Catching Up

I do intend to finish those posts about Uncle Dean's passing but I've been slightly distracted by other projects/drama going on in life. When will it end?

Work is tense and I've been surfing the job sites looking for something different. There isn't a great selection so it may take awhile to find something that I actually WANT to do, not just what I'm capable of doing. We keep hoping things will improve but they don't and my previous pollyanna outlook has slowly eroded away, replaced by pessimism and cynicism. I don't broadcast negativity at work, but I definitely have to bite my tongue when new and cheerful coworkers seem too optimistic. I just can't make myself burst bubbles of optimism by saying "that's not going to work". They'll either see the light in time or, by some miracle, something might change at work that improves the environment. LOL. I don't really care anymore. It's just a job that pays the bills.

As for other projects, I spent a few weeks babying my girls since they were spayed. I felt tremendously guilty for inflicting surgery on them just because their heats were inconvenient for me. I had decided not to breed them (my adoption policies on the pups would be stricter than those for children..hee hee) so I really did need to get them spayed to prevent accidents.

About a month ago, I started looking at screen doors so I can replace the one on my side entry that the girls busted through. I wanted a door that I could open the screen on top (instead of the bottom). All kinds of complications occurred at that point. Apparently my doors are still the original house size, meaning that they're smaller than the smallest standard door currently made. *SIGH* I could either custom order a new screen door, which isn't cheap, or I could go ahead and enlarge the entire doorway, since I was planning to replace the regular door at some point anyway. So, I finally got to the point where I could pry off the trim on one side of the doorway and discovered that I could expand the doorway about an inch in that direction. Now, I'd like to assume that the other side was similar but you never know. My brother mentioned that I need to allow 2 inches in the rough opening for the new door jamb. Hell! That means a 30" door IF I can expand the other side of the doorway as well. Still a difficult size to find. With the high humidity this past weekend, I said "to hell with it for now" and retreated to the cool inside of my house. lol. It annoys me when filling the bird feeder causes sweat to drip into my eyes. I'll have to continue prying off trim soon though, but rather than the opposite side (where my current screen door is attached -- TO THE TRIM), I'll pry off the top decorative section and see what it looks like. And I thought this would be a simple project....

I still only have about 1/2 of my garden area prepared. With the thunderstorms last night I don't anticipate getting out there today but maybe sometime this week I can at least loosen the sod.

The other project that has been sucking up lots of free time is doing genealogy research. I didn't realize it would be so time consuming but at least it's interesting. One of my family branches supposedly goes back to before 1000 A.D. I had to laugh at some of the names (all without documentation I might add, so I'm skeptical as to the accuracy). The funniest one so far is "Richard the Timid", hardly complimentary... More on that another time.