Those Three Little Words I Long To Hear.

There are a lot of words and phrases in the English language that are wonderful to hear. But there are three little words that make my heart sing. Can you guess what they are?

I love you. No it’s not that.

You’ve Lost weight. Great to hear, but no.

How are you? Nope

Way to go!!! No not even close.

Of course all of these things are wonderful to hear. The three little words that I long to hear, maybe not always but certainly more often than I do, are “I’ll handle that” Ahhhhh such sweet words. Yes Yes Yes!!!! take the pressure off of me, help me with what I’m doing, make my life easier. But whatever you do don’t make me have to ask for it.

The reason that I haven’t heard this more is actually my fault. I have been my own worst enemy. I never wanted to ask for help. I will do anything to keep from asking for help. I am always willing to help someone out even if it takes away from me. I get this from my dad. He was a very hard working man and he expected his children to work just as hard as he did. It was really hard to meet the standards that he sometimes set for us. Did you notice the word hard has appeared three times in this paragraph so far? But he was an amazing man who instilled wonderful values in me and all of my brothers and sisters. But he didn’t like to ask for help he looked at that as a weakness. So I grew up thinking I didn’t need to ask for help either. No matter what. If I did I was being weak.

I have always been a very independent person. I am even independent of my husband, choosing to make my own decisions and not consulting him in a lot of things. My husband doesn’t have a problem with this. He is the same way. The last car I bought I did it totally on my own. I went to different car lots and test drove the cars. My husband never seemed to have the time and I didn’t want to wait so I just did it myself. I also take care of all of the car related maintenance and most house maintenance issues. That is just the way it has always been.

My husband and I have no children and I think if we did it would have made things a little different as far as having to share the responsibilities with each other concerning children. Maybe not, who knows.

I am next to the youngest of seven children and for some reason my brothers and sisters have always looked to me to handle most family related issues. Not necessarily big issues but just family get togethers and things like that. An example of this: My family is large and when we have a get together we may have thirty plus people show up. We always plan our meals and who will bring what etc. etc. You know I am from the south and food is a big deal. Anyway, whenever we had these huge dinners everyone would automatically assume I would coordinate everything. I would get in touch with everyone, plan the meal and let everyone know what to bring. They would always await my call to let them know what to bring. One Thanksgiving I decided I had had enough. I would not tell anyone what to bring and they could coordinate everything on their own and bring whatever they wanted. Well that was the year we had seven bowls of corn and not much else. So that was the last time that happened. I may be exaggerating a little there was probably on five bowls of corn.

With all of this said you might think I wouldn’t want to hear anyone say “I’ll handle that” but as I said it is actually music to my ears especially if I don’t have to ask. Even more so as I have gotten older and more comfortable in my own skin. I am more comfortable standing back and letting someone else take over. Because hey!! My time is just as important as anyone’s. And I hate to use this phrase but sometimes it is best when I get out of my own way. And if I ask for help the world won’t open up and swallow me. So I am trying to NOT be in charge so often and to be honest I find that things work out just fine and many times even better. WHAT???? I do regret that it has taken me so many years to learn this lesson but better late than never right? So when I am with someone and they tell me “I’ll handle that” I say O.K.

The honeysuckle vines are blooming like crazy and smelling wonderful.

Love your day your way!!!!

Do You Always Know When You’re Being a B*tch?

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Hello everyone,

I feel like this month is speeding by. I love April and it’s also my Birthday month. My Birthday this year is on Easter I don’t think that has ever happened before. Not that I can remember anyway. I also got married on my Birthday, don’t ask me why it seemed like a good idea at the time, so it will also be my wedding anniversary!!!! Wow so much will be going on next week. We are having a big Easter get together at my house next Sunday and I wanted some new deck furniture and that is how this blog post came to be.

I like to keep it real with you and I am not one of those bloggers who constantly blog sunshine and lollipops. So today I am asking you, whether you are woman or man, do you always know when you are acting ugly and rude? can you stop it once you have started? Do you always realize when you are being a bitch? Can you make yourself stop?

This morning me and my husband went to Home Depot in a nearby town. I had spotted some deck furniture I wanted there. We looked around a little but it seemed like they had everything we wanted. The bistro type chairs and table had a sign on them that indicated they had two left in stock. The large umbrella was on the shelf where we could see it. So a very nice sales associate came over to help. She didn’t know a lot about the large umbrella we wanted to purchase but maybe she didn’t always work in that department, maybe she was new. I don’t know. She seemed to want to steer us to ordering online and picking it up there at a later date. She said we would have more options. Well we really didn’t need options we knew what we wanted and the signs on the items indicated they were in stock. We had a big truck to haul it home in. Why would we wait? right? She did say the table and chairs were in a box on the back wall and she would get someone with a lift to get them down. She checked her device and said they would be brought up to the front of the store and we were to pull around. She said this could take a few minutes. She wrote the numbers of each item on a piece of paper and we took that to the register to check out. Once we checked out we brought the truck to the front of the store where they would load the items. The same sales assistant came out just about five minutes later and we were thinking, wow!!! that was fast.

I noticed the cart she was pulling looked rather sparse for everything we had gotten. She said the table and chairs actually weren’t available. I was thinking then why did that not come up in the system when we paid for everything? I did ask her that question and she said she was not sure. She told us she would call a store in north Knoxville to see if they had one in stock. This is where I felt my bitch mode start to take over. I didn’t want to be ugly and I guess I was just disappointed that it hadn’t worked out and we were now going to have to drive to north Knoxville to pick it up. Because we live in the boonies, and I know that is my choosing and no one else’s, getting to Knoxville for us is about an hour and ten minute drive. Of course we were already a little closer so it wouldn’t take quite that long.

That didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me is they told me they had not one but two in stock. Now they were saying they didn’t, after I had paid for it of course, and I would have to go somewhere else to get it. So I said “well obviously it doesn’t matter if they tell you they have it or not because you “thought” you had it here and now you don’t. What is going to keep us from driving to Knoxville to pick it up and them tell us they don’t have it either even though their system showed that they did?” I thought this was a valid question. I also muttered several things of questionable content half-way under my breath and was pretty much acting like a spoiled brat. I’m not proud of it.

My husband Mark has often told me it’s not what I say but how I say it to people that truly makes them mad at me. I felt this time was both!!! And of course my husband looked like he wanted to crawl under the truck because of the way I was acting. I could almost feel myself step out of my body and watch me being an utter bitch about a dang table and chairs!!! She called the other store and yes they said they had it and would pull it and bring it to will-call and we could pick it up there. She took our name. She then told me I would have to come back in the store and get a will-call ticket to take to the other store. I went to wait in the truck because it was raining.

I told the sales associate I knew it wasn’t her fault and to be honest it wasn’t. Someone overlooked the table and chairs the first time. She was only going by the information she was given.

Mark comes over to the window and says “guess what they found a table and chairs here!!” Well that made me feel really bad about the way I had acted. We loaded everything up and took it home. But I guess I had a bit of a bitch hangover from the way I had acted. I went home and took a three hour nap.

I say all of this because I am just wondering if you ever feel yourself being unreasonable? and when you feel disappointed or upset do you sometimes turn to bitch mode? this is where you actually feel yourself step outside of your body and watch yourself. You may not want to say the things you do but by golly they are going to come out of your mouth one way or the other. I hope I am not the only one. Mark could stand there all day and not be frustrated or angry with them. He probably wouldn’t even get mad if they sent us home with the wrong boxes. They didn’t luckily. But I am not that person.

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My Happy Place

Love you day your way!!!!!

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I Have Cabin Fever!!!!

Hello hello how are you? The sick bug has hit our little family. Mark was sick all weekend before last. I was hoping I wouldn’t catch what he had but being in such close quarters almost makes that impossible. I should have known something was going on last Tuesday when everything I did seemed to be crazy. Well crazier than normal, you know me. Have you ever felt that way? I got a late start at work and then everything just seemed to go down hill from there. It’s like everything I did was strange like I was walking through a fog. I had a weird day at work where nothing seemed to go right. I went to the Post Office and left my keys in my P.O. Box and when I got to my car I couldn’t figure out where my keys were, I went to Walmart and the self check out messed up after I had already rung everything up. I went through the drive through at Sonic and they brought me the wrong order. I totally forgot about a million things I needed to do because it seemed like I had a permanent brain fog. I should have known something was going on.

By Tuesday night I started to get this little tickle in my throat and then by morning I was coughing my head off and sounded terrible. But me being the me that I am, thought I could still handle going to work so in I went. Of course everyone there looked at me like I had the plague and gave me that “why do you want to come to work and infect us” look. I don’t blame them I would have been the same way about them. I felt really bad and I left at noon and went home. I went to bed and I didn’t leave the house until Sunday morning when I decided to venture into town to get a few groceries. Mark had to work a looooong work weekend but he was on the road to recovery. I grabbed a few groceries and went home. I knew I still didn’t feel right and sure enough I had developed a sinus infection. Finally after starting a round of antibiotics yesterday I am feeling much better.

So lots of days off. How nice was that you might think. It was, except that I didn’t feel like doing anything. I laid on the couch and in my bed and read (that was nice) and knit that was nice and cuddled with my fur babies (that was really nice) and ate myself into oblivion (not so nice) and read a lot of books and watched a lot of TV (really nice) and wallowed in being sick. Sometimes I think you may need those sick days to just give yourself the time you need to recuperate and regenerate from everything that life is throwing at you. I guess that is where I am in this scenario called life. I have enjoyed it but I AM READY TO GET OUT!!!!! I HAVE CABIN FEVER!!!! I actually did go to work today. I am starting to feel normal again.

I Knitted this toboggan it really has more of a pink color than what
it looks like here.

I also started this scarf

With me being home for several days Kitty Kitty and Scruffy were right there with me trying to make me feel better and clamoring for a spot on my lap.

These are a couple of really good books I read.
Check them out.

Do you love these conversation heart candies that appear near Valentine’s Day? You either love them or you hate them. You probably noticed you haven’t seen as many of them this year and there is a reason for that. These hearts have been in production for more than a century before Necco, the company that made them, filed for bankruptcy last year.

The rights to produce the hearts was purchased by the Spangler Candy Co. in Ohio, which will return them to production after it receives permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But this could take at least a year. So only a very few were left to sell this year.

Some people find these disgusting, this includes my husband. But he knows how very much I love them. I could eat them all year long. Probably a good thing they are only around at Valentines. So when my husband discovered that they were hard to find in the stores, even Walmart, he got on line and ordered me a two pound bag to munch on. Yes it’s true folks you can get anything from Amazon. I think that’s pretty darned nice of him.

I hope you are having a wonderful week and the sick bug stays away from you.

Love your day your way!!!

Being Frugal Isn’t Always About Money

Hello friends, at the beginning of the month I decided I was going to try and be more frugal. Webster’s defines frugal as: Economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful. Economical in use OR expenditure. Yet most people automatically think when you mention trying to be frugal you are saying you are not going to spend any money or cut back on spending. But by not wasting, and using what you already have you will probably find yourself saving money. You will also find yourself being kinder to the environment.

At my attempt at being more frugal I noticed that I’ve spent less money. This comes from not wasting, more than anything else. I concentrated on using the food in my pantry and freezer instead of throwing out a ton of food that has gone bad or is out of date. It is from making more conscious decisions about what I really need to buy. I am terrible at making impulse purchases only to find that I have something exactly like it when I get home. I am making an attempt to try to find a less costly solution instead of just barreling out and spending money. I guess the thing that really hit home with me was when I cleaned out my closet at the end of the year and found several shirts with tags still on them. I had forgotten all about buying them. That my friend is ridiculous and wasteful. I don’t want my closets stuffed with clothes I don’t even know I have.

(Not my closet but it could be)

I am at a time in my life where I will not deprive myself of what I need. Last month we had a new deck put on the back of our house. The old deck was over twenty years old and quite frankly a little scary. We also replaced the doors which had gaps in them and was probably causing a lot of wasted energy. As usual it cost more than we had anticipated, just as most things do. But it was something we needed and had to be replaced and I don’t regret a penny of it.

I love to travel and visit new places. I like to be able to do this without worrying about the money I am spending for each trip. If being less wasteful in my home and life does this then that is just an added bonus. But this is me. It may not be you. You may enjoy eating out every night and shopping every weekend. And If you do then I am happy for you. Go for it. Life is short you know my motto, Love your day your way because that is what life is all about. I certainly don’t want to impose my thoughts and beliefs on you or appear hypocritical when I do indulge or splurge on things I want and need.

Here are a few things I noticed about being more “frugal” this month:
It reduces waste (both food and otherwise)

I can see everything in my pantry.

I can see everything in my refrigerator (like even way back in the back)

I feel like I have a better idea of what is in my closet. I have taken lots of items to good will and unlike past times I didn’t run out and buy things that would fill up closet again.

I discovered many things in my closet I had forgotten I had.

Every time I think about buying a new piece of clothing I go into my closet to see what I might have that I can use. This has actually been pretty exciting.

But anyway with all of that being said. I am enjoying cutting back and reducing clutter and waste in my home and life. Just a little tidbit for your Tuesday morning and man it is snowing like crazy here today. I am headed out to try and get some pictures. It is one of those nice wet snows that cling to everything. Happy Tuesday.

Love your day your way!!!