Yay! Winter is over and I’m so excited for my first trip of the year.

My good friend and former employers from my cleaning days have invited me to their new home for a week. And a big added bonus is that they have a new baby on the way!

I used to work for Beth Stinnett and her husband Chris at their cleaning business (Centric Cleaning) in Lexington KY. My job was doing carpet cleaning and maid services so I got to spend a lot of time with both of them on some pretty serious carpet cleaning jobs. And while I’m down there for the week it will be a bit of a working vacation.

Chris has landed a big job at an industrial location cleaning thousands of square feet of carpet and he doesn’t want to trust it to just anybody. I know my way around carpet cleaning having cleaned some of the toughest stains imaginable. So it just makes good sense that he called me first. That my job has mandatory down time for everybody at this time of year just makes it work out great.

And I can’t wait to show Beth the 2 piece dress suit I bought for the baby girl they have on the way. I’m not a real big shopper for clothing, but baby clothes are another story altogether and I wanted to show off the little suit that I bought for baby Madison. I think she’s going to look ab fab in them 🙂

It’s going to be a great trip and I so look forward to it. A new baby. Seeing old friends again. And getting to make more than enough money to pay for it all.

What could be a better way to start my spring this year?

I’ve never liked winter. I loathe it’s coming every year.

This year is particularly bad because Hermanudo my pet hamster died recently and there’s been no consolation since his passing.

Most people think to themselves.. How can a person actually miss a hamster?

I’ll tell you how. Herman used to run every night in his little wheel that I put in his cage. It’s like he was running off the pounds or something. Who knows maybe he ran his little self to death. But the sound of that wheel at night is something I sorely miss what with it’s squeaking and all.

When I first got the wheel for him it almost drove me crazy. He’d never use it during the day unless it was when I was at work and I just never knew about it. But at night, usually after midnight he would start to run and he’d run for a few hours. After time though I got used to it and like I mentioned earlier I really miss it now. The house is just to quite at night without Hermanudo the hamster running on his wheel.

I’ve applied for a job with a local web designer here in Louisville trying to get part time work as a writer to try to take my mind off of it. I seen where they were running an add and responded to it. Who knows?

They asked if I knew anything about WordPress when they emailed back and I told them yeah and sent them a link to my blog here. Their site http://kidcarsonmedia.com is a little beyond what my web design skills are though. I tried to make it clear to them that I know how to write an article and paste it into word press but not much more.  Afterwards a guy did call, and said he liked my blog and thought it was funny and that he would probably be in touch.

I hope they call 🙂

Well, it’s a used car. But it’s new to me, and I love it!

I shopped Monday evening, Tuesday Evening, and then this morning I decided I needed to rethink my whole strategy and called a work friend who’s husband Bobby Newton has been working at the same dealership for 12 years.

I hate to car shop and suppose that I’m no different than anybody else, and had already been to to different car lots here in Louisville that I shall not mention. Let’s just say I’m a no pressure gal and leave it at that.. No on second thought I’m not going to leave it at that. I hate the way car salesmen think you’re just going to up and buy the car they show you. Not that I’m a difficult person but I know what I want. And at this time in my life I just happened to be wanting a red convertible. That’s all, just a pretty red girly convertible car.

Bobby’s wife said they had one at the dealership that he works at and that he would show it to me this morning. I went, I seen the car, I fell in love.

I got me a 2002 Chrysler Sebring LXi Convertible. It’s Red too.

Bobby already had the car fax for me to look at. One owner, all of the maintenance records still in the glove box and there were a lot of them. The previous owner only put 58,000 on it and they were very easy miles. I was able to call her and we talked for a bit. She told me that she bought it new here in Louisville and traded it in about a month ago on a new Dodge Charger. She informed that it had been garaged kept it’s entire life and never been in an accident. Still though I took it to my mechanic Troy French and he drove it with me in it, and when we got back he said and I quote “If you don’t buy I’m gonna buy it for my wife”.

That was it. I drove it back to Bobby’s dealership and wrote them a check on the spot.

Afterwards I went to the Big O tire shop on Dixie Hwy and had them put all new tires on it. Nothing but the best for my new baby. And tomorrow I’ll drop it off with Troy and he’ll change all of the fluids, belts, brakes, put a new battery in it. And generally go over the entire car with a fine tooth comb. Every single woman should have a mechanic she knows and trusts and I went to high school with Troy. He has quite the following and I would hate to see him ever retire and go into some other kind of business. I can rely on him and that means so much to me.

So hey everybody. If you see a hot looking middle aged babe in a really shiny red convertible yell out hello! It’s probably me.

Did I tell you I love my new car? Call Bobby if you want one, he’s a doll and doesn’t do all the high pressure stuff.

That’s right!

I’m going fishing with my friend Susi Johnson in Nashville TN.

I haven’t gotten to see Susi in over a year. Her and her husband Merv moved down to Nashville a few years ago and opened a fish guiding business on Percy Priest Lake called of all things “Nashville Fishing Guides” and Susi says their tagline is “Fish Fear Our Name”.

According to Susi it takes a little more money to start a guiding business than most people would know, and her husband had to get all kinds of special insurance and a license even. But it’s a new business and I want to help them out so here I go !!

I’ve been invited down for a whole week and we’re going to go Crappie fishing, I’m so excited. I just hope my old car makes it. As soon as I get home I need to go car shopping but really want to put it off till I get back from Nashville. Surely the old grey goose as I like to call my Taurus has another thousand mile in it. It will be her last major trip before I trade her in.

Merv says if the crappie aren’t biting we’ll go after the big stripe bass. Either way I’m sure this is going to be a productive trip, so will be taking a large 48 qt cooler to bring all of my fish home in.

I’ve went to their new website nashvillefishingguides.com and looked at some of the pictures and the amount of fish they catch is great and if the images are any indication of how many fish we’ll be catching this will be a very fun trip.

They’ve already had a commercial made and put it on youtube and I watched that too and just like in their website photos they were catching a lot of fish so I’m sure we’re going to catch a bunch.

According to Susi they have a brand new boat that they’ve outfitted and we’ll be taking it on for the whole day. We don’t have a lot of areas for recreational fishing here in Louisville other than the Ohio river, and I wouldn’t eat any of the fish from out of it. But Percy Priest Lake? Oh yeah!

I can cook and clean fish and have my own gear but it will be nice to be on the water with a pro guide like Merv. I’ve been fishing with them before and the man flat out knows how to find them. That’s all I need too, I can catch them myself. As a kid my father took me pan fishing with him all the time for bluegill, crappie, and goggle eye.

I’ve sport fished on the river for years and own some top of the line heavy poles for the big catfish down there. According to Susi all I need to bring for this trip is my clothes and some shoes with good gripping soles. A hat, some sunglasses and dress appropriately. They supply the rods the reels, baits, and boat. That’s the whole gig!! Obviously I will be taking some sunscreen with me.

I’ll be gone for the week and am not even going to be missing work at all. I’ll be having my friend Barbara by to tend to the zoo here at the house for me. But my dog Buddy is going with me. He’s a Lab, and Lab’s love water like nobody’s business. I’m not even going to tell them I’m bringing Buddy, I’ll just show up with him. I know Merv is going to freak at first but that’s OK. He was a dog man when he was in the army and Buddy is a big time water dog but is also trained to stay when he’s told to stay. If he was still a puppy I wouldn’t dream of taking him, but at 8 years old he’s a middle aged gentleman and I can’t bear to be away from him.

While I’m there Susi and I will also take in some of Nashville’s finer sites to do some shopping, and visit with some other friends of ours that live over in Chattanooga. So it won’t be all fishing, but mainly I can’t wait to get on the water and start hauling in them silver sided crappie.

I’ll post pictures when I get home. And that picture up there at the top? That’s my friend Susi from the last day she went fishing 🙂

So this is my update to the fishing trip!

We had a total blast, and I caught more fish than anybody else on the trip that day. I caught 48 keeper size crappies, 13 bass large enough to keep, and a butt load of real nice bluegill because I love fried bluegill.

It took my about 6 hours to filet all of them and I now have 22 baggies full of filets in my freezer. It was a shame that we got rained out early Sunday after church because I was on a tear. I prayed to God that I would catch a lot of fish and I was rolling when it started to cloud up on us. We were lucky in the fact that we weren’t terribly far from the Fate Sanders Marina so we just buzzed in there for lunch.

All in all one of my best most memorable days of fishing. I can’t wait to go back!

For the last two weeks I’ve been remodeling my kitchen. Most of the work I was able to do my self and I’m very handy with tools. Actually I have an annual tool budget that I have to restrict myself with. I figure 300.00 annually to get me through a calendar year is enough. Unless I have a really big purchase like my riding mower. I went over budget when I bought that, but wanted the green one, so I bought it.

And I actually didn’t need my own wood chipper but it was so cute and makes my mulching much easier. And what with all the different pets and animals I have it makes disposing of them when they pass away so much easier.

I just point the fired up wood chipper where it will spray all over the garden and toss them into it. Afterwards I’ll gather up all of the limbs from around the yard and throw them into the chipper while it’s still pointed at the garden to clean it out. It makes for a great fertilizer and keeps the carbon circle running in all of it’s beauty. An added benefit is that my animals are able to give back to nature and there’s no painful grave to look at. Some memories are just to painful for me to bear.

How many women do you know with their own saws all? For you men that don’t know what that is, it’s a reciprocating saw with a lovely 10 inch blade on it that strokes in and out with a mind of it’s own. I have several attachments for it that suit my needs.

So the kitchen is done this evening and it’s been quite the experience I did new floors. Repainted the entire thing, and had the most beautiful granite counter tops installed.

Of course the granite is one of the things I didn’t tackle on my own. I had Trademark Universal Stone install them for me. If you want granite in your kitchen you really do need to get with Henry from TMU. They say on thier site that they’re Louisville KY’s go to source for all things granite…. They’re not cheap though.  Here’s a link to his website if you want to get an estimate. http://www.trademarkuniversalstone.com/

Henry gave me the second to highest estimate I got out of 5 separate prices and originally I was going to go with another company but Henry invited me out to their showroom to look around and back in the back to actually see them cutting and prepping the granite for some of their upcoming projects, and yes I was wowed by the detail. So I hired them.

They had to do some additional work (reinforcements) to my existing cabinets before they would bear the weight but other than that once they arrived onsite with my counter tops it was over fairly quickly. And I love how they look! Check out the photo of what the island looked like with no counter top!

So I absolutely love the way the kitchen looks now and the truth is that I’m thinking about repainting the entire interior of my house now.

I recently inherited a lot of money and think that investing it here into my home is the best thing I can do with it. I’ve been reading a lot about remodeling and the average return on investments associated with each different project you can do. Kitchens is one of the highest returns and I spend the most of my time in my kitchen so naturally that’s where I started the ball rolling!

It’s crazy how one remodeling project leads to another, then another, and another..

My cats totally go hide when I get on one of these kicks and don’t come out for days. Anybody know a good flooring company I can call?

Life’s a funny thing I guess. Fancy me at 36 years old and still single. Some things just never change, and I’m good with it. I like being single and in full control of my life and the things around me.

I moved from the great northwest to Louisville KY with my parents some 24 years ago then lost them in a tragic accident 7 years later. Since then I’ve been here on my own living life and getting by.

I should be upfront that I’m a hermit/spinster and have no need for men in my life. I find them to be troublesome creatures that are irrational and barbaric, not to mention that they’re totally unpredictable.

I like to garden and grow most everything I eat. Yes, I’m a vegetarian, and my neighbors think it’s crazy that my yard and house is like a zoo. So yes I’m the crazy neighbor lady. Can you believe they tried to get the city to pass an ordinance where I couldn’t keep my chickens! What’s up with that?

My chickens (and other pets) are my friends. They provide me with company and fresh eggs every morning. So many eggs that I still have a bunch left over that I take to the farmers market every weekend and get to make a little extra money. Yes, I love my chickens and their wacky personalities.

What do I do for a living? I teach at the college level, mostly social related stuff, and I’m heavily into women’s rights. Our country has kept women down far to long and I approach our rights as humans like a one woman army. I vote Democrat with a capital D, and am socially liberal in all regards.

So there I am. I decided to do this blog so that I could learn something new. I love learning new things and think learning is the spice of life.