Our chickens have always had free range of our backyard. They would occasionally jump the fence into the front yard, but always stayed close. When we got the newest four chickens we realized they were rebels. They would take off down the street, across the street, all over our street. I spent a lot of the day chasing chickens. Well, today that all stopped.
Donny spent most of the morning putting chicken wire up to keep them in. A little chicken prison.
It worked. They can’t get out. Now we just have to make sure that our cats don’t go back there when we go into the backyard because they can’t get out either.
Donny’s plants are doing well in the greenhouse. Hopefully we’ll get some veggies.
Tomorrow we leave to go camping for Hannah’s 18th birthday. She loves to camp. This will be the third camping birthday. We’re using HipCamp. I had no idea this existed. It’s like Airbnb for camping. It’s going to be a short camping trip because of Donny’s schedule, but I’m sure it will still be fun.
Since his car is bigger than my little one we are taking his. The dead mouse smell is still lingering, but I gave that interior a scrubbing and it’s much better. This is about the only time I miss all the room we had in the Flex, but we’ll make it work. We always do.
It has been a hot minute since I’ve been able to sit down and journal anything. Spring Break was last week and we didn’t really get to go anywhere because Hannah was working. Then this past week we lost the charging block to my laptop. But there have been a few things happening.
Hannah quit her job. It wasn’t because she didn’t like it, but more so because it’s her Senior year and for the past few months they have had her working 7 days straight with a double on the weekends and then 2 days off. It was just way too much for her and we were needing to get some things done and had no time to do it. She did give 2 weeks notice and the managers told her that anytime she wants to come back she would be hired. She had been there right at a year.
She is going to miss her coworkers though. (Hannah is third from the right)
Her favorite dessert is cheesecake so they gave her a free slice as a going away gift.
With her now having free time after school we can focus on prom and graduation. We went to her favorite boutique to find a dress. I didn’t take a picture of her in any of them, but we found one she liked, just in the wrong color. She said she felt like Arial from the LIttle Mermaid in it. It fit her like a glove though.
After not finding the exact one she wanted, we ventured to the mall. Slim pickings at Dillards, but we did find one she liked at another store. We were so tired by this time that I just snapped a photo so we wouldn’t forget which one it was.
And for the THIRD time, we got this done.
She better not let them close up again.
We have Milo, the stray cat. After almost 2 years he finally started letting me hold him and pet him. Well, I thought he was sick because he breath was awful. It was so putrid and when I went to look at his mouth I found a dime sized hole in his neck by his jaw. I made a vet appointment and they had to put him under to clean it out and we decided to go ahead and get him neutered. He’s quite an expensive stray. I guess he’s technically ours now.
After the vet visit the hole was the size of a quarter and we kept him inside for a few days. He is just so sweet. He comes in and out now.
So we gained one pet and lost another, which does not make me sad. The one that is now gone is the rooster. After 2 years I can now walk in my backyard without carrying a weapon. He had never tried to get out of the backyard before and then realized he could get on to gate and jump off.
That 100 percent was a lawsuit waiting to happen because he would go to the neighbors homes. We tried to keep him in.
In the end, animal control came and got him. They had someone in the office that had a farm, so at least that’s good. I don’t miss him one little bit.
The weather was good for a few days and then rain hit hard along with much cooler weather. We are trying to get our patio and backyard ready for spring and summer. We had Jack’s old dresser against the wall. Donny broke it up for me and it’s finally gone. I did keep the last two drawers because they were maple and make really good shelves.
They give me just that little extra storage needed. I always try to recycle anything that I can.
And last but not least, it was that time of year again. Mammograms aren’t fun, but at least mine came back clean.
I struggle with carpal tunnel syndrome. It started when our home flooded and we did the clean out ourselves. All the scraping of floors and then painting once everything was finished caused it to flare up so bad. I used to wake up in the middle of the night with my hand feeling like it was on fire. It would cause me to actually cry because it hurt so bad. Every time I used my hand/arm in a repetitive motion like painting, sweeping, pulling weeds, you get the idea, it would flare up again.
About 2 years ago I started wearing copper cuffs. I used to have to sleep in a wrist brace and just got so tired of doing that, that I decided to give the copper bracelets a shot. They worked. I have added to my collection over time and now I wear 4 of them religiously. I only take them off to shower. My favorite one I found in the antique mall here. It has little designs on it and is very light weight. If you suffer from CTS you really should give copper a try.
When I was picking Hannah up from work a J Geils song came on the radio. For a split second I was 16 again cruising in my car on a Friday night. I turned to her and asked her if she wanted to go hang out at the Quarterdeck and then go cruise Everhart. I threw in that if we’re lucky someone might want to go with us to Goatman’s. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. It’s hard to explain the freedom we, as teenagers, had back then. No social media or cell phones. Life seemed so much easier and freer. Trying to explain to her that we would go hang out at an arcade and then cruise down a street that all high school kids in my city used to cruise down only to turn around in the sonic drive thru just to do it all again, didn’t seem fun to her. To us, back then, it was the best way to spend a Saturday night. Goatman’s was terrifying because it was a brushy area that the Goatman supposedly lived. You”d drive through hoping to see him. One time some guy in a mask jumped out with a baseball bat. We high tailed it out of there fast. Sometimes I really miss those days. Now that I drive my little hatchback I crank up retro music and still feel like I’m in high school, although I drove a ’77 Buick Skylark back then.
My purple Mardi Gras baby living its best life. Ignore the pollen. It’s that time of year.
Yes, I still listen to CD’s and #9 Narrow Daylight has become my new favorite song. If you haven’t heard it you should give it a listen.
I also had to run into Hobby Lobby to get the kids their eclipse shirts for school. I generally cannot stand the mass over produced products they carry, but I did find the perfect wind chimes. Shirts and wind chimes were both 40% off so I couldn’t pass them up. They give off such a peaceful sound.
I have mentioned before how we were loaning our lawn mower to Jimmy because his broke and he walks around mowing lawns in the neighborhoods around our house. Almost daily during the summer he would knock on our door asking to borrow our mower. We thought it was a little weird when he started coming back the beginning of January to borrow it again. We were leaving our lawn dormant until the weather started heating up again and Jimmy would ask time and time again if we wanted him to mow our yard.
Anyway, Donny went to get the mower out of the shed so he could mow inside our greenhouse. He came in and asked me where the mower was. I told him Jimmy borrowed it about a week ago. He normally just puts it back in the shed when he’s finished. A couple of days later Jimmy knocked on our door and told me that he had it at his friend’s house and it was “taken”. Hannah and I were walking out the door because she was late for work so I couldn’t talk to him very long, but he told me that he would buy us a new one. I was not a happy camper and I’m pretty sure he waited so long to tell me because he sold it.
A few weeks ago I saw him walking down the side street by my house PUSHING A LAWN MOWER! By the time I had run into the house to tell the kids I was going to find him, grab my keys, he was GONE. I drove around looking for him, but he must have seen me and took off.
I saw him about a week after that cutting through the neighbor’s house two doors down and across the street. I tried to find him again with no luck.
My landlords called me to find out how the plumbers did and I told them that I was sorry that our yard was not mowed and then told them why. It turns out they know Jimmy and said that he’s homeless. He had lied and said that he lived with his mother. He had been staying at this homeless camp and with some unsavory people a few streets over. My landlord said that if she sees him she’s going to text me so I can find out just what happened.
It sucks when you think you are doing a good thing by helping someone and they completely screw you over.
Anyway, Tuesday we got a delivery.
I loved out old mower. It was a better one than this one, but we don’t have an extra $600 dollars to buy another Troy-bilt. This one cost half that and it’s going to take some getting used to because it has rear wheel propulsion instead of front and it’s so fast. It’s like walking a great Dane that isn’t leash trained. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Here’s the before of our poor lawn.
We have so much work to do on it this Spring. It used to be beautiful St. Augustine. Not so much anymore.
It does look a lot better after I mowed.
And after being sick for almost 2 weeks I’m finally feeling like myself. I had enough energy to deep clean the house and that in itself makes me feel so much better. I love to open up the curtains and let the natural light in.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been well enough to even think about writing anything. Hannah was sick first. We’re pretty sure that she brought this sickness home from work. After Hannah had it Jackson got it. They both missed a few days of school and then seemed to get better. Then I got it. It started last Thursday with me feeling “off”. Then I woke up Friday morning with a fever and sore throat. Later in the day I started getting really stopped up and all of my joints were aching. It just kept getting worse. I took a Covid test that came back negative. Hannah had been tested for Covid, strep and the flu, all negative.
I’m assuming this is the new virus everyone has been talking about. Today is my 9th day with it and I’m finally starting to feel better. I think I would have felt better on the 7th day, but I was folding laundry and heard our toilet start to bubble then a flood of liquid hit the floor. I ran in and raw sewage was flowing over the toilet and coming up into the bathtub. I was cleaning that up for over an hour before the plumbers got there and it zapped any strength I might have stored up. It’s finally fixed after a visit from the city and another visit from the plumbers.
We’ve had to start wrangling the chickens because the newest 4 are rebels and will end up down and across the street. We found their new nest in the pampas grass that luckily was cut down right after with gathered the 13 eggs in it.
This is Penelope, one of the original hens. She likes to jump on my lap and hang out.
The cats are afraid of the chickens so I’ve been giving the cats catnip to calm them down. Milo was out. I don’t know if you can tell, but his front legs are up in the air.
And because I don’t consider this social media I am allowed to post my kids pictures. My daughter and her boyfriend finally got to have their Valentines dinner at Sushi Shimo.
That’s about all the news here. I did make my first Dutch Baby and it turned out really good. I’ve still been cooking, even through sickness, but nothing exciting. After the toilet incident Donny picked up Zaxby’s because Jack has been wanting to try it. It was awful and tasted like a salt lick. I don’t recommend it.
The Funky Frugalista 