Hello everyone, I hope you have had a great week. Here in Tulsa, we have been treated to yet more days of glorious weather….it’s been so lovely that everything is growing like crazy, and consequently allergy issues abound. But it’s so nice to sit on the back porch here at Debtwood and see green grass on the ground and leaves shyly unfurling on the trees. I mowed the yard, and I believe that was a first ever in March! I didn’t just mow the grass though, I also raked enough leaves to cover a football field two feet deep, and then precariously mowed them all to mulch the leaves. What a harrowing process, I know I created a dust cloud to rival the sand storms in Arizona, my neighbours probably loved that. By the time I’d finished, I looked like Bert from Mary Poppins after a busy day of chimney-sweeping. My face was so dirty I looked like I had a bad brown cocaine habit. If it were still deer season I could have passed for a hunter because I’d so many bloody leaves and twigs in my hair that I resembled a walking bush – although to be honest, I tend to look like a walking bush even with nothing in my hair, but a clean bush.
Well last week the big event in Tulsa was the Home and Garden Show and Gump always gets excited about going every year. Besides fishing, it is one of the few times he’ll actually leave work at a reasonable hour, but only so we can go before the weekend crowds descend. Whenever we walk into the exposition building, Gump is like a little kid holding tightly onto his dollar-off-admission coupon. He always makes corny jokes to the person taking our tickets, and I usually try and act like we’re not a couple. Once we are through the turnstile, his eyes get big like saucers as he sees all the macho signs everywhere – you know things like ….Roofing…..Sheds/Barns and buildings…..Environmental Services…Fencing ……Tools…Insulation ….but his eyes really light up when he sees the things that are FREE! Crappy bags, cheap pens, a yard rule (always top of my list), stickers, brochures etc.etc. Gump eagerly grabs these items as though they were Sophia Loren’s breasts, and again, I pretend we are not a couple. Up and down the rows of vendors we go, the exact same vendors that are there every single year, the ones we never hire – although to hear Gump talk, you would think they are coming home in the truck with us to work on Debtwood. But it is interesting walking around the place, because it reminds me of being at the airport or the fair, there’s so much people watching potential! If I had a dollar for every man I saw in overalls I might be a wealthy woman….. I am always relieved and happy to spot someone who ….
- Has worse hair than me
- Is fatter than me
- Is wearing a worse outfit than mine
and thank goodness, I was not disappointed. We spent a few hours walking around the show, me wearing my knee brace and counting the moments until I could sit down, while noticing people who were sitting in small groups as they waited to watch some tacky man with a microphone expound on the amazing and wonderous reasons to pay too much for a set of cookware you can buy on Amazon for half the price…..why would they subject themselves to all that baloney I pondered….and then my knee twinged and I realized I had just answered said question…..
Finally, after Gump had made a new best friend with the lady at the OSU agricultural booth and I had exhausted my annual need to stare with disgust at the living samples of revolting and yucky insects, Gump announced it was time to leave – HOORAY!- only 51 more weeks to the next one!
This week at the gym, I made an appointment with one of the experts to give me a guided tour of all the gym equipment so that I could start using the machines as well as taking my aerobic classes. I arrived at the appointed time with barely a minute to spare as I had shaved my legs in case the ‘coach’ was male……good job I did because he was. His name was Brandon, and he was about twelve years old and just giving him a glance I would say he weighed approximately the same as my gym bag……great…..Young Brandon went over my stats (that was embarassing) and listened patiently while I told him all the things I needed to work on to improve my body. I guess my list must have been unusually long, because every few seconds I noticed his eyes glazing over as they stared over my right shoulder. Poor guy had probably drawn the short straw by getting moi – oh well, tough doody – he could just get over it, the skinny brat. So, after about thirty minutes of mind-numbing information about pecs, glutes, and fat, I wobbled back out to the parking lot and went home feeling like a big blob of goo. I reminded myself that this was only my third week at the gym, that I needed to be realistic…after all, it took five minutes for me to gain this thirty+ pounds, surely I did not expect to lose it in a mere two weeks? Hell yes I did! I thought just parking at the gym counted for something?
Drumroll…….And now here it is….. Friday weigh-in day this morning – I have been fairly good with my food, but exemplary with my gym attendance…..I took a deep breath, got on the scales………I have gained ANOTHER pound…..really? Are you kidding me? Has air become fattening? Two weeks of working out and two extra pounds…bloody hell!
So here is my new pledge readers…..screw the damn scales…they are going in the back of the cupboard….I am not looking at them for another month! I cannot take the disappointment of seeing those ugly numbers, I find it very de-motivating! We’ll see what they say in a month – they may end up being thrown out the window of a speeding car.
Right – now to bidness………..
redbusllc.com is a new adventure for me. I have many things I want to do with this site – and several of them involve all of you! I think of my friends and readers as a Village, and that my site is a place for all the people in the village to meet – that might sound cheesy, but I really do think that. With that in mind I am going to add a few new pages over the next weeks. The first new page is going to be a ‘corner shop’…..but a different kind of a shop. I have long been frustrated with trying to ‘get rid’ of some items that I own. Items that are just too good/costly to donate to charity, but not fancy enough to place at an expensive consignment store who might charge 40% commission for the pleasure. I’m talking about things like the Fossil purse you used once and wished you hadn’t bought, the dishes you never liked, the perfume you were given and never opened because it’s not your scent, or earrings that looked good in the store but you never wear. I am devising a way to get rid of those items on this site and I’ll be posting some pictures of goods for sale along with prices. To start with, these will all be things that I personally am selling. Most of you readers live locally, so if anything is purchased from the corner shop, I can deliver these items as it would be local and would save wasting money on postage etc. Payment would be made upon delivery. Obviously things could be mailed for those farther away.
Now, this is where you come in…..I would like to offer you all a spot at the corner shop, so you too can get rid of unwanted items. There would be some guidlines to follow in order to do this.
1. You would send me a picture of your item(s) and the price you are asking, along with your contact info- this could be an email/phone – or purchaser could email the website and I could hook them up with you, or you could use your FB messenger account to keep it private.
2. I thought long and hard about this part……I would require $1.00 per item that you place in the corner shop, which would contribute to my time being the administrator and also help towards the cost and upkeep of running the website. If it is a flat $1.00, then it doesn’t involve percentages etc. and keeps things simple.
3. I would be the administrator, if anyone was interested in your item(s), they would deal directly with you, my part would be just placing the info on the website.
4. You would inform me when you sold an item, so that it could be removed for the site.
So, what do you all think? I will be doing this even if it is just me, but those of you that I have spoken with seem to think it’s a great idea. I will start adding my items this weekend.
I will also be launching other pages – here are a few of my ideas – please bear in mind the whole village concept – this is not a site with millions of people looking at it – this is a site for us, and anyone else we choose to invite.
Recipes page – for all to contribute….we can share/swap special recipes
Referral Page – for companies/individuals we hire…..it encourages them to do a good job when you tell them you are going to post their info and share if they do good work.
Book Reviews – Tell us about a book you just read and why you like it – maybe even do book swaps?
Job Openings…hey, you never know….
Travel Ideas – Where can you recommend specifically? Hotels? B&B’s?
And other ideas are in the pipeline – I want to use this site in many ways – obviously I want you all as my captive audience to read my blog and walk along with me down my road to hopeful literary success…. but I also want it to be a site that you can visit for other things, but all in the name of unity and friendship, not greed and rip-offs. Look, you guys all know me – I have always loved to be a facilitator and bring people together, it’s one of the few things I am good at…..so this is just a digital gathering for a group of women (and men) who like to feel a part of something, that we belong in the same village.
So, mull it over and see what you think…..the site will be around no matter what, and I will keep writing my blog every Friday – I will have the corner shop up and running by next weekend, and also my photos will be priced for those who have asked.
Have an amazing weekend all of you!
Jude