In the shop we go....

That is so far 190 pieces of vintage jewelry, priced, catalogued, cleaned, and in display boxes.
MOI, I am exhausted this took 3 days so far with no other work being done, I throw frozen ravioli in the boiling water pot and sprinkle it with lots of cheese and Bobby is happy. It took me a few minutes and I am happy.

Tomorrow is scan time, do not remember which one, I am to starve before...hate that part....while I do that Zack will be in his torture chamber.
Brie is sick, she blew the leaves at Jaimies without a mask.
Her blower is professional, the leaves are covered with pollen.
Today she can't talk. The mask was in her car, the car is not sick!
Stubborn Taurus.
We will do fine tomorrow, she can't talk I do not hear, coversations at the clinic will be swell.

Bijou not feeling well does not leave me alone. Clings to my lap.

Saturday we are supposed to have 65 degrees, I no longer know when to plant the tulips.
My petunias are blooming again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow Black Internet day?????

Someone asked me why did they call it black Friday.
As a retired retailer I can tell you that on the Friday after Thanksgiving (in the olden days) people started to shop for Christmas.
Merchants for the most part wait for these weeks of gift buying to bring them out of the red.

Now it is disgusting, they bring out Christmas items right after Halloween and some even before that. No sooner will Christmas be over and You will see the red hearts for Valentine day!!!!!In March we are being reminded not to forget Mother...she gets her day in May but it may take us that long to remember her....
Hallmark has done a terrific job to spread these days in different continents and countries. We never heard of Valentine's day or Halloween when I was little.
Now they have that bug in Belgium , must, must, must decorate for these special days....One might wonder if Hallmark has everything produced in China....

Sabrina and I had lunch and then did some grocery shopping,Rhonda has been working overtime and is exhausted. Yesterday she was to be off at noon and it turned out to be after 5.ooPM. They are very busy, visitors from all over. From Europe, Japan and China too. After all this is the only private castle left in the USA. People lived in the house still in the 1950's. I met a maid who worked there all her life and her mother did too. Not one unkind word ever being said of the employers.

I did give in to the spirit, at the Aldi they had chocolate direct from Belgium, I needed that...stolen flown in from Germany, I needed that too, the ones with the marzipan in. For good measure I thought I needed baklava too. Then I noticed spekulaas from Belgium, can't let that one left in the store....I was talking it up too, I was telling people which ones to buy and I had an audience. I should get a percentage from that.

This week I have about 350 mixed VINTAGE jewelry coming which needs to be priced and put in inventory. AND in the shop ASAP.
Vintage here for jewelry is usual from the 1950's when we had some very nice good custom jewelry...some pins fetch 400 to 1000.00 dollars. I can't afford to deal in them but the Monet, Trifari, Weiss etc...that is my bread and butter besides my own work.

Facebook games will have to wait.

Black Friday.......

Shoot it is Saturday, Black Friday gone and the good sign was that Biltmore was sold out even with earlier openings , tickets for that day were all sold out. That is a LOT of people. Rhonda was extremely busy. Bus tours came early, she not only has to figure out their time schedule in the castle but also where to park all these buses.

I had a week that was FULL and made me so tired.
Now I like to stay home, safe, warm, my dog on my lap even when I work on the computer or work on jewelry.

It started on Tuesday , I had an appointment with the urologist.
I had a lot of back aches in the last weeks and figured it was the "broken back" acting up but wanted to make sure the lonely kidney was ok.
His test did not show anything bad, but he said it was about time for the scans and that is for next week, to make sure that all is still OK.
When you are over the 1 1/2 year mark and nothing is showing up any other place that is a good sign said dr "Great".

We had to do the rounds today with Zack and his radiation. Then lunch and then the mall. I need glasses again. Jeez...after 10 or so years and my cataract surgery now I need glasses again to see far away and have 20/20. Problem is that the TV faces are foggy , since I do not drive I am not really missing much otherwise. I need inexpensive and got that but they do not stay put on my face when I bend down.
Whatever...I will only use them with TV and I sit still then.
Zack became very tired and pale so we took him home back to Brevard and I had a chance to see the shop and know that I needed more vintage stuff for the Christmas rush.
We had an break with apple pie a la mode and brie her fave banana split. Then back to Asheville. I found myself fading very fast, Brie is too. We both look so tired but we do not dare tell Rhonda that we are not coming. She had planned this for weeks, she so loves the castle and wanted us to see it during the decorations days. This was a special invitation for employees and guest. Large buses from Young came to get us in parking lots, the place was packed. B. employees 1500 people.
Presents are given to the kids under 12. We had finger food and drinks and went to see the decorations. Thery are the best yet and I saw about 4 of them. Best year, just fabulous also looks nice in the evening !!!!Not much electricity but candles every where, yes even real ones!!!Guides helped me so I did not have to use the long corridors and had short cuts to the rooms plus the elevator which is the original one still running. Inside it is decorated with fancy iron work and lovely wood panels.

Somehow we got rejuvenated in the castle. However the free family photo they took makes me look like I celebrated my 100th!!!!
Came home about 10.30 P.M and fell into bed.

Next day a luncheon date, OK dress up again , try to look chipper and see long time friends again. I had canceled several dates with them so I better go a move on and go. We went to the Inn on Church street and it was just lovely....I had fish and chips, my fave but this had huge prawns with the fish. I took a doggie bag and said "woof woof" to the waiter as I am surely the dog in this case.
It was very nice BECAUSE my friends let ME talk and I am a TALKER so I do not have to strain to hear their questions. It was a gorgeous day, my petunias started to come up again it has been that warm and they even bloom.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, Brie decided she wanted family with her so Rhonda worked till 4 and then picked me up. I had a bad day and did not know why. I got up and started to cry and that lasted for most of the day- lecture from Bobby put me to sleep in my recliner. It was a very bad day ....the dinner was good but I could not hear one person at that table, conversations ran from one side to the other and I decided to look at all of Bob's art work and try to remember where we were when he did the persimmons, where he sat and painted and when did he call me for help.
He always wanted my feed back. He hated back grounds so he always asked me which one he should use. He trusted me and I am not an artist. I would tell him when to stop a work because he never thought his painting was finished. He would work and touch up for weeks if I let him. I'd say :"Bob it is finished, let it go, it is lovely". Reluctantly he would stop and take my advice.
His time was never an issue with him, it was for me because he would put too many days and hours into something we knew we could not get paid for his hours.

The room at Brie was cozy and no denying her Belgian heritage.
My aunts Victorian vases sit proudly in a nook with a light over them. In my mind I invited them to come and take a look. The Delft which was in my mother
s kitchen is there too. Bob's work everywhere. Handmade lace doilies. My mother's kas kept up and shiny from the wax jobs! The memories kept me going as I sat quietly at the table and has a glass of wine and pie with whipped cream (the real stuff).
Zack was tired and in his room with the little ones. I do not have the energy to mess with the little ones like I used to do. Besides that I wanted to cry some more.

I was glad the day was over, I had bought a spiral ham for Bobby, he does not give 5 cents for the holiday but loves the ham.
I came home and fell into bed and Rhonda emailed me she did the same when she got home and had to be at the castle at 6 30 AM next day.....

So Black Friday I rested in between catching up (barely) with my games on Facebook. I filled more display boxes with pins ready for Brie to put in my shop...whenever I see Brie again.

So today we are that saturday.......in the news there seems to be a truce , I doubt it will last or help but let there be peace for awhile so children can play outside and have parents still alive...on all sides...

Big John has decided he will GO HOME...that is a tragedy...
Zack refuses to be in the hospital on Christmas so that will be bypassed, the kid needs some "normal".

I hope to have a quiet week and will try to play catch with the energy.

Fighting, Infidelity, budgets on Capitol Hill....

I am supposed to be uplifting and positive.

OK so I read a lot of news .....so there is blood shed today on both sides ....
over what? Land!

My grandfather had lost big in the stockmarket so when I left in the `1950's his advice to a very naive granddaughter was :"Buy land" they are not making anymore and we will be over populated one day.
I always remembered that ... early on someone offered us two lots at very low price, the lady was a friend and in her eighties and wanted to help us out. I was afraid to get into debt and declined....I did not listen to grandpa! A very few years later the University in Santa Cruz Ca. started to built on these lots and everything else they could buy around there. The land had been purchased at a very high price.
Land...the fight over land in many places....but bloodshed over it scares me.

So we have a scandal in DC. A General and an x general ,CIA person had an affair and who the hell cares. If you lined up the unfaithful at the Mall in DC you would have a bigger crowd than when Obama took his oat there. Please, who cares but the wives involved who have to face the humiliation. They have to worry if they can ever forgive and worse if they can forget.
Forgetting is the hard part. I still dream of first husband cheating on me and i had not seen him in 45 years. He passed on last year but he is still there tormenting me at night. So the general's wife has all my best wishes.

Good news? Zack has his last day in the hospital week, he has had it, problems with his port in the middle of the night which was not a picnic. His Mom exhausted from seeing him hurting and counting the bills.
12 different companies send her bills, a doctor here and a specialist there, then the cancer center, then the heart place, the many pints of blood.....
I was a riot at the beginning od the diagnosis I offered to sell the house, Brie answered: Mom this will cost more than your house, honey!
Say what? Well she was right we are now almost at twice my house value and it is not finished by a long shot.
A friend of ours had her son ill with the same cancer, he is fine now, but 5 years ago the bills were over 250,000. Sabrina said theirs will surpass this and some by the end.
Thank God that Purdue our NC past governor was one of the first to embrace Obama care so then Zack could get insurance for previous conditions.
I read that Florida will not accept it. They have a Republican governor and NOW we do too, a Rep. is taking office now in NC.
I hope that they can't revoke that rule, I doubt it.

Have a nice Sunday ...I will try that too.

This and that

I have been away for awhile....not in the mood to do anything but sit and sleep. I think they call it a depression. I missed Bob every minute in the last 2 weeks, no reason except that I miss him. He was such a great companion.

So I rejoiced Nov 6th and went to bed feeling so secure. I was petrified of the changes Mittens was suggesting and then changing his mind ...I said four years ago that Obama could not5 fix the mess we were in during a first term, now he has no electorals to please or watch out for. He can sit at his desk and stop the worrying
about what will be said this time around but I do believe that he has the fever back to fight for the little people. He just has to fight the Republicans up the hill till they have a solution.

Many people here in NC are upset...just look at the polls.....
No one touched my Obama sign, I was afraid to put it up and then did anyway because I felt like a coward.

On Nov 11 I walked up to the cemetery and put small flag on the sacred ground of WW1 soldiers. I have done that for awhile. This was my grandparents war and my parents suffered in different ways. My father was number 7 in a line of 8. His father was in a military career and was in prison in Germany as soon as the war started leaving my grandmother with all her kids. My father, then 7 years old took his little brother to the German camps near his house and stole food from them. He also learned to speak German. Our King Albert and his Queen stayed in Belgium with the troops during the whole war, that little part of B. was never taken by the Germans. In ww2 our King Leopold ran for the luxury of living in la belle Suisse. Some Belgians did not forgive him that....including my mother who loved Royalty.

Now I have to say that I just hate even the word "war", both sides loose, no matter what. There is human life involved. We can always rebuilt but the loss of people is another matter. I am worried that Bibi and Obama are not seeing eye to eye over Iran. Lets not make it another war because they have or do not have weapons of mass destruction. We have been there and done that.

On the very good side of my house is son who hates Algebra with a passion and had an A at the end of his first 9 weeks. This is just a very big , big win. He is now into the second Algebra 9 weeks and a bit calmer about it. I am very proud of him.
Doing correspondence school every day often including Sunday is not for the lazy people, you have to be committed to stay with it and not miss a day. I think he started last September and even sick he continued on his journey for psychology. With his years of agoraphobia and panic disorder he could counsel from the heart.

Zack is doing very well keeping the C word away but has his ups and downs.
The loss of his eyebrows and lashes this week make him very sad. He has these gorgeous eyes and had the longest eyebrows, every one used to talk about them, it bums him out this week. With radiation and Chemo he is a lot more tired and needs more blood transfusions, his BP being low too.

I worry about him ...a lot...I wish I could be with him at the hospital when his mother has to leave to work. He has tremendous nurses and doctors. His High school also had a fund raiser for him just the kids getting together selling T shirts and stuff. How great is that?

I will do my best to get out of this funk and continue to just write boring stuff.....