I am so glad that those that saw the post liked the apple head.  I will be doing a how to with  pictures on my review later today.

Now on to my  day, did my exercise class. 

I am pretty amazed, it is mostly a walking and stretching thing.  The walk is about 4 miles give or take and we do a half hour of just walking and then do a cd  called WALKING OFF THE POUNDS.     Twice a week we are doing a stretching excercise that is sitting in a chiar....that is a shocker too.  Every thing is strectched. There are four of us going, and that keeps us doing it, I know that on some days I would not get up and go, but with others you really get going.

It is snowing here, and it looks serious.  I am pretty much stocked up and will not need groceries, so not to worry on that matter. 

My hair cut turned out fine...I really was pleased when he finished it up, and did not over cut it.   He did a cute style and the multiple colors on my head don't look like I did a  tie dye job.  Look at my previous post and you will read about my nightmare.

Today will be a catch up day with my ebay, have a ton of pictures taken and a few more things ready to photograph and I think I am finally down to a point that I can clean up the front bedroom.  I have been ironing in there and sorting out things, that is almost done.  Now I need to put the computer stuff somewhere, extra printers and a tower that I need to get the photographs off of and move them to disk.  Right now I think I have a total of five printers, one is attached to my fax machine and one is what I do for my hobby photography. 

The snow is piling up.

Well I think I will get off of this computer and get my day started, it is nearly noon and I need to cook a brisket and some munchie stuff. 

If you are a mind to, look at my listings over 800 items for your looking pleasure. 

I am going to do a contest when I get close to 900, it will be $25.00 worth  ( free shipping) on my site to the winner that can come to the closest time that I hit 900.  They will have to email me with a time.  This might be total nuts.

I recently added a lot of new buttons, table cloths and linens. 

May God bless you and keep you.

nigel

Use hard white apples.  

Peel leaving a smooth surface.

Save a piece of the red peel for warts, if you want.

Hollow out the blossom end  about half way. Insert a wood clothes pin. This will give you something to use for a rack to dry and hold the head for carving.

It will also be the neck for the head.

Carve the face with a pocket knife... or small kitchen knife.

To form the nose, take part of the apple away between the eyes and beneath the eye sockets, this will form the bridge. You will find that you need to shape with this method for the chin and ears as well.

When finished carving, stick in glass with the clothes pin down and let dry for two weeks.

After the head is dried, make a twisted wire body and pad, wrap with string to hold padding in place. You can stretch a nylon stocking over this to give shape to the body.   I will add pictures to my review, be sure and check...it will be later today when I do this.

Use cotton for hair, gluing to head, you can dye the cotton for color is wanted.

Dress to suit your self.

I will be adding this to my reviews...etc with  pictures. 

This would be fun for a child project...and years ago, these were a big hit and sold for a pretty good penny.

I was dreaming early this morning that I missed my appointment and resorted to cutting my hair with pinking shears.  In my dream I was desperately trying to call and get another appointment.  Of course to make the dream more desperate my husband came in with a $400 receipt that I had from SAMs and he was yelling.  Well I did not miss my appointement, it is this afternoon and I did not spend any money at SAMs.  Try like heck to stay away from there.

So what is the big deal about my hair, well for two years and two months I have let it grow, quit dying it and only added highlights occasionaly, in that  period of time it has grown almost to the middle of my back with one professional hair cut and a bit of triming that I have done.  The big deal is finding the right person to cut my hair and not be pissed off for three months.  The first place I went is booked til March, the second  place could see me today, and that was over a week ago that I found him.  We had an interview about cutting my hair and he acted like he understood.  We will see!

I only want a shape and trim....not much to ask, but in years past that is never what I would get.  So that was why I had the nightmare, in addition to get to a good hair dresser here is not easy. He is supposed to do a layer thing that he said would make my gray and white hair prettier....we will see. 

On to other things, I have been to exercise class, can play bingo this afternoon if I want and still get to the hairdresser in time.  House is fairly in oder, not finished are completed as far as the MISSION  is concerned.  I have diner out to be cooked later. 

On top of all of this my ebay is getting closer to some order with all the stuff that needs to be listed without opening new tubs of stuff.  I have silver polished ready to  photograph, buttons were listed last night with more to do.  Buttons make great photographs, bet I could enter some of these pictures in a show.  I  have two more beautiful table cloths that need to be added, but they are not ironed. 

And, I have found some vintage greeting cards...so there is a lot to do.  I am always amazed when I open up a tub of things to see what is there.  When I  go to public auctions I buy in groups of things, a lot of times it is just a box of stuff, or a laundry basket of linens.  When I get home I sort it all out, wash, clean, repair or throw out what will not work.  Then it all goes into big tubs and is stacked for listings.   I try and put similar things together, so a group of things will draw traffic,  a lot of buttons will draw more than just a couple of listings. 

Well that is it for the day, if you are a mind to, look at my stuff.  The pictures are beautiful at the button  listings. 

Take care and have a blessed day.  ( say a small prayer for my hair cut, I know that is selfish)

nigel

I have another item with payment way past due, I have sent reminders.  Looking at her feedback indicates that she always pays timely and people are basicly happy with her. This item is a from my store, and it was one of those that you make an offer on,  I  accepted the offer.  Strange that she would not pay for it as of yet, it has been over 10 days. 

I am going to give her awhile, since there could be all kind of problems and if something is wrong she does not need me breathing down her back over a $14.00 item.  She does not have any indication in her feed back that she is a poor risk.

On to other things, I am up early this morning, early for me.  We stay up late at night seldom in bed before 1 am, so sleeping in is one of the things that I do.  Last week I started going to exercise class with three of my friends and that is cutting into my action a bit here.  We go at nine and do walking exercises, a thirty minute brisk walk and then one that is standing in place that is a two mile walk, the alternate day is stretching exercises with a brisk walk.

It is so cold this moring, I really would rather just go and walk, but I am finding as I get older the cold air makes me miserable and getting warm again is not so easy. 

My misson for cleaning an organizing is moving forward, the laundy room did get clean along with the hall area.  I am giving everything a  good once over, since I got the new air filters.  They do six different actions that make the air better and I think this will help my alergic reaction to dust...

Along with riding my house of dust I am doing my best to get rid of all that stuff you never use and save.  Nothing will be under the bed and if we have not used it in the past year, it is going.  Did you ever notice how when you are doing this organization that part of your world gets worse.  I have had to filter things into the guest bedrooms to sort them out.  Hope we don't have  house guest for awhile.

I have one big room that is my ebay life.  Computer desk, shelves, packing area, sorting area, extra sink and storage area for tubs of items stored until they are listed.  My shelf area hold designer baskets, that I try and buy cheap, full of my eBay inventory that is listed.  I found that a shelf basket did not take up so much space and is more attractive. 

My eBay room turned also into the family room.  The big television moved out here along with a couch with double recliners and a couple of other things.  This was not in the master plan, but that is ok.  This room was  planned when we built this house to be my eBay room, and I had hoped that another room would be a place that my husband would use as his office an television area. Guess I should be happy that he wants to be where I am, the control of the flicker is my only big issue, last week we did a marathon on JOE MEETS THE PROS...about did me  in.

The only other area that is affected by my eBay is the 9 ft dining table, I use it for the photographs, I have a  great lighting system in that area and things can be spread out.  I do my best to photograph ahead and have things ready to list in big tubs near my desk.  Doing like things helps with setting your template, then only measurements and part of the script has to be changed.  Yesteday a lot of linens were listed, today I am doing buttons.

Today I am going to tackle the rest of the foyer, get all the things dusted and oiled and move into the living room and sort it down again.  Along the way I am trying to paint and do repair work.  When we built this house, we did not contract out the painting of the wood work and trim, so that has been my job.  Some fo the  places did not get a second coat.

Is anyone else out there doing a mission, I start one every January and as soon as warm weather comes it is over with.  My love of the outdoors takes up the rest of my time then.

If you stopped by  to listen to me ramble, say hello.  I do this daily if I can and get it all out.  Kinda nice to vent and say things sometime during the day.  I post this at a couple of different blogs, so time is well spent. 

If you have a mind to, look at my things.  Some of them are more of a thing of beauty rather than a thing to sell. Finding after doing this for so many years that it almost all sells, sooner or later.  My goal is to reach 900 listings soon. 

Stop and visit, let me know you dropped by.

nigel

This was taken on one of my many walks in Eureka Springs, I walk there in the summer while I am watering the church gardens.

A beautiful city to see and visit, small Victorian town that is flourishing.

I am so ready for warm weather, flowers and the garden.  It is bitter outside today.  I just went out and fired up the grill to burn some mosquite wood for a chicken I am cooking later.  I am hoping that this food will brighten our day. May even invite some friends over.  It is gloomy and dark outside and snow is expected. 

Going to pull all the blinds up so there can be light  in this room, I am sick of gloomy and feeling like a mole.

The house is warm today, on real windy days it seems drafty, but that may be my  imagination.  This is a new house and one thing I would have done differently is do something to keep the floors warm.  We are on the side of a mountain so most of the house is up on cinder blocks with a crawl space below, but no heat.  We may just have to wear warmer clothes in the winter, the heat bill doubled last month. 

I watched the  special on Camden, New Jersy last night, it really touched my heart and when I realize that we stay warm all of the time and  eat when we like, it was heart breaking.  Sometime today I am going to that site on the net and see what I can do to help as a human.  Watching that child that did not have a home and did not have food to eat before going to school touched me deeply.  He only wished that he could have a house with curtians...and this is from a pre schooler. 

This is such a rich country, why do we have children coming to school without breakfast or food?? There is money for the before school meal program, what in the world are we  thinking....NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, how can a child think without food.  He is left behind before he/she hits the school doors.  How can we help the world and have hungry children here.

Ok, enough about my rants, need to do something and albeit may be small, I need to  act on this. 

On to other things, I am still on my continual misson to rid my home of excess and get it organized, have not accomplished even one complete room yet, have the master bath and the master bed room almost done.  Need to  finish the wood work in the master  bed room, rehang some painting, and hang some sconces, make sure the stuff is out from under the bed.  The master bath is almost done, have some wall paper that I would like to do, it is actually a border, and figure out how to get the towel racks my husband did  to stay in the wall, towel racks hung by my husband are the vain of my life, he always promises he will do it right and guess what!!!!  In twenty five years whe have had them lop sided and loose in really nice homes...oh well!  Maybe they can be hot glued??

Gee, that was another rant!

Going to tackle the laundy room today and wipe down the 100 lb dog, it is too cold for a bath and he is so old that I wait as long as I can to take him to the groomer.  It takes three people to lift him into the tubs.  He is on medication for his hind legs, going on 15 years now.  Yep, I did it talked about my dog......

Ok enough for today, I will post this on my two other blogs, My space and Eons.  I have to get to work.

Everyone keep warm, cook something that nurishes the soul and set a pretty table, it does lift your spirits.

nigel

Another busy day, went to exercise class with friends, came home and started cleaning the bed room.  I recently bought two air filters to see if it can cut down on the dust, don't know if anyone else  battles dust all the time, but I do.  I took every thing off the furniture and cleaned from top to bottom in the room. My husband had to take a nap in the middle of it all and I just cleared the bed and he went to sleep while I cleaned. 

The bath room will be next, top to bottom cleaning with al lthe fixtures scrubbed, I started using that shower spray about a month ago, going to see if it is working, I have left all but the bottom for awhile. My tub is a challenge, it is a garden tub with about 6 jets and that is always dirty, and I use it nearly every night. 

I think we must be dirtier than everyone else, no one seems to be cleaning all the time, and their houses are always clean.  I manage a room or two at a time and get bogged down with eBay and cooking the rest of the time.

Tonight we are going to dinner, I am so excited.  My husband has decided that we are going to save money this year and not eat out so much, this meal will come out of my budget.  The resturant is called Port of New Orleans, have not been there, but every one says it is wonderful.  We meet with several other couples for a night out.  Should be fun.  Husband is playing golf this afternoon so he will be lively by supper time.

We will have left over spagetti for lunch, I cooked it and a big pot of stew a few days ago, so meals are cooked ahead when I can.  Tomorrow I will do a drunken chicken....on the grill.  If you have not done one of these they are great fun.

I will start packing ebay right after the bathroom is clean and get that out of the way, have photographs already for next listing session, which will be late tonight.

My mission of cleaning out the house is slowley  working, I have accomplsihed getting all of my  personal ironing done.  That is always one of my New Year's resolutions.   Have done a ton of linens since Christmas.

Going to get a cup of coffee and fortify myself and move on to the rest of the day. 

Everyone have a great day and good selling.

nigel

I posted this yesterday, if you are interested let me know.

I just checked my traffic report, and at this point I have had nearly 6000 hits on my site this month.  Yesterday 180 people looked at my site for at least 30 minutes or more.

What I am looking for is someone to cross promote with me that has a high count of hits on thier site, and has  people staying at least 30 minutes or more. 

Right now I have 855 items listed and I end auctions every single day.  Most of my items are listed in my store and not in the auctions. 

Let me know if you are interested.

It is not necessary for our items to be the same kind of stuff, people are always looking in other catagories too.

I posted this yesterday, if you are interested let me know.

I just checked my traffic report, and at this point I have had nearly 6000 hits on my site this month.  Yesterday 180 people looked at my site for at least 30 minutes or more.

What I am looking for is someone to cross promote with me that has a high count of hits on thier site, and has  people staying at least 30 minutes or more. 

Right now I have 855 items listed and I end auctions every single day.  Most of my items are listed in my store and not in the auctions. 

Let me know if you are interested.

Just got my package, and they are so cool, can wear for dress up or jeans.  I have long hair and I am always challenge with getting it up and looking nice.....these are wonderful.

Thank you for the added little gift.  You are a sweetie, I will definitely buy again.

nigel

Well I started the day going to an exercise class with two friends, it was mostly a walking class, about four miles. Did a lot of weight lifting with the walk and kicks. Going withsomeone or getting together with someone even at your house will keep you in the routine.

  Because, I did not sleep so well last night I am going to pile up on the sofa and watch the cooking chanel, try not to look at my disorganized house. The beds need to be changed, laundry is piled up in the living room and the kitchen is a mess.  I have no idea how it got that way.  This is the first time in 25-30 years I have not had help at home...when I worked at a real job, I had household help.

One of the things I have found at this time in my life is  that I am a bad housekeeper and not as organized as I would like to be.  All of my friends keep great houses, with everything in place and no dust except for one and she is really worse than I am.  What a pity, we built this adorable cottage style house and it was done with a lot of thinking and planning, so that I cannot accumulate clutter.  We did this nearly a year ago and the planning was a great deal of fun.  What I did not plan, was how to squeeze a bunch of stuff in my limited space house of 2100 sq. feet.  My goal for this year is to get rid of stuff.  I would just like to have it be at peace with me and walk into rooms that are not being sorted out.

Right after Christmas I started in the master  bath room and threw out stuff that I no longer need and did the touch up on paint that did not get done when we moved in.  On to the bed room, pulled stuff from out under the bed and packed it to go to the doggy shop ( thrift store that raises money for dogs and cats).  Most of this is not ebay quality stuff. 

I am working to move out into the rest of the house, cleaning, painting and throwing out stuff.  This is really my goal for the year, not to open drawers and closets full of stuff that I don't use or need. 

As for the daily cleaning and routine work , eBay is first each day.  I check and decide each day if I need to pack and mail, once that is done I move on to the photography. Photographing ahead keeps me ready for listings.   I try to group items daily so that there is a selection on the site that is different all of the time.  Right now I am doing records, table cloths, silver and hankies.  I will be adding bundled groups of Christmas ornaments soon, all of these are new items that  were purchased from stores going out of business.  After I photograph, I down load and edit at some  point during the day.  On days that I do silver or linens, there is always  prep work, ironing or cleaning.  Most of the time I do the listings at 10:30 every night. 

After I get ebay out of the way each day I start my house work and cooking.  I am big on cooking and having cooked meals everyday. Most of the time things are cooked that can be for several meals and I often cook two or three meals at the time and stick them  in the fridge or freezer.  Figure if I am going to mess up the kitchen, might as well do it all at once. 

Once I have accomplished my project for the day...cleaing a closet or  ironing I try and watch television or read.  In the summer time it is a no brainer I walk or work in the garden.  I always try and have one project picked out for the day beyond my regular routine. 

Keeping list of things to do,  when I am really busy makes me keep to a rountine. 

Severla times a month we have people over to eat, and we eat out with friends as often as we can.  Having people over makes me get the house in order and that if fun.  I try and do glamor nights, good china and candles.  In the summer we move on the deck and I set tables up out there.  Dress is still casual.  Put on good music and keep the television off, after dinner we move to the living room for dessert, I don't have a telvision in that room, found that guys will turn on the tv if there is a choice. 

On Monday night my hubby and I play pool and we play cards on the weekend with a couple of friends, this is a vicious game and it often goes on into the night, breaking up giddy at 2 am.  We always swear we will not play that late and the loosers never want to quit.

Ok, going to  pile up on the couch and get warm, it is still cold here.   Going to watch the travel or the cooking chanel and get inspired.

nigel

I just checked my traffic report, and at this point I have had nearly 6000 hits on my site this month.  Yesterday 180 people looked at my site for at least 30 minutes or more.

What I am looking for is someone to cross promote with me that has a high count of hits on thier site, and has  people staying at least 30 minutes or more. 

Right now I have 855 items listed and I end auctions every single day.  Most of my items are listed in my store and not in the auctions. 

Let me know if you are interested.

I am finding that this form of expression is a lot more  interesting that I thought it would be.  Most of my life I  have always been the one that would not be out front, not the one that is playful, or in the middle of small talk. I hated going to teas as an officers wife and was happy when they gave me a task to accomplish and did it well, on occassion pissed off every one in the process...... but always did a great job. Now that I am in my sixties, life is not such a challenge, still hate tea parties and small chit chat events. Still do projects, but no one looks over my shoulder and finally my life history dictates that I know what I am doing and that is accepted now.

The small talk may be the issue, being able to just go on and on about nothing.  That has always been hard for me.  The showing of pictures and telling of grandchildren or going on and on about a pet is not my thing, yet I deeply love my grandchild and my dogs and of course my husband. 

Having alway been extremly independent, seldom needed help or anyone to work with me on things.  Even today I will tackle most jobs without much assistance.  Seldom have ever done the girl talk thing, where you hang out with girls and giggle and talk and go out about things in general.  My grand daughter has taught me more about doing this than I have ever known.  She  even fits in with my friends and can glide comfortably around with us for three days and not give it a thought about getting along with us and we are all middle sixties.  Funny thing is, she does not fit into our lifestyle, we fit into hers and she can create fun out of eating a pretzel at the mall or looking at clothes, that in a million years we could not wear.

Watching the blogs is more of a study in lives of people here than anything else.  The facination of watching  people share the most mundane thing to opening their hearts up to strangers that they have never laid thier eyes on amazing and at the same time a puzzle to me. 

Watching people take sides on issues is also something that surprises me.  For years in issues concerning the community, I have always taken the high ground, after careful consideration on each issue I would find that the position I took would not be one that the majority would take and it would always be amazing to me.  In most cases the issues did win out, but it was not without a fight, when they should have been a no brainer. 

I will only tell you about two of the fights and then maybe it will make some sense and maybe not.

For years I lived in an at risk neighborhood in a very large commercial building (six thousand sq feet), in the beginning there were drug dealers moving into the neighborhood every night right after five o'clock.  I began to take the tactic of calling in the swat team on a regular basis.  This to me was a no brainer, just get the land lords to participate and get the drug dealers out.  Then get the land lord to sell the property to something that would bring the neighborhood up. 

Needless to say this should have been something every one wanted.  But no, it was not so.  The owner of the propety was an absentee, with a home in Florida, he could have cared less.  Finally with strike three, I forced the realtor to create a sale to this person.  Wendy's came in and made an offer, then the city and the neighbor hood had to approve. 

Well that should have been eay, drug dealers or Wendy's ....hmmm

Not so, the neighborhood association did not think that was a suitable choice, the neighbors immediately around Wendy's did not want a commerical business, and they would not come up against drug dealers, what was that about. 

For months I continued to stand on the street with phone in hand when the dealers showed up, for months I passed out flyers on the area being a drug free zone, as a school was across the street next to me.  For the most part, except for the  police chief this was a lonely project.  No one got involved. 

Finally, a meeting with the parties involved.  Five long hours of batteling it out, with Wendy's walking out more than once.  It was the neighborhood people that wanted this or that, or the association that wanted this or that.  Only three people came in support of me, they were able to convey that the swat team on a regular basis was not what we needed. 

Where were all the good upstanding people, what were they thinking, was this more than they could stand.  Yet, they were at the social events, they shared meals at the church,  went to church on Sunday.  The Christmas events went on as usual, but they turned a blind eye to what was happening. 

Wendy's did come and I did outlast them all at the meeting and the city did approve the building.  It is an asset to the neighborhood, clean attractive and one of the highest grossing  Wendys in the area.  The drug dealers were gone.

What was the price, I was tagged as militant, agressive, not a team player.  Why, because I stood on the street and faced the dealers, because I pointed out the shame to the neighborhood or was it because I was a business person looking out for my own interest.  Even today years and years later I don't know. 

One othe issue that I fought for was getting youth programs in the community with money from the JUSTICE  DEPARTMENT, that should have been easy, trust me it was not.  People did not want programs for children....what was that about, I still don't know and I did not have children at home when that happened, they are all grown. Yet I knew that the children in that urban community needed more, and they deserved more.

There were many more issues, not going to get into them in this conversation, but what I did find is when I drew a line in the sand and said what I thought, I was amazed at the people and how they reacted.  It should have been predictable and it was not.

I no longer do this kind of work in the community and have chosen a world that does not require that I stick my neck out.  Once in a while decorating the club house for an event or helping a friend is all that I do.  My only committment is the church garden and because of the chuch having so many older members they are not  challenging me on the garden, thank goodness.

So what does this have to do with blogging, nothing really, except that human nature is still the same, people either won't stand up, or they accept things as they are.  Others quietly turn their back and yet others think that anything they don't agree with brings a chill to the community here.  Some have friends here and they support them no matter what.  Even yet others want to have help or advice and in the end they will not change anything, they are just venting. Change is growth.

But one thing is for sure, I am going to continue to draw a line in the sand.  The core of me will not change, most likely I will never come here and talk about my cat, dog, husband,  grandchild or my grown children.  and I love them dearly, even love having to climb over a 100 lb dog, because he insist on laying in the pathway.  If one dies I will be hugely sad and may share that. Funny, I just looked at the order that I  placed my family and a cat that does not exist came first....hmmmm

For the most part this is just all rambling, for some here it might touch a nerve, for others it will make no sense.

nigel

I am finding that this form of expression is a lot more  interesting that I thought it would be.  Most of my life I  have always been the one that would not be out front, not the one that is playful, or in the middle of small talk. I hated going to teas as an officers wife and was happy when they gave me a task to accomplish and did it well, on occassion pissed off every one in the process...... but always did a great job. Now that I am in my sixties, life is not such a challenge, still hate tea parties and small chit chat events. Still do projects, but no one looks over my shoulder and finally my life history dictates that I know what I am doing and that is accepted now.

The small talk may be the issue, being able to just go on and on about nothing.  That has always been hard for me.  The showing of pictures and telling of grandchildren or going on and on about a pet is not my thing, yet I deeply love my grandchild and my dogs and of course my husband. 

Having alway been extremly independent, seldom needed help or anyone to work with me on things.  Even today I will tackle most jobs without much assistance.  Seldom have ever done the girl talk thing, where you hang out with girls and giggle and talk and go out about things in general.  My grand daughter has taught me more about doing this than I have ever known.  She  even fits in with my friends and can glide comfortably around with us for three days and not give it a thought about getting along with us and we are all middle sixties.  Funny thing is, she does not fit into our lifestyle, we fit into hers and she can create fun out of eating a pretzel at the mall or looking at clothes, that in a million years we could not wear.

Watching the blogs is more of a study in lives of people here than anything else.  The facination of watching  people share the most mundane thing to opening their hearts up to strangers that they have never laid thier eyes on amazing and at the same time a puzzle to me. 

Watching people take sides on issues is also something that surprises me.  For years in issues concerning the community, I have always taken the high ground, after careful consideration on each issue I would find that the position I took would not be one that the majority would take and it would always be amazing to me.  In most cases the issues did win out, but it was not without a fight, when they should have been a no brainer. 

I will only tell you about two of the fights and then maybe it will make some sense and maybe not.

For years I lived in an at risk neighborhood in a very large commercial building (six thousand sq feet), in the beginning there were drug dealers moving into the neighborhood every night right after five o'clock.  I began to take the tactic of calling in the swat team on a regular basis.  This to me was a no brainer, just get the land lords to participate and get the drug dealers out.  Then get the land lord to sell the property to something that would bring the neighborhood up. 

Needless to say this should have been something every one wanted.  But no, it was not so.  The owner of the propety was an absentee, with a home in Florida, he could have cared less.  Finally with strike three, I forced the realtor to create a sale to this person.  Wendy's came in and made an offer, then the city and the neighbor hood had to approve. 

Well that should have been eay, drug dealers or Wendy's ....hmmm

Not so, the neighborhood association did not think that was a suitable choice, the neighbors immediately around Wendy's did not want a commerical business, and they would not come up against drug dealers, what was that about. 

For months I continued to stand on the street with phone in hand when the dealers showed up, for months I passed out flyers on the area being a drug free zone, as a school was across the street next to me.  For the most part, except for the  police chief this was a lonely project.  No one got involved. 

Finally, a meeting with the parties involved.  Five long hours of batteling it out, with Wendy's walking out more than once.  It was the neighborhood people that wanted this or that, or the association that wanted this or that.  Only three people came in support of me, they were able to convey that the swat team on a regular basis was not what we needed. 

Where were all the good upstanding people, what were they thinking, was this more than they could stand.  Yet, they were at the social events, they shared meals at the church,  went to church on Sunday.  The Christmas events went on as usual, but they turned a blind eye to what was happening. 

Wendy's did come and I did outlast them all at the meeting and the city did approve the building.  It is an asset to the neighborhood, clean attractive and one of the highest grossing  Wendys in the area.  The drug dealers were gone.

What was the price, I was tagged as militant, agressive, not a team player.  Why, because I stood on the street and faced the dealers, because I pointed out the shame to the neighborhood or was it because I was a business person looking out for my own interest.  Even today years and years later I don't know. 

One othe issue that I fought for was getting youth programs in the community with money from the JUSTICE  DEPARTMENT, that should have been easy, trust me it was not.  People did not want programs for children....what was that about, I still don't know and I did not have children at home when that happened, they are all grown. Yet I knew that the children in that urban community needed more, and they deserved more.

There were many more issues, not going to get into them in this conversation, but what I did find is when I drew a line in the sand and said what I thought, I was amazed at the people and how they reacted.  It should have been predictable and it was not.

I no longer do this kind of work in the community and have chosen a world that does not require that I stick my neck out.  Once in a while decorating the club house for an event or helping a friend is all that I do.  My only committment is the church garden and because of the chuch having so many older members they are not  challenging me on the garden, thank goodness.

So what does this have to do with blogging, nothing really, except that human nature is still the same, people either won't stand up, or they accept things as they are.  Others quietly turn their back and yet others think that anything they don't agree with brings a chill to the community here.  Some have friends here and they support them no matter what.  Even yet others want to have help or advice and in the end they will not change anything, they are just venting. Change is growth.

But one thing is for sure, I am going to continue to draw a line in the sand.  The core of me will not change, most likely I will never come here and talk about my cat, dog, husband,  grandchild or my grown children.  and I love them dearly, even love having to climb over a 100 lb dog, because he insist on laying in the pathway.  If one dies I will be hugely sad and may share that. Funny, I just looked at the order that I  placed my family and a cat that does not exist came first....hmmmm

For the most part this is just all rambling, for some here it might touch a nerve, for others it will make no sense.

nigel

According to the rules, there are some limits as to conversations that can be posted on the blogs.

Including material (graphic or text) that is obscene, pornographic or adult in nature.

I think the adult in  nature pretty much covers it.

I know that in a way this contiues an earlier conversation, but everyone here seemed to be pretty vague  on what the rules about blogging are. 

I for one, would like for the blogs to remain tasteful and without all of the really weird stuff.  I am not a prude by any part of anyones imagination, but some of this stuff is definitely over the line. 

It is in bad taste to come to this venue and add things that  are questionable. 

nigel

Just bought some of your clips...do you have anymore of the black ones with the flower.

also, can I combine shipping on these?

These are really beautiful, I have long hair and wear it up a lot.

nigel

I am going to bring this up at the risk of making everyone mad....

When a new person comes in and they need help or have a question, they are ignored, or at least this morning they were. 

It just takes a minute to comment or help somone or at least make them feel like they are accepted.  It does not feel good to come here and never get a post by the regulars.  It is amazing the some people can get 6 or 8 post everytime and others get nothing.  

ok...got that out of my  syste.  Please comment.

nigel

First of all it is cold, it has been cold for awhile now, and for some reason we have stayed pretty tucked in.  It started with the ice storm and me going and stocking up, so if things got really bad we would not have to leave the house.  Seems like after I did that, we just tucked in and decided to stay for the long haul.  Actualy it  has been nice for the last couple of days, very cold but nice. 

We are expecting more snow this weekend, think I will make a big pot of stew, love to have comfort food when it is cold outside.

The ice has been on the trees for more than a week now, it is like a fairly land in the afternoon with the sun glistening on the mountain sides in the treetops.  You can see the frosted trees for miles  if you are on a mountain top.

The time in has given me time to get some of my inventory in order.  I do a  lot of silver and over the last 20 years I have never been able to spend the time to get it completely matched and seperated in to patterns.  That is done! It was a several day job.  I spread it out on my kitchen table that is nearly 9 feet long and matched up hundreds of pieces.  They are sorted  into bags now.  That will make it much easier to sort for listings. 

With silver the job does not end there, it has to be cleaned and polished and I sort them into  place settings, usings the odd pieces as single listings.  All of the service pieces are listed seperately.  Then the fun begins, you have to find the pattern.  Over the years I have found the  patterns on the net, or on ebay and copied them to have for a catalog file.  There is always an illusive one that you can not indetify.

Last week another person on eBay was kind enough to go through all of my silver listings, over 200 and tell me about ones that I could not name the pattern.  It was a huge help, saving me hours of hunting for pictures to match pieces.

I hope everyone is well, and staying tucked in with all of this cold weather.

Think I will go back to bed and sleep some more. If you have a minute check out my  listings.

nigel

The traditional trinket in the cake is a bean, still seen in some European traditions but rare in U.S. king cakes. It is echoed, however, in some Krewes' use of a gilded bean trinket.

Since the 1950s, the most common trinket has been a small plastic baby. Many people say this represents the baby Jesus, tied in to the connection with Epiphany. Many people attach no particular religious significance to the cake or trinket. The "baby in the king cake" was said to have become common after a local bakery chain got a large shipment of such plastic baby dolls from Hong Kong very cheaply in the 1950s, and some people say there is little further significance to the baby, but earlier ceramic baby dolls as trinkets are documented in New Orleans back to at least the 1930s. Running a distant second to babies, a token representing a king wearing a crown is the next most common design of token. Tokens in the form of other figures have also been seen historically, and starting in the 1990s again became more common in the more expensive "gourmet" varieties of king cake.

[edit] Privileges and obligations associated with the trinket

The person who gets the trinket is declared king or queen of the party, sometimes given a paper, plastic, or costume jewelry crown or tiara. Sometimes there are separate cakes to select the male and female royalty; the one for women is sometimes called a queen cake. The monarch is usually obligated to supply the next king cake or host the next party or both. King cake parties may be held at the homes of people who live on or near the routes of Carnival parades.

It is a common practice in elementary schools to have King cake parties, usually on a Friday. The person who gets the trinket is required to bring the cake the following week.

In some office work places, a variation on this tradition is simplified so that workers share a king cake at lunch or during the day, with the person getting the trinket having to bring the cake for the next work day, with no other ceremony.

Some Krewes select their monarchs via king cake.