Saturday, May 30, 2020

Happy unofficial summer!

Summer made a definite appearance earlier this week - we had to put the air conditioners in the windows last weekend since it was so miserable (to us, anyway) high 80s with high humidity and BabyBoy was NOT happy!  

Of course now - it's back down into the 60s & what I consider to be perfect weather. 
I went to the local greenhouse and got most of my annuals for the year.  I really like sweet potato vines so that's the 6 dark ones in front (bewitched after midnight - how perfect!!), they're on the front porch along with the spikes.  The "campfire" coleus on the right went in a hanging basket, the 2 orange "dahlieta"s went into a planter on the patio and the 2 persian shields seen back left are now in different planters on the patio.  I"m thinking really the only other thing I want is a Boston fern like I had last year to hang from the tree out front.  I hope they have them cheap at Kroger again this year, but I haven't been to one since before the stay-home orders happened.   The Kroger marketplaces here have been insane, so we've stuck with going to Walmart Supercenter or Meijer's for food & necessities. 
My lilac & redbud tree didn't bloom at the same time this year - booo!  The tree bloomed and then it rained hard, so most of the petals got washed away.  And the lilac was just pokey this year.
Gratuitous cute nap pic.   
We went to visit my dad on Memorial Day.  He's actually on the other side of that file cabinet (I'm sure there's a proper name for this structure where all the niches are, but I don't know what it is!)  All of the flags were a nice touch, lining the sidewalk and dotting the veteran's graves.   It was a beautiful day.  

We were trying to decide what Dad would have called BabyBoy.  He didn't give the older grandkids nicknames for some reason, but the younger ones all had them.  We decided he'd be called String Bean.  
Gonna be 5 months old next week!

So I got a call from the office manager at work Wednesday - I'm going back on Tuesday!  
After 11 weeks off.  I'm kind of looking forward to it, but I'm also not.  I've been keeping an eye on my emails and saw they've hired 2 new people, but have let at least 7 people go!  And one of them I know just hit her 20 year mark just before I did earlier this month.   So I kind of want to get filled in on all the gossip. 

Do I even remember how to do my job????
blinking trailer park boys GIF
And I got a call from them last week saying they're asking people to sell back vacation days since there's no way they can approve that many people taking all their days in the second half of the year.  I already put in for, and have been approved for my usual time off at Christmas, so that's fine with me.  I told them I would be requesting the Monday after Halloween off, since I always do, but I'd sell back some. 

Speaking of Halloween.....
I'm almost finished with the new & newly repainted headstones for my cemetery!  I have a few minor touchups that I'll probably do today and a big one that I completely forgot about.  But the major project for 2020 is almost done!  I cut out a total of 13 new stones and repainted all of the old ones.   I guess it's a good thing I was off work for so long, since I would have been doing this in the afternoons and weekends otherwise.  Having this done while it's still relatively cool out is nice. 
Commence Operation Sunscreen Slather!

The Spouse & I went to Walmart yesterday and he was happy to find our regular brand of TP!
There was some dance moves involved with this pic!
He grew up using the thin cheap stuff, so when he moved out on his own, he discovered he liked Quilted Northern and always used it since.  That made it easy for me when we moved in together, since I never "shopped" for TP - just grabbed this stuff!  But of course when all the TP hoarding happened, we had to make due with some brand we'd never heard of, but was adequate. 

Tomorrow I'm going out to my sister's to mess with horses a little bit, then we're going to meet up with the SAR team for the first time in several months to get ID card pics taken, pick up some new shirt and do requisite paperwork.  Yay.  Then we'll go back to her house & I'll help her with painting her arena fence for a while.  Woot. 

So anyway - I'm going to finish this post up, throw the bathroom rugs in the washer, then get outside to finish painting!   

Have a great weekend!

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Thursday, May 14, 2020

Day 53... and counting

Oooooo, my Blogger updated! It's funky now! I thought it was odd that I didn't notice anything different when I "switched over" a while back. Guess because it probably didn't switch until now. I'm assuming it's only the behind-the-scenes stuff that's different now. It's not user friendly at all! 

Please let me know if anything seems wonky!

So yeah. It's been 53 days since I've been laid off from work. I've had exactly one email from my boss, letting me know they haven't forgotten about me - gee thanks. And I text the office manager once a week to remind her to water my couple plants that I left there. She's been calling me about once a week to check up on us.  I've been in contact with 2 other coworkers - actually 1 coworker, since the other found out she was being terminated. And she found out by seeing her job listed on ZipRecruiter!!! How crappy is that???? Anyway, she applied for it!
I would have loved to see their reaction when they realized who was applying for that position! 

Anyhoo. Nothing exciting has been going on. We've been having off & on decent weather so I've been getting outside whenever I can. I've still been working on stuff for Halloween. I've cut out 13 new headstones. I repainted ALL of my old "stones" and Spawn got a good start putting the silly epitaphs back on them. 
I really thought about tossing all my old cheap foam stones since they don't go with the "aesthetic" of my cemetery. But for shitz & gigglez, I decided to post a pic of them on the Motor City Haunt Club Facebook page and see if anyone wanted them. I was honestly surprised at the interest! The first girl who commented was over within an hour to pick them up. And judging by how she was dressed, they're going to a good home! She had skeleton leggings on, hand earrings, a coffin purse (which was pretty freakin' cool, actually) and a black widow on the side of her car in front of the doors, etc. 
I brought 4 of the stones in last night because I used Gorilla glue to add some things on them and wanted them plenty of time to set up & cure where it wasn't cool & damp. 2 of 3 cats had issues with this strange stuff being on the kitchen table! Maddie kept trying to lead us into the kitchen while meowing (that's her way of telling us something is wrong in her world) and Rusty jumped up there and acted like he couldn't believe his eyes / nose! 

We got to see the Blue Angels fly over Detroit on Tuesday. They were supposed to flyover with the Thunderbirds last week but that got postponed due to crappy weather. 
This photo is from the Detroit News as they pass the Renaissance Center downtown. We only got a quick glimpse of them thru the trees from our patio.

Then yesterday we got to see the "Michigan Strong" flyover from the Selfridge Air National Guard base not far from here. 
These are was a KC-135 and 3 A-10s this time. The spouse was able to track the KC135 on some program he has on his laptop so we knew when they were getting close. We also saw them thru the trees, but at least we saw them! 

Then Sunday was Mother's Day. Spawn & I took BabyBoy over the my Mom's for a "social distance" visit. She loves being able to see one of her great-grandbabies since the other 4 all live out of state! The Spouse stayed home since he occasionally gets burst blood vessels in his eye and of course it happened Saturday. It looks really nasty! Like the whole white of his eye will be red. 
BabyBoy had his 4 month appointment yesterday. 
27 inches tall, 17lb 11oz! 
And he got the clearance to start rice cereal & stage 1 baby foods. 
Maddie wasn't a fan of him barely touching her....
While Rusty intentionally puts himself where he is going to get kicked! 

I was supposed to go out with my search & rescue team this weekend for an evidence search / hopeful recovery but the stay-at-home order got pushed out longer so it's also been pushed out until next month.  I was looking forward to getting some time in on a search!   Ppppbth. 

So that's about all the excitement going on around here. It's actually after midnight now, so I should change the title to 54 days.... but oh well!
In The House Quarantine GIF by Trap Bob

And some cuteness for the road....
Even tho I was in the Navy, I am OK with him wearing camo!