The Crying Lumberjack

Well, HAPPY Thursday night everyone!

I WAS going to make a video for you today, but there was waaaaaaaay too much going on here.  This has been the CRAZIEST week.

I actually made the tree-cutter-downer man CRY!

Jerry hired the guy to do some work in our very woodsy yard.  It is really hard to get anyone to do that kind of work here.  The people we have had in the past have disappeared from the planet, evidently, because none of the phone numbers we have for them work.

Jerry found this guy on Home Adviser, I think.  He had really good reviews.

We all know from experience; however, some of these people must have lots of family and friends who owe them huge debts write the reviews, because it usually turns out that the opposite is what actually happens when you hire them.

OH!, do I ever have the stories of bad service in my history.  You may remember the contractor we hired who PASSED OUT on the garage floor.  He was drunk!  I got down on my knees and shook his shoulder to wake him up.

He woke up and looked at me and said, "Oh NO!  Am I at work!!!!?"

Well, actually, NO, you were sleeping!!!

So anyway, Jerry hired this guy to cut the little sucker branches off the sides of all our trees, and to grind down several stumps, and to cut down three trees, and to spray all the trees for the nasty web worms that have strangled so many of our pretty tree branches.

The guy was SUPPOSED to show up LAST week.  He never did.  He wasn't able to get here until Monday, this week.  Problem with that is, Jerry left town for the entire week on Monday.  That means I was alone here to tend with the guy.

Here is what the deal was.  He was suppose to arrive WITH HELP Monday morning.  The entire job was to take a day and a half.

Guess what time he showed up Monday morning?????  Never mind, you'll never get it right, because it wasn't even in the morning.  It was 5:00 that evening!!!!  He worked until dark when he announced he would be back EARLY the next morning WITH help and he would be done by noon.

I still haven't figured out how he thought he would be DONE by noon when he didn't even show up until 1:00!  He did call that morning to say he had to pick his help up.  Dorine, Mom's sitter, decided he must have gone to Kansas for them.  He returned much later with a teenager and some other guy.

I decided to call Jerry to complain about the lack of work being done, and ask him what we were paying these people.  Jerry said it was $3,000!  After I fainted and recovered, I went out to investigate.  The tree man was just sitting in his truck.  I walked up to the window and asked if I could talk to him.

He rolled down his window.  I introduced myself and asked if I could talk to him.  He got out of his truck.

I probably could have said this a little differently, but it made sense at the time.  I said, "Exactly WHAT are we paying you $3,000 for?!"

He was immediately upset.  He said, "Look at my phone.  The bid I gave your husband is on my phone."  I told him I didn't care to look at his phone.  I wanted to know WHAT he was supposed to do.  He named a few things.  I asked if he was going to do some other things I wanted done.  He said he WAS NOT!  He said he was only going to do the back yard -- not the front yard or the side yards. I thought that was weird.  A home has a front, back and two side yards.  I asked if he was going to spray the trees by the barn.  He said that was NOT included. I asked if he was going to grind the stumps of the trees he just cut down.  He said that was NOT included.

I sure was not seeing a $3,000 bill by any stretch of my imagination!

So THEN I made him cry.

This is what I said:  "If you don't do what we hired you to do, I will not pay you."

The guy started sobbing!  He walked to the back of his truck that had a huge dump truck type trailer behind it, and he started pulling things out and tossing them.  He said, "I AM LEAVING AND I WON'T EVEN CHARGE YOU FOR ALL THE WORK I HAVE DONE!"

You all know I am taking care of my 89-year old Mom who has dementia.  Whenever ANYTHING is out of the ordinary or different in the daily routine, she gets upset and has to be very involved and asks dozens of questions.  She kept coming outside to WATCH.  I had to keep sending her back into the house so she didn't get hit by a falling tree branch or sprayed with poison.  The three cats have been locked in the garage the ENTIRE week because of the spray that never got put on until late last night and this morning.

Frustrating week to say the least.

The saga goes on and on and on.  First, the guy's "help" got fired.  Then new help was hired but had to drive up from south of Dallas.  Took them about four hours to get here.  They actually were very good though.  Today, one of their trucks got stuck in the ditch.  The other truck wouldn't start.  The machine that was supposed to spray all the bugs in the trees was broken, and the guy worked over two hours on it.  Mom kept asking me what he was doing out there.  They were here after dark two nights.  I didn't know if they were going to pitch a tent or what.

I did pay the guy this afternoon, and he and his crew are gone.  Mom has finally stopped asking me if she can go outside to watch them.  They did end up doing a good job, and I am pleased.  What a shame the boss couldn't get his act together or even tell me when he would be here. He did apologize a bunch of times.  And he did quit crying.  (-;

I have to get to sleep.  EXCITING day tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Hugs, Joy

Continuing Adventures with Mom

It is Saturday night.  Jerry is upstairs watching football.  I tried sitting with him, but he kept ignoring my questions -- even when I asked the same one three times -- so I came downstairs to talk to you.  I can, at least, PRETEND that you are listening to what I say.

My Mother shocked us last night.  She was SUPPOSED to be asleep as it was 10:30 at night.  Jerry and I were in bed falling asleep.  All of a sudden, all the lights went on in the kitchen, and they startled us shining into our doorway.  I knew right away it had to be Mom, and I heard her fiddling around with something in the drawers.

I could not imagine WHAT she would be doing in the kitchen drawers at 10:30 at night.  I quickly got out of bed and went into the kitchen.

Thank God I did!

I could not believe my eyes.

I purchased two shower caps for Mom when we were in Edmond last week.  Since she can now take her own shower, she requested a shower cap.  Having two homes, I bought her two.  Mom woke up WORRIED about the shower cap being ready for her shower the next morning, and she went in her bathroom to find it.  It was still in the UNopened plastic package.  The package was small -- maybe 3" by 4".

When I walked in the kitchen, Mom was standing in front of the open knife drawer.  She was holding a very long serrated bread carving knife in one hand and the shower cap package in the other.

I immediately rushed over and relieved her of the knife!

She informed me that she HAD to open that bag and get the cap ready for her shower in the morning. I put the knife back in the drawer and got a pair of scissors.  After opening the shower cap, I asked her to please go back to bed.

She did great today.  We put the shower doors back on her shower and put a nice bath bench with a back inside it.  She was very happy to be able to take a shower all by herself in her brand new shower cap.  Purple, of course!

I finished a pretty bracelet and started on another one today.  I got the second one about half-way done and decided it wasn't perfect enough.  I cut it all apart and started over.  Will show them both to you when I get matching earrings made.

PLEASE keep agreeing with me, my friends, that Hurricane Irma will cease and desist its threatening winds and waves and go back out to sea.

Time for bed here.

Be back soon.

Hugs, Joy

Back Home with Pictures from Embroidery Class

Hey Everyone!

If you want to see me the day after I gave birth to my only child, go on over to her new BLOG.  It is really fun.  She shows you her amazing Golden Doodles in today's post.

Tammy is really excited about my readers checking out her BLOG.  I know a lot of you knit, so you will enjoy her beautiful knitted creations.

Here is a link:

Tammy's Knitting BLOG

I did some videos the last few days.  If you haven't seen them -- and you want to -- here they are:

As you will see in the following pictures, Phylly and I always laugh ourselves silly when we get together.  Neither one of us cared much about the flower or the butterfly.  We were there to see the latest Embroidery Machine called Destiny II.  When we found out it was nearly $17,000, we decided to just have fun and keep our money.

In the next pic, we were making the centers of the flower.  You had to stick a wire up into a straw. Then you had to burn tiny holes into your straw.  Then you dipped the pistols (?) into some Elmer's Glue in a plastic spoon, and you were to stick the glue-covered pistols into the holes you made.  Well, our holes were a mess.  They either sealed themselves up or they were big enough to put a toothpick into. 

We were cracking up laughing at how bad our stems looked, and I had to take a selfie.

I, at least, got the stamens (?) to stay on top of my straw.

Honestly, we were so bad, the teacher took pity on us.  Her Father was the demonstrator of flower assembly, and he came over and took MY straw and my petals away from me.  After all, it DID look better than Phylly's.  Phylly and I were sharing a machine, and we were actually making only one flower because we were too lazy to embroider flower #2.

So HERE is the teacher's Dad making my flower for me.  The idea was to make an entire bouquet.  I told "Dad" that I was going to need him to come home with me if he expected me to make any more.

He looked at me and said, "I will!"

Phylly and I had NO IDEA who this next character was other than he was wearing VERY short shorts and he had very hairy legs.

He evidently likes to be with the "fun girls" so he kept coming over to get in our pictures.  He was a hoot.  Followed us out when we left.  I thought maybe he was coming home with me too, lol.

AND, in case someone is wondering, I did ask permission to take the pictures, and I announced to them all that I would be putting these on my BLOG.  Nobody cared.

This is a picture of Phylly realizing that I had just trimmed my pieces RIGHT ONTO HER LAP!  I cracked up laughing as I didn't even realize that I was doing that.

And if you saw the videos above, you have already seen our beautiful creations.  Here, Phylly is modeling the Angel Butterfly.

We decided that a SIX-winged butterfly must have angel wings.

If you are reading this in real time, and you are a Bible believer, like me, PLEASE continue to pray with me for Florida and command Hurricane Irma to cease and desist and go back out to sea!  (Mark 11:23-24  SPEAK to the mountain...)  In this case, the "mountain" is a hurricane.  I've been doing it all day.

Good night my friends.

Hugs, Joy

Great News! My Daughter's Blog is Ready!

I am SO PROUD of my daughter.

I don't know if I've told you, but she is really, really smart and is a fabulous knitter.  She TRIED and TRIED to teach me, and I just could NOT get the hang of the sport.  She picked it up instantly.

Have a great time meeting her.

HERE is a link to her new blog:       Tammy's BLOG

I'll be back soon with a new video.  Time for church.

Hugs, Joy