Seeing someone

I am seeing someone. It is still early yet, so it is all so new but it is nice.

I had forgotten how wonderful men can be.

It is fantastic to be reminded.

Absolutely Nothing to Report.

We have officially entered the horrible rainy season at the coast. Not the kind of rain that actually waters stuff but the misting kind that makes my hair poof up and be seen from space. I totally hate it.

I have power. I now have had power three TOTAL days in a ROW. It is like winning the Power ball only with no money and instead a light bulb that works. Super!

The dogs have been very poorly behaved and I think Olive is going through her terrible two's at 8 months of age. In all things bad, she is well ahead of the curve. In two days, she has chewed up three rugs, 2 shirts, 1 pair of pants and 1 billion unmentionables. You can say "Why don't you pick up your clothes, you messy thing. Didn't your mother teach you any better?" And the answer would be no, she didn't teach me any better but I have picked them up and put them in the hamper. Only Olive has figured out if you throw your giant hairy body against the hamper, it falls over and Boom, all sorts of fun has just been scattered around the laundry room. I am looking for a heavier hamper or a lighter dog, which ever I find first shall solve the problem.

So other than that, it is a very boring mundane existence I am leading. And I am so FINE with that. After all the excitement of the last year, a little boring is nice. I am reading A LOT. I am crafting. I am calm and content. I really hope it takes for a while.

power

Day three without power! Seriously, there is something so wrong in my world. I had a water leak and it leaked into the fuse box and shorted the whole little thing to pieces. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

After I figured out it wasn't the whole neighborhood, and oh wasn't this fun with candles and the fireplace, and it was just me without power. Let's just say I am not the brightest bulb in the package. The fact that I have a street light right outside the front of my house, could have been a clue, IF I HAD A MIND.

Emergency power guy came out. He tried. I had power for 30 minutes before it shorted out again. It was a lot like winning the lottery for 30 minutes before you realize you just wrote down the winning numbers on a piece of paper, they are NOT your numbers, which are not even close to the winning numbers. I almost got warm. I almost had a delicious chicken pot pie cooked. I almost had the coffee done. Pop. Back in the dark. Not fun with candles anymore.

The neighbors came with a flashlight. The emergency power guy came out, nothing he could do. I was sent back in time to the 1800's and I did not like it. I read by flashlight. Went to bed at 9:30, I was bored.

Sunday, no power the entire day. Finally about 4:30 yesterday, they got it almost all back on. Only the oven refuses to participate in the let's get our ass in gear and turn on. Today everybody back again to finish the job.

Nothing in my house is to code. Nothing is easy or located in the place it is suppose to be. My meter box is located too close to an open window. In Seaside, it is a law that you can't have your meter box next to a window because at one time, a meter reader was reading a meter, the homeowner thought she/he was a peeping tom, and shot and killed her/him. Now they also have to wear orange vests, the readers not the meter. That needs to move.

My power into the house is too close to an upstairs window that opens. Since I may open the window and play around with live electrical cords, I now need to hire a window guy to make the window inoperable. I can't make this stuff up.

Right now I have power. Tomorrow no power.

I do have to say that this weekend has really repaired my faith in my fellow men. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has bent over backwards for me. The power guy worked on his birthday. One power guy babysat the other guy's children so he could go on the roof to repair the lines. The power company came out three times yesterday. The neighbors brought me hot food, had me over for dinner, provided me a warm bed, helped me dismantle my driveway gate so I could leave my house. All this has been done with a smile and a kind attitude.

I feel so lucky to have landed here. Though I also like power. A LOT.

A date? or not?

Ok, this weekend sucked. My power box blew up and I had no power all weekend. It just sucked. The neighbors brought over a flashlight and tonight have invited me for dinner. So it is looking up.

I need help. Your help. How do you know if someone asked you out on a date? I mean if they said "Would you like to go on a date?" Even someone as out of the loop as me could understand that.

What if they said "Would you like to go to dinner?" Is that a date invitation? or a hey I'm being nice to the old single lady next door to me? kind of thing. What if they said "Would you like to come over for a drink?" What does that mean? Are these datey kind of things? How does one know?

I really need some advice on this. Do I get dressed up? Arg! this is hard. Plus, he is really a nice guy and I don't want to do something wrong and end up looking like a serious deranged loon. Do you think I should look for a book? a class? a Ouija board?

Someone, anyone please direct me.

Happy Anniversary to ME!

Happy Anniversary to me! I am celebrating tonight. I am having wine and circus peanuts along with a mini-marathon of The Mentalist on the telly. What a party. Olive will go nuts, for some strange reason the voice of the guy who plays the Mentalist (Simon something or other) drives her into the other room. She is odd, just go with it.

I could show you some more craft projects, but that is boring to you.

I filled out some more job applications, that is boring to me.

It is raining here to beat the band, that is boring for EVERYONE.

I have spent the last few days cleaning the house to have it appraised. The appraiser never showed. I still have a clean house, so that will make the party even more fun.

Last night I went through the Julia Child cookbook that my wonderful neighbor bought for me, and I decided to cook something French to bring to the Halloween party. I hope it works out. It would be just my luck to send everyone to the hospital with food poisoning. Now I need to choose something. Something easy it goes without saying.

I had to call and explain to some companies that I can't pay them right now. They were all super, SUPER nice and extended my payment schedule.

I am selling on Ebay. Right now I am selling off my mermaids. It is hard.

In one year I have become a person I would like to know. In fact, I like me. This is a great anniversary!

Now if only the dogs had sent me a gift, it would totally 100% perfect. They are such lazy asses.

Lucky indeed

So tomorrow is my one year anniversary. The anniversary when I kicked the lying, cheating scum to the curb and said. . . . well, never mind what I said since it was all horrible, mean, and felt oh, so good to say it. One whole year on my own.

Ups and Downs, still more Downs than Ups but starting to balance out. I love the fact that a year has gone by. Now when I look back I have done every day by myself. No more of the "this time last year I was still married. ." nonsense. No Siree, every day mine ALL MINE. Good, bad, and extremely ugly. Still mine.

I have made new friends. I have a Halloween party to look forward to. I have applied for a job. I have fixed things. I have made dishes from new recipes. I have traveled alone, driven alone, and lived alone. All in one year. 365 days. 8766.1536 hours. 525948.766 minutes. 31446925.9936 seconds. All these changes were done in such a short amount of time. With all of these wonderful things, wonderful people, is it wrong to ask for more? I couldn't decide, so I asked anyway and received the best thing ever.

The best thing ever, EVER, is the kid is coming home for a visit. To see me. To come home, my home, his home, our home. With all the bad that he has been through, and trust me when I say a kid SHOULD never have to go through what he did, he still wants to see me. The mother who still feels that she failed him. Let him down. Destroyed his world. This mother gets another great thing.

She who doesn't deserve it, she gets a eighteen year old boy flying all the way home to spend a weekend with his mom.

I am lucky indeed.

Halloween Crafts

My financial situation has hit the OMG we are so sinking like a stone and we are all going to DIE scenario. So that is boring and not any fun to think about, or write about. Until I get it resolved I will be off and on the blogging world.

So, worrying about that is all fun and good but I decided to craft. Halloween crafts. Where I live now I doubt I will get any trick or treaters. My street is mostly second homes and even those are not owned by families with children. The Seattle home on the other hand, was a GOLD mine of children. We would give away over 300 hundred candy bars on that night.

I hit up my local Ross dress for less, the best store EVER, to buy up items that can be remade. I picked up some ugly pumpkins, well the pumpkins weren't ugly but the color was, so I spray painted them white, then using my finger dotted them with black spots. I painted the stems black and gave them a jaunty black and white ribbon. Easy, peasy. On a couple of them, after the white treatment, I took on rub on letters the spelled out Halloween words.

I needed a Halloween gift for the kid. I had some empty boxes I had kept from a paint your own turkey craft we did a few years ago. They came from Pottery Barn and were a pretty nice plain box.
I made two. One to give to my girl friend for her daughter and one for the kid. The one for the kid I'm not going to show, in case (HE HAD BETTER) he reads my blog, I don't want to spoil the surprise. I wish the surprise was that he was coming home, but that is a different blog post.
Anyway, I decoupaged the box in various papers. This is a great project for using up all the little scraps of paper that are left from bigger projects. I set that aside to dry.

I have some rubber stamps that are paper dolls. These are the BEST stamps I have ever bought. They are not made anymore and I really wish I had bought the rest of the outfits. There are lots of companies out there that make doll stamps though, so maybe when my finances turn around I will purchase some other ones. If you are interested, they will be easily found and I have even seen some that you can use brads and make their arms and legs move. SWEET.
I made all the outfits in a Halloween theme. I paper pieced them together so I could use all sorts of different papers. This is very simple and just takes time and glue along with an exacto knife. Cut, glue, cut, glue. I went on a Halloween Ball box and I think it turned out very nice.

I embellished the girls with tattoos, hats and risque undergarments. Colored in their hair, eyes and gave them blushing cheeks. Printed out the words, cut them out, and decoupaged them on to the box. One word of caution, if you have a ink jet printer, decoupage medium will make the colors run. To stop this, you can simply spray a coat of clear coat over the paper, let it dry and then decoupage it. If you have a laser printer, this won't be an issue. In a pinch I have used hairspray but you may run a much better craft room then I do.

One of my blogs I follow has some free clip art, I printed it out, sprayed it, let it dry, cut it out and applied it on the side. Now it is all done except for the mailing.I have to say I am a little nervous about sending it. I have given many gifts of stuff I have made but this will be my first piece of altered art to someone that is not family. I figure it they hate it, just throw it away and buy something at a store.