The whole bunch is done!

The twins:




The foursome:




I have one more chair that may have to join the ranks as stripe....



Not as twitter-pated with this one as I am the others ... Possible that I just rushed this one. Hum... May have a redo later.

One more stinkin' cute chair!

OMG how stinkin' CUTE is this chair????


The back has a matching stripe Yeah yeah - I won't have enough to do TWO chair fronts otherwise! But the fabric I found is an amazing close match!

The reality of Sequestrations

Here is the bottom line for ME for the sequestration:

Estimated LOSS of income per pay period: $338.20

Estimated GAIN in annual leave: 6.4        (*yes this is gain as I won't have to use leave on those days I had scheduled for leave)

Estimated LOSS in sick leave: 8.8             (*if they truly dock by 20% on all leave earned in a pay period)

 

Doable?  Yep… doable.

Estimated GAIN:              Time off to visit with mom and dad

Time off with the kids when they are on summer break

Time off to get some stuff done around the house that is long overdue

Time off to float in the pool one more day on a long weekend… bring it on!!!

Thrift store finds

Here piggy piggy! A little polish and he's cute for $.50


$55 new Vera Bradley bag for $25.00. Sweet!

Butch was nice enough to go and dispose of it for the folks

Location:One less Armadillo in the world

And the Oscar goes to....

Angela!

Why, you ask; because she's been out of town all week on the whirlwind
tour of Washington DC with her Honors group. It's been quite around the
home front with a child who's driving and really doesn't require much
adult intervention at this part of her life. She's floating off towards
college and seems to be on a great trajectory. Angela on the other hand
came off the bus in tears; big blubbering tears, amidst complaints of "I
feel like I'm going to throw up". Why? This is all due to a "lost"
book, bookmark and hat. Were they all found? Yes, they were. Was all
well with the world? Yes. Were the tears still flowing ALL the way
home? Yes... Part of this is just from being worked up, I'm sure.
So, I guess she held it together all the way to town, then BOOOMMMMM it
all comes out. Fun, fun, fun. There were numerous complaints all the
way until I walked out the door of her not wanting to go to school...
ALL her pants were in the wash... she felt sick....

Welcome Back Angela - we missed you!!

What do I see in MY future?

If the civilian workforce is furloughed:

* Furlough duration: First, enacting civilian unpaid furloughs is
a measure of last resort. If it does occur, the most likely option is
one day per week for the last 22 weeks of the fiscal year (late April
through September) for a total of 22 work days (176 hours). One day per
week (eight hours) equals a 20 percent reduction in pay for each
individual DOD civilian worker during the furlough period.

* Notification: If furloughs occur, the workforce will be notified
by management at least 30 days prior to the initial furlough. OPM will
decide which days personnel will be furloughed.

* Exemptions: If sequestration occurs, most civilians will be
furloughed with few exceptions: (1) those deployed in a combat zone, (2)
those who protect the safety of life or property to the extent needed,
(3) non-appropriated fund employees (NAF), (4) those exempt by law who
hold a presidential appointment with Senate confirmation, (5) foreign
nationals and (6) those exempted as approved by a 2-star flag officer or
higher.

* Leave: Furlough time off is treated like regular leave without
pay for leave accrual and benefit purposes. When employees are in a
non-pay status (like a furlough) their retirement deductions are
adjusted in proportion to their basic pay.

* Thrift Savings Plan: Regarding the Thrift Savings Plan,
employees who have selected their TSP contribution to be a percentage of
their pay will see smaller contributions during the furlough period due
to their reduced pay. Employees who have selected a fixed amount for
their TSP contribution will see the same amount deducted during the
furlough period.

* Financial hardships: We understand furloughs may result in
unexpected financial difficulty for civilian personnel and their
families, but financial difficulties are not grounds for a supervisor to
waive an employee's furlough. Employees should start planning
immediately for reduced paychecks beginning in April.

* Healthcare: The Government's portion of the healthcare premiums
will be paid in full and on time, and benefits will continue for
furloughed employees. See the OPM website at www.opm.gov for more
information.

* Outside employment: While on furlough, individuals remain
employed by the Federal Government; therefore, standards of ethical
conduct and rules regarding outside employment are applicable. Before
engaging in outside employment, employees should consult their agency
ethics official.

There is still an opportunity for Congress to pass a balanced
deficit-reduction plan that the President can sign and sequestration is
truly averted (not just delayed). Not only is the current situation
devastating to our personnel, we know that furloughs will substantially
harm our ability to reset and restore the force's full-spectrum combat
capability after over a decade of hard fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Through it all, we must ensure our long term viability in defense of
this nation, which means we have to retain focus on speed, safety and
quality. We want to ensure we don't lose the gains you've made as a
Center. If we lose our competitive edge, it could lead to longer term
impacts than what are initially posed by sequestration. It is vital we
sustain our priority on the mission as we continue to seek new
workloads and support the warfighter.

Happy Presidents day weekend

For Mom's birthday we just now had her dinner. Mostly because when it
was her birthday, she just wasn't in the mood to go to dinner.... so we
waited for her to say the word. The word came for Sunday night :)
So, dinner it was. We went to the new Chinese place in their town that
has a Mongolian grill in it. Yum. We had a nice dinner then went to
their house to place push the dummy. Butch was the biggest winner -
lucky him! We also had cake and ice-cream at their house as well. YUM!

It was nice to get together to play games and visit for a bit.
Monday was a holiday for me, poor Butch had to work, so Mom and I went
to a few junk stores in town and looked for a display case for her. We
went to two Goodwill stores, the big junk store just outside of town and
to Target (not a junk store, but a fun store!)... so I had two fun
days!! THEN I went home to finish up on what I had started that morning
with cleaning. I finished my closet - cleaned all the "junk" off the
floor... got all the bins out and moved all the clothing around to be in
a better spot. Then went through my bathing suit drawer, what a mess...
I did toss a few suits that had seen better days and their elastic was
shot. Even with chucking, I ended up with two brown based suites, and
four black based ones with lots of bottoms for each. Meaning the colors
on the top half have browns in them and the bottoms are all brown, or
the tops have black in them and the bottoms are all black. So, I have a
BUNCH of suits for the New Year. Oh, and still have two one piece
suites for hot tubing in the winter! :) I like a one piece as they
don't ride up in the bubbles. TMI I'm sure!
I also got all the horses out of the TWO big boxes they were in and
consolidated them down to ONE big box. Now what to do with that big box
is the mystery.
And the last but not least of what I did yesterday because you KNOW
rather than doing this over a three day weekend I crammed it all into
ONE day... was to blow off the porch and deck. It's all clean now and
ready for spring to start.... bring on warm weather.. I noticed a lot
of my loungers are sun rotted (been about 5 years... so it isn't
shocking!) and need to be put out by the curb for the trash on Friday...
that's ONE more thing I need to get working on this week.... that and
finishing my chair projects and table project for out there... and the
list goes ON and ON and ON... :)
It is all self-inflicted too :p
I had thought about taking the time off with the kids, but Angela leaves
tonight to head out to Washington with her class...yes, even with all
the school drama we're letting her go. Part of me still wonders if this
is the correct choice... but we're going to see the talk I had with her
teachers as a positive note and that she is making progress in the right
direction as a positive note as well.. I have a sinking feeling this one
is going to bite us in the butt and it will be interpreted to her as "do
as you damn well please, nothing bad will happen as a result". It's not
like we didn't take everything away and ground her for weeks... nothing
seems to have much effect on her attitude or her reactions... she will
fly right and do well for a while, then just decide she doesn't have to
do homework. IN THE MIDDLE OF BEING GROUNDED. Talk about not to
bright... really - what ELSE are you going to do??? You have no
electronics and you're sent to your room to do homework... what the
crap. Sigh...
This too shall pass from what I'm told ... probably like a kidney stone,
but this too shall pass.

Weekend getaway

The first indication of how this weekend would be was the stop at TacoBell for lunch just outside if Biloxi:








Why YES those ARE handcuffs hanging out of her back pocket. Hummmm

Her friend...looks normal enough





Yes she KNEW her pants were unzipped and unbuttoned. Wow!

First night Ocean City parade:


No, I'm not drunk but did get a beer to enjoy while waiting for the parade. Apparently slap happy from a long drive down.


Love the squid hats!


Crowd at its peak. Float coming towards us


Float getting closer


The beads!


The "dog" boy. Had a few girls dressed as dogs too. Weird. To each their own.


Beads I'm taking home:


Keesler AFB bay side @ the marina park.


Note there are crawfish in my plate :) yes, I ate them, no, I do not suck the head. Ewh!


Dead crab legs!


Beads Leslie is taking home!


No pictures if spa day...
More pictures on the camera, regretfully can't get to those to post them from here.

Last morning. Foggy...it's going to be a long drive home today!

My new Job as a bank teller

Over the weekend I rolled coins in my effort to head on out to Biloxi
this weekend (sooo excited - going to meet up with Leslie again!). I
came up with $163 worth of coins... that's a lot of change... and it
weighed quite a bit. So, I bagged it up and put it in the car to turn
it into the bank. Afternoon rolls around and I find myself short on
time (story of my life as of late!) but I decided to push it and head on
into the bank to get rid of the coins at a minimum (there was also a
package that didn't get mailed yesterday!).

I get into the bank and there are about 5 people ahead of me in line.
Sigh. The line was moving quite slowly... A younger guy in the line
about two people up said "I just need change for a $20.... anyone have
change for a $20?" I teased him and said I have a LOT of quarters :)
hahaha. I then put my coins on the floor and dug through my wallet and
low and behold I had change for a $20! He was so honest too - as I was
juggling purse and counting change I missed the fact that one of the
"ones" I had was actually another $5. He gave me back all the ones and
just took the $20 in change. Good for you honest man!! Good for you!!

Then another guy sheepishly looks at me and says "do you have $40 worth
of quarters? That's all I need" HECK yeah!! I give him $40 worth of
quarters and I'm down to ONE woman in line in front of me! Whoop! I
teased her and asked if she was SURE she didn't need any change :)
hahaha

So there you have it, my next life I'm going to be a bank teller!

New bed spread for my room

It took me a while to find one that I liked. It took a while for me to commit to it, however now I'm glad I did :) It's a nice change.

Moving and shifting clutter ...

The entry way "before"

 

 AFTER
 

 

Why on earth would i replace a perfectly good sofa/entry table, you ask?  It's not a great answer, but it's a good answer, it was to empty one more of THESE from the attic:

 

 

Now all of the table clothes and napkins that were in here are now in the drawers of my lovely new entry table.  The entry table is ... well, in the way right now, but will be shipped off to be loved by someone else in the near future, I'm sure!

 

 

I had to come in for it's close up shot... LOVE the red color and LOVE the hardware... shocked at where I found this little gem... are you wondering too?  BIG LOTS.  Yes sir, Big Lots had this cute table - more than I would have anticipated for Big Lots prices, however having been pricing these types of chests for a while, it was less than a chain store!!

MLK weekend

Shoveling Mulch!

The girls did an excellent job of spreading out the mulch and Liz was a good sport driving the wheel barrow.  She was short enough not to have to bend over to keep the front from digging in on the soft dirt.

 Dad overseeing the efforts :)

Unrelated to the weekend, in all reality, however I had been toying with some updates for the house... I am tired of my red bedspread and it's going to be replaced.  It took me a bit to warm up to this one - a day or two of it sitting in the bedroom, before I would actually take it out of the package and lay it on the bed.  I'm still not 100% committed to it as I have not removed ANY of the tags... however, I have another pictures somewhere that shows it in relation to the red curtains and red footstools and it really does look nice... a red throw pillow and it will be the perfect "addition" to the bedroom and the now faded to burgundy (you can see it in the background of this picture) bedspread will be retired - well, thrift store bound!!

In other updates that have not made it to the blog, the cameras were established in the last few weeks as well - we're "under watch" now.  We can see when folks are coming and going from our phones and computers.  Fun stuff.  Ahhhh love technology!

Lost weekends (busy? weekends?)

Sad when you come back to work and think "where did the weekend go" and it was a three day weekend.

I know, the things I did were on the "must do" list... and they were all productive... and in reality I really didn't do THAT much over the weekend, but it just seems to have gone "poof" and it was gone!

Saturday... I have no clue what I did on Saturday... I went to pick a kid up from a sleep over... I did stuff around the house... but not a lot from what I can recall - see - LOST weekends!

Sunday, I got up, read the paper, had my coffee... then took off to deliver some "good mail" to Beth Christensen's house.  This is in Perry, so I went by Mom's house to drop off the paper and help her with computer stuff.  Then home and a nap - yes, a nap.  I had Liz take my temperature as I had been coming home a few nights this week falling asleep (Thursday and Friday) for a few hours, then getting up and doing what needed to be done, then back to bed at a decent hour and sleeping the whole night.  I was running a low grade fever.  Hum... weirdness.

Monday, I had to get up "early" - which translates to 8am - to get Liz to her appointment at the hospital intake for volunteering.  While she was in her orientation process I went shopping for a new table for the entry with storage.  I believe I have found my table.  Butch was actually in agreement with the one I chose.  Yay!  I'm going to pick it up on the way home!!  I then went home, fought with Angela tooth and nail to get her MOVING with what she should have done while I was gone.... after that was finally accomplished, we were off and running to the Cochran Consignment shop!  There was a cop re-directing traffic where I typically turn anyway, so I thought 'Hum, wonder what's going on?' this was further asked when I got to the consignment shop and the street was blocked off there as well - with folks lining the street.  Yep, they were having a parade!  So, I got the girls to help me in with all the consignment things and the parade started while we were still shopping!  Fun.  I stopped and watched part of it.  It was entertaining for a Monday small town parade.  Liz in the meantime found a dress for her Prom.  $50.  I used my store credit to purchase it for her.  We’ll see what the alterations will cost her (and by her, I really mean me in the end, I’m sure!)  From there it was off to Mom and Dad’s house to help them with their asparagus bed.  Dad had mowed it for us so we could put some mulch over the top.  The girls and I shoveled and raked and spread to get a good coverage over the crop.  We’ll see if this will help them grow for next year J  by now it’s 5 o-clock.  Home, dinner, bed…

And thus why I wonder just where my weekend went.  I may just have to run away to the spring expo to take a break and have a girls weekend.

 

Graveyards

I discovered quite by accident that there is a graveyard a stones throw from our house.
A tree right in the middle if four graves.


Earliest burial 1933


Interesting...


Not sure if this when born or when died... Just thought this was cool with the moss in 1926.


From the car looking to the left side of the graveyard


Looking more forward.


Acids the car to the far right.



And at some point this week I came home to find the lawn torched. :o/ hum. Didn't expect that!





Yes, Butch is a pyromaniac.

What have we been doing lately

Angela and I went to grandma and grandpa's house to get the nuts off the roof. Even I got into the act.
Can you see Angela?


There she is!


Queen if the roof!!