School’s Out For Summer

No lying!
How the hell did that happen?
It will be a different summer here.
Hilary is working 5 to 10 pm shifts at Wendy’s.
Kate is in Atlanta 90% of the time.
John either works or hibernates in his room
when he isn’t off with friends.

This mom who knows how to cook for 5+, now must find
out how to cook for two. Well, wanting to cook for two is
more the issue. In the past when the kids were gone, it gave
me license to slack off in the kitchen. Jan would bring us
something home or we would eat a sandwich. I can hardly
do that nightly. I will take it as an opportunity to try new things
that the kids never would. Still last night Jan brought us home
Chinese LOL. On the plus side, I can buy steak for two now!
Buying steak for 5 meant taking out a loan.

I have poison ivy again. I just got over a case of it, mainly on my arms.
This time when I knew I would be near it I wore long sleeves, gloves and
washed like a woman with OCD. I still got it. More prednisone is in store.
Which equals no sleep again for days. I had to paint our old garden picket fence.
It looked awful after we removed the overgrowth around it a couple of weeks ago.

Drought conditions in Georgia mean I am only allowed to water my plants
on odd days. From midnight to 10 am. Bite me, I’ll shower less to sneak
a watering can of water to my flowers and shrubs. I don’t have a fancy
sprinkler system, I am it. So if you see me at 3 am out with my garden hose,
you’ll know why.

Prep for the big bash continues as today I pressure wash the deck in
preparation for painting it. Yes paint. It was an awful blue when I bought it.
I have been painting it red for the last 17 years.
We need a new deck badly. We noticed the other day, as we were investigating
why it is swaying a bit when we walk on it, that one joist has pulled away from
the ledger.I bought joist hangers to install but need to wait for Jan to be here
Monday as I don’t go up on tall ladders without another adult present. It is scary
as this deck is 18 feet in the air.

My other project is to touch up (read paint a top coat) on my kitchen cabinets.
It’s been three years, white paint, three kids, four dogs, smokers in the house.
Enough said.

Rosie, I read the hateful comments by people who have no clue who this person is.
Years ago Rosie took the time to reach out to this single mom with a letter in
reply to her original show. Later when I found her blog, she again visited me here
(greymatteroozing) and left a lovely comment about family.
I have followed her career, supported her causes and admired her for years.
That admiration has only grown over this year. Yes she is loud, yes she is emotional.
It is those very qualities that I love. Her fight with Elizabeth was not political.
It was about a friend sticking up for another friend. Rosie was awfully hurt by E’s
inability to do that. More so, I believe she feels betrayed by ABC for the handling
of the show on that day. I would be too. I will miss her. I will not watch the view.

No one needs four pups.

But sometimes they land in your lap for free
and you know that she needs what you can give.
She was a truckers save really. He found her in a
parking lot two months ago. She has lived with him,
mostly in his cab, for these two months.
Yesterday she was given to us to love.
I already do.

Meet Zoe Grace Burke-Hicks
( we seriously considered naming her Idgie Threadgood)

Snuggling with Jan

Lil bit is indifferent.

Note Sadie at 8 months behind Lil’ Bit,
supposedly she is a full breed Pekingese.
But has no hair like a Pekingese and is much larger than any I
have ever seen. She barked at Zoe Grace for the first hour.
Today they are best friends.

Impossible to get a decent picture of!

Zoe and Sadie playing

No picture of Ted today He was laying in the dark, but he likes Zoe too!
Protective, like a dad dog.

Surprisingly when I walked in with this pup yesterday the Yorkie (Lil’ Bit)
and Shit Zu (Teddy) were so taken with Zoe that they liked her right away.
This was not the case when Sadie came to live with us last Thanksgiving.
They wanted nothing to do with a new dog in their house.

Sadie growled and barked at Zoe for a while, but 5 hours later she
was playing with her.

Zoe had only one potty accident on the kitchen tile yesterday.
She even slept for four hours during the night without crying.
A good pup.

I must be nuts.
Help me please LOL

Choir, rocks and art

My girl Hilary. She had two concerts this week.
So we have been running a lot.
I have not cooked a meal this week.
She is the tall red head in the center.

And for Roxanne, of Tidbits O’ Chunks
the gazebo floor. As I said, it was loose egg sized and shaped rock.
I’m not sure what we were thinking years ago when we put it in
embedded in cement. It was too hard to walk on. Especially drunk!
So we scraped the loose rock away and laid a topping coat of
a product called just that. It is sand and cement mixed.
We made a loose mix of it so it would run and pour easily.
We let it set up about 10 minutes and then sprinkled pea gravel
over it. Then we waited another half and hour and laid 2′X2′
boards on the floor, stomping on it to embed the pea gravel into
the mix further. I still need to blow the loose rock away but haven’t
done that yet. Oh, and hang the rope light in the top.

In other news, I am starting on a website for a client this week.
He sells fetish items, corsets, leather goods. High quality stuff.
He had a designer that left owing $1000.00, sounds familiar….
So I am going to help him make sense of the mess the other
guy left.
I have to get new items in my Gift Gallery
too. Things have picked up nicely there.

I’m submitting articles and advertising to gay sites this week.
And I must get this house dusted! It’s awful what 5 people and 3 dogs
can do to a house. I have to dust every other day. Seriously.
Plus some idiot decided they liked cheery (or darker) stained furniture.
(me) Not a good idea if you have a family like mine.
I wipe the new kitchen table (espresso stained) several times a day.

Jan and I are having our annual spring party June 11th.
All work, online and home friends are invited.
If you feel like traveling to beautiful North Georgia
USA come on!

By the way, my old Grey Matter Oozing
blog is back up. But it has the same content as this one.
Just a chance for more exposure. Plus…I love the name
and wanted it back. I also needed to have an active blog to
start submitting articles to TLL again.
My “Her Hands” post went over well there.

Jan and I went to a friends house the other night for dinner.
Actual lesbian friends from work. It was wonderful!
They served a yummy vegetarian lasagna. Good stuff!
They are very musical and artistic, so you know I was
in hog heaven there. Aimee wanted me to look at her
art she had been experimenting with. I was touched that
she wanted my opinion on it. All artistic expression
is good to me.

They tuned an old guitar of Jan’s. It is really the only thing
she has of her dads. She has a lot of issues with her father
and his treatment of their family. But he is her father and
the guitar is something they shared. It is a rare signed
1948 or 1950 Gibson. We recently had it appraised at about
a thousand dollars. It had been stuffed in Hilary’s closet.
Needless to say it is in a better storage place now.
I want Jan to learn to play, she wants me to. I’d rather
bang a bongo, seriously.

EDIT!
Hilary got a job!
My 17 year old will be working at a different Wendy’s than her brother.
Hilary’s store is closer to us. She is a money hog so I am thrilled!
In other news…Kate has been in Atlanta again this week looking
for work and a life. I haven’t heard from her at all. It worries me,
but I don’t want to be that kind of parent. So I wait. Like one more day.
Then I’m calling!

Singing all day

Yesterday Jan and I had the most wonderful day.
We began by laying concrete (a topper really) on
our gazebo floor. It was loose rock and rarely used
because bare feet hurt like hell to walk on it.
So we did that and then looked at the high grass
and said no thanks, not today. The highlight of the
project was when Jan decided to pile three 60 pound
bags of concrete mix from the car into
our aging wheelbarrow. Thus blowing the tire….

Not to be outdone she then proceeded to trip
(while pushing the now flat wheelbarrow)
and topple it while it was filled with really
wet mix. Luckily the arbor nearby saved the mix….
But she was still falling…. as I sat in an odd
stunned paralysis. Watching this slow motion film
of her tipping the mix, then correcting herself but
now in danger of falling face first into the gazebo
floor. Correcting again, and seeing her arm hit the
rail hard. Only a foot entered the floor but her arm
is scrapped and bruised. The floor looks great
though! LOL

Ok, so maybe parts of yesterday were sucky.

But then we went inside and she sat and watched
DVR’ed episodes of Days Of Our Lives while I played
on line while we waited to cool off so we could shower.

I am a huge fan of the Carpenters. Their music,
life story, love of the drums… We recently bought
a collection of their work. I popped that baby into
the stereo in the bedroom and proceeded to sing my
ass off for the rest of the afternoon. Jan came in to
join in the singing as we got ready to go to Hilary’s
Show Choir concert.

The concert was great as usual, with a few stand out
singers. One who sang “At Last” and you would have
thought it was the recording. Hilary had a small solo
part this time and impressed me greatly, as she always
does. Such pride I have in her ability to stand in front
of so many and sing openly. I am a closet singer and
drummer. I adore music. Nothing is better than an empty
house, a favorite CD, and closed blinds so I can drum
and close my eyes, engrossed in every note, feeling
every beat. I don’t own drums and don’t want them.
I have decorative bongos that I play with.
My fingers on the steering wheel, air drumming,
has worked fine for many many years.

As we all know I am six feet tall, Jan is about 8
inches shorter. Her height enables us to see in crowds
easily. Her in front. Me looking over her gorgeous head.
The problem with this is that after all this time her
hair still excites me wonderfully. As we stood watching
our daughter sing and dance, my eyes drifted to the salt
and pepper hair of the woman who fell in love with me.
The woman who wanted me more than I wanted a spouse.
I was taken back to the first times in my mind.
As the movie played in my head I marveled at the
distance we have come. I knew without a doubt that
letting down my walls and letting love in was the best
thing I have ever done for myself and my children.
Her presence in our lives completed everything we
lacked and enhanced the family we already were.

I whispered in her ear, there in our small town train
depot/stage that I loved her and wanted her. Not caring
who saw the intimate exchange. Proud she is mine…ours.
Proud too that I am hers.

To end our day, we sang and found each other again in the
way that people do. The ebb and the flow. It is the most
intriguing part of long time love. I fall in love with
her again and again.

Mothers Day

What would a Mothers day be without a blog post?
One problem, I really have nothing much to say.
It seems a sad day to me. Maybe it’s my Mom being gone,
maybe it’s that Jan is working and I know she isn’t happy
about it. I’m not sure, but I am in a funk.

The girls and I will be baking a cake this afternoon.
They like learning new kitchen things. They love watching
the food network etc… I hope they will continue to be
interested and experiment in the kitchen throughout their lives.
We will have an easy (for them to make) dinner and then they
will give us our gift this evening. A lazy day for some of us.

Kate made sure she came home from her latest trip to Atlanta
to be here for today. That is another subject that has me in a funk.
Her friend (who was supposed to move in with her away from college
last year and couldn’t because her mom said no) has again done
the same thing to Kate. Like last time, they were actively looking for
jobs and a place to live when mommy dearest said that the friend
had to live on campus or she wouldn’t pay for her college. This year the
reason given is that Kate is a mooch… where she gets that, I do not
know. Kate paid her friends way for many months when Kate was
the only one working. She still pays her own way now. Kate has been
down since she was fired last fall and never got another job here.
I could see her light up that the time to look and move was near.
She was so excited. They still went back to Atlanta this week to
look some more hoping that if they both have good jobs that Mommy
dearest will approve the move. It all pisses me off.

I have been watching all the new Staging shows on HGTV etc…
and hope that people in this area will see them and give my business
a chance at some point! It may be time to hand out sales packets
again to real estate agents. Maybe they have learned something in a year.
One would hope!

I have several friends of Jan’s at work that want me to do work for them.
Someday… when they feel like it… maybe, soon. Maybe never.
One friend wants to commission an art piece of a Jester, (her family name)
for her parents anniversary in September. Any medium I choose,
fee paid up front. Ok bring it on.

This same person is the ER flirt. We went to dinner and to play pool
with her and several other work friends the other night. She was
gently flirty with my spouse. Subtle flirts, just enough to aggravate
you. Jan told me about her before we got there. When I was introduced
I said, “Oh, the flirt!” She just laughed. I felt better just letting her know
up front that I had her number.

She may be stroking the egos of both the men and women at
work with her antics, but real life is what matters. She needs to know that.
I don’t believe all flirting is harmless. In her case, because she does it at work
(humorously slapping asses, kissing, hugging etc…) it is highly inappropriate
and if the wrong person objects, will get her ass fired. She evidently is a
good nurse and great fun to work with. la de da….

Yeah I’m jealous, more so that I miss it all. That I no longer belong
there and that my so called friends left me when I was fired.
I miss having friends.

I’m still pissed about a lot of things pertaining to Hutcheson Medical
Center and my ex employer Susan J. Flowers, Oh now she is a Worley.
Miss perfect Christian cheated on her husband and left him, remarrying
six weeks later. A total cheating bitch along with her buddy, my former
co worker Leah Cook-Mantooth. I’m not sure when I will get over the
betrayal. One year later the thoughts of them still make me ill.
Carl Shrader is in that category too. He who has never paid the court/me
a dime of the money he owes me even though I was awarded the sum
by the court. They tell me to hire a lawyer… yeah right.

Anyway…. it all causes me pain big time, so I need to think of
something else today. Happy Mothers Day to you all.
I hope yours is lovely.

Picture sharing

This is what Jan did last week. Teddy is pissed!

Poor pup shivered for days LOL.
But he needed a do over on his hairdo…
Someday he will stop being depressed about it.

_________________________________________

I have been meaning to post a picture of our new table.

The chairs and stools were purchased unfinished.
I stained them to match the gathering
height table. They all turned out well.
I loved doing it and we all like the smaller table in our kitchen.
It has a leaf that folds out from under the top. Too cool.

_________________________________________

Last weeks project, a Mosaic table.

This is a ten dollar oak table we found at a flea market a year ago.
I finally got around to tiling it! It is solid wood and had the classic
oak stain on it. I chose a red Mahogany to match things
in our living room.

See my flickr site for larger and close up pictures of the top.
Annie’s Portfolio

—————————————–
In other news I was up at 6:30 am today to take Hilary to
Dalton Georgia for her SAT exam. She was nervous but fine.
She didn’t do any extra studying for it either. Her grades
are amazing, I hope that bodes well for todays activities.
I am waiting for her call to come back and get her.

Kate has been in Atlanta all week with her friend Lindsay.
They will be sharing an apartment this summer there.
Kate went down to start looking for a job. I haven’t seen her
yet but I hear she is downstairs in her room sleeping.
She is really looking forward to moving out on her own.

Jan has a tooth ache, so I’ll be taking her to the dentist
on Monday. She has been dealing with it all week as her dentist
is out of town. I hate it for her.

John gets his braces off on Tuesday!
Three years of kids in braces is almost over.
I am thrilled.

I am doing nothing today except some marketing.
It’s a lazy day of period cramps and fatigue. I can not
get a good nights sleep lately. Either leg cramps or
sleeplessness has been keeping me walking the floors.
I am sick of it.

Thanks for the advice on whether to be a Lesbian Author
openly. It was never an option to stop blogging. I probably
didn’t make that clear. Just whether or not to come out as
a lesbian on my work related site. Or at least not to worry
if lesbian related posts show up in search engines.
I have felt the pull to be openly gay on line and in my home
town for some time now. perhaps it will help others do the same.
People are so closeted here. It’s past time to change all that.

Hilary just called, must run now….
Have a great weekend everyone!