Archives

Should she take it?

May13

Carol tells me that she has been offered a job that she really want to take, but it would involve moving to Charleston. Although the salary is a large increase over what she is making now, she is reluctant to move to a town where she has no friends or family. I can sympathize with that; picking up and moving by yourself is a really difficult thing to do, both physically and emotionally.

I suggested that she contact a Charleston real estate agent about finding a house that she could rent with the option to buy near where her new office is going to be. She has several dogs and I know that it will be almost impossible for her to find an apartment that will allow her to keep her dogs, and renting a house with a fenced in yard so the dogs could run around loose in the yard would be so much better for all of them.

Even so, in this unstable job market, I think that I would negotiate a contract with the company that would put her mind at ease about getting laid off shortly after moving. I would hate to move to a new city to accept a new job and then end up laid off after I picked up and moved to a city where I had no friends or family nearby!

Planning the new garage

May7

When my hubby and I decided that we would go ahead and put up that workshop/garage in the back yard for him to tinker on his classic cars, he spent days online looking at the different types of metal buildings. Many telephone calls were made trying to get the best deals on vehicle lifts. Trips down to the county planner’s office to meet with the guy in charge of granting the building permits seemed to happen at least once a week. The whole project was a much bigger ordeal than I had expected it to be.

Family reunions

Apr5

As my mother gets older, the family reunions at her place taper off. She says she is just too old to host such a large number of people at her place anymore. That makes me sad because I have many happy memories of my brothers and sisters bringing their families to Mom’s place for a weekend reunion filled with boating, skiing, fishing, and shared laughter around the fire pit in the evening.

I can remember as kids we would compete to sit in one of the few (an therefore coveted) big Adirondack chairs that had the best view of the waterfront. Picking freshly steamed crabs on top of the old newspaper-covered Picnic Tables on the porch. Somehow when picking crabs we didn’t need to worry quite so much about being quiet and polite. And finding branches to stick our marshmallows on and toasting them over the fire pit while sitting on the Park Benches that formed a semi-circle around the fire.

I miss those times, but am glad for the memories.

Loose Dogs are a Nuisance

Apr3

So many people are irresponsible pet owners that it breaks my heart (for the sake of the dogs and cats) and it makes me very angry that our society allows just anyone to “own” pets. We have a handful of laws about pets, such as rabies vaccinations and anti-cruelty statutes. But for the most part, unless someone makes a complaint against a specific pet owner, people do pretty much whatever they want with animals.

I was glad when Michael Vick was arrested for dog fighting. I have always wondered which one of his posse got mad at him and ratted him out? As far as I am concerned, every single one of the pissants who worked in his kennels and attended the dog fights should have been hunted down and caged. They were all just as guilty as Michael Vick and I can guarantee that just because Vick was arrested that the people who were involved have not stopped – they have just moved on to another cruel dog owner holding dog fights in another place.

I have no knowledge of any dog fights in our area, but we do have a constant problem with dogs running loose in the streets. Many of these dogs have not escaped accidentally – they have owners who knowingly let them out to run. I’m not afraid of being bitten by any of these dogs, but I do worry about my own dogs being attacked in my yard or a driver hitting one of the dogs running in the road and having an accident. I have a small fenced area for my dogs to run and if we ever go out of the house other than their exercise pen they are on a leash.

Going through our coat closet

Mar23

Guest post written by Michelle Diaz

One thing that I’ve been putting off since last winter is going through our coat closet and sorting through all of the stuff that we haven’t’ worn in a long time. It also kind of serves as an overflow closet, which means that a lot of the time I’ll just throw junk in there when I don’t have time to find a proper place for it in our home. I’m paying for that now and trying to stop doing that.

I went online to see if I could find some tips about how to organize my closet. I did find a few tips and even bought some organizational stuff to help with it. We have so many gloves and scarves that were littering the floor, so I think that those organizational things will really help.