The latter part of May 2009, Richard and I packed up all our stuff and moved to south Georgia. I had been unable to find a job in Atlanta and money had run out. After Mama passed away in 2007, we decided that when we retired we wanted to get out of the big city, and live in a smaller town and be closer to my dad. This was our 2nd move in 6 months. Richard would move in with my stepfather in Atlanta and continue to work up there until he retired, and he would come home on the weekends.

We put our stuff in storage and moved what we could into my dad’s. Daddy’s 84 now, and while he does pretty well for someone that age, he has trouble getting around because of his legs. It was quite an adjustment for him since he had lived alone for over 20 years. There were times where I thought I had made a big mistake by moving in with him, but we managed to work it out.

Then in July, Daddy started looking at larger mobile homes. At first I thought he was looking for a larger one to give us more space, but found out that he was actually looking for me. He said there just wasn’t enough room, and deep down I know he missed his privacy. I told him I didn’t want him using his money for me, but when Daddy makes up his mind to do something, there’s no changing his mind.

After a couple of weeks, he found one that he and I really liked. It was a 3 bedroom doublewide that was in great condition on 1.2 acres of land and only 7 miles from him. He bought the property the first part of August, and I moved in. Daddy says no one can make us move now. Both Richard and I are so very grateful, and while I say never say never, we are never moving again.

It’s a lot less stressful living in the country than living in the city. I can look outside and actually see the stars at night because the sky isn’t lit up by city lights. There’s a lot more privacy. We can play our stereo as loud as we want when we’re watching a movie. We have room to expand. There are definite pluses to living here.

But there are some drawbacks. What I miss the most is the high speed internet. The closest town is Waycross. It’s 15 miles away, and it’s a small town. I can’t just hop in the car and be at the grocery store in 5 minutes. We have a Kroger, Walmart, Lowe’s, Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday and a few fast food restaurants. We even have a mall, but it’s very small and only has J.C. Penney’s, Belk’s, and Sears. No Chili’s, no Kohl’s, no Home Depot, no Great Clips. I have found a Chinese restaurant that I really like.

The town I live in now is so small that there is no traffic light. You actually pass right through it on the way to our home. Richard still works in Atlanta during the week and comes home on the weekend. I’m close enough to Daddy that I can be there in about 10 minutes. While I have a lot of family here, I really miss not being near my kids who both are still near Atlanta.

There’s plenty of room here for a garden and a water garden/pond. Richard’s got lots of plans and projects he wants to work on. Right now he’s working on building an outside shed to store our lawn equipment. Then he wants to start on a deck for the front.

Richard comes home every Friday afternoon and leaves Monday mornings. I really look forward to the time when he retires and moves down here permanently. I know he’ll be glad too.

So this city girl has gone country. I love living here. Life is good.

We celebrated Ayden’s first birthday this past Saturday. He and his mom have been members of a mom’s group ever since he was born, and most of the babies from that group were at the party. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room with that many babies all at one time for that length of time. I was amazed at how well all the little ones got along with each other. They were all so adorable.

Here are the pics that I took at the party.

Richard and I went down to my dad’s on February 6. Richard hadn’t seen the puppy dogs since we took them down in December, and I hadn’t seen my dad since my short visit after Christmas. Richard had a long weekend, and we planned on coming back Feb. 10. I decided to stay a few days longer, so Richard came on back home without me.

Daddy lives in the country, and there is no DSL or broadband available, so I was limited to a NetZero dial-up account. Just checking email and updating my checking account seemed to take forever to do compared to what I can accomplish in just a few seconds at home.

We went fishing just about every day. My aunt Ginger and Daddy both caught some really nice size bass, and that tickled them to no end. Except for one day when I caught a smaller bass and another good size fish, the only fish I caught were small bream. It didn’t matter though because I still enjoyed myself. I love just sitting by the pond and communing with nature.

I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with Daddy. He is getting so feeble though. He almost fell in the kitchen one day and almost fell while fishing. I worry about him falling and not being able to get to a phone to call for help. His golf cart was broken when we got there, and he is really lost without it. He just isn’t able to get around outside like he used to be. Luckily though the owner of the golf cart shop came out and fixed it on Wednesday.

Daddy can be cantankerous at times. Talk about a short fuse! It’s uncanny how much alike he and my son Travis can be at times with their temper. He still treats me like I’m a little girl, and he says I’ll always be his baby. I just wish he would give me a little credit. He acts like I don’t know how to do things and can be critical at times.

He did enjoy me cooking for him and doing some household stuff for him. He’s not used to having anyone to wait on him and try to take care of him.

I would have stayed longer with him if the timing had been better. Ayden turns one year old this week, and I am not about to miss his first birthday party.

Richard came back on Friday to get me. We decided to bring Cody back home with us. Richard said he had really missed him. Cody’s got an eye infection that I’m treating with antibiotic ointment, and it does seem to be getting better. So now we have both Chelsea and Cody with us. It was so cute last night to see both Cody and Chelsea in Richard’s lap while he was watching tv.

Good things happened overall this week.

My sister had the MRI on her liver on Monday and got the results back on Wednesday. The doctor wants to see her again in six months, so thankfully no surgery at this time. I think she’s done with doctors for a while.

I got my order of black-out curtains for the bedroom yesterday from JC Penney and got them hung. They’re a deep maroon color which is quite a bit darker than the original ones I bought from Walmart. The room is completely dark now at night, and Richard loves it.

The new upgrade to Thesis came out on Wednesday. I was so excited to try the new features. Only one problem. All I got was a blank page. When I checked the DIY forums, I realized a lot of other folks were having the same problem. I gave the author access to my site, and during the night he was able to isolate the problem and come up with a fix. It’s working just fine now. I really like the new version and highly recommend it.

Nothing new to report on the job front. I just hope I get some callbacks on the positions I’ve applied for.

My son and I have had several video calls this week so I can see Ayden. In fact, I think Ayden is getting used to seeing me in the evenings and looks forward to it himself. He’s always right there at the camera whenever we connect ready to babble and tell me about his day.

I just wish I could do the same with Kaylee and see her more often.

Once again I have been negligent in posting. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say; I’ve just been preoccupied.

I continue to tweak the blog design. I’m anxiously but patiently awaiting the newest upgrade to Thesis, which could be any day now.

Family remains my main focus. My son is still struggling with the fact his wife has left him and taken his daughter. His doctor has put him on Lamictal for bipolar disorder, but it will take some time to get him adjusted to it as the dosage is increased over a period of weeks. His wife has decided to move from her mom’s into low-income housing. It doesn’t look like she’s planning on coming back at all.

The younger of my two sisters is having health issues related to her liver. She’s had recurring pain now since before our mother died in October 2007. Last week she had a CT scan, and a mass was found on her liver. Today she had an MRI. Although the mass has not been completely diagnosed yet, it has been eluded that it may be a hemangioma, which is a benign non-cancerous tumor on the liver. I pray that’s what it is and not cancer. Even if it is a hemangioma, she is probably going to need surgery to remove the mass as it has evidently grown and is pressing on her other organs.

My other sister is also going through a rough time right now. She is bipolar and has hit bottom again. It’s evident her medication is not doing what it should and needs to be adjusted or changed. Her husband who is disabled has also been having a lot of pain for several weeks now and is not getting any better.

Ayden is getting over another ear infection, the 3rd one in 3 months. If he has another one, he will probably need to have tubes put in his ears. He’s better now, and I even got to watch him on the webcam Sunday morning for a couple of hours.

Kaylee has been sick with a virus and can’t keep any food down. I hate that she is not nearby where I can check on her.

The job search gets bleaker and bleaker. Fewer jobs in the admin field are available where a college degree is not mandatory. I’m beginning to wish I could go back to school and study web design in more detail.

Last week I spent a good bit of time putting up thermal black-out curtains. We have very large windows in each room, and they are not double paned. Even with blinds in the rooms, I could feel the cold air coming in and light coming in at night. I can already tell a difference in the room temperature; it’s cool not cold now, just like Richard and I like it. Richard is happier now that the bedroom is completely dark at night.

My faith remains strong. Things could be a whole lot worse, and I’m very thankful to God for His many blessings.

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a week since I posted. Quite a bit has happened, and I plan on doing separate posts to elaborate more.

My family has been my main focus this past week. Thank the Lord there’s been no more crisis. In fact, I was blessed to be able to have my granddaughter Kaylee stay with us a couple of days. I’ve also seen Ayden every night this week on the webcam. He loves babbling to me as much as I love hearing him babble.

I’m still indecisive on what I want to do with the blog. This past week I’ve made all kinds of design-type changes to it, but keep coming back to the full width header concept. While it doesn’t look like much has been done, I have learned a lot more about CSS, and that’s always a good thing. I’m a Thesis user and am anxiously awaiting the new upgrade to 1.4. I’ve tried other themes, but keep coming back to this one. Maybe it’s not the look that I want to change; maybe it’s the content. Either way, I feel like I’m at an impasse.

It’s been hard on me to focus on things that I should, one being the job search. I still don’t like the way my resume looks mainly because of the time gap between positions these past couple of years. I do search just about everyday, but most of what I have seen is from agencies. I remember responding to agency ads a lot last year and never got a response. There’s very little out there otherwise, although I did respond to a government posting yesterday. I found out the opening that I applied for at my husband’s company was filled by a former employee, so that rules that prospect out.

I still don’t like my hair either. I wish I hadn’t agree to layers in the back. Now I have to either wait for them to grow back out or get the sides shortened. Decisions…decisions.

I’m realizing while I’m writing this post that I’m getting in a funk again. Being here at home everyday is not good for me. I’ve always thought of myself as a loner, but I also know that the longer I’m by myself, the easier it is to withdraw. I need to get out, find something to do and be around other people.

Today was a very uneventful day. Not much going on at all.

Talked to Sister Dearest online this morning for a little while. She pointed out an error oddity on my blog site. It took awhile, but I finally figured out it was being caused by a plug-in I had activated. Deactivating it solved the problem.

Played around with the blog some more. I still can’t decide if I want to go with a “static” home page and a separate page for posts.

I didn’t even talk to Daddy until this evening, and I was the one that called him. Very unusual that he didn’t call this morning, but he said he was busy trying to ship the stereo back.

Talked to Tracy again on his way home from work. Ayden learned to say “uh oh” in context according to Emily. He dropped his pacifier and said “uh oh.”  There were witnesses to it too, so she didn’t imagine things.

Tonight was “clean out the refrigerator” night. I just wasn’t in the mood to cook, and there were plenty of leftovers in the frig.  Travis came over and took care of the leftover pasta and sausage. Richard rolled his own. I ate the rest of the peas and rice.

I was what I call a “lazy butt” today. Other than finding the problem with the blog, I didn’t accomplish anything at all. I don’t have many days like this, and it really seemed strange.

I didn’t sleep well the night before and figured out it was probably because I had drunk a lot of iced tea during the day before. It’s funny how I can drink coffee all day, but tea has a different effect on me. I’ve been told that tea has a lot more caffeine than coffee, so I limited myself to one glass of tea and then switched to club soda and lemon juice.

I went back to Great Clips and had my bangs shortened and some light layers added to the top and sides. Hopefully this will give my hair a little more lift in front.

I played around with the layout and color scheme of the blog on and off during the day, and kept going back to the former layout and colors.

Worked on the resume and job search.

Did the weekly laundry a couple of days earlier than usual.

Talked to both sisters today. I hadn’t talked to lil sis in over a week.

Talked to my stepdad. He’s slowly getting better, his appetite is still good, and the problems with swallowing his food seem to be improving.

Talked to my son Tracy on his way home from work. I love it when he calls me on his way home from work.

Talked to Daddy and helped him with a refund request on a stereo he had purchased.

Watched most of Oprah. The topic today was spirituality and again I could related to the topic. I’m glad I recorded it because I want to go back and watch the whole show.

Cooked a center slice of ham and veggies for dinner.

After dinner and cleaning up the kitchen, I was very tired, so I tried going to bed early. Wasn’t able to go to sleep because I had a stomach ache, so I decided to get up and work on the blog some more.

It’s amazing what you can accomplished when there is no outside interference. I followed the instructions again from Kristarella on creating full-width headers and footers, and got it to work this time. Changed up the colors to what I consider a little more soothing.

Overall a very productive day.

Today was a productive day. I started off the day going to the grocery store and stocking up on frozen veggies since they were on sale at Kroger. I love it when they have a 10 for $10 sale.

I made a big pot of succotash. I remember my grandmother used to make it and can it in quart size mason jars. Whenever I would come for a visit, she would let me go down into the basement and pick out a jar of it for her to cook for me. I hadn’t made any in years, but today I bought the ingredients needed and made a big pot. I made it a little bit differently from how I used to make it because I found a recipe online for a zesty succotash. I added some chili powder, garlic and onion and green peppers to the traditional goodies (corn, lima beans, okra and tomatoes), and it turned out quite well. I was wanting something healthy to eat, and this is very healthy. No meat, no fat, just veggies.

No naps today. Instead, I did some light housework, washed a load of white clothes, and tidied up the dining room. The table had become a catch all for stuff, but not anymore. I still have boxes of dishes to unpack and put in the china cabinet, but that’s a task for another day.

Talked to Daddy late this afternoon. He had gone to the VA in Florida for a checkup today, and I wanted to make sure he got home okay. I’ll admit I was getting worried about him because it was getting late in the day, and I hadn’t heard from him. Luckily he had someone go with him today so he didn’t have the task of doing all the driving himself.

Tonight I decided to try something new with the blog. I’m a Thesis user. I love the theme, and I have learned a lot since I’ve been using it. One of the forum members had found a way of turning the multi-media box into a widgetized area like the sidebars. I followed his instructions and then downloaded the NextGen Gallery plugin. Now the box contains a slideshow of my grandkids that changes every few seconds. I even finally figured out how to recolor the tabs in my nav bar like I wanted. I’m very pleased with those accomplishments.

So now I’m just putzing around some more with the blog, surfing the net, and also watching the History Channel. The topic tonight is “Stopping Armageddon” and how to possibly stop an asteroid from hitting the earth.

I started off the day by talking to Sister Dearest. Her oldest son starts college on the 7th, and she had taken him to get his books. She was shocked at how much books cost, even the used ones.

After talking to Sis, I decided to get a hair cut. The Hair Cuttery that I went to last time had gone out of business. Thankfully I found a Great Clips that’s even closer to home. Since I’ve been letting my hair grow out from my short short doo over a year ago, I was finally able to get my hair cut like I want it. The sides are now longer than the back, though not that much longer, but it’s a start. I’m not sure if I like the layers in the back of my hair, or the bangs that I had shortened, but at least they’ll grow out if I don’t.

I’m not one to watch Oprah on a daily basis, but I did watch yesterday’s show, even recorded it, and will probably watch today’s show. She was talking about her weight gain, how she got there, and what’s she’s doing now to get back on track.

I cooked Italian sausage and spaghetti for dinner. Richard enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t what I wanted. I think it was the cheese I put on top of it that didn’t taste quite right.

Since I didn’t sleep good the night before, I went on to bed early. I ended up watching the History Channel most of the night. The topic was Armageddon. I’ve always been interested in Revelations and the “end of days.” I must admit I fell asleep during some of it, but I did record it. The History Channel is talking about Armageddon all week, so I’m sure I’ll be tuning in.