Friday, January 24, 2014

I'm baaaaaack,,,,,

I'm back, bet you didn't think I would make it did you?  Life seems to get crazier and crazier at times.  Seems like the more I want to slow down and take it easy for a while, the more it speeds up.  Always something to do.  One thing I can say for sure is my life is never boring, LOL.

Work has slowed down for just a little bit so I am taking the time to get work done around the house.  I need to make more breakfast sausage.  Home made is always better!  I control the amount of fat I put in it as well as the spices.  Today I will prep the meat.  I will cut it into cubes, mix in the seasonings and put it in the fridge to chill over night.  It always grinds better when it is good and cold, plus the seasonings will be well blended and absorbed by the meat before grinding.  That makes for more even flavor and a more tender meat.  Tomorrow I will grind it and make patties with it.

I also need to get laundry caught up today and cut my hair. I actually bought one of those vacuum type hair cutters and I love it!  It is called Air Cut and it works great.  I use the 3 inch guard and get a nice even cut with lots of layers all over my head.  I keep my hair short because it is much easier for me to care for it with my fibromyalgia, not to mention that I have very fine hair and when I let it grow it just looks stringy.  Using the Air Cut is no more difficult than blow drying your hair, so it is quite easy to use.  Best investment I ever made!!

I have been trying to decide what direction I want to take this blog in.  I have a few passions I enjoy writing about.  I like to share money saving tips, recipes and my thoughts on homesteading, even if you live in a city.  But I also love the work I do which is research and genealogy.  It is a lot of fun and work too.  When I have time I work on my own family genealogy as well.  I made some really cool discoveries recently that I was able to add to my family tree on ancestry.com

Doing the research and genealogy I have met a lot of really neat people along the way.  We have become fast friends and enjoy sharing information with each other.  Life is good!!

For the first time in a very long time I am totally happy in my own skin.  I like being single and independent.  I like being my own boss and setting my own hours to work.  I like that I am not confined by someone else's preferences regarding daily living.  I am blessed!!

Some people have asked if I ever get lonely.  No!  I am way too busy to get lonely!!  I keep myself busy doing things I want to do and I enjoy doing.  I know being single is not for everyone and that's OK but for me it is great.  I love it.  I love not having that co-dependency of a commitment to another person.  I will admit the first couple of years after my divorce were rough.  Suddenly I was alone, after 50+ years of always living my life for someone else, it was now all my mine.  When we are children we live for our parents and our siblings.  We grow, we marry then we live for our spouse.  Now it is finally my turn to live for me and I am so happy!  I didn't need to rush into another committed relationship and I am glad I didn't.  Oh, I tested the waters a bit but knew deep down it was not what I wanted and I needed to get past the insecurities of being alone and move on.  And that is exactly what I did.

That last marriage left me with some battle scars though.  I have serious trust issues from the mental abuse that I doubt I will ever get over.  Most would say that is a bad thing, admittedly it can be.  But then again, no one will ever be able to take advantage of me again. Nor play the mind games that were once played on me.  No one will ever get my self esteem that low again.  I am more confident in myself than I have ever been in my life. I have come along way over the last 4 1/2 years, and I am truly happy!!

My prayer for you today,,,, no matter where you are in your life, married or single, I pray you are happy, happy, happy!!

Until next time,,,,,,,,,blessings!

Sunday, January 12, 2014

It has been such a long time,,,,,,,

Greetings!

It has been such a long time since I have written last.  I'm sorry, well at least a bit because I miss writing and I miss hearing from you.  But I have been so busy with the new job and also doing my own genealogy.

First the new job, it's great!!  I absolutely love what I am doing!!  The fact that I work from home makes it even better.  I don't get lonely though because I meet so many people on the phone while doing the research.  Plus there are several other researchers in the same company and we talk a lot.  I have learned so much in the last few months and really had a lot of fun doing it.  Not to mention the pay is great!!  I am making more money than I have ever made in my life.  I feel so blessed.  Thank you Lord for blessing me with this job!!

My family genealogy has been quite a challenge but I am enjoying it as well.  I finally broke through a brick wall, at least a little bit on my mom's side of the family and that was exciting!  With common names like Parker and Smith it is not always easy.  But the digging is interesting!

In my personal life I have been making plans for some of the renovations I want to do on the house this year.  Painting, decorating, updating the kitchen and possibly enclosing the front porch are all on the list.  I doubt I will get all of them done but I am sure going to try.  Next year I hope to update the bathroom.

I already have new appliances in the kitchen, but I want to update cabinets and counter tops and rearrange a bit.  I have been playing with the layout the last few months and have decided if I move the stove to the other side of the room I can almost double the cabinet space but first I need to measure and see if my commercial refrigerator and freezer will fit where I want them to go.  I think they will but I will measure twice to make sure, LOL. This will be a big project to strip out all the old flooring and cabinets.  Repaint.  Either install new flooring or perhaps refinish the wood flooring that I think is underneath the old linoleum flooring.  And then install new cabinets and counter tops.

So anyhow, as you can see I have a lot going on in my life right now.  I am really thinking about getting back to writing on a regular basis though.  I just have to figure out what that schedule would be.  I would like to continue writing about canning, homesteading and being frugal but I would also like to add into that mix, genealogy and researching.  I think a lot of people are working on their family genealogies today and perhaps I can add some helpful researching tips.

It might take me a bit to get on a regular schedule again but watch for future posts and as soon as I have it figured out I will let you know.

Until next time,,,,,,,,,, Blessings!!