So I made a bunch of new cards in the last few days and I’ve realized that I make a lot of one of a kinders. I don’t feel like one thing I’ve wrote is funny enough to constitute many cards I think.
Anyway, I’ve also made some new notepads as well and there are many places coming up that one can find all the funny…
and they have a permanent home at Stash Style who happens to have an article in the Plain Dealer today!
Come see me at the shows and don’t let the sweet outward appearance of Candra Squire greetings fool you. They’re Salty not Sweet.
High Point NC is the furniture capitol of the world so they say. I think it’s more of a warehouse of furniture from China. It’s really just gross. Gone are the days of the good ol boys in suits coming through to buy furniture (made here in North Carolina and sold here in North Carolina) for their stores and here are the designers in high heels looking for cheap and the same all the while saying we want GREEN things. Green things are not made in China my friend and how GREEN is it to buy cheap ass shit that you throw away in less than 5 years when a new trend comes through and you need redecorate. ANYWAY…
Here at the furniture show they like to hand out free alcohol every single night all over the place. My night started around 5:30 when I got a martini (vodka 3 olives). I hung out with my new friend Doug Miller until about 7 when our other boothmate Rich Hawk came back and we decided to go to one of the parties. On the way out we met up with Strauss and Dominica and all headed to the party together. They were handing out beer there so we all got some, then we ventured down the hall to discover ABSINTHE!! I have always wanted to try that so we all got some and stood around this weird art installation with ladies made from gum and tootsie rolls. Let me say that absinthe is good if you love good and plentys which I do. Then we discovered a chalk board and the logical thing to do was draw penis pictures. I am going to go ahead and include dougs drawing here.
Please tell me why it has dorsals.
Then Strauss gets the bright idea to go to his friend Scott Morgans house. Scott is probably in his 60’s, old furniture guy who has literally been everywhere and brought pieces back with him that litter his entire house. Every single time I’ve seen him I have heard him say come on over and take a sauna. Anyway, we all go there however we’re in a van with only two seats which means this happens. Bunch of fools in a cargo van.
So we get to Scotts and the first thing that happens is I fell right out of the back of the van. Hello muddy knee nice to see you.
Then we all pile into the house, I somehow lost strauss and dominica and found myself in a den of older men smoking medicinal grade pot because scott is fighting cancer and has a script.
Anyway, he showed us his museum of a house, hippies talked of energy and I ended up here, alone.
So this is my new friend Doug and I. He’s totally adorable and I’d totally have a crush on him if he didn’t think that making footballs out of real tiger skin sounds like a great idea.
I’ve been a lost soul for a long time and now that I’ve figured out exactly what I want to do it’s all happening.
I started making silly ass greeting cards less than a year ago and it’s turned into Salty not Sweet. We’re planning a series of Trunk Shows this holiday season, a big spring show and we may even have something else up our sleeves soon.
Personally I have some stuff coming up, come on out say hello and hey maybe even buy someone a nice gift.
Made in the 216 Holiday Shop Nov 6 – 29
Oddmall Nov 7 10am-6pm
Bazaar Bizarre Nov 27 & 28 also Dec 12 & 13
I was reading the Best of Cleveland issue of Cleveland Magazine today and not only did I come across one of the salty vendors mentioned in there ( www.saltynotsweet.com ) I also found the jewelry designer Dana Schneider listed as well! She makes really cool stuff that is used in a ton of movies (she made the bracelet Megan Fox wears in the latest Transformers movie), and I happen to have a piece! I fell in love with my bracelet a couple years ago and one of my biggest fans got it for me for my birthday.
So check Dana out HERE and check out the Cleveland Magazine Article HERE
People are going missing at an alarming rate everyday. One day they are texting you and the next day, vanished.
The Parent People.
I’ve seen you on facebook and I’ve talked to you in the grocery store. The people that have kids and suddenly can’t seem to talk about anything else. Their whole lives turn into soccer and cheerleading and pta. I have kids and I usually love them but what about who you used to be? Was that person person killed on the instant the baby took its first breath? Remember things like talking to your friends and doing things you like to do?
To me it seems like why can’t you be a parent and be whoever the hell you are? It really weirds me out when I hear someone talk to a 7 year old like they are still a baby. It makes me fear for the future of individual capable adults and especially for men. There is a whole generation of boys raised only by their mothers and look now- they all wear eyeliner and their little sisters pants. Do the women of the future a favor and teach these boys that mommy has shit to do so he needs to learn how to fix things and take care of his own damn laundry.
Please tell me why, I really want to know why when the kids come in the non parent leaves immediately. Maybe there wasn’t anything in there to begin with. I guess I never thought of that.
Are some peoples whole lives leading up going to mommy and me yoga?
So Salty not Sweet was Saturday and I was not happy with the turnout. Needless to say, no more craft shows on a holiday weekend. The next will be in April, bigger, better, and most likely with free wine. I am going to liquor the shit out of people, believe that.
I am insanely busy. All I really want to do is work on new greeting cards. I have 2 shows in November! www.oddmall.info and Made in 216! I need to revamp and rework the whole thing. Speaking of that, I can’t work on cards because I need to work on banners, and displays. Insert scream here. Not to mention I started working on Salty II the day after Salty I. I have created a Salty Team that will work together and bring many awesome to the show. Im excited. Now if the venue people would just call me back….
Also, why is there always someone who wants to bring you down? http://jbirdsgarden.blogspot.com/ Thanks to Bill Squire and Tammy Howard for sticking up for me. I’ve had way more support than naysayers so I can’t really complain.
Listen dudes, I will get back to writing someday. I think about writing and I write about writing but one day there will be some ACTUAL writing. Until then, come read my writing at the shows in November.
In the spirit of public interest I have decided not to continue with my funeral story.
I will say that it has been a really insane summer. I feel orphaned. I always knew that no matter what happened in my life I always had a safe place to land with my grandpa. He’s gone. His ex wife and crazy son will most likely contest the will and somehow figure a way to take everything away from me even know they haven’t seen him in a good 30 years.
Everyday something new goes wrong. Kristie and her mom came down to visit, they got here August 10th and 2 hours north of my house their car engine blew. It was horrendous and currently they are stuck here in Cleveland, TX with no car. He should get a new engine in tomorrow and have them on the road by Monday. They seem to think it will be tomorrow but that shit ain’t happenin. Oh, and that costs 3k.
Then 2 days after they got here my water heater went out. I called a handy man and he gave me an estimate of $575.00 to get a new one and have it installed. Instead I went to Home Depot and bought a new one and installed that bitch by myself. I can barely change a lightbulb, but I CANDRA SQUIRE bought a water heater, used pipe cutters, re routed pipe, hardwired in the water heater and it actually works and it got dark while doing this so it was finished by the light of one flashlight. You see I was too scared to leave any power on to the house so we were completely in the dark until I was done. You guys should have seen it. If anyone needs a water heater install I will give you a value deal of 200 clams. I think I shall go into business.
CANDRA SQUIRE
Water Heater Installer & Craft Show Organizer
Kristie, Randi and I finally started our adventure last Thursday. We drove to Austin and stayed at the Austin Motel which has a sign shaped like a penis. We ate, drank and were merry. We saw the bats come out from under the bride and were satisfied.
Friday we went to San Antonio and went to the alamo, which I seriously knew nothing about. We stayed at a sweet ass B&B http://www.ocaseybnb.com/ They have a sweet old dog named Conner and they make a kick ass breakfast.
Monday we went to the space center which makes me tear up every damn time I go on the tour. I don’t know why. Then we decided it was time to go explore Galveston. First we ended up on some strange little side beach that only mexicans seemed to know about. Next to us was about 20 mexican dudes having an AWESOME time. Then they started to race each other. When I looked up one dude just stripped off his pants and started running in his black and white man briefs believing that not having the shorts on would make him a little faster. I don’t know who won because I was laughing too hard at the man just bouncing all over town without a care in the world. After the beach we wanted a snack and a drink. We ended up at a place called Captain Jacks http://www.galveston.com/captainjacks/ We drank something called One Eyed Willies Wicked Water. We sang, laughed, got wasted as shit and 3 hours later ended up in the Holiday Inn lobby begging for beds. During our time at CJACKS we made some videos for bill. I feel obliged to include one here.
The past weeks have been a nightmare, comedy, and a million lessons. The only thing I can offer to you my friends is to just love. It’s all we have in the end. We never know when the last day will be, don’t fool yourself into believing you have more time. Don’t be unhappy, don’t be bad to each other- just love.
The Ass Chronicle
**WARNING** You will see my whole ass in this post. Be prepared.
Saturday July 18th
Worked outside on the gardens and plants all day in the 100-degree heat. I kept feeling something hurting on the crack of my ass. I thought it was a pimple (which would be strange cause im not a pimply ass type lady) or it was a fire ant bite because I had gotten into a whole nest of them who had taken up residence in an aloe plant.
Sunday July 19th
More painful than the day before, still laughing that an ant was in my ass crack and why wouldn’t it be? I found one in my cleavage too.
Monday July 20th
Pain continues to grow and I begin to wonder if it’s a boil. I google boil and scare the shit out of myself realizing that boils are staph.
Tuesday July 21st
Find out that my cousin has been having boils and we’re shared towels. The pain is so bad this day that I cant get out of bed.
By now my left hip is all jacked up from trying to sleep without hitting my ass wound.
Wednesday July 22nd
Drove myself to wal mart while hovering over the seat because I couldn’t sit down. I had to find a heating pad and some crazy ointment my dad told me to get.
I got home and started heating my ass to get the fist sized bump to open up and drain. Not only did I have to heat my ass but I had to heat my hip ass well since apparently I am 100 years old. I then put on the ointment that is black tar-esque and smells the same laid on my stomach and waited for it to open. I developed a fever and started feeling really sick and this is when I really tried to convince everyone I was ok so they wouldn’t make me go to the hospital. I am deathly afraid of doctors and all their evil equipment. I was in the most pain I have ever been in aside from labor. It felt like ripping, burning, and pulling all at the same time. By 10:30 that night it had gotten so bad that I found some darvocet my grandpa had and I took one. This is coming from someone who is also afraid of pain pills. I think they will make me throw up. After all three births the only thing I took was Advil. About a half hour after taking the pill I was nearly pain free and the rest of the pain I had was forgotten by me being wasted and laughing. At least it put me to sleep. I woke up at 2am and by 3 I had to take another pill to get back to sleep.
Thursday July 23rd
My fever broke and the draining started. I have a hole the size of a nickel on the old asser. Just wound pad after wound pad soaked with blood and pus. I made a routine of shower to clean it, dress it with Neosporin filled pads then do it all over again 2 hours later.
Friday July 24th
Was able to walk around some this day! Road to recovery!
Saturday July 25th
Up and about for a while, bed for a while, then went and watched Bill kill the Laff Stop in Houston. I ended up ass bleeding through my pants. Too much too soon friends.
Sunday July 26th
Threw a memorial bbq for my grandpa and had to get in the shower to ass clean before the guests even left. I neglected to tell them the ass would story over hamburgers.
Fast-forward to right now July 30th
Feeling better each day. I’m able to sit on it for little bits of time, which is HUGE. It’s healing up ok. I’m sure there will be a scar so there goes Playboy.
If this ever happens again please, someone just kill me.
Part 3
We drove home that day in shock and somehow avoiding the reality of what had just happened. We managed to sidestep dealing with the actual death and instead concerning ourselves with the next tasks we had to get done.
We came home and decided we needed to call his biological kids and let them know that their dad passed away. Let me go back 25 years to give some background info. Dean came into my life when I was about 4 years old. He got into a relationship with my biological maternal grandmother, who’s only reason for being in my life I am convinced, was to bring him to my life. She ended up leaving him for a black dude 20 years younger than herself about 7 years ago. I haven’t spoken to her since. Anyway he was married for about 20 years before my grandmother and two sons. I can’t say why they didn’t have a relationship. He was my grandpa we talked about things like gardening and Emeril not relationships gone bad.
So I found his ex wife’s number who I know nothing about and called her and let her know what happened. She immediately launched in telling me about how he was a mean man and when they got divorced she only got 20k. When I got divorced I got bad credit and a shitty ex-husband who never pays child support. I would have rolled naked in 20k if that’s what I would have gotten out of a divorce. I told her I may need his son Darrell to call and get the VA to release the body to me and she informed me that the other son was older but if he wouldn’t then Darrell would gladly do it. This woman and Darrell have had no communication with him for 29 years but in the last year she had started calling him out of the blue. He told me he thought she was checking in to see how much time he had left. I then called his other son, Wimberly (don’t ask me where the shit that name came from). He did have a small relationship with this son and I have talked to him before on the phone. He said he would help in anyway he could. He also told me I should have never called his mother because for as long as they have been divorced she has said when Dean dies she’s “going to get her piece”. He said that I shouldn’t call them back and let them know when the funeral was either because they would make trouble for me. Like I needed one more damn thing to worry about.
We had to wait until Monday for the VA to finally call me and tell me that everything was OK for me to make the arrangements for the funeral home to come and pick him up. They put me through all the worry and now I had let two vultures know that he had died so now I had them buzzing around.
I went to the bank on Monday to see if I was ok to write check from his bank account since I knew I was on there and I would have to pay funeral expenses. She told me that I hadn’t been on his account since early 2009, which is when this nosey ass lady across the street started coming around and somehow got him to put her name on his checking account in case something happened she could pay his bills. His lawyer then told him to get her the hell off his account, which he did but he opened a whole new account with 3k in there in case anything happened. He put her name on it so she could write the checks. Her husband ended up leaving her shortly after and she asked if she could borrow money from my grandpa. He let her have 500 bucks and told me she doesn’t have to pay it back because she’s having a hard time. So after I left the bank I called her and asked her to go take out that money and give it to me so I could pay for things. She acted very strange on the phone and said she would call me back. She called back telling me the lawyer said she didn’t have to give me the money. She didn’t HAVE to give me the money legally but you would think it was his money, he just died and his family needs it to settle things you’d gladly hand it over. She said he told her the money was to pay his bills. Later that day I had to get an AC guy over because we’d been staying in the 90-degree house for days. While he was still there I called her again and asked if she could bring the checkbook over and write him a check. She started yelling at me that the money was to take care of his dog and asked if she could have the dog. I told her um no you can’t have his dog and she asked ME why would you do that? I said you need to pay this bill; it’s a household bill. She then told me the money was to pay his credit card (which has a current balance of .20 cents.) and asked for the credit card so she could cancel it. I told her I wasn’t giving out his credit cards for other people to cancel. When I told her that she said she wasn’t giving me the money because he didn’t trust me. With that I said, you’re a terrible human and hung up on her. I hope she doesn’t think that I am just going to let it go. Oh I wish I could. Instead I will photocopy every bill he gets and send it to her in the mail. Will she pay them? Hell no. Will it be a constant reminder she stole from an old man? Yep. Will it be annoying to her? Yep. Will it save me jail time because I won’t burn down her house? Possibly.
I always believed I would have my grandpa into his 90’s. His mom was 94 when she died and I thought he would be the same age. He was always a healthy active guy and I wasn’t prepared for this at all.
I woke up Saturday morning with dread in my heart. I knew what was about to happen but facing death with a countdown just doesn’t seem real. My aunt and I got to the hospital at 11am and the doctor was supposed to be there at 12. So we held his hands and told stories about him and laughed. I am certain the nursing staff thought we were insane if they were even paying attention at all. The VA seems like the place doctors and nurses work if they were at the bottoms of their class.
The doctor rolled in at 12:30 and asked if we were still going to discontinue the life support. I knew as soon as I touched my grandpas hand when I got to the hospital the day before that he was no longer in there. His hand felt dead and artificial. He was lifeless and I knew that I had to let him go. I told the doctor to go ahead and he assured me I was doing the right thing. Even so I still feel like somehow it’s my fault.
The doctor gave us a little briefing on what may happen as his body was shutting down and he really managed to terrify us. He said there may be gasping, shaking, tremors and a whole lot of other horrifying things. We each grabbed a hand and held on for dear life. We watched as they took out his ventilator and stopped the flow of IV meds. We just stared at the monitors and watched his heart rate and waiting for the lonely sound of the flat line to signify the end. At 12:57 I saw that the heart was just about to stop and I braced myself. I looked at Pam and we both started to cry. My heart was just about totally broken at that point when all the sudden we hear beeps again and looked up to see his heart rate back up in the 60’s. I looked at Pam and said Uh, is he just messing with us? We had no idea what was going on so we started to laugh. We watched the monitor and him for another 25 minutes before he was really gone. He was stubborn even in death- true to form. A few mins later his body jerked and made a gasping sound that I can still hear over and over in my head. I remember saying out loud; well I could have done without that. We watched the 0 heart rate mock us for I don’t know how long until the doctor came in and said he was gone.
Pam and I waited for an hour in shock, sadness, and laughter – true to our form for someone to come and tell us what the hell we were supposed to do next. As we started to wonder what to do Pam asked me, we weren’t supposed to rent a hearse or something were we? Listen if I hadn’t watched the Six Feet Under series 75 times I might have not known the answer to that question. I knew that our very own David Fisher would come to the hospital and pick him up.
We were finally sent down to a lady who handles the bodies. She gave me a hard time because I’m not a biological relative and I gave her the will, which names me alone as the executrix and beneficiary. She said she had to make a copy but her copy machine wouldn’t work and rather than go use one that did work she requested I fax the will. I didn’t realize that by her not completing this right at the time it would lead to a whole mess of trouble.
