Trip to Wolf Lake

:) Hello I'm glad to be back in town again... although I really would not have minded staying a little longer. Hey, but I can get cell phone reception now!!! :)

On Wednesday, we (Consie, Howard, the four children, Vanessa, and I) left SC with a car loaded down with food (and very, very yummy food at that!).

Sunday we returned... :) Here are some pictures from our little trip I hope you will enjoy.

We stayed in a very nice huge house on Wolf Lake in NC. The weather was awesome the high was 68, at night it dropped to about 45... :) and best of all the water felt absolutely wonderful!!!

The room I stayed in

:) I had a room inside of the house all to myself (+ Charity for a couple of nights.) It was a great place to curl up and read in the late mornings... :) I don't think I woke up before 8 once while we were there. It was nice for a change.

Howard reading

The house had a great view off the back porch. Which was also a good place for reading, thinking, working on sudoku puzzles, :0) or just doing nothing.

Just in case you might have wanted to know here is a random fact... I really like porches!!!

The Weather really was about prefect.

On Saturday we spent a good bit of time on the pontoon boat just having fun.

:) I love look on Ryan's face.

I was in the tube and the kids were watching from the back of the boat.

The guys stopped to swim for a little bit. Then they drifted the boat over where some trees had fallen into the water and went about fishing.

Here is the fish Vanessa caught.

The lake was really clear and you could see the fish swimming around toward the bottom. There were some really big ones down there.

After getting wet I was a little chilly and Vanessa very sweetly let me wear her dry shirt. While they were fishing I found a comfortable place and continued reading my book (Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen)... with a couple interruptions consisting of a little boy, tree branches, and Caroline with a camera. It was a lot of fun!!!

:0) And of course, before we left we had to have some family pictures taken.

:) Thank you Consie!!!

So, after hearing about my trip would you like to go???

~Tuesday, May 6th~

:) This morning was fun. Ashley and I had our monthly cup of coffee.
(Have I told you anything about Ashley Tyndall Stafford? She is my best Friend. :o) I'll tell you more about her later.)
About once a month I meet up with Ashley at her parents house to have coffee with her and her dad. Poor guy he has 5 daughters... :) He did gain two son-in-laws last year though!!! :) I really enjoy get togethers.
It all started about two and a half years ago when Ashley and I were both working at GBS Lumber (and she was not married). Instead of us both driving there we would meet at her house and ride together. :) And of course have a cup of coffee with her dad before leaving. Time moved on and we no longer meet at the Tyndall's house in the mornings, thus no talking while dunking ginger snaps in the living room with her father. :) Then Ashley started helping her mom with some of the cleaning once about every other week. (Don't ever have her dust your house unless you are willing to do it again after she leaves. :) She gets in a hurry and misses stuff. :o) love you Ashley!!!) We got to talking one day about missing those morning get togethers with her dad and decided to make a point of getting together there once a month when she was going to be cleaning for coffee.
Here is a picture of Mr. Tyndall when he had stopped by UPS to mail a package to his brother. :) It was nice of him to send his brother a gift but...

he had just gotten out of the hospital and it was a brotherly prank. :)

Doing a post at work is a good bit of fun. I just spent about 25 to 30 min. trying to get this guys picture taken. We had to get him to open his eyes long enough to take a picture. He did not cry once during the three times his mother had to wake him up. He is six week old and ten pounds.

Because this is the first time we have done one for a baby this little and I was the one who did it... I was just dubbed "The Baby Picture Taking Expert" by Sam. :) It's easy to become a expert here all you have to do is something no one else has done and do it well and Viola! you are the expert. :)

The first day of May :)

:) Today is Thursday May the first... This means our fearless leader Josh (as Sam lovingly calls the store owner) was in to pay bills and print out our house account holders monthly bills.

Here he is hard at work. When he is here doing this my job gets a lot harder. I get to keep the customers as far away as I possibly can.

Normally there is something like this you can see floating around above his head.

Oh but this morning to my delight he was quite pleasant to be around. He even laughed a little and let me take a picture (and he SMILED!!!). He does not like having his picture taken. :)

Recently the store has been rather slow in the mornings. Last week I started been bringing in my cross stitching so I'll have something to do. People see it on my chair and find it hard to believe that a young person knows how to and enjoys doing it. :) Here is what I'm working on.

This is what the pattern looks like.

I love watching it start to take form. Don't know why but it is a quite relaxing past time... even the undoing after miss counting part. Hmmm have I gone crazy???

Making business cards

Last year as a gift the UPS Stores were given Microsoft Publisher 2007.

:) More toys to play with!!! I love coming up with things to make and rearranging old stuff with it. Anna and I have lots of fun. Sam saw how much we enjoy working with it and thus when business card, fliers, and that sort of thing are needed he passes the jobs on to Anna and me. :)

Last week a woman came in with a CD that had her Business card on it. (It makes it a whole lot easier if they all ready have it and know what they want. Then you are not having to try to read their mind.) But she felt it looked to cluttered and was wondering if we could clean it up some. She did not know what needed to be changed.

(Her card to start with)

(After we played with it.)

It was really easy getting it where she was happy with it. All I had to do was make the paw prints smaller. It made a really big difference. :)

We'll do 500 B/W one sided cards for $25.00. About $17.00 of that is for the paper and printing. The other $8.00 is for the cutting.

:) This is a business card cutter. (It makes the job soooo much easier.)

Here is how it works...

First you cut it long ways.

Then you cut each of those again.

And just like that there is your card.

:) It works best if two people are working on it. One feeds the paper in and the other turns the wheel. If you are doing a good job working together there is always a paper in the tray.

One time about a year ago Anna and I were working on a cutting some for the first time. We had not been working here for very long. We were talking, laughing, and just having a good time. Then the bright idea came up that why don't we cut more then one paper at a time... after all it would make the job go twice as fast. :) It was working wonderfully for little bit. (Remember that if your doing it right you'll always have a paper in the feeder.)

After it was broken and the paper taken out we saw the little sign on the feed tray that reads 'STOP! CUT ONLY ONE SHEET'. Dear Sam took it home and fixed it on his weekend off. :( We were very sorry and have not done it again.

:) Then there is my favorite... The big paper cutter. It is lots of fun to use. (Exept for the little bit of time it was waiting for the part to come in after I had broke it.) I'll have to tell you about it latter.

Hope you are having a great day. I am :)