Checking in, update, etc. etc.

Hi CSN Buds!

Thought I'd check in with y'all.  Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year!  Think I told y'all I quit at Jo-Ann's on Dec. 20 so I could be available Mon-Friday for substituting.  So far I subbed 4 days this month and have Mon, Wed. Thurs. and Friday booked for next week and one day for February already.  Pretty much at one school which is nice.  Everything came thru with the house; approved for the HAMP modification so extremely happy, grateful and blessed about that!  They did put it back on a 30 year mortgage but can always pay double without any penalty.  The main thing is the payment is very manageable.  I do consider myself very blessed as it was a long haul from  Feb-Aug '13!  For the most part people worked with me and with some it took a little more persuading!  I certainly found out that something my daddy used to say, "They don't care, all they care about is that almighty dollar!"  How true, how true.  And even though it seemed like an eternity sometimes to get to that light at the end of the tunnel, at least I knew there was a light and there are so many people out there that don't even have a flicker with the economy like it is! (regardless how great our leaders (and I do use that term loosely!) in Washington say it is!)  I have become and still learning how to be frugal.  I can hear Charlie now saying,"It's nice you finally learned how to do that, of course you did wait till I was dead and gone to do it!"

And speaking of frugalness, I want to share a story with y'all.  I have my mother's wedding rings that my daddy gave to her on their 25th wedding anniversary in February 1962.  I was 8 years old and still can remember him calling her downstairs before they went out that night to help him with something.  The something was the wedding ring set.  She never saw them nor knew he was planning on that until he gave them to her.  He had been paying on them for 1 year before their 25th anniversary!  Needless to say she was ecstatic.  I always admired them and thought they were just beautiful.  Since my sister got her original wedding band; she told me these would be mine someday.  So when we lost her in 1996 and I got them I wear them constantly on my right hand.  Well, when hours weren't so good at Jo-Ann's I did sell some silver flatware, and some jewelry to help make ends meet.  I held off on her rings because I wasn't being offered that much for them.  Well, this little place near me that bought gold and silver said $65 was all they could offer me for them.  So I thought about it for a while and finally came to the conclusion that my mother would say, "I'm not there to help you out, you've enjoyed these for 17 years now, go ahead and take the $65 as it will help you out, and remember the rings on your left hand are the ones that are most precious to you!"  It killed me but I did it.  And my friends and family understood.  You do what you have to do.  Well, Luis and Tamara (friends of ours and I taught with Tamara) knew about this and she is such a sentimentalist.  I did this in July '13.  Well my birthday is July 27 and she gave me this god awful looking dachshund purse that she probably paid at least $50 for it and was so excited about it and kept telling me "I'm so excited about your 60th birthday present!"  Well, they and Charlie and I always meet at this Italian restaurant where you get your meal free on your birthday.  We've done this for years and have kept it up since Charlie passed away.  Well, Luis's birthday is Dec. 3 and I was working 12-7 that day so they were meeting me at the restauarant close to me so I didn't have to drive to the one closest to them.  It is a ways from me.  Now Tamara had been telling me that since they were going on a cruise to her dad's in Ft. Lauderdale for Christmas; she wanted to give me my Christmas present early and she was very excited about it.  Now this worried me since she was so excited about my birthday present!  So I figured it would be a Sheltie purse to go along with the dachshund purse!  So I braced myself for this.  Now my excitement started at work that day as I had this sweet older lady buying $117.00 worth of jewelry making supplies but none of her cards would take that.  So she paid $70 in cash and $20 on a card and we started taking off the items to make up the $27 short she was and she was so grateful and she did get to get $90 worth of jewelry supplies.  When I took my break and was sitting in my car and had the radio on the cd player went wacko and lights started coming on, "I thought wait a minute, the last time this happened it was the battery, and sure enough the battery was dead!"  "So I called Luis and Tamara and they met me and got it jumped off and fortunately NTB was across the street and we drove it there and left it and paid for the battery and we went on to dinner and I came back and picked the car up then.  Well she gets out with this big bag which I could see was an afghan in kinda of TN orange she had somebody make for me and a dog blanket each for Sammy and Chargee!  So I though "Whew" at least it's not a sheltie purse!  So we go in and order and I give Luis his birthday present and I look at my Christmas present and ooh and aah over it.  And then Tamara says to Luis "Should we give her the other present now?"  And he says, "Yeah go ahead".  So she pulls this little round gold box out and hands it to me and I open it and in the middle something is wrapped up, I thought it might be money, but no, when I unwrapped it there were my mother's rings!  Talk about totally blown away and flabbergasted and never would I have thought in a million years they would do this!  I was ecstatic.  Well, it seems when I told them about it and all I told them was it was a place near my house no name or nothing.  So they went on a search; found the place, and the lady was really nice and remembered me when they told what they were looking for because they wanted to buy them back.  She said she still had them and would have to check with her manager, who was a jerk.  But told them there was a 30 day waiting period by law in GA before they could melt them down or sell them or something like that.  So they wait the 30 days.  During that 30 day period the place near my house closes!  But Luis had the guy's phone # and he tells where they are now located which they told me was an adventure to find him but they did and then he tried to sell them to L&T for more than they paid me, but Luis stood his ground and said,"Absolutely not, we know what you paid her for them and that's what we're buying them back for!"  He finally relented and let them have them for $65.  They took them to the jewelry store they use and had the guy they know there clean them and he asked,"Just out of curiosity what did he pay her for these?" They told him and he said, "That's criminal for these rings!"  So, anyway you can imagine how happy I was.  So now the rings that Charlie gave me are all on my left hand and my mother's back on my right hand!  I know it took a while to tell the story but it's such a good one.

Will be going to G'burg in a couple of weeks with my friends Debbie and Beki.  Chargee is going as far as Chatt. and will stay at the Canine Country Club where Debbie boards her dog Jack!  Jack and Chargee are good friends!  Sammy just would not be a good boarder so my friend that usually looks after him will be doing that.  And then on Feb. 24 my father-in-law will be 90 so I'm going into NC for that!  I wasn't able to get in for Christmas until the 23rd and and had to come back on the 26th since my sister and nephew were coming down.  So told them I would come in then and stay about a week with them and that since I wasn't working at Jo-Ann's I would be able to get in more often now.  I guess that about catches y'all up on everything except it's been extremely cold here.  Today is supposed to be a little better but still not warm by any means but hey after all it is winter time and I for one have been glad to see some really cold weather so maybe come summer the bug and flea population will be way down!  Take care, love y'all and God Bless!

Jan (Basketcase)