the only one who brought her a plant. My brother gave her a beautiful hand painted flower pot filled with African Violets. They are very different because they have white petals with a blue center and the underside of the petals are a dark shade of blue. Usually the flowers are purple. Of course she didn't want to discuss her birthday and she wishes everyone would just forget about it, but after all of the health issues she's conquered in the last few years, I think she should celebrate being 77. It's been a busy couple of days for her and my dad. Yesterday they celebrated their 55th Wedding Anniversary. She said she is just glad she is still somewhat sane...my dad says he is happy she hasn't followed through with strangling him.

As mentioned, tomorrow is my baby girl's 22nd birthday. I had several ideas of ways to celebrate, but she has plans of her own so I guess I will have to just take what I can get and 'maybe' see her on Sunday. :-( Imagine that...the person who gave her life, carried her for 9 excruciating months, went through hours of labor, bandaged her bloody knees and elbows, stayed up nights when she had a tummy ache, drove her and all of her friends to the Mall before she could drive herself, made her chicken pot pie even though I was sick to death of it, (you get my drift) and she would rather party with her friends. What nerve! It's alright. I will just sit by myself and look through my photo albums. I still have my memories. (Am I breaking your heart?) LOL
Actually, since she will be busy tomorrow, it frees me up a bit and I can get my yard work done. I've got a lot of branches that came down during the last 2 storms and I want to clean up the deck so I can restain it in a few weeks. The weather should be perfect for some outside work.

At work, we have finally managed to catch up with our backlog, and next week we should make our April shipment on time. It's been 8 long months of late or shorted shipments, but finally, everything came together and we busted our hineys to git er done. As a reward, Dave has given us this Saturday off. (What a guy) I am hoping that if we can keep things going and make next months shipment on time as well, I can take an extra day off for Memorial Day Weekend. I am also looking into taking a full week off in July. I have nothing planned just yet, but I'm sure I can come up with something.

It's time to pour myself a tall one and kick back and relax. I've been reading a Stephen King book (Cell) and maybe I can actually finish it this weekend.

I hope it's warm where you are.

L

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Sun's Out!

Just a quick update. It stopped raining this morning around 9am. The sun came out shortly after 10 and it's been a very bright and cheerful day. A little breezy but temps were in the mid 50's when I left work so I'm not complaining. And a sure sign of spring...I could hear the peepers (aka treefrogs) loud and clear in the pond beside the house. The weatherman is calling for mid 60's tomorrow and 70+ on Saturday. Yahooooo!

Many roads in town are still closed but not because they are flooded. In a lot of situations, there are huge sections of asphalt missing from the roads. I can pretty much get anywhere I need to go in town but I can't take the conventional way to get there. Just a minor inconvenience.

The phone lines are still down so we're being told to expect to pay for any purchases with cash or a check because the debit/credit card machines are offline. This is not a problem for me. I normally pay for everything with cash or a check anyway.

Gotta go cook dinner. Have a wonderful evening.

Me

Monday, April 16, 2007

April Showers...

...Ok well maybe not showers. More like April FLOODS! Holy smokes!! I can't believe the size of this Nor'Easter. It started here in southern NH around noon on Sunday, as wet snow/sleet. I would say about every half hour or so it changed over from snow to rain to sleet to snow again, etc etc, etc. By late afternoon it was coming down as all rain. That wouldn't have been so bad but then the wind kicked up and the rain was coming down sideways. It poured all night long and most of today. I am not sure how much rain we will get out of this but I am sooooooooo glad it isn't snow. It isn't raining right now but the sky is gray and the clouds are heavy. Weather reports say we will be getting rain and snow off and on until Thursday.
Getting to work today wasn't too much of a problem for me. I have a straight shot down my road for 1 mile to the entrance of the highway and then it's clear sailing (literally, LOL) for 20 minutes to work. Several of my co-workers however, weren't so lucky. Many of them had to turn around and go back home after finding roads on their way that were impassable. There were many tree limbs down across the roadways and a LOT of flooding. The rivers all around Southern New Hampshire and all over New England, I assume, are well beyond their banks. Hundereds of roads are completely under water. More than 700,000 people have no electricity. A lot of families have been evacuated from their homes.
I have power, my house is dry and secure, and I can get to and from work with no problem. I am very lucky.

My weekend was pretty good. I didn't have to work Saturday so I got a good jump on my housework early in the morning. I also got a lot of junk in the spare room cleared out. Most of it belongs to Sara but she hasn't bothered with any of it for over a year so I seriously doubt she will even notice I tossed out two large trash bags full of stuff. I can probably finish next weekend, and then I can get the futon set up and put my bookcase in there. It will make a real nice sitting room and the futon can be used as a bed when overnight company comes.

Gotta hit the shower. Catch you all later.

Lainie

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Afterlife

A couple made a deal that whomever died first would
come back and inform the other of the afterlife. Their biggest fear was that there was no afterlife.
After a long life together, the husband was the first to die. True to his word he made contact, "Connie....Connie. . .”
"Is that you, Joe?"
"Yes, I've come back like we agreed."
"That's wonderful! What's it like?"
"Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex. I have breakfast and then it's off to the golf course. I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple of more times. Then I have lunch (you'd be proud ( lots of> greens) another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon.
After supper, it's back to golf course again.
Then it's more sex until late at night. I catch some
much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again."
"Oh, Joe you surely must be in Heaven!"
"Not exactly... I'm a rabbit on a golf course in Arizona."

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Friday, April 06, 2007

Is it April or January?

I thought it was Spring. The calendar says it is Spring. The dang groundhog said way back in February that we would have an early spring. My Bo calendar says it is April but after a week of rain, snow, sleet and cold weather...I am beginning to wonder. It is supposed to be colder on Easter Sunday than it was on Christmas. What was supposed to be a little spring storm, became 6 inches of heavy wet snow Wednesday night into Thursday. Around 10 pm on Wednesday my power went out. I climbed into bed and tried to keep warm but I kept waking up every couple of hours. The alarm on my cell phone went off at 4am and still no electricity. That meant no heat, no water, no cooking. I had to get dressed in the dark, but I figured why stay home, there'd be nothing to do and it would be warmer at work. So off I went, took me 25 minutes to clean the snow off of my car and shovel the snow that was in front of my driveway so I could get the car out onto the road. The road hadn't been plowed at all. There were a couple sets of tire tracks on the roadway so I followed those, but keeping on the road was a real chore. There were several tree limbs, large and small all over the road and trying to get around them and maintaining traction was not an easy task. I thought I was going to end up in the ditch a few times. The only good thing was there was no other traffic at 5am. Yes, I guess I was the only idiot out at that hour of the morning.
I made it to work exhausted but in one piece and several of my co workers had also made it safely. I have to say, as horrendous as that drive was, the scenery was gorgeous. The snow was so heavy that it bent even the large branches on many of the trees. On several ocaissions I had to drive under an 'archway' made by the bending branches, hoping each time that wasn't the time when the bough would break. But it sure was pretty to look at.
The snow stopped mid morning and weather reports said the White Mountains got anywhere from 10 inches to 2 feet. 6 inches was the total in my yard, and my neighbor said the power came back on around 4pm. By 5 my house was warm again.
It was fairly cold today, just above freezing, and is going to be cold all weekend. I guess the snow isn't going to go away anytime soon. And we may be getting another big storm next week. ACK!

I've been really busy at work this week and that has made the week go by pretty quickly. I am tired but I have to work tomorrow morning for a few hours. It stinks because it is Easter weekend and I have a ton of things to do. The kids and I are having dinner Sunday at my parents house but I do a lot of the cooking with my brother's girlfriend so my mom doesn't have to. I will be making the desserts Saturday afternoon but most everything else can be made Sunday. I did get all of my shopping done after work today so that will be one less thing to worry about. I also stopped at the Candy Shoppe and picked up solid chocolate Easter Bunnies for the kids and some white chocolate Bunny Lollipops for my niece and nephews.

Time to tackle a few chores.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter.

Lainie