Life in Weyers Cave

Tomorrow is Rabbit Rabbit Day! If the first words you say are Rabbit, Rabbit you will have good luck all month long. Dianna is home! I missed her so much. She had a better time at camp than she wants to admit and has some pretty neat leadership qualities, she found out. She LIKES being a ham. There was a church Progressive Dinner tonight starting here. Back deck, appetizers. 25 people. You know the drill. Then we went to the Cauleys. I felt like I was stepping from the telestial world to the celestial. What a mansion! Fantastic food, formal with cloth napkins and china. Did I mention how great it is to have my Dianna home?

She now insists on running water ONLY from MY bathroom. Preferably at 5:30 in the morning.

  Isn't this picture wonderful? Gail loves it!

So without any interruptions to speak of today, I have gotten a TON of stuff done. I could never get the whole list, but the big thing is that my office is so clean you can almost see the desk. Just another layer or two. What a deal! I got the orange chairs scrubbed in the back for the Progressive Dinner here Saturday night, got six weeks worth of receipts for the concessions hut taken care of, and lots of other little naggy things that never seem to get done. My kitchen table is almost presentable. I made yet another trip to the dump today. Problem is, I end up bringing home more than I take! I blame my mother. Today I got a big box full of bud vases and a bag of clothing in Dianna's size. How do I tell her I dumpster-dived the "new" jeans. With Cathryn or Allen it's "I dumpster-dived the new jeans." Not so much Bryan and Dianna, but I think she will be cool with it. Turns out the $25 jeans she got at Christmas weren't any better than the ten do...

 Thank you, Martha. I haven't even killed them yet!

  No, I don't know who left this on my doorstep on my birthday, because Martha had already given me a gift, TAT was out of town, and David has never gotten me a present. He takes me out to dinner instead. (Okay, he gave me permission to buy a dress! I thought I had taught him before not to do that....) But whoever left it, I absolutely LOVE it!

  but this is definitely the most hideous thing ever to touch the Bee Box. A pink furry steering wheel cover that doesn't fit and a pink furry rear view mirror cover that, if you put it on, pretty much covers the rear view mirror. Dianna said that Felicia picked them out for me. I took them to Girls Camp and left them with the other girls before I departed. I wonder how many pranks have been played with them this week. My only hope is that somehow they won't return to my house. Maybe someone will end up with them as a Secret Sister gift, and then they will be regifted all week.

    This is the very nice restaurant in Strasburg where David and I ate for my birthday.

I was going to play the Mister Magoo song "I'm All Alone in the World" when you opened my blog, but I don't really know how to add songs. I haven't even taken the time to figure how to get my picture up. I'm getting too old to learn new things. David is gone and so is Dianna. That means I get to eat alone all the time, do all the cooking, trash, lawnmowing, etc. It means I have to pay someone to do the electrical work that still needs doing at the Red House and that I had to have a Ruritan help me get the television Jeff borrowed downstairs. It seems like I am always asking for some help. It means I sleep alone except the cat. I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of or to hug. Mostly, no one to laugh with. Guess I have been pretty spoiled all these years. I miss having a family. Phone calls don't count. They just make me sadder. Last night was another one of those can't-get-to-sleep-until-4am nights. I got some more certifications done ...

I was supposed to put more printers in Toys R Us today, but the job was cancelled. So I have time to get all the stuff done around here. Good thing. Last night was one of those nights I didn't sleep all night. I got up and got some Dell certifications done. Church is having a progressive dinner Saturday and the first stop is here. I have to have the lawn looking fairly nice so I guess I might be in trouble because I still don't have a push mower. Plus getting the tables and chairs up to the deck and cleaning everything. David is vacationing in Colorado. I took two girls to West Virginia to Girls Camp yesterday. I asked if they wanted to go the GPS way and get lost or the way I know. GPS won. We went 250 west of Staunton and then north through lots of windy roads and saw scads of wildlife. It was really, really beautiful. I came back the other way and was so grateful we had gone the GPS way, although I think it took a little longer. I worked on the Red House yesterday, touc...

Dianna left me. She is at Girl's Camp. David is in Colorado. Allen - Las Vegas, Bryan - Key West, Cathryn - Seward. Just me and the cat holding down the fort. I mowed the lawn, took down the trash, cleaned the kitchen, bought Faraday some food, stocked the huts, signed the counter-counter-offer on the house, called several doctors for appointments, watched Murder She Wrote, and generally had a quiet day. Last night they said they wanted me at Girls Camp this week. Nah....

I look at all I got done with a boatload of little kids and it seems like I accomplish so much less now. I still have to make all the costumes for the trek, pass the Dell certification tests, finish painting the Red House, mow the lawn, and take the garbage down. It looks like I will be driving girls to Girls Camp on Tuesday and possibly Saturday -- it depends on how much stuff they bring with them. Tomorrow morning I have to drop the girls off at 9 in Waynesboro (Dianna and her friend Megan) and then go to sign a house contract at 9:30, unless they don't have anyone to drive the girls to Goshen an hour away in which case I have to reschedule the house contract. Goshen is one of the most beautiful places on the planet and I LOVE driving down there. And I still have to find out when the mouse comes in from HP so I can "install" it. I didn't get the teaching job at the rehab center, but I am enjoying what I am doing more so that is fine. I was actually wondering if I...

I woke up and checked my email. There was an ecard from Marvin Goldstein! We used to know him in Tallahassee and worked with him professionally. So it was really cool. Apparently he has my birthday on his email list, but it was personal with balloons so I was pretty happy. Then David woke up and the first words were "Happy Birthday", so he's off the hook for another year. Cathryn and Allen and Bryan all called. Dianna blew up balloons and left them around the house for me. She left clues in some of them and made me pop them for the clues, which were pink, fuzzy, round, not stuffed, and sparkly. But the gift was in her car, which was in the shop. Martha stopped by with a pot of beautiful flowers. And I got cards from mom, my aunt, and Addie (one of my clients). David and I drove up to DC and stopped in Strasburg because I had heard there were lots of German restaurants there. We found one called the Old Mill, but it wasn't German. It is a 1797 mill with lov...

David is Wol, Cathryn and Allen are Tiggers, Dianna is Rabbit, Bryan is definitely Christopher Robin. David says I'm Piglet. Does that mean I'm fat? 25 years and he still hasn't learned. I don't think I'm Piglet because Piglet worries ALL THE TIME. That would make HIM Piglet. Karen is Kanga. I won't say who Eeyore is. Michael, you can be Wol too. Jeff A - Christopher Robin. Robyn -- TOO easy -- the most Tiggerific of all. Tammy - KangaWol. Forrest - who needs to change his name to Hundred Acre Wood except that takes too long to write -- would be closet to Pooh. Cathy NZH - tough call. Another Kanga? Grandma Bliss? Any nominations from the floor? Corrections?

So after installing the printers at Toys R Us where we couldn't find the IP addresses of the printers AND one computer had had a hard drive crash so it was totally down, and then the Fast Food Fiasco, I am ready for a nice simple job. Replacing a cordless mouse on a new HP computer should be a piece of cake, right? I had to go into Harrisonburg to pick up the mouse today. My, what a big box! Must be a rat! Or a whole family of mice! No! It is a complete sound system. Very nice, but no mice! Had to contact the boss, return it, and now have to wait for the mouse and the poor client is without his new computer for a few more days. It's NOT MY FAULT! They asked me to do the same thing to the fast food computers to five more stores. I said yes, but sent a sheet I want filled out first giving me passwords and contact names. I DO learn from my mistakes! David's home. At least until tomorrow. He took me to Red Lobster for my Bday dinner tonight, but we are going to go t...

I got up early and returned to Charlottesville where I waited for two and a half hours for the tech support to call me back at the company that owns the program that wouldn't work in the limited use account. Talked to one tech after another and none could help. Finally, they said they had one that could, but he was busy until 1:30. Since I had a doctor's appointment in Harrisonburg (an hour away) at 2:45, I asked him to call back at 4, but of course I wasn't back until quarter til five. He walked me through solving the problem in five minutes, but we had to reset the Admin password in a way that the computer said could mess things up. After that, I went to the last store and restored Net Nanny again. What an awful pain that is for them! Every time they go to check email, they have to hit the button that pops up for every individual ad that would pop up on the page. Plus, he lost some passwords. It is hard for me to feel sorry for people losing passwords that aren...

I not only have the nicest boss in the world, but I would like to publicly say how nice the managers were today. I was out of here by 7 this morning to go do a simple task -- install Net Nanny and an external hard drive on four computers at four locations. Two hours tops of work, plus driving. Oh, plus change the XP "settings" so the employees can't change delete the history, clear out the recycle bin, or run executable files. Well, it WOULD be if the people who use the computer knew the passwords. First computer: No one there who knew the password. Had to go back later to finish up, and there was a guy who knew the passwords! Where was he the first two hours I was there. You see, if there are XP settings to protect the computer like that, I don't know what they are. The closest I could come was to give them a user account with limited abilities. Fine. Except the stupid other computer software vendor set up their program to run under the Administrator account ON...

I played at the Jousting Tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Lots of little Celtic shops and Renaissance-themed games. Dianna played human chess, but she was one of the first out. (They pulled out the bishop early because she was so cute.) I suppose I should get one of those sites with ALL the pictures. Too much for the blog, but she took over a hundred. Saturday night I cooked chicken for Fire Department Lawn Party with ToniAnne. The she stopped by afterwards. I was so tired, that I was ready to fall asleep sitting up! But I still had a lot to do for Sunday. Sunday was Father's Day. As Primary President I was supposed to have the kids sing, but most were on vacation and I only knew of two four year olds who would be there. So Dianna and I had prepared a little duet. But then there were five visitors AND the three Shearman kids were there, so we ended up with a nice little group anyway. Good thing we are so flexible! It was the first week that Sister Childress was helping...

 

I went to Toys R Us today and replaced some printers. Four hours of the music about drove me nuts. I won't go on about the stuff, other to say as much as I miss being a mom of smaller kids, I don't miss the gotta have junk. But I did have fun with the printers. I enjoyed being a geek.

to the day Dianna leaves and doesn't leave her Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats all around the house!

So I have this kind of job with PCTechs where I am kind of in training to go out and do service work on Dell computers. I have to pass the tests. I have to know, for example, that if I have a Desktop Chassis V2 that in order to change the RAM I have to remove the power cord, remove the cover, the riser, the optical drive, the floppy and the hard drive in that order to get to the RAM. In a work situation, I could see this to figure it out, of course, but memorizing this for a test with all the different possible types of chassises (I have no clue how to pluralize chassis) is difficult. And the funny thing is, I don't have to have a clue what a Chassis V2 is. I can easily change a hard drive in any computer I have ever seen without knowing what kind of body it has. But only when I DO it. I can't tell you how until I see how it fits together. Tough test, and totally worthless. If they really wanted to do it right, they would show a picture of the box and ask what you do nex...

to someone whose son got a divorce this week, just finished a huge fundraiser that fell on its face, and had a bunch of Ruritan volunteers lined up to sell chicken at the lawn party until a Ruritan member died and his funeral is the same time? "Oh, yeah, the lady who was leading you on about buying your house for the last month has changed her mind because her son doesn't like it."

David is leaving me for Florida today. His parents are quite ill and are both in the operation. Mom is recovering from surgery for cancer, and Dad picked up an antibiotic-resistant strain of staph while he was tending to her. My nurse friend says never to get a private room in a hospital because those are the germiest -- the ones they use for isolation -- and they are never cleaned properly. Food for thought. We went out to lunch at a barbecue place since David will be gone by this evening. He will be back just for a day or so, and then has trips to Washington and out west scheduled immediately after that. I am sure he has a huge honeydew list at his parents house. (I wish he could find time to tend to the one here :P) There was a big article on the Safari in the newspaper yesterday that was very positive with lots of big pictures. The writer said she is looking forward to helping get the word out when we do it again. When Allen went out west, he gave David the car back that Dav...

The marriage of Allen S Fordham and Chantell R B Fordham is now officially over. Certainly there are elements of sadness for the loss of a marriage that showed such promise. But the time for crying is done. The time for moving on is upon us. The public side of Chantell is a thoroughly charming, delightful, talented young lady. We all wish her the best. Hopefully with some maturity, each of them will lead happy, productive lives.

This morning Cedrick the dinosaur, got a trip home courtesy of Dr. David R Fordham. We rode in a Farm Use feed truck and the dust and smell were quite noticeable. We couldn't take the interstates, but Cedrick is safely home.

 

 

  Woo Hoo!!!

 

 

  Here is the triceratops loaded on the car.

  Can you imagine seeing this in your rear-view mirror?

Today was the long awaited Safari. I have probably spent over 100 hours on it. I had visited each of the 12 places at least twice, made maps, sent about 150 direct mailings, and done all kinds of shopping and planning. But alas, only five carloads of people showed up. To be generous. Three paying customers. Sadness to the nth degree. The paper admitted they had my writeup two months ago, but no one bothered to pass it on to the girl who covers Weyers Cave. Then they got the date wrong and said it was Sunday. Today there was an article about it, but it was too little too late. Everyone who came had fun, but

We took Jeff out to dinner Monday night. He always likes to have steak so we went to the South River Grill. I had a salad which was really outstanding and didn't miss the steak at all. In fact, I seem to be losing my taste for meat. Go figure. Last night, we went out to eat again. I hate to do it twice the same week, but Dianna had really, really wanted to go to Kyoto, a Japanese place where they cook at your table and I knew Jeff wouldn't like it, and Dianna seldom gets days off. But she LOVES to go out to eat and has just gotten off for the summer so we took her to the new Japanese place in Waynesboro she didn't even know about. Massaki. It was really good. We had a performer named Allen and one of his tricks was flipping a bowl of burning oil up in the air into his hat, still burning. David ordered steak and chicken livers. The chicken livers were an appetizer. Part way through the meal I reached over and took a small piece of steak, but it was a chicken liver. ...

  This is the yard beside the red house. We own all the way to the creek on the far right. It is really beautiful. Jeff has put steps down to the creek.

 

 

We have an informal contract on the house at a good price. I love Pat, who wants to buy it. She and her friend, Pete, are older but not at all old. She volunteers at a place that is like a Salvation Army and is 75. Very skinny and obviously in super health. They love the creek and all Jeff has done to make it a paradise. And the local Rehab Center is talking to me about teaching computer skills to handicapped adults. Decent pay, good hours, and a job I would really enjoy. Much more fulfilling than geeking. I think I will go for it. But first, the Safari! I have an appointment with the newspaper tomorrow at 2:00 to get some publicity.

Yes, it was the power supply! What do you expect from a $140 power supply that is already two weeks past its year warranty? But I ordered a new one, only 550 W instead of 600, which is probably a mistake, but it costs less than half as much. And I really didn't think this was such a power hog. Jeff's computer was giving him fits. His RAM said there was only 192 so I took it out and put in a 512, which only read as 448! But I put in a second 512 so he should feel like he got a little shot in the arm. Whee doggy! I am supposed to hear whether or not Pat will buy the house today, depending on her insurance agent and the flood plain issue. The house is definitely NOT in the flood plain on ALL SIDES, but the crawl space is below flood plain level, if the flood could get into it. Jeff says I need to charge more for the house. So does Allen. But I need to sell it and stop making the monthly payments. Jeff cleaned out the creek and put steps down to it and it is a nice little pa...

This morning I woke up early, went to recorder practice at the Brethren Church, then played flute for Fort Defiance graduation, then came home. Jeff pressure washed the front sidewalk and it looks great! Tonight was conference, but lightning hit a transformer at the church yesterday and we put over 600 people in the church today with no air conditioning. It was SO hot! I know it hit 91 degrees today outside, but don't know how hot it was tonight. My hair was down so it was really miserable and I didn't have a rubber band. So I tried using paper clips as hair clips. Then I found a piece of string. I am sure I looked silly, but it took the hair off my neck. It was like wearing a fur coat. We went out for ice cream afterwards and Tommy Morris was there with his dad and grandparents. I had an ice cream brownie. Which was stupid because it made me sick and fall asleep. Mary Beth went with us to conference and out for ice cream. Good night. I'm still hot.