Cranky

I woke up cranky from my nap today. My fault. My dog has always slept in my bed and even though it was a hot humid day she is a snuggle bunny and she likes to lean on me in bed. I woke up hot. That started it.

I went to get the clothes out of the dryer and I saw that the crappy stain remover did not work on some shirts. I used to use SHOUT IT OUT! That was a gel and it had a little scrubby brush and that stuff worked for me. I can't find it anymore so I swapped to Stain be gone, that was crap. I then went to Spray N Wash with RESOLVE POWER. That does not work. Today I tried SHOUT ADVANCED with stain lifting foam. I figured that it was SHOUT stuff, bound to work right? NOT. That made me a little bit more cranky.

On the way to work a guy was on my tail. ( I was getting my crank on good by then!) I was doing the speed limit but I guess that was not fast enough. I took a left and he went straight. Good thing, I was getting ready to "wave" at him.

When I got to work? The A/C was running full tilt and the fan was going and I was surrounded by books. Ahhhh................Not cranky anymore. Life is good.

Meet and greet.

Last night I was startled by some loud knocking on my door. It was about 8.30pm and I was thinking who could that be? It was my neighbors kid wanting to know if I had lost a black and white cat as it was hanging around their place. And also they ( His girlfriend was with him) came by to invite me to his dads birthday party and a little neighbor get together. I said noop not my cat and thanked them for the invite.

I talked to my friend Kellie this morning and she really encouraged me to go. She said that I needed to meet them and this was the perfect way. You never know when you might need their help or need to tell a neighbor that your sorry about your dog killing their cows and what not. ( Not that Abby would or could kill a cow, but you get the drift)

So I met Randy and his wife and their 2 kids. Their kid Micheal is 17, he's the one that came over last night. I was asked about guns and I said that I think everybody should have one. That was what they wanted to hear. They are the ones that shoot the guns that I hear. They like to target practice.

I also met Becky and her husband.(Can't remember his name ) The live down on the corner. The run a business from home. Leather and computers. Becky used to have 21 goats so she was excited to find out that I have goats. Now I have another person I can go to if I have a problem with my goats.

I met Bob, ( Wife was at home with a sick grand kid ) another neighbor that lives down the street. He was kind of quite, asked questions about Alaska. He and his wife are thinking about taking a cruise up there. He doesn't want too but she does.

I was teased that I say soda and not pop and also I call it a snow machine and not a snowmobile.
I told them that they are lucky that I didn't call it a snow go like I got to calling them when I lived in the bush.

I had a back up plan so that if I was uncomfortable I could escape. I ended up being there for 2 hours! Oh I also gave Randy a jar of the sour cherry jam that I just made for his birthday.

Little blessings

Today I gave blood. Here in Wisconsin they have the Red Cross taking your blood. Unlike Alaska where you go to the blood bank and give some. They were very nice. The cookies and juice was made from local volunteers. I ate some real good homemade cookies. Where the little blessing comes in. Today was wash day and all the good undies are not available for me to wear so that means I was wearing the bloomers that slide down.

It was so so hot while giving blood that I was drenched it sweat. In fact I was so hot that I started to feel kind of faint and sick to my stomach. So hot that my undies did NOT slide down as they were now stuck on me. Is that not a grand thing or not?

Back to giving blood. Up in Alaska my BP was always 120/68 but here it's higher. I don't like that. I was talking to the blood taker and he said that this kind of heat can cause stress and stress will up your BP. So I'm not too worried but I think I will keep an eye on it. Maybe take a BP test in the winter when I'm not all hot and sweaty.

What I learned.

I learned a few years ago that sticking a Bic pen into a fan is not a good ideal! A pencil? Now that's OK. A pencil will break off but a Bic pen will break the fan blades and broken fan blades are going pretty gosh darn fast and they will break the "cage" and "stuff" will go whizzing around the office. ( The things I do in the name of science, I have a very curious mind ) Yes, I went out and bought a new fan. I am very responsible that way.

So last night as I was watching TV and I had turned off the A/C. I had my floor fan going.
I heard a very odd "thiped thiped" noise and before I knew it, a big old moth got sucked into the intake side of the fan and got spit out on the other side. He got de-winged. It was kind of gross to see a moth body with no wings. I felt bad, more cause I was laughing at and not really feeling bad for the moth. Does that make me a bad person?


You want to know another thing I learned? That the perfume page thing that comes in a lot of magazines burns rather nicely and smells real pretty. Also you should not burn them while you're at work. They will leave a scorched mark on the floor and maybe somebody will see that and wonder why there is a burn mark on the floor. And you will need to play dumb. What?! They can't fire me, I no longer work there and it was all in the name of science.

F.Y.I. I was really a good employee. They miss me at my old job.

I did it.

I broke down today and went shopping with my friend Kellie. My light weight Alaska summer clothes are not doing it for Wisconsin summers. This was one of my better times shopping. I pretty much stayed in the dressing room and clothes were brought to me to try on. Also I now have 2 brand new unmentionables. I needed to buy them and also when I started to try on shirts the old one was to ......how do I say this? The girls needed to preform better for the new shirts. The old unmentionable was not "uplifting" I wore the one I tried on out the door, I like it so much. ( It might be true love ) Then as a reward for me doing good on shopping we went to Olive Garden for lunch.

This is a picture of what my womb mate sent to me for my birthday ( Hers too ) The coffee mug has wild Iris's on it and dragonfly's. ( 2 of my favorite things ) That big can of peas? Half way gone now. I love my family cook book. Now I wont have to call mom to get the recipe for lazy daisy frosting. You know what I have been wondering? If my twin and I, while in the womb were face to face or feet to face? Did I smell her feet for 9months? These are just some of the thought that come and go through my mind.

UGH!

This picture has nothing to do with this post! Other then it's a "happy" place for me. I need a happy scent place! The boat on the right hand side is " Carina" That's the boat I lived on for almost 3 years when I was a kid. Right now it's bringing back the fresh clean smell of the ocean, the smell of flowers and of green growing things. Not the smell of this fertilizer that's being put on the fields not more then 30 yards from my back yard! The smell had gotten so bad that I have retired to my bedroom with my reed diffuser that has a lime/cilantro scent and also some candles. Anything to mask the scent! Which is funny when you think about it. I used to work in a fish factory in Alaska during the summer for 2 years. You would think that if I can handle the smell from gutting tons of fish, mind you, not all the fish was fresh! That I could handle a little poop/rot stink. But I can't! Come on winter! We need some snow to cover this stuff!

Cemeteries

Is this an odd topic to blog about? I have no problems walking around cemeteries. Back when I lived in Alaska, there wasn't a lot of them around. Alaska is a young state and there is not a lot of cemetery history. Unlike here in Wisconsin, it seems like almost every Church has a cemetery attached to it. Here are just a few of the pictures that I took a while I was out and about. I know I stated it in another post, but to me, there is just something I find very peaceful about them.

Twin Hills

Yesterday I talked about the crane dinner that I had while I was in Twin Hills Alaska. That made me remember some other 1st that I had there. The people that I stayed with didn't have bathing facilities, all they had was a flushing toilet which was nice, don't get me wrong about that! So for a bath, I went with the the other women in the household to the communal steam bath. It was a little awkward as I think the word was out that a white girl was going to get naked as there was some other village woman there. We all striped and bathed and they peeked at me and I peeked at them! And when we got back home we went again to the Moms house for dinner. That night we had a seal roast with potatoes and onions which was yummy and also some seal oil, which was not so yummy! Thank God they had some tang made, as I needed that to wash down the seal oil! Then they said "oh, you need to dip your dried fish in it, that's better!" So I did, it wasn't! That was another glass of tang! I passed on the dried seal dripped in the seal oil with soy sauce as THAT, per the Mom, was the really best way to eat it! I'm just glad that they didn't have stink head or flipper for me to try! I don't know if I could have done that! And just so you know, just in case you are going to have some seal oil, you will be burping that for a long long time! Not a good thing!
Which reminds me....Somebody at PenAir still needs to send me my strips! And you know who you are Al! Get on him Suzy1! and Missy!

Corn Fields

I am surrounded by corn fields. I took this pic of the corn field by my house today , its still nice and green, well the tops are all brown and dried out. The corn is about 8 to 9 feet tall? Its a lot taller them me with my arm stretch as high as it will go! I was told that you can get lost in a corn field? I don't see how as they plant the corn in a straight row, all you would have to do is follow a row till you came to a road and then you wouldn't be lost anymore! I can see how if some crazy axe man was chasing you that you could hide in a corn field from him. Well, maybe a skinny person could, a bigger person would probably leave a trail of broken corn stalks! or have to go slow and go sideways in the corn row and then the crazy axe man would be able to catch you! As you can tell from this post, I was in the corn field as I thought all about this. Being that I don't like spiders I don't think that my 1st choice would be to go to the corn field if I was being chased by the crazy axe man, nor would I run into my forest! I have been in the forest a time or too looking for my dumb dog and if I thought that there was too many spiders in the cornfield? there is a ton more in the forest! plus there is the tick factor! I have to admit that I find it odd for myself that I would let spiders and ticks stop me from going there if I was being chased by a crazy axe man. So if a crazy axe man does decide to chase me, I think that I will have to come up with a different plan! Or maybe I should stop reading books about crazy axe men? Ya think?

Bone Yard

In aviation there is a bone yard, I think its in AZ where all the "dead" planes go. By dead, I mean planes that are too old to fly anymore or too badly broke to fix. That's where Hollywood goes to get airplanes to blow up in movies and stuff.
North of me is the small town of Ridgeland ( pop 257 ) and I saw this bone yard of old tractors. I never thought about what happens to tractors that get old and get replace by something shiny and new, I wonder if the old tractors feelings get hurt?
I know that people like old tractors but that's the real old antique ones that folks like, like my Dad! If he had been with me he would probably want to spend an hour walking around looking and touching them. Glad he was not with me! Not really, I would have been happy to spend 5 hours looking at them if my Dad was here visiting with me. But I just don't see Hollywood needing tractors to blow up in the movies. I mean come on, when was the last time that you saw that?

This haiku is for Nina! She will understand!
Forty eight hours.
Then you made me feel guilty!
Sandwich had lettuce.

Small Towns

Today, Colfax, the town that I go to, too go to the library was having the Fireman's parade, and the whole town, plus others came to it. In small towns the budget is small, so they ( Fire Department ) need to raise money, they had this parade and this was the scene 1 hour before the parade started! There was chairs lined up on both sides of the street for about 5 blocks! and yep, I was one of them, was advised to get there early or I would not have a spot! Good thing that I did!


Now this float cracked me up. It is really a riding lawn mower made to look like a big rig, the driver was squished up in the front.


This handsome drummer is my friend's kid, he been in the marching band for a few years now, he's a great drummer (really!) and also getting good on the electric guitar ( he better remember me when he's famous!)

Man and Machine! If its built, somebody has to make it go faster and bigger and louder. And this tractor had all 3!

How the Fire Department makes money is that after the parade there was a big to-do at the fair grounds, there was a chicken dinner for 6 bucks, a car from the local car dealer that was donated and went up for bid and also a auction, so all money raised went to the Fire Department. The chicken looked and smelled great! I had to see how the did that much chicken on such a big scale.

When all said and done, it was nice to see a community turn out to support the Fire Department, and the parade was held on "Main Street" I love it! I always wanted to live in a place that had a "Main Street" and, maybe its not my town, but its close enough.

It was time!

Well, I had to do it, I had to change the registration and title on my truck to a Wisconsin plate and now I have to go to the local D.M.V. on Monday and surrender my Alaska drivers license! Sad Sad day! I know I moved from Alaska to make Wisconsin my home but when big things and small things are tied to Alaska, its just one more thread that I'm cutting with Alaska and that makes me sad. Alaska has been a great place for me and I hope that some day it will be again. (not too soon) I feel stupid, as I'm getting a little teary just even typing this ( stop it Krissy!) maybe I'm a little home sick? I don't know, today I just feel like I have tender feelings! I had to change the T.V. as a dumb commercial was getting to me and normally I am a little tougher then that! But back to the plates, The local sheriff ( they have those here!)knows me, as the cop shop is next to the library and he see my truck there all the time and trust me, Alaska plates stick out down here, so he took me aside and told me that I needed to do this or I might get a ticket, he wouldn't do it but one of the county guys might and he explained that I had 30 days to do this when I first moved here! So I was way way over due on doing this. So got the plates taken care of, the real ones will come in the mail in about a month and I was really really hoping that I was going to be a skinny minny when I got my new licenses ( that's what I told the sheriff, he just rolled his eyes at me! are they allowed to do that?)so I guess I will have to lie again about my weight!

Getting around

A while back (in the year of 2000) I lived in Dillingham Alaska. And I got used to seeing snow machines in the winter (snowmobiles for them that call it that!) and 4 wheelers in the summer at the gas stations as that's what some people used to get around, and that was a good thing, as that winter, we had a lot of snow and roads where closed one morning and a ramper swung by my place on his snow-go (that's what they call them in Dillingham!) and took me to the airport so we could open up for the day. But I digress. So on Saturday, the town about 15 miles north of me was having its town fair and was having a TRACTOR PULL! ( that's a big thing here in Wisconsin ) so I thought that I would go check it out, it cost money and I didn't have any on me so I didn't go to the fields where it was all happening but I did see this at the gas station! and in brought back the memories of when I lived in Dillingham.

On a side note, I have now seen riding lawn mowers at the local gas station, but not getting gas, it was parked where the cars park