How I Roll

My blogging buddy Bone has been reminiscing about his past vehicles and it sounded like a good topic to me...so here it goes.

I have to first start off with wayyyyy before I ever got my driver's license.

When I was 14 or so I tried to drive my dad's truck in the back yard...we had a very big backyard and no one ever noticed, because I didn't get too far. It was a stick shift...more on that later.

So jump ahead to age 15 and I have a job babysitting the manager of our trailer park's kids in the evening. I have no idea where these folks were every evening, but they were paying pretty good cash for me to watch their kids. The driving part comes in where? Here... I would get off the bus from school and walk directly to the office, where they would give me the keys to the electric golf cart to drive over to their place and pick up their kid. That was so cool to be driving the golf cart!

Okay at 15 I was old enough to get my Learner's Permit. But my Mom didn't want me to have one because she didn't want her car insurance rates to go up. That sucks that your parent's insurance goes up even if you don't drive anything...but just because you could drive something. At any rate, I was 17 before I got my permit and that was because I signed up to take Driver's Ed at school and had to get a permit for that. I passed the class quite nicely.

At age 19 I move out into my first apartment. Still no car and still no real driver's license! At age 20 I was working for an Electric company in the mail room and part of my job was driving the company car to the post office to pick up our mail...still no driver's license, but no one really checked...I had to show them my license/permit to get the job to prove that I was a US citizen and they didn't check again to see if I could drive legally. good thing I never got into an accident or in trouble. LOL! Also lucky for me all these cars that I drove (a VAN too!) were automatic transmissions.

Somewhere in here the guy that I was living with comes home one day with a car for me. As it is pulling up to our apartment there is smoke billowing out from both front tires. I'm the daughter of a mechanic...I KNOW THIS IS NOT GOOD. Dumbdumb runs up all proud of himself and says "I bought you a car! How much do you think I paid for this car?" I roll my eyes and say "If you paid more than $1,000 you're a "explative" fool!" He of course was thoroughly ticked at me for the rest of the evening, because he had paid much more than $1K...in fact he had financed the darned thing and I got to pay for it. Oh by the way, the car is a STANDARD Transmission...no one has yet taught me how to drive one of these things!

I drove the car a bit, but never going any faster than 2nd gear. Still no license and I don't remember if we ever got the thing titled. We sunk more than $3,000 into the car trying to get it to run...brake calipers and universal joint...the brakes never did work right.

I eventually got smart and left Dumbdumb and the stupid car... I went to go live with my mother.

A friend of mine from work offers to let me borrow her car to get my first ever driver's license. I passed the test with flying colors.

One day my mom tells me that this girl at where she works is selling her old car for $800. It's a 75 Super Beetle. And she thinks I should buy it. I still don't know how to drive a standard. *sigh* I buy this car and find out it needs some work done on it. It stalls out every time you let up off the gas. I call up the mechanic and the part is only $8. Wow! so I arrange to get it fixed. Over $100 later the car still isn't any better...and we are moving farther away from where I work, so now I really need a car that I can drive. Bone just reminded me to tell you that I NEVER drove this car. I couldn't! It was a standard and I am yet standardly challenged.

A friend of mine from work drives me over to the Ford Dealership where she knows a guy. Thank Goodness! Finally I arrange to buy a 1990 Ford Tempo...but I'm trading in the Super Beetle on it. My friend offers to drive the Beetle to the dealership...she complains the entire way "How in the World did you expect to ever drive this thing?" I don't know...my mom wanted the darned car. She had dreams of me fixing it up to it's former glory.

A few weeks later I had to drive to my mom's job to get our house key because my little brother had locked my house key in the house after I specifically told him to not shut the door with the keys in the house! GAH! So we drive there and while I'm waiting for my mom to get the keys the girl who sold me the Beetle comes over and asks how I got there. She wondered if I was able to drive the Beetle all the way there...I told her "Nah, I traded that thing in on a new car!" LOL! She had sold me the car because she didn't want the dealer to junkyard the Beetle. Oh well.

So I had the Tempo for 10 years and it was a great car. It didn't give me any trouble really...but we decided to get something bigger when Darly came along. So we then got my Explorer...that I'm still driving. It's 13 years old now and still going great.


One of these days I want a Purple car. I have always wanted a purple car. DH says no way. But you know as soon as I can, I'm getting a purple car. Oh and my purple car won't be a Standard.

I'm Swapped!

Imagine a gymnasium full of young girls, milling about asking "Do you wanna swap?" That was kinda the middle part.

Let's back up a bit...

This is a Girl Scout thing.

First we were invited to the Swap by one of the troop in our Service Unit. The theme is "Let's go to the Beach!" So we bring beach themed swaps and dress in our going to the beach wear.

A swap is a small item that the girls make that they give away in exchange for something from the other girl.

So I was wracking my brain as to what to make...and I came up with Shrinky Dinks! They're extreemly versital. So Darly sat down and designed our beachy swaps. She came up with a palm tree, a star fish (or sea star for you scientific folks out there) and a beach ball. I traced the designs over and over onto the shrinky dink plastic stuff and we both colored them in...we also put our troop number on them and then popped them in the oven to shrink. Lots of fun! We were now ready to go.

We get to the gym tonight and there were tons and tons of girls there.

First the girls had activities to do...make a beach name tag for their lanyard, decorate sunglasses, get a tatoo (the sticker kind), make a picture holder, coloring sheets and then there were the games. I don't even know what kinds of games there were...lots.

The girls had lots of fun and were kept pretty busy. I was able to hold a decent conversation with my friend without getting interupted by my child at all.

Oh, while I'm mentioning this...we got a notice on Thursday that our girl scout troop financial report is due this Sunday! The co-Leader & I were in a panic as we had never seen any report before (I was pretty shocked...in LLL they tell you in the training about having to do the paperwork...in Girl Scouts we never got any kind of paperwork training at all.) Anyway our trusty treasurer had it all under control and was able to turn it in tonight! Yay! Give that woman a prize.

then the girls did the swapping and door prizes were awarded.

I was so glad when Darly said that she was ready to go home...we snuck out the back door because my feet were killing me in my silly flip flops that have beach shells on the straps. The toe part hurts!

I drove home barefoot...did you know that used to be illegal in Florida, but it's not anymore. And now I'm blogging this all for you when I would rather take a nap...see how good I am?

New Microwave on the way...

Yesterday I went shopping for a new Microwave. I found that getting one in the color that will match my kitchen was the most difficut part. The options were all pretty much the same for each brand.

So the first store I went to only had one in Bisque. It had a dent in the far back corner which would have been fine as it is the part that is hidden by the cabinet (remember this is an over the range microwave.) But it was a GE Spacemaker...the one I've read at least 10 bad reviews on...and to top it off a lady that I know (who just happens to also be named Renee) had her 2 year old model go out on her. So even though it was a really great deal, I wasn't going to take a chance on it. A good deal isn't such a good deal if you have to keep having it repaired.

Then I headed over to Lowes. There was only one bisque microwave on display, but when I went to ask if any of the others came in bisque there was no one to ask. It seemed that Lowes management had decided that time of day was perfect for all their appliance sales staff to be in a sales meeting. The lady I spoke to told them that they had 3 customers and it was a really dumb idea that they were all in that meeting. So they sent Jim out but instead of coming to help me, he went to talk to a couple (I guess a couple looks more likely to buy than a Mom and her daughter.) and I couldn't wait any longer...we had to go grocery shopping for some dinner that didn't require a microwave to cook it with!

After the grocery shopping and dropping Darly off at gymnastics class, I headed over to Home Depot. There I had two sales associates to help me and they had a sign on each microwave with it's price and what colors it came in. I found out from the sales associates that all the appliances over $297 would be 10% off today through Sunday and there was a rebate on the shipping to my house. They also had 3 different microwaves that came in bisque...two would be in the 10% off range. Of those 2 one was a GE Spacemaker...the other was a Maytag. So I wrote down the info and came home to do my research. No bad reviews on this one...it's 2 cubic feet of cooking space and 1150 watts. This was the biggest microwave in that price range. Hummm I'm now wondering why it was so cheap.

Oh well. I went back today and ordered one, it's due to be here next Tuesday and hopefully I'll be cooking with magnatrons by the following weekend.

Oh yeah, the guy at Home Depot showed me the bracket that gets used to hang the microwave on the wall and explained the installation process to me. I think that I could probably do it myself, if I could carry the thing! LOL DH & I shouldn't have any problems getting this thing in.

whining about the $$$

My computer has been on it's very last legs for a long time (we've already replaced the monitor.) And now it looks like the floppy drive is failing. "Please last til Christmas"

We have to go to Michigan this summer for my neice's wedding as Darly is a flower girl (and Darly would KILL us if we said no!) Luckily different part of the trip are already paid for... the flight wants their money up front and the one hotel took half their money already. Oh yeah, we need two different hotels because niece didn't want to get married in her hometown (they have a tradition in Frankenmuth of the entire town crashing your reception...weird germans!)

My Mom is whining that she never gets to see us and can't afford to come here (even though my brother & I have both offered to fly her out here) She is worried that her employer will fire her if she takes off from work and she's too sick & old to get a job somewhere else. So we need to try to go to FL in the fall to see her, "before she dies."

The car just finished eating over $1200 in brakes & new 4x4 hubs when we took it in for the deer damage...they were supposed to realign the front headlight.

And yesterday my Microwave kicked the bucket! I tried to cook some frozen veggies and it made a really weird noise, so I clicked it off immediately. Then just to be sure it wasn't working, I let it run a minute... YUP, the food was still ice cold and now the microwave smelled funny.

Luckily the replacement for the microwave will run us less than $300 and now I can have another appliance that matches... When we bought the house it came with black appliances but they took their frig. I don't like black, so I bought bisque (the new almond) and I got a new stove as I don't like gas and they hadn't cleaned theirs in a century it seemed. So we had 2 bisque appliances (frig & stove) and two black appliances (dishwasher & Microwave)...so now I can get a bisque microwave and then only have the black dishwasher...which they had just replaced before we bought the house, so that should be with us for a while. *sigh*

I'm really hoping the next trip to Vegas that DH has to take for work he wins some money. And this is really bad of me, but when DH went to Mississippi for Hurricane Katrina he got some AWESOME extra pay. I guess it is bad to hope for a natural disaster, huh?

Tonight is Co-op registration

The homeschooling group that I'm in has this nifty thing we call a Co-op. This is where I can offer to teach or coordinate a class, field trip or something of interest to the group and then I get to sign up for everyone else's class. It's a really fun way to get to do stuff like take advantage of group discounts or learn something fascinating.

We hold the Co-ops in 4 month chunks and the Summer Co-op's registration is tonight and starts on May 1st.

Our group has offered some really cool classes this time (they do every time!) it seems as if everyone tries to come up with something more exciting than last time. That trip to the Bass World was a Co-op class...who would have thought to have a field trip at a sporting goods store??? This is why I do the co-op, some of the things we get to do, I would have never thought of on my own.

Well, like I said...tonight is the registration. And I am the coordinator for the co-op so it means I'm in charge of making sure it runs smoothly. The hardest part will be that most of the folks get to register "early" because they offered more than one class and then 5 have to wait until 9pm to register. I don't really expect it to be a problem, but I do have to figure out the password system (even though I've been told how to do it, I lost the post where the directions were!)

So I'll be here tonight overseeing everything...It will be good, it will all be good. Right?

UPDATE: Classes offered *=we wanna do this class!

Hunt at the Zoo*
Archery*
Boot Camp - Drill & Marching (can't talk Darly into this one)
Frog Hunt
Lapbooking/Notebooking/Journaling show -for adults (I don't do this kinda stuff)
Cabrini Shrine (been there)
Playground games*
Rocky Mtn Seed company
Evening picnic at the park
Denver Zoo* (this is my class...yeah, easy to do!)
IMAX*
Tour Hiwan Museum*
Hike Meadow Castle Loop (can't, gone to wedding)
Butterfly Pavillion*
Co Springs Pioneer Museum
Grown Up book club*
Pipe Clearners gone crazy
Trail Hike & Picnic*
Chocolate Tasting*
Forensic Science Mystery!*
Beach Day (Darly at Girl Scout Camp)
Beach Day different beach*
Block Printing*
Spoon Puppets
Aquarium*
Beginner Dissection (Darly says ewwwwe!)
Mom's Night-Cultural Potluck (maybe)
Chinese Jumprope & Sprayground*
Fat City (I say No!)

Prayers & Good Thoughts Needed

I have this friend who is going through a really nasty divorce. Her soon to be EX is being a real pain...I think mostly because although he said he wanted the divorce he doesn't seem to really want it and is making my friend's life hell to try to get her to take him back because living with him is easier than trying to get rid of him.

They have a really beautiful bunch of kids and Social Services has been brought in and may take the kids away from both parents.

I know that God's Will is perfect and he has a plan for them. I am just hoping that more prayers for them will make it better sooner. So whatever you do, if you could do it for my friend's family, I would really appreciate it.

Oh and a prayer for me that I don't drive over there and run the EX over with my truck would be good too.

Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce recipe

Ingredients:

1lb ground meat
1 cap full Mrs Dash Garlic & Herb seasoning (or store brand version)
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
2 small bay leaves
1 29 oz can of tomatoe sauce
1 14.5 oz can of stewed & diced tomatoes w/ italian seasoning (basil & onion & etc.)
1 6 oz can of tomatoe paste

Brown ground meat on the stove and drain off the fat...then dump it in the crockpot.

dump in the seasonings and the tomatoe products. Add a good shake of salt, 10 grinds of pepper & some sugar. Stir well. (sorry I was just dumping stuff in there yesterday!)

cover crock pot, set on warm and go on your field trip!

when you return 5 1/2 hours later to a house smelling yummy, crank up the crock pot to high and add about a cup of the pasta water.

For the veggie lovers... forget the ground meat and try adding your favorite veggies instead (w/o the browning!) I get this italian mix of frozen veggies that would work great it has zucchini, flat green beans & carrots...yum!

I'm too crazy for my own good!!!

Well I've gone and done it again. Over booked my day. I'm just too crazy.

This morning I've got an LLL meeting at 10am to 12.

Then at 2 we're doing a field trip...I don't know how long that is supposed to last, but we've gotta get out of there by 3:30 because

Gymnastics starts at 4:30 on the other side of town from there.

I've already decided to use our toll road to try to cut through most of the traffic...but there will be traffic to get to the toll road and from the toll road to gymnastics class.

I'm really hoping that we aren't late.

UPDATE: We made it!!!

I woke up on time this morning to get ready for my LLL meeting. I had 2 hours to get to the field trip after the meeting. But it ran about 30 min over. I get home and decide that we need an hour to get to the field trip. So I now have just 30 min to get ready.
I wanna make spaghetti sauce in the crock pot and get some lunch. I had Darly getting me ingredients while I cooked...it would have been faster to get them myself as I had to repeat what I wanted 3 times. But she helped and I was cooking my lunch too. Got the sauce going, burned my mouth on the lunch and we were out the door. I decided since we were late to take our toll road. We got there with a few minutes to spare.
Our field trip was to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. This place was HUGE and pretty amazing. At first I was wondering why we were taking a field trip to a Sporting goods store. But once we got there I understood. The link there shows you what we saw. When you first come in there is the huge fireplace with all the stuffed sheep. The kids were in awe of all of it...horns, sheep, bears. Then we went to the fish tank...its the waterfall picture. In this tank they have a ton of trout and other large fish...including Bubba a catfish who likes to dine on his tankmates. I'm not sure why or how, but we also ended up with a tour of the kitchen in the restaurant. The kids were not impressed. LOL but the manager enjoyed showing it to us...except for two kids acting up in the seafood thawing frig. This place also has a Starbucks that gives out free samples...I didn't get a freebee so I went and ordered one using a gift card that I had. Some of the other parents were teasing me that my drink was bigger than theirs...I said I "knew people."
Darly was bummed because they didn't open up the climbing wall until it was time for us (darly & me) to leave to get her to gymnastics. I was very worried about traffic on the one interstate as it is always terrible...at least every other time I've taken it. This time it was fine and we had plenty of time to get to the gym.

We came home to a house smelling of spaghetti sauce and dinner was done as soon as the angel hair pasta was cooked. Yummy!

"That's Where the Party's At"

Newsboys - Wherever We Go
From the album Go

Wherever we go, bluebirds sing
And the flowers bloom
And the grass gets green
It’s a curious thing
But it’s just our thing

Wherever we go, the bees behave
In the treetops, squirrels smile and wave
It’s a curious thing
And it’s humbling

Where we go, little glow-worms glow
Little roadrunners run ahead
Gonna tell their friends
Little mice, little men
Get ‘em all excited
All invited

Chorus:
Hands up
Holler back here
Let’s throw this party in gear
We brought the welcome mat
Wherever we go, that’s where the party’s at
Hands up
Holler back now
We don’t claim any know-how
We’re giving God all that
Wherever we go, that’s where the party’s at

Wherever we go, the dumb get wise
And the crime rates drop
And the markets rise
It’s a curious thing
But it’s just our thing

Bullies make nice, crooks repent
And the ozone layer shows improvement
It’s a curious thing
And it’s humbling

Wherever we’re led
All the Living Dead
Wanna leave their Zombie Mob
It’s a touching scene when they all come clean
God help us, we just love our job

Chorus

Here's how the party went...

Girls arrive
Girls play
Girls eat pizza
Girls play
Girls eat cake
Girls play
Girls decided to get ready for bed...have to move couch for more room in family room for "sleeping"
Girls decide to watch movie for 5 minutes then more play
I hide in the office with DH
Darly comes in crying because she doesn't like their game. I suggest she change the game...she vetos that and has a better idea.
Girls play some more
Girls finally go to sleep at 12:30 ish...I went to bed at 1am
I hear girls on stairs at 9:30am
I get up
I offer pancakes for breakfast...they want waffles
I get waffle iron all ready and make the batter...they now want pancakes. They ate waffles!
Girls play
Girls beg for more time and I allow it as I haven't really done anything but cook
Girls play
Parents come get them...
The door is barely shut when Darly asks DH to play with her. Still waiting for a nap.

Please Excuse the Crazy Lady in the corner

Oh April is so not the time to be me. Everything seems to hit the fan now and I am so stressed.

I have probably mentioned all of this before

Time & Talent sheets at Church are all done. Yay.

Easter is done. Yay

Darly's homeschool paperwork and testing is done. Yay

Still on the burner makeing me crazy:

LLL collecting Financial Reports & Leader Dues. The deadline is this Sunday...so I'm expecting a very full mailbox here soon and a bunch of whiney emails too. I've already gotten one.

Homeschool Coop. That's going relatively smoothy...except for me forgetting to put one line on the form and as it turns out the folks affected by it don't care. Gotta love homeschool moms...they're so easy going! And my co-Leaders are helping me out lots...and I'm smart enough to let them.

Darly's birthday party. I didn't get the invites out until Monday and as you can see by my ticker it's coming up fast!!! I still haven't heard any RSVPs yet. I'm so stressed that this isn't going to happen. I guess worse case is that we reschedule fo another weekend and hope for the best. We got some really cute stuff for the goodie bags though. Darly is having a Movie Star theme (as in the girls are the movie stars...not that we're doing any worshiping of those current strung out starlettes.)

So if I seem a bit more looney than usual...just ignore me. I'll be better in May, I hope.

Soft Pretzel Recipe

The actual recipe is double this...but my mixer won't hold that much. But the Germans in my family mix this by hand...I don't have those arms. (I married into this family...I'm of British decent.)

2 cups milk (or beer)
1/2 cup shortening or canola oil
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 packs dry yeast (I buy it in a jar so I can just measure out the teaspoons full instead) It's 3 1/4 teaspoons.
1/8 cup warm water (follow package instructions for blooming yeast)
about 6 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Browning solution: 1 tablespoon lye & 1 qt hot water
Kosher Salt

Scald milk, add sugar and shortening. (for beer just dissolve the sugar and use the oil) Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the cooled* milk (or beer) stir in about 4 cups of flour to which salt and baking powder have been mixed. Add remaining flour gradually while kneading.
Place in a greased or oiled bowl, cover with a wet towel and let rise to double.

Shape into pretzels... to make the traditional pretzel shape...roll dough into a long snake, then form into a U shape. cross the ends twice and then fold over to the bottom of the loop. Any shape works...the kids have a blast making anything their imaginations come up with.

Let rise until light. Depending on the temp of your room it should take about the same amount of time as it did to rise the first time. We normally place a clean bed sheet on the dining room table and put the pretzels between the sheets. Space heaters to warm up the room are a big help.

dip the pretzels into the browning solution...WARNING! This is pretty corrosive, so protect your stove and counter tops with foil and don't let the kids do this part. You're just getting the pretzels wet.

Place on a greased cookie sheet and sprinkle with Kosher Salt.**

Bake @ 550 until brown. (my oven only goes up to 500, but it works just fine.)

If you want non-salted pretzels, leave off the salt and then use melted butter or margarine to put a sugar topping on after they are baked. (the sugar just burns off in the oven. And it doesn't taste good.)

About the lye. Yup this is the same stuff that is poison...typically used for cleaning out pipes or sewer systems. However, the pretzels don't take very much of the solution on and this is the exact same stuff that all pretzel makers use... they'll just call it Sodium Hydroxide. You may have to go to a Hardware store to get this and in some cases they'll want to know what you are using it for...I've been advised to tell them that you are using it to clean out your pipes. So far I haven't had to buy it myself as MIL has a container that she has had for years...a little goes a long way.

If the lye freaks you out too much, you can also brush the pretzels with egg whites before baking. I hear it works but doesn't give quite the same results.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
notes:
*you do want to make sure your milk has cooled down as it can kill your yeast and then your dough won't rise properly.

**by the way, the lye will totally mess up your cookie sheets and lining them with foil just doesn't work. So use your old cookie sheets and then have them for your pretzel making cookies sheets for life and get yourself a new set for making cookies.

Happy Easter everyone!

I do wish for you all a very happy and blessed Easter. Sorry this is late...I've been busy enjoying it.

I started off the morning to a 7am wake up call from Darly who was all excited to see that the Easter Bunny had come! DH & I were not at all ready to get up so we teased Darly. "come take a nap with us." "oh I don't think the Easter Bunny really came, it's too early." etc... That lasted all of 5 minutes and then we got up. Darly wondered why DH had a t-shirt next to the bed already...he told her it was because he knew she would wake him up early.

She hunted for eggs for 45 minutes before I went back upstairs to take a shower. And then we all got ready for Church.

Oh! I should point out that it's freezing out and we had snow...not a little but a good 2 inches of it on the ground outside.

Darly & I decided that we would wear our Easter dresses anyway, because otherwise what was the use of getting them. So we put sweaters on over them...it actually turned out to be a good idea as the packed Church was warm...we could slip out of our sweater and be the right temperature.

At Church it was crowded of course but extra because the Youth Group has a Pancake breakfast...oh how good the Church smelled when we got there!!!!!!!! Warm syrup and sausage...yummy! But we didn't have any. *pout*

We picked out our seats and got all settled...and we got to watch the Children's choir practice for their part in today's service. It was pretty cute.

The Church service was very nice. Even with all the people there. I don't know why but it always amazes me how many people show up for Christmas and Easter. Although I was very pleased to see that many of the "new" faces I saw today were actually family of regular members.

After Church I decided that the syrup smell was too great and I pulled out our waffle iron. I don't know why, but my first two stuck to the iron. They were still very tasty as I had bits of them while baking them. hee hee And the two that didn't stick were very good too. I had mine with cherry jelly...I know you're thinking, what happened to the syrup? I was over it by the first bite of cherries! YUM!

After brunch (and Lilly got a waffle too!) I was going to bake pretzles, but we didn't have all the ingredients. Bummer. We'll go shopping tomorrow so we can make them soon. DH was bummed as he wanted to roll some too. Oh well, eating is just as much fun. Hummm...maybe I should clean up the house a bunch and invite my nephew/godchild over to roll pretzles too. Oh wait! I've got a birthday party to plan here...I wonder if I can talk Darly into pretzle party? hummm

The rest of my day was spent reading and blogging. Dh & Darly were watching the Masters and they fell asleep on the recliner. I tried to get pictures, but my camera makes a chime noise when you turn it on...I think I can turn that off some how...gotta read that book.

All in all a very nice holiday. Dh has to go back to his real job tomorrow (he spent last week in Vegas teaching a class...tough life!)

Happy Easter!

Guilt trip mom

no, not me...well at least not today. hee hee

this time the culprit was my own dear mother.

See she called me yesterday to ask about Darly's birthday present and then starts to get whiney about our summer vacation plans.

you regular readers are well aware that we are going to see my neice get married so that Darly can be the flowergirl. (by the way: neice sent us a dress...I'll post pictures soon!) That's gonna take a huge chunk of money for the trip as they don't give away airline fares or hotel rooms. The flights were $329 each...the hotel rooms are $65, $79 & $67. Don't tell me how I could have gotten it cheaper...it's too late now.

She starts this junk about how she never gets to see her granddaughter. I should have said back to her that I know that my brother has offered to fly her out here and let her stay at his place...and I would do the same, but of course she would say that she can't afford to take off from work. According to her the place she works from won't allow her to take any vacation time...and she worries that if she tries they would just fire her and she can't get a job anywhere else because she's too old (60) and sick.

So instead of telling her off, I tell her that I'll talk to DH about it and see if we can manage anything...and DH says we might be able to go since Southwest has cheap fares all the time.

Then we were talking about my oldest brother and his wife and that turned into she doesn't understand why they hardly ever visit (they live about an hour appart) and they never call. Maybe I should tell her that they don't visit because the kids get bored at her house and they don't call because they don't wanna hear her whine about her life...more on this later! But they don't communicate with me either.

So she says that she knows that she wasn't the greatest mother, she made mistakes...but that all her kids turned out very well in spite of that. She's very proud that all of us have at least an Associate's Degree on our own. AND THEN she starts nagging me to finish my Bachelor's! I told her that right now I just don't have the time (I didn't say, that I don't have the will either) to finish it. I don't currently have any need of a degree. She says that I might want to get a job when Darly is out on her own. I'm doing lots of work now with no degree (of course no pay either...but that's okay by me.) And she wants me to finish my degree before she dies. :eyeroll: And then she starts talking about how sick she is and the medication that she's taking for the Osteoporosis causes Lymphomia and she might have that now. My brother warned me that she starts talking about her impending death when she talks to him... I'll have to compare notes.

In another part of the conversation which goes all over the place, it's amazing that I can even keep it somewhat straight she says to me that she wants me to tell her when she's done something wrong. Ummm yeah, any idea how hard it is to tell your mom anything, much less that she's screwed up?

Oh and we never wished each other a Happy Easter. LOL

Not EVEN GOING THERE!...

Apparently this has taking some time to reach me...and probably with good reason. But there's this movement to stop folks from complaining. LOL!

No complaints for 21 days

Are ya kidding me?! No complaining for 21 days
One brave correspondent pledges to stop kvetching for three weeks
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
By George Lewis
NBC News correspondent
TODAY
Updated: 7:43 a.m. MT March 6, 2007

KANSAS CITY, MO. - We all complain, right? It’s just human nature. But a few
months ago, the pastor of a Kansas City church told the people in his
congregation he wanted them to break that habit.

“The one thing we can
agree on,” said the Reverend Will Bowen of Christ Church Unity, “is there’s too
much complaining.”

He said churchgoers were griping mainly about trivial
things, such as the choice of hymns at the Sunday service or the informal dress
code at the church’s Saturday night worship.

And so he asked his flock
to take a pledge: to swear off complaining, criticizing, gossiping or using
sarcasm for 21 days. The Rev. Bowen said the inspiration for the no-complaints
campaign came to him while taking a shower. And now, the idea has begun to
spread far beyond middle America.

People who join in are issued little
purple bracelets as a reminder of their pledge. If they catch themselves
complaining, they’re supposed to take off the bracelet, switch it to the
opposite wrist and start counting the days from scratch.

And now that
the church has been written up in several publications, the campaign has
mushroomed. On Saturdays, volunteers crowd the church basement filling orders
for the no-complaints bracelets, 126,000 so far. read the rest here.

Well as those of you who know me know...that ain't gonna happen here. Shoot I even admit to complaining (which I call gritching) in my blog title. I'm here to download. I probably complain 21 times a day or more. Life is tough, and griping about it makes me feel better. So sorry folks, I'm not even gonna try. And as far as I know there's no "Thou Shalt Not Complain" in the Bible, so I think I'm safe. hee hee

Darly loves to be blog fodder...

today after a day at the zoo Darly & I decided to do a bit of shopping. I picked out a skirt, top & swim suit to try on... a two piece swim suit.

Darly goes with me to try them on. I try on the swim suit first as I have to get the most undressed for it. I get the bottoms on and we were both like "ewwwe!" at the almost plumbers crack going on in the back.

Then I try on the top and Darly says that I "have a female's plumber's crack going on in the front!" She was talking about the amount of cleavage showing.

Needless to say, I did not buy the swim suit. I did get a nice skirt though.