Being home

Since I have been home for the past two weeks, I have been checking out different things.
One of them was this:

A fun time waster between laundry breaks...........Very cute!

Way up North..

I finally got my confirmation letter.  I had to fill out a ton of paperwork and there is still more when I get there.

I have accepted a summer position at a Ranger Station on the shore of Lake Superior.  It is a beautiful spot and a gate way to the Boundary Waters Canoe area.  We normally go that way when we have a trip scheduled, and the little town has the ranger station.  I will be living in housing in the "compound" and will be away from home for up to two weeks at a time.

Now you may wonder why I have done this:  Mid life crisis?  Boredom with the cities? A chance to change life up a bit?  The real reason is that I have been hunting for a full time job for sometime and there is nothing or no one that will accept a woman of my age.  Yes, I am over 55 and have worked part time for 5 years but the boredom of the job was forcing me to feel that I was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.  My mother had it, my grandmother and aunt also.  If I am going to get it in my late 60's, early 70's, I want to live a little.  And have a full time job that will help the kids pay off some student loans even if it is just for the summer.

My posting is only 2 1/2 hours away from our cabin.  I will get to see my husband often and still feel like I am having my adventure.  When the job first was offered, he told me to "go for it".  That part of Minnesota is one of his favorite places in the world.  It is beautiful and wild and we have spent many summer vacations paddling the wilderness and re-discovering what silence really is.  We have seen bear (some way too close for comfort), and moose, gone days without seeing another human being, and enjoyed catching lake trout and other fish.  I remember camping on the northern point of Alton Lake, catching bass off the shore, handing them to him and he filleted them and cooked them as soon as I handed the catch to him.  It was wonderful!  And although Alton is a tad too close to civilization for us, and we normally head out to the hinter regions, it was a memorable trip.  He will be coming up to visit too and I wonder if it will be to really see me, or spend time canoeing. (Just kidding, he will come to see Me!).

So, my official start date is May 1st.  I will be leaving on Monday the 29th to move up there.  I have no idea what to bring other than the standard things like clothing, soap, towels, etc.  And I am bringing my sewing machine for those off days.  Most of my work time will be over weekends and I will start out at 4 days a week.  I guess this gives the regular crew some time off on weekends to be with their families.  My kids are grown and independent so I hope I can help with the other staff having time off.

I do know that there is no TV reception, no Internet connection, and if I use the phone in the cabin, I will have to have a phone card for long distance.  I do have a cell phone but my contract is with Sprint and the best reception is with Verizon.  We will see.  I also will have to find a WiFi connection to continue with the blog, check email, and download books to my Kindle.

Wish me luck!  I have already picked out walking paths.  I need to get into better shape and it will be nice to just follow beautiful paths and be healthier.  I will have to cook for myself (if I had my way I would subsist on peanut butter sandwiches).

I will try to keep up the blog and let you know what is going on.  Those that know me have been told where I am and so if any of my dear ones get up that far, stop into the Ranger Station and say hello!

It is finally sunny outside.  The snow is mostly gone and we may have temperatures up into the 70's this weekend.  Finally!  Maybe winter has left Minnesota for the season.  It has been a long winter for us with snow even last week. (5-7 inches)  We have suffered enough and are very very anxious for spring to finally be here.

Ta!

A rainy day in the neighborhood

It is overcast again today.  I keep hoping for a sunny one so I can go pick up the branches the next door neighbor left on the yard.  Our yard, not theirs.  I can't understand why anyone would cut down half a tree, scrape the neighbor's house (just freshly painted last fall), leave all the branches and cuttings on the neighbor's yard, and just let everything sit there.  I wouldn't be so mad if they had just come and told us that they scraped the house with the huge falling limb they cut off. 

But then, if you saw their back yard, you would know they aren't really interested in gardening or having a nice area.  They are fairly new.  But in the not quite a year since they have been here, they have left a stove and a washer in their front yard for months, worked on cars in their front yard and left car parts strewn all over, build things in their back yard that they never finish, and generally lowered the look of the neighborhood considerably.   I would say something to them but my husband is a good guy and doesn't like to make trouble.

Speaking of the "good guy", some weeks ago, he came inside to tell me that the neighbor brothers were fighting in the front yard.  He asked if he should go do something.  I said "Of course!  What if they hurt each other?"  He and the young neighbor to our north side went across the street where
the local trouble spot is and made sure that they weren't having a slug fest.  It seems the younger brother who has mental issues and has been in and out of jail his whole life had been upset with the older, responsible, hard working  brother and had keyed the side of his car (which he had just had repainted due to an accident).  The older brother saw him out of the kitchen window and ran out and tackled him to find out why he had done it.  They were down on the front yard with one brother straddling the other.  No one threw any punches, it was just a damn it Bruce situation. 

Now, this family has had troubles.  The mother is on medication for a severe mental illness, the  father just died of a heart attack, and Bruce, the youngest, has a long list of drug abuse, criminal activities, and is generally rather weird and creepy.  Several times over the years, the family has wound up at my house due to his erratic and abusive actions.  He also went way off the deep end (not that he isn't always there) and stabbed himself 7 times in the stomach, almost severing a kidney.

This is not a bad neighborhood.  It is generally tidy, and quiet.  There are children living up and down the way.  People tend to work hard, pay their bills and keep up their yards.  But it seems to me that it is going rapidly down hill with Bruce across the street, and the messy neighbors next door.  We also have a foreclosed home mid block that has been vacant for some time.  That family fell apart after the mother (a nurse) was caught stealing and selling Oxycontin, and the father was jailed for stealing the
propane tanks under the warming house for the skating house at the park.

To get back to the story:
This morning I answered the door to a summons server.  My husband has been summoned to court to be a witness for the Plaintiff in the State's case against Bruce.  He is not one to get involved and was trying to help, but it has turned into more that he bargained for.  I am sure the young neighbor (neat, tidy people) will be served too which will make it hard as he is a school teacher in Buffalo, and that is quite a distance from here.

Having a family disturbance is one thing, but dragging your neighbors into it is another.  I am just tired of the whole situation over the years.  We have been good neighbors and tried to help, but the mother (even though there have been numerous restraining orders against Bruce) keeps letting him back in the house.  The other siblings have done what ever they could to take care of her, but they are so frustrated that I think this last court case is a sign of that.  They have done all they can for Bruce, but he goes back to the drugs and stops taking his medication.  What do you do in this case?  While I do feel for them, I want my neighborhood to stay quiet.  It seems police cars are in our street all the time!

Anyway, I will have to wait for the weather to clear so I can go heap up the downed limbs and twigs on my yard as I know the neighbors probably won't do anything.  Ever.  Maybe it is time to start looking for something else.  We have lived here for 26 years and it is getting worse.  It is sad.  We raised our children here, are part of the community, have a lovely garden and yard, but it has to change.  Maybe I should start some sort of neighborhood thing when I get back in September. 

I have a week before I go up north.  I am excited to be leaving, if only for a few months.

Rain, rain go away.......

New beginnings

I think I am ADHD because I don't do well with boredom.  Hence, the new job. The old one made me feel as if I had some sort of numbness of the brain (like my hands falling asleep) and I never felt as if I was totally awake.  So, as in this case, some times things (usually disgruntled feelings) would pop out at the oddest moments.  I admit that I did not always think before I spoke.  Perhaps a little of the odd family bits popping out from time to time.

I do thank those that listened though.  Even though I might not have made sense, you always listened and you were kind.

It was a lovely last day though.  Goodies and cards and gifts.  And the surprise lunch!  I know I had said I didn't want any party, but that was really sweet.

It is 4:55 a.m. and I have been kicked out of bed.  We are currently babysitting my daughter's dog who is a little needy right now.  With my dog and this one, well there isn't much room and I don't like waking up to toenails jabbed in my back and something cutting off the circulation in my feet.  I am twisted around like a pretzel and you just can't sleep like that!  So I am allowed some REM sleep and then its out! Tossed like bad lettuce in the compost heap.

It is also truly spring.  When I went outside to get my mail, I noticed my daffodils are coming up! They have come up for several years now.  My sister had sent me one of those blooming things in the mail that you water and they grow.  After they all bloomed one year, I poked them in the ground next to the front step and they have been coming up every spring since then.  Good sign!  Maybe we will finally see some warm weather and the snow will melt for good!

I am getting excited about the new job although I haven't received my formal welcome letter.  So I keep checking email and snail mail, but nothing yet.  And no one has contacted me regarding getting my fingerprints taken. Which seems strange as I had all that done in the military and being a government organization, you would think someone would have access to that.  But!  Mine is not to reason why.....

Enough for a first  posting.  Perhaps a little boring but I wonder how any one else would do at this time of the morning.

Yawn