Shelbell's World

So.....when I moved into my house I had a beautiful deck out back - compete with a gate so Miss E could enjoy the deck with me and I wouldn't worry about her running off. Only ONE small problem with my beautiful deck...the hideous red stain. In itself the red might not have been so awful (other then why on earth they would have chosen red is completely beyond me)...but it also was in desperate need of refinishing. The stain was peeling in many places. So....the first on my to do list of activities during layoff....refinish the deck! To set the mood...here is a before picture. So last week...can't remember which day...I set to work. First I got out my power sander and started sanding away some of the obvious peels. Then I headed to home depot to get paint and stain stripper. Since then I've been working 2-4 hours per day painting on the stripper, wetting everything down, and scraping it with a wire brush. Good times for sure! Slowly but surely though I'm starting to make...

Well I've been a horrible blogger these days! Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk make it so easy to post little updates that it seems I abandoned my blog. For my readers who haven't seen/heard already....I'm unemployed as of Monday. I was notified on March 6 that I was being affected by the first round of layoffs for my division of the company. March 20 was my last day. They were generous and let us take our vacation, so the next three weeks I was on "vacation". My last day of vacation I received a call, someone doing my old job had just had a baby, and they wanted me to come in and cover her maternity leave. Fortunately for me, she covered the local area, so it was an ideal situation to prolong my layoff. As everyone around me expressed their hopes that she would not return from maternity leave after all, I was just grateful to have a job for a bit longer and an opportunity to put a little more money away. My savings have been .... well....tiny...since movi...