Monday, December 12, 2011

Monday Morning (mourning)?

Good morning!
I shouldn't say mourning, except I was sort mourning the end of another weekend and not much crossed off my list of things to do. It's not like I didn't do anything, but my list is just seems so freaking long. So what did I get done....well, on Friday evening I went to a winter holiday parade in my small town. It's the one that I helped originate and organize. It was bittersweet to watch knowing that I helped start this tradition but that because of personal differences, I was no longer a part of it. Now I've talked about this parade before but for those who may be new, let me set the scene....Small town central MN. Temperature at a balmy 14 degrees, lighted and musical floats, princesses, and a wonderful fire department collecting Toys for Tots. We then decided to "warm up" with chili at the chili feed fund raiser and some ice cold Coors Lights. It was a fun night to spend with friends.

Saturday was a work day so not much accomplished except for driving all over town to find vanilla almond bark. Whew! That certainly was a struggle.

Sunday is one of my favorite activities of the season....baking with my friend. Except this year, we both were not feeling it. See here in Minnesota, when there is no snow, we have a hard time getting into the Christmas Spirit. There are parts of MN with snow, just not here in central MN. Now, I struggle with this because I'm driving 64 miles round trip to work and love that the roads are clear, but we are going to need some snow for Christmas. How about you? Are you in the Christmas spirit?

Here's what we made: Cut-outs, Oreo balls and dipped Oreos, and a candy that my mom used to make. She had gotten some other stuff done before I got there so I have to make some of those at home. This has to get done before long so I can mail it to my parents in Florida.

And that brings us to Monday morning (mourning)...I was just wishing that we could have to Sundays this week.

Enjoy your day and we will talk again soon!
Nelle

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Christmas lists and the New Year!

Hi everyone!

I hope that you are all in the middle of your Christmas to-do lists and activities. Each year I think I'm going to get so much done but it looks like that isn't going to happen like I'd like it to. I decided that I need to "scale back" in order to get anything accomplished. So here are my goals for Christmas this year: 1) mail cards only to friends and family that I don't see often. This way I'm not spending time sending to people I see regularly. I will also be able to include a letter if my list is not too long. 2) Bake...I love to bake but my time is short this year. I plan to bake just enough to mail as gifts or to give out to friends and family. 3) Stick to the shopping list. How about you? What does your list look like?

At the end of December, my temporary job will be ending. What started out as an eight week gig turned into 6 months. Let me just tell you that while I love my co-workers the 64 mile round trip is starting to wear on me. What's next? Well, I have been a part-time bartender at the same bar for almost 20 years. Recently the day manager quit and beginning January 2nd, I will become a full time bartender and will assume the duties as such. I'm very excited and hope that this is something that I will like on a full time basis. This past year has lead me down some paths that I never thought that I would travel. It was in that spirit that I thought I would give this a whirl. One definite perk...3 mile round trip.

Wish me luck. At least I'll have a lot of stories to blog about. Make sure that you enjoy, not stress over, all the Christmas activities. Hopefully, I'll have my New Year's Resolutions thought out soon and will share them.

Nelle

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

What in the world have I been up too....

Hello all,

Once again, I've been a slacker here in the blog world. Sorry.

In re-reading my last post I discovered what you all probably already knew....snore! How could I just ramble on about that crap? Going forward, I will try to be a little more uplifting.

So what have I been up to? Well, I am still working the temporary job assignment. It's been extending twice...now through the end of the year. It's in a town about 30 miles from me and the hours are from 6:00 am to 2:30 pm. I do like the work and the people. I don't however, look forward to the drive in the wintertime. The hours are a little tough because I need to get up at around 4 - 4:30 am. YUP! I said 4:00. When I bar tend one night a week, I get a little tired.

I have been busy working at the bar. Those of you who follow me may remember that I have been a bartender at a little home town bar for about 20 years. In fact, next year it will be 20 years. I am going to have to start filling you all in about the characters there. Some have become life long friends and some....well let's just say I have called the police on them. We have everybody from millionaires to the homeless and everyone in between.

I also went to Vegas for my friend's 40th birthday. This trip was already planned prior to my getting laid off. It was fun...not fabulous. I think I expected more out of Vegas. I did see a couple of shows while I was there. Vegas the show and Peep Show. One was good and one was okay. I am not much of a gambler so I spent my money shopping. I almost got a tattoo but thought that I had some interviews coming up and decided that wouldn't look very professional. I should have gotten the tattoo because I never got the interviews. UGH!!!!

I also took a class on embroidery. It's a group of women that meet monthly at my favorite quilt shop. I'll post more on my project with some pictures later. Now I am discovering new embroidery blogs and I love them as much as the quilting and knitting ones. If only I was dog-ass tired when I get home maybe I would accomplish a little more.
I hope that you are still out there and let me know what's going on with you. I will try to be attentive.

ttyl

nelle (ellsworth)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Peyton Place and other random thoughts

Hello everyone!

For the one or two people that follow me (if there are that many), I apologize for the lack of participation over the last couple of months. I just felt that I didn't have much to say. In other words, I was licking my wounds from a couple of months of getting "kicked while I was down".

Here is, in a nut shell, what went down.

1. Laid off from my job of 23 years

2. The guy I was seeing broke up with me. (in truth, he was 19 years younger then me so I knew it had an expiration date...but still.

3. The job that I interviewed for and thought that I would get, I didn't. I was 2ND.

4. My water heater broke and flooded my basement for several days.

5. The guy that broke up with me came back to me and said that he made a mistake and could he call me only to text me the next day and tell me that his work was sending him out of state to work for two or more months.

I think that there was something else, but I can't remember. At any rate, I just couldn't take it anymore. I thought to myself, is it ever going to get better? Or actually, I just sat around and waited for the next shoe to drop. So a friend of mine suggested that I have my "cards" read. My tarot cards, that is. She had been saying this to me for months prior but I just brushed her off saying that that was a bunch of malarky. But after all of these things started weighing on me, I thought, what the hell it couldn't hurt. I just really wanted to know...is it ever going to get better? When will this cloud of gloom and doom lift off of me? So I made the appointment and I have to admit, I felt 100% better after seeing her. I won't go into details because it's not something I am ready to share yet, but all the cards were favorable and I felt that the sun shone a little brighter that day.

How has my life changed since then, well....(1) I have obtained a temporary job doing something completely different then I was before. Let's just say that I went from business casual to wearing steel toe shoes and carrying my lunch in a sack and I LOVE IT. Ok...my lunch "sack" is a brightly striped bag that if it was bedazzled a little could go almost anywhere. But what couldn't with a little bedazzling? (2) I have obtained a library card and have become obsessed with it, (3) I have discovered that I LOVE shopping at the Goodwill and have found many, many bargins there. More on that later. (3) I discovered or should I say rediscovered that I have the best friends and family in the world. They have been very supportive to me during all of this.

So on to the title of my post...Peyton Place. Since I am OBsessed (hear Rachael Zoe's voice here) with my library card, I have read book after book. I have ordered them online and waited with anticipation for each on to be ready for pick up. The Help, now that one took a while. I was 117 in queue for that. About every other day I would log in to see what number I was and zip....there it was. Now that book was AHmazzing. But what I got curious about was a book that was mentioned in The Help, the one-time banished book called Peyton Place. So I "rented" it from the library and I couldn't put it down. My version was actually a twofer. I got Peyton Place and Return to Peyton Place. I highly suggest reading both of these. There is one MAJOR flaw in the second book. They changed the name of the main characters. I would have to say that it was just a job of poor, very poor editing. So I say...check it out. It was very interesting to see what was so risque about it back in 1956. It also made me think about how things have changed and what we are used to seeing on a regular basis on the TV, internet, magazines, etc.

Next on my list is Fried Green Tomatoes. Which when you look it up at the library it is listed as having some gay issues. Don't really remember that from the movie. I'll read and report back to you.

Enjoy the fall...talk to you again soon.....

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Oh how life changes...

Hello everyone,
I know that it's been a while since my last post. Things have really been up heaved in my life. After almost 23 years at my job, I was laid off a couple of weeks ago. Never in my life have I been unemployed. While I kinda knew that it was coming, our company has been struggling for a while, it was still a shock to hear the words out loud. Now, I am not sure what to do. I haven't done anything since then. Clean, paint my spare room, drink beer, put my head in the sand. Today was the first day that I decided to really try to get "back into the world". I have some job leads that I'll be following up on. It's just that I really don't know which way to turn. Now that I have this "do over" in front of me. Do I stay in the same field or try something completely different? Do I take a job just to have a job? A couple of friends have suggested that I take the summer off to regroup and decide what I should do. Financially, I can't do that. Unemployment is certainly not what I thought it would be.
Other then that, there hasn't been much happening that is blog worthy.
The weather is getting nicer and I try to get out and walk. Perhaps I can use this time "off" to work off my fat ass?!
See I just don't have much to say. Hopefully, my frame of mind will be better soon.
For now...Nelle.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

One more thing...

There was one more thing that we did accomplish during "Craft Weekend", we designed a quilt top.

My guest room still looks like it was on the latest version of "Hoarders" but I've started to collect thoughts in my head. I would like to use red toile fabric. I absolutely LOVE red toile. Hope I spelled that correctly. It's a basement bedroom with a window. I would like to keep it bright and cherry. So to the Internet I went to find a red toile comforter or coverlet. There isn't really one that I like that I'm willing to pay for. So , we decided we could design a quilt top. Which we did, but neither my sister or I really love it. I would probably make the quilt using a different fabric but at this point, I got nothing.

Again, until later

What's been happening...

Hello all,
Here is what's going on...it's Thursday night and there is nothing and I repeat nothing on TV to watch. Currently I've got it on the Jersey Shore. It's embarrassing to admit, I know. I wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV but no...I can't believe these people are paid to be on TV and we treat them like celebrities.

Anyhoo...
What's really been going on is not really much of anything. Work and work.

Last weekend was Craft Weekend with my sister. This month I went to her apartment. It was fun but with a 5 year old and an almost 2 year old under foot, not much crafting was done. It was fun to be there with her and her family. I love hearing Auntie, Auntie, Auntie.

I cast on for a scarf for myself in this awesome pink yarn called James C. Brett Marble Chunky. I'm suing size 10 needles and cast on 50 stitches. Since the weekend, I've gotten about 14 rows...not a lot but it is taking shape.

Other things that I've finished is a "greeting card" book. As many of you know (ha ha...many of you is probably consists of 2) I love sending cards and I could probably open a small stationery store with all the cards and papers I have. The problem was is that I would put them all over the place and not know what I have in stock. So I had to come up with something. So I took a plain white 3 inch 3 ring binder, used scrap book paper to pretty it up and then used sheet protectors to divide the categories up. I'm pretty proud of it. I don't know why I didn't think about it sooner. And as soon as I finished it I was looking at a Better Homes and Garden (I think) and there on the beautifully colored pages was my card idea. I will post some pictures when the camera is charged.

Other then that not much fun stuff done.

Oh wait, I wrote 2 letters this week. That's part of my New Year's resolution.

So I guess I've done some things.

Well I got to go there kids on Jersey Shore are drunk again...this is really getting interesting. I have to concentrate on who is sleeping with who.

Until later...thanks for stopping by the Nook.

Friday, January 14, 2011

No! I'm not dead

Ever hear those news flashes that so and so was dead and then like 20 minutes later their rep comes on and says that they are in fact still alive and well. Well, I don't have a rep (I'm not a famous blogger or a famous anything), but here I am alive and well.

I know that it's been a while but I've been in a funk. And there was Christmas.

Since we've last spoken I've had a couple of things happen. One, at my main job, my hours were cut and my pay was reduced. 3 of us had our hours reduced and the entire company had their pay reduced. I know we should feel "lucky" because 5 people got laid off. And by laid off I mean that they are never to return to work at our company. So, trying to find a benefit in this, I worked out a schedule with one of the others and every other weekend I have a four day weekend. No, don't get me wrong, that doesn't suck, but..........

Well that was three months ago and here I sit. Money is starting to get a little tight. Not were me and the kitties will be living out of the car, but I'm starting to feel the pinch.

So let's talk about some possitive things.

As always at the beginning of the year, I make out my resolutions and right about this time of January I've already giving up. Well, hopefully, this year I can have a little more "stick with it" in me.

So I'll share some with you and perhaps that will make me "stick with it" better.

There is always the obvious: Lose weight. Now I have to admit, I'm really needing to do this, but on the other hand one of my other resolutions is to cook and bake more and try new recipes. So...deliemma.


Blog more, write more real letters, send birthday cards, organize my house, go to church on a regular basis, and knit on a regular basis.


Also, my sister has decided and I think it's a brillant idea that once a month we get together and craft. Each month we will switch location. This month she is coming here. I'm sure that we'll add some classes and maybe some shopping. But, while we talk all the time on the phone, we don't always see each often. So that's one to add to the list.


My "post college" roommate and I have decided that we need to get together once a month too. Once she got married they moved to Vegas. They have moved back but getting together was a priority. Now it is.


I at this time of year, I usually reflect on that despite the troubles in my life, I am truly blessed in many, many ways. I am surrounded by friends who I love like family. We always have great times and help each other through the tough times.

That and setting up my new calendars. That's my favorite thing to do. But that's another post.

As for the weather here in central MN...there is snow....lots of snow. I bought a snowblower last night off of Craigslist. I will be using it today or tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to use it. It's also cold here. It's supposed to get colder too.

I hope that all of you had a great fall and Christmas holiday. I also hope that your New Year is blessed.

Talk soon (this time I mean it)


Nelle!