To Mississippi and back to the Lakehouse

We made a quick trip home and I was so busy the entire time. Two weeks at the lake spoiled me. We got there in time to see Brooke and Tanner graduate. They both went home with us and we have not had a quiet moment since. Kyle, was gone when we got home and I finally texted him he said he was on his way and would explain when he got there. ??? was he texted and driving???? When he arrived he had been involved in a fender bender. I guess be backed out of a quick stop parking spot and did not see a truck pulling a camper driving thru and he hit them. I know it could have been worse, and I am thankful no one was hurt. I tell you the next 10 years are gonna be tough... all these grandkids being teenagers and drivers. I pray every night they make it thru those years and me too.

Kyle got estimates and they range from 3000 to 4500. I sure hated to see his shiny truck get smashed up so quick.

On Thursday I went to the plant to visit a few folks and eat lunch with some guys before I had to be at the dentist. Needless to say I did not get to see as many folks as I wanted to and I was late to eat lunch and was not even hungry so I just visited with the guys and then off to the dentist. It's really hard to catch all the shifts to say good bye, but Maybe I will get some of them. I made the dental appointment and then home with pizza for the gang before graduation. I had so many mixed emotions at this graduation, happy, proud, sad, dissappointed, etc. I am sure this was the 1st graduation I have been to since Chris graduated and I was holding Kyle then, lol. Hopefully Kyle will make some good choices and wise decisions when the celebration wears off.
Tanner and Tyler went home with us after the graduation and on Friday morning we loaded for the Bama return. We picked up Blake at school about 9:30 and away we went. I love these kids but they sure can get on your nerves when they are excited, lol.

My projects I forgot to post last time are below.

My Garden and My Sewing Projects

This photo shows a lot of my garden.

Thebanana peppers are doing good.

This is my cherry tomatoes and they are doing the best of all our garden. I have gotten 5 off of them last week and you can see I have a couple ready to pick now.

This is cucumbers planted in a flower bed by the big deck, we just planted them a week or so ago, they are just coming up, so we will just have to see if we get and cucumbers.

This is another cheery tomatoe plant it does not have as many tomatoes on it as the others, but notice the leaf lettuce in the background. I think we can have us a fresh salad from out patio graden soon.

This is my 3 better boy tomatoe plants, they don't look so good to me and we only have 2 tomatoes on them, I moved them to a sunnier spot so maybe they will do better.

This is squash planted in an area we usually plant flowers. The bucket squash was not looking very good so we planted more.

This is squash that we planted in buckets, it was not looking so good so we planted some in the ground. It is actually beginning to look better, so maybe we will have plenty of squash.

Bell peppers are doing pretty good I have 4 plants and they all have lil bell peppers on them. This one actually has a bell pepper big as my fist.

More bell pepper.

Now for my sewing projects.

I actaully only put Emma's name on here several weeks ago, forgot to take to Texas and forgot to mail it with the beach shirts, so hopefully I can get it to her soon, via Pops and Grandmother or a visit from Emma would be nice.

This is to be a wall hanging once I get it framed. I think it will be very appropriate for my sewing area, lol.

This is a shirt I did for Tyler who will be graduating in 2010, not sure he will wear it but maybe he will.

This shirt should be for me but if Brooke wants it she can have it, lol.

This I made for Tracy, I had to get creative because I had problems with my machinetrying to eat the fabric and created a hole in the shirt so I had to use a applique from another design to cover the hole and embroidery on. I was not pleased with the outcome so if Tracy never wears it its ok. I just waanted to attempt to salvage it. I think part of sewing is being creative to fix errors, lol.

I just had to do this for Tanner, hope he likes it as much as he does the trumpet shirt.

I did this one for Rusty, I think he will like it.

This one is for Kyle, since he graduates this year. He seems to think that guys don't wear t-shirts that have embroidery on them.

I made this forNylah,I may have posted it already.

These are the beach shirts I made for Will, Walker and Emma. I have been on a steep learning curve with my machine lately.

This is for Blake since he is going to play football this year.

I have enjoyed my sewing machine and so many more things I wanna do, I doubt I do many this summer, butI am sure in the winter I will make up for lost time. Dang I just remembered the pillow cases I made and the Bama bathroom items. Well check back in a few days and see these if you are interested. I will be traveling tomorrow to Vicksburg to see Tanner and Brooke graduate the 6th grade and then on Thursday see Kyle graduate high school.

My Week at the Lake Before School is Out.

The week has been great! I have accomplished so much this week, I have managed to get most thing in their new place and have emptied most boxes. I seem to be able to stay busy all day either in the house or yard. I spent one day just rearranging cords, cables, surge protectors, phones, and various other gadgets. The weather has been great all week, We have not even run the air conditioning. It has been great to be able to open windows and doors and let the breeze air the house.



I got Nylah's shirt made and in the mail on Monday. I was thinking when I went to mail the shirt I should go to the tanning bed and spend 15 minutes instead of 2 hours in the real sun, that would let me get so much more done in the house. I just did not want to leave the house, I decided I would sun for 2 hours then clean up and go mail the shirt and run other errands. As I lay in the sun on the patio, listening to oldies and watching Pat work on swapping the door on the patio refrigerator, I thought this is great... why would I ever go spend 15 minutes in a tanning bed when I can lay right here for 2 hours and watch a man work, lol. Pat had to go get parts to hook up the ice maker so he mailed the package for me and I never left the house. Tuesday was just as good as Monday and I got my 2 hours of sun in. I again never left the house. I kept a list going of errands to run and items to pickup whenever I had to leave the house. On Wednesday I finally had to go run errands and pick up items on my list. I needed stuff from walmart and Home depot. I have determined I just can not do Home Depot errands and Wal mart errands in the same day. I tried to get everything at Walmart, and almost did. I needed a pole to go in the patio storage room to be able to hang life jackets up. I did get the new Tv I had planned to get before the kids come to visit, so that was another gadget to get hooked up. I have never had these TV's programmed right since we got the better cable that required a box. I took the time to figure out how to get the controllers programmed right, so maybe Pat will not fuss so much about the cable system, tv's etc.



Thursday was another stay at home day for me. Actually I was going to run some more errands, but Pat discovered my van would not start when he went to move it out if the garage. He charged the battery and that appeared to be the problem but I had no desire to get stuck in town so I waited until Friday. Friday morning Pat carried the van to the shop and had it checked out and replaced the battery. I did floors all morning, lol. It is an all morning job to get the floors swept, mopped and vacuumed. BTW Friday was our 28th Wedding Anniversary. I did get errands run when Pat got back and it was an all afternoon job. I now have the pantry and freezer stocked and ready for the kids to come visit. I was exhausted when I finished this shopping trip. Pat and I went to eat at the new Mexican Restaurant just 3 miles away and the service was great and the food tooo. We will go there again for sure.

The weekend was rainy, but we enjoyed that as well. The water is back over the pier again today. I tinkered with Dvd players trying to figure out how to get the cable controller to control everything, very frustrating, I just can not seem to get it where one controller does it all. I am also still having problems with the music channels on the new TV, they will not come on every morning and then later in the day they work, the other TV's do not act that way, I really think its the cable and not the TVso maybe when the contractor is back to fix 2 outlets that do not work he can find the problem.

The cell phones do not work today, I guess the rain has the system messed up. Maybe its just me lol but seems everything I touch today does not want to work, even my new sewing machine has been a problem today.

As I read back over this it seems that I have not done anything exciting lol but somehow it seemed GREAT to me, lol. I am ready and forward to getting the grand kids here soon.

Mid May

This new life is getting better all the time. I have been sleeping in until 8, I refuse to sleep later than that on a daily basis, maybe the weekends I will. On Friday I spent 5 hours in the beauty shop getting hair done, pedicure, etc. I was not as happy with my hair as last time, I think they put too much hi and not enough low, lol. Oh well next time I will stress more low. I had expected rain for the day but the sun was out so when I finally got out of the beauty shop I headed back to the lake for my pontoon ride... the 1st one of the year. It was great, I stopped and got a subway sandwich on my way home so I enjoyed my lunch while I cruised the lake. I did get a little sun but not too much. This is the 1st time in years I have not had any sun at all when I came to the lake for vacation. Next week I will start working on my tan be it tanning bed or the real stuff, lol.







Pat had worked so hard cleaning windows before I got here and he was not sure why but they looked horrible, he blamed the windex. I have been sold on windex for years and I knew it could not be and had proved that by doing a lil bit on Thursday night to prove it. So after the pontoon ride that was the next order of business for me "Cleaning windows on the lakeside. This required a 12 ft ladder and a lot of trust in the ladder holder, lol. I climbed and cleaned and it became obvious to me what the problem was. I asked Pat if he by chance cleaned the white trim and window facings as he cleaned the windows... he had...well you just can't clean anything at the same time as you clean windows... not with the same rags anyway. I was pooped when that was finished and Pat recleaned the windows on the inside. Now I can relax when I am relaxing, instead of looking at streaked windows thinking I need to clean them, lol. By the time I went to bed I was feeling the soreness in my legs from climbing the ladder many times.




Saturday was going to be a rainy day so I was up by 8 to get some things out of the storage building that I wanted in the house and also the water things to put in the patio storage. This went well while it was cool outside. Pat just don't do mornings and I am usually raring to go....this does create many DISCUSSIONS... and why do opposites attract so much? We really are so opposite in most ways lol. We managed to get this done and I think he even tackled his stuff to the point he says you can now walk thru the building. We have plans to build him some shelves and such to get his building organised, This will be a big accomplishment and will take some time. Next week we WILL spend one morning loading up the stuff that needs to be carried to good will and garbage and get that out of there. I made a walmart run to get a few things that had been building on my list and discovered that I just can not go shopping anywhere else the day I go to walmart, so now I still need to go to home depot to get some things and Penny's to exchange some shorts for Chris and Kyle. Saturday afternoon was spent tinkering around with my sewing.






The trees have leaved out and I can't tell how my house looked from the lake as well.

Notice how straight the walkway is, seemed strange not walking uphill even a little bit.

Sunday it started to sink in just how much I was going to enjoy my new life. I slept in cooked lunch for my parents, took an afternoon nap instead of driving to Mississippi. It was a rainy day and a nap was just what I wanted.

My Last Day of Work

Yes the countdown to my last day of work is at ZERO and I am into the minutes now. It has been a good week and a day of mixed emotions. I cut the lock on my locker on Tuesday and cleaned out my locker in the plant. I threw everything away. The lock was stuck, it has been years since I have used it possibly 10 years. There was popcorn, tuna, peanut butter cheese crackers, can of soup, Vienna sausage, frying pan, tooth brush, tooth paste, my original hard hat, a set of scrubs, can opener and a folder with a bunch of family tree stuff. I did keep the family tree folder.





Today has been filled with mixed emotions. The guys got me teary eyed in the morning briefing and I just could not help it. I am Happy not mad or sad geeesh so why the tears? I reckon it is just me and I will always be that way. The guys in the office brought me in a cake and at lunch we celebrated a bit.... I started making rounds to tell folks bye and got teary eyed again so had to quit that for a bit. I had many folks come by to say bye and wish me fun and good times. I had many reminisce with me some of the good times and things that have occurred along the way. I assure you they were the better times at GGNS. I had many hugs and for the most part finally got to the point that I shed no tears. I made short stops throughout the afternoon in the different departments to say by, so as not to lose the tears. Now I just wait for the clock to tick on and would you believe my computer time is froze at 3:04 pm. I hope that is not a sign....





Tomorrow my new life will begin.... early as I plan to get up at the normal time or earlier to head to THE LAKEHOUSE.



My 1st day worked out Great! I left for Bama about 5:30 a.m. and before I got to the interstate I was again in tears...geeeesh. This is not part of my plan to be in tears as I approach my new life. Dang as I type this the tears come again, lol. You know 30 years is a long time and I guess I know that like high school many of these friends I have spent so much of my life with I will never see again. I know that several have retired before me over the last 5 years or so and I have not seen many of them at all. I do plan to keep contact and maybe even go to the training center and eat lunch sometime when I am bored in Vicksburg or just need to remind myself how bad I hate training.



I really had a nice day, I unloaded my things and got most of them put away. Pat has really gotten lots of things done while I have been gone and the lake level is so high... darn I should have taken a picture today. I had stopped in Tuscaloosa at Lowe's and bought 6 rose shrub so 0nce I found the perfect spot, Pat set 3 of them out for me. I will find the perfect spot for the others tomorrow. I put miracle grow on my garden today and will actually have some cherry tomatoes to pick soon. I got so sleepy sitting out on the patio under the fans... ok I actually fell asleep. I took a shower and just plain crawled in bed for a nap.. that's what retired folks do? Technically I am on vacation until the 24Th of June. I am not a napper but it did feel good today.

I have so much I want to do that I don't know where to start and strangely I have not had time to make a plan, lol. I don't even feel pressured to hurry... because I have so much more time to do them than I did. I think I will just spoil myself until Monday and then develope me a daily routine. I guess I will be on an emotional roller coaster at times until a few days after that final checkout date.

1st week in MAY

I was determined I would get my retirement papers signed this week. So On Monday I started that task and found out that again no one was around to sign them. I have been patient but enough is enough. I just do not understand the big deal on this signing thing. Oh I did have one boss decide he would sign them and had his pen out until I started telling him he has to go into this program and put in information.....Well that ended that. I have really got close to a signing 2 times now in going on 3 weeks, lol. ON Tuesday there was a meeting for folks over 50 about RETIREMENT BENEFITS, it was a good meeting and informative. I learned I could retire any day I wanted after the 23rd of June and it did not have to be the last day of the month as I had always heard. I also learned that you can take your vacation all at one time.... which has been the BIG issue with the HR department and the problem with my bosses being able to sign my papers. Just to make sure that I understood correctly after the meeting I went to talk to the speaker and he confirmed what I knew all alone.. but the HR man was close by and saw me talking to the speaker and butted in and told me I could not and I swear the speaker looked at this HR man like you idiot... what are you talking about? Anyway I got really pissed and of course he could not show me anything in writing and suddenly it was a practice instead of policy..... I finally just walked off. YES I was crying and MAD. I am suppose to be HAPPY and everyone is suppose to be HAPPY for me...SO why are they making this not the happiest time of my life?As I went back to the plant I saw the next level boss up from all that I have been dealing with and he asked me how I was doing? Wrong day for that, lol. I told him not too good and continued to explain why... and he knew about the issue, because all these folks that can not reply to phone calls or emails apparently can forward to others. He asked me to give him 2 days to solve this problem. I thought this is Tuesday and lets see Wednesday then Thursday ... here we go again it will be OFF Friday and I will be back at this again next week. Wednesday did not start out any better. I got to work and my parking spot was taken by someone that has no respect for others apparently. I parked where I could and wrote a note to leave on the truck and took the tag numbers down. I noticed a bill on the dash and the truck was unlocked so... yes I did I found out who it was and got even more pissed. It was another operator and just the fact that he has no respect for a brother/ sister sent me straight to the phone and called him. He will never forget that call and it will probably be talked about by many for years to come. He went and moved his truck and I never moved my van. I was even the topic of SAFETY Meeting at the morning meeting..."BE WARE OF SANDRA". I did get my papers signed today and now I retire 6 days sooner than I was which makes me have a few more days off in May than I had planned. My last day to work will be Wednesday and I go back to check out on June 24th..... the day after I become eligible to retire. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The rest of the work week went GREAT! I had to get busy to get some work done and get things ready to take off to Bama next week.



Brooke and I went shopping Thursday night and Friday night for swim suits. She found several she liked and we decided on 2, Hope Chris understands that women's swimsuits cost much more than men's, lol. BlAke had a spring game somewhere on Thursday night and was after midnight getting home, therefore I did not get to bed until after midnight, nor did Kyle. It is nice to have Kyle able to do the Blake running, lol. Blake was pooped on Friday and in bed by the time Brooke and I got back from shopping.

Saturday was busy with me running to Jackson to get something for my sewing machine, they are working on I-20 and I could not get back on the interstate going to Vicksburg no matter how hard I tried and I was not sure I wanted to since the traffic was backed up in the west bound lane. I detoured and went by a crafty store to see what they had that I might NEED. My trip was much longer than planned, but I got what I needed. The rest of the weekend was spent playing with my sewing machine. I had a nice Mothers Day, Kids in and out and phone calls and chilling all day. I felt bad not cooking a lunch for everyone cause I could have, and Chris was even off.

I have the biggest mess in my den with all my sewing and it makes it hard for me to ask kids to clean up stuff. I have Jury duty tomorrow and hope I do not get selected so I can finish up some projects I want to do before I pack all my sewing stuff away to carry to Bama on Thursday. I doubt I get to sew much while I am there, but I will get my room set up better where its not such a pain to get organized if I get a chance. Blah--- blah--- blah--- I am so ready for some Summer Fun and something exciting to blog about, lol.

May? Or is it April? Showers all weekend.

After much weather watching I decided to go to Bama anyway, and it was a good weekend. It rained and rained and rained but that was OK too, until I had to leave. I wanted to stay so bad and just watch the lake level rise...but I had to go so I can work this week and chase Bosses again. I still have not gotten my retirement paperwork signed! Its rediculous and I am out of ideas on who to call and what to do....I do know it will happen... at some point someone will get brave, lol. Anyway I don;t have a lot to tell about my weekend other than I did get my flowers planted before the rain started. I also got to see the new slab turnaround spot. I sure wish I had enough money to pour a concrete drive, but there is just no way at this time to do that. WARNING!!! WARNING!!!!WARNING!!!! If you come to visit you might not want to park by the front door even if it is raining... especially if it is raining. There has been fresh dirt put there that now has tire tracks in it... DEEP tire tracks, I was stuck when I got ready to leave today and Pat had to pull me out.

We are getting closer to finished, we still have some rock work to be done and hopefully they start that this week. We also need gutters really really bad andI hope that happens this week. The contractor only has a couple things to finish like painting 1 door and staining the front door a lil touchup painting and cleaning out the rest of his stuff in the garage. I did have a major accomplishment this weekend and that was finally getting to put my Christmas decorations away in their new home, lol.It was really nice to sit outside under the pavillion andwatch it rain, I think we will really enjoy having a roofed area outside.This is the lake view from the bedroom deck and you can see that the pier was not under wateron Friday but it is now and I suspect will be over the middle bar by tomorrow evening.

Until next time stay dry , lol.