Kim Davis who?

 I saw that Kim Davis was still trying to sneaky deny marriage licenses, even made CNN(again) and all I could think was ..... why is this idiot news in the first place?? The religion she follows is one of those run of the mill female oppression types - no cutting your hair, no make up, dresses, cover up those tatas, etc... I mean seriously, who wants to follow a god that insists you look like a wet noodle all the time? But I digress. It is perfectly fine with me that Kim Davis does not like gay people - I seriously do not care what floats her boat. She's kind of out there and if you have seen her, this is less about religion and more about her meeting famous people. I did catch her get out of prison shot and she was playing it up to beat the band, holding hands with Mick Huckabee, crying and praising the lord, but you could see she was thinking she was the Cat's Pajamas, couldn't you?

She is a small, mean narrow minded woman - nothing more, nothing less. This has gotten her attention and given the fact she was on CNN again, she will continue to misbehave until, well, until we stop paying attention to her. This is like the Duggars, isn't it? Everyone offended by thier anti-gayness, them holding themselves up as Devout Christians and then it comes to light that not only did thier oldest son Josh molest 4 of his sisters (one was FIVE!), but they allowed it to go on - and then had his victims try to figure out what they did to cause it, forced them to continue to live with thier attacker and let him continue - until it came out all big and larger than life. They are no longer in the media and honestly  - who cares what they believe - Holy Crap!

I only posted one thing about Kim Davis and then stopped - because she does not deserve any attention for behaving like a spoiled child. If she was that offended she needed to transfer - qui-et-ly. There are a few others that are trying the religious waters, there is an airline server that has become a muslim and wants to keep her job but will not serve alcohol - her answer is to have her co-workers do her job. And this was going on until one of her co-workers got fed up, who can blame them? If it does not work with your religious beliefs, that's fine - but find a job that does and don't expect everyone to accomodate you. I am a vegetarian and that is sometimes not a good thing. When they throw lunches at work I have a less than 50/50 chance of being able to participate and sometimes it's just annoying, I mean really - you couldn't have just ONE sandwich with no meat? But, being a vegetarian is my choice and as it is, I know to still bring my own lunch on days they are doing a luncheon and if I'm out at a restuarant I might have to figure out what I can have - but I am not starving and I'm used to it. In other words I have adjusted to the world, it did not adjust to ME. So this will be the last I will say about Kim Davis - and if we all stop posting about her - she will go quietly away and she can be as anti - everything she wants to be. .(But I do have to admit the memes are pretty funny, aren't they? )

What a Differ-Fence!

David put in a fence about a month or so ago,  when he had some downtime I put it on the list of things that I really wanted done. He fenced in about half an acre, not a lot but enough for the two dogs to have room to romp. What a difference! We actually use the backporch now - this morning I dragged out my tablet, my bluetooth keyboard and a giant cup of coffee. While they investigated the grape arbor for birds, the garden for rabbits, etc I was able to do paperwork for work to get ahead for the week. It's no fun working on my day off, but at least I could do it in my backyard so it makes it a little less annoying. And with no office distractions it goes much quicker.  David was in NJ for a few days visiting Ray - he managed to get sick, not sure if it was from the heat or a migraine, but he recovered by the next morning and they had a good visit. They went out to dinner with Jackie, did the park and book store, David did some minor repairs that needed to be done. He was gone for about 4 days so I spent that time....well, cleaning the house of course. I don't know about you but I find it much easier to get stuff done when there's no one here but me. I cleaned out my yarn and got rid of all the stuff I bought on clearance years ago - the electric blue fun fur, the stuff that was just weird and  tatty looking, etc...I got rid of all the magazines I've collected, clothes I don't wear, the shoes that don't really fit, the books I don't read and are collecting dust. I got six bags all together. In the morning I  went first to the house we bought in Waynesburg, I had seen the outtside but had not been inside. I let myself in and just loved the fireplace. It's an antique mantel and so much more beautiful up close and not peering through a window. I spent the next hour taking pictures and looking everywhere with my little flashlight. The one thing I did notice is there is no bathroom on the main floor - and the one in the walkout basement is a former DIY project from someone with not enough talent to do those sort of things. The one on the second floor which was original to the house you need to walk through the bedroom to get to it - I'm sure when the house was built there was reason for it. But who wants a house that the main bathroom is on the second floor and whoever is in the upstairs bedroom has no privacy at all - not me! I went back to the main floor and noticed there is a large closet in one of the downstiairs bedroom that shares a wall with the end of the hall - that will be the half bath, and better yet it will look like it's always been there - problem solved. After I was done with that I took my 6 bags of stuff I don't need and dropped them off in Morgantown at the the Salvation Army. Then I dorked around West Virginia of course, what else would I do? The asian grocery wasn't open yet - boo - the co-op moved and I was too lazy to find it. I went to the fancy Krogers on Stewartstown road (oh get over it - you think it's fancy too!) and looked at all the little shops they've adding - and are adding. It seems like everytime I go there they're adding something else.  I wandered home , cleaned some more and just flopped.  The dogs have been bunking with me while David was gone and this morning I woke up and noticed there was something small,brown, and poo shaped on David's side of the bed. Hmm. It appears there was a tussle over a prize cat poo out of the litter box and the victor had brought it to bed to protect it from the Usurper. This was not how I planned to start my day, especially since I had already changed the sheets the other day.  I wondered if I could just Febreeze where the poop had proudly been displayed but then realized if the poo smell came back and I was outed, well, that would be ugly. Very very ugly. 

How Can I Be Experiencing My Second Childhood? I'm Not Done With The First

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 I've recently become obsessed with Bob's Burgers, a cartooon show that I  could watch all day. I love the cartoons for adults - I've watched Archer, Sea Lab 2000, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Moral Orel to name a few. And nothing makes me laugh harder. I have no idea why I find this stuff so funny, maybe it's because as a child of the 70s you never really get over the Saturday Morning cartoons. Remember that - we'd be up and ready by 7 am - parked in front of the tv for hours, never moving except to get up for another bowl of Cocoa Puffs.We'd lay on the couch and on the floor with pillows and blankets, getting dressed around noon when the last one was done.  I can still sing the theme song to H.R. Puffinstuff and was always on the fence about the Banana Splits, loved the New Zoo Revue and who did not love Scooby Doo? So now as an adult I have rediscovered my Saturday mornings, coffee instead of Booberries, nonfat cottage cheese instead of full on, whole milk.

 My down time is pretty much the same as when I was a kid really - I read like a fiend, always have and always will. Thank you mom for that one - best thing a parent can do is read to their kids and have stacks of reading material around. In our house it was not frowned upon to bring a book to the table and to this day I still love to read as I eat. My ebook makes it easier - I have a literal roomful of books in that thing, I am first and foremost the biggest science fiction fantasy fan EVER - followed by mysteries of the Sue Grafton type. My reading is all for fun if it's not for work, I love to lose myself in a book.  I play scrabble when I'm not reading, I love playing with strangers on line, what a challenge. I play about 10 or more games simutaneously so it's almost like actually playing a game. When we played years ago, we would play into the wee hours of the morning, cup after cup of tea. We had all sorts of rules - we had the Shopping For Words Rule in which you could only word shop as long as it took the other person to get back from the bathroom. You could use the blank over again if you had the matching letter to exchange it for, we were not playing competiton so why not? We would laugh ourselves silly over words, zaftig bint, pyx, stowp. We'd make the BM (Big Move) and someone would declare themselves the Grand Pobah (that only makes sense if you know what the Waterbuffalo Lodge is).

And of course there is the knitting, knitting and more knitting. I've been knitting since I was about 7 I think, learned from my Grandmother Carter in the traditional aluminum needle/acrylic yarn style. I would have the stitches so tight you could hear them squeak in distress. My scarves would start off tiny and by the end would balloon out into great acrylic sails. I knit off and on, but crocheted like it was going out of business, curtesy of my Grandmother Hendrickson.I made hats, toys, dolls, afgans by dozen. I even hoarded yarn back then, something I will most likely do until I die. We did tons of other stuff too -  I learned pot holder making from Mrs. Wourgola next door and of course Mod Podged everything with the Palominos. We all made candles and paper-mached balloons to make masks that smelled of wet newspapers and flour. I am soley a knitter now, but sometimes thnk of all that fun stuff we did - do kids still do that? Never mind. But my knitting is of course an intense hobby now, I have a room devoted to the craft and could stay there forever. As long as I had access to cartoons and my books of course!

House For Sale

So, we are back to square one. Again. The house we were under contract for fell through after 3 extensions  of the contract due to issues with the deed. It was not a huge deal - we had the same thing happen with the Bridgeport house in which someone had not written the deed correctly., Same thing here - we feel terrible for the home sellers as we were in that position not so long ago and we know they were counting on this sale.But our lawyer told us not to do it until it was fixed because it had the potential to become a huge problem when we resold it. We were assured it would be fixed but it just kept dragging on and on with no end in sight . After almost a month no one ended up filing any corrections so we picked up our toys and left.  This buying, fixing and selling homes is not as easy as HGTV would have you believe, is it? It's almost like the perfect storm in which you need to find a short sale/foreclosure in a good neighborhood with the potential to be fixed with a small budget and it be in a place that the neighbors will not be walking off with your construction supplies. 

 So, we did not sign the last extension and off we went - David found another house which was more money, but it's closer so his commute will be under 30 minutes this time and the other homes in the neighborhood are much higher priced. We will hopefully - planets align and all of that - be the owners by next weekend. David has met the crabby pants neighbor already who came over when she saw him to ask if we were buying it. The first thing she announced was the garden was HERS - it's a weird six foot wide strip that runs along the backyard - so not to think it was YOURS. David noticed she had to use OUR backyard to get to HER garden so he is thinking he will take up the occupation of Bridge Troll if the sale goes through. He will have a jar for the dollar he's going to charge everytime she comes into the yard. Then she asked if he knew someone had DIED in that house. Apparently some "mean old guy" had gotten up one morning, took a shower, laid down, and well, DIED. Seriously lady, you need to work on your ghost story - I mean, really? So I should expect a boo-ghosty type voice in the night going....

"Whhoooo..... I need a towel, I need aa tooowwweellll.......". And then she added that college students used to PARK in the driveway (it's down the road from the local college), David told her anyone that wanted to would be welcome to park there - nothing like a little chain jerking, is there? So, all in all, not a bad turnout if this actually goes through, we have all the supplies that we had bought for the other house stored in the garage and if it doesn't go through there is another property nearby that we can buy. It's a duplex and the bottom is rented to an elderly gentleman who has lived there for over 30 years and he pays $350 a month - which he announced several times in case David was getting any ideas of charging anything other than $350 a month. Apparently he does not know that David is not married to Little Nell, but more like Snidely Whiplash......I'll let you know what happens!

All Work, Little Play.

I'm currently sitting in my backyard with Molly next to me on the wicker couch. Reuben is doing all sorts of Sneaky Dog Things and is checked on quite frequently as he got out of the new fenced in yard yesterday. Iwas quite horrified to see him doing a victory lap around Mrs. Kravitz's backyard - the neighbor who hates us - and of course he was home. But the new fence is working just fine and it's nice to be able to sit outside with the dogs. Of course the downside is I'm doing work, trying to keep up as we lost 3 managers and then have been acquiring more clients. The world did not stop turning, thank you for asking. Since I can access my files on my tablet I've bought a bluetooth keyboard to use. I do not like working on the weekends and after work, but it's a bit more tolerable doing it with the birds chirping and windchimes chiming. I have to put up the hummingbird feeder I suppose - they've been feeding off the numerous hostas but they are about done for the fall - so the hummingbirds hover at eyelevel, wanting to know what the deal is. I took in the last of the zucchini this morning, a bit undersized but edible. The pumpkins are  turning orange but I think they' ll be pretty tiny, they do not seem to like growing in the little hammocks I made for them - they're growing in the air. I'll have to start composting, I think the soil where I had my garden this year is just very poor, it's where the shed was for years. David moved the shed to the back of the property and the neighbor tilled the already bald spot. Not much else going on today, I started another pair of socks, I took out the half done sweater a couple of days ago, it's been there so long the knitting bag was covered in dust. I just cannot figure out how to fix it, Darlene from my knitting group said I should bring it in and they can look at it, I just might do that. But before I do that I think I'll sit down with the pattern and see if I can't figure out the ratio of decreases to the stitches that I have on stitch holders on the back piece. Or I'll just continue to ignore it by knitting wools socks. Works for me.

Adventure Time!

Today we drove out to Ligonier - one of the women in my knitting group had said there were a couple good yarn shops out there - and that's as good a reason as any. It was a hike and David had to go to Lowes first to pick up his clearance haul. The other day he was in and they sold him an entire clearance cart which included a $600 special order french doors with those blinds inside the windows. He got back around 9:30 so we got a little bit of a late start but not too bad. It was a really, cute touristy sort of town with a big gazabo in the center. And better yet, they were having a bit antique fair - every inch of sidewalk covered with vendors. We didn't buy much but it was fun to look! There were old paintings and postcards, school desk and quilts, books and toys. We were in and out of stores too - all those quaint shops with handmade soap, jewelry, second hand items and used books. We found both yarn shops - one was right on the circle - the other was frustrating. My GPS found it but could not pin point it. We walked a little then ducked into the library for directions. Sometimes old fashioned just asking directions is the best way to go. Both stores were nice, I bought something in each of course. After that we went to Fort Ligonier which is a historic recreation on the actual site of  the civil war site. . It was interesting - for me at least. David hates stuff like that, he made snarky comments about how this was not the REAL fort, and it hot, and this was not very interesting - he is not a museum kind of a guy and I usually don't take him. But we were there and it was there so David was a trooper. On the way back we needed to get a few groceries so we stopped at a grocery store we've never been to. There was a tractor store which David went to - I went to the mall next door that they have turned into a giant flea market. Good concept, sad reality. It was like acres and acres and acres of.....crappy stuff. 70's furniture, dirty toys, a lot of things that looked like they would break ten minutes after you got it home It was weird - the old stores that formerly  housed shoe stores and clothes, now were filled with junk stores. There was some worth while stuff but nothing I needed. It had a funny, depressing odor to it, you could almost smell the hopelessness. I put my head down and made no eye contact with any vendor, worried my guilt would talk me into a Holly Hobby figure just to keep from feeling bad about not buying anything. We went to the grocery store next - that was wierd too as it had a full hardware store attached to it. I have no idea, one one side were groceries and the other side people wearing workaprons and DoIt! shirts amost the paint and bolts. It was shabby - but clean and had an amazing variety of things. After we stopped at a farm stand for vegetable and then home. By the time we got home I was exhausted. It was a long day with a lot of walking - but it was fun. David unloaded his haul from Lowes, we did quite well by the way. I am picking the last of my zucchini tomorrow, I think the plants are finally all worn out. We went out to dinner on Friday night after looking at the house we have gone into contract for. The one we were buying they were not able to clear up the issues with the deeds and we had to move on - we've wasted way too much time on it already.  Two weeks and hopefully we will be ready to roll again. David is almost done with our living room, it just needs a carpet - I want it done now because once we get the next house I go back down to the bottom of the list.