AT LAST

The bad thing is it is also my long day at work. But my dear son gets off earlier than me tomorrow and he is going to move the heavy stuff and Amy is going to take some stuff over in her vehicle. I am determined to sleep there tomorrow. I am off Friday so I can get stuff put away then.
I took some stuff over tonight and unpacked the microwave and some dishes I had bought. I'll take pictures I promise!

I'm Just Thankful

Nothing much exciting today. Traffic moved well going and coming today to and from work. Customers were a little weird but not so much. Juat a pretty uneventful day which is a good thing. I'm chomping at the bit for the first to get here and the thing is I have to work from opening to closing on Wednesday. But we can get some stuff moved at night. And I'm off Friday.
I am so thankful to have a job again. I'm never ever letting this go. I'm hoping to be able to move to another store a little closer and maybe get back into management so I don't have to struggle so much financially but for now I'm just thankful.
I'm also thankful for my son and my DIL for their love and support for the last year and almost a half. If I'd not had a safe place to land and to heal I don't know where I'd be right now.

Life Is So Expensive

  Ok, I've got the electricity in my name, (a big deposit I have to pay, OUCH!), ordered the Direct TV, using the family and friends plan which got me and Matthew 100 bucks off our bills.  I've called Waste Management about garbage pick up, and changed my address.  And I did this all on line, I so love the Internet. I bought a $39 microwave from Walmart today and a broom and dust pan and a few odds and ends to set up housekeeping.  I'm trying hard to stretch my dollars as best I can.

   Haleigh and I just went to the house to check on the progress she made on the house today and it looks to me like all she has to do is clean up and get her tools out.  SO that is a good thing.  I've not heard from her at all.

   I watched the Emmy Awards and now I'm about ready for sleep. Haleigh's parents are out tonight and she is suppose to be in her room watching a movie but that's not happening at the moment.
Grandma's a pushover.

So,  Starting a new week but by next weekend I will be in my little house.

Poor Horse

   Matthew helps out at the rodeo every year and he enjoys it so.  He looks so handsome in his cowboy hat and boots.  He loves it and was excited for me to go tonight.  I love cowboys and horses and the barrel races and the bucking bulls.  Wouldn't you know it that tonight a horse broke his back and they had to put him down??  Why would that have to happen tonight?  I can't get him out of my mind and they didn't tell the crowd, they just hauled him off and the only reason I know is that Matthew had to tell me. 
  So I enjoyed the rodeo but my heart hurts for that beautiful bucking white horse.  When he fell, the cowboy riding him was the first one to him. 
   Tomorrow is Extreme Bull Riding and ESPN actually comes to Bremerton and it is on TV.  I think I'll skip it, in fact, don't tell Matthew but I might not ever go to another rodeo again.

  

My New Hobby

  While I was not working and going nuts I decided that I needed to learn something new . I decided I'd like to learn to knit.  My mother has crocheted for years and I even learned how to do that but I'd never really enjoyed it.  So, I bought yarn and some needles and a book and with that and the Internet, I learned to knit.  I got hung up on making dishcloths because they were quick and easy and the yarn for them wasn't too expensive so now I have dishcloths for my place.  I made Haleigh a few hats and a scarf but since I've started back to work my knitting has been set aside.  I think it is something that I will pick up again though maybe this winter and when I'm on my own.
   I'd like to knit my mother a shawl, she'd like that.  We'll see how it goes.  For now I have bunches of dishcloths.

The kids are busy at the Rodeo this week and I actually got home tonight before them.  Tomorrow is my lonnnnnng day as I work 9-8 without a Dr. there and all alone.  It makes for a very long day but somehow I get through it.  Since for now there is only two of us working, it is the only way we can get the weekends off if each of us work a long day once a week.  So that's ok.
  I'm going to the Rodeo Saturday night.  It is "Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night" to bring awareness to breast cancer and all the cowboys and helpers will wear pink shirts.  I don't have any cowgirl boots, but I can wear pink for sure!
  Anyway, my day at work was pretty good and I'm tired so to sleep I think I'll go! Not sure how I'm ever going to wait until the 1st of the month but it is coming pretty fast so I just have to hang on.


  

Back to work today after being off yesterday.  Today the Dr. is leaving a little bit early so my late afternoon until closing could be a little slow.  I like it better of course when the Dr. is booked and we are super busy but this little store is seldom really ever super busy. 
   Because I'm not the manager in this store and the manager is on maternity leave, I'm having a hard time not rearranging things, I was so used to being able to doing that.  The back room is pretty much a mess and they never even vacuumed very much.  I dug the vac out and cleaned it up and found bags for it and have  been cleaning more and more every night.    They seldom see their district manager so keeping the store as clean as I am used to keeping one is not a priority with them.  So that is all different.  Customer service is important to them though so we share that and for that I am glad.
   After I got the key to my house late afternoon yesterday, I waited until the land lady was on the ferry back to Seattle and I went to look at the house alone so I could really look.  She is still working on it so there are tools everywhere but I wanted to take it all in and find the light switches and look in the closets and well, just see it again.  It is really cute. I can hardly wait to be there!
  
 
  
  

"NOT AGAIN!"

  Poor Sweetie got really concerned when she saw me packing up stuff today.  The last time she saw me doing that we put her in a basket in a U haul and moved 3000 miles! 
    I think she'll like our little house.  We still have access to the park that she loves and even a small fenced in back yard for her to enjoy.

   I spent about an hour with my land lady today.  She does almost all the remodeling herself and she does a good job.  She is probably in her middle 40's.  She also has two sons.  One is off to college this year and the other is 13.  She lives in Seattle and is a hard working woman.  She owns 3 or 4 other houses here in Bremerton.  

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Everyday I go over this bridge, well they are twin bridges so I go over one on the way to work and the other on the way home. There is a toll but only for one way, thank goodness. Anyway, I have always loved bridges and this one is so pretty at sunset. It's my favorite part of the commute to work.
  

The Key to my Little House

  Well as it turns out, I am going to sign the lease today and get my key to the house but I can't really move in yet as she is doing finishing touches on the paint and the grout and fixing a door and stuff like that, but I can start moving somethings in starting this afternoon, so YAY!
   It was almost ten o'clock when I got home from work last night.  We close at eight and it takes me a little over an hour to drive home but the Dr. had a late patient.  It was ok, that happens and I still would rather work until closing than to drive through the five o'clock traffic.

The used Couch I found that we are picking up today.  I took this pic with my phone but it shows the colors.  It's a really nice couch for the price.

   Yesterday was the most beautiful Washington day.  They say it is days like that one that hook people and they move and then find out those days are few and sometimes far between.  No humidity, 70 degrees, little breeze, not a cloud in the sky.  And then the night was just as beautiful with a full moon and a sky full of stars.  It was breath taking.  
    Today I'm off and it is promised  be another beautiful day again.  So I'd better get started.  Haleigh is with me today as Amy just started a new Job today. 


  

Pure Torture

My land lady has put my move off from this weekend to the 1st.  Granted it is only a few days and she says it is because she decided to tile the laundry room floor and a door needs replacing, I am still tortured.  I am so excited to get there that it is pure torture to have to wait.  And the fact is that I'm not off then but I don't have much to move and it is what it is, but STILL...............UGH!
   My mom is sending me a box of kitchen gadgets so I'm excited about that. 
I am off tomorrow and Haleigh and I are going to try and get some of my stuff ready for the move so I'm excited about that.
  Matthew says this will be the easiest and cheapest move EVER!
SO, I'll take a deep breath and wait some more.
Oh, I'm going to a Rodeo Satuday night, excited about that too!

 

Going back to work with National Vision has really saved my life and for that I will be forever grateful to them. Right now I'm working in a store where the manager is on maturnity leave. After she gets back to work, the district manager says she can keep me busy between her stores and maybe an opening will come about and I can get back into management. Not that I miss that part of it, I'd much rather be a sales associate but I need the extra money to really live comfortably. Anyway, it will be what it will be and like I said, right now I'm just so thankful to have a job. I've so enjoyed meeting the new customers. The people in Lacey Washington are very nice. They seem to be happy, friendly folks and they all try to guess where I'm from. Most of them guess Texas or North Carolina, but never Georgia. And they all ask how I ended up here and they are really interested!
The store does not do the volume that the store I left behind did so there is only one other girl and me working while the manager is off. Her name is Shayna and she is only 21 but she and I have hit it off and she is just so good to work with and we compliment each other just great.
The Dr. is an older gentleman named Dr. Archer and he is such a sweet man with a good sence of humor and I really enjoy working with him too.
   So, my job is going very well with the only drawback being the commute but it is not so bad at all, I just leave early enough in case I get stuck in traffic.  I work mostly from noon to eight so that when I get off traffic is not so bad and it takes me a little over an hour to get home.  But it is an easy drive and for now I'm even enjoying it.
   And stay tuned for news on my big move to my own place coming soon.  I can't wait!

 

Starting from Scratch

It's Monday morning and that means I call my mother. But some Mondays she works and I'm suppose to call her cell. And that means sometimes she is able to answer and sometimes she can't. This morning she couldn't I guess as I tried three times and never got her.
Since I'm working now, we have a hard time with that sometimes. And for some reason I'm not allowed to just randomly call her, she has to give me a special time. Who knows!
I am counting the days until I get to move into my little house. The lady renting me the house called it "a darling little cottage" in the ad. It is kinda cute. I have to start from scratch with furniture as I left everything I had in Georgia. So I found a really good used couch that I hope is still there at good St.Vincent's today. And a little round dining room table at Goodwill. It is kinda fun.
And so now I must start getting ready to go to work. And it feels so good to say that.

I thought long and hard about just ditching this blog and starting a new one all together. I decided not to that because the journey to get where I've gotten is what this blog is all about.
The good news is that I have a job. I've gone back to work with the company I'd worked with in Ga. I'm working in a town called Lacey. I have fallen in love with the people in that town. And the second good news is I have my own little place, at least I will next weekend when I can move in. It is close enough for Haleigh to ride her bike over!
And so things are better for me. I love my job. It is what I'm good at and what I need to be doing. It is however a commute but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
I've missed blogging. And now that I'm finding my way our of my "lost in time" period, I think I'm ready to start back on a regular basis.
So for now, that's it, a fresh start. And I'm ready.