This is Me

This is the room where I have worked for the past 5 1/2 years. In the beginning there was a full staff leaving no seat empty. Now most of the seats are empty.

A funny thing happened after I accepted this job . . . . . . . . they told me I would be working nights. It didn't seem so bad since my schedule was 20:30 to 06:30 Monday through Thursday. I was able to have dinner with Debby and the girls. Three months later I found out we were going to 12 hour shifts and my schedule would be 18:30 to 06:30 Sunday through Tuesday and rotating Wednesdays. Having dinner with my family on my work nights became almost non-existant. So my work week was three days on with four days off then four days on with three days off. This schedule went on for over 4 years. The last change was back at the beginning of 2008 where my schedule was changed to Sunday through Thursday 21:30 to 06:30 with a one hour lunch. The lunch break is new due to labor laws that went into effect in 2003 (long story). This definitely brought on a new challenge. How do I make the most of my weekend? It starts Friday morning with a 2-4 hour sleep and ends Sunday evening with a 2-4 hour sleep. In between I sleep along with the rest of the family. That means I get one good full day with Debby and the girls.

Obviously, the down side is having to quickly change from day sleeping to night sleeping although I've never really had a problem with sleep. I must say daytime sleeping is challenging.

Gone in a Flash . . . Sort Of

With the hot summer days upon us you would think we would be thankful of the fourteen large trees on our property. Well of course we're thankful but lets be real. With fourteen large trees come fourteen large trees dumping leaves every day of the year that you have to get rid of. Thankfully none of them are deciduous. Well, after countless discussions, it was decided the pine trees had to go. So the tree removal company was selected and the rest is history.

This set of pictures was taken not long after we had moved in.

Last minute pics before they start . . . . . . and they're off.

Last one almost down.

Clean up time.

Trees are gone but unseen by the naked eye is a layer of pine needles and various types of vegetation approximately 4" deep. The obvious goal here is to uncover the soil.

After filling four large containers once a week for three weeks the dirt has been reached . . . . . . . but that's another story.

Never Ending

The list never gets shorter, is never forgotten, never ever, ever, ever............what ever!

A professional I am not but I give it my best effort. I am a one man army with a very supportive wife.

This is sort of how the backyard looked when we first moved in, although I had removed the old ground cover and weed block material before this picture was taken.




The following four pictures show the progress we've made over the last two years. The grass has been a struggle but I keep reminding myself that dirt once dominated that area. As for the bank, we brought all the ground cover in ourselves one bag at a time. The rocks were dumped in our side yard followed with countless trips with a wheelbarrow to their final resting place. The rocks at the bottom of the last two pictures were also carried in one bag at a time.









Next up will be the front yard though don't hold your breath on when it will be posted.

Front Yard Interests

Funny how you can walk through an area and not take notice of things that have been there from the start but never really appreciated the greatness of God's handiwork.

Take the pine trees for example. First of all two of our neighbors have pine trees close to our property. The trees bordering our backyard keep our pool supplied with a never ending rain of leaves and flower buds. The pinecones are about the size of a baseball and the trees are probably 30 feet tall making them very hard to miss. The trees bordering our front yard are almost unnoticeable with a height of 10 - 15 feet with very short pine leaves. The pinecones are smaller than a chicken egg.

Then you come to our trees which are 40 - 50 feet tall and very thick with long leaves. The pinecones are some of the biggest I've seen though I know there are bigger ones. So if I were to get into a fight with pinecones being the weapon of choice I would definitely choose the ones on my trees. The photos show one I found in the front yard and one I placed in the rocks next to our sidewalk. They both measure 7.5 inches long and 4.5 inches wide. The only thing to be concerned about when picking one up is the pine resin which is not easy to wash off.



We have flowers of all kinds of which several were here when we bought the place. The front slope has one of my favorite flowers, the honeysuckle, which I enjoyed while growing up in Louisiana. The honeysuckle is a vine that right now covers approximately a third of the slope in our front yard. The flowers have a great aroma and are visited by hummingbirds and a rather large moth which I just discovered. We also have hibiscus in several locations on the property. The picture of the hibiscus is from a potted plant we recently purchased but have not planted. So far it has been loaded with flowers.

The moths that I mentioned were a recent discovery while I was checking the front yard as the sun was setting. There was probably 7 or 8 of them hovering like a hummingbird while quickly moving from flower to flower making sure not to stay in one place for more than a few seconds. I thought it would be cool to get some pictures during all the activity and this is what I captured. Oh, by the way, the moth is a White-lined sphinx(Hyles lineata).

First Roses of Spring

Of all the flowers we have I enjoy the roses the most. It's always fun to watch the process of a rose opening. I didn't think of getting pictures of the three roses until after I had cut them and placed them in water. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took were up close with and without a flash.

The ones on the left were taken with the flash and on the right in direct sun light.

Hope you enjoyed these.

Pink Eye and the Aftermath that Followed

I woke up and went about my normal day followed with going to work. Unfortunately I didn't think much of the strange feeling that was gradually overcoming my right eye. My eye seemed to be a bit more moist than usual and I only came to the realization that something was wrong while I was getting ready for work. Needless to say I didn't go in. So based on prior experiences with this I did the usual eye washing, eye drops, drying my eye with tissue but of course to no avail. As time went by it became obvious there was no stopping the ghastly sight that was to follow. I did go to the doctor the next day and, with the proper medication, the nastiness of it all was put to a halt.

The side effects caused by the pink eye lingered for a good month before I could bring myself to tackle the removal of the unwanted growth (unwanted by all those around me at home).

Those with weak stomachs might want to divert to one of these sites: MississippiSquirrel, OrangeCountyChoppers or PandoraOnlineRadio
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Here I am the night before I decide to go to the doctor. The facial hair is a result from being sick with a stomach flu just the week prior. So that would mean this is about 7 days worth of growth.

This is the very next morning. I could not believe how bad it had become just overnight. I'm actually trying very hard here to open my eye more and this was as far as it would go. When I relaxed my eye it was even more closed. Pretty much useless for seeing at this time.

Ok so now it's getting into March and Debby and the girls are bugging me daily to shave. They do not like it when I go one day without shaving. You can only imagine what it's been like around here since I haven't shaved for a month.


Still haven't shaved but thinking that day is slowly approaching though. This was taken on March 7, '08.

Ok, so this is my first attempt. Didn't quite make it, though this look does have sort of the biker look. This and the following pics were taken on March 15, '08.

Slowly but surely it's coming off. What do you think, a Spaghetti Western look?

Our Crazy Dogs

We really enjoy our dogs. Sometimes you can't help but stop whatever you're doing so you can watch them. There are those times that one will get upset with the other and have a little scrap. But for the most part they seem to enjoy each other. I hope you enjoy these few pictures.

Putting their best foot forward they certainly come across as very loveable and huggable dogs.




But when the sun goes down there's no telling what evil lurks in their little minds.




Who knew! Whoo kneew!