Yes, it’s true!  The guys have left!  The new windows are in and the shower is finished!  I no longer have to shower in my backyard with a hose! 

I am so very happy to have this work finished!  And so are my neighbors! 

So here’s the question…  Do I keep the ads up and collect spare change or do I call this a failure and take them down? 

I always said I would never put ads on Donnaville because I thought advertising on a personal blog was in bad taste.   Hearing that I could make 80.00 a month in passive income quickly changed my mind.  It’s funny how money has a way of changing one’s thinking.  But now I wish I hadn’t put ads up because it made me realize the worth of my site.  I wrote 21 posts for the month of August and Google is telling me that of all that work, I am worth 69 cents!  It’s just so insulting.  Now don’t get me wrong!  I don’t think my writing is worth much money at all… I just think I should be over a dollar.  

I guess I could try other ad sites.  Or I could work on writing better posts and attracting more readers. 

I really don’t want this entry to seem in bad taste. I am honestly putting it out there for the greater good. You see, over the last couple days I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how I know Jasmine Fiore. She looked so familiar to me but I couldn’t figure it out…. until last night. It dawned on me rather suddenly and I was a little freaked out by it. And I figure there are a lot of people out there wondering why she looks so familiar to them. Here it is: Jasmine Fiore looks like Jessica Rabbit. See…

Continue reading →

Here’s video I took at the David Cassidy concert. It’s a bit indulgent– I should have cut it down a bit but I just love LOVE LOVE David Cassidy and couldn’t get myself to snip any of it!

This performance was tough on David. Nothing was going his way. His guitar wouldn’t stay in tune, the microphones kept spitting out feedback, and the spotlight burnt out. Regardless of these setbacks, David gave a great show!

I went away for a week. Pookie Bear thought it would be fun to drive to Orlando. He decided this right after the David Cassidy concert. The next morning found me running around stuffing clothes into my suitcase and wondering if I was past due on an oil change. We spent 12 hours in the car. Maybe more than that. Virginia was a real bitch. I’ve never seen such gridlock… and for apparently no reason other than too many cars on the road. The jam stretched from DC to past Richmond. I think it was past 11 when we found a hotel just outside of Myrtle Beach. The next morning we decided to drive to Myrtle Beach and spend a little time on the beach before taking off for Orlando. As soon as we sunk our feet into the sand, Orlando became a distant memory. Yeah, we never got to Orlando. We spent our mini-vacation boogie boarding the waters of Myrtle Beach. It was really relaxing. The people there were so different from the people you meet at the Jersey Shore…. they were really nice and pleasant and polite. We were really blown away! The other thing that differed from the north was the sheer number of stores that specialized in fireworks. They do love their firecrackers down there. As soon as the sun went down the fireworks would start. I was surprised there weren’t more people missing digits.

On the ride home, we stopped at the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, NC. It was a crazy coincidence seeing the billboard for the museum since I had just watched her in Mogambo a couple days before. The museum was a real treat. I loved seeing her costumes and they had a room full of beautiful portraits of Ava done by a Dutch painter. As much as I enjoyed the museum, I left feeling that she was celebrated simply because she was beautiful. Other than movies, she really didn’t accomplish anything of any real meaning. But I think she said it best, “I am just an old broad who gets her picture taken for a living.”

I saw David Cassidy in concert last night!

Oh guys! I am so sad right now. It’s ElvisWeek in Memphis and I am not there! There’s fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches to eat and I am not eating them! Lisa and I had so much fun last year that I wish I was there again. Maybe next year.

And if you think that’s a silly reason to be sad… how about learning mini-Cobra is only for those let go on or after July 10th? I was canned on July 8th. Two days make one heck of a difference. Hello Catastrophic Health Insurance! (And no, I do not qualify for regular Cobra because the company I worked for was teeny tiny).

I forgot Neil Diamond was performing at the Bensalem Amphitheater. Okay, a Neil Diamond impersonator. I am so sad I missed it! Maybe I’ll just turn out all the lights, drink some watery Piña colada, and queue some Neil Diamond concert footage up on YouTube. Or I could just watch Mogambo. Tough choices.

Ladies and Gentleman…. Mr Neil Diamond!

Sweet Caroline…

Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon…

I’m a Believer… he wrote it!

Okay, no more. I am all full of Neil Diamond goodness now.

Red Dust is on TCM.  I made myself a pina colada… wrong.  I thought it was as simple as dumping a can of coconut milk in a blender with some canned pineapple and Gosling rum.  Nope.  It tastes watery… somehow. Mary Astor had such a delicate beauty.  She really hardened up by the time she starred in the Maltese Falcon.  No matter how lovely Mary Astor was– I still have a hard time believing Clark Gable would choose her over Jean Harlow.  Mogambo is on after this… it’s the 50’s remake of Red Dust… starring Clark Gable.  Yeah, he reprised his role. Things haven’t changed much… just like Sean Connery starring in movies in his 70’s, Gable kept going and going too.  One of my favorite actresses was in Mogambo– Ava Gardner.  She had an otherworldly beauty.  My favorite movie of hers will always be The Angel Wore Red in which she co-starred with Dirk Bogarde.  Oddly enough, my favorite Dirk Bogarde movie isn’t The Angel Wore Red… it’s The Servant, no wait, it’s The Night Porter, no wait, it’s Death in Venice, no wait… I guess I have a lot of favorite Dirk Bogarde movies.  In the Angel Wore Red, Ava plays a Cabaret girl in love with a priest.  A wanted priest. Just to clue you in, Cabaret Girl was code word for prostitute.  Oddly enough, I figured that one out when I was 15.   What is it with Hollywood and priests?  They always cast homosexuals to play sexy priests.  Dirk Bogarde, Richard Chamberlain… The ellipses show that I just made an extremely broad generalization since I can’t come up with any more homosexual actors who played sexy priests.  Can you?

I saved a bit of money when I was working to get a few things fixed here in the Donnavilla.  The shower in my bedroom was collapsing, the windows in the dining room and loft have rotten sills, a couple lengths of siding in the courtyard had melted from setting the grill too close while cooking, and my garage door was disentegrating.

The shower is being worked on.  It’s taking a lot longer than I expected but Ray is working on it.  The garage door was replaced today! Sure I could have saved money and had them just replace the bottom panel but I did it the right way and had the whole door replaced.  Yes it cost more but I will not have to worry about it again for years and years and years.  Besides, it looks fantastic!  The courtyard siding was replaced last weekend.  The new siding is definitely a different color but I am hoping the sun will eventually correct the color difference.  The windows will be replaced sometime next week.  And then I am finished… for the meantime.

The carpet in the parlor and dining room needs to be ripped out and set on fire but I should have done that back months ago.  I can’t justify getting new flooring when I am not working.  And so that must wait.  I also discovered more rot around a different window but I am just going to live with it for another year.

I have learned my lesson which is– when the money is flowing and work needs to get done– get it done!  Don’t wait! You never know what is going to happen.