Small World!

My friend, who is the developer of this new subdivision, wanted to show my house to the people who will be building the house next to me. When they came by, I didn't know them, but it turns out that he went to school for a while in my home town and was in the class with my brother. When I told my mom who he was, she remembered him for one reason.....she thought he was the one who stole my brother's class ring!!! I told Mom to please just let that GO! Stewart got his ring back, but Mom doesn't remember how. Actually, he was the Methodist minister's son, so they never stayed in one place for a long time. It's amazing to me...the things my mom remembers!

Holy Crap!

If we had winds like this when I lived in Texas, they would have had a name...a tropical storm name! Tropical storms become named at 39 mph, I think. We have beat that a lot today. The airport has had to close down stranding many passengers in Shreveport. This has been made worse due to DFW closing down as well. Almost all flights from SHV go to Dallas for connections. Gusts have been clocked at 60!

Weather gods are angry again....

Once again we are under a tornado watch and a wind advisory. It's nearly 80 degrees with a cold front on the way. This makes for "a particularly dangerous situation"....their words, not mine! We heard this a lot Friday night. I have moved all the plants inside that could blow away or break from the winds.
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Finally, the AC man came back today after I called him yesterday. He took a measurement several months ago to add a booster fan to my AC system, but never came back. Today he changed the ducts to the master bedroom and bath to a larger size. Hopefully, this will help to cool them a little better. There are huge windows in the bedroom which could contribute to the poor job of cooling, but that would not affect the bathroom. I hope this works. If not, he will come back and add a booster fan.....all this at no charge because he wants it to be right and he installed the system originally. I like that work ethic!

A rant!

It's been a long time since I had a rant, so I am overdue. My calm demeanor gets a little riled when everybody in the damn Wal-Mart is talking on their cell phones. Why can't they just get out of the way if they have to talk? Personally, I don't see any reason why one has to carry on a big conversation while they are supposed to be shopping. They are loud and obnoxious and IN THE WAY! They are totally oblivious to any other shoppers in the store! OK. I'm done!

Wow! Just Wow!

Tonight I went to the Easter musical at my church. I usually don't go on Sunday nights, but this was a special event and well worth it. It was incredibly moving and the music was awesome. The rest of the day I was basically useless. After church and lunch at my brother's, I was comatose for a couple of hours. I woke up once again sometime in the night with my toe showing signs of gout again, so I medicated myself. My doc doubled my meds that are supposed to prevent recurrence...obviously, that is not working!

God's wrath....

As I was watching TV last night the weatherman broke into programing with a tornado warning. Turns out all the weathermen reported for duty and stayed on the air for two hours nonstop! I knew it was serious when that happened. They run crawlers along the bottom of the screen, but never come on live and stay on. There were tornados very close by. Their weather equipment is just amazing. We knew exactly where the tornados were and where they would be every minute. It was scary!

I'm used up already...

And it's only 2 P.M.............This day has been a wonderful day all spent outside getting things done in the yard. I heard people over at my new neighbor's house, so I went over at lunch time and went to Sonic to get lunch for them. I felt bad because all her friends were over there helping clean the house getting ready for her and her husband to move next week and I wasn't over there helping. I'm trying to get everything finished here so I can devote my time to gardening at Dad's. Yesterday I spent hours at the garden taking advantage of the weather and some partially dry soil. I got lots of tilling done and planted 4 rows of potatoes. After that I was used up yesterday, too! There is a pattern here......I'm used up A LOT! I just can't do like I used to!

Channel surfing...

Last night I was channel surfing because since the time change I am staying awake late and sleeping late. I happened on the first episode of High School Reunion, a reality show. It's the class of '87 from J.J. Pearce High school in Richardson, Texas. I was hooked. There are about 15 members of that class, none of which knew who was going to be there (set in Maui). I kept thinking back to the high school where I taught and remembering the class of '87. I would absolutely love to see them on a show like this. That was an awesome group of kids who turned in to very successful adults. They would be perfect for that show.Now I am addicted and have it scheduled into my DVR for recording.

Check this out!

At Christmas this was a huge baseball size bulb given to me as a gift by a cousin. I planted it and left it in the garage. Mom told me the garage was too cold and I should move it inside. I did and this is what it turned in to. Absolutely gorgeous Amaryllis!

It's Spring!

According to my work schedule today, spring is officially here. Mom cooked collard greens, hot water cornbread, sweet potatoes and white perch for lunch. Of course, I wasn't going to miss that. After lunch and a brief rest, I tackled mowing the thick winter grass in my yard. It is so hard to mow, but it was very high and thick. As soon as I finished mowing, two of my friends dropped by to visit while I was sitting outside enjoying a rest and some sunshine. I planted some more plugs of zoysia grass in some places that grass won't grow. Also, planted some hostas that a friend shared with me. She is building a house right behind me and is digging up hostas from her old house. This has been my kind of day!

What's going on?

In the past month, two of my former teacher friends have died. Both of them were slightly younger than I am. Weird things are going on. I don't believe either of them were completely retired. They retired from our school district, but took jobs in other places. It's a shame to work your entire life....then die! I am loving my retirement!

Ladies night out...

We went to Cirque du Soleil Saltimbanco today at the CenturyTel Center. It was an awesome show well worth the $80 tickets. Afterwards, we had dinner reservations at Four Winds, an Asian restaurant. That was also awesome, but we ordered way too much food. There were 5 of us and we all ordered an entre.....big mistake! We should have ordered 3 entres. Overall, good night!

Snow update..

It has snowed nonstop since about 9 this morning, but now it is melting as fast as it is falling. It has been fun and pretty all day, but it's heavy, wet snow that it not very conducive to playing. All the schools got out early. Why? I have no idea. The roads are fine, but I'm sure it was impossible to do school stuff. These kids have mostly never seen snow, so I'm sure it was mostly to just let them enjoy the snow.

It's SNOWING! Big time!

Not only is it March, but it's Louisiana! Take that, Al GORE!

Winter weather advisory!

We have been hearing for two days about the big, bad winter weather coming our way. Today I could have gotten in my car and driven north for 1 and 1/2 hours and I would have been in snow all day. Yes, it was 70 degrees here at my house. It's crazy! Tonight and tomorrow we could have 1 to 2 inches of snow! I'll believe it when I see it....after all, this is the DEEP south! It never snows here, but I wish it would.

I lost it!!!

I hate these stupid things. Today I totally lost it trying to get mine to work. Normally, I am just very low key and have lots of patience, but every time I have ever tried to use one of these damn things, they wouldn't work. This time, I just came unglued and took a sledge hammer and beat the thing into oblivion. Tomorrow I will buy a new one because I don't know what else to use to spray the azaleas and everything else that needs spraying. My azaleas have lace bugs and don't look good at all, so they have to be sprayed!One thing is for sure...I will NOT buy the same kind that I beat to pieces today.

Coma day...

I never even got past my flannels and a t shirt today. There was no reason due to inclement weather, so I just stayed around in bed mostly...completely worthless! For several days the weather forecasters have been harping on bad weather coming on Monday. All it did was rain. My new drainage system sort of worked. I think I need to lower it a tiny bit. It still has some water standing in front of the pipe.

More incompetence!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have no tolerance for incompetence. Today I had a craving for strawberry pie, so I took a little road trip to Shreveport to a place that I know has awesome strawberry pie. I ordered a piece of strawberry and a piece of coconut. When I got home....30 miles away...I was all set for my strawberry pie. The damn bag had chocolate and coconut in it....NO STRAWBERRY! I was pissed....in fact, I'm still pissed!

Whew!

I have spent the better part of the last two days working in my yard trying to get caught up before I have to devote all my time to gardening at Dad's. All the old mulch has been cleaned out and replaced with new pine straw. The rains were coming, so I had to get in gear and get it done. There is not much left to do...just wait for the new growth to come on all the established plants and make a drain through my rose bed in the back. I damed up the natural water flow of the back when I made that bed, so I am digging some of it out and putting a 4 inch PVC pipe down. It will then be covered with mulch and hardly noticeable. I also have ordered 200 zoysia grass plugs and the tool to plant them with. It sounds like a hardy grass that will spread and inhibit weed growth.

I BIT the BULLET....

and hired the professionals to come 6 times a year and do the stuff that I am, apparently, failing at. Last weekend I went to a Home and Garden Show and signed up to win a free year of taking care of my yard. I didn't win, but, of course, they came and looked at my yard and told me about all the weeds that are in it. They even lowered their lowest price for me because my yard is so small. They came today for the first treatment. I think I did the right thing!