There's an app for that!

I am loveloveloving my new smartphone!  Why on earth did I wait so long to get one?  I don't know.  Craziness.

It didn't take long for me to become addicted either.  I thought I'd tell y'all some of the apps I use and love and see what you like as well.  Feel free to comment!  :) 

Social networking, shopping and newsy ones:

* Facebook.  'Nuf said.
* Pinterest
* Instagram
* Blogger
* 13WMAZ
* CNN
* The Macon Telegraph 
* Target
* Publix
* IKEA
* Amazon

My favorite is the YouVersion Bible app.  Thirty-eight English versions of the Bible (wow!) plus reading plans, study guides and videos.  I LOVE it.  It's so great to always have God's Word right there when I need to hear it.

I also like Directv's app.  I can watch TV shows or movies right on my phone.  That's pretty cool.

I have a few games that I play, too.  Old school Frogger (ha!), Larry told me about Fruit Ninja so I play that and love it but I swear, there's something weird going on with the bananas, a guy at work told me about Flow Free and I love that one, too, and I'm on level 18 1/2 of a game called Happy Street.  Then there's Words With Friends and Songpop.  Of course.  :)

I downloaded my first book to my phone and pretty much hated reading it on the phone.  I ended up going to the bookstore and buying the paperback.  It's the fifth book in that cowboy romance series I've been reading.  So I really couldn't have four paperbacks and not get the fifth, right??  :)  

I also have a flashlight and an ocean sounds sleep app that I love, too.  

What apps do you love??

Almost halfway!

Today is August 10th already!  Larry has been in Quitman for four months and in twelve short days, we will be halfway home!!  I can't believe how fast time is flying by but I am SO grateful for it!  I'm ready to finally have my husband home with me.

Y'all know I had THE LIST, right??  When we started this journey in April, I had a list of nineteen things that I wanted to get done before he gets here in January.  I only have one thing left and that's just a fall maintenance thing for the heating and cooling system.  Something that had to be done anyway.  I'm finding myself adding new stuff every day, though!  I don't think I'll ever be completely done.  I told him I was trying to make everything perfect and he told me he doesn't need perfect, that he would be happy to come home to a sleeping bag on the floor!  Bless his heart.  We can surely do better than that!

I think Santa's gonna bring a whole new bed.  Shhhhh.  :)

Mama and Daddy were so sweet to give Larry this leather recliner and I just put a table I got at IKEA beside it for now.  I'm probably gonna wear this chair out before he gets here.  My butt can't seem to stay out of it.

Larry got his drivers license and he's finished up the mandatory day classes at the Refuge.  He's staying busy by manning the yard sales they're having and by working in the store downtown.  Oh, and by selling the smoked Boston butts, ribs and turkey breasts they sell for fundraising.  That boy could sell ice to an Eskimo.  The Refuge survives on donations and love offerings and what revenue they bring in from their store, yard sales and meat sales.  It is a wonderful ministry and if you or your church would like to donate money or items they can sell, just let me know and I'll get you in contact with them.  Larry starts school on the 20th and the VA is paying for him to go to school and they're paying him to go, just about the equivalent of a month's salary!  God continues to bless us every single day.

I'm staying busy, too.  Adding to THE LIST daily, it seems, and trying to keep my mind occupied while Larry does what he has to do.  Since the Pentagon cut our furlough days down to six from eleven, next Friday is our last Furlough Friday.  We'll be working full time again after that.  With all the overtime we can stand, I imagine.

Staying busy is good. 

Vintage bedding squeeeee

I have just fallen in love with vintage bedding this summer!  I've found some really good deals on eBay and Etsy.  I've gotten three beautiful sheets and eight pillowcases so far.  Vintage queen-sized sheets are really difficult to find, I guess because most folks had double beds in the 60's and 70's.  But I try!  I hunt and I hunt and I've been able to find three.  Muslin and cotton mostly.  They didn't really care much about thread count forty years ago either.  I'll admit that I'm spoiled and a bit of a thread count snob.  400 is pretty much my starting point but these are so ultra soft and comfy that I bet if you were to put a count on them, they'd be somewhere around 600.  I guess they just used higher quality material back then.  The sheets I've been able to get were still in the packaging, too.  They just sat in a bureau drawer for forty years until their owner passed away and her house was cleared out by her children.  I know she'd be so happy that I'm using and loving them!

This is what I have on the bed right now.  Four pretty floral pillowcases that I picked up for a song on eBay in May, a white organic cotton fitted sheet and a fine muslin flat sheet covered in tiny flowers. 

Tabbie Hoffman likes his floral throw that I bought at the beach several years ago and a pillow I've had for fifteen years.  :)

And I put this sheet on the sofa for now.  Just to keep the kitty hairs to a minimum. 

I may never buy new sheets again!

My granddaddy, the ice man

Before every home had electricity and a refrigerator, folks kept their food cold by placing a huge block of ice inside an ice box, typically kept in their kitchens.  There was a man who would come around and deliver those blocks of ice.  In Oglethorpe, Georgia, that man was my granddaddy, Lawrence Clark.

I don't know much about my granddaddy as he passed away when my mama was a little girl.  I know he was born in 1894, he grew up in Macon County and served in France in World War I.  He was married and had one child before he met, fell in love and married my grandma and had five babies with her.  He took care of his family by delivering these blocks of ice and by digging and repairing wells, a skill he passed on to my oldest uncle, James, better known as Jiggs, a nickname given to him at birth by Granddaddy.  Granddaddy died in 1957, when Mama had just turned 10 years old, and he's buried in our family cemetery at County Line Baptist Church in Ellaville.

The older I get, the more I want to find out about my family, especially to learn things about those who passed on before I got the chance to meet them.  I know my granddaddy would have loved me.  He would have loved my sassiness.  :)

In my quest to learn more about him, I posted something on our Macon County home folks Facebook page asking for stories and memories and pretty much anything anybody knew about my granddaddy.  Kathy Fountain reminded me that the old ice house still stands beside her daddy's garage.  We were all home today for Brian's daddy, Mr. Harry Godfrey's funeral and I stopped at Mr. Roy Fountain's garage for just a minute to poke around and take some pictures.  Mr. Roy took me over there, opened the door for me and allowed me to take as many pictures as I wanted.  He even gave me a description of what I was seeing.  

Those of you from Oglethorpe recognize this little building!  This was the old ice house where those huge ice blocks were stored until it was time for Granddaddy to load them up and deliver them.

The little building is used mainly for storage now but the pipes and water lines are still intact!

 

Today was a hot day.  The high was in the 90's and the sun shone all day (no rain, yay!!) but inside that little brick building, it was significantly cooler.  Mr. Roy told me that this is why.  The walls are this thick!  I was amazed at the difference in the temperature.  I don't know when this little ice house was built, I'm guessing the early 1900's, but wasn't it so smart to use bricks and sawdust to insulate??  They had to keep that ice cold and they figured it out!

 

  

Mr. Roy showed me this old Nehi drink sign, too, that I LOVED.  He said he's pretty sure it's from the same time Granddaddy was there.  I told him if he ever wanted to sell it, find my mama and daddy and let me know.  I don't think he ever will, though.  I wouldn't.

Next time you open your 'fridge to pour yourself a glass of cold sweet tea, think about my granddaddy and his ice blocks.  They were usually 3 feet by 5 feet cubes and weighed a hundred pounds each.  He had to cut them down to the size that his customers needed.  Wow.  I often wonder what Granddaddy would think about things today.  I would love to sit down and talk to him.  He died in the 50's and everything he knew is pretty much gone now.  Well, everything except his ice house. 

Bits & pieces

So lately, I have fallen in love with California Baby stuff!  I joke sometimes that there's no age limit on Happy Meals at McDonald's.  I've gotten them for years and now they have chocolate milk, omg.  Well, there is no age limit on baby products either.  Besides, it gives me a chance to test them out and see how I like 'em before, um, well, before I might be in need of such things.  :)

I lovelovelove their bubble bath!!  It makes lots and lots of bubbles and it even comes with a wand to blow bubbles in the tub.  It can't get no more fun than that!  And the stuff smells incredible, too.

I've been trying out BabyGanics eczema cream, too.  I've had a little patch of red, itchy skin on both of my legs since March.  It showed up right around the time Larry was sent to the transitional center too early and we were under a tremendous amount of stress and that's what I thought caused it.  Well, he's been in Quitman for over three months now and my leg rash is still there.  I have tried everything that I could find over-the-counter.  Cortisone creams, Benadryl cream and spray, even Aveeno, and nothing was helping.  I picked up a tube of BabyGanics Bye Bye Dry cream last Friday at Target and the rashes are so much better!!  I think the calendula in the bubble bath is helping, too.  Yay!!

Tabbie Hoffman has a new thing that he likes to do.  He likes to lay on a towel on the sink and put his paw in the water.  It is SO cute!!

I finally got my 13WMAZ coffee mug that I won June 18th as their Facebook Fan of The Day.  I only had to call them twice about it!

We had a birthday party for Jessi yesterday at Mama and Daddy's house.  Ricky and Audra fixed barbecue chicken, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, cheese and bacon, baked beans, salad and cake and ice cream.  Ami brought fudge brownies and we just had a feast!

Here's the birthday girl and her baby girl getting ready to blow out the candles!

Baby Lizzie out by the goldfish pond

Look at that chubby little thigh!  I think even the fishies were thinking, "Nom nom nom!"!!

Yep, Larry's been in Quitman for over three months now and he's still doing great, amazed every day by the world on this side of the fence.  An awful lot has changed since 1976.  He got his drivers "learner's" permit already and he's going Tuesday for the actual driving test.  He starts to school next month and is already dreading that algebra class.  I told him to just take what he could and we'd take college algebra together when he gets home.  I have to take it, too, to finish my degree classes so we might as well suffer through it together.  :)  He's got a painting/remodeling weekend job lined up, too.  I thought that was hilarious because I have a painting/remodeling job lined up for him, too!!  I kinda have my heart set on this IKEA kitchen.  :)  Everything is pretty much rocking right along.  Mama and Daddy are giving Larry a recliner as a welcome home gift and that was the last thing on my list so I think I'm done.  Just waitin' on January!

I finally broke down and got a smartphone today.  I don't like signing contracts and the idea of paying $450 for a cell phone was just ridiculous to me so I got a cheap Samsung with a prepay package and so far, so good.  It was a little hairy trying to get everything working like I wanted it but now that all that's done, I think I'm going to like it.  It's a heck of a lot better than the 5-year-old old school phone I did have.  At least this one will have signal wherever I go!!

Furlough Friday

We finally got there.  The government furloughs that have been in the works all year finally went into effect this week.  Robins chose to take Fridays for ours so we'll be off without pay every Friday from today through September 20th.  Unless they cut it some more.  We started out with 22 days.  We're down to 11 now.

Since I was part time from New Year's Eve until a week ago, I'm used to being off on Fridays.  I love being off on Fridays!  Once I went full time last week, I worked 16 hours overtime.  I got all I could when I could!  There'll be no overtime during the furlough period.  Well, duh!  That would kinda defeat the purpose, now wouldn't it?

I got the confirmation email yesterday telling me my third promotion (the BIG one that converts me out of being a co-op) takes effect THIS SUNDAY.  That'll be another $3 an hour raise.  I will have gone from a WG-03 to a WG-08 in 16 months.  That was a three-YEAR program I was in and I jumped in there, got my training and finished school so I could accelerate and get it done!  There was a LOT of stress involved.  There was a lot of training that had to be done and then of course, I had to have people sign off on it saying I knew how to do it.  I had to stay on them the entire time to get my training.  If they ever ask me how happy I was with the whole co-op experience, I'd have to say "not very".  You have to scratch and scrape for every bit of training you get.  Nobody out there wants to train you.  And they sure don't want you to do something that they've never done themselves.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "Well, I'm a WG-10 and I've never done that!"  I had a pretty comprehensive training program that I had to go through, from very basic wiring to installing avionic components to fueling and defueling the jet.  All this for a girl who'd spent the past 25 years in an office.  I didn't even know what half those tools were in my toolbox!  I had NO idea what a Cannon plug was, I'd never even SEEN an Adel clamp.  They just assumed because I was out there, I knew stuff.  Well, you know what they say about assuming.

But I listened and I tried and I failed and then I tried again.  And again and again until I got it.  It's not old-hat yet like maybe answering a phone would be but I'm getting there.  In fact, I installed a wing tip radar antenna last week and it took me thirty minutes.  They used to take me HOURS.  I'm talking three or four.  Ha!  I'm gettin' it.  And I am SO happy that I don't have to answer a phone anymore!!

My co-op days are over.  When I get to work Monday, I will be a WG-08.  I'll be able to take responsibility for my own work and put my stamp on what I do.  That feels really, really good.

Skillet chocolate chip cookie

I saw this on Pinterest last week and I could not wait to try it!  And since it's pouring rain again today on the 4th of July (we have had the wettest summer ever!) and we're pretty much stuck inside, I decided I'd bake this cookie.

I used the recipe linked to the Pinterest picture, made up the dough, pressed it into my cast iron skillet and baked it at 325 for 25 minutes.  I had to cut the heat and add to the time a little because my oven is 26 years old and she tends to have hot flashes.  I know the feeling.  



And here's how it looks when it's done!!  I put some Blue Bell strawberry ice cream on top and it was pretty dang amazing.  

Happy 4th, y'all!!