Life is Good

The past two days have been really wonderful for us... Probably because we finally sold our "flip" house in East Point. The closing was yesterday at 4pm in Buckhead. I think we were both beaming from ear-to-ear when we pulled out of that law firm's parking lot onto Lenox Road... check in hand, high-fiving our way to the Mall. We were basically killing time until our 8:30pm reservation for our celebration supper at Bones steakhouse. Yes, we mixed it up this time and picked a different restaurant to celebrate our special occasion (we are getting a little tired of the famous Buckhead brazilian all-you-can-eat meat-on-a-stick place we usually go to for special occasions like promotions, house closings, engagements, our wedding, etc.) And today was good too... even though we were going camping tonight up at Carter's Lake with a side of mountain biking (they have 3-4 trails there) but the rain changed our minds this morning. We still had a great day cleaning out our old clothes to donate to the Goodwill. We seriously crack each other up trying on old clothes that are way too tight or just plain ugly. And then we attempted to go mtn biking again this evening.. and the stormy weather ran us away then too. So Mellow Mushroom pizza and beer was a great substitute. Oh well, we will try to go again tomorrow... Life is good.

Home...where the deer and the antelope play?

I received an email from a relative back home yesterday that just blew me away... The email was a forward from one of her co-workers that resides in Meriwether County just outside of Pine Mountain. Obviously he has lots of time on his hands outside of work...



Look at that beautiful creature... fresh fuzz on the antlers... definitely a prize for one lucky hunter when the season comes in later this year... it's too bad that he will die by the gun of the idiot feeding him from a trough all year long... I mean, seriously, would you look at the picture of that trough? It's like he goes home to his chores like he is slopping the hogs or something... instead of hogs it is the deer! He just fattens them up and lures them to that spot so when the season arrives, BAM! Goodbye 11-pointer, hello GON winner! What sport is involved with this type of hunting is my question??

Mattresses are for the bedroom

So Saturday we were on our way down I-75 southbound heading into the City when we spotted another one of those funny scenes that always makes me wonder how stupid people can be... I even slowed down to get a good look at this moron and his hair-brained idea... imagine a nice dark colored Chevy Tahoe cruising down the interstate about 70 mph with two mattresses shoved into the back end of the vehicle with about a foot of material hanging out of the rear window and another two strapped down to the roof of the vehicle with a rope. Doesn't sound too bad, huh? Not hardly... imagine that the one mattress on the very top is bent at the rope and the front half of the mattress if standing straight up 90 degrees from its other half and just flapping against the wind... First of all, does the idiot not realize that this will damage the mattress? And secondly, how many mattresses are the poor souls of this City going to have to dodge, hit or push down the interstates before they ban this practice? Where are the police in patrolling the interstates for this kinda behavior?

Just last week I saw a car in the emergency lane of I-85 southbound that had run over a mattress and the thing had wedged itself so far into the undercarriage of the car that the car was resting on only the front two wheels and the back wheels were off the pavement. The car owner and the Incident Response Unit guy were just standing there scratching their heads and staring at the car and probably wondering how the hell they were going to get the two apart...

In my 17 years in this city, I have had two encounters with mattresses in the my lane of the interstate and both times it seriously scared the crap outta me... it is not fun to be going 65-80 mph and not see a mattress (or a ladder, etc.) in my lane until at the last second only to swerve out of my lane to miss it and just pray that no one is next to me so I do not hit them in the process.

All I can say is RIDICULOUS... why not just make 2 trips to haul your mattresses... the pain of making two trips to haul mattresses is much less painful than the car wreck that will happen after you lose them on the road... please people- THINK

Now that cracks me up!

I received an email joke this evening (while still at the office at 7pm!) that just really made me laugh for a brief moment in the middle of my sea of turmoil called work...


Chelsea Clinton was in LaGuardia International Airport (LGA) in New York where she struck up a conversation with a young Marine who was just back from a 12 month tour in Iraq.

Chelsea said: "What three things scared you the most when you were in Iraq?"

The Marine immediately replied: "Osama, Obama, and Yomama."


What a riot!! (Laughing hysterically...)

Unless you are an aircraft, stop hovering!

So Monday night I decided to take a much needed trip to Wal-mart to pick up a few household goods we were lacking in... I got there around 8pm and took off in pursuit of the items. One of the first things I am always reminded of every time I go to W-m is that people are "hell-on-wheels" when it comes to manuevering their shopping buggies around the store. I wonder to myself if these people drive their carts in the store like they drive their vehicles on the street. There has to be a similarity! I get so sick of the folks that cut you off in the store aisle just like on the interstate.. then there are the ones that come flying around the corners and almost collide with you head-on. Are you really in that big of a hurry? Anyway, after 45 minutes or so of blazing my trails through the store around all the other crazies, I go to the check-out lines and find that out of 25+ registers only 5 or 6 are open and 2 of those are the "10 items or less" speedy lines. So I pick one of the longer lines and fall in line behind the other 4 carts already waiting there. Keep in mind that the 4 carts ahead of me are, of course, BRIMMING with purchases... So I just patiently wait since I am in no hurry... After about 20 minutes of waiting and down to only 2 carts ahead of me, a man starts mysteriously hanging around in front of my cart and acting like he is wanting to get in line (ahead of me of course). He never says a word and I just keep watching him... I suppose he thinks if he keeps standing there that I will offer him a spot... I notice he only has two items... I start getting ansy while wondering why in the world he doesn't just go get in the "speedy" lines... Am I an awful person not to offer him a spot in front of me? If I had not been waiting for 25+ minutes by now, I might have offered... but, now I am really getting perturbed with this guy and I think- this is just like on the interstate when I am in a lane that is all backed up and he is one of those people that flies by in the next lane and then tries to cut over at the very front of our line at the last minute- Cheater!!! Eventually, he circles around and just cuts the guy off behind me and is now standing behind me and the front of the other guy's cart. All of a sudden I realize just how close this guy is to me physically... I mean he is seriously hovering me! I am now thinking "Back Off!" I turn my head and see he is seriously only 4-6 inches from my back... I start panicking... my radar is alarming "please step away from Kelly's space... back away from Kelly's bubble"... I am now hunching over my cart and inching it as close to the lady in front of me as I can without invading her space... I turn again... he is still hovering... he is so close to me that if I were to step back just a half of a step I would bang into him.... I am dying here... the lady in front of me finally moves forward and I am rushing to sling my stuff on the belt and trying to put the cart between me and him... when I finally get to the register the employee asks me how my long wait was... I respond that it would have been better if I had more room in line... then I realize that now the "hoverer" is standing right next me...almost touching my left arm at the register... the uncomfortable radar is sounding in my head again about the intrusion of Kelly's space... I literally have to turn the credit card machine to the right so he cannot read my info...the check-out guy could not hand me my receipt fast enough! I finally get out of the store and breath deeply... I really think that every thing in this town revolves around rush-hour traffic-like conditions, cramped, bumper-to-bumper people whether it is on the road, at the store, at the restaurant, the gym, the coffee shop, etc. and it is seriously getting on my last nerve. As I am trying to carefully maneuver my vehicle out of my parking space (without hitting the idiot's car next to me that is parked way too close for comfort after the teenage driver dashed into the space on 2 wheels from the opposite direction- in a hurry I am sure!), I realize that after 17 years of Atlanta and the congestion, I think I am ready for a change...

Crash & Burn Again

So we spent the 4th of July insanely mountain biking… this seems to be our new past time… Mike enjoys it WAY more than I do though… probably because he has not CRASHED yet! Yes, Saturday morning I crashed yet again… If you can imagine unintentionally sliding into home plate… on a bike… unbelievingly out of control… on a really sharp curve…. on the side of steep mountainous terrain…with the gravel and dirt giving out from underneath you as you slide… It literally scared the crap out of me to say the least!!! I hopped up as quickly as my beaten sore body could move… just hoping no one witnessed the incident… oh man did it hurt and boy did I want to cry…But, I didn't cry… instead I just stood there huffing and puffing trying to catch my breath…

SATURDAY:



Eventually I made my way back on the trail- half riding, half walking the rest of the 3 miles down the trail (I crashed only 1 ¼ miles into the trail). When I finally rode out of the woods, I passed two deer and found my husband waiting on me… he took note of the dirt from my shoulder to my ankle and knew I had crashed… again. He definitely needs to do some homework in the sympathy department…

TODAY:

Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

I am little weirded out for some odd reason- maybe you can help me... I receive a thank-you card in the mail from a long-time friend of mine today (no names to protect the guilty). What a surprise I had when I opened the envelope and there was a pre-printed photo card of her unborn child on it... Yes, a color photo of a half-formed fetus just to put it bluntly (we will refer to the fetus as "Uncle Festus" to sound more pc). Now most folks might share one of those hazy, black and white ultrasound photos with close friends and family shortly after they announce their pregnant... but, who pre-prints baby shower thank-you cards with a color photo of their "Uncle Festus"? What happened to classic card stock thank you cards that you just write in, fold and stuff in an envelope? The shock factor would have been much less! I am still astounded over this whole concept and really surprised that this particular friend of mine chose to do this... I bet the photo store wasn't too happy about seeing it either. So tell me, Abby, am I overreacting to the "Uncle Festus" thank you?

We are going to party like it's your birthday!

We celebrated my grandmother's 79th birthday last week. I made the trip on Thursday and took her gifts and to lunch. We both went down together on Saturday and took her to Pine Mountain for the day. Our first stop was the Methodist Church for a 90th birthday party for one of the longest, dearest friend of our family. There were over 100 people there celebrating this awesome milestone in "Ruthie P's" life! The food and fellowship was so good that Mike and I almost forgot that we were hanging out with the "older" crowd. It was very, very special to me in so many ways.. I mean how many 90th birthday parties does one get to attend in their lifetime? And besides that, this particular 90-yr young lady does not look a day over 70! After the party, we cruised to the Valley to take in some live bluegrass music at the annual 4th of July BBQ in the ballpark. We set up our lounge chairs and enjoyed the good music, visited old friends and I told Mike ol' tales of my childhood when I had played little league baseball in that very park some 25+ years earlier. Once the band finished up for the day, we then drove up the mountain to the place where we married 9-1/2 months ago to see the new statue of President Roosevelt. They added this statue to Dowdell's Knob back a few months ago to commemorate FDR and we all wanted to check it out.




Going to our special wedding spot was a great ending of a great day with the birthday girl. We are looking forward to the big 80th next year!

Calgon, take me away!

I cannot begin to write how tumultuous my work week was all last week. It was one of the worst weeks I have ever endured in all of my 12 years in the construction business. At one point on early Wednesday morning, I was squatting down on a pile of dirt high above my guys working below the pile and watching them install piping and valves for a major tie-in at one of my projects... the sun is just beating down and every one was completely drenched in sweat and the energy level was gone by 10:00am... And I am thinking to myself "how did I get into this business?" while watching two men get sprayed with shit water from a discharge hose that was slightly out of control for a brief moment. We managed to successfully finish the tie-in on late Wednesday, but my job is long from being finished since the Owner refuses to pay us for the excessive pump rental costs and labor it took to do the work. Unfortunately, one of my tasks is convincing the Engineer/Owner that this excessive amount of work is extra and we should be paid for it…. not always the easiest thing to do. The gift of persuasion is not one of my best talents…. I would rather spend my time and energy doing other tasks than arguing over who is right or wrong. As a matter of fact, if I could make email my only form of communication in my job and never have to talk to anybody on the phone, my life would be just peachy! After the whole tie-in saga I then delved into another saga over on my other project that lasted all day Thursday and Friday and even into today. The amount of time is takes folks to make a decision just amazes me sometimes… And I am referring to high-paid engineer-types that “specialize” in this field or that field. What a crock! Answers would make my work time so much more productive… By Friday evening I was on the verge of “going postal” as one of my co-workers declared on our way out the job trailer to go home… What a nice description of your boss I think to myself… that is a pretty scary option I had not even thought of…