Hitting The Big Six Five!

I made it to 65! Whoopee!! It was a great birthday week. The sweet ladies I've been working with surprised me with "traditional" birthday punch and pumpkin cream cheese sandwiches. Both were delicious. The punch is a tradition in my cafeteria manager's family, that was started long ago by her mom. It's made with orange juice, pineapple juice and lemon-lime Kool-aid. Well, it was delicious! I felt so special! I love subbing at this school. Very soon the vacancy will be filled and they will need me less often, but in the meantime, I actually look forward to going there, imagine that!

I didn't work on my actual birthday. Instead, hubby and I pre-planned a lunch out at a restaurant that recently opened. It used to be the yacht club associated with our housing complex, but it always lost money, so the property owners association board decided it was best to lease it to a restauranteur who actually knows what he's doing. 

It was remodeled and renamed The Waterfront and we finally went and checked it out. We arrived when they opened and got a table on the back deck overlooking Mobile Bay. It was cloudy, but still a nice view. Lots of seagulls and pelicans on those poles out there.

We got an appetizer of Street Cauliflower which was grilled with an oil and balsamic vinegar dressing topped with cheese. Oh, my, it was delicious!

For lunch, we both ordered tacos. I got mine made with fire roasted chicken thighs and hubby got his with shrimp. They were topped with a spicy mayo and mango bits. We ate every morsel!

The inside of the restaurant was also remodeled and a local artist painted murals on most of the walls. I had to get a photo in front of the main one. That's me, the birthday girl! 

Here is what the outside looks like.

We did a little shopping at Target and relaxed the rest of the day. We had a video call with our daughter in the evening and I blew out a candle on a single slice of carrot cake that we bought at Fresh Market.

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In other news....

Remember the Starry Night rock I painted for charity? Well, it didn't end up fetching as much money as I had hoped and I was feeling sad about it. I wished I could have bid on it and bought it back for myself! Then I realized I had a nice photo of it and that it would make a great Christmas card if I had it printed. So I went to Vistaprint and ordered some cards. While I was there, I decided to order a canvas print as well. It showed up yesterday and I was thrilled!!! 

So now I will have it forever! 

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And finally, if you have Hulu, there is a new show called "Love in Fairhope," which was supposed to be a romance reality show, if you're into that sort of thing. Well, preceding a show is a statement that says it's a mix of fantasy and reality and when I tell you the locals are going insane over it, I'm not lying, and it's because the whole thing is so contrived. The opening sequence describes Fairhope as a small town with only 1000 residents, one bar and two traffic lights. Then it talks about a 50 year traditional Magnolia Ball, which doesn't and has never existed! It's crazy! They also show a beach which is actually in Gulf Shores as well as other oddities that are making Fairhopers nuts. The local Facebook pages are posting lots of funny memes about it. I could only watch the first 5 minutes and had to turn it off. I thought it would be fun to see the local area featured in a TV show, but it's way too gag provoking for me to sit through. Here's a link to a funny article about the show. Love in Fairhope


I took the week off before my birthday week and did a lot of work in the yard. I will do a separate post on that later. As always, thanks for checking in and reading my blog! 

Furry Friday!

I feel as happy as Zoey looks that this week is over!

Only 9 more cooking days left and one cleanup day and then I'm done! Hooray!!!

On Tuesday I cooked my last tilt skillet meal for the year and that was cheesy chicken. Yesterday I made up 75 chef salads which we offer as a lunch alternative on Thursdays.

In my last post I hinted that I was considering another job. I'm applying for it this weekend and, if I'm lucky, I might get an interview. I can't say what it is yet because I'm very superstitious, but I will definitely let you know if there's some good news. In the meantime, if you can send some good vibes my way I would really appreciate it!

Last Sunday hubby wanted to get a little more sod for the backyard since it has taken so nicely. He put another row in right there in front of his feet. You can see it's a bit yellow, but it greened up a couple of days later. It's really coming along nicely!

While we were at the home center, I saw a table and chairs that I thought would be nice for our future patio, so we bought it and I considered it my Mother's Day gift. We put it in place and enjoyed sitting there for a couple of hours relaxing and eating snacks. The chairs are comfortable and my feet even touch the ground. I like them because they don't need cushions which are expensive and a pain to figure out how to store in bad weather and over the winter. Now we can invite people over, sit outside and enjoy our beautiful backyard. 

The plan for this area is to remove those two windows on the right and replace them with a sliding glass door. The logistics are complicated regarding getting the door delivered. Hubby wants to have it delivered to the store and rent a truck to bring it home, which is actually cheaper than the delivery charge. The door he wants is only sold online, not in the store, and they want $300 for delivery! Anyway, he's confident he can tear out that wall and rebuild it with the new door in about 3 days. After that, the patio will go in and we'll have a nice clean and level area for the table and chairs. I'm really looking forward to the convenience of being able to step right out into our backyard without having to walk all the way around the rear of the house. It will also be so much easier letting Zoey out.

I spied this pretty green lizard on the house the other day. Isn't e pretty? He was checking me out. lol

And here is the water tower all finished. There's a guy up there putting the finishing touches on it.

It looks great and it's been so much quieter now that the generator isn't running anymore.

I hope all you moms out in blog land have a nice Mother's Day. Hubby made reservations for brunch at my favorite restaurant so I'm looking forward to that. Have a great weekend everybody!

Painted Rocks and Some Updates.

January has been a crazy month for us. Hubby says it feels like a month of Mondays. I have to agree. Luckily I have moments of peace here and there when I have a chance to paint a rock or two. I started doing some Mardi Gras rocks last weekend and got two done. I want to make a bunch to hide along the parade route in my town which will take place on March 2, so I have time.

Below is a memorial dog portrait I did a couple of weeks ago. The lady that requested it had met me when I did the rock painting class at the library for the summer reading program. She sought me out through a rock hiding group and asked me to paint this sweet German Shepherd.

Below is the photo I worked from. She was super happy with it and made a nice donation
to a local animal shelter in lieu of paying me, which is what I prefer when I do these type of requests.

Remember the squirrels that were chewing the wires in our vehicles? Well, last weekend, hubby worked on Megan's Aerostar some more and finally got it running well again. He repaired that frayed (or chewed) wire that led to the fuel injector and that did the trick. The van actually runs better than ever now. That's super good news because we were afraid Megan would need a new car and now she's good to go for a while longer. We've been told by a mechanic that used to work on these to never sell it, that it can run forever if we keep maintaining it. I bought a few bars of Irish Spring soap at the dollar store. Hubby cut them up and tucked the pieces all around our engine compartments. We've read that the squirrels don't like the scent. So far it seems to be working. Who knew? lol

This four day work week has felt like a month in itself. We are still trying to get used to our new co-worker. I had to work with her on the serving line this week and it was a challenge for me to stay composed. I think by yesterday she had finally grasped the concept of how it's supposed to work. A good serving team should work together in harmony so things run smoothly. A bad serving team is nothing but arms all over the place and a lot of frustration. She's slow at pretty much everything because she can't focus, she's way too chatty, she hums a lot, laughs loudly at everything and uses terms like "the little girl's room." Just shoot me. I have been trying to help by picking up her slack, but yesterday my manager told me to back off because she needs to realize all that she's responsible to do in her position and if I keep doing her work, she'll never get it. Okay. I was so happy when I clocked out yesterday. I need to recover. lol. Hope you all have a great weekend! 

I'll Tumble For Ya.

Tuesday was a bad day. Lots of stuff went wrong, but luckily all turned out well in the end, thank goodness! One of the things that happened was a slip and fall at work.

We have a hand sink behind our serving line and the soap dispenser leaked out liquid soap on the floor. I was carrying an empty sheet pan, didn't see the spill and I went flying! I landing exactly like this graphic, but still holding the pan in my hand. Luckily my head did not hit the floor, but I was pretty stunned. I dropped my head back, and just laid there for a minute. I looked up and saw two teachers looking down at me from the other side of the serving line. One of them called the nurse who was busy with another issue, so the principal and assistant principal came to check on me. By the time they got to the cafeteria, I had gotten up and I assured them that I was feeling fine, but they told me to fill out an accident report at the end of the day, just to be safe. Even though there is no worker's compensation where I work, they would grant me time off if I needed to be out because of an injury on the job. I carry short term disability for that reason.

My manager had me sit down and take a small break and then I went back to work on the serving line. People kept asking me if I was okay and telling me I'd probably feel sore in the morning. I was getting so paranoid that I started to wonder about every little twitch I was feeling. I was concerned mostly about my eyes. I had a slip and fall in the grass over the summer which caused me to get a big floater in my eye almost immediately. It drives me nuts, especially when I'm driving and I worried that something like that might happen again, either that or a detached retina. But I woke up the next day and felt fine. I did have some shoulder pain, but that was more likely due to me stirring at the tilt skillet the day before.

This event had me realizing how easy it is to get hurt unexpectedly. Had I been carrying a tray of hot food or something with hot liquid, I could have been badly burned. Had I hit my head on the sink or doorway, I could have had a head trauma or worse. Luckily my butt and the floor are only a couple feet apart, lol, so I didn't have far to fall, but still, it could have been a major injury to my body such as a break or a fracture which could have put me out of commission for weeks. I've been taking vitamin D3 for about a year after a bone scan showed some bone loss in my hip, so again, very lucky.

Just a reminder to be careful hanging those holiday decorations, walking in the snow or on the ice.

Whimsical Christmas trees painted on rocks.

Thanksgiving Meal Week (a.k.a. The Lunch Lady Superbowl)

Today is the first day of my Thanksgiving break and boy, am I thankful for having some time off. This past week was crazy! First of all, we had Monday off because it was Veteran's Day, so we started prepping for our big Thursday meal on Tuesday. I was on main dish this week so I was supposed to prep and pan up the turkey roasts which were to be cooked on Wednesday. When I walked in Tuesday morning, my manager said she wanted me to help with the cornbread dressing instead because it required using the tilt skillet and Tuesday we needed to use the skillet for making chili.

I was on dressing last year, so I helped my new co-worker get it done this year. The cornbread recipe was apparently changed and it ended up being too moist so the dressing did not turn out well, but we followed the instructions, so it was not our fault! Apparently every kitchen in the county had the same soupy dressing. I did not take any photos, but trust me, it was a mess. It tasted good if you could get past the way it looked. The photos below were taken last year.

At the end of the day, we unwrapped all 10 turkey roasts, (which had been thawed days before), put them in pans and seasoned them for cooking on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, I made chili in the tilt skillet for 450 students. It was a big batch and it turned out good. I think it was about a year since I had made it last. I don't know if the kids like it, but I thought it was tasty. We served it with a melted cheese sandwich.

While I was making the chili, the turkeys cooked in the steamers for a couple of hours. When they were done, we had to get them cooled down quickly, so we put the pans in ice and set them in the freezer for a few hours. At the end of the day, we put them into the cooler to sit overnight. All the broth was saved for adding to the gravy.

On Thursday morning the panned up dressing was put in the ovens to heat and hopefully set up, (which it never did). We hand sliced a little over 400 servings of cold turkey and panned all that up for re-heating. Then we found out we had more eating than we planned for, so we had some chicken in the freezer that we panned up too. One of my other co-workers made a huge batch of gravy, while another baked sweet potatoes which were sliced and sprinkled with melted margarine, brown sugar and cinnamon. It was smelling good in the kitchen! We also served green beans and rolls with the meal. The service was crazy as we had to ask each student what they wanted on their tray. It was slow and frustrating at times, but we got it done. After it was over, we just looked forward to Friday and the coming week off.

For those of you that may not know what a tilt skillet is, here is an
older photo of me posing with one after just cleaning it out. It tilts
forward to you can drain fat off meat, pour liquids out and/or clean it.

I have felt a little overwhelmed this year at work. Not sure why, but it seems we have so much more to do. We are now making baked potato meals on Tuesdays, (as an alternative to our regular meal), and chef salads on Thursdays. It's a lot of preparation for both in addition to our regular meal prepping duties. They are also talking about starting a breakfast program which every other school in the county has except ours. We will definitely need another person or they will have to give us more hours. On top of all that, the nice, new co-worker that started this year has decided the work is just too much and the pay is just too little, so she'll be leaving us the week after Thanksgiving break. We will get another new person after that. Sigh. I'm really going to miss her as we got along very well.

So what are my plans for Thanksgiving? Well, we ordered a fried turkey from the Knights of Columbus and I will make some sides and maybe an apple pie. We have no other plans besides that. I hope to get some rock painting done this week and maybe catch up on some reading and a little TV. My daughter brought me home a series on DVD from the library called "Outlander," which I've heard is pretty good, so I may indulge in a little binge watching.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. I'm very thankful for my blog readers, though they have whittled down to just a few these days, but I just want you to know that I appreciate every visit and every comment so very much. Happy thanksgiving!

On The Rocks Again.

Although I don't advertise or take commissions, I have the occasional person that approaches with a special request of me and I can't say no. This particular person is a neighbor who told me she is Jewish and she wanted a special rock to put on her grandfather's headstone. It is a Jewish custom to place a stone or a pebble on a headstone to indicate that you have visited the grave and to show respect for the deceased. This woman's grandfather used to say that he was coming back as a hawk, so she asked me if I could paint a hawk on a rock. Well, I couldn't wait to get started. I chose a photo image on Google to paint and it came out so great. It's an immature Cooper's Hawk. Hubby gave it extra clear coats so it will withstand the elements.

In lieu of a commission, I kindly requested that she make a donation to an animal shelter or rescue.

Another person requested a bible rock. I just happened to have the right stone for it.

A basic first coat.

A little bit of aging.

Here it is finished.

Some requests are very challenging, like this one. I was given this photograph of a sunset on a pond. I accepted the request, but was soon sorry I did.

I worked all day on it and ran into trouble, so I washed it off and started again. This is as far as I got yesterday. I got the sky and the pond done.

I was anxious to get this piece completed, so I started first thing in the morning. I used my new clamp on, lighted magnifier to do the details.

Here is the finished piece. Whew! Glad that's over!

I started a separate Facebook page just for my painted rocks and it got over 180 likes in just a week. Yikes! I didn't expect that. It's exciting but also terrifying as I am putting myself out there as an artist to be judged by others, but so far the response has been great. 

Work has been very tiring. I'm not able to paint after work because there are just too many things to get done at home, not to mention I'm usually exhausted. I go to bed at 7:00 so my body can get the rest it needs to function the next day. Lunch lady work is very physically demanding.

Here is a meme I made up from the mac n' cheese that was on the menu Tuesday. Our new lady on staff made it and it came out great on her first try. I have to make it the next time it comes around again on the menu. It's one of the more difficult dishes to prepare because there's a risk of burning the cheese in the tilt skillet.

Things at home are good. It's been terribly hot here in Alabama the past couple of weeks. Everyone is ready for fall and cooler temperatures. The heat is really starting to drain people, I think. Hubby has to pace himself and drink lots of water while he's on the job working outside all day. 

Yesterday we  went to the home stores shopping for flooring for Megan's room. She's going to be away for a week next month and we want to pull up her carpet and replace it with a laminate floor. I like the vinyl plank floor in my office, but don't love it the sound it makes, so we decided to go with a wood product for her room and eventually, our bedroom as well. This is very similar to the flooring in our living room and we like it. It has a wavy, hand scraped look giving it a more realistic feel.

Our pets are doing well, especially Mister. I won't lie. He's our favorite. We call him our house lion.

Oh, and finally, hubby and I celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. 

If you are reading this from any of the areas affected by floods, my thoughts are with you and
I hope you are safe and doing okay. Have a good Sunday.

First Week of School Down And Some Rocks.

Although I've been back at work since August 7th, this past week was the first one with students. They started on Monday, the day of the eclipse. Turkey sandwiches were on the menu, so we didn't have to cook, which was great. We originally planned for the kids to have sack lunches to take outside for the big event, but they ended up eating inside and going out afterwards. 

We spent a lot of time the two weeks prior cleaning and decorating the cafeteria. My manager had some tension style curtain rods and we made up paper banners to hang in the windows. I created the one above. Our new assistant manager made this school bus banner below. She is crafty too.

Our theme this year was emojis, so we each made one with our likenesses. lol. 

And we put more around the cafeteria for fun.

So being back at work means less time for painting rocks. I have 7 weekends until the fall pop up market to get more inventory made. I have about 35 rocks so far, but I'd like to have 50. Yesterday I put on Pandora and got busy. I made one rock for inventory and also got some done for hiding. It's been a long time since I hid any rocks. My hubby even got into the action. Here are some we made and placed around town yesterday.

Some simple love rocks made using Frog tape and assorted glitter nail polish.

These are strawberries I had started a long time ago, but never got around to
putting the seeds on. I used paint pens instead of a brush which worked out better.

These are hubby's rocks. He really got into making and also hiding them.
I even added him as a member of our rock group.

And this is the rock I made for my fall market inventory. I love how it came out.

Punkins!

I made this gator last weekend. He's pretty cool.

And this is a book of spells I made two weekends ago. Yes, it's a rock. I found it in a pile of
dirt that was being dug up for a drainage project in our local park. It's really bumpy on the back, but
the shape just screamed out "I'm a book!"

So that's what's been going on in my world lately. I have some Furry Friday catching up to do, so maybe I'll do a pet post soon. Have a great Sunday!