HUMAN POWER SHORTAGE

 Madison, Alabama

Caretakers are in extremely short supply in this area. Tonight we are down to one on duty when three are the design number to be here. This shortage has been going on for a few months. They had a job fair Friday and only five folks stopped in to check out going to work. Every now and then they hire a person but they usually do not make a month before they disappear.   The care takers that have been here for the year I have been here say the new folks just do not seem to want to have to do anything for their money.  If they last two weeks it is a miracle. Anyway things are decent even with the shortage of workers to take care of things. This is certainly a lot different than what I had hoped what retirement would be like.  Have fun. OFM

SAME OLD SAME OLD

MADISON, ALABAMA.

YEP it is Thursday evening and not a critter is stirring.  But the OFM is still looking for something to put into the blog that is not so boring as lately.  It has been calm around here and nearly boring. But at least everyone seems to be healthy and doing well.  

We have a new coloring fellow in the building.  His grand kid gave him some colors and a book while he was on vacation recently. He is finding out how much fun it can be. We had a nice show and talk after supper tonight. He might get the itch to do more.

Other than that things are just going boringly smooth.  Have fun. The OFM.

NOTHING MUCH

 MADISON, AL.

Really close to nuttin going on around here dees days.

Sitting on the back patio after meals seems to be the exciting portion of the day. Maybe that means I need to stir up some trouble eh. 

Any way have fun and smile as the sun keeps on shining. OFM

SURPRISE SHIPMENT

 MADISON, ALABAMA

SURPRISE MAIL

Yesterday I got a big surprise when two coloring books I did not recall ordering came in. Upon checking more carefully it showed that yep the OFM forgot what he had done. So now I have 110 new flower pictures to color and/or mess up.  Of course I had to piddle with one of them and sure enough it was fun as usual. Part of the fun is that the OFM does not bother with what are the normal and proper colors to use. What does he want them to look like is much more fun. 

Have fun. You can guess what I will be doing. OFM

COLOR PENCIL TEST

 MADISON AL.

How about a colored pencil comparison test. Since OFM does a lot of color pencil coloring for the fun of it, how about a test of good stuff vs cheap stuff. The OFM has been playing with colored pencils for a couple of decades now and is still not an artist but he does do a lot of coloring book coloring for several years now.

In the past I had made a choice to use Prismacolor coloring pencils for my coloring book fun. They are a professional grade and very first cla$$. I have had wonderful times with them and had no performance complaints at all. Keep in mind I am a mildly accomplished knuckle head coloring nut. Prismacolor is definitely an excellent performer for coloring but expensive.

A couple of years ago cheap coloring pencils of decent quality come onto the market from overseas manufacturing facilities.  Several brands are on the market.  I piddled around for about four years with several of them and at first they were kid level junk art wise. But about a year ago some major improvements came onto the market by those folks. So today I ran some testing efforts of my Prismacolor pencils against the Kalour brand of cheap pencils.

Prices are a lot different between the two brands. Prismacolor I normally buy and use is about $38  for a 36 pencil pack.  The cheaper Kalour brand is about $12  for a 72 pencil pack. That is a bunch in my wallet.

Quality of Prismacolor is extremely high in every respect.  Kalour is too new for me to find out a lot of things about them to report like how long they do not fade and things like that.

What I do know is the color of either is very good but how long til Kalour fades is not known.  The lay down of both is very good.  The burnishing of both is really good. The color trueness from one box to the next is very good.  The laydown of color and lead strength of both is very good.

Since all of my coloring is just for fun and gets thrown away a couple of months after completion, the time before fading and things like that are not known. I have thrown away over 200 colorings this year alone so I do not know about color fading time at all. But for my style the cheaper Kalour brand is making a serious drop on cost happen in my hobby with no drop in color quality or workability.  I hope this info is helpful.

GETTING OLD

 MADISON, AL.

Today several small seeming items showed me that I am no longer getting old. I am full force there. In two more months I will be 80 years old and today my body was making certain I knew it. But on the other hand the weather was nice and I did my normal fast walking once a day walk three times.  It amazed me I did it three times in spite of being a little wobbly for a bit. Those three times were spaced out over the day but still they got done in good form. The walk is thirty minutes of aerobic walking speed around our neighborhood.

Later in the day I did my usual stretch band work outs as long as my joints could stand it. About 20 minutes I think. So that worked out pretty well. 

Now if I can keep up this exercise pace .might get some competition (yeh right) ability. 

Things are going pretty well in the AS building. We had a great catfish, hush puppies, cole slaw, baked potato with iced tea lunch today. Boy I don't want to eat that heavy too often but is was sure good this time.

Well that is about it for tonight, Get out and have some fun, I plan too. OFM.

NEW POST ATTEMPT

 MADISON. AL.

A  lot of computer  network trouble tonight is happening. We did get a  head person appointed to run things here.  The best news is that she is the former head of nursing and always seems to have her head working very well when she made decisions in the past since I have been here.  I hope the computer systems start to function better soon. Good night.

CHANGES COMING

 MADISON, AL.

late nite report.

We got notice late today that the new management company has taken over and several things will be changing.  It is been coming for a long while it seems to the OFM team.  There are several changes announced already that will be good to have happen.  The head lady is being replaced as well as the maintenance fellow. Some other things are in the gossip pipe but I have not verified them yet. This has been a long time coming and is really needed. I hope this new company gets it right for all our folks needs.

NEW FOLKS ARRIVING

 MADISON AL.

Today  and the last two days have been big moving days for folks leaving this facility and new folks moving into the empty rooms. Three new folks have moved it in the last week and one is moving to a facility for folks that need extra care that that place can provide. A couple of the rooms here have been being renovated with new flooring and a few other needed repairs from hanging pictures and general living. So things are happening all around me these days, but the nights are always quiet.  With summer being here and kids out of school more grand kids are showing up to visit the old folks around here also. Even though not any thing especially exciting is happening it is a bit of activity happening fairly frequently which is nice. So everyone sits back and lets the world flow on past. Have fun readers, we sure are trying to. 

NASTY STORM HITS

 Madison, Al.

The news spread like wildfire through the facility.   A big storm was headed our way and we better batten the hatches down. So the OFM went to his room to check the weather. Sure enough in about 30 minutes we were supposed to get hit with an ugly front of high winds, excessive rain etc.  So the OFM and a few folks made sure everything in our treasure chest was properly secured. Then the OFM checked the weather himself and all that showed up was the nastiest  weather front I have seen in years. We had about ten minutes I figured and got busy getting my stuff away from the windows of my room and preparing for a leak to happen and need handling. It was looking real bad and my room windows faced directly into it.

Sure enough in a few more minutes a rain squall to challenge the worst rain storms I can recall started .  Lo and behold it did rain and blow like a mean hurricane event but it lasted about ten minutes is all.  Then it cleared out well and was history. I was very happy about that.

So there you have all the big excitement for the last few days came and went in about fifteen minutes. Since then it has been nice but cloudy.   Yep a nice ordinary day except for the little short storm.

Have fun and sweet dreams.