Last Saturday of September

[Colliemom]

Good Morning All,

Hard to believe this is the last Saturday of September. Where has the time gone. Seems like it was just the beginnng of the yer and in 3 montsh we will watch it become history and welcome in another year.

Bowl of cereal and a bowl of strawberries were breakfast this morning. My larder is a bit low around here right now, so can't really off more than cereal this morning. I do however have some frozen blackberries and mixed fruits if anybody wants some along with Orange juice.

Rainy mornng here this morning, but not expected to last long. It's been partly cloudy but cool here for this past week and a few rain showers in between. Nothing to stop us from working at the park other than the one day when it was raining pretty hard for awhile. So we found things to do inside. All of our work is outside this time of year, getting things ready for winter. My boss is cutting down trees, so we are busy cleanng up behind that. Thee are a lot of oaks that are slowly dying and he wants them down before they come down on somebody's camper. So many diseases in the trees these days. Seems like just about every species has some kind of bug or something.

So not sure what I will get into today. Nobody's there except myself and one other gal who handles the camp office. Then our one Ranger and another office gal will be in at noon. We've been busy getting things ready for the Halloween Festival in two weeks and there ae still things to do yet. It's a lot of work getting ready for this.

Next week is my last week for the. Vacation time for a few days, but have to be back for the Festival the following weekend. Not sure as yet if I am going to stay at my favorite resrot in the U.P. or take the TT and camp for a few days. Weatehr looks good for at least the weekend and into the first two days of the next week, but rain and cooler temps moving in after that. In a way I had though of just leaving the TT home and hopefully getting a couple of nice days to take that last and final trip for the season, after the festival. Got to make a decision here. By mid October a lot of the parks up here will be shutting down their water supplies and preparing their buildings for winter. One can still camp, but have to bring your water onboard if you want and can only dump at the dump stations, no rinsing out of tanks etc. I have mine a really good rinse out just in c ase I don't use it anymore, the last time I was camping.

Barbie, I certainly hope that business picks up for you. You've been having a hard time with shops down there it seems. But I 'm sure it is just a matter of time before you find that "right one" and everything will fall into place. Otherwise it sounds like you are certainlly enjoying life in CA.

Irmi, hope it doesn't rain the entire time you are camping this weekend. No fun if it's a hard rain. A more gentle rain isn't bad. At least you can get out under the awning or even enjoy a walk in the rain, but a downpour is another story.

Well, time to get ready to head off to work. I have tomorrow and Monday off this week. The first Sunday I have off since I started back to work last April. Plan to head for church in the mornng and then have things to do around here. Supposed to be a nice day they say.

Have a wonderful day all.

[asirimarco]

Good Morning to All - Dark and gloomy out here and cool - The Driver got up looked around and went back to bed. I think the past week as over taxed him and he doesn't want to admit it. But he is doing so much better as he says almost there about 99% okay. Still does a few things that rattle the incision.
I got my hair all chopped off yesterday - just could not stand it any longer. Now it is about 1/2 inch all over. He got a new PC for the Alfa and we've been loading it up with all his stuff........I've been putting some of "his favorites" on IE so he can find them and adding some of the Mexican pictures for his screen saver.
And I'm still working on getting library books set up so they will download on to my Nook. I can get regular ebooks there but not the borrowed ones from the library. I can get them onto the PC - which is probably my mistake - should have put it on the laptop as it is set up to connect to the Nook. Good day to work on it.
Should be pretty around here soon, the colors on the trees are really turning - day by day more and more of them turn.
The little town was full of people yesterday - a couple blocks of solid traffic.
Have a wonderful day.

[avalen]

good morning ladies
two wonderful days off were great, still have the majority of today and will get laundry done and a few routine chores. Trip out
to Apache Junction to check on the fifthwheel made me homesick. It always does, cause I want to get back in it and resume
my lifestyle. But living rent free for now is getting stuff paid off and making me able to get some of the extra stuff that I've wanted for a while.
The girls are up and bugging me for breakfast and its time for a refill on my coffee, off to the kitchen I go
Ya'll have a great day.

[longdog2]

It's cool here near San Antonio (73 degrees), cooler than it used to be in the morning. But it is already warming up and on its way to the upper 90s. Just heard last night that we are going to be warming up again to near a hundred during the upcoming week. We don't give up our summers easily around here. And I am glad about that. I'll take 90 degrees over 50 degrees any time--had all the cold weather and snow I ever need when I grew up in Minnesota. Those 25 degree days we had last winter were way too cold. Just my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

[dpf]

Good morning! I've been sitting in the middle of a mess for two weeks. Painters were suppose to come to paint the living room, dining room, kitchen and two halls on the 12th. So I spent the weekend of the 9th preparing. Then on Sunday morning he called and told me that he wouldn't be able to make it until this past week. So I slowed down the tearing apart the house and finished up in the evenings. Last Sunday I had to leave for a trade show in Rapid City and throughly expected to come home on Tuesday night to all most completed job...no such luck...they hadn't started yet. Wednesday when I came home from work they were here but when they left only one wall and the living room ceiling were primed. Since I had so much windshield time because of travel I only had to work a couple hours on Thursday and had the rest of the day and all day Friday off...I had throughly expected that I would be able to put the house back together. They were here all day Thursday and Friday and they still aren't done priming. My patience level is just about gone and except for the fact that he is my DH friend and his son is Ryan's friend, I would have blown a gasket by now! Anniepoo send me some of your patience...right now! Yesterday I spent the morning in the 5er making 20# of potato salad (because my kitchen was all taped and draped with plastic) for the benefit golf tournament that is today for a former students 18 year old son who has cancer. Since I'm not a golfer and wouldn't be contributing through entry fees I volunteered to make potato salad...easy way to get rid of some of the potatoes from DH abundant crop from 300# of seed potatoes! Then I washed the outside of all the windows....did just about everything I could think of to stay out of their way and keep Radar out of their hair.(God forbid I don't want to slow down their process!) She's about as irritated with the mess as I am and barks at them everytime they move something or hang more plastic. She's never been good about change and even spends a couple days barking at the Christmas tree when I put it up....perhaps she won't have to worry about the tree this year...they probably won't be done painting.

Thanks for listening to me vent! Can't do it on Facebook because the painters wife is one of my "friends"! Hope everyone is having a better weekend than I! I'd offer you coffee...but I think I'm ready to start drinking something with more substance that will put me in a better mood!

[Nasoosie]

HI ALL!

It's a sort-of misting, warm day out there, so far, at 70 for the weekend, so he can carry the new rocking chair Mandy and I bought up to the house where the assembly can begin on it.

It definitely appears that Lily's cub, Hope, the famous bear who was watched for so long by thousands of fans, including me, as she was born and grew into a fine young adult bear, has been shot and killed by a hunter. I can't imagine how that hunter will feel when he realizes whom he shot. He had no way of knowing, as Hope refused to wear a protective, colorful collar which would have shown that she was part of the bear study group. But it sure has broken my heart, and has deepened my dislike for the so-called 'sport' of hunting. If killing food means survival, that is one thing. If it is done for 'sport'---that is quite another story. Luring an animal who is hungry due to drought conditions to a bait area where a person can just loll back and pull a trigger hardly qualifies as sporting to me. And yes, I eat meat, and yes, it is not sporting to raise cattle or chickens for food, either, and yes----I hate the part of me that enjoys eating former living animals. I want to hear no lectures on human-kind's meat-eating tendencies, as I am not proud of that attribute.

Enough tears, and on to a new day of something productive.

It helped to read so many wonderful posts by everyone on here this morning----I love reading about what everyone is doing. Happy Saturday to all.

Time for some more coffee and some brunch of pita bread, lean bacon, cooked crispy, and cheddar cheese. Here's hoping I can get this to post.

[Liz]

So sad to hear about Hope, Soos. I too enjoyed following her from birth and in the den with siblings this past winter. I hope Faith will allow a collar to be put on her.

It's a beautiful sunny, blue sky kind of day in TN. The sun finally came out last evening just before sunset, so I got the kayak out for a short paddle then. After lunch, Roe and I will go for a longer tour on the lake.

Hope everyone enjoys their day, and that the painters will finish, Pat!

[Anniepoo]

You asked me to send some patience, here it comes -

You don't need patience, in the sense of holding your tongue. You need communication. You need to communicate to them what your needs are, find out what their situation is, and find some situation that works for everyone. Are they having some personal issue that's preventing them from showing up? Did they take a job they've discovered they're not qualified to do? Did they grossly misestimate the amount of work involved?
Are you communicating your expectations with them? Do they *know* that you expected the house to be completely finished (or whatever you expected) by now, or you expect them to put in at least 35 hrs/wk or whatever? I'm not clear from your post whether the core issue is that they're taking an excessive # of labor hours to do the work, or that they're not showing up when scheduled to work. Clarity, clarity....

I once worked for a large corporation. We hired a contractor to do what I thought would be a small job in a system we weren't expert in. He didn't make progress and didn't make progress, and finally after about a month I sat down with the contractor for a final discussion that I assumed would end with me firing him.
The contractor was a young man I'd describe as a 'nerd' - very shy, introverted fellow.
I asked what was done on the project, and to my suprise discovered he didn't understand how his part was supposed to tie into the rest of our system, but was too shy to ask me. I clarified this, he gave me a 'oh, wtf, that's simple!' look, and told me he'd have the system done at end of day.
I suspect his day ended about 4am the next morning, but he did show up with the completed work the next morning - and it actually was quite polished.
Computer software is put into a 'repository', a fancy storage vault that keeps old versions of the software. I went back and looked at his old versions, and was suprised to discover he'd essentially finished the part of the project he understood within the first week. After that he'd spent weeks trying to figure out on his own how to tie it to our system - something I could have explained in 5 minutes.

So, for example, they might be trying over-hard to do a really nice job for you (and of course that takes longer). Or they might not know what they're doing, and grossly misestimated the job.

Don't try to be indirect. Say what you need. It's a good idea to soften the blow - if the work they have performed is nice, say so. Let them know that you're there to find a solution to the situation for both of you. I don't think you know, at this moment, enough about why they're underperforming to do that.

Good luck! Sorry yer caught in a sucky situation. 8cP

Annie, who gives unwanted advice instead of emotional support

[BarbaraRose]

HI ALL!

It definitely appears that Lily's cub, Hope... has been shot and killed by a hunter... it sure has broken my heart, and has deepened my dislike for the so-called 'sport' of hunting. If killing food means survival, that is one thing. If it is done for 'sport'---that is quite another story. Luring an animal who is hungry due to drought conditions to a bait area where a person can just loll back and pull a trigger hardly qualifies as sporting to me. And yes, I eat meat, and yes, it is not sporting to raise cattle or chickens for food, either, and yes----I hate the part of me that enjoys eating former living animals. I want to hear no lectures on human-kind's meat-eating tendencies, as I am not proud of that attribute.

Soos, I totally agree with you and am the same way. I don't understand how baiting a bear can be considered a "sport". How unfair is that?? It is very cowardly, lazy and cruel. Even fishing is more challenging than that and the fish have a better chance to get away.
I also eat meat with a guilty conscience. I try to pretend it grows on trees However, I refuse to eat baby animals.

[dpf]

Anniepoo...Thanks for your reply and it's very good advice...except for the problem here is just slow. They know what they're doing and they do excellent work...at a snails pace. And again..it's job being done by friends so I don't really want to cause problems. I suspected this was going to happen from the get-go but as I said they are friends and DH insisted that we hire them. Yes, I'm extremely frustrated with the pace at which things are progressing, but even if I tried to light a fire under them it wouldn't help! Both of them have a heart of gold. The father has been the local Santa for close to 40 years...his looks fit the part to a T. He spends the majority of his time from Thanksgiving to Christmas volunteering to play Santa at schools, retirement homes, day cares and even take several nights and arranges visits to homes with small children in the area. He is a bus driver for the activity buses and is probably our local schools biggest fan. If someone has some type of crisis the whole family would be there to help. This man has a heart of gold and a tatoo of our school mascot on one arm and one of Santa on the other! His son is a volunteer coach for the football team and is following in his father's footsteps when it comes to being an all around nice guy.

So I'm just going to have to "tuff it out"....even though I feel like I'm in the middle of one of those old "Green Acres" episodes with the brother and sister carpenters that never got anything done!