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Excuse Me While I Vent….

31 Jul

Ok, today’s yard sales are a bust mostly. Started out with just a little rain, so a few die hards tried to keep going, really wasn’t too bad at first and the temperature was nice enough. We did really score with 2 boxes full of nice picture frames, 3 books and a candle for $8.25. There is a reason there are no pictures of the haul today: the bottom has dropped out, the monsoon has begun! Probably 2 inches of rain in 5 minutes or so! Not good for yard sales or getting things out of your trunk if you don’t have a garage.

So, we are driving home in this mess and Boyfriend has to put the wipers on high just to try and see where he is going. One dark car or truck after the other is either coming at us or tailgating him, only problem is the colors of the cars blend in with the rain and gray day so much you don’t even know they are there until they are right on top of you. Alright stealth bombers! PUT ON YOUR LIGHTS FOR SAFETY PLEASE! I live in a state where it is even REQUIRED BY LAW, but 75% of people don’t obey it, and they are driving around hidden from view by the rain and moisture. Hello! You are the same color as the road people! Gray, black, dark blue, dark green, and even sometimes white. We can’t see you in the downpour unless you put on your headlights. Just look at the other cars on the road, are there any you have trouble seeing in the rain?

I wish I could have snapped a picture of some of them, you wouldn’t have been able to tell at all that there was a car in it. But rain is good, and we need it! So hopefully people will think to put on their lights, or maybe the rest of us can drive defensively enough to not have any accidents. Still, this remains one of my pet peeves!

I have others too. I can’t remember them at the moment (damn menopause!), but I will update you as events occur . I guess I could vent on the menopause thing too….several spam ‘comments’ have come my way to offer me help with this trying time of my life. Yeah, right. I’m going to trust someone’s website that sends me a spam or autobot comment. Come on! I DO have menopause, I DO forget some things, but I am NOT brain dead! Do any of you blogging girls have any strategies with spam or trash comments? Fill me in if you do, thanks!

Oh well, thanks for reading my rantings and ravings today! Hope you have a great weekend!

2 Comments

Posted in humor, venting, Yard Sales

Yard Sales Anyone?

28 Jul

I mentioned I enjoy going to yard sales. Apparently I have also infected my boyfriend with this virus as well. Here are a few things we have picked up recently.

Vintage Diva - 1974 Cher Album

I absolutely LOVE this one, a circa 1974 Vintage Diva LP, that’s Long Playing Album to you youngsters out there. I use to put one of Cher’s albums on my little portable turntable and kick back and put my feet up and enjoy the groove. I was all of 13 or 14 for some of this . Ahhhh, youth!

Summers were long and hot then, no air conditioner for us. We had big roll out windows and fans, and the fans ran all summer long too. Thing is, it was only unbearably hot a few days out of the year. Nowadays I don’t know how I would live without air conditioning. I regularly thank God for giving some one the ability to invent it. It’s not ALL hot flashes you know!

Cute Little Purse

Next on the yard sale find list is this little goodie, a made in China number. The little tag hanging off the side says ‘hancrofted,’ I think someone was going for ‘handcrafted.’ It made me smile, and I like the colors, so a couple of bucks later it was mine. It’s so small though that it won’t hold all my necessities, so I haven’t used it yet. It’s still pretty….

I enjoy looking through things at the sales and bartering with people, friendly stuff, I’m not into the rough haggling some do. My boyfriend, being new to all this, is just learning how to barter. He hasn’t actually done it yet, but he is taking notes. He also knows I am not going to get up early to hit said sales, but around 9:30 or 10 he will say, “Doncha want to get out there honey? I saw some signs about yard sales in the neighborhood, you never know what we might find….” It works. We get out the door and find a few good things even late in the morning. Don’t be surprised if I post some OMG! pictures later, there are quite a few interesting things to be seen as well as the good stuff.

Tray and wire Basket

Last but not least are these two, a nice tray and a wire basket. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, I couldn’t find a good angle for this one. The tray is a nice group of flower arrangements which look nice together. We also bought another tray not pictured with birds on it. My daughter and I love to use trays, it helps keep the mess contained. I had a coffee pot overflow one time and run all over my counter, and I mean ALL OVER! I still don’t know how that much coffee got in the thing! A friend suggested sitting it in a tray, with sides, so at least if it happened again it wouldn’t cover my 10 feet of counter. Sounded like I good idea to me, and it worked well with a later coffee mishap. Point to note here: I got rid of that coffee pot and got a new one. Haven’t had any overflows since then.

The reason for the wire basket in all of it’s utilitarian glory? The one year old granddaughter can now pick up 5 lb. bags of things….like apples….and potatoes…..she loves to move them around the house so we can play hide and seek with the vegetables…..not my favorite game . Have you ever smelled old, rotten potatoes? Not pleasant is all I’ll say. Actually, I’ll say more. Gag a maggot is more like it! So, I got the basket, which should hold about 5 lb of potatoes, although I haven’t bought a new bag to try yet. My daughter has already found a use for it though, it has some squash in it currently.

A new addition is this dvd I really like: Pinky and the Brain. Their cartoons make me laugh my head off!

So, hope you enjoyed my romp through the sales! Let me know what you find, ok? See ya, Angela

7 Comments

Posted in humor, Yard Sales

Lightning, Thunder, RAIN!

26 Jul

Rainbow from another storm

Wow! Did we have a storm tonight….some of the biggest lightning strikes I’ve ever seen, and I have seen a bunch! We got lots of needed rain, but it came down very fast and hard, so not much time for soaking I’m afraid. Oh well, we are in a drought in the South, so hopefully it will help.

I have always been fascinated by storms. When I was a child we apparently lived in some sort of special spot. Special to lightning that is. I think the total count of lightning strikes to the house was 12 or 13. Once it knocked our 7 bricks from the outside, blew out an outlet in my grandmother’s room, blowing up her little lamp as well, then ricocheted somehow into the toilet, which was cracked. That was a very surreal experience. I think I was about 6 or 7 at the time. The boom from the strike was so loud we couldn’t hear for a while. Mom and Dad could smell something like a weird burning scent, and after about 15 minutes of searching, Daddy found a nice big hole in the back of the house. We didn’t have power for a couple of days while the electrician repaired the damage. It took a few more days for a brickmason to fix the hole, but soon the house was good as new, waiting for the next storm…

Then there was the time that lightning managed to charge the bolts on our kitchen door just as my sister was trying to unlatch it to let the dog in. She was hanging there for a while it seemed, pinned by the electrical charge from lightning that was running our main eletrical lines outside the house, the ones that come from your meter box. The lightning landed there that day, but just glanced off we were later told. Oh yeah, and my sister? She suddenly fell to her knees, a little shaken but unbelievably unhurt. And our dog was fine too.

When I was in my early 20′s, another storm blew up our way and brought a small twister with it. It didn’t touch the house, just pulled the basketball goal out of the ground and chunked it at me. I was trying to put out a small fire that had started outside, and was very happy said ball goal missed me. The storm’s aim was off that day . I didn’t get to pull a Dorothy Gayle either and check out Oz, but maybe one day!

I could go on for several more stories, but I’m sure you get the idea. So yeah, I have a little storm experience, and today just added another tale to the list. As we were closing our office, a fairly big storm started pelting rain in the parking lot, with leaves and trash swirling everywhere. Then the lightning started, big bright bolts with loud, close thunder right behind. The building slightly shook a couple of times, then the surge protector in the back office started beeping at us, letting us know it was a good thing we had shut down the equipment and were headed out the door. So no umbrella, (after it all it was hot and sunny this morning, why would I need an umbrella?) I dash to my car as fast as I can. Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

The lightning seemed to still be close as I headed up the road to go home. It would strike and I would hear thunder immediately, indicating the storm was right on top of me. I was feeling glad to be in my car with rubber tires on the ground under me when suddenly to my left…..BOOM! Lightning strikes! BOOM! It strikes again, this time hitting a transformer off to my left, and I don’t see how anything could be left of it! Quite a little sizzle and fizz going on there too, but it was far enough away that it didn’t touch my car and I hit the gas and kept heading home. Whew!

So, I hope your evening was a little quieter and more relaxing. But then again, I do like explosions, and a little entertainment never hurt anyone! I think mother nature was just putting on a great big show for me. Let me know if you ever make it to Oz, and I will be sure to do the same!

3 Comments

Posted in Ponderings

The Walking Wounded

22 Jul

Life has shot arrows at all of us. Unfortunately it isn’t some figurative bow they come from, but actual hands and mouths of people we know. Christians like to shoot their wounded, so they are gone and don’t remind them of their failures in ministry. But then…..others still open arms and hearts, like Ann Voskamp does, to try to answer questions, to help us not feel alone, to remind us we are not the only wounded soul on this planet…..sad is that, but true. Ann, I want to thank you for your blog. http://www.aholyexperience.com/ It has been a refreshing fountain for me to come and sit beside. You are a blessing to me.

A Place of Defense

I have been reading her for a few weeks now, her life is so different than mine, but still we have suffered similar things. Funny that thing of experience. Pain knows no boundaries, and we have all been touched by it. One of my dear Catholic friends once told me our pain is never wasted, God sees it as a sacrifice, sees and aches and hears our cries, so to never feel our pain is wasted. I am 4 or 5 years divorced from my former husband of 28 years, 3 children, and now 6 grand-children. Never thought it would be like that. But the nights when all I could do was collapse on my kitchen floor and cry, and ask the same questions we all have asked, “Why God? Why me? What did I do to deserve this, why are You letting this happen to me, to us, to my family?” Left for a time wondering if He even heard me, ever, at all.

But then, in a desperate night, feeling like a piece of garbage thrown away, God sent a friend. An old friend I wasn’t in touch with, who suddenly had my cell number and was calling me. Do I answer, or do I not? I answered, and then decided not to kill myself that night, not giving into the aching part of me that screamed I was a failure and it was all my fault. Because of course it wasn’t. God gave her, my friend, what I needed in that desperate hour to not do a desperate thing. And I made it through that night, and then a week, a month, almost a year…..

A place to rest...

Then again, when I needed some desperate touch from someone in flesh and blood and not just ethereal God, another friend from long ago and far away calls, warning of disaster, need to change this and not do that, real specific things she couldn’t have known without Someone giving her details. Once again, disaster was averted, and I was ok, and didn’t feel so lost, or abandoned or uncared for.

I pray for those of you who have suffered too. Suffered at the hands of friends, suffered at the hands of family, suffered from places too vast to mention here. I pray for you. For the same God who came to my desperate need and rescue to do the same wonderful things you need, and rescue you from a pit of despair, or a dark night or cloudy day. I know it won’t be exactly the same as what He did for me, because you need specific things for yourselves. I will be watching and reading as you share. Tell me how you have been rescued, how God and the universe did what you needed, and when and how.

You are not alone. If you are reading this, you are not alone. Others have suffered and survived and grown through it. You can too. That is also a prayer I will pray for you. I pray for your heart and soul to be washed in peace, to be rinsed in love and to be softened in hope. To dry and be strong, not brittle or hard, but strength of character, of honor, of justice. If injustice has been served to you, do not become the thing you hate and serve injustice to others. Serve Justice, Rightness, Quality. Do not become the thing you hate. Do not give in to it. Reach out and reach up. You can do this.

We are here together in this space and time. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I cherish each response. As always, Angela

2 Comments

Posted in Ponderings, recovery

Our Lists…..

20 Jul

Today’s challenge for the 31 days to build a better blog is a list post. That got me thinking about lists themselves. What kind of list would I write a post on? A list of movies I have seen, a list of movies I LOVE! Maybe a list of books I have read, or of favorite family memories. I could write a list about funny things my children use to do, or funny things my grand-kids are doing now….dont’ forget my comment from one of my granddaughters recently: Nanny! Potatoes come from french fries! Thanks to her, I have several funnies I could list.

So, back to lists. Yes, I am a list maker. I like to make them so I can check things off, to have that little extra oomph of completion at the end of a day. I have decided to write a list post of lists I use regularly, and some I might like to use sometime.

1. Grocery list – we all gotta eat, right?

2. Chore list – my ugh! list. Can’t forget to scrub the toilet, right honey?

3. To-do list for work, prioritize! Reading that blog on chocolate should probably NOT be on this list

4. Packing list: I have one I keep to jog my memory for trip packing. I am notorious for forgetting things, especially right now. Seems like menopause is kicking my arse quite regularly with that one.

5. Birthday list: again, a memory issue. All 3 of my children will tell you I am bad with dates. I know the month I had them, and usually the year (thank you son for being born in 1980), but can be fuzzy on the exact dates. But really, there is a reason. My first daughter, second child, was born on Memorial Day. That’s in May. I also have a sister born on Memorial Day, again, in May. BUT….It’s NOT THE SAME DATE! Talk about confusing someone…..I guess I can’t blame it all on menopause….oh well….I’ll blame it on my Dad. He would actually agree…..Either way, I am bad with dates…..

6. Amazon Wish List: I mean, come on! This is one of the greatest lists ever invented! I get to put all this stuff on a list that other people can see, other people who are going to BUY me things….ooohhhh……aaaahhhh……I rub my averice little hands together, just thinking about all the goodies I could get! I love prezzies…..Really, who doesn’t?

7. Blog idea list. This is the blog. ‘Nough said.

8. Goals list: Last year, Alan Melton challenged my networking group to come up with 101 things we wanted to do in our life. Business, personal, experiential. I think this was one of the things on that list…will have to pull it out later and see. Then I can check it off. Yay! Instant gratification.

9. List of Bills: this should probably be higher in this list, but I just remembered it. Yes, I have each bill wriiten out by due date and amount. It’s called a budget people. And God help me if I don’t stay focused on it, I get into all KINDS of trouble! But sometime those books are calling to me, just calling my name, really, just mine. I have to buy them when they do that. I just have to.

10. List of Books I’ve Read: I don’t do this one, but I should. My daughter does, she will stay up late trying to remember the one she forgot to write down, will keep tracking her memory until she finds it too. As I said, I don’t do this, but should. It would help me stop checking the same books out from the library over and over, usually just because I like the way the cover looks. But not my daughter. She knows, and can tell you. I like that list.

Johnny Depp, yum!

11. Favorite movies, or movies I’ve recently seen. These were listed in my opening paragraph, but I felt like it was a good idea to include them here as well. I think I will start new pages about books and movies. Maybe I will have a whole section just on Johnny Depp. I think he’s dandy!

12. A Johnny Depp list: Yep, this will be a definite one, then I can just write down all the deep Depp stuff I wanna….

13. What do I want to be when I grow up list: You need to read the book, Crush It! Another reason I am writing this blog, and still trying to find out what my passion is. It is very inspiring, and will make you think long and hard on some things too.

14. Bucket List: If you haven’t seen the movie, this is a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Do you want to skydive? Me too! Do you want to trek across the great wall of China? Well, probably not me. But you can, then I will let you write a guest blog or two all about it ….

So, why do we write the lists we write? To keep us organized, to help us remember important and mundane things, to keep from overlooking something needful or someone important to us. What are some of the lists you use? I would love to hear about them. I may need to add your lists to my lists, so let my lists get back with your lists, and we’ll see if we can set something up, OK?

Have a great list-making, item-checking-off day!

6 Comments

Posted in Deep Deppness, humor, lists, organization

Where has all the weekend gone?

19 Jul

Well, another weekend has come and gone, and they never seem to last long enough. I accidentally picked up a virus while out and about, so it was up and down and in and out for me part of Saturday and Sunday.

I’m participating in the SITS 31 Day Blog Challenge. Today we are suppose to be constructing an elevator speech to describe our blogs. . The exercise is not supposed to take over 15 minutes, but I haven’t exactly finished it yet.

Here’s what I have so far: Accidentally Angela is about life. The ups, the downs, the insides out, the falling down and sideways. The getting ups, the just’s because, the incidentals and the in-betweens. What catches my heart and holds me there, and your response to what I share. The upside downs, and insides out. That’s what Accidentally Angela is all about.

It’s a work in progress….but I think I have a beginning. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please share your comments as well.

Hope you have had a wonderful Monday, and have a beautiful week as well…..

Irises from my yard

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Posted in Ponderings

In Overdrive, Overwhelmed and Frustrated….

15 Jul

So, what to do when I feel overwhelmed with life? Sometimes I feel the need to hire someone to take care of some of my incidentals, but who really has the money for that? I’m still trying to figure out this blog stuff, working on drafts that don’t make it to this page. I am like you and have my regular life pulling on me always, this week my daughter had a serious cut to her hand we had to take care of, and she is a mom so her little ones also had to be taken care in the interim. One is 6, and the other is 1 year old, and of course when Mommy got hurt both babies got upset. It was an interesting evening that is for sure

So, how do you handle the stress of everyday life? Do you take long baths to relax, drink lots of coffee to have energy to deal, or something else? I am realizing I need to get back to some old habits I’ve used in the past. One is making lists for things I want to accomplish. Write it out, make it plain. Then as I finish these written tasks, I can check them off the list and give myself a feeling of accomplishment! Yay! One done, a couple hundred to go….

Another thing I need to start doing is to stop kicking myself around so much when I don’t accomplish the things I mean to. I waste an enormous! amount of time doing that, I bet you do too. We are constantly badgering ourselves for things we don’t get done, things we don’t have time to do, things we drop the ball on. I think a better use of time and energy for all of us would be to simply pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and spend the energy starting over instead of beating ourselves up. I think I’ll add that to my lists…..

I also took a course earlier this year called HeartMath from Bonnie Tollison with Creative Health. It has been very helpful in helping me learn to control my body’s bad habits like jumping into overdrive every time something happens. I have tools I use on those crazy car rides home not knowing if my daughter’s finger is attached or not so I can keep myself together enough to be a help and not a burden in stressful situations. Check it out. It’s very scientifically documented that we can override the old ruts in our brains with new information, and it can really help our health. If you are in the area and can work with Bonnie, she is one of those rare jewels you only find once in a while in life.

What are some things you do to try to help yourself with the everyday stresses? I’d love to hear your ideas too! Post a comment to share with all of us…

So, I don’t think you need to hire a life coach necessarily to help you, I am going to get a new notebook and start writing things down again, and I can at least give myself a little feeling of accomplishment by checking them off when done…..

On a lighter note, the 6 year old granddaughter shared this with me too: Potatoes come from French Fries! I hope you find that as useful as I do, have a smile on me ok? Hope some of this is helpful to you too! Talk to you soon….

3 Comments

Posted in Ponderings

Holding On, Letting Go

12 Jul

I hold onto things. I have a hard time letting go. I think I learned this from my parents. Fine folks, my parents. Really good people. Parents raised by parents that survived a Depression, people who didn’t let go of anything because you never knew when you wouldn’t have enough, or when you might need more, or just have to have that thing you just let go of. So, I have learned my lessons well, and have a hard time letting go.

Unfortunately, I have lots of stuff I haven’t let go of yet. Bits of colored cloth I might make into something one day. Broken jewelry that needs a new clasp, or a broken bead removed, that will tarnish or turn before I get around to fixing it. A broken cup I keep gluing back together with Elmer’s school glue….non-toxic….I figure I can still use it if it’s non-toxic, right? A couple of pairs of shoes I can’t break in, they hurt my feet so badly! But I paid new price for them, so how can I just let them go?

Unfortunately too, it’s not just tangible things I hold on to, it’s many intangibles I have forgotten I hold. Memories that pop up like ugly jesters to poke fun of me in my head; “Aha! Caught you! You really are dumb, know that? You can’t figure this out, why even try?” The mocking words can go on and on, unless I think about it and stop them. Sometimes it takes me a little while to realize these words are rolling on and on in my head, like loose marbles rattling around, bumping into things and stirring up dust and cobwebs. Then suddenly I really hear them, and I stop, and think, now why am I doing this? And then I stop them. On Purpose. No, I am not dumb, I can figure this out. If I can’t figure this out, I can ask for help from my friends. I try because I can try, I have abilities and have worked hard to know and understand things, so….I might not have my answers right now, but I will….and not just my answers, but God answers, and friend answers or just because I needed it answers, an answer shows up and tells me hello. The answer will come. I just need to let go….

Let go of the anxiousness, let go of the fear, let go of the doubt and take hold of other things. Those things that are lovely, things that are pure, things that are noble, admirable and right…think and ponder and dwell on these things. Your puppy’s smiling face when you get home from work, the grand-baby that runs wide open into your arms when you pull up to see them. The day we get rain. The day we don’t. The way your significant one looks at you like you are a long tall glass of water on a very hot day. The fireman that saved the kid, or the dog, or the cat. The lost child that was found, the found treasure that was lost.

Hold on to the good, let go of the so-so. Hold onto things that are needed, let go of the excess. Hold on to the love, to the happiness, the fun and good times. Think on these things. Make a conscious effort to change your mind. Think on these things.

So, I need to take my own advice…and let go….

Let go of those things I hold onto that only weigh me down. Bitterness at lost friends, anger at an ex-boss, disappointment in myself for not being greater than and all that and better and super. Just let go, and love me and love others and love God and ….just….let….go…..and lean into that love that is there from children and grandchildren, from good friends and family. Love of color, love of fun, love of good food, and good times and all the good things I have been blessed with. So, …

Let’s learn together of the the things we need to let go of, and in return the good things we need to hold on to. To let go of mediocre because we are afraid better isn’t coming. To hold onto hope, because it is one of the greatest powers on earth. To let go of doubt, and fear because they are poison to our hearts and minds. Hold on with me, and I’ll hold on with you!

5 Comments

Posted in Ponderings