Home From Georgia, and What I Did There

  The computer was up and running again for a couple of days when I first got home. Then I woke up one morning and it had died. So far I can't get it back on again. I'm having to use Ken's, and it's crap. Luckily the pictures I took for an upcoming review are on Ken's computer.
  If you've been reading the blog, you know I went to Georgia to help my friend, Lori, move. Her sister said she was going with me, but she bailed at the last moment. I thought she would, so it was no surprise really. I had already planned to take lots of music with me to keep me company, some of which I hadn't had much of a chance to listen to properly, and some I hadn't had a chance to listen to for a while. I thought it would actually be nice to have hours to listen to my music, because my computer stopped playing CDs, my record player stopped ejecting CDs, so I've been afraid to use it, and my record player started skipping through the records, so I have been afraid to play any, for fear of scratching them.
  That worked well on the way down. I also had company in the form of Tammy World, who insisted on coming along.

"I didn't 'insist'. You made me." "I thought I told you not to wear that shirt with the unraveled neck again." "What? I can't hear you because of traffic."

  I read just a couple of days before I left, that Georgia is the most dangerous state in the country for Corona virus.

"Good thing I brought my mask." "Uh,that's my mask. Ivy made that for me the night before we left."

  Don't worry. I stayed safe. I wore my mask everywhere I stopped, baby wiped AND hand sanitizered my hands after touching anything. I got hungry and was going to stop and get a Subway sandwich. When I stopped, while still in Ohio, nobody at the gas station/Subway was wearing a mask,including the people making the subs! I turned around and left. It occurred to me later that maybe I shouldn't eat a Subway sub anyway, since the contents are just laying out getting breathed on all day. I haven't been out much during the virus,so I guess I'm slow to think of this stuff. I was looking forward to getting breakfast at Shoney's on my way home, until I remembered the virus. There's no way I'm eating at a buffet right now.
  I said Lori was supposed to be moving by the end of the month. It didn't work out that  way though. Apparently her buyers have been messing her around since May. The people buying their house pulled out, so they pulled out. Then something else happened and they had to put off buying Lori's house. They had the sale going at one point, and Lori even found another house and was buying it, and even had some of her things moved over there, which she had to store under their porch temporarily until she had access to the house. Then her buyers stalled again, and she lost the house she was buying, her things got ruined under the porch, etc. She had to bring everything back home. She felt bad for the people she was buying the house from, because she left them hanging. Then the sale was on again, and Lori had to find another house because the one she had originally bought got resold. She ended up settling for a house that really isn't what she needs, as far as horse and goat accommodations, but she made enough on her house that she hopes to pay for what she needs to be built. Her main complaint was that the house was dirty and needed painting inside. It really wasn't bad though. I thought she over reacted.
  I was supposed to help her move by the 31st. She spent one day calling all the utility providers, changing her address,etc. Then, right after she finished, she got a call from the realtor, saying that the closing had been put off again because the people buyer the house of her buyers couldn't get their money until the 15th of September! She had to call all the utilities again to tell them not to turn off her stuff until the new date. Her buyers warned the realtor that if Lori pulled out or whatever, that they would sue her. And yet they are constantly breaking the contract.
  So anyway, Lori isn't closing on her house until the 16th. Obviously I couldn't stay that long, especially since the 16th is my anniversary.

Me with Ken on our wedding day, 1989. To read the post on how we became a couple,you can go HERE. If you want to read how I accidentally stole Kermit and is Piggy's wedding cake topper, go HERE. And if you want to read the story of my engagement ring, (It's really not boring. Honestly.), go HERE.

 So I had to help out with whatever I could while I was there. I helped load the car and take a bunch of stuff over to the new house, where we stored it in a shed. I helped paint the new master bathroom and bedroom, and patched dents in the walls from the doorknobs. At the old house I packed boxes of stuff for the move, took down the million windchimes, dug up the bush and the baby crepe myrtles she wanted to take with her, and things like that. I brought some plants down for her: a couple of Rose of Sharons, a couple of lilac bushes, a dogwood tree, and a rose cutting. We aren't sure it will all grow in the Georgia heat, but we'll see. It's in buckets, so I kept it watered while I was there. I took home some kind of flowering myrtle, which may not survive our winters. We'll see how that does too.
  Lori had taken a few days off to move, but she was supposed to be moving on Sunday, so she went back to work on Monday. So I was there by myself all day Monday and Tuesday, and part of the day Wednesday. So, while I did all the things I mentioned above, plus chasing two goats all around the yard, trying to get them back in the pen when they escaped, I did a few things for myself while I was there too. Lori has two big pecan trees in the yard she's leaving behind. I helped myself to a big bucket full of them.

Tammy World, capturing pecans in the wild.

  Lori hates them anyway.
  I went into the nearby town of Sylvester to check on something, and made a quick visit to an antique store. I found this little chair.

It isn't actually old. It's from the early 2000's 'Bunnies By the Bay' collection from Hallmark. It still has the tag on it. It's a votive candle holder. I'll need to make a seat for it.

Tammy World was enjoying the peaceful quietness out on Lori's porch.

"No I wasn't. It was about a million degrees out there and you could cut the air with a knife."

  I also got this little wooden drawer thingy at the same time. It is old.

It has Scottie dogs on top. They look like inlay, but they're not.

Both drawers open, but the bottom one makes a strange sound when it's pulled out. I think it used to play music.

  Ivy is very into making pottery. The dirt in Southern Georgia is, in a lot of places, pure clay. The last time Ken and I were in Georgia we talked about taking home a bucket of clay for Ivy. We didn't have a bucket with us, and we didn't know where it would be okay to dig up some clay/dirt, so we didn't do it. This time I brought an extra bucket with a lid, in addition to the ones I took Lori's plants down in, just for bringing home clay for Ivy. Lori scouted me a place to dig it up, and we took care of it. Free clay for Ivy. I'll let you know if she ends up being able to make something out of it. We had to find clay elsewhere, since most of Lori's property is sand.

Tammy World played in the sand, just like I did at my grandparent's house when I was a kid. You can't tell, but she's started a sand castle there. She needed some water.

So she just buried her feet instead.

   Another thing I did while I was there was look for pralines. I'd had them before and they're delicious. Georgia is known for pecans, so I figured pralines would be everywhere. Not so much! Lori and I looked everywhere and she even called a few places. I finally found some at a couple of places on the way home, and then was very disappointed. They are terrible. The caramel isn't the chewy, stretchy kind like the pralines I had in Texas. It's just sugary stuff. Bleh.
  One good thing I did get was Chess Squares. They're a cream cheesy sweet dessert thing. Everybody loved them. I should have bought more of them. Instead I bought a load of those crappy pralines.
  Lori and I had a 'fun day' the day before I left. She got off work early that day, and we went on a search for pralines and stuff. We also went to the antique store we went to when I was down both other times. I bought this.

The statue looks like a bronze piece, but actually it's plastic or something! It looks amazingly convincing though. I've been wanting a bronze statue, but I know they're too expensive for me. This one was only $20, and no one will ever know, including me! (I mean, I know, but I can't tell from looking.) The lady who worked at the store picked it up, with the force it would take for a bronze, and shocked herself because it was so light.
 I also bought this little pose doll.

  Ken had me search for yellow corn. It's the only kind he'll eat, he loves it, and it's almost the only vegetable he eats, period. He's had a really hard time finding it this year. It's been pretty hard for the last several years, because Ohio has almost nothing but white or bicolour corn nowdays, which Ken hates. This year, we had such a rainy Spring, that the corn went in very late, and he has had even more trouble finding yellow corn. That could be because it takes longer to ripen than white or bicolour, and after getting a late start, the farmers probably figured they didn't have time to wait on yellow corn. Lori and I found him some yellow corn in nearby Albany proper. (She lives on the outskirts.) I found some more on the way home. He ended up getting 22 ears from Georgia, and has already eaten all of them, (They were pretty small ears.), plus some he managed to find here in town since!
  I got up with Lori while she had breakfast on my last day there. Then she had to go to work. I boxed up the last of the glasses, repacked some stuff I wasn't satisfied with, had breakfast, washed all the dishes, loaded the washing machine with the bedding I had used, made the beds back up, (I had tried both guest beds, but they were both too hard and made my hip and back hurt. I ended up sleeping on top of pillows.), wrote 'Happy birthday' on the October pages of both of Lori's calendars, and Merry Christmas on the December pages,(Which I had done when she moved the first time.), watered the plants in the buckets, packed up my coolers with the corn and my water and food I had left, popped in a CD, and Tammy and I took off.

"Ohio or bust!"

  I didn't go far though. I stopped in Sylvester, which is about 15 minutes away. Lori works at the vet's office there. I had to stop at the butcher shop and pick up---gross!---ox tail for Ken. I don't eat or normally even buy meat, but I did it for Ken. I got the icky tail, and stopped to fill up with gas and buy ice for the coolers. I had to do some rearranging in the coolers so the tail got it's own separate cooler and ice. Then I headed back toward my exit for the road home. I passed the 'mantiques' store that had been closed the whole time I was there, and it was open. So I had to stop. I only spent $2, and bought this..

...and this.

I'm not quite sure about those weird black eyes. Maybe they'll grow on me.

  Then Tammy World and I headed home. Not long on the road and my CD player stopped working! I tried the whole way back to get it going again, but it continued to insist there was a disc in there when there wasn't, and refuse to take another one. I had to resort to the radio for music, which meant I spent most of the time in quiet thought, if you know what I mean.
  Apart from stopping to look for yellow corn a few times, get gas twice, pull off the highway to shop for pralines at a pecan place, and a Stuckey's gas station, stop at a rest area to potty and make a sandwich, scour a couple of Goodwills and one huge antiques mall...

This vintage magician poster for The Great Sorcar was one of the coolest things I saw.

... and get an Impossible Whopper for dinner, I drove for about 14 hours non-stop. (Okay, that was a lot of stopping in between. It really didn't take me that long though.) I left Sylvester about 10:45, and got home about 3AM. Then of course, two of the cats got out! I brought Jimmy Stewart in, but had to get Fuzz back up out of bed to hunt Joey down, because Fuzz is the only person Joey will come to. All cats in safe and sound, I was finally able to take a shower and go to bed. Umm, that is, after I cleaned the bathroom sink. It looked like an art room sink when I got home. I found out that that was because Ivy had done what we had been talking about before I left, and painted a mural on her bedroom wall.

She obviously washed the brush out in the bathroom.
  Once home I had to post the posts that were supposed, (Su-post! It's a pun!), to go up while I was gone.  I have another review to finish, and soon I'll be receiving the latest from Maru and friends, which I will also be reviewing. So stick around. Things are going to be busy here!