Saturday, December 30, 2006

Storm Update & tagged...

We woke up yesterday to about 5 inches of new snow. DH decided to have breakfast first so I went out to shovel so the dog could go outside. That was pretty easy going...it was light powder snow.

Then I got started on the front. The snow on the north side of the house was kinda deep but the acutal front yard (east facing) wasn't all that bad. I took Lilly out with me for a bit. Here's her story...

Mommy let me come with her to go out in the snow. First she opened the garage door and the snow was so high that I hadded to wait for her to clear it away first. She got a little bit cleared and I just hopped through the rest acaus I really hadded to go potty! So I went over by the house and mommy was happy that I didn't go on the porch. Then I went and sniffed on the porch where I went the day afore and mommy saidded that I made that mess. Duh, I could tell acaus it smelled like me. Mommy shoveled the mess away. Then I hopped around in the snow and ated a bunch.

Then we wented to the front yard. Mommy was shoveling but I was checking out all the cool smells. Somfink smelled good in the snow but I couldn't find it. I kept pushing my head in the snow to get a better sniff and I couldn't see ovfer the big pile of snow. So mommy maded me come and she picked me up and tossed me in the big snow. It was a little bit sinky but I liked being up there. I did lots of smellin and eating snow.

Then the nice lady nexted door camed out and was playing with her very noisy toy (snow blower) and I was growling acaus I didn't like the sound of that thingy. I hopped down from the snow to go tell her to shut it off, but then I sawed some weird beans slidding down the street. I was growling at them lots acaus they weren't using their feets. Mommy tolded me that I hadded to stay and sit there. But I was still growling. Finally Mommy saidded I could go and I went after those weird beans but they were finally using their feets and going back up the street. I never did get to smelled them acaus Mommy said I hadded to COME again. Then she putted me in the house and Daddy went out wif her to do more shovelin. I don't know what else happened acaus I tooked a nap.

I'll take over from here Lilly. So DH came out and we shoveled a bunch and then our nice neighbor came with her snow blower and took care of the rest of our driveway. We just had to scrape off the ice that was under the snow. Dh didn't really want her to blow our snow off (he likes the exercise) so we decided after she went inside to go and shovel our neighbor across the street's sidewalk because it goes to the mailbox. We noticed then that the snow plows that had been out all the previous night had pushed snow and ice chunks into the path that we had dug out from the last snow. bummer

So at first we dug a path around the ice chunks and then cleared out around the mail box. But then we noticed that the ice chunks weren't all that bad and that maybe we could dig them out...and we got started on that. I dug to the short end and DH dug the longer end of the path and then when we got to the ice DH kept working on chopping them up or rolling them out of the way. The neighbor now has about 4 big ice chunks in his yard, but the path is all cleared.

While DH was working on the ice chunks, I decided to shovel the walk from that neighbor's yard to the next yard over. The plows had pushed some snow on her sidewalk too, so I didn't hold out much hope for getting all the way through, but I figured I would give it a shot. Dh finished up the ice chunks by the mailbox and came over to help from the other side. We both got right up to the ice chunks and made a path out to the street around them...then we decided to shovel out the neighbor's driveway. DH said we should tell her that the neighbors with the snowblower had done it. After we got that finished DH said he wanted to get our pick axe and get the ice chunks off the neighbor's side walk. I don't know if he did that or not because I went inside...he was still out there for a while. But he said he got the ice chunks off.

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry. I put in a roast for dinner even though we had leftover ham to warm up the house. But by dinner time my back was whining big time. After dinner I decided to try a muscle relaxer to help with my back. All it seemed to do was make me very sleepy...I'm still groggy today, but my back is okay if I don't try to stretch the muscles that are sore.

This morning there wasn't much snow out there at all. Dh shoveled it by himself and said there might have been an inch. He also shoveled the other neighbors's dives & walks. He said that the one neighbor that we weren't going to take any credit for doing asked him about who shoveled her driveway. He lied to her and told her that the other neighbors did it...but later he saw her talking to them, so he hid from her until she went inside. He's so silly.


I got tagged by Island Girl. She wants me to list 5 things about me that you don’t already know. Hmmm . . . I have to really think about this one.

I've hidden the tag behind the *****s so click there if you want to read it. Oh and I didn't tag anyone in return.

1. I was born at an Air Force base in LA (the state!) at 12:22am. The doctor didn't much appreciate that hour and wanted to just knock my mom out so he could pull me out quickly and go home. At the time knocking the mother out was customary and among the papers they give you to sign when you come in is a waiver giving them permission to do this. So the Doc thought he had the right to do this...but my mother said that NO, she hadn't signed the form. The Doc was so ticked off by this that he tried to give her the drug anyway and she knocked the needle out of his hand. He says "Okay b!t@#, we'll do this the hard way!" I was born fairly quickly after that w/o any drugs.

2. At one time in my life I thought that I wanted to be a Lawyer. I joined Law Explorers (part of the Boy Scouts) and learned all sorts of cool things about being a lawyer. The thing that sticks out most about that time is that we used to go to the police department's court room for our meetings and in the hall way they had pictures and wanted posters for some famous criminals that are long gone, Like Bonnie & Clyde.

3. following the Bonnie & Clyde theme...as a kid on my way to Girl Scout camp one year we stopped by the place where Bonnie & Clyde were gunned down near Sailes, Louisiana. There isn't much to see there anymore...just a sign.

4. many years later I went to Las Vegas to see DH (db at the time) and to meet his parents. DH had been there for a class and his parents drove out to see him. The plan was for us to spend a few days in Vegas and then drive to their home in CA. On the way to CA we stopped off at a hotel on the border of NV & CA...there they had the actual car that Bonnie & Clyde had died in. It's all shot up and you can see the yellowed stains from their blood. I think that it's pretty odd that I've been exposed to that much of their story...none of it on purpose.

5. I lived with my Aunt & Uncle for part of the year that I was in the 3rd grade. My mom tells the story that my Aunt was all whiney about not having a girl so she let her take me so she could see that girls weren't all that special. But many years later I found out that at one point my parents tried to talk my Uncle (other side of the family) into taking my oldest brother. They didn't do it because they didn't want to have him and then have my parents decide to take him back. And once my oldest brother did live with another Aunt & Uncle for about a year. I need to talk to my mom about this, but I promised my Uncle that I wouldn't tell my parents that he told me about it.

No tagging...enjoy!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Here we go again!...

Metro area could get a foot of snow by Friday morning. More expected in foothills.

It started again about 10:30am here...nice big fluffy flakes.

I had intended to get up early and run to the grocery store because I had put it off from yesterday...but I didn't get up early and so we headed to the store at about 11am. I tried to make a list, but since I had no clue what the store actually had...I didn't know what to put on the list.

My first clue that things weren't going to be easy came when I couldn't find a parking spot at the store in the row where I normally park. I circled the lot a few times and found a spot clear on the other side and we walked a long distance to get into the store...my second clue...no shopping carts. But an employee was pushing in two carts behind me and gave me one.
I went to the bank and there was only one teller who was busy with some commercial customer...so we waited.

Then we began shopping. The produce department looked much better than it did last Friday. I grabbed a bag of salad (the last one of that particular mix) and thought that some potato soup sounded good...No potatoes. Scratch that one!

The meat department was very well stocked. I was able to find everything that I wanted there. The bread eisle was well stocked too and there was two racks of bread off to the side just waiting for us to use if we needed too. I also found my favorite rolls again...funny, I can't find these when it's not an emergency, but when it is they have them! Perhaps the lady who buys up all these rolls normally wasn't able to make it into the store. Yay for me!

We got everything on our list except for Milk. The milk case was empty. I overheard one lady say that the milk delivery was expected at 2pm...AND I heard another lady say that WalGreens carries milk and hardly anyone remembers that...so I made a note to go there next.

Then we got into line for the check out. The line snaked through the store over to the Soda eisle, but it moved fairly quickly and the others in line were nice and chatty.

After we checked out (the credit card readers were going slow with all the extra work they were doing) we noticed a note that said due to the weather to please leave the buggies at the front of the store. Well, I had bought too much to do that...but I could bring the buggy back and I did.

Since we were parked on the other side of the lot and since I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible...I decided to take the back road that leads to the Rec center soccer fields. I knew this road wouldn't be plowed and we might have to turn around, but I was willing to risk it. And my plan paid off, I was able to get out of there very quickly. WalGreens did have milk (wrong brand and whole milk, not 2%...but who cares!)

We then headed to the Library to pick up a hold and check out some stuff to keep us busy. We actually had two holds and Darly picked up a book too. I found out that the Library was going to close at 3pm and not be open tomorrow. Glad that we got there in time.

When we got home I noticed that the trash had been picked up...because they left my can in the middle of my driveway! I had to get out of the car to move it so I could pull in. But since I didn't have a "running start" at the driveway, my car didn't want to turn. So I hit the 4x4 button and we got in no problems.

So I began to shovel while Darly put away the groceries. As I was shoveling, the snow kept falling and I could barely tell where I had shoveled. I cleared the drive 3 times before giving up and as I went to close the garage door, DH was trying to open the door so he could pull in. He couldn't tell where I shoveled.

At about 6pm we heard the city plows out...they were trying to clear out the snow from last week so that this week's snow had someplace to go. it's now after 10pm and I think they are finally done out there. They sure drove Lilly crazy.

I had better go to sleep...I've got a big day of shoveling tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Christmas wrap-up

first




So I should pick up at Christmas Eve...
The plan was to go to our Church in the morning, then got to MIL's for dinner/church & presents...

Here's what really happened...
We got up and went to Church at 10:30. Good service but it was supposed to be a Children's service and the surmon bored me so I can't imagine that the kids got anything out of it.
Went home and decided that since we were going back to Church we would keep our church clothes on...get loaded up and drive over to MIL's house. Well she's been on the phone all morning and dinner won't be done for a while.
Dh goes out in his good church suit to shovel her driveway and sidewalk! Both MIL & I were upset with that.
MIL let me help her make a snack to hold us over until the dinner would get done...and MIL says that she isn't all that interested in going back to Church because the service would be exactally the same as she had already been to that morning because of the storm they weren't able to prepare two different services... great, my Church managed. Oh well...
So we get the dinner done and have a nice dinner...well she put too much salt in the potatoes by accident, but it wasn't too bad.
We open the gifts...which I didn't bring anything from our tree for me to open because I was expecting there to be plenty under MIL's tree. She didn't get to go shopping due to the storm so all that was under there for me was a gift from SIL...get sent us a Gum Drop tree & gum drops. Anyone need a gum drop tree?
By the time we get done with the gifts DH & DD decide that they don't want to go to Church...so we didn't get a candle light service.
BIL called earlier that day to say he had a layover in our city and asked if we could come spend Christmas eve with him for a while. So after leaving MIL's we went to BIL's hotel. It was nice but the hotel hadn't shoveled their parking lot, so DH dropped us off at the door. We probably stayed with BIL for about 2 hours before heading home.
On the way home we see folks driving into our Church for the 11pm service. I was too tired at that point for Church...so we just went home.
DH & DD were both still wired, and I was ready to crash...so I was cranky.
We went to bed. I was out like a light.

Santa came at 5:30...I heard him!

Darly comes into our room to wake us up at 7:58am. This almost NEVER happens. She didn't get up this morning until almost 10am...which is closer to normal. So we get up. I remembered that I forgot to bring in my digital camera and it's in the car...so I go get it. It's frozen and refuses to work. So I grab our film camera and start snapping away. Dh hollers that I'm wasting film...hello? What am I going to take pictures of with film to use up the rest of this roll???

The gifts are opened. Some really good stuff, some really bad stuff for me. I'm trying to white elephant the bad stuff. I'll let you know if my local friends don't want it.

I start making dinner. It was very nice, a little over cooked though...tempermental food. Last time I made this, it was too rare...so I cooked it longer and this time it was over. Probably because it was smaller...need to keep notes on this stuff.

My cheesecake came out perfect! Perfect size and perfect everything. Darly came back asking for more...so I gave her the rest of my slice.

Lilly loves her new dog bed that I made for her.
Darly is very happy with all her Christmas loot.
DH is happy with almost everything...didn't understand why I bought him new slippers since he got a pair last year...but he doesn't want to return them.
And I'm mostly happy with what I got.

I had a talk with DH after the gift opening asking why he decided to get me Popcorn seasoning. He says it's because I like popcorn. I say plain popcorn. Next year my list is going to say NO FOOD!

Saturday, December 23, 2006

even more shoveling!

after all that shoveling yesterday and finally getting our cars out on the roads, the city sent the snow plows out again and they plowed us in again. So this morning we had to shovel again. What a pain! But at least it wasn't as bad for us as it was for our neighbors behind us.

They live in a cul-de-sac that is more like a bump on the side of the street. In fact it looks a lot like a p only it continues up after the top of the p as well. Anyway.

These folks had spent all day shoveling and snow blowing themselves out of their cul-de-sac and had finally been able to get out yesterday...when the snow plows came. And those idiots plowed all the snow that they had pushed up the street into the cul-de-sac and left it there...blocking in everyone!

Needless to say the neighbors were ticked and called up the city office and made them come back out and plow them back out. But still the stress of it all. I know that one family has two police officers so they HAD to be able to leave...that might have been the reason the plows came back so easily.

Dh went out today to look at dishwashers. But he's totally confused. The lady at the store told him that the manufacturers are not going to make any appliances in almond/bisque anymore and that he should just get all new appliances in a different color. YEAH RIGHT LADY! I don't think so! So it looks like I should be making MIL a certificate that says her kids are getting her a dishwasher of her choice.

Happy Holidays everyone... doubt I'll be back until at least Tuesday.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Still shoveling...

Here's a run-down of how my day went today... (okay, you're reading this tomorrow as it's almost midnight here now.)

DH too my car (since it has 4x4) to work this am...he made it fine, but doesn't think I should take his car out at all.
I got up to the whirr of snowblowers going.
I check outside to see my neighbors trying to dig their DIL's car out.
I bundle up, grab my shovel and head over.
We get the car dug out but it won't start.
The DIL had to go to a Dentist appt, so we then dig from the neighbor's driveway out to the path in the street made by the other cars that made it out.
Since I was mostly in the way and I figured that the neighbor across the street might want out too...and that having her way out would help get this car out too (directly across the street) I went and dug that neighbor out...soon I was joined by the first neighbor's husband...his wife is still working the snowblower on her drive.
Soon both drives are connected to the path.
The neighbor takes her DIL to the appointment.
I begin working on getting my driveway connected to the path...on my own as the neighbor & her DIL go to the appt and the husband is watching the grandchild.
I get my driveway dug out.
Second neighbor takes her dogs for a walk and sees her driveway is cleared.
both neighbors return and we try to get the DIL's car dug out and started. Once the car is completely dug out it starts! Wow! In the meantime crazy teenager down the street decides to take his tiny KIA out for a joy ride in the snow. He gets stuck right in the middle of the street and we have to push him back up the street.
Another neighbor was trying to get back into his driveway and came close to hitting cars parked along the street (see most annoying post below...hee hee hee!)
So I go back to digging out my driveway...it looks pretty good.
Then we get asked to help dig a path to the mailbox. The neighbor's snowblower makes quick work of it...but then the snow plows come through and the path we made for the mail carrier is covered.

Sometime during all of the digging my neighbors & I find out that we both need to go to the same grocery store and they offer to take me since they have a 4x4. The store is very busy and the parking lot is full of packed snow...but suprisingly everyone is in a decent mood. Oh and the store is out of lots of stuff, but I managed to get everything on my list except for Orange Juice...which we can live without. Getting our carts out to the car was funny as they kept getting stuck in the snow.

We get home and get our groceries all unloaded.

I ache like crazy. I hope some heat and pain killer help.

I might get back on the Eliptical Trainer in a day or so.

OH yeah, my BIL calls tonight. After fixing MIL's dishwasher for the umteenth time, he thinks that all the kids should chip in for a new dishwasher and since DH lives in the same town as MIL he got volunteered to buy it and get it installed. So now with all the shopping that DH needs to catch up on from the storm we also have to get the dishwasher. He wants to just tell MIL that they'll pay for it when she picks one out. I'm inclined to think the same way. I love MIL, but BIL should have come up with this plan a month ago. We already have a gift for MIL and she'll get that too. I don't mind that either. It's the shopping for a dishwasher at the last minute thing.

I need to rest.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

switching gears...

I'm still


But today instead of hopping on my eliptical trainer, I opted to digg myself and family out of the Holiday Blizzard of 2006!

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My back yard. The fence is 6ft.

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What my driveway looked like to begin with!

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That only took about 90 minutes!

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Looking back at the progress!

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And don't forget the front walk...just in case someone wants to visit!

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I did get help...lots actually!

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Look how high we got the snow piled up!

In all I say we were out there shoveling for about 4 hours. My back and arms are killing me. I know two people who really really really need a massage...that's if we can stay awake long enough.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Gee, thanks for ALL your support...

So I've started this...




thing and I have to say, I'm overwhelmed by your tremendous support... Too overwhelmed.

Bone asks:How do we know you're really doing it? Are we on the honor system? Well Bone... Have I ever lied to you before? :D hee hee... Yup! I'm pretty much on the honor system for how long I really exercise.

But let me say this...
Yesterday, before the official kick off, I stayed on for 8 minutes. YAY me!

And today I did:
10 minutes then took a break
5 minutes then took another break
6 minutes then DH came home so I took a break there
and finally 10 more minutes...then I took a much needed shower!

My breaks were 3 to 5 minutes long. So according to what I read a long time ago about exercising that was pretty good...kinda like keeping my heart rate up the entire time. right?

Oh well, whatever! I did 30 minutes today and will roll the extra 2 minutes below onto tomorrow.
Make that 4 minutes (thanks Barbara!)
To anyone who tries to give me grief... "how many minutes did you exercise today?" ;o)

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Giving in to peer pressure.

I've decided to join the band waggon and



I'm not doing this because I need to loose any pounds. I'm doing this because I'm getting very out of shape and climbing the stairs can make me winded.

So starting today, I will exercise for one minute per comment on my eliptical trainer.

Now I must warn you. I live at high altitude and it takes me a while to work my way up to doing serious time on the ET. So if I do not get to all the minutes required, they will get rolled over to the next day. I know this sounds wimpy, but there have been days where I've only been able to do 2 minutes.

So say I get 10 comments and I can only do 5 minutes? those extra 5 minutes will go to the next day and I will try harder to get all the comment minutes done. I'm hoping that I get up to 30 minutes by Jan 6th. Oh, and I reserve the right to break up the time as well...you know, 10 min in the morning and 10 at night, etc... Hey, it's my body!

Letter rip folks! I'll keep you posted on how many minutes I actually do.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Most annoying

I stole this one from Denise. This one was a little challenging since I have WAY more than 7 things that annoy me. I’m not tagging anyone, but feel free to steal it. Enjoy!



7 Things That Annoy Me


1. People who are RUDE. I don't care what kind of crappy day you're having, that's no reason to take it out on me. Misdirected anger leads to more stress anyway. Take it up with the person who got you mad in the first place. Now if you want to RANT about your anger to me...go right ahead. I've got very good ears for that.

2. My nextdoor neighbor's cars. They're actually extreemly nice people. But it annoys me to no end that they live in a house with a two car garage and they own 10 cars! I guess the most annoying part is that they continue to park at least one of their cars in front of my house all the time...yeah, that's the most annoying part! Not only does it trash up my house but it blocks the very front part of my yard from being viewed from the street...which means there is absolutely no point to putting up Christmas lights in my yard. So I just decorate the house. Oh and it gets even more annoying when they park one of the cars on the other side of the street from my driveway. it makes it tricky for getting into and out of my driveway.

3. My same nextdoor neighbor's dogs. They have 4 currently (I'll get back to that in a sec.) and 3 of them are full time outdoor dogs. The 4th dog, a Lab mix stays inside and barks at everything. So when the Lab is outside in the yard, he barks at anything else outside. Which means he barks at my dog. He also eats through the wood privacy fence and comes into my yard when he gets to barking at my dog. He has also taught the other 3 dogs to bark at everything outside the fence too...so they bark at us and our dog as well...but at least they don't eat the fence.

4. Part 2 of annoying thing #3, our homeowner's covenants say that we are only allowed a combinded total of 3 animals. You may have noticed that neighbor has 4 dogs. He also has 1 cat and I don't know how many birds. The cat isn't a problem as it's indoors. But in the summer you can hear the birds through the windows. The one screams out my neighbor's name (must be copying the wife) all day long. The wife told me once that in their old house a neighbor called the cops because she though the birds were a domestic fight.

5. People who have trainded their kids to throw a fit (because they give in) and then choose to not give in when the fit happens in a public place. We were in Target the other day and there was a little girl screaming her head off throwing a fit. She was kicking her legs and throwing items off the shelves. Mom was walking around and shopping, acting like it wasn't her kid. This went on for a good 20 minutes before the kid was loaded up on a shopping cart (still crying) and moved to another location in the store. I later heard one of the employees talking to a customer about the screamer...he said that his dad would have beat him (which I don't agree with at all) but that he was totally mad because he had to go and pick up all the merchandise the kid was allowed to toss all over the place.
I agree with ignoring a fit...but you have to ALWAYS ignore a fit so that they NEVER work and the kid learns that this is not an effective way of getting something.

6. I'm not sure if it's lack of training or lack of caring on the employee's fault, but it really annoys me when I order fast food and the employee starts to gather the items I've ordered and one item isn't done yet...so all of my food sits there getting cold while we wait for the one item. (Yes, I have asked for a warm meal before and I get the sigh.) It's simple really...either wait for all the food to be done and keep the done food under the heat lamps or give me the done food and bring out the last item when it's done.

7. The paper person tossing our paper in the gutter. First, we don't subscribe to this paper. It is given to all residents free...although the do put a bill in it every year in hopes that someone will pay for it. Second, we don't read the paper...so it goes right in the recycling. but to toss it in the gutter where it gets all wet and then freezes is just wrong.

8. My mom sending my Christmas gifts wrapped in Christmas paper...and my birthday gifts not wrapped at all! *sigh* I'm glad that she sent me separate birthday gifts and I'm really thrilled with what she got me...two new foam pillows for my bed!, a quilted purse (don't know what to do with it) and the Woolite gentle garment washing bag set. But I'm not thrilled that they weren't wrapped. I told Darly that I'm going to start using my birthday gifts and then wait to open my Christmas gifts until my birthday. hee hee


see that's 8 and I haven't scratched the surface. LOL!

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Update to Darly's post

Dad did take Darly shopping today. I don't know where they went or what they got. I do know that DH mentioned that I almost ended up with nothing because Darly was frustrating him with her shopping.

See if it's Darly's idea then she can shop forever (which drives a man crazy. It's against the "get in there and get out quick" code.) but if it's not her idea (or you want to shop yourself) she's like all done and ready to leave.

But apparently they did accomplish the mission because I would have heard about it from Darly if they hadn't...and I saw them come downstairs with wrapped gifts.

Perhaps I need to teach Darly how to shop online...but that could be dangerous too. LOL!

Oh, Darly will be back for more guest posts. Just not today. We both felt that too many of you might be bugging her to tell her what she got for me. So she'll post again on a totally different topic...perhaps my birthday gift. hee hee

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Guest Blogger Darly: Dad needs to take me shopping!

You're probably wondering why Mom has a guest blogger here today. Well, I've been bugging Mom for quite some time about having my own blog. She thinks that I'm still too young and that I need to learn how to spell better first. But she decided that she would let me post here today. So here it goes...

YIKES! There is only 11 days to Christmas and Dad still has not taken me to the mall to buy Mom's Christmas present and with 11 days to Christmas and all I am runing out of time!!!
P.S. comments will be shown to mom and me.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Look out, cranky lady!

PMS

Stressed about Christmas package mailing and one item that still has not arrived (was supposed to be here yesterday! now probably won't be here until Friday.)

DH is out of town

We have no plans to keep busy this week (getting out of the house stuff)

And I've got someone griping to me about a form they want that they have NEVER said when it was due.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm guessing the PMS is pretty self explanatory. You know the usual, bloating, pain, etc...

I got most of my Christmas cards done and mailed already. I need to sit down and finish the cards to Darly's godparents and to my grandmother. I also need to mail out a few packages...but I would like to do it in one visit and there's the hold up of one item that isn't here yet. And if I send out the rest of the package w/o the item it leaves a huge empty space in my box... I think that I may just mail it anyway so that it gets there on time. Too bad I tossed out that card from the postoffice telling me the cut off dates.

DH is teaching a class in Vegas this week...Lucky him! He's staying at a very nice hotel and eating food that I didn't have to cook all week. Darly & I should be eating out this week so that when he comes back and wants a home cooked meal I won't feel all ready to eat out...that's the ticket!

We had no plans scheduled for this week. That is so totally odd. I mean usually we have a ton of stuff on the calendar with some days having as many as 3 activities planned. But this week...NADA! Okay, I have to admit that Monday I did go answer phones at Church...and today if it wasn't so cold and everyone else wasn't sick I could go to the park (but since so far no one else is coming, we won't do that) and Friday we do have Girl Scouts...so I should plan for that. And a friend DID invite us to go swimming tomorrow. But yesterday we went NO WHERE and I didn't even get dressed or showered...EWWWWEEEE! I know, TMI!

And finally there's the form. And hey if you're reading this, you might see why I'm ticked about it. First she sends out the form and says please MAIL this back to me ASAP...but she doesn't ever say "I need it by this date". Previously, we've been able to fill these forms out in person and just hand them in...but no. She wants them all MAILED in...and DON'T give them to her at the two times you'll see her in person because she won't be thinking about that topic and will loose them.

OKAY FINE. But like I mentioned before, she never said when she NEEDED the form, just ASAP and don't give them to her in person. So yesterday she sends this email that says I'm sorry for being cranky and send the form NOW OR DO THE JOB YOURSELF! WHOA! Where the heck did that come from?
So I write back that Yes, her email was cranky and the form was in the mail.
She writes back that being nice didn't work.
I write back again with a copy of the first email that she didn't say when she wanted the form back.
She writes back "gimme a break."

Okay, I'll concede that she did say ASAP. But when you say that during the holidays and nothing is supposed to be due on this for another 4 weeks...at least you could put a due date. And I'll also concede that she picked the absolute WORST time in the world to get all cranky about this.

And here's the kicker... I'm letting this get to me. Why can't I just drop it? I guess I really really really want to fight about it. Ya know, if she had sent the email out next week...I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it...

NOPE! I would have, because the DO THE JOB YOURSELF crap was really uncalled for.

So I guess I should hurry up and run that package to the postoffice...hopefully before the rest of the world wakes up and figures out that they need to be at the PO too.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

cuz I'm a sucker for a good meme

I picked this baby up over at Denise's place.
Click on the ****s to read it.

I've done the bold, wish I'd done the red, stuff I don't wanna do is in BLUE...


01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game two superbowls and one game I actually watched.
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg okay, it was fake…Tropicanna in Vegas.
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper

21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales how about wild dolphins? Off the beach in FL
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach

50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater

66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites

70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight

72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced but ended a 4 year relationship once.
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch

78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo although fake tatoos are fun!
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music

87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date doesn’t everyone these days?
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents

93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children not done yet
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication

106. Lost 100 pounds (close to it)
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback

108. Piloted an airplanesimulator
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth

112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistoland I’m a good shot, so watch out!
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school

131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes

134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eatingFish counts, right?
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream - but I'm happy where I am.
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair

147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Merry Christmas



Well I had intended to post our Christmas collage here... but both blogger and photobucket wouldn't accept my powerpoint. So instead you get to see just the official family picture.

If you know how I can make my powerpoint collage get on here...feel free to tell me how to do it... my scanner is acting up right now and short of posting each picture separately (which would suck big time) I don't know how else to do it.

For those of you looking for the dog... Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting I put this picture of us in the Christmas cards.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

I need some help please...and I got tagged for a meme

first the help.

Can anyone tell me how to make my pictures smaller on the post below. Blogger was being cranky yesterday when I was creating the post, so I just cut & pasted the tag from Photobucket and it worked great...except the pixs are so big that my sidebar is at the bottom.

and now the meme. Since I know a lot of you aren't interested in memes, I've hidden it. Click the ****** if you really really want to read more about meme. i am: tired & busy…or is that busy & tired. I can never remember…or type today either!
i want: happily ever after!
i have: all I could ever need.
i wish: a better world for Darly
i hate: bills addressed to me
i miss: my old dog
i hear: the TV set
i wonder: what DH will give me for Christmas as my list is pretty tough.
i regret: nothing
i am not: a morning person.
i dance: whenever I hear a great song…even in the grocery store!
i sing: whenever I want to. I don’t care one bit that I’m not any good. Look out world!
i cry: when I watch sad movies
i am not always: a great homemaker.
i make with my hands: great food
i journal: I don’t journal.
i confuse: Darly’s name with the Lilly’s when I’m frustrated
i need: new video card for this computer or a new computer.
i should: clean the rabbit’s cage.
i start: too many projects.
i finish: not nearly enough of them.
i will tag: YOU! If you wanna be tagged. You don't have to. Let me know if you participate so I can come and visit!

Thanks to Denise for helping get my pictures to a normal size. She's an awesome blog designer if you need a new template.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Trying to get the perfect family photo...

Island girl was lamenting about trying to get a picture of her girls for this year's Christmas card. So I thought I would share with you my struggles.

See after spending forever at Church taking photos for our Church Directory with the option of buying copies for our Christmas cards and none of them coming out to our liking, we decided to just take our pictures at home. (boy that was a run on sentence! LOL!) I think they must have taken close to 20 pictures and it wasn't until the last 6 that he actually had us posed together. Before that he had us spread out too far.

So we got home and set up the camera and took another 20 photos or so to get our family picture. But then, we decided to also try to get a picture with the dog.

Since we knew there would be some issues, we decided to first change into comfortable clothes… that was very smart.

I set up the camera. I had to use the lowest settings on my tripod. We set the scene. We decided that we should put Lilly on her couch. (yes, my spoiled dog has her own couch. But before you go too far…know that the couch originally belonged to our first dog Misty and then it was Darly’s couch to play on…I had a new cover made for it for Darly. And then after Darly grew too big for it, it became Lilly’s couch. She loves it and can be found snoozing on it whenever I’m in the family room…because if I’m in here on the computer, you’ll find Lilly curled up at my feet for me to trip on when I get up.) Oh, back to the pictures…

So Lilly was on her couch and we were to sit behind her couch, with our loveseat as the background. Darly would pose behind the couch and then I would set the timer and try to get into the picture too.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Here you can see that Lilly was distracted by her bone.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting This is the one we put in our Christmas cards.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
DH only participated a few times.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting




As you can tell, almost every time I tried to get into the picture Lilly would take notice of the quick movement (she has a high prey drive) and would try to lick someone.

Finally I gave up trying to get into the picture. Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Thursday, November 30, 2006

An Idea I had today....

I don't know why I was thinking about this some more today...while I was driving. But anyway. Today in the car on my way to make some crafts I came up with what might be considered a brilliant idea.

Yeah, this is still about the Combo-gifting thing. Sorry if you were hoping for another brilliant idea.

I've decided that if my Mom ever sends me another combo-gift that I'm just going to wait until my birthday to open it.

I was figuring that since I'll be getting Christmas gifts from DH, DD, MIL, Bro & SIL, and friends... that one less gift won't hurt me any. So I'll just put Mom's gift off to the side and wait for my birthday to open it.

Then I hope that she asks how I liked it when I talk to her. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! "Gee Mom, I'm sorry. It's not my birthday yet, so I didn't open it."

Now watch. I've got the perfect plan and she'll send me separate gifts this year.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

deep thinking...

I've been sitting here playing a game of Bejeweled and thinking about things. Wondering about why things are. Mostly about why some things bother me so very much. And of course it all boils down to my parents. Everything is about them right?

Here's the deal...

My birthday is coming up. It's 10 days after Christmas. My mother likes to buy me a large gift for Christmas and say it's for my birthday too. She doesn't seem to mind much if I do a similar thing to her... her birthday is Dec 1st. And I'm pretty sure that it didn't bother me so much at one point. But now it really iritates me.

No one would ever think to do that to a person with a birthday in say... July. Right? Is there anyone out there with a birthday in July who has gotten a Christmas/birthday gift???

So I've been pondering why this bugs me so much. I'm sure that folks who have birthdays closer to Christmas get this all the time and have learned to live with it or perhaps even enjoy it.

And I think I've got it figured out. It's two fold.

The first part is that my father never remembered my birthday. He doesn't remember anyone's birthday unless it's his own. He barely remembered Christmas...in fact I know that one year he had me go with him to do the Christmas shopping for my brothers and myself. That is the WORST thing a parent can ever do to a kid. I went to the store, picked out everything for my brothers...got my own gift, wrapped them all on Christmas Eve and put them under the tree. The following morning there was just what I put under the tree...nothing more. Not even a card.

Of course this man had done plenty of "Worst Parent on Earth" worthy deeds. But that's another blog.

The second part is when I first moved out on my own, I lived with a boyfriend. And he could never wait for Christmas. The first Christmas that we were together, he had given me my Christmas gift probably the day he bought it or the following day and gave it to me. Told me to open it right then. Thinking that I might be getting more gifts on Christmas, I opened it. It was a cute stuffed animal...and it was all I got that year. My friends were as confused as I was. They thought he was being cute and doing a 12 days of Christmas thing...where I would get something each day until Christmas... NOPE. He did that every year that we were together...and worse when my Mom sent me my Christmas/birthday gift...he forced me to open that too. (when I say forced, I mean he bugged me endlessly about it until I opened the gift.) So on Christmas day there was nothing for me to open. And of course for my birthday there was nothing to open either.

So now that it has been over 20 years since that happened, one would think that I would have gotten over it. I wish I had thought to bring this up when I was seeing the counselor. I would sure like to be over it.

Luckily, I have a wonderful DH who while he teases me about doing the Christmas/birthday gift thing would never seriously ever do it. He knows how much my Mom doing it buggs me, so he doesn't. Besides, he's smart enough to know that everything goes on sale after Christmas and he can get me a much bigger gift for my birthday...which makes me happier.

Okay, after hearing from Carmen, I've decided that perhaps my perturbance at this issue might not be out of line. So to test my theory, I'm asking for folks to tell me what month their birthday is in and if they have ever received the combo Christmas/Birthday gift.

January - Me gets combos, Carmen gets combos, Better Safe than Sorry no combos!
February - goofy girl sometimes gets combos, Bone got degifted!
March - Jake & Bathsheba's mom no combos
April - Cheysuli doesn't normally get presents at all,
May -
June -
July - Chickadee (Colleen), Barbara no combos either!, Samantha no combos
August -
September -
October - the big man, Mar, Dawn
November - Denise gets combos, Veronika no combos!
December - Holly gets combos, Rascal's big brother no combos ('cuz mom wouldn't allow it. YAY MOM!), Samantha's twins used to combo but not any more.

Thanks for helping me conduct this poll.

I've learned the term for this is "Double-gifting" although that sounds a little like I should be getting twice the gifts. Perhaps "Combo-gifting" fits better. And poor Dawn's parents who get combo-gifted for Mother & Father's days.

I wanna thank all y'all who don't get combo-gifted who support us who do get this.

And Colleen asked "does she (my mom) know how I feel?" Yes, I've told her. But she feels that since it's her money and she doesn't have much that I should be looking a gift horse in the mouth. To tell you the truth, I would prefer if she gave me the combo-gift on my birthday instead.

So I'm seeing her that those of us who get combo-gifted, don't like it and those of us who don't get combo-gifted completely understand our feelings. So YAY! That's a good thing.

Jake & Bathsheba think my Mom has a control thing about my birthday and I think they're right. She's got some severe control issues (that's another post!), and for much of our lives we were very poor. She's always been proud of how she was able to keep us all well fed and clothed on such a tight budget. However, part of that was taking advantage of the fact that two of us had our birthdays near Christmas and two had birthdays in the summer...so she did not throw us birthday parties at all.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Well I Never! - a meme

This one is our charming Lady of the Hill's meme, and I picked it up over at Maremagnum's place listing things I have never done.

01. I have never had older siblings. I am the oldest.
02. I have never been Greenland
03. I have never had a son. Only a daughter, but I've changed plenty of boy diapers.
04. I have never been to Europe
05. I have never been to Africa
06. I have never been to Moscow
07. I have never been to a bed & breakfast
08. I have never driven a school bus
09. I have never seen a real panda bear in person
10. I have never buried treasure in St. Louis or St. Paul
11. I have never tried to learn Japanese or Chinese (although I've been to Japan)
12. I have never cooked a lobster
13. I have never played real golf (put-put lots of times though)
14. I have never ran a marathon (I don't run!)
15. I have never wanted to be in the medical profession (although one of the paramedics asked if I was a paramedic.)
16. I have never written a novel, or short story either.
17. I have never hoist the mainstay
18. I have never gone sailing (although I've always wanted to!)
19. I have never swab the poop deck
20. I have never veer to starboard 'cuz I never sail at all
21. I have never had a pedicure
22. I have never never owned a parrot (or held one either!)
23. I have never played bridge
24. I have never gotten head lice
25. I have never designed a blog template
26. I have never watched LOST
27. I have never plucked a rooster
28. I have never accidentally deleted important files (*knocks on wood)
29. I have never kissed a chipmunk
Last, but not least:
30. "I have never been to Boston in the Fall!"

In case you didn't catch it, many of my Nevers are also the lyrics to one of my favorite songs.

Tagging you and you, specially you if you belong to the ones who have never done a meme !

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The countdown....

Rolls - baked
brownie pie - baked (MIL is bringing the pumpkin dessert)
Rutabegas - chopped & soaking in water
Turkey - in brine...getting yummy


Tomorrow's agenda:

10:00am - preheat oven. pull bird out of brine and get it into the roasting pan.
10:00am - start cooking turkey
11:00am - start potatoes

While potatoes cook, get yams, green bean casserole & stuffing ready to be baked later. Put in frig.

Finish potatoes and any other side dishes.

12ish - eat a snack...wash dishes...get table set...holler at DH & DD to make sure the house is finished getting cleaned.

1pm - put yams in oven to bake & put "brick" in oven too (it's a thick tile that keeps the rolls warm on the table.

1:30 - bird should be done, set aside to rest. Load oven with potatoes, green beans, stuffing to reheat and begin making the gravy.

1:45 - Carve the bird, heat the rolls, pop the corn in the microwave, heat the rutabegas (that I should have cooked earlier!) and pull the cranberries out of the frig.
2:00 - serve dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you're as busy & blessed as I am.

Update: well my bird was done a whole hour sooner than I had planned, but I just popped all my sides into the oven to reheat early and we ate early. When MIL showed up I wasn't dressed yet (I was holding off getting all pretty until all the ugly cooking work was done!) so I asked her to cut the tomatoe for the salad and zipped upstairs to get dressed.
Dinner came out wonderful. MIL raved about how good it all tasted. It's no secret...here's my Turkey recipe!

Friday, November 17, 2006

Two very cool nights...

Wednesday night Darly & I went to a Paramedic training class. See this friend of ours' SIL trains paramedics and they have a class each session where they need child patients/victims to work on as kids are different than adults.

So after braving the nighttime rushhour traffic and finding our way into the building (totally walked right past the door that was clearly labeled and open!) we get in and of course Darly is nervous.

Darly watches the other kids (my friend's kids who do this every time and are very used to it) and eventually warms up.

One of the Paramedic trainees comes up and tries to engage Darly who was still pretty nervous...but eventually she got Darly to participate.

They took Darly's history and vitals and then strapped her to a back board that I called a Magic Carpet...Darly said it wasn't much like a magic carpet...even though she was "floating"...oh well, so much for Mom trying to help. They then place the backboard onto the pram (stretcher?) and rode her around to a "ambulance" (room that has been built to look like an ambulance with a higher floor...although the great big window looking out at the parking lot isn't all that real...hee hee

Later Darly had her arm imobilized which was cool.

By the time Darly really got into things our time was up...but that's normally how things are with Darly. Oh well, hopefully next time we get to go she'll be more comfortable.

At the end the instructior (friend's SIL) asked the group to tell her about the kids one at a time and chewed them out for "taking the word of a 7y/o" for the history. She reminded the students that they had the perfect source of information for the kids...they're parents! But it seemed that the paramedics in training only used the parents if the children were too young.

My friend told me that some of the students were there for their second time and assured me that even though these students were almost done that they would have to do in the field training with experienced Paramedics. One guy has failed numerous times and SIL wants to not let him try again as he freaks her out.

I got to ask the difference between a Paramedic & EMT...EMT's have more training and when you call 911, chances are that you'll get a Fire Dept's Paramedic...who has been trained by a EMT in our area.

And our Second cool night was last night at the Observatory. We got to see how the Cassini-Huygens mission is going. Which kinda bored the kids a lot...but I found it very interesting and Darly was able to answer a very good question...What are those dark stripes on Saturn? Well the description below the picture tells you...but the kids only got the picture. And Darly knew it was the rings' shaddow.

After the slide show we got to go upstairs to the telescope and because it was a clear night we were able to actually view a few things. At first they had the scope pointed at a Nebula. I really couldn't make it out, but then I saw a picture of what it was supposed to look like and realized that I had seen it...should have looked at the picture first.

At this point some people began to leave. But the one guy hollers at another "Hey, can we look at M-15?" and he says "sure!"

Then we were shown a formation called M-15. This I could see. Yay! This is one of the Messier Objects, so I was able to show the kids from the chart downstairs...which made it seem more cool.

After that the guy hollers, "Hey, how about we take a look at Uranus?" and the other guy says sure! and I tried to find a picture that looked like what we saw...but all images online are much better than what we saw. It was a little smaller than a pencil eraser with a green halo.

And then the guy hollers, "Let's try for Neptune!" And they did. They couldn't be 100% certain that we were actually looking at Neptune because they had to manuver the telescope by hand for it as it was sitting very low in the sky. But it was still cool anyway.

The last time I got to go and look through the scope we saw Jupiter & the moon. And then this summer we got to see Mars, Jupiter & Saturn.

The Astronomy guys were telling us that there is one night of the year where all nine planets are visible...but you have to wait up all night to see them as they are at different positions in the sky. I'm hoping that we can go see that.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

They're coming...is anyone else panicked?

Thanksgiving is only 8 days away...and most of today is gone already!

Darly invited MIL over for Thanksgiving...so that means I've gotta clean the house. If I have time, I'll clean the office too. HA! Don't hold your breath. I also wanted to clean the blinds, but I don't see that happening either.

They're taking pictures at Church this weekend & next weekend for our directory...but we can also order prints. I'm going to order some as the procedes are going to our sister Church in Germany.

So that means I've gotta get my hair done...my roots are really really long. Not quite long enough to chop off the color and call it good yet though. So I got an appointment on Thursday.

I like to have all of my Christmas shopping DONE before Thanksgiving. But that AINT happening as I haven't even got the lists started yet. Darly has hers, but I've still gotta have the talk with DH about what she can actually have from the list. I don't even know what I want for Christmas. And of course DH doesn't know.

I also like to have my Christmas cards in the mail right after Thanksgiving. Don't see that going either... but I guess it's okay to slack off about that as we haven't moved in a long time and none of the folks on my list need our updated address. {see we used to move all the time, so I would send out our cards right after Thanksgiving so they would have our new address and could send us a card back. My cousin's wife used to pick on me in her card...to everyone!}

One thing that will happen is that I WILL get my Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving. And the lights will go up outside on the first day with no snow and it's not freezing outside. I would LOVE it if it got to 80 degrees again, but I won't hold my breath. What will most likely happen is you'll see me up there with hat & gloves hoping I don't slip on the roof trying to get it all perfect. I just had an idea... I should make some sort of permanent marks as to where everything goes. Hummmm... DH thinks I'm obsessed...he's right. But I come by it honestly...you should see my Mom's house.

And then there's our usual busy schedule. Someone take me away!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

My brush with fame...

In honor of 80's week over at IYROOBTY I'm posting my New Kids on the Block story.

The Place: Tampa Florida
The Time: January 1991 (disclaimer: Yeah, I realize that this didn't happen in the 80's. But the band is from the 80's and that's where the them comes in.)

The Event: Super Bowl XXV Halftime show.


The halftime show was titled "A Small World Salute to 25 Years of the Super Bowl". It was produced by Disney and featured over 2,000 children from different ethnic backgrounds and a performance by boy band New Kids on the Block, who were quite popular at the time.

You probably don't remember seeing this halftime show....

ABC did not broadcast the halftime show live. Instead, they televised a special ABC News report anchored by Peter Jennings on the progress of the war. That didn't have anything new to report about the war as the soldiers were mostly sitting around taking the day off to watch the game! The halftime show was later shown on tape delay after the game.

Okay, let me go back to the real beginning of the story...

Back in December my youngest brother comes home from high school and asks me if I can drive him to a meeting at the school about participating in the halftime show. Hoping that I might possibly get a chance to be in the show too, I agreed to take him. (I had been in the 1884 halftime show as a stage hand because I chickened out on the dancing!)

So we go to the meeting and find out what they want us to do and I asked if they were taking older volunteers...to which they said yes. YIPPEE!

So in January we begin our practices. I was to help push a really big blow up of Pluto out onto the field. (think those airblown Christmas & Halloween displays...only over 20 feet tall!) There were 5 other character balloons, so there were a lot of crews.
After we got the balloons on the field and turned on the fans, we were to go to the infield closest to us and pretend to cheer for the New Kids.

Durring every practice they played the pre-recorded tape of the entire show with the New Kids part in it. So it would announce "Ladies & Gentelmen, (insert all the sponsors here) proudly present THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!" at which we would all yell BOO! as loudly as we could during the practice, because they were old hat by then.

For the practices Disney dancers played the parts of the New Kids because they of course were too busy to actually come to practice. And on the night of the dress rehersal only 3 of the 5 were present as the other two were drunk in their tour bus. I'll leave you to figure out which two were drunk. Oh and I forgot the car searches every time we went to the stadium...they were worried that we might try to be terrorists.

So the night of the Super Bowl. We're all excited...so much so that Alice in Wonderland gave me lip for not listening to the National Anthem. She says "Can't you hear that?" Me: "No what is it?" LOL! Then there was the fly over of jets and then we were ushered to our balloons to get ready.

Soon enough it was time to push our balloons out. We were the second balloon on the "right" to go out. I say the "right" because the poor folks on the other side of the stadium got to see practically nothing as the entire show was set up toward the press boxes...they got to see just the back of the stage and no shots of the New Kids!

We ran over to the infield and one of the guys on our crew lifted me so I could sit on the wall that keeps the people off the field. When the New Kids came out (all of them) we all cheered, even though we really wanted to boo.

And the show went off without a hitch...we were all perfect.

Then we pushed our balloons off the field and went to celebrate. It wasn't until we got back to the high school where we were parked that they announced to us that they hadn't even aired the show. We were so disappointed!

But a few weeks later we all got a "Thank You" letter from Disney along with two one day passes and a video of our performance. I still have the video if you would like to see it. You won't see me in it at all though.

As I've mentioned before I also was in the 1884 half time show and Disney also asked me to participate in "The Red, White and Blue Troop Celebration" that was a welcome home for the soliders returning home from the Gulf War. In that show I actually was "on stage" and you can see me in it. I don't know that it was ever taped though...but DH (who was then just DB) took lots of pictures of me...I'll have to post those some day.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

The Bra...revisited

Of course you had to have known that this saga wasn't over yet...right? Who knew this would lead to so much blog fodder? hee hee

For those of you who missed the first part, click HERE.


And now for the rest of the story.

Well Darly decided to try wearing the bra again. This time it was to a birthday party. I guess it was a special occasion! The party was at a bounce house (you know, where they have a bunch of those blow up bouncy things?)
So we're there for maybe 10 minutes and Darly comes up to me to have me put her bra, that she removed in the bathroom, in my purse. The funny thing about that was that the gal who recommended the book to me was standing right there...had read my blog post about the bra...and almost busted a gut containing her giggles until Darly went off to play again.
We then got into talking about her DD and the page on "tampoons." Growing up is so much fun!

Last night after dinner DH asked if we could go to Kohls to see what was on sale. While DH was looking in the Men's dept, Darly & I went to the girl's department and picked up this. So today she put one of those on and as far as I know it's still on...I haven't checked to see, but she didn't ask me to put it in my purse either.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

In honor of 80's week

Bone over at IYROOBTY is considering a 80's week...so I took the quiz.



Yeah, of course I cheated! But I wanted to be sure to get the spelling right because he knocks off for it!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

My baby is growing up....

... but not too fast

Darly is eight & a half now. So I decided that since she wasn't asking much about getting older that I would get her a book about growing up. On a friend's recommendation, I got her "The Care and Keeping of You - The Body Book for Girls".
Darly started reading the book while we were still in the store and had it almost finished before we got home. Needless to say she was very interested and the book helped to start a lot of much needed conversation. Luckily she's very comfortable with asking me stuff now.

However, Darly decided the other day that she would now like to have a bra. She brought this up at dinner the other night and DH nearly choked. He said "No, you're too young and you don't need one yet." I just looked at her from across the table with a look that said & meant that we would go shopping soon.

So we went shopping on Friday and picked out a very nice set of bras for her. She thinks they're great. She also decided that today she would wear one for the very first time... to Church. I thought it would be fine.

And it was fine...

... Until we got out of Church and were heading for the parking lot. She announced that the bra was too itchy. So I told her that she could take it off in the car.

So I tried to talk her through the "secret" maneuver of removing a bra while keeping your shirt on. It probably would have helped if she wasn't wearing a shirt with very tight sleeves. She ended up having to slip her arms out of the sleeves to get the bra off...but she did and put it in her bag and spent the rest of the day braless.

So after we got home, I asked her when she next planned to wear her bra. She says the next time she is going to be with her friend or next weekend.

No, as far as we know, her friend doesn't wear a bra yet either. I should probably warn her mom. And I'll definately tell Darly to not bring it up with her friend. It's not like either of them need a bra yet.

Update: I emailed friend's mom this morning about the bra situation and she emailed me back that Darly had already told friend about the bra...
WHAT? When did she do that? It turns out that she told her on Friday at Girl Scouts. Luckily friend has an older sister and it was no big deal. So I just went upstairs and gave Darly the "You're in Big Trouble!" look while I told her what had happened. LOL!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

The Great Cookie Exchange 2006

Heather at Everything Under the Moon had the wonderful idea of starting a cookie exchange! Here is my contribution.

These are a family tradition from my MIL...

Sugar Plum Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 cup pecans or walnuts chopped
1 1/4 cups chopped dates (8oz)
2 1/2 cups Rice Krispy cereal
1/3 cup water
1 cup all purpose flour
red colored sugar

heat butter in medium skillet over medium heat; when melted, add eggs and sugar. Mix thoroughly, blend in dates, then add water. Cook, stirring constantly til thick (7-10 min). Stir in flour, salt, vanilla, nuts and rice krispies. Mix thoroughly. Cool till lukewarm. Shape into balls or strawberry shapes and roll in sugar. Yields aprox 70.

My new favorite song

It gets stuck in my head! And I love it!

If you would like to read more, click on the ****

Lincoln Brewster - Everlasting God
From the album Let The Praises Ring - Best Of Lincoln Brewster

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
Wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
Wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
Our God You reign forever
Our Hope our strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint You won't grow weary
You're the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
The everlasting God
The everlasting

Label: Integrity Music

I also love this one! Todd Agnew - Did You Know
Were Mary’s the first eyes you saw
Or did You remember choosing that shade of brown?
Were You surprised at the shepherd’s crazy story
Or did You know You wrote the song the angels sang?

What was this life like for You?

Did You know?
Did the cross cast its shadow o’er your cradle?
Did You know?
Did You shudder each time Your hammer struck a nail?
Did you know?
How much heaven and how much earth
Were in this baby at His birth?
Did you know? Or did you wonder?

Did you remember the brightness of Your glory Or did You just notice it was cold and dark here?
Did You know Your name or did you have to be told?

Were You just a baby or were You as old as time?

What was Your life like?

I you wanna hear these head over to KLOVE and type the title into the search box and click on the speaker icon.

I Voted!

I've been meaning to go vote early since the early voting polls opened. I knew that next Tuesday I was going to be wayyy too busy to get it done and we have a REALLY long ballot this time.

In fact last night I was flipping through the channels on the TV and came across our Government access channel. Where our County Voter Registrar lady thingy was on there Highly suggesting that everyone vote by absentee ballot because of how long the ballot is... but you have to have your request for the absentee ballot into her office by Oct 27... ummm last night was Nov 1st! I think that they were replaying a tape.

So we headed over to vote. The early voting was held at our local fire department. Apparently they were NOT expecting that many people to vote early because the building did not have enough parking...so you had to wait to get a parking space. I ended up parking along the curb. Then there was a line of folks waiting to get into the building. I was like #15 or so to get in and then they had another 10 folks waiting to vote inside.

Luckily I had read everything, made my selections and brought my sample ballot with me because it would have taken me forever to choose everything there at the poll. Also it was a big help to have my sample ballot to check my ballot at the end...I was reading the sample ballot and holding my place on the screen with my finger. Darly found that pretty funny...but I wanted to be sure. Then they print the ballot, you check it again and then you press cast ballot. I was finally done!

As we leave, the line is now outside of the building about 30 or so people...I have NO IDEA where they were parking! And as we went to the car some guy wanted my spot against the curb. Trying to get out of there was fun. I got to show off my teriffic driving skills for Darly...she wasn't impressed. *sigh*

We got home to miss DH's call that he's going to be late.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Smashing Pumpkins!

Yesterday's Jack-o-lanterns will be making their next appearance in a Thanksgiving dessert or in soup or muffins...I don't know yet.

Tonight I cut appart my jack-o-lanterns that I carved just yesterday (Darly carved them too!), used non-flamable lighting in and then covered with plastic wrap and placed in the frig until I was ready to cook them!

I finally found my favorite pumpkin carving knife...after messing up every other knife in the house to find one that will cut through these suckers! And I cut up the pumpkins so they fit into my pressure cookers...yup! I have two pressure cookers. One is 4 qt (my first one) and the other is a 6qt...it's the baby.

I loaded up the pressure cookers with freshly cut pumpkin, locked them and set them both to high and waited for the fireworks! Well there were no fireworks and even though Darly was positive that they were "gonna blow!" They didn't blow either.

After 5 pots worth I got all 3 of our pumpkins cooked.

Then comes the fun part... pealing the pumpkins. See they're much easier to peal when they're cooked. You just slide a spoon between the flesh & the skin. After that you take your trusty potato masher and take out your frustrations on them.

And last but not least you dump the cooked & smashed pumpkin into containers and put them in the freezer.

Now why on earth would I smash my own pumpkins? I'm not entirely sure about that. I find myself getting more and more domestic as I get older...why just a week ago I made my very first batch of bread...without a breadmaker! And part of it must be that I HATE to buy something that I can make myself. And another part is that I grew these pumpkins (well two of them) and I should get to eat them too. And finally it seems like such a shame for a pumpkin to only be a jack-o-lantern when there's so much other stuff it can be after halloween.

And the winner is....

Ladybug! woo hoo!

In this totally fair drawing, I put all the names on slips of paper and then had Darly pick one... she had no idea what she was picking. In fact she asked me "What will I have to do with this?" And I told her: "Nothing! You just picked who gets to read "Devil wears Prada" next." She's so thrilled!

So the book is off to Virginia...right? I need to go recheck Ladybug's blog. hee hee

Friday, October 27, 2006

Time for the book to travel again!

Once upon a time I was lurking over at thepinkdiary and noticed that Kalani had found a copy of...





on one of her flights. She already owned a copy so she offered it up to the blogosphere. Well imagine her suprize when lots of people had wanted the book (she figured that everyone had already read it.) So she ended up having a drawing for the book and guess who won it?


Little old me!

So in honor of her generosity I agreed that once I was done with it that I too would offer it up to the blogosphere.

So here are the rules...

If you would like to read the book you have to agree to pass it on when you're done...and leave a comment that you want it right here. That's it. The rest is up to luck. I'll assign all interested parties a number and then draw a number from a hat (or use a website to do it for me) and let you know who has won. You'll email me your address and I'll mail it. Tah dah! easy smeashy.

Good Luck!

So far I'm showing that Tracie, Goofy Girl and Samantha are interested. Anyone else? I'd like to get this moving soon...so speak now or forever hold your peace.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Just for you Kukka!

Kukka-Maria said...
Llama, schlama. What about kitties?


So just for you Kukka, because we love you.

The Kitty Cat Dance

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Thanks Jen!

My good buddy Jen decided to get a song stuck in my head today. Oh she wasn't just picking on me...she shared this with everyone else too.

So now in the interest of sharing my good fortune, I present THE LLAMA SONG!

And in case that's too fast for you...here are the words!

Here's a llama
There's a llama
And another little llama
Fuzzy llama
Funny llama
Llama llama duck


Llama llama cheesecake llama
Tablet brick potato llama
Llama llama mushroom llama
Llama llama duck

I was once a treehouse
I lived in a cake
But I never saw the way
The orange slayed the rake
I was only three years dead
But it told a tale
And now listen, little child
To the safety rail

Did you ever see a llama
Kiss a llama on the llama
Llama's llama tastes of llama
Llama llama duck

Half a llama, twice the llama
Not a llama farmer llama
Llama in a car
Alarm a llama llama duck

Is that how it's told now?
Is it all so old?
Is it made of lemon juice?
Doorknob ankle cold
Now my song is getting thin
I've run out of luck
Time for me to retire now
And become a duck


Wanna know more about the Llama song? Click here. Wanna kick my butt? Sorry I'm not home right now. :D

Posted for the techies who might understand all of this

Here's a list of all the stuff that was fixed on my computer.


There was a graphic here showing how fragmented my computer was...it was all RED!

Blue = defragmented
Red = Fragmented
Green = System Files

36 viruses removed,
Virus List : F-bot, w32.Spybot, Troj-Pig , w32/naci!tftp Password and identity theft, Troj-Dropper.

18 Registry issues Critical corrected with Hijackthis.
RegClean = BAD DO NOT USE

Spyware threats removed 29 totals;
Spybot S&D removed 16
Ad-Aware Removed 9
CWShredder removed 4

Other Viruses caught with Kaspersky 4 And removed.

No anti-virus on system added free version of AVAST please remove and install Norton or other name brand Anti-virus

No Firewall detected recommend a Router to correct that and protect the system
Purchase Router connect Ethernet cable from DSL modem to internet port on router then connect another Ethernet cable **usually comes with router* * from one of the four ports on the router to network card now in system.

Installed 74 of 78 patches from Microsoft 4 patches not installed related to office require office 2003 cd in drive to perform patch up date.
Turned off auto-updates from Microsoft this means that once every two weeks you will need to run windows update manually.

Installed Network card in system for better network stability. YAY!
Configured Internet Explorer:
Temporary Internet Files Settings to 50Mb no more then 200Mb was at 18GB this means that IE was causing network issues.
Cleared Temporary Internet Files
Set all settings back to Default Security, Cookie collection.
Cleared forms and passwords from auto-complete to correct internet password and account issue.

Friday, October 20, 2006

I'm back!

Can't say much now as I've got a ton of real stuff to catch up on...piling up while I had no computer.

But I finally have my computer back! Yay! happy dance

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Technical difficulties

You may have noticed that I haven't been visiting you as much as normal lately... because I CAN'T!

I think it was on Monday that I noticed my little Window's Update thingy blinking and so I just clicked on it and said okay...not even checking what it said I needed to download. Well since then my computer life has been very slow.

I was having HUGE problems going anywhere where there were any kind of ads. Including everyone's blogs. And my computer has completely forgotten all my cookies and passwords!!! ARGH! I had to call a friend to see if she could hack in and figure out what one of my passwords was because I hadn't written it down on my cheat sheet. She suggested that I have the same password for everything. LOL

Most of my problems have cleared up by my changing my security levels to the lowest allowed. My computer seriously asked me "ARE YOU CRAZY????" A friend has suggested that I slowly increase the security level until I can get where I wanna go and still be safe...right now that level is Low or no security. BAH!

My biggest problem is that my email accounts on Yahoo are not allowing me to use the Reply, Delete and Move buttons when I have a email opened. This is very frustrating because I can't reply to my friends with out copying what they wrote and then closing the email and opening a Compose window, copying their email into it and then replying. And then to delete, I have to do that from my email list instead of at the opened email window.

Just about ready to take this thing back to the computer geek and have him fix it...but that's $100 or about.

Lesson learned...Never Ever download another update from Windows...can't be trusted. Die MS, Die!

Monday, October 09, 2006

Busy week ahead!

Kalani over at the pinkdiary wished for me a relaxing week. Ummm... I don't think that's gonna happen.

Monday - met with LLL mom to help her become a Leader. Took 2 LLL help calls, the one was a friend of a mom who's baby died and now she's getting a breast infection. Poor thing. Took Darly to Gymnastics and sat in my cold car reading a book because the gym is way to noisy with all the extra kids running around. Went grocery shopping.

Tuesday - we are going to the US Olympic Training Center to take a tour. It should be chilly and fun. Then tomorrow evening I have a meeting with a lady who used to head up a homeschooling group here...we're excited to hear from her.

Wednesday - supposed to be park day, but a tour that we thought was on Thursday has been confirmed for Wednesday...YIKES! Hopefully that gets worked out. But if it's cold out, I think I would rather be in the candy factory...perferably over the hot stoves. heh heh heh

Thursday - the day we thought our tour to the Candy factory is. I hope that is still true. And Thursday night is Teacher's Night Out...I'm so outta there!

Friday - Pumpkin patch field trip, Birthday party at the pool (indoors of course!) and Darly has make-up gymnastics class.

Saturday - we don't have anything on the calendar...but we could go to Lowe's to build a project. Darly said she wanted to do that.

Sunday - Sunday school, Church service and then we're supposed to be making bookmarks that have the Lord's Prayer in Spanish to send to Mexico with the youth group. I'm just excited that Darly is finally old enough to be in the youth group. They don't do all that much at her age but it's getting more involved that counts.

And next week doesn't stop either.

Bone asked what's wrong with my car.
Well DH says that the right front tire feels like it's wobbling. Probably from when he hit the deer with it. And we know that the front driver's side headlight was knocked out of alignment. And then anything else that could be wrong with a car that's going on 12 years old. But it's still plugging along and DH says that we'll keep it until it's driven into the ground.

And Carmen wants a grown up slumber party. I kinda get that when we go camping with our friends. But my friends & I are planning to take a trip up to a cabin for a no kids weekend sometime...at least that's what she's been promising. I'm guessing that it will have to be in the spring as we're hitting snow season now. I need some more info on this cabin...must haves: HEAT and HOT WATER. I can't be cold.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about our friends who passed away this week. And the comments about Iraq as well.

Weekend update

Since I've got nothing better to do right now (or I'm putting off doing something much more productive) I thought that I would tell you what I did this weekend.

Saturday was a Girl Scouty thing that one of the girls in our Troop needed a ride to get to. Her mom couldn't take her because something else came up. So I said that yeah, we could swing by since it was on our way and get her... then I came up with a brilliant idea!

Why don't I see if she could just sleep over on Friday night and then we could just go straight from my house. The mom was up for it, so I took GSG home with me. On the way we stopped at the grocery store to get pizzas since I hadn't planned on a dinner and all kids love pizza.

The sleepover went great. Darly & GSG had a blast and GSG must have thanked us about a squillion times for having her over. She was very sweet.

Saturday morning DH & I were having breakfast and Lilly starts getting all excited about something she sees in our backyard. DH goes to investigate and Lilly starts barking. Then we notice that it's a squirrel! Wow! We have NEVER seen a squirrel in our yard or neighborhood before. Lilly woke up the girls of course. Which was a good thing as I was about to go wake them up anyway.

So we go to the Girl Scouty thing and this event was WAAAAYYYYY bigger than anything that I was expecting. I mean I expected there to be eleventy squillion Girl Scouts there, but I didn't expect for there to be that many "tag-a-longs" (aka Girl Scout siblings) and even regular people...we didn't have the whole place to ourselves. So we ended up being there for the entire day...here I was thinking this would last about 2 hours or so. HA HA HA HA! I didn't pack a lunch and I left my money in the car...so we had to wait until we were done to go eat. The girls were really very good about the eating thing... but by the end we were all like way to tired to hear the speaches the folks were giving out. So we decided to skip the last 4 or 5 booths (btw: did I mention that there were a whole bunch of booths for the girls to stop at to learn about different topics so they could earn steps toward 5 badges? One badge they were given outright, another was completely earned and the others they got at least one of the 6 required steps towards. In fact Darly & I were able to complete an additional badge just by talking about the other steps.) The booths that we skipped were sites that you would normally see if you visited this place. So I just told the girls what I knew about the booths as we were walking back to the car. So we got to the event at 10:30am and did not leave until 3pm.
I then took the girls to Chic-fil-a for lunch and then we headed to GSG's house to take her home. Darly & GSG played in her yard while I talked to Mom about our day and her day and a whole bunch of other stuff too. I was bushed! We had leftover pizza for dinner.

This morning we got up for Church. Darly & I went to Sunday School and learned the story of Moses & the burning bush. And the kids got to watch a really cool experiment. You put a small candle in a pie tin of water. Put food coloring in the water to make it more visible. light the candle and place a small clear glass container over the candle. Watch what happens.
I had the kids guess what they thought was going to happen...none of them knew. Do you?

We then went to service... and got some bad news. One of our members is going to Iraq on Tuesday. I was actually wondering when he was leaving because his wife had told me that he was going back during Vacation Bible School...that was when they found out he was leaving. So we all said a special prayer for him and his family. I'm sure that everything will be all right but I get so weapy about these things.

And then we found out that two members had died during the week. The one member I was expecting as she had been ill for a long time. But she's the office manager's mom so I expect that things will be hetic for a bit. The other member we knew was sick, I just didn't realize how sick he was. The Church had just honored him for being an Adult Sunday School teacher for a long time and he had finally retired from doing that. Our one pastor was in tears about him which of course made me get weapy again...I can't watch other people cry.

After Church we came home for a quiet afternoon. I found out that a book I'm currently reading is due back to the Library this Wednesday and I can't renew it because someone else wants it. Luckily I don't have too much more to read. I think that I'll be able to get it finished...possibly tomorrow night.

Tomorrow morning I have to meet with a person who will hopefully become my LLL co-Leader after our meeting. I've been waiting for a co-Leader for a long time so I hope it all works out. I'm hoping that I can back off a lot from how much I'm doing so perhaps I can enjoy it again or retire from it.

DH wants to get my car fixed tomorrow. I'm worried about how long that will take as I've got a busy week scheduled and I can't be without my car...at all. I suggested that perhaps I should rent a car (after we find out how long it will take of course.) And he's not willing to do that. So I look at my schedule and see that I don't have any days free this month until the 30th! So DH starts giving me a guilt trip about my car falling apart... he should have mentioned that I needed to schedule this before I scheduled everything else...or we should have take it to get fixed while we were in VA. Oh well