Pyeongchang. Very popular in song.

Okay y'all.  Super duper quick post to get the Music Monday Contest going.  Because I'm, you guessed it....working on overnight packages again.  Sigh.

And my internet is still working whenever it feels like it so I have no idea if I would be able to write an actual post and get it to work from home tonight.  Sigh.

So this is all you get today:

Unless you live under a rock, you are probably aware that the Olympics are going on in London right now.  I'm going to make this week's theme a tiny bit tougher than last week's.  The song(s) you submit must contain in the title the name of a city which has hosted the Olympics.  They have to have already hosted so you can't use Rio de Janiero, Brazil or Pyeongchang, South Korea because those are future sites.  Isn't that terrible?  Because there are TONS of songs with Pyeongchang right in the title.  And now you can't submit those.

As a little help, here is a link to the list of Olympic Games host cities.

Let's see what y'all can come up with!  Trust me, there are a lot of songs that fit this theme.  I know because I don't have time to come up with a theme this week so I'm totally stealing our theme from Friday Afternoon Song and I won first and third place.

Home Tour.....Part 1

I didn't have to talk to a single person today.  I can't tell y'all how happy I am about that after the week I had.  Some people do yard work when they are stressed because they say it chills them out.  I don't understand those people.  Sometimes when I'm stressed out I paint.  Sometimes I don't get off the couch.  Sometimes I clean.  Today I cleaned.  Partly because I'm stressed out from my job, and partly because I'm stressed out about something else.  Remember I told y'all I was going to rent out my guest room to a nursing grad student from September thru November?  Well, she called one night this week and said her entire schedule had changed and it turns out she needs a place to stay starting this Tuesday.  July 30.  So I cleaned because of stress and also so that poor girl wouldn't catch something from the disgustingness of my house.  And I figured that would be a good time to take photos for y'all to see my house.  You know, when it's fairly clean.  If I had taken them abut 7:00 this morning, y'all would have died.  It was a disaster.  The kitchen looked like a tornado had been through it because I had not done much straightening up last week.

My internet is making me insane.  Well, my internet along with a lot of other things are making me insane.  Like the fact that my insurance company has decided to cut me off from any further physical therapy sessions.  My doctor has written another prescription and my therapist is begging them and telling them I need more help.  But since they have never laid eyes on me and apparently don't care that I still cannot even sleep in a bed, they think they know best and have cut me off.  And oh, by the way, my insurance policy gives us UNLIMITED physical therapy each year.  And they have still cut me off.  So now my benefits manager is trying to help me out, my therapist and her office manager are trying to help me out, and this all happened this week while I was also trying to send out 600 overnight packages.  Did I mention how happy I was not to speak to one single person all day?

But back to my internet.  If I shut down my laptop, unplug my modem, unplug my router, plug my modem back in, wait 2 minutes, plug my router back in, wait two minutes, and then turn my laptop back on, the internet will work for a couple of hours.  Then it goes back out.  Does my internet not understand I don't want to do that every single time I need to consult Facebook for the latest important information about who just ate a chicken sandwich, and who is going to vote for which candidate, etc. and guess who wishes politics and religion were banned from Facebook completely?

Apparently I am still stressed and it has made me grumpy in this post.

Okay, onward to the home tour before my internet goes out again.  Y'all remember I am not a photographer, right?  I'm going to show y'all some before photos and some after so you can see what all I have done since moving in 8 months ago while hosting house guests the entire time.  I have had a total of 5 weeks in the past 8 months without a house guest, which is fine, but it limits how much you can get done.  (I guess college girl will be here through the end of November, then a couple of weeks later my mom and her husband will probably be here for a week or more at Christmas, then Hot Brazilian is supposed to be back the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve (fingers crossed that all goes as planned).  So apparently I will have about 7 or 8 weeks total in a year without a house guest.)  And I spent three and a half months in a cast and slings with a broken arm.  So I still have many projects to do as you will see.  But this is what I've gotten done so far.  I think if you click on the photos you can see them bigger if you want to.  But maybe not.  I'm no expert on this kind of stuff.

The kitchen is where the most work was done.  When I moved in there were no counter tops, no back splash, some of the flooring was missing, a lot of wood trim work needed completion, there were no appliances, and I didn't care so much for the paint color.   

BEFORE:

And here are some AFTER shots:

From the living room looking into the kitchen:

From the reading nook looking into the kitchen:

Letha said she liked my back splash, so here is a close-up for her.  I don't even know if she reads this blog regularly so she may not see this.  And my photography skills are horrid.  The back splash is actually darker than this in real life.  And hello sugar and flour.....

And here is the dining room/reading nook BEFORE.  This is a fairly large room with a double sided fireplace in the middle.  But the fireplace is not functioning.  Dang.

Reading nook:

Dining room:

Facing the front door.  And this stair case goes up to my bedroom, bathroom, my walk-in closet room, and the laundry.

There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the paint colors, but they weren't my preference.  I wanted to lighten everything up so here are the AFTER:

The reading nook as it looks today.  This chair and ottoman was also my bed for 3 months when I was in the body brace/cast/sling situation.  I've now graduated to the sofa which is coming up below.

And on the other side of the fireplace, the dining room after:

And I started this post Saturday night, but 20 minutes in, my internet went out again and didn't come back on until this morning.  HATE!  So now it's Sunday and let's see if I can finish before it goes kaput again.  I guess I am going to have to take 1/2 a day off work to have the cable people come out and see what the heck is going on.  Which is awesome because I really have time for that right now.  I already know of at least 110 packages we're sending out this week.  I can only imagine that number is going to keep growing.  I don't know what's going on.  We normally have 55 a week and sometimes we go a couple of weeks without any.  600 last week?  And already 110 this week coming up that we know about?  What the heck?!  And who needs to let this go since it's Sunday and just be grateful she has a job?

I really did absolutely nothing to my living room other than move my furniture in.

BEFORE:

My painter was really pushing me to repaint this room too, but I was fine with the color and dudes, I paid him a fortune as it was.  I had to draw the line somewhere!

AFTER:
This staircase goes up to my art studio.  I have two staircases and when you get upstairs, the two sides of the house do not connect.  Weird, but that's how it is.  Maybe one day I'll cut out a doorway between the two sides of the upstairs, but I'm going to have to win the lottery first.

Okay, that's enough photos for one post, don't you think?  I'll show y'all the bedrooms and stuff in the future.  

I need to go mow the grass, but I'm stressed enough already.  I think I have a day long date planned with my sofa, a pillow, my pj's and the remote instead. 

I thought Friday was never going to get here this week.....

Y'all are not ever going to believe this, but I've made it one whole day without preparing a single overnight package.  My boss just told me that we are past his cut off and if a client sends something for a mailing at this point, we will not send it out until Monday.  Besides, we are now in the middle of our Friday Afternoon Song contest so that is way more important.  (Aaaannnnndddd obviously as I was typing this, I just got an email that I have another mailing on Monday.  So I told my boss I think I'm going to be sick on Monday.  So he said he'll save it for Tuesday.  Isn't he sweet?)

I think I may have finally fixed my internet at home but I will see what happens by the time I get home tonight.  It was almost midnight when I got it working last night and I love y'all and everything, but girlfriend was exhausted after working, grocery shopping, doing a little yard work, and working on the stupid internet so I went to sleep instead of writing to y'all.  It went back out during the night (I couldn't sleep so I was going to play Words with Friends instead of writing to y'all) but it was back on this morning before I left for work.  If it's back out tonight, I'm going to see if my cat can fix it.

I'm going to cut this a little short because I'm at work and trying to catch up on stuff.  I was supposed to go to a party tonight which would have probably given me some great material for y'all, but this week has kicked my butt all over the place so I'm going home and watching tv.  Because I'm exciting is what I am.

I will try to write over the weekend if the internet cooperates and tell y'all about some other craziness going on in my life this week.  And I may try to do the home tour in photos y'all were asking for.  And I'm also going to work on getting my sense of humor back after surviving this horrid week.

Without further ado, here are the winners FINALLY from that song contest I started way the heck back on Monday.

First Place:  Tie

Mary Lou for Celebration by Kool and the Gang.  One of my favorite songs in the whole world.  Just try not to dance along to this.  And Mary Lou, I chose a different video because the lady at the beginning of this one cracks me up fanning her face from the special effects: 

And she tied with Karen for LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem.  LOVE this song!

Second Place is another tie:

Anonymous (was that you, Patti?) for Punky Reggae Party by Bob Marley and the Wailers:

And me!  I told y'all I like the Beastie Boys, right?  You've Got to Fight for Your Right (to Party)

And Third Place goes to:

Karen for Prince - Party Like it's 1999.  And I think we've established it's next to impossible to find Prince videos anywhere online.  But I did find this little bit of awesomeness.  Uhm, hmmmm.  Not sure what to say about this.

Updated:  I just won First and Third Place in our Friday Afternoon Song contest here at work.  But I'm not telling y'all what the theme was and what songs I submitted in case I'm slammed on Monday and steal the same theme idea.

Grrrrrrr! And also, arggggghhhhh! Plus hate, hate, hate!

I’m finally coming up for air.  But maybe only for a few minutes.  Since last Wednesday, my boss has had almost 600 overnight packages to be sent out.  I have yelled at him and he has yelled back at me that it is the clients and not him.  Which is true.  But I can’t yell at the clients because they essentially pay me.  And luckily my boss just laughs at me when I yell at him.  I think it’s because I’m so scary sounding.  Today is the first day I’ve been able to do anything other than overnight packages.  I have two other bosses.  I’m finally getting caught up on all of their work.  And it has almost all been billing and accounting issues and OMG how I hate anything having to do with math.  So basically my job is SO MUCH FUN this week. 

I also have had no internet service at home so I haven’t been able to blog from there either.  I replaced my wireless router a couple of months ago and I replaced the cable modem this week.  It still won’t work.  Because technology hates me. 

And guess what?  Just guess!  While in the middle of typing the above paragraph, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I was just told I have to send out 55 more packages before I leave at 5:30 tonight.  I wish this was a joke but it's so not.  So I will try to work on my internet at home again tonight.  And then I will try to blog again tomorrow if that doesn’t work and that is hopefully when I will finally (FINALLY!) announce the winners of the Music Monday contest on, you know, Friday.  Because I have to go send out more stupid overnight packages.  I HATE EVERYTHING!!

Worst blog post ever. After a week of no blog posts. I can see why some of you keep reading here.

Oh. My. Goodness.  I did not forget y’all, but life was very uncooperative in blog writing this past week.  I last blogged on Tuesday, right? 

Between Wednesday and Friday I sent out almost 300 overnight packages and got completely behind on all of my regular work because the law is trying to kill me.  Our paralegal is out on a leave of absence which, you know, helps matters even more.  I worked through my lunches which is when I try and blog sometimes and I had stuff almost every single night after work last week.  Two nights found me not eating dinner until 11:00 pm.  And I already have another 110 overnight packages to send out today.  All today!  Happy Monday to me! 

I was going to blog over the weekend, but my home internet would not work for more than 10 minutes at a time and I was completely out of patience to try and write an entire blog post on my cell phone.  I think I need a new modem but who the heck has time to go buy a new one and hook it up?  (Well, I actually had time on Saturday but I could hardly get off my couch because I was too exhausted to move.)  But I’m trying to squeeze in a short post before I start preparing overnight labels.  Again.  I’m grateful for my job, but geez.  This is ridiculous. 

By the way, Tee, I wanted you to know that I did get the dress to Amsterdam Neighbor’s daughter and she loved it!  I told her to send me a picture from her trip to Amsterdam and I will send it to you when I get one.  They left yesterday and will be gone for almost a month so I have no idea when I’ll see any photos. 

Okay, after missing it for the past 2 weeks, let’s get straight to the Music Monday Contest.  Because then I need to go have my mad torrid love affair with Fed Ex and UPS.  Since all I have been doing is working, that’s kind of all I can think about.  But I don't want to think about work.  So let’s think about June and her birthday some more.  She is celebrating a lot so let’s have a happy theme this week:  the song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title having to do with partying or celebrating.  As usual, I have a number of songs in mind, but let’s see what y’all come up with.  There are TONS of songs I have in mind actually.  This is an easy theme.  I need at least one thing to be easy in life this week.  Oy.

Off to stuff my packages!  So to speak.

Somehow Atlanta survived us

Y'all, I was going to try and post this way earlier than now, but this was one of the busiest and craziest days I've had in months at my job.  I'm sitting here writing from my dining room table and waiting on Tee to come over again.  She liked my neighbors so much she can't stay away!  Actually, she was talking about the pillow case dresses she makes for her church missionary fundraising and one of the children at the party asked her to make one for her.  So Tee, being her awesome and sweet self, made one and is bringing it by tonight so that Neighbor Girl can have it before she goes on a big trip this weekend.  Tee ranks up there as one of the sweetest ladies I know.

[UPDATE:  Tee just left.  The dress she made is so stinkin' adorable!  I talked Tee's ear completely off for over an hour.  She cannot hear you because I talked her ear all the way off.]

So, I told y'all I would talk about Laurie and I spending Sunday together.  When we both finally woke up (we were tired, y'all), we sat on the front porch for a bit and I asked her if she wanted me to cook her Eggs Benedict from fresh eggs from my pet chicks in the backyard, Belgian waffles, hand churn some butter, fresh squeeze some orange juice, and fry up some bacon in a pan.  Because I'm a W-O-M-A-N!!!! Enjoli!    Shockingly, she said she'd rather go out.  I think she misunderstood me and thought I said I could toast her a bagel or give her a bowl of cereal since I don't cook.

We threw on our clothes and headed out the door starving to death.  I was a terrible hostess and had not fed her any dinner Saturday night.  Or maybe we were full of bacon wrapped dates and watermelon salad from the party so we couldn't stand the thought of more food.  But anyway, we were hungry by 10:30 the next morning when we finally made it out the door.

I decided to take her to snotty Candler Park (my neighbors and I were talking about how snotty the residents of Candler Park are at the party.  It's 1/2 mile from me but is literally on the other side of the tracks.  Only you drive under the tracks since the tracks are on a bridge.)  The Candler Park people will tell you that they are terrified to drive into my 'hood.  Snots.  I'm terrified to pay what they pay for their houses simply because they are in Candler Park.

But Candler Park does have the original location of The Flying Biscuit Cafe and that's where I wanted to take Laurie for food that tastes way better than anything I would have made her.  Only the line was way down the street and I know when the line is that long it's easily an hour and a half wait for a table.  So I made a quick detour up the street to Little 5 Points which is pretty much the quirkiest neighborhood in Atlanta.  It's bohemian, is not home to a breakfast place, but is full of tattoo shops, restaurants, wig shops, you can still buy vinyl records in places, and it's home to Junkman's Daughter where Laurie bought herself some handerpants.    Yes, she really did.  I was only a tad bit jealous that we only saw one pair so I couldn't buy some for myself.

But we were hungry if you remember, so we didn't actually buy the handerpants at that point in the day.  We saved that for later.

First we drove over to Kirkwood which I thought was a great idea since I had no clue if they had a breakfast place or not.  Laurie, trying to be polite through her growling stomach and hunger headache said, "maybe if we don't find a breakfast place we can just stop somewhere else and eat a sandwich or something?"  That's what she said but on the inside she was probably thinking that I had her trapped in my car and was determined to starve her to death before she could get back to Greensboro.  Laurie's eagle eye and by-then-concave stomach spotted the cutest little breakfast place.  We went to Le Petite Marche where Laurie got to eat something good instead of her shoe which I had seen her staring hungrily at just moments earlier.

At some point, Laurie had mentioned wanting to reupholster a chair and I stared at her in awe that she could do something like that.  She was mentioning she needed to pick out a fabric, etc. so I said, "I have the perfect place to take you!"  And I took her to Forsyth Fabrics and Laurie proclaimed it the place she wants to go to for all of eternity when she kicks the bucket.  Actually she said she could live there which is the complete opposite of what I just said.  I don't even know how to sew a hem on something and sometimes I just go there and look around.  I've cut samples and framed them to make art.  It is full of awesome.

Then we went to Ikea.  It was crowded but we still managed to make it through the market place and fill up a shopping cart.  I bought super exciting stuff:  a laundry hamper and some ziplocs.  Laurie bought cool stuff like curtains.  And then we stood in a long line and we were next to a woman who might have been trying to beat me for being most talkative woman in Atlanta.  She was really nice, but girl could talk the paint off a wall.

By the time we had shopped, we were hungry again.  Laurie probably wasn't really hungry yet but thought she might be within the next 3 hours so she'd best say she was hungry so I could start trying to find a place to eat and she wouldn't have to starve again by the time I found it.  I took her to Flip Burger (Richard Blais is the chef/owner if you are a Top Chef fan) which is across the street from my last apartment.  So she got to see where I used to live and I imagine that was the highlight of her entire Atlanta weekend.  We had burgers and fries and then we split a S'More milkshake only we had half of it all over our table by the time we poured it into two glasses to split it.

She then asked if I could stop back by my house so she could pick up a different camera lens and then wanted to go back to Little Five Points to take some photos of street art.  She really wanted to go buy her handerpants probably, but she used photography as an excuse to go get them.  I told her that sounded great and then pulled into the parking area of L5P and paid for parking.  Because I have a short memory and had completely forgotten she needed a different lens.  So we talked to the parking attendant who said we could leave and come back, drove home, picked up her lens and went back to L5P.  It's less than a mile from my house so it was no big deal. 

We then went to Junkman's Daughter where she got her handerpants and then walked around taking photos of the street art (of which there is tons).  I was kind of hoping Laurie would put on her brand new handerpants while she was taking photos, but sadly, she did not.  Suddenly, three girls came skipping towards us on the sidewalk.  They were singing and dressed in costumes and one of us said something along the lines of, "oh my."  I told Laurie I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind having their picture taken since they were clearly trying to attract attention so Laurie stopped them and they posed.  One had on a bright blue wig, another had a lime green wig, and the third had black hair.  Two wore top hats and mid-calf boots with skeleton printed shirts and black shorts.  The third had fake blood all over her face.  And they clearly enjoyed having their photo taken.

A short time later, I was walking behind Laurie a couple of feet when she suddenly squealed and stopped.  An Atlanta bird had lovingly shat right on top of her head.  We aren't sure if it was the blue bird of happiness as neither of us saw the offending creature.  I walked into a store and asked an employee for a tissue.  Thankfully he had some paper towels and told Laurie it was good luck to have a bird crap on your head.  Easy for someone to say without bird poop on him.

That seemed like a fitting end to our outing so we headed back home.  Where I starved Laurie again and did not feed her dinner.  Actually, we just never got hungry after those burgers.  So we sat on our computers working on party photos and catching up on BBP until time for bed.

Laurie headed out Monday as I left for work.  She's an awesome lady and I had a great time getting to know her.  I hope she'll come back and visit again soon.  But she'll probably have a breakfast place picked out ahead of time.

I saw that several of you requested a home tour of my house.  I will try to get on that at some point.  I took a bunch of "before" photos before I had the renovations done but then I had that pesky broken arm and never made it around to taking "after" photos.  I still have about 3 rooms that are not close to being complete, but I have very few secrets so I'll post them anyway.  Now I just have to get around to taking some photos.  I'll do that after I pick out a breakfast place the next time I have a house guest.....

And I've been trying to make people think I'm the sane one in my 'hood....

Well, people came, we partied, we shindigged, we celebrated, we soireed, we socialized.  Saturday, if you haven’t gotten the point from me mentioning it 8,000 times on here, was June’s Satellite Birthday Party here in Atlanta.  And yes I do realize I call it something different every single time I mention it.  I stopped at the grocery store Friday night on my way home from work and purchased all of the food.  Then I took it out and loaded it in my car in the middle of a torrential downpour.  My pants were too long and by the time I finished, they were soaked almost up to my knees from dragging the ground.

Thankfully, after an entire week of non-stop rain, Saturday dawned and it was a beautiful day in Atlanta full of sunshine to party in honor of June’s birthday.  Poor Laurie had worked all night, then jumped in her car and stampeded to Atlanta from Greensboro still in her scrubs.  (Somehow she stayed awake until she begged me to stop talking her ears off after 11:00 that night.  I’m not sure how she did it while remaining in a very pleasant mood the entire time.  Just ask her what a talker I am.  I'm downright annoying.)  My neighbors came over and everyone was hitting it off smashingly.

And then it happened. 

My neighbor, Amsterdam Lady, saw the cake. 

“Oh, this is a birthday party?!” she asked all excited.  “Which one of you is June?” 

And so I then tried to explain this whole incredibly bizarre situation of how I invited them to a birthday party I was throwing for someone I’ve never met, who was not going to be there, and then I had to explain that her name is not even June.  This was the look on their faces trying to figure it all out: 

My neighbors are awesome!  Once they finally understood (sort of) just how insane I really am, they embraced the idea.  “Oh, we need to start doing this!  It’s a great excuse to throw a party!!  We can have birthday parties for people we just make up in our heads too.  And we’ll make a wish list of things we want and say it’s for the fake birthday person and people can bring us gifts.  BUT WE GET THE GIFTS!  This is perfect!  Why have we not thought of this before?!” 

I told them they would have to pose for photos like this one and I’m not sure it sounded so great to them after all: 

We had so much food that we never even cut into June’s cake.  (Much to the dismay of that beautiful girl with the manly and mature mustache in the photo above.  We kept telling her we would put candles in it (and then I prayed I could find some candles in my house somewhere) and cut it, but we just never got around to it.)  I told Laurie she should take it back to Greensboro and hand it over to dear old June, but I understand June does not need another birthday cake.  Oh, and I didn't mean dear "old" June.  I meant dear young whipper snapper June.  Obviously.  So my co-workers were really excited when I walked into the office carrying an entire birthday cake this morning.  None of them have really looked at it so I’m pretty sure in a few minutes when I send an email inviting them to my office for a piece, I’m going to have lots of fun explaining why I brought in an entire, uncut birthday cake for someone named June, who is not even really named June, and oh, by the way, I've never met her in my life.  But I threw a party for her and bought her a cake.  I’ll report back on how that goes. 

[UPDATE:  that went, um, well.  I have now totally confused approximately 10 more people in my life.]

For the next several weeks I will be eating one of June's favorite foods.  And if you ever have a strong desire to feel like a complete weirdo, you should serve a bowl full of these to your completely clueless neighbors when you invite them over for a party:

Laurie stayed at my house all weekend even though it was the first time we’d met in person.  Because apparently we are both brave women who don’t mind sharing a house with complete strangers.  But within a half hour of her arrival I felt like I had known her for at least 80 years.  Which is weird since I’m only in my 40’s.  About 10 minutes after she went to bed Saturday night, I was on the sofa in my living room and heard someone start setting of lots of fireworks in my ‘hood.  I’m pretty sure they heard it was June’s birthday weekend and wanted to join in the celebration.  I was just hoping Laurie didn’t think we were both about to be shot dead. 

Tomorrow I will recap how Laurie and I took Atlanta by storm on Sunday.  And how I almost starved her to death before we ate breakfast.  And about our encounter with the bluebird of happiness and some really interesting girls.  We also discovered Laurie's very own heaven.

Happiest of birthdays to our beloved June Gardens!  I'm grateful she shares her humor with us and has created a community of people I'm happy to know.

The one in which I touch some nuts and stuff

When I left work yesterday, I had every intention of heading to the party supply store to go get some stuff for Saturday's big shindig.  But shockingly, I walked out of my building and, while I didn't exactly see a sun filled sky, it was not black as night with storm clouds for the first time this week.

So I said, "Self, you should go home and put the lawn mower back together and mow the grass so it doesn't look like you have decided to let the wild take over your yard when people come over this weekend."  I wanted to argue with myself because that sounded about as fun as watching the cows and donkeys in Podunkville, TX again, but I decided to be a responsible adult and go home and put my lawn mower back together and mow the yard.

I got home from work around 7:00 (thank you Atlanta traffic), changed into my fanciest heels and pearls (or maybe my yoga pants, an old shirt from an art festival and my ugly fake yardwork Crocs), went out to the garage and carried the bottom half of my lawn mower over next to the deck steps.  Then I carried all of the parts of the handle over.  Then I went into the storage area of my garage and found all of the screws, washers, lock washers (I didn't even know there are different kinds of washers because I'm not exactly Bob Vila or Tim "the Toolman" Taylor) and the nuts I was told I needed for this job, and I sat down on the deck steps and started trying to reassemble things.  The guy at the hardware store had actually drawn me a picture/diagram and written instructions on the bag as to what order stuff should be done in because I think he realized I am not exactly a professional lawn mower assembly person.  Probably the fact that I told him I had used my mower less than a handful of times and it had fallen apart into several pieces clued him in.

Then I heard noises and they sounded like they were coming from my driveway or front yard so I stopped assembling, got up, walked up to the front of my house to discover I must be hearing crap, walked back down the driveway, sat back down, and started assembling again.

Then I heard thunder and it started raining.  I started cursing.

But I kept sitting there in the rain, cursing, looking at the picture, trying not to stomp away in a huff from frustration, and then I dropped all of the lock washers on the ground and those suckers can roll kind of far.  So I chased them around the driveway, and finally by some miracle of the planets being aligned just so, I got my lawn mower put back together.  AND the rain stopped falling.

If you've ever used a reel mower you know that you have to pre-clean the yard.  If there is a 1/2 inch twig in the grass, it will jam up the mower.  So I got out a lawn bag and picked up all the sticks.  With all of the storms we've had in the past week or so, that took a while.  And my hamstrings are killing me today from all of the bending (don't bother telling me to bend at the knees.  I know that but I don't do it).  There is a tree somewhere near my house and for the life of me I can't figure out which tree it is (but it's not in my yard) which keeps dumping hundreds of these pod things into my yard.  And those stupid pods jam up my mower quite often.  But if I tried to pick them all up, I would still be out there right now.  And yes, I've tried raking them but the rake just flips them around in the air and they fly about 3 feet across the yard to another spot.  It just doesn't work y'all.

So finally, about an hour after I got home I had all of the prep work done to mow.  I mowed about 2 feet, stopped and unjammed a pod from the blades, mowed about 2 more feet, stopped and unjammed a pod from the blades, mowed about 2 more feet, stopped and unjammed a pod from the blades, repeat.  And after 20 minutes I had gotten one strip mowed of my little yard.  I was pouring sweat, cursing like a sailor, my back and legs were hurting from the sudden stopping of the mower every single time something jammed it up and bending over to get it unjammed, and I was unhappy.  I also had to stop and retighten my nuts (that's what she said) several times so the stupid handle didn't fall off the stupid mower again from all of the jarring from the sudden stops from the jams.  My front yard is about as tiny as you can ever imagine and it took me almost 45 minutes to mow it.  Stupid pods.

My next door neighbor waved to me each time we happened to pass each other as he was swiftly mowing his gigantic yard next door with a gas mower and he finished before I was done with my tiny patch.  I was jealous of him and his gas powered, fast mower.  But not of his man boobs.  He's actually a very nice man.  But he has himself some moobs.

The backyard went much more quickly for me.  The pods don't fall back there.  Thank goodness.

I then put the mower up and went and sat down on the front porch.  I was sweating and breathing as though I had just run a marathon.  It was hot and humid.  I felt like I was half dead when I got done a little after 9:00 p.m.

I ran in, took a shower, threw in a load of laundry, and finally sat down and ate a Pop Tart for dinner at almost 10:00. 

That's when it started storming like crazy outside.

Blowing crap all over my freshly cleaned up yard.

My cat was terrified and ran from one piece of furniture to another trying to hide under stuff while I worked on the menu for the party Saturday.  (I like to throw party plans together at kind of the last minute apparently.)

At 11:30 the power went out. 

I heard a transformer blow somewhere nearby so I knew it would be out for a while.  Thankfully, when the lights had started flickering a few minutes earlier I had gone and grabbed a flashlight.  No a/c, no fan, etc.  I can't sleep without air moving around me so I sat there in the dark for 2 hours unable to sleep.  Around 1:30 I saw a Georgia Power truck drive by and by 2:00 a.m. we finally had power again.  I finally fell asleep with Bailey laying on top of me, and then she woke me up at 4:30 when she jumped off.  I never went back to sleep.

All of this is the story as to why I am cranky and yawning today.  But damn it, my grass is cut.

It's almost time to part-ay!

Okay boys and girls.  Actually, it’s probably only girls here, isn’t it?  I didn’t forget I had started a blog but I’ve been busy, y’all.  As you may know, last week I was in Texas and blogging from my phone.  Not fun.  So I didn’t do it much. 

To sum up Texas:  I’m not trying to offend anyone but I am not so much a fan.  It’s so, um, full of cow pastures.  And donkeys, y’all!  And my mom’s husband was shooting cans and bottles with shotguns and pellet rifles in their backyard.  I’m just not used to stuff like that in the ‘hood of Atlanta.  I’m only used to people shooting other people with guns.  I realize I was not in a booming area such as Dallas, Houston, etc., but I just don’t think I could embrace Texas with much love.  Hot Brazilian and I have discussed moving other places down the road, but if he ever suggests Texas I’m just going to have to decline.  But one of his favorite sayings is, “America thinks they are the center of the world and Texans think Texas is the center of America” so I doubt he wants to stampede to live there either. 

And I’m totally going to sound like the most judgmental person on earth, but if you love to people watch as much as I do, you have not lived until you’ve gone to Walmart in Longview, Texas.  My mom once saw a woman in there who apparently looked exactly like Willie Nelson except for the beard.  I’m pretty sure I saw some of her relatives while I was visiting.  Wow, I really know how to alienate all of you from Texas, huh?  Feel free to come to Georgia and make fun too.  Trust me, there is way more to tease us about than I could ever say about Texas.  But I guess I’m just accustomed to the crazy here in Georgia.  Like my niece who orders one chicken biscuit and one plain biscuit from Chick-Fil-A, opens them both up, moves the chicken to the plain biscuit for a while, but never eats the chicken in the end.  She just likes the flavor of the chicken juice on her biscuit but doesn't like the chicken.  I teased her about that all week. Because that's weird.

My mom drove back with us to Atlanta and spent the past several days at my house so I’ve been working and then going home, making us dinner and we’ve been playing a card game called Hand and Foot until late every night.  I kill at that game!  I didn’t think she’d want to sit around and watch me type a blog post each evening because can you even imagine how boring that would be?  Plus she has a habit of anytime something good happens saying, “Beverly, please don’t blog about this.  Please don’t put this on Facebook.”  So I couldn’t exactly type a post with her begging me not to put everything interesting that was happening in it. 

Also, we have had some pretty severe storms in Atlanta this week so I’ve kept my laptop unplugged and we played cards with a flashlight next to us since the power was flickering on and off.  The weather was so bad it made a friend of mine’s landline accidentally call 9-1-1.  She and her husband were sound asleep at 2:00 a.m. when suddenly a police officer was in their backyard waving a flashlight across their bedroom window scaring them half to death.  Their landline hasn’t even worked for 3 months and they have no phones plugged in so they are as perplexed as the police officer as to how a 9-1-1 call was made from their house.  She is blaming their cat, Crouton.  A cat with a name like that probably does stuff like make mysterious landline calls to the police. 

So to sum up, I’ve been basically spending quality time with my mom this week and totally ignored y’all and Music Monday.  I’ll get back to that next week.  Gah!  Saying that makes me sound like I think y’all were sitting around just begging and pleading for me to write and do the Music Monday contest.  But probably some of y’all didn’t even notice I was MIA.  My mom left this morning so I’ll try to get back to blogging fairly regularly.  I know y’all feel like your lives are going to be more complete now.  Ha! 

In completely unrelated news, remember how my lawn mower handle fell off when I was cutting the grass right before I left for Texas?  Probably not since you probably have more important things happening in your own life.  On Sunday I did manage to go to buy new screws so I can put my lawn mower handle back on, but guess what I didn’t have time to do after I got home from the hardware store?  Put my lawn mower handle back on.  And who is completely perturbed that the lawn mower I have used approximately 4 times fell apart in the first place?  I figured I would try to put my mower back together one night this week and mow my grass so it would look as pretty as possible for the Satellite Birthday Party for June this weekend.  But severe thunder, lightning, trees falling down and torrential downpours have not exactly been the best weather for lawn cutting.  And both my mom and my brother were at my house for dinner last night so my grass has not been mowed.  And guess what else?  It’s supposed to rain every single night this week and on Saturday so those of you coming to the party are going to look at my yard and say, “I thought she went on and on about doing yard work all the time?  Look at her tall grass!  Look at the leaves blown all over her tall grass!  Look at the plants all drowned and awful looking!”  I tried, okay? 

But I am so excited about the party Saturday!  I’ve invited my Cajun neighbor and his wife - the Amsterdam neighbor, my humanitarian aid neighbor, and my Jamaican professional bodybuilder neighbor and some others to join us.  So lots of interesting conversations will be going on without a doubt.  The bodybuilding neighbor has not replied yet so I’m not sure if he and his group are coming.  I think he’s preparing for a pretty big competition so he may be busy drinking protein, sleeping 12 hours a day, at the gym working out, etc.  Laurie, Sadie and Tee will be in ‘da house!  If anyone else wants to join us, I’m trying to get the final headcount for food, etc. so please let me know.  Texas peeps:  jump on a plane and come make fun of us!  I totally deserve it after bashing your entire state based on the one podunk town I visited!!

Shotguns and tractors - not things I usually use to celebrate the 4th

Okay y'all, sorry for not blogging sooner with the winners but there is just way too much to do in the booming town of Gilmer, Texas.

For those of you not on Facebook with me, I've been involved in yet another post-pedi accident. I didn't get hurt this time, but my mom, niece and I left a nail salon in Longview Monday afternoon and we were heading to the grocery store when an old lady on her cell phone changed lanes right into the side of my mom's car. Awesome.

On Tuesday we drove about an hour each way and spent the day shopping, walking, etc. by the river in Shreveport, La.

Yesterday we grilled out, rode tractors and shot a 12-gauge shotgun in the backyard. I did not touch the gun myself or we might all have ended up maimed or worse with my track record.

I'm chilling at my mom's house while she and my niece went to the mall for more shopping because I kind of hate shopping and Monday was enough of that for me. They should be home in the next half hour and I'm not sure what our agenda will be but I'm just going to try to stay in one piece.

This is not fun typing blog posts on a cell phone by the way so I'm not elaborating on too much of what has happened this week but there has been plenty to laugh about.

Let's move on to the Music Monday winners. I can't very easily link to a bunch of You Tube videos on here so, well, I'm not going to.

Another song I had thought about which no one submitted was Midnight Train to Georgia.

FIRST PLACE: Sadie tied with herself for Sweet Home Alabama and Georgia on My Mind.

SECOND PLACE: Mary Lou for The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

And THIRD PLACE: a tie between Sadie for The Mississippi Squirrel Revival and Lisa Pie for Life is a Highway.

I will try to blog again tomorrow if anything blog worthy happens here in Gilmer.....

On the road again (and that song is disqualified since I just gave it to you)

Coming at you live from the booming town of Gilmer, TX! Or the cow fields is more like it. I'm definitely a city girl so I'm kind of in culture shock if I'm being honest...

We are "heading into town" in a few minutes which is something I am not really accustomed to saying since I live in the city limits of Atlanta.

So to get here yesterday, we drove half way across Georgia, all the way across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and about an hour into the great state of Texas.

This week's Music Monday contest theme: the song title(s) you submit must contain any of the states we rode through or anything having to do with road trips (car, road, highway, driving, etc.).

I have a few songs in mind as usual, but can't wait to see what y'all come up with.

I will never send this week's winner a yellow rose. Yellow Rose of Texas unless you didn't catch that reference...

Sent from my iPhone. It's telling you because it likes to take credit for everything I do.