Luckiest of the Unlucky, That's Me!

So a dear friend of mine, actually the person who talked me into starting my blog contacted me after my sister came and painted my kitchen. She wanted to do some decorating and add a few finishing touches. At first I declined her offer. Number one, I'm easy to please and was thrilled with just the paint job. Number two, once I told my sister about the offer, big sis told me that in fact I DID need some finishing touches and to accept her offer!

This morning she came over a little before ten to get started. Tim was in the kitchen making us some breakfast and I bounced out the door to the garage to she if she needed help with anything.

I brought her into our kitchen, letting her go in the door first. She immediately turned around and asked if I wanted her to wait outside for Tim to put pants on or to just come on in?

Oops...my bad.

At least Tim had on a pair of his nicer boxer briefs. He went upstairs, shaking his head and we didn't see him again.

I was just excited to get things started! Then she told me I had to leave. She had everything planned, with her and wanted it all to be a surprise when she finished.

I had plenty of errands to run so left her in charge. Around noon I came back home and she met me in the driveway.

Needless to say I was thrilled with the additions!

She had even bought a quart of the paint my sister used so it all matched . We now have a chalkboard mounted on old shutters with a hook at the top and nifty basket attached to the bottom by bent spoons, she even brought us some chalk! The other wall decorations were wonderful too and now have a matching lampshade for my lamp! I have a cool Lazy Susan on my table with a silver pepper grinder.

She made new curtains to replace my seventeen year old ones and even mounted them with a cute black rod.

She had found a huge clothespin and added a magnet to the back to hang on our refrigerator for To Go menus!

She mounted a collection of plates, some china some silver and arranged them on the wall.

The kitchen looks fabulous and the more I looked the more I liked it!

Yep, we got us a big ole "C" over the nuclear wave too. And notice the cute statue she painted black to match!

So now my kitchen is absolutely awesome! I tried to give my friend some money for all she did but refused. It's a good thing since I was down to chump change.

When she first told me I had to leave so she could work her magic I told her I had plenty of errands to run and lotto tickets a customer (another dear friend) had left me to cash in. I told her it was a new game. They give you twelve numbers...if you hit them all you win $250,000. or if none of your numbers hit, you win!

I told her we were all about not hitting the numbers right so thought we had a pretty good chance! As I walked out the door she shouted "Come back a millionaire!"

I didn't come back a millionaire but came home to a pretty awesome kitchen and still have a pocket full of lotto tickets to cash in. So my first ticket didn't hit, no worries.

I seem to being having a great run of luck and can't wait to see what the other tickets may do. My friend/ customer also gave me free scratch offs, so wish me luck!

When my friend left today she hugged my neck and said she prays for Tim every day to find a job. Extra prayers are always good.

So we've been through a lot here but on the other hand have been blessed every step of our unfortunate way.

I'm thinking our time is coming...and just think how great my house will look when we throw a big party for Tim's new job!!

I am truly the luckiest unlucky person EVER!

Til next time...COTTON

Feeling Normal...For ME!

I woke up this morning and felt wonderful for the first time since my head injury. Tim fixed some toast and my favorite glass of Nestle Quik. Being delivered in bed made it even better!

 

I had to work at three thirty but left an hour early for work. Today was the owners wife's birthday. If you ask her, she's the owner and her spouse is the owner's husband. Sounds a lot like me and Tim. Actually we have a lot in common. She is ten years older than me and her husband is two years younger than her. Tim is two years younger than me and I feel ten years older.

She's a hard one to buy for so I took the safe route. I bought her a nice card and included two tickets for tonight's Power Ball drawing, ten scratch off tickets and even a penny to help her get started. I addressed the envelope to "Margaret Drysdale." That's what I call her, especially when I need her to float me a loan, which I do quite often. Guess I should really call her "Milburn."

Her birthday celebration always starts a couple of days in advance. Customers and friends who can't be there on her birthday start dropping off presents days in advance. Barb keeps them all by her
Queen "B" bar stool. She had vases of flowers, gift bags with earrings, necklaces, balloons tied to her chair and cards galore, all propped up on the bar.

Here's the thing about Barb. She's a pretty tough cookie to say the least. She's very demonstrative when talking to you and her little head shakes like a bobble head doll. She can be telling you about a sale at Kohl's but to others it appears she's dogging you out. (which she is, sometimes)

She grew up very poor and has never forgotten her humble start. She could pinch a penny til it screamed, and does. She can't abide waste in any form and keeps tabs on all money coming in and going out of the restaurant.

She acts like a Big Bad Bear, and often is. She also has a heart as big as the Atlantic and always willing to help ones who help themselves. Oh she may give you some grief about it first but if you need something, all you have to do is ask. If you're a slacker you can forget about it but if you're a hard worker, she'll always help. Trust me, I know first hand. Since I have worked for her (and the owner's husband) they have helped us out time and time again. I will say I have always paid her back in a timely manner but has saved our butt many times. She jokes about what terrible luck we have, even commenting today  "I don't know if YOU should be the one buying me lottery tickets, you have pretty horrible luck."

In her birthday card I wrote "Thanks for all your help, hope you have a great day and remember if you hit it big, take me with you!"

By seven the bar was overflowing with presents, flower arrangements, balloons and gift bags. I made this observation to my fellow co workers:

"Dang, the bar looks like a memorial on the side of a road when somebody gets hit by a car."

My night started out crappy. Had five ladies who obviously don't go out much. They ran me to death, talked down to me and demanded something every time I went to the table. I smiled and kow towed. When you're  server you simply never know and HAVE to treat every table the same. Needless to say they stiffed me on an almost eighty dollar tab and even shorted me on one of the separate checks. As they walked out I bit the bullet and thanked them for coming in and told them it had been my pleasure.

Here's the way Karma happens. Every other table I had the rest of the shift took excellent care of me and walked out at ten thirty with Franklin and a couple of his buddies.

Thank goodness I told the crappy women to come back to see us and be sure to ask for me. "My name's Martha."  (I didn't do that but have before)

My old head's feeling better and black eye is almost gone. It's kind of like being a server...sometimes you get a shiner but sometimes you get a crown. I shrugged off the crappy table, concentrated on making everyone ELSE happy and it all worked out for me.

So glad I survived my fall it's not even funny. Feeling better every day and know the harder I try, the more blessings we will receive.

You get what you give...I'm a firm believer in that.

Til next time...Conscious COTTON

Switching Hats Again

Just got home from the restaurant. It wasn't overly busy but the tipping gods smiled on me and I made enough to buy groceries for the week and have a few bucks left over. Tonight was my Friday at  the restaurant and tomorrow is my Monday at  the mattress store. Worked myself silly this weekend and looking forward to the quiet of the mattress store.

When I logged into my account tonight,  noticed my blog has 76,976 page views. Not bad for a rookie. I'm glad peeps seem to be enjoying it because I LOVE doing this blog.

It will be nice to settle into my other hat tomorrow. I like working alone. I like meeting new people and I like having time to myself. I come in and get everything ready, check emails and inventory then eat my breakfast my husband cooks and packs up for me every  day.  I upload pics of furniture and mattresses to Facebook to advertise then usually read my book waiting for people to come in. I loved the Game of Thrones series and was sad to finish it. A blog reader suggested The Pillars of Life and lucky for me, Massey bought it for my birthday.

Writing is my passion but reading is a close second. The written word is mesmerizing to me. I envision what every person looks like and know exactly how their voice should sound.  Sometimes I will see a random person and say to myself, "Well there goes Ned Stark, wonder what he's doing in Newnan, Georgia?"

The Pillars of the Earth had me on the edge of my seat by  the end of the book. There were plenty of characters to hate and despise and was on pins and needles until they finally hanged the Rat Bast I detested in the last few pages. I had been posting on FB about how great the book was and an FB friend brought me the next  book in the series to read.

I'm all pumped to go in tomorrow, open up get my duties done and start reading the second book.

The only thing crazier than the book series I am reading is that tomorrow is October. What the heck happened to 2013 and how in the heck has it flown by  so fast?

Life is good here. We've been through a lot survived a lot and been loved a lot. That should be my new motto!

The cooks at  work tonight were talking about me from their line across the expo counter in North Korea. (see previous post) They were talking about how much I eat yet how tiny I am. I do  eat like crazy at work but am running around even crazier. It's not like I'm kicked back in bed stuffing food in my mouth and not moving for ten hours. I rarely eat at home.  I cook at  home and love to. I'll taste test all through my cooking process but by  the time they all sit down to eat I am ready to start  cleaning up and putting it all away into  containers. I peered across the great divide and told them I was back up to a hundred pounds.

It started out slow and I am known for bringing in lots of candy. M&M's, Reese's, Whoppers and  like me some Sweet Tarts too. One of the cooks, who started as a dishwasher and thanks to my persistent nagging was allowed the chance to move up and has proved  to be a great addition to the cook line in North Korea asked me if I had any chocolate? I told him no and he asked if I had time to walk over to the candy store  and buy some. It was slow so I walked  over, it's only three stores down... they were closed up tight as a drum with a note taped to the front door: "Our last day will be Sept. 29"

On the other side of our restaurant is a theater so walked over there to go into the lobby to get my buddy his fix. They wanted four bucks for a tiny box of M&M's. I asked if the price included a movie ticket? It didn't so I walked back over to the restaurant.

I told my friend (who BTW is African American) "Hey buddy, sorry but if you want some chocolate your best  best is to gnaw on your arm."

He is one of the nicest most polite young men I have ever met. Always calls me Ms. Kelly and is a hard stinking worker. He also attended the camp my youngest son did for a thirty day stint.


Dollar Tree is right next  door to my mattress shop and will drop by  tomorrow and buy my buddy  all the candy  he could possibly want. I'll even pick me up another bag of Whoppers, the breakfast of  idiots.

Going to bed feeling blessed. I have two jobs I love , a family and a bunch of other peeps who always have by back. Yep...I'm sitting pretty.

Til next time...COTTON

Let the Weekend Begin

I had Tuesday and Wednesday off this week. It's been a while since I've had back to back days off but since the furniture store closing have had more time off in the past two weeks than I have in months. It hasn't helped my pitiful bank account but my mind, body and soul now have a hefty balance and mean a lot more to me than money ever has.  The yards are done, laundry is caught up, my family has had some home cooked meals and I feel refreshed and ready to go again.

It's a good  thing. I worked today at  five, bummed another ride to work and bummed one back home. It was slow (first Falcon's home game) but lucked out and walked out with my buddy, Mr. Franklin. I've already arranged my next bummed ride to work for  tomorrow. Getting there is one thing, getting  home's a piece of cake.

Saturday I am bumming yet another ride to Fayetteville with a co worker from the furniture store to go work the new location. I'll go in at ten, get off at  four and have Tim (or whoever is home with our one car) pick me up and dump me off at  the restaurant by  five. Then I'll work and  bum another ride home. Sunday the car is open so I'll have transportation  to work.

Sheesh!

Massey was all bummed out today and red eyed from crying. We're $5,300 short of  what needs to be in her account by  August 19 for college. We tried her credit union but they won't give her a loan until she is eighteen, which happens to BE August 19.

I sat Massey down and asked her if I've ever let her down before? I went online and made her fill out a request for a Sallie Mae student loan. She plans on going straight through for her PHD and won't have to begin paying it back until she graduates.

It will be 24 to 48 hours before we hear if she gets the loan but have a generous benefactor co signing for her and pretty sure it will happen. If it doesn't, I'll find another way...I always seem to.

She and I sat  together eating leftovers in the living room and watched the Katie Couric show. It was about kids from normal, average and even above average families who stumbled into heroin addiction and ruined not only their own lives but the entire family's as well.

I looked over at Massey  and said "If being poor is  the worst thing that ever happens to us, I'd say we are about the luckiest people on earth."

Four years ago, I felt like Massey did earlier today...lost, embarrassed and humiliated. I simply told Massey, "Our life is what it is and I feel grateful for it."

If you only dwell on the negative, that's all you have... Negativity. If you constantly  strive for something better, something better WILL happen. It may not be the answer to it all but will be a step in the right direction. No person learned to walk in a day. It's one faltering step at a time. It's putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. It's stumbling and falling. It's picking yourself up and trying again.

When our lack of a vehicle debacle started about a month ago, I almost let myself slip back into the abyss of negativity.

I am an avid watcher and reader of  the news, and most of it isn't pretty. After  about twenty four hours into my sulk, I simply looked myself in the mirror and said "Our life is what it is and by all accounts of  the news I'm watching, we're some of  the lucky ones."

It's a good life. It's not the best life or the one I wanted at  this point in my over the 'halfway there' life... but at least we have made it to this point!

When I was standing in  the driveway today waiting for my co worker to pick me  up, my older neighbor came outside, leaning over the back of his big ole diesel truck saying "You  guys just don't have any luck at all with cars." I started to say, well you're retired and I cut your front and back yard for free  for four years so how about YOU taking my unlucky ass to work for free, old man?" I gave him a mental free pass and just chuckled like I  thought he was funny. (while choking back a LOT of sharp comebacks)

All old people get a free pass in my book, sometimes it's just hard to do.

It was getting close to the time when my friend was picking me up so I headed up  the street  to meet her at the top of the  subdivision.

Massey  came outside and said "Don't just walk up  the street like a homeless person." I told her I was walking up  the street FROM my home. I demurred to her obvious embarrassment so we stood together in the front yard,  admiring the free sod  that I worked so hard to lay and God worked so hard to water the past three weeks.

You know what may and WILL sound crazy?

Luckily, obviously I don't want an easy life like I used to.  I don't want things handed to me on a silver platter.  I don't want "Things." I want to be loved, I want to be a hard worker,  I want to be a funny person, I want to be a good mother a good wife, appreciated  and a writer. I  already have seven things checked off MY bucket list...how many people can say that?

Feeling pretty good about our sad old life.

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." (Dr. Seuss)

Til next time...COTTON