Kip's Blog!

Happy Sunday

I woke up late this morning, to the sounds of someone mowing their lawn....had a wierd dream too about an old boyfriend....too funny!

I had the best time last night with the girls.  Ella's house on Sunset Beach, is georgous and full of neat things.  I took a bunch of pics but they don't really show how neat it is. It turns out it's right at the end of my old street on the beach!  Here's a shot of the girls on her patio...

 

There's, L to R, Bonnie Jenkins, Sue Fluharty, Susie Skaggs, Ella Solomons, Sue Jones, Midge Wilson, Midge's sister who wasn't in our class, and Anne Japour.

Those are all maiden names of course.  Here's her house looking in from the beach..

 

This was actually two condo's at one time but Ella bought the other side two and then opened it all up into one house so it has something like 6 bedrooms!!  Such a cool house inside too.  She lives here part-time as she is an attorney in NYC and goes back and forth right now but will eventually live here full-time.  I'll do a collage of the other pics later. On the top floor, those are two bedrooms and they're so cool as they're almost all windows.  For privacy, she puts down the hurricane shutters, lol!

Okay, off I go for some coffee....

Saturday....

I had a real hard time getting to sleep last night after watching Leno and was actually up doing Farmtown at 3am....finally got to sleep and got up late this morning which is fine cuz it's Saturday!!  I'm taking it easy today, hitting the pool, reading some and then heading to the get together tonight at Ella's.

What's your plans?

Happy Friday eve!

Another wonderful Friday!  I went to school for only the 2nd part today as I was so beat this morning and my back was out of whack.  I took a muscle relaxer, went back to bed for awhile and got up feeling much better and off I went.  Good thing too as I received a wonderful gift this afternoon.  The President of the PTA came in with a pretty bag for me and when I opened it up, here's what I found...

 

Isn't it wonderful?!!  I was really touched that they did that and I love it.  What a beautiful remembrance.   I also met with the big P for awhile and went over my evaluation, my last one, hard to believe.  She keeps getting teary eyed over me leaving which is so nice.  It's nice to leave a place on a good note, isn't it?

The closing on the refinancing is finally next week, they were so backed up.  As soon as it's done, Woody is headed out back to Arizona and by then, I'll be retired and looking forward to a busy summer.  So much is happening this summer, Boxer crop, Hilltop birthday crop, trip to NC with the girls to Jill's, CHA in Orlando, Green tomato crop in Sebring and teaching two weeks for College for Kids, to name a few!

Next Saturday, Rubanrouge is having its' garage sale and Mary-Mary and I are sharing a table and I hope to sell a lot of scrap stuff I don't need so come on by.  Then I'll head down to Kim's for a pool girl party and Laura will be there with her darling daughter which we haven't seen yet.  That same day is a crazy pool party down in Parrish at Kerry's but I'll miss that one, darn.

This Saturday eve, I'm headed out to Sunset Beach to Ella's condo on the beach for a sunset viewing and dinner with all high school friends.  Ella is an attorney in NYC and has lived up there for many years but has her beach place too and I hear it's beautiful so can't wait to see it.

Tonight, I'm vegging, eating dinner, playing Farmtown, watching TV and maybe scrapping a bit.  How about you?

Good Morning..

I am yawning, yawning as the dogs got me up at 4:30 this morning for some reason and while I did go back to sleep for another 45 minutes, I now feel yucky like I've had no sleep...such is life...it is Friday though so it can't be bad!

Thank you so much for all the nice emails and posts I got about yesterday.  That was truly a special day that I will remember forever.

Still, lots to do but school should be quiet as the 5th graders are off on a field trip to Epcot today.  They always have a great time there.  The school system doesn't allow them to go to Disney anymore as they can't go on rides...stupid liability thing..so even at Epcot, they can't go on any rides but they still have fun.

Off and running!

What a day!

I have to tell you about my day as not too many people get this when they retire!

This morning, after announcements and duty, I was walking back to my office and the big P came in and said she needed me right away.  I walked outside where she was with the golf cart so I thought something had happened out back as we are on a huge lot.  I got in the cart with her and said, "what's up?" and she took off, around the corner and there was the entire school, waving banners and clapping for me when we rounded the corner! 

 

These are some pictures I got later that the volunteer coordinator took.  This was one class up on the second level.  OMG, I was totally surprised!  I had told her no parties for me and so she did this to surprise me and she sure did.  We went around the whole school once and then stopped and picked up Bonita, who was inside and who is retiring too, and who also knew nothing!  And around we went again, kids yelling and giving us high fives.  Then she brought us to the middle where two chairs were and we were given capes and tiaras and flowers!! In this picture, you

can see how far around the kids went.  Gaye and the little P both spoke and read this to us..

It was all so wonderful and so heartfelt.  We were both so surprised and so touched.  It was the most perfect retirement gift.  We later got the signs the kids made too.

Then later today, they had a luncheon spread for us and if you look closely, you can see they blew up some pics of us from the morning and had them in a frame, hanging on the door.

 

All in all, a most wonderful day as you can see!  We were truly Queens for the Day!

Good Morning!

I had a good night sleep and was woken up by the dreaded alarm this morning which doesn't happen too often.

I didn't blog last night, I was too pooped.  I spent more than 2 hours with my financial advisor after school yesterday and by the time I left, my head was spinning with all we talked about.  I really like her a lot, she is on top of everything.  If you're in this county and want a good advisor, email me for her name as she's top notch.  Anyway, I think I'll be better off than I thought and she had some great ideas, most of which I knew nothing about before and was happy to learn.  It was a good meeting for sure.  I got home, totally wiped, ate dinner Woody fixed, did a few things around the house and then it was 9pm it seemed.  Night went very quickly!

Today is more end of the year stuff but the end is getting closer!  I used skype yesterday with my old Principal and it worked great.  I really like it, plus have the video cam which is nice so you can see each other as he has one too.  And best of all, it's free!  He was telling me about the Sling box which is a cool apparatus..might have to look into that sometime.

Okay, off I go....another day, another dollar

Wow, Wednesday...

already!  Another week is zooming by, before our eyes.  I got up a little later this morning, 5:30!  But don't feel as tired as yesterday.  I'm so looking forward to getting up leisurely soon.

We ended up getting some rain last night but it was nice and sunny during the day.  I know Jill was happy.  She's down here vacationing with family on the beaches and is a "blog friend"!

I finally caught Jon and Kate's first show of the season last night..doesn't look too good for them..they were like stone statues when forced to sit by each other in the show.  Such cute kids though, too bad.

Today I have a meeting with my financial advisor so we'll see what she has to say....off and running!

bitch of a day....

might as well have been a Monday!  Just one of the those days that everything hits you wrong... between being thrown things to do by the big P who I think is kind of panicking, thinking of me being gone and what all needs to be done, trying to do a myriad of other things that need closing, that alone put me in a bad mood.  Then I heard about the Supreme court decision about Prop 8 in Calif and that put me in a worse mood.  Can't believe we're actually making decisions about equality and why the hell does the Catholic and Mormon churches think that only they know what is right for people?  Both of them pouring millions of dollars to make sure it never passed. Just another reason why I hate organized religion for the most part.

Then I get home and have a conversation with my insurance company and this lady that works there talks to you in such a condescending manner and god forbid she has to answer a question or explain something. 

So, I'm over today.  Glad I'm home and I plan on having a nice evening and be dammned everything else. I'm just saying.

Sometimes you just have days like this.

Look at storms coming in....

It's Tuesday..

I'll have to keep remembering that..woke up way too early this morning, 4:55.  My mind was racing so I just got up but it will make for long day.  Only 4 days in work this week which is nice though I still have tons to do.  I also have morning duty and lunch duty two times so busy week.

We sure had a nice Memorial Day weekend and hope you did too.  Off to read the news.

Cooking and drinking kind of day...

I made two of these today...

Woody and I devoured one and I took one over to Barb and John's house.  Hope they enjoyed it.  It was so yummy and those blueberries were so sweet. 

Then we grilled chicken and had these later this afternoon...

Mojitos!!  They were positively delish!  I also made the famous Johnson potato salad which we haven't had in a long, long time and enjoyed it too.  So that was my day..eating and drinking and cooking...fun day!