Monday Monday

I had a wonderful weekend!  Hope you did, too!  I spent time with my family, loved on my sweet hubby and got my spiritual batteries recharged at church.  You just cannot have a better weekend than that! 

I got my new Sony Cyber-shot camera that Brian won for me at Christmas and here are some of the first pictures I took with it!  It's such a cool camera and will do so much stuff.  It'll take me a while to learn everything.

We celebrated Ami's Halfway-to-Seventy Birthday Saturday afternoon.  She'll be 35 on Wednesday and Mama made this delicious chocolate fudgey birthday cake for her!

Daddy made this huge pan of lasagna and it was amazing!  I took this picture in Gourmet Food mode on my camera.  Just LOOK at it!  This is magazine quality!!!  :)

Gorgeous pine trees in Mama and Daddy's yard

 

Here's that river birch close up.  I just LOVE how it sheds its bark like that!  The bark is so thin and peels off so easily that you really could use it for paper to write on.  I gave this tree to Daddy years ago for Father's Day or his birthday, I can't remember which.  I sure want me one now!!

Sunset on Camp Road

The purtiest young'uns I know!  

My niece, Jessica, and nephew, Christopher.

They are our heart.  And they know it, too.  :)

These cherries are so bright and vivid!!

This is the fixin's tray for our ice cream sundaes.

Mondays aren't so bad when you're at home and can sleep in.  Ha!  All they're telling me about my new job start date is to check my email as that's how they'll be in contact with me.  I can do that.  

We're planning a little road trip up to the Whistle Stop this week!  I'm so excited to go and EAT THIS TIME.  

All roads lead home

So I took my road trip, down the road that I know the best, the one that leads to my mama and daddy.

I went down yesterday, spent the night and came home this afternoon.  It did me so much good to be with them and we had so much fun!!!

They had gone to town yesterday morning and brought me home some Troy burgers for lunch.  Now if you grew up anywhere within ten miles of Montezuma, you know what a Troy burger is.  If not, then bless your heart. Troy's Snack Shack has been in the same spot in downtown Montezuma, Georgia for as long as I can remember, longer than I've been alive probably.  Their burgers are legend where I come from.  And the fries, the perfect mix of crispy and salty, are the absolute best I have ever had.  There's even a Facebook group of us who have moved away from Montezuma and would kill for a Troy burger.  Ha!  There is none like 'em.  

We visited, drank coffee, hung out in the yard and even had company yesterday evening.  My friend of 30 years, Lisa, her mama, Carla, and great-nephew, Dustin, came and spent a couple of hours with us, visiting and catching up.  It was really good to see them!  Lisa is expecting her first baby (a little girl!) in April and I'm so excited for her, I could just bust!!

 
Last night for our almost-midnight snack, we had ice cream and I made this banana split.  They kept adding stuff to it, Mama, the cherry, Daddy, the chocolate chips, until it looked like this.  It was soooo good!!!


After sleeping late and having a big breakfast of sausage, scrambled cheese eggs and oven toast with blackberry jam this morning, we went out visiting family cemeteries.  I LOVE going to visit graves!!  It might sound silly but I believe those loved ones who have passed on know that we're there to see them.  It makes me feel better to go and visit the ones I remember and I love the stories that Mama and Daddy tell about the ones they remember, the ones who were already gone by the time I came along.  Our family is mainly in three cemeteries and what's so cool to me is that we have family from both sides buried in this one cemetery, the one at County Line Baptist Church in Ellaville.  Mama's daddy is there and not ten feet away, Daddy's grandma and uncle are buried.  I realized that just today!  They are buried so close.  Daddy told me he remembered being there, six years old, right after his grandma died and his daddy crying at her grave.  That's a story I didn't know until today.  The older I get, the more I crave stories about my family.  I'm on a quest now to find all of my great- and great-great-grandparents.  One set of great-greats is buried at County Line and one set is in Oglethorpe.  Mama and I are planning a trip to Dooly County to find some more.

We found this grave today in the Oglethorpe cemetery.  This is the lady I was named after!  She lived in the same apartment house with Mama and Daddy when they were expecting me.  She was so good to Mama that she and Daddy gave me Irene for my middle name to honor her.  Miss Irene died a month and a half after I was born.  She gave me a silver spoon set that I still have.  I told her who I was today.  :)

I couldn't believe this thing was still there!  We were going home and passed the old primary school, where I went for 1st and 2nd grade.  When I was 6, I was running from the main building to this one, the lunchroom and library building, and I HIT MY HEAD ON THIS METAL BOX.  I still have the dent in my skull to show for it.  The school is falling down now but that dang box was still there!!  :)

Daddy's young river birch tree that I just thought was the coolest thing!  

I love how the bark just sheds like that.

Mama and Daddy's goldfish pond with the most gorgeous natural moss growing on the fountain.  I took this picture of all of the fish so I could show just how big that one in the middle is!

 Just LOOK at her!!

She was so hard to take a picture of!!  She kept swimming away, swishing that tail at me. I told her she was gonna end up on a plate with some hushpuppies if she didn't smile and say cheese for me.  She said this was the best she was gonna do.  :)

We had such a great time!!  I cannot wait to get back down there!!

On the banks of Boredom Creek

Day two, post-job, pre-job, however you want to look at it. I'm still no closer to getting a start date at the base and even though I know this is the procedure, not knowing is still a little unsettling. I'm ready to get to work! I told Larry last night that I hated this housewife crap and I DO.  He laughed and told me it's because I've never had to do it and he's right.  I know I'd never be able to do this long-term.

I've been sick with a cold so these days at home have been a blessing.  I've been able to rest and get better.  I cleaned blinds and washed curtains today and I dusted all my Pooh beanies who live on a shelf in our guest room.  I spent the better part of two years (1999 and 2000) collecting these things and as you can see, I have a few.  :)  I bought every single one The Disney Store at the Macon Mall had, usually the day they came out.  I was crazy.  This was back when I was really bad about money and bought stuff I didn't need.  I actually have more money now than I did then and I'm so much smarter now!!  Less is more!!  But Pooh and his friends are kinda cute, ain't they?  And look at Christopher Robin peeking up to say hey!

I was sick over the weekend so I stayed home, so that means I've been at home FOUR days!  Straight.  Ugh.  I have seen every single movie from the Love Comes Softly series twice and I've seen two of them three times.  I've watched endless episodes of The Waltons and Little House On The Prairie and OMG, I even watched a Little House movie where John-Boy played Charles Ingalls.  Oh, how THAT messed with my mind and even caused a nightmare.  Some things are just best left alone.  I've played a gazillion games of Words With Friends on Facebook and my house is spotless.  I gotta get out of here.  Sunday, I did venture out for a trip to the bookstore and ended up having to buy a new battery for my car.  All I wanted was a book and a cup of Joe Muggs!  Ugh.

I feel a road trip coming on!!

right on time...

Fill in the blank Friday!

The last thing I ate was a bowl of chicken noodle soup.  'Cause, waaaaaaaah, I sick.

The last song I listened to was At Last by Etta James.  She passed away today from leukemia at the age of 73.  At Last has been my cell ringtone for years.

Using the letters of my name (Ginger), I can spell renig, reign, ring, grin, rig, neg, ire, gin, gig, egg, reg, ern, eng, in, er...

If I had to dress in one color for the rest of my life, it would be blue.  I couldn't live without jeans and blue is always pretty.

My favorite candle scent is patchouli lavender.

If you were looking in my bag right now, you would find mints, my phone, my wallet and checkbook, pens, contact lens solution, lip balm, makeup, hand sanitizer, dental floss, lotion and a rubber vampire finger puppet that sat in my windowsill at work. 

When I finish my blanks, I'm going to take some cold medicine and go to bed.  'Cause, waaaaaaaah, I sick.

See y'all later

Today was my last day at work.  I thought it would be easier since Fridays are kinda slow and the entire staff's not there.

Nope.  No easier.

I know in my heart that this job at the base is what I've been working for, what I've been studying for, keeping my GPA at 4.0 for, what I've been hanging in there for.  I don't know if anyone else ever picked for the co-op took TWENTY months to get there but that's how long it took me and I believe that it's because it was God's plan and would only happen in His time.  I'd been working at Lifeguard Pediatrics for a year before I started the electronics program at Middle Georgia and that job made it possible for me to go to school at night.  I got off work every day at 5:00 and I was in class by 6:00 on the nights that I had class.  It worked.

My coworkers supported me through it all.  They kept up with all the tests, always asking me how I did and praising me for my 94's and 96's when I thought less than a 100 was unacceptable.  They listened to all the crazy stories I had to tell, like the night I pulled my toenail off in class during a test and the time I wired a circuit backwards and blew up a chip.  They supported me through everything even though they knew that someday, I might use my education to leave them.

In fact, it was our nurse, Lisa Prince, who first told me about the electronics program.  She had a friend who went through it and got a job at Robins Air Force Base.  We played Bunco one night and I talked to that friend and she urged me to do it, to jump in with both feet and give it my best shot.

So I did.  Twenty-three months later, here I am, about to start my own job at Robins.  It feels surreal to be here.

Yesterday, they had a party for me.  A beautiful cake and lots of goodies.  Today, we had more goodies.  Here are a few pictures!

 

Dr. P's delicious brown-sugar crust brownies that she made just for me!

 

Lisa P. slicing up her yumm-o ham and pickle roll-ups!

Shannon made these yummy little smoky links in her crock pot!

 

Our resident chef, baker, knitter, coffee bean roaster and awesome little nurse, Michelle, brought homemade ricotta cheese and toast with olive oil and honey this morning for breakfast!

Michelle also made me this adorable little felted mushroom!

I just love it so much!!!

 

Dr. Patrenos gave me these beautiful handmade silver earrings that I just adore!

 

And this little feller was from Angela.  Her good luck one-eyed frog.

I was so touched when she gave him to me.

I don't like goodbyes and I refused to tell them all "bye" this week.  Just "see y'all later".  I was with them 16 days shy of three years.  A lot longer than I planned to be when I was hired.  Just goes to show you what YOU know when God is working.  The Lord led me to these good, decent, honest, baby-loving people for a purpose.  To teach me, to free me, to befriend me, to love me.  They acted as lifeguards for me at a time when I needed one.  I will miss them all terribly. 

I'm excited about my new job and I know I'll meet new people and experience new things but I'll take my years at Lifeguard with me and if anybody ever needs a good pediatrician, I'll tell them I know exactly where they can find two of the very best.  And the staff's not half bad either.

Yes to...carrots??

Y'all know I'm always looking for green, organic, natural shampoos, cleansers, makeup, cleaning supplies, everything!  I just feel like the fewer chemicals we expose ourselves to daily, the healthier we'll be.  I have not used bleach or Lysol or Pine-Sol in my house in over seven years.  I clean my house weekly, dust, vacuum, scrub the bathrooms and mop.  I use Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day for all-purpose cleaning, Bar Keeper's Friend for scrubbing toilets, I have a feather duster and do not use Pledge in any form or fashion and I usually mop with a mixture of white vinegar, warm water and mild dish soap.  I like Seventh Generation a lot.  I love love love my Swiffer and I use old washcloths for the pad when I mop. I'm as healthy as two horses sewn together (I cracked Larry up with that a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about my upcoming physical at the base.  Ha!) and I get compliments all the time about how clean my house is and how good it always smells.  The way I clean works for me.

I discovered the Yes To brand recently and I LOVE IT!!  My favorite so far is the Yes To Blueberries line.  I've tried the carrots lip balm and I like that a lot, too.  Maybe even enough to put down my Burt's Bees??  May be.

Yes To uses organic fruits and vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and now blueberries) and they make everything free of parabens and petroleum and all kinds of other yucky stuff.  All of their products are at least 95% natural, are packaged in recyclable packaging and they never, ever test on animals.

They also give a portion of their sales to provide grants for students to plant gardens of their own.  I just LOVE that!

Everything in their line that I've tried so far has been awesome.  The cleanser left my skin clean and smooth, the makeup remover wipes took it all off without stinging or burning and the lip balm calmed my chapped lips after I'd been out in the cold wind way too long today.

Oh, and everything SMELLS incredible!!!  Good enough to eat.  And I think we probably actually could eat it.  :)  

How can it be that January is half over already??

So here we are, another catch up.  I have been SO PREOCCUPIED this month that I've been neglecting my little blog.  This week, I got a little closer to getting a start date at the base.  I turned in all my employment paperwork on Monday and they scheduled my physical for Wednesday and gave me a pass so that I could on base to get that done.  The ladies at the employment office had told me to get there early (like two hours!) and wanting to do what I was told, I got there waaaaaaay too early.  They were kind enough to take me on back anyway and I had several vision tests before they moved me back to audio to check my hearing.  Now THAT was interesting!  I was put into a soundproof booth, had headphones put on my head, I was given a buzzer to hold and was told to press the buzzer one time every time I heard a tone, no matter how faint the tone was.  I did okay at first but the tones were soooooo faint sometimes, I wasn't sure if I was hearing anything at all so I pressed the buzzer anyway.  After a while, this recorded voice comes on and tells me basically to stop doing that, that I was pressing the thing when no tone was present.  Bwah!!  I was so nervous and it was so quiet in there, all I could really hear was my heartbeat pounding and I have never in my life heard it so loud and clear.  So we started over and I only pressed the buzzer when I was absolutely sure I heard something and after the test, they told me that I pretty much have Superwoman hearing in my left ear.  I can hear at -5 decibels!  Like a dog.  Ha!  I talked with an Air Force doctor and she told me that I'd really have to protect my hearing out there and that they'd tell me all about that during orientation.  I saw another doctor and he checked my ears and mashed on my belly and asked me some questions and I was done.  Passed the whole thing with flying colors!  After peeing in a cup for my drug test, I left.  The whole thing took 2 1/2 hours.

The only thing I have left to do now to get my start date is to complete the CVIP (Civilian Virtual In-Processing) paperwork and I got that email yesterday.  I will get those forms to them Tuesday and I think that's it!!  It won't be long now.  I'm ready to get to work!!

I've been working toward this for nearly two years now.  I am SO excited to get started and see how the Lord is going to use me out there.  He has already answered every single prayer I've prayed to Him and He just continues to bless me.  It has truly been amazing.  God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him.  (Romans 8:28)  That verse is becoming a favorite of mine!  :)

I've said all along that I'd like to work on the flightline.  I really don't care WHERE they put me, I'll be happy anywhere, but the flightline seems to call to me for some reason.

When I got my CVIP email yesterday, it told me the organization I was going into.  Guess?  Yep, the flightline.  :)  That may not be where I actually end up but I thought that was pretty cool.  I hear ya, Lord.  I hear ya.

Hopefully, I'll get a firm start date this week.  My last day at work is Friday, the 20th, so if I'm at home a week or so, that'll be okay.  I hear that the flight line starts earrrrrrrrrly.  That's gonna take some getting used to.

A cuppa (or two) and a catch up...

Wow!  What a week this has been!!  First of all, I finally got confirmation that I was selected for the electronics co-op at Robins Air Force Base on Wednesday.  I'd gotten a couple of calls the Tuesday and Wednesday of the week before at home and on my caller ID, it just said ROBINS AFB.  They didn't leave a message.  And didn't call my cell, which I thought was weird because I gave them both numbers.  I tried to call the number back and needed to put in an extension number, which I also didn't have.  They called several times, all at times when I was at work.  No message, nothing.  It was a little frustrating.  Especially since I WAS WAITING TO HEAR!!  I'd had my interview on December 14th but didn't tell anybody because I wanted to wait for something TO tell.  Not very many people knew about the interview and since it was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon when I was off work anyway, I didn't have to tell anybody at work either.  The Lord sure worked that little detail out!  I had been asking Him to.  :)

So, anyway, I finally called the college on Thursday and that's when they told me that I was indeed on THE LIST but that they'd been instructed by the base not to tell anyone until the transcripts were in and it was official.  But they congratulated me anyway.  :)

Nobody knows why I kept getting these strange calls.  I know, though.  I believe it was God putting me out of my misery.  He knew I was worried and dying to hear something so He made it happen.  I got the phone calls which led me to call the school.  In all things, HE gets the glory.

I got the official word this past Wednesday evening and Thursday, the confirmation email that included all the paperwork and stuff I have to fill out and get back to them.  Employment forms, medical forms and my security clearance questionnaire.  They're all done and ready for me to take over there tomorrow!  Hopefully, I'll get my physical scheduled for this week, too, and I can get my start date.  I am SO excited!!

One of the things I had to have was my birth certificate but I didn't have one and Mama and Daddy didn't have one so they went to the courthouse in Oglethorpe and got me one Friday.  Two, actually, so I'd have a spare.  They were so sweet to do that for me!!

We met in Byron yesterday for burgers and they gave me my birth certificates and we had a good little visit together.  Ami and Brian were down here in Warner Robins and wanted to take me out to celebrate, not knowing of my plans with Mama and Daddy but we all ended up together anyway, at the Big Peach in Byron.  :)

I've wanted to start collecting vintage Fire-King pieces for a while now and the Big Peach is FULL of them!  No time like the present, right?  I started my collection with these two coffee cups.

 I just LOVE the vintage look and feel of these!

Anybody want gift ideas for me?  Well, there you go. :)  Cups, casseroles, plates, bowls, whatever.  Any colors, any design.  I love 'em all!  And I'm going to USE them, not just display them.  Used a cup tonight for my coffee.

In other sad news, my engagement ring broke today.  Waaaaaaah!  I noticed it this morning in church.  It was spinning around on my finger and scratching me.  It's broken right where the diamond is mounted.  I'll have to get it into the jewelers this week.  It's been a good one.  14 years old and other than a sprung prong that was totally my fault and a resizing that was totally my fault (it went from a 9 to a 7 1/2!  Woooo hoooooo!!!), it's given me no problems.

So.  That pretty much catches y'all up!    

Dude. It's time for a trim...

This is my basil plant that I grew from seed in my laundry room windowsill.

I finally got around to giving it a haircut today and getting the harvest into the freezer until I can use it.

                               

I can't believe it used to look like this!  :)

The happiest of new years

I started this new year off right by joining the church this morning!!  I've been going for a while, I love the people and I've felt the Lord tuggin' on me for about three Sundays now.  The Sunday before Christmas, He 'bout pulled me right out of my shoes!  So I thought New Year's Day would be the perfect time to do it.  New year, new church family, all kinds of new stuff coming up!!  I'm very excited to see what 2012 brings to me and Larry and our family.  2011 for me was a year of fun and laughter, sorrow and loss and just about everything else in between.  It was lots of school school school and trying to balance my job and my classes, my life outside of both and it was a challenge at times.  So I started praying and I started going to church regularly and you know what, the Lord worked it ALL out!!  That's been the biggest and best thing that happened to me in 2011.

I started a little New Year's Day tradition of my own three years ago.  Instead of cooking all the must-haves for New Year's just for me, I go over to Cracker Barrel and get a plate.  I did that today and they were SO busy, I had to park over at Lowe's and walk.  I've never seen them that packed.  Anyway, I waited and got mine to go.

Black-eyed peas, greens, fried okra, chicken and dumplin's and cornbread.

Hush ya mouth.

And while I waited, I looked around a little in the gift shop where they had Christmas stuff 70% off!!  I got a few things for next year!  :)

Happy New Year to every single one of you who reads my blog.  I just want you to know that even if you don't leave comments or let me know you're reading about my life and thoughts, I consider you my friend and I wish you the best year you've ever had!