Well my first month here did not turn out quite like I hoped. The house we rented was not ready when we got here like it was supposed to be. It was a filthy mess but I have to give the owner credit. When he found out that the guys he hired to clean it didn't do it he gave us our first month's rent free plus knocked off a $100 a month on our rent there after. Thanks to hubby's family I got plenty of help the clean the house before any of our stuff was moved in.
The second week I came down with a bad cold. I have not had one that bad since last winter. By the middle of the third week I was finally getting over my cold only to step into a fire ant hill and received about 40 bites from the ants. With in two days my legs were covered in little pus filled blisters and my cold was back with a vengeance. I was sicker this time then the week before. For 3 days straight I spent more time in bed then out of bed. My family was lucky if they got one cooked meal out of me a day and that I did the dishes.
It seems my cold must have finally broke some time during the night because this morning I woke up with a little bit of energy and got the boys up and made them work outside with me most of the day. Of course they wish I was still sick because I worked them hard. LOL
The people who lived here before us left 3 big junk piles and we have been slowly clearing them out. Today we tackled the worst one. It was piled high with rotted wood, broken glass, rusted tools, bits and pieces of metal and bricks. Bricks on top of bricks. We pulled out all the rotted wood and burned it. The broken glass and metal went into the trash, the tools were set aside to see if they can be cleaned up and used and the bricks were sorted out whole bricks from bits and pieces of bricks. After we got the pile all cleaned out and every thing sorted we found that we had enough bricks to make a second rocket stove so we did that.
It was a beautiful day out, not too hot and not to chilly so I decided to cook outside on the two rocket stoves. Hubby and son did not believe I could get fires going in them hot enough to deep fry chicken and home made french fries but Eric, my son's friend was game to give it a try and after we got the fires burning good he cooked the chicken while I did the french fries. Hubby and son marveled at the fact that we actually deep fried on the rocket stoves and they dug in with gusto and enjoyed the food. Those silly men when are they ever going to learn to tell me that I can't do something? They should know by now when I set my mind to something I do it come hell or high water. LOL
Oh and I almost forgot to tell you. Even though I was sick yesterday hubby and his cousin decided I needed to get my first shooting lesson. First lesson was how to load and unload a 22 handgun. Then they had me shoot at a tree that was as big around as a normal size man. I did pretty good on that. I made 5 out of 6 shots with the one about dead center of a person's head, two were and inch apart in the heart area and the other two were about an inch apart on the arm area. Then they had me shoot at a pop can.on a stick. I missed 9 out of 10 shots. Pete decided then to have me try his 45. I was worried about the kick back but there was very little, as for the bullet who knows where it went. LOL After that they tried me with the 22 rifle. Sorry to say that is not going to work. I could not see through the scope so I could not hit a thing.
Oh well at least I now know how to load and unload the handgun and I know I can hit something the size of a normal size man so I could defend myself it I have to. In the mean time I will keep practicing until I can hit that dang can every time. :) I want to make Annie Okaley proud of me. :)
Prepping Granny
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We left our home in Michigan at 6 am on the 15th of Aug and arrived at our new home in Mississippi at around 3:30 am on the 16th of Aug. To say that the move was accomplished with out errors or events would be a lie as we had a few problems. First off was the truck my husband rented. I kept telling him it would be to small to hold all the stuff with us but between him and his brother my thoughts were over ruled and pushed aside.
Loading day comes and hubby picks up the truck. Half way into the loading oh my. hubby realizes that the truck was much to small and so the scramble was on to rent another truck and tow bar for a car. Nope that is not happening. Hubby was smart and reserved the first truck before the height of the moving season so he locked in the price at half of it's normal rate. To rent a second truck was going to cost $1400 and we did not have that much so he rents a 12 ft trailer for me to tow behind the van. Now there was two things wrong with this idea. One was that I have never towed anything in my life before and was scared to death to tow the trailer. The second was he didn't ask me before renting it and I freaked out over the thought of driving with that trailer following behind me. I seen to many accidents involving those trailers and people losing control of them. After freaking out I calmed down and had to take a good hard look at what all I really wanted to take with me because there was no way all our stuff was going to fit even with the addition of the trailer. After going back and sorting through all the stuff we had left to load I finally made the choices I need to make and we got the trailer loaded with out an inch of space left to spare. By the time the truck, trailer, back of my van and our son's friend's car filled to over flowing it was 10 pm so we decided to lay down on the floor and sleep for a few hours before leaving out. Of course an old wore out woman like Once tme can not sleep on a bare hardwood floor like the young guys can so I sat up all night. At 4 am the guys all woke up, grabbed quick showers, caught the cat and got him in his kitty crate and we were off. First stop was the Shell station in our home town to fill up the van and the car. The truck was already filled with gas. The price of gas had jumped 15 cents over night and was now $3.89 a gallon. OUCH! While there we each grabbed a drink and a small package of donuts to eat. We would not be stopping again till lunch time. We made it to the state line when we had to stop. The straps holding hubby's lift chair on top of the Jimmy had come lose and the chair was starting to slide off the Jimmy. We got it strapped back on tight and ran the straps through the windows and ran the windows up tight to help keep the straps from coming undone. Then off we went again. About 15 miles down the road the straps holding the Jimmy on the towing trailer came off the wheels so we had to stop again and redo those. Off we went again and for awhile it looked like the rest of the trip would be uneventful. Yeah Right!!! After about two hours I suddenly heard a semi driver blowing his horn and coming up along side of me. I looked over at him and he was pointing up at the sky. I knew what he meant. He was letting me know that the beds were sliding off the top of the van so my son radioed my hubby and let him know what was going on and we pulled off the side of the road to get the beds back on to the van. Once the boys got the beds tied back on we started off again only to go about a mile when all of a sudden I heard a loud thumb. I look back in time to see the beds and something else landing on the side of the road. By then the traffic was so heavy I could not stop to go back to get them. When I told my son I swore I saw something else fall off with them he looked and me with a sheepish look on his face and told me that he and his friend and slid one of my folding chairs and one of my folding tv trays between the beds because there was no room in the trailer for them. So not only were the beds now lost but so was my folding chair and tv tray. Oh well at least them can be replaced pretty easy. We made it the rest of the way to Tenn and was about half way through it when hubby decided that we needed sleep so he pulled into some rest stop. By this time I was completely lost and just wanted to get to the new house but no he said he needed rest. I kept telling him there was no way I would be able to sleep when I was pushed into the steering wheel by all the stuff packed in to the back of the van. By this time it was 9 pm and I knew there was no way I would be getting any sleep so I sat there is that van until midnight when I finally had enough and woke him up and told him I was going on with out him and if I got lost it was all his fault since he did not write down the directions for me. I had been up since 4 am Thursday morning and here it was midnight Friday night and I was not in a good mood at all. I was dead tired, hot and cranky and could be. He know from the tone of my voice I had made up my mind and if he was not ready to go I was going to leave with out him. We finally made the last leg of the trip and was met by his cousin who showed up the way to the house since it was right down the road from him. The owner had left the house unlocked for us but the power was not on. At first we thought that the power company had not turned the power on then hubby's cousin remembered that they always have you turn off the breakers before they will turn the power on so he found the break box, flipped the breakers and low and behold we had power. That is when the sight that met my eyes was the last straw that broke the camel's back. The house was a filthy mess. I won't go into details but I will tell you I would rather have lived in the city dump then the house at that point. I was so heartbroken that I walked out and went to his cousins house and just sat for about an hour not talking to any one. I sat there just silently fuming. After and hour I decided to pull myself up by the boot straps go back the house and take it from a dump to a home so I had the boys unload all my cleaning supplies and equipment from the back of the van and I started cleaning. in the mean time hubby stayed at his cousins and made some phone calls. First he called his sister and let her know what was going on and she called in the army (her daughters) and they were here by 9am and helped my clean the house from top to bottom. There was not a spot in the house that was not cleaned and disenfected by the time we were done. Her daughters were not the only ones that showed up. One of her sons and several of her grandsons and other family members showed up as well and by 3 pm everything was unloaded and put in their spots inside the house. All that was left was the unpacking and I wanted to take my time doing that. Earlier that morning Johnny had gotten a hold of the owner and told him that we were not happy with the conditition of the house and was not sure we even wanted to rent it any more. The owner apoligized and made us an offer we could not refuse he gave us the first month rent free and knocked a $100 of the rent for one year if we were willing to stay here. He also told me to make a list of what all I found wrong with the house and he would have his guys fix it. He had hired two men to fix it and clean it before we got here and they had told him they had done it. I had taken pictured of what the house looked like before I started cleaning it and Johnny took them and showed them to the owner. He was so made about what we had walked into that he fired the guys who said they had cleaned it. And he has been real good about sending guys into fix what all I have found wrong with it. So now it is becoming a real home. All I can say about the last people who lived here is that they must like living in a city dump. I am now happy with our new home and am making progress every day at getting everything unpacked and put away. We have also been working on the outside which was all a dump when we got here but not any more. The boys have done a fine job of cleaning it out. Next up is cleaning out the storm cellar. Apparently the people who lived here before thought it was one big trash can and now we have to get all the trash out of it before it can be used in the event of a tornado. On a side note I was worried about how much I would miss living in Michigan but the funny thing is I don't miss it at all. I really don't feel much different here than I did there. And that is a good thing. :) Prepping Nana |