Life with Rudy

It has been quite awhile since I have posted anything. Life happens and we are usually too busy or too tired at the end of the day to add information to the Internet. SO I thought I would let the world know I am surviving having my husband at home and underfoot all of the time. Why is he here and underfoot, you might ask?? Well, he was laid off his job of almost 23 years a couple of weeks ago. He will be 65 in a couple of months and wanted to retire soon. His company was suffering the effects of this slowing economy, so the writing was on the wall. So, a few months ahead of when he might have retires, he is now at home everyday.

We do NOT miss hearing our alarm clock go off at 5:30 AM each workday morning. We do NOT miss the morning commute. We do NOT miss packing a lunch everyday although we will have to eat all of the small bags of chips and snacks that we kept on hand for lunch packing. I do NOT miss hearing hubby come home every night complaining about the newest round of stupid ideas that his company had to save money or maintain "control" over the employees.

We DO like sleeping in and waking when our bodies have had enough sleep. We DO like not having a schedule to keep everyday. We DO like not having to worry about snow coming and having to drive to work in it to not lose our jobs. We DO enjoy each other's company, so in the two weeks he has been around, we have not yet found a reason to kill each other.

We will have to learn not to think in terms of weeks and weekends. Once the water comes back on in our summer community, we will be able to go and spend as much time as we need to or want to there. The nice thing will not be driving home on Sunday nights to go to work on Mondays. We will need to re-allocate home jobs. So far I am still doing everything I usually do. And he is telling me that "The next time you go to Wal-Mart...." when he could actually go and do that himself.

So stay tuned..... to see how we alter for our new life!

Yet another Red Hat Weekend

Wow, one would think I am really into Red Hatting. And I am. But here I am on yet another Red Hat weekend with my nearest and dearest Red Hat Fristers. We have come to Baltimore for a celebration of Mardi Gras. My Fristers are here to party hardy and play. I am here as a Red Hat vendor, selling a wide variety of red and purple embroidered items to the many (close to 300) ladies who will be in attendance.

We arrived a day early. It took us several hours to unload our cars with all of the hats and clothes and other things that are important to a Red Hat weekend. Then we unloaded several bins of my lovely embroidered items and got them set up in the little corner of the vendor room.

I am a little disappointed in my space this year. I have been tucked away in a corner and have a more compact setting from last year. I am competing with several ladies/vendors, including a local department store. I am afraid that my location will have ladies missing my lovely items. But I was here before and have already met ladies who got things last year and are looking to get some more things this year. I hope I do well.

Regardless of sales, I will have such a good time with my dear, dear friends, that it will not matter. we have been so house-bound with two major snow storms (24 + inches in each storm in less than a week) that it just feels good to be out of the house.

I hope everyone has as good a weekend as I will be having.

Fristers in Red Hats

Today I am off to a weekend with a group of my Red Hat Fristers. What is a Frister, you ask?? They are a wonderful combination of Friends and Sisters. Since becoming involved with several Red Hat groups, I have had the occasion to meet and become friends with many different ladies. They come from all walks of life and have interests that are varied and fascinating. But over the years we have become more than friends. Many of these ladies are more like sisters.

So, by combining the titles of Friends and Sisters, we get Fristers.

!2 members of the Wild Red Hats of Wilmington, DE are heading to Hershey, PA for a weekend of fun and laughter. We will be staying together in a timeshare suites. We might be touring, shopping, swimming or just doing nothing. What will happen is a lot of laughing and giggles and making memories. So when life gets more difficult as we struggle with aging, illness and lack of money to do what we want to do, we can look back on the memories from this weekend and smile...... maybe even laugh out loud...LOL!