I cheated!

I confess, I made a cherry pie with a refrigerator crust and canned filling. Never again! This is not the kind of stuff that normally comes out of my kitchen. I just thought I would try it. Maybe it was the brand I used, but it was just ok, and won't get me any bragging rights.

In my defense, I had just taken a fresh loaf of homemade bread from the oven when I put the pie in.

This is what it has come to. Blogging about cheaters cherry pie and home baked bread. That's the life of an unemployed dead beat.

I did work 5 1/2 hours on Saturday with Rich taking inventory on his service truck. Parts, hoses, starters, ignitions, filters, and the list goes on. He actually carries allot of parts in that truck. Tomorrow I will be going back to do shop inventory. His boss thinks it will take all day. His boss has Parkinson's and on top of that he uses the search and peck method of typing. While we were in there on Saturday, he was entering the parts from Tom's truck into an Excel spread sheet. I told him I could do that for him. He just said he needed to do it so he knew what was out there. He hasn't done inventory in over 10 years. His wife just came back from AZ. She has been looking for a house there. I think he is close to closing the place down. He stopped looking for new customers close to a year ago. One mechanic relocated and one mechanic retired, he didn't even try to replace them. I hope I'm wrong. I would hate to have both of us unemployed.

As for today, my oldest son and his wife are in Cancun, Mexico. They got a free trip using the points on their credit card. I am going down to his house to spend time with the kids. He left me some money so we can go out for some dinner and give his sister-in-law, who is staying at the house, a little break. I always have a good time with the kids so it will be fun.

My son and daughter-in-law travel at least three times a year. They use the credit card for everything they need and just pay it off every month. They get points that way, plus, my daughter-in-law owns an insurance agency and she wins trips by meeting sales goals. Sometimes the parent company will send her someplace for seminars, conventions, training or whatever, and they will make a family thing out of it.

Speaking of my oldest son, he got his CDL last week and he and his cousin plan to buy a truck. He has always been self-employed, home remodeling, flipping houses, and mortgage originator. He still does ok with it, but the housing market is just not bringing in the money it used to, so on to something new. He started flipping houses and when people saw his work, it turned into home remodeling. Then he went to mortgages because the work was not so physical. He did real well during the housing boom and then on into the refinancing period. The last two years, he has had to do both to bring in the same amount of money. I don't know how he will like being on the road all the time. Plus, the family is used to his work being flexible and him being Mr. Mom while his wife is at the office. She stays open late one night a week, till 8:00 and till 6:00 the rest of the week, and every other Saturday. My granddaughter is 16 now and will have to take on some of that responsibility. They live an hour away so I really can't do much to help. I might take on the night she works late just to spend time with them. I can go down and make their dinner and still be home by 10:00. I am going on their family plan for my phone next week. That will save me at least $25/month. My bill this month is $78, that's for one phone, 900 minutes and no texting or data. Maybe we can make a trade. They pay my share of the phone bill and some gas for my car and I take care of the family on Wednesday nights.