Penn 4

  I've been spending a lot of weekends down at the cabin, especially now that I have the Gator to roam around back in the woods. 
  A few weeks ago I got out fairly early to take a few pictures of the "Crazyman's (Hunting) Lodge", the fields and got a couple of pictures of Karly as she rolled in the grass and gave herself a bath in the creek after wandering into the path of a skunk.  She was lucky that she barely got sprayed.  I was able to clean her up pretty well when we got back to the cabin.

Greetings to all,
  It's been awhile since I've been on here.  Hope I can write something that will be of interest to some of you folks out there.
  Back in June, I broke down and bought a "Gator" to ride around the woods and hard to get to places on the farm.  Each year at the KY State Fair, they get new Gators to use for the Fair, then they are sent to the John Deere Dealers to sell.  I went over to Shelbyville, to check on the 2012 models used last year.  Most had about 250-500 hours used on them.  However, I found one with only 48 hours , so I bought that sucker!
Being the cheapskate that I am, it pained me to write that check for $5600.  But, what the hell....I wanted it, so why not?
  For Christmas last year, Kim bought me a little camper stove/oven that works with the little propane bottles.  Since I got it, I now do all my cooking inside.  I still have the stove out on the porch to use if I need the use of a full size oven. 
  The pictures included with this post shows the oven and also some of my fried chicken and fried shrimp.  And yep,......I do use lard!

  I hated to do it, but, I had to get rid of Cooper, my male 5 year old dog.  He was the one that was the escape artist, and got to being almost vicious around any dogs other than his sister , Carly.
  Well, he finally tore into her and left some bite marks on her face.
  I hated like hell to do it, and cried like a baby after I did it, but, I had to turn him into the Humane Society to hopefully find him a new home.  That was back in December, and it still bothers me that I had to do that.  But, I just could no longer take a chance with him getting loose again and attacking a neighbors dog or maybe even attacking someone trying to break up a dog fight.
  We went up to Cincinnati back in June for my sister-in-law's 50th Birthday Party.  (For Lisa, Kim's sister.)
Mother-in-law tried to be friendly and act as though nothing was wrong.  However, it was very evident from the way "most of the family" acted pretty distant toward Kim and I.... that the old bat had told them all how badly we treat them. 
  I tried to be friendly when I first got there, but, had only sat down for about 2 minutes when SHE (Mother-in-law) started off on one of her long winded, blow by blow stories that is about only 1/2 true.  I caught her in two lies in the first 30 seconds.  I couldn't stand it, so had to make an emergency restroom visit.....and totally forgot to return for the finishing of her story. Was able to stay clear of her, but most of the family were very distant to both Kim and I.  Marisa and Justin were lucky that they had to work and couldn't make the trip.
  We ended up "visiting" for about 4 hours..... and decided on our escape back to God's Country that that would probably be our last visit to see her extended family (cousins).

  I am hoping to get started again on writing stories again for publication in the Kentucky Explorer Magazine. I have about three that just need editing.  Maybe I'll do that this weekend.  I finally got "Word " put back on Marisa's old laptop, so I can use it down at the cabin to rewrite some of the stories.
  Problem with writing at the cabin is....when I get down there, I just get lazy as hell, and want to only lounge around and read my Kindle, watch NetFlix movies or take a NAP.

New Laptop...of sorts

 Greetings and Salutations,
  Last weekend, the better half, had yet another "basement sale".... ( after swearing about 4 years ago that she would NEVER do it again).
  I was able to scarf off a nice padded rocking chair, great little wooden table, and a strong set of monoculars to take down to the cabin.  I offered to pay for them, but was turned down.  She had a nice collection of stuff that she had tired of, or replaced with newer stuff when she gets into her "remodeling crazes".  Also, a couple of our residential customers donated some nice stuff that they were tired of.  Both of these customers are millionaires, so the stuff was top of the line and practically new.
  I used to take the "leftovers from garage sales" up to a friend in Eastern Kentucky so his wife could sell the stuff in her garage sales.  However, it would cost me about $50 in gas to continue this, and he would not come down off the mountain to pick the stuff up....so, Goodwill received two pickup truck loads.
  As a result from the proceeds (about $350), she has put in a special little fund to purchase a 46-50 inch flat screen TV for the family room.  That is the next phase of her "remodeling".

  We had two laptop computers (belonged to daughter and husband in college) that she wanted to sell.  So, she took them to our computer guy to have all the personal info stripped out.  As it turned out, Justin's laptop had a bad monitor that would barely light up.... so it was a waste of money to even take it in.  Marisa's laptop is a Dell, and in great shape.  After, the work was done on both laptops....we got a bill for $135.  As a result, I sold Justin's laptop for $10 and kept Marisa's laptop for myself.
  I have plans for taking it down to the cabin and using it to start writing articles again for the "Kentucky Explorer Magazine"

  Our Cleaning Business has remained pretty steady through this recession.  We have lost a couple big customers due to the economic downturn, but, was able to fairly quickly replace them.  Now, one of the big ones has called us back to restart around Nov 1.  It was a Church that decided to utilize their "volunteers" to save money.  They forgot that 14 years ago they got us to come in and take over the job from their "volunteers" that started off with about 20 and quickly dwindled down to only 2 or 3 on a regular basis.
  I wanted to jack up the price by about 25% (since we never raised their rate in the 14 years we had them), but, Kim talked me into just taking them back at the old rate.

  Went down to the cabin this last weekend, without the dogs, so I could just relax and not having to keep popping up to check on them.  Got to catch up on my reading, NetFlix movies, and "home cooking" of sorts.
Kim is on a diet, so she doesn't care much for me cooking at home which tempts her too much.  So, at the cabin I was able to fix fried chicken, fried pork chops, and fried mushrooms.  and yep....I used LARD...and yes, they were delicious!  I packed up most of it in ziplock bags and brought it home to munch on this week.
  Kim didn't feel like cooking the veggies on Sunday, so, today at lunch we went to Cracker Barrel and ordered some extra vegetables to warm up the rest of the week.

  Fall colors are starting to pop out here in Central Kentucky....hopefully next weekend it will be nice enough so I can break out the camera and hit the backroads.

http://youtu.be/q5f7MXkA-JU


Here's a little clip of the kids partying.

Wedding....Drama...etc...

The feud between my wife and my in-laws continues.  There was a "surprise 75th B'day Party" for Kim's mom back in January that neither us or Marisa was invited to.  Marisa had tried to call them three times back  around X-Mas, and they would not answer the phone, nor return her calls.  So....she took her Daddy's outlook of .... "Tough for them...I'm moving on!"  And, they made no effort after that to contact any of us.
  Wedding Invitations went out April 1 with May 2 RSVP date.  Only one person from Kim's family in  Cincy replied back by May 2.
  I suggested to Marisa that she make one last attempt to contact them.  She didn't want to at first, but, followed up anyway around May 9th. 
  They stated , " You need to come up to Cincinnati to straighten out this misunderstanding"!  Marisa told them that with her and Justin's work schedule and all the wedding prep there would be no way.  She advised that if they needed to straighten out anything, they'd have to come to Louisville.
  So, they drove down to Louisville on May 14 (two weeks before the wedding) and "straightened out the misunderstanding".  I never did hear what all ensued in the conversation...and don't care.  I did hear that Grandmother put on her big fake act and said to Justin "...about how sorry she was that all this interfered with the family getting to know him better".   He made no reply...just stared at her.  Just before they were to leave, she asked Justin if "other people down here knew about the misunderstanding".  He told her "Yes.  She then had to ask who all knew about it.  He replied "EVERYBODY!"   The old bat was speechless.

  Then, as if upon cue, the invitation RSVPs started coming in from Kim's side of the family right after they returned to Cincinnati .  That week we received replies for about 15 folks from Cincy.

  Well, they showed up at the wedding.... I was very cordial to them.... They made no effort at all to talk to Kim.   Her Dad did come over to Kim at the reception while she was talking to some other people.  He stuck out his chin for her to give him a little peck on the cheek, then walked away before she could break away from the other folks.

........................................................ OTHER STUFF .....................................................................

  The night before the wedding, the girls were practicing their big "Dance", when Marisa jammed and broke one of her toes!
  There was concern about being able to wear her heels with the swollen toe....but, just about all the bridesmaids were nurses, so they just bandaged her up and told her to deal with it!.   Which she did!

  One of the groomsmen got a little liquored up that same night, and some girl yelled for him to give her a piggyback ride.  He leaned forward and reached back to grab her legs as she ran and jumped on his back.  Gravity kicked in and he landed face first on the sidewalk, which left a bad concrete skid mark across his face.
  However, he was fixed up nicely the next morning by the women there to do the girls make-up.  Even up close, you could not see the burn mark!

  The Wedding was beautiful!

  They left for a Honeymoon in Hawaii early Tuesday morning.  However, their United Airlines flight was "delayed" because 1 of 3 special wheelchairs was missing from the plane.  There were none in Louisville, so they had to drive one down from Indianapolis.  When it was delivered, it was still in it's packing crate.....and there was no-one in Louisville that was "certified" to put it together.  So, the flight was cancelled.  They would have missed their connection in Chicago anyway.  
  They did get off fine Wednesday morning and lost out on one day in Hawaii.  Haven't heard on what United is offering for their loss.

  Kim's Family

 My Family

 Makeup Artist at work

He's Baaaack!

Greetings to all,
  Well, it's been awhile since I've been on here....and what kind of "Welcome Back" do I get?  The *&#$ folks at Blogger done went and changed things around so that I have no idea as to how to blog now.
  However, I'm going to try and mutter through it.

Memorial Day Weekend, the VARMIT (my daughter) got married in Louisville.

The top picture is of Kim (my wife) and the groom.  #2 was Marisa getting ready .  #3 was a good shot of the happy couple.
  The photographer and assistant did a fabulous job....and took 650 pictures.  

  I'll get back later with some more pictures and story about what all happened that week.