Finding Bella, Turkey, and the Breakfast Club

 

Our weekend began on Thursday as it does regularly now. I can honestly say not a thing happened on Thursday that is worth blogging about, although you all know me. I will blog about nothing. It was a serene day, one that did not include having to do a whole lot of anything. Terry was off for the day as his schedule has opened and given us four days together now. While he relaxed under the carport smoking his cigar, I made an attempt to work. 

I say I "made an attempt" to work only because the place I transcribe for has a smaller number of files coming in. It happens sometimes during the year but is rather frustrating when you're trying to make money. I have been looking into my delivery services once more, such as DoorDash, Grubhub, Instacart and others. I don't mind doing the deliveries yet don't like adding mileage to the vehicle, but it is what it is. I hate that saying but it seems to be the phrase that fits. 

Thursday passed by. Friday came and went in pretty much the same manner, with absolutely nothing to do besides work. Having very little in terms of files, I began to worry. I want to work! Work is what entertains my mind. Between transcription and captioning, I keep myself and my thoughts busy. A strong feeling of guilt comes into play when I can't work for the day. The robotic, mind-numbing thought that work has gripped our lives so strongly is a sickness of sorts, right? We're born, we work to survive, and then it becomes such a large part of our brains, of our lives that it's difficult to discontinue. 

I am also a jewelry consultant for a company. This week that came to an end for me. I have not been selling pieces for a while and the road dead ends there. Now comes the process of selling the hundreds of pieces and sets, peg boards, hooks, organza bags and all that goes with running a business in the jewelry field. I have jewelry findings and beads to create my own jewelry once more. The choice was made this week that I would sell what I could of the old and bring in the new. This decision comes with a long process of creating enough jewelry to put up for sale, naming the new business, registering it if need be and advertising of course. Advertising the company is the most important. You may have amazing pieces to sell, but without advertising them, you can't gain customers. 

I have collected a stash of jewelry over the time I have been selling, and now have to figure out what to do with it all. The abundance received over the past year or so has really become quite cumbersome in terms of where to store it all. All of the boxes and bins are full of jewelry from the company I order my product from. The packages to the left are all jewelry kits, to of course make more jewelry. It's only because I don't have enough you know. This doesn't include the large overnight bag I have under my bed, full of the same jewelry but my own personal stash, plus a storage drawer option that is home to three more drawers of personal jewelry. Do I wear jewelry? Um, no. Not really. Terry has grabbed a couple of beautiful necklaces for me that I wear, but for the most part, I don't worry about putting jewelry on during the day because I typically don't go many places. 

Once I get rid of the jewelry in the cupboard, I will be opening up my place of peace, of creativity and awesomeness. This is my jewelry making organizer, better known as my heaven. I love to design various necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, anklets and whatever else comes to mind. Designing them is only half the fun. Seeing that design come to fruition is amazing. 

The organizer has three more storage drawers inside. 

Fall is around the corner, along with the upcoming night of Trick or Treating. Shopping for beads at one point, I chose some candy corn and skulls in various colors, plus a couple of silver ones that would make perfect earrings for the Halloween celebration. 

My tastes are not only surrounding the macabre, but spring and summer designs as well. These little glass ladybug beads are fun!

And who can resist the dragonfly necklace? 

Skulls in various colors would create a cute necklace or other pieces. 

On the other hand, there are calm, peaceful pieces that can craft cute necklaces, earrings, or bracelets too. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas look has been interesting too. I put one of these as the focal point of a necklace, with black beads and tiny blue specks. The beads look like stars. Not in shape, but in coloration. 

The possibilities of designing cute fall jewelry are endless. I love the fall colors!

I even purchased some glass beads representing Maneki-neko, the cat symbol of good luck in Chinese history. I love these cats!

Sorry. I do get carried away when it comes to jewelry. Anyway, the point is that I will end one and move into a new cycle this year. Fall and Christmas, Halloween, and other holidays will be coming up soon, and I feel it's time to get this going. My poor husband is going to move me out with all the jewelry mess coming! He is actually very supportive of the idea. I spoke with him about a new craft I want to move forward with and that is wire bending. Awesome jewelry can be crafted with the addition of bending wire to use as a holder of beads and crystals or in the designing of rings. He suggested I do it. His support means a lot, as does anyone who believes in you and your potential in the support of ideas you may have. It's a beautiful thing. 

On Friday, I woke from sleep and as usual, I began my check on the fur babies. Jasper was on the couch snoring away. I walked through the house, searching for the kitties. Kit was found sleeping on the dryer, which has become his new favorite place. I found some scratches in the surface of the dryer, so I placed a rug on top as protection. He loves it even more now. 

Finding Jasper and Kit meant I was two-thirds of the way done with my checkup task. Now for our beautiful Bella. My heart started to race as I checked off each room with no luck of finding her. The thought of her getting outside accidentally scared me beyond belief. They are both indoor cats and know nothing about life on the outside of their protective shelter in the house. Walking through the rooms twice and my stomach was turning. 

I opened the basement door to listen for cries of help from her but heard nothing. Panic really set in after the third time of looking. No meowing. No running toward me. She was not in her usual spot on the back of the couch. Fearing the worst of old age issues, I decided to take one more swoop through the house to make certain she was not hiding somewhere before I completely lost it. Just as I walked through the living room and into the kitchen, I spotted this:

Bella had torn apart the microwave cart and ventured into the shelving where she was napping. At least my heart could commence beating once more. Our baby girl had found a place that made her feel safe. Then, there's Kit. 

The boy had fallen asleep on top of the dryer and the rug I placed on top of it to protect the paint. He has his favorite spot now as well. At least he was visible. 

Friday involved Mallory coming by to visit and a typical trip to the Level Up yogurt store. That frozen yogurt is so amazingly great! I am into the mountain blackberry, topped with a dab of chocolate while it is in stock. I was eating the raspberry with chocolate but now they don't have raspberry in. First world issues, yes, but the raspberry was so good. I did do a bit of research on how many grams of sugar is in frozen yogurt and found claims of 17 grams per 1/2 cup of the yummy frozen concoction. This broke my heart. Usually, I get about a cup's worth, maybe a cup and a half. But lately Terry has been filling my cup with the fruity choice on the bottom and some chocolate to top it all off. I am saving the table while he gets the yogurt for us both. The place fills quickly and there are only about six of the round four-person tables and one two-person table. 

I snagged the spot by the door as my hubby grabbed our cups of frozen sweetness. The idea of eating too much sugar per day freaks me out. Since I am diabetic and am female, only 24 grams of sugar should be eaten per day to stay within the healthy intake of sugar. A male can consume 36 grams of sugar per day, the lucky bastards. Hey, every gram of sugar counts when it comes to having a sweet tooth!

The addition of carbs raises concern as well. I eat quite a bit of carbs during a day. I used to maintain a nice level and lost a bunch of weight. Now I have cut loose, so to speak and have gained some back. Not to mention, as a diabetic, that raises a concern. Carbs do turn into sugar, raising the number of grams in sugary foods I'm eating per day. Not a good thing! Terry is also diabetic, but he is taking far more milligrams of Metformin than I do, plus he gives himself an injection of insulin every night. His body has much more sugar fighting medications than mine does. We both need to be eating better, that's for sure and that's the bottom line, or as we love to say, "That's what it is." 

Speaking of eating better, 😖😏😒Mallory came over on Saturday to finish our Indiana Jones movie marathon. Last weekend she was not feeling well, so the marathon had to wait until this weekend instead. Either way, we filled our TV trays with the munchies again and planned on ordering some pepperoni pizza later in the evening. Hey, it's a meat product, right? Or a facsimile thereof anyway. 

We added some dairy with the inclusion of cheese slices, and also had spinach artichoke dip. Now that's healthy. It's a veggie. Not too bad. But then we added a bunch of various crackers into the mix to dunk into the dip and as a backdrop to the cheese-pepperoni "sandwiches" we made. We did have mango slices and cantaloupe in there as well. Overall, not a bad group of munchy foods. We could have done worse. 

Trays of crackers, fruit, pepperoni slices, cheese, and spinach-artichoke dip. Good stuff! I brought out some chocolate chip cookies later and we munched those down as well. They were hot and gooey. Best way to down chocolate chip cookies!

The pizza came along later. Parts three and four were slated for viewing Saturday and that's just what we did. After the two Indiana Jones films, we chose to throw in a movie called Whip It. Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, Eliott Page and others. It was a fun movie, creating some laughter during the film. It was a good night spent laughing, sharing suspenseful moments, and giving the bad guys a good, thorough tongue lashing for well, being a nasty guy. Overall, a successful night of movie watching madness. Although, sitting on the couch for three films, my butt fell asleep, I had a creak in my hip, and the "oldness" had set in. There was a catch in my giddy up as I've heard it said by the elderly. Everything on me hurt when I stood upright, throwing off my balance. Not a good thing. 

Terry stood upon the end of Whip It too, and he joined me in the chorus of, "Ow, oh, crap, ugh. I hurt." Meanwhile, you could hear us snapping and popping worse than the three cartoon guys on a box of Rice Crispies. Wow it hurt! Note to self, get up more often and take a walk around the house. 

Mallory headed home after hugs and our goodbyes. Terry and I decided to hang outside for a while. He wanted to smoke a cigar and I sat out because I wanted to feel the cooling night air. It was nice. The breeze was perfect. Not too cold and definitely not a warm breeze that kept you sweating. Weather the past few days was enough to make me whine and complain about how hot it was as I felt droplets of sweat ooze out of my pores and gather under my breasts. When your boobs are sweating, it's hot. I'm sure men feel close to that when their testicles are sweating. Any drooping, hanging piece of body that is not sitting under an AC is probably sweating during the heat. 

When I was younger, I could handle more heat. I used to lay out in the sun for a few hours with friends and chat. It was all good. Never having been a true sun worshipper as some are, I didn't stay out real long and often would find bits of shade to sit in. But sunbathing was a good thing back then. Definitely a relaxing activity. Now, as I'm getting older, I melt at the thought of being in the sun. I bitch, whine, and just have an all-around hatred for being hot. Yuck. 

After Terry finished his cigar, we came in and put on some music on YouTube. We watch our YouTube videos and other favorite ones we find and cast them to the TV. It's a great way to enjoy videos and giggle over the look of everything and everyone in '60s, '70s, and '80s videos. Our hairstyles and clothing choices of those eras might not have been the wisest of decisions, but then again, we will probably look back on the time surrounding 2020s and things will look hilarious too. It involves ideas that were cool or inventive at the time. Looking back, not so much.

As I have said before, Terry never fails to keep me laughing. I was intensely watching the music video playing on the TV, when Terry picked up a Chicken in a Biscuit cracker and waved it toward me. My focus moved to the cracker and what it was he was trying to tell me. Without flinching, he developed a serious look on his face and said, "These are some anorexic fucking chickens." After a second or two, my brain finally figured out what he was trying to convey. The man's got jokes. Back off ladies ... he is all mine. He won't be making his living as a stand-up comedian, but he makes me laugh and laugh hard. 

Chicken in a Biscuit cracker, brought to you by anorexic chickens. 

This, of course, threw me into about 10 minutes of laughing. We spent more time munching those anorexic chicken crackers, cheese, and pepperoni. It was one in the morning, and I could not handle any more. Terry was planning on staying up a bit longer until his pills kicked in to help him sleep. I said my goodnight and headed for the bedroom. The bed felt especially comfy. It didn't take long before I was in a cave, cracking a whip and finding national treasures. That is until snakes were crawling through the cave by the hundreds. Dream jumping is a thing, at least in my world. I switched that dream faster than turning the station on a TV. Ocean dreams are much better. I could feel the cool sea water cleansing my skin and my soul. That is, until a shark came along. You know how the story goes. 

Sunday is a day of rest or so we thought. We came up with the idea of placing all of the movies Terry had collected over the years into shelving in the "nook". We have spent time shopping around and cannot seem to find bookshelves to hold hundreds of movies and CDs. The ocean of boxes laid around the nook for about three months now. I decided we needed to do something with them. 

Since I am finished with my jewelry business, the idea of moving all of my jewelry out of the nook and into the office for selling made sense. I removed the boxes and totes filled with jewelry, my ring light and other miscellaneous jewelry business items and we began to fill the cupboard shelves with DVDs. The top shelf even had some space for CDs. There are a couple of small boxes left of CDs, but the progress we made was great! We can see the floor of the nook now, but the office floor has new stuff laid on it. We can't win. But it does bring about the suggestion that we won't have to purchase a bunch of bookshelves. Terry and I were having a hard time finding any and this way it takes less room in the house. 

Perfect! We have moved some in the TV stand in the living room. The small cupboards on either side helped with the storage problem. Slowly the house is coming together the way we want. Taking a break after our time working, we headed to the frozen yogurt shop once more, but this time we also had a mission. They will buy blu-rays and 4K movies from you, giving you credit in the store or paying you money. This adds to our credit, for one thing and one thing only, the frozen yogurt. I had my usual, as did Terry. Blackberry with chocolate on top and he gets the chocolate and mocha flavored yogurt. 

After all was said and done, I made dinner. Yes, turkey, mashed spuds, gravy, stuffing, and I sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and onion together with green beans. It was great. Croissants had to be added! I love some type of bread with large dinners, and this was one of those times. Mallory stopped by while I had the turkey cooking and joined us for a movie. The Breakfast Club was a good choice, as she had not seen it in a while. Love that movie! Of course, Mallory and I were reciting lines from the movie, verbatim. To me, that means we have just seen it too many times. Still fun. 

Mm. Green beans with sauteed onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Great stuff!

Creamy mashed potatoes with butter and pepper. 

Then of course, we have to have that homemade turkey gravy to top off the potatoes and stuffing. 

The turkey roast was given a nice Season All rub before putting it in the oven. It was heavenly. 

The best part of all the dinner options is that we still have a bunch left over for Monday night dinner too. That's awesome because I'm going back to deliveries for a night or two this week. That way we can have some dinner before I leave to work a couple of hours. I grabbed a few hours this week for delivering food through DoorDash to add to the pay I'm receiving through my transcription and closed captioning job. 

I also have a few live jewelry shows to do so that I can sell some of the pieces and sets I still have. There is a Going Out of Business sale and we'll see how that goes. Copper Boom is the name of my business. It's going to be a crazy but fun week. I do like to work, and this keeps me occupied. 

On top of my changing work schedule, Terry has volunteered for more hospice work. He has been a hospice volunteer for about 28 years throughout his time residing in California. I'm proud of him in his choice of volunteer work, as not everyone can handle that job. I would be one. As a med aide for a few years, I dealt with death of too many beautiful souls, but I get far too attached. I have a difficult time saying goodbye to my fur babies, much less the humans I become connected with. 

The empathic connection is a beautiful thing as it means you have an open heart. It also means letting go is so difficult. This is why I feel so proud in his choice. I don't want to go through that pain of letting go each time your person passes. Bless his heart and all of those who do help others through that frightening time. Thank you for doing what you do. A special light shines down on you all. 

We hope everyone has a great week, filled with love, laughter, and joy. Take care until next weekend, when Terry and I do nothing again 😁😎😏Be kind to yourself and others!