'Splainin' my past...

I've already posted about my newly acquired addiction to Webkinz. Well part of my fascination with Webkinz is the game Goober's Lab. This game is very much like Bejeweled only instead of exploding gems you get dots (that look like they might be gum balls...only Goober calls them atoms) with a swirling spot on them and instead of the swirly gem on Bejeweled for connecting 5 gems you get a gum ball with a sparkle that swirls around it. When you connect a previous 4 connected gum ball it pops random gum balls through out the game and Goober exclaims "Oh it's the Time Warp Again!"

Well when Goober says "Time Warp Again!" my mind of course flashes back to my past and I start thinking "...it's just a jump to the left...and a step to the right..." and of course my daughter was confused as to what was making her mother act so weird.

Thank goodness for this technology called the internet and for the wonderful folks at YouTube! I could very easily provide my daughter with all the answers to why her mom is so crazy...without having to show her the entire Rocky Horror Picture Show and then have even more explaining to do! (I mean who wants to try to explain Tim Curry in a boostier???)

And now I present...

The TIME WARP AGAIN!

comments to finished post

I decided to put this in a separate post so all of you on readers would get it and know to come back...hee hee

Goofy Girl said...
Congrats on being a almost retired! :) Hope it's official soon!

I know that H was feeling overwhelmed yesterday when I showed her everything, and I know it isn't as complicated as it seemed when I was showing it to her. I'm sure that once she gets in the files and plays around with them she'll see that it's really pretty easy. She's a smart girl, I know she'll do fine.

LadyBugCrossing said...
Busy, busy, busy!! At least the LLL is almost totally behind you...

Happy retirement! LOL!!!

It's so much fun to go and delete myself from all the yahoogroups that I was on and then start deleteing emails that don't apply to me anymore...woo hoo!

TC said...
OK, my head kind of hurts after reading what all you had to go through to try and switch that stuff over!

Uff da!

Will you be having a retirement party when it's official? ;-)

LOL! H had a plaque with Uff Da! on it in her house. I'm not sure when I'll know for sure that it is official as she'll be contacting me throughout her first year when each thing comes up to be sure she does it right. I tried to let her know that it's her baby for her to do her own way. We'll see.

It is finished?

today I met with H to transfer the LLL stuff over to her. First we went to the bank to get her as a signer on our accounts. It took about 20 minutes before we could be seen because the lady at the desk where you tell them what you're there for was busy helping a lady in front of us order checks. By the time she was done and got to us she says, oh you need to see someone in Business Services and calls another girl who we saw doing not much of anything before. *eyeroll!!!*

So we process the getting H on the accounts and ask about how many signatures are required on each of the accounts. The bank lady highly suggests that we have just one signature required on all the accounts due to possible theft of the checks in the mail while mailing from the check writer to the check signer to the payee. So we're working on that. (I should mention that I am still a signer on all the accounts.)

Then we remembered that we wanted to take some of the old signers off the accounts. oops! that meant re-doing all the paperwork we had done before and all went well except for one of the accounts and we redid that one by hand cuz the computer didn't like us any more at that point. But we got it all done.

Next we went and filled out deposit tickets for the accounts and did a funds transfer so we could pay some folks who have been chomping at the bit to get paid.

Next back to my house...and when we get there the guys that DH hired to fix our gutter are there waiting for me. They had only been there a minute or so but tried to make me feel as if they had been there for longer. I told them they could get started but told them that I needed to head back out. I gave them my cell number so they could call me when the job was finished, I would drive back home and pay them. They said that would be fine.

I went to H's house and we ate lunch, then got started on all this transfer stuff. She took about 40 minutes to get the software on her computer cuz the computer kept insisting that it needed to be restarted. I hope her DH knows what's going on with it cuz I didn't understand what the problem was. Then I went over how to use the software, we did a funds transfer and entered the interest and checks for the accounts. I wrote the checks since I figured anyone could do that and I also addressed the envelopes. Since we learned that the main checking account didn't have a 2 signature requirement I signed the checks myself. Then we had fun trying to figure out how to save the files to her computer...it had it stuck in it's head that they should only be saved to the jump drive. luckily she can keep that.

I showed her some of the files saved on the jump drive and explained them. Then I went through the paper files with her. I showed her the IRS paperwork that we file and the state tax forms. She was overwhelmed by it all...so I suggested that she play around with the software and dig through the files for a week or so, then give me a call and we can go over things again and I'll go over there if I need to. It was a long interesting day.

Oh I forgot to mention that I never heard from the gutter guys. I had no way of calling them. So I called DH to see if they called him. I was worried that my piece of junk cell phone didn't send my call through. So I had Dh call me, it worked fine for him. Well when we got home they were long gone...no note no nothing, well we did have a new gutter. I guess they will be sending us a bill. hummm the guy told me that I had to pay him then since we didn't have a contract. I hope he calls soon. I'm sure we'll hear something tomorrow.

I then had to run Darly to the gym. Today she had yet another coach. Since she has switched to this class on Sept 4th she has had 4 different coaches. But Darly reports that this coach will be her coach from now on...and SHE LOVES HER! I'm excited too since this coach is a former Olympic hopeful. She competed for the Olympic team but missed by just a bit. This coach works with the younger competetive girls and well she's just great. I really like what I have seen out of her. Darly said that she has already shown them two new things.

So a pretty good day. I need to finish filling out my retirement paperwork and then I'll be officially retired. But as of today, I'm unofficially retired. "all dried up." LOL

My Head Hurts!

I don't know what the deal is today. I got up played on the computer a bit and finally got off my duff and started the laundry...then called up the mechanic about getting the "check oil" light turned off in my car.

I'm driving to the mechanic and get about a mile from my house and WHAM! It feels like someone knocked me up the right side of my head...(your right, my left...WHATEVER!) I'm thinking "oh great!"

It's not a stress headache...no stressing today...just hanging out while they find and destroy my car.

It's not a migraine...those are sneakier...although I did feel kinda sick last night, but I attributed that to the gorging on Chinese food last night.

I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...so I guess that means it's safe to go down some ibuprophen...

Hey! Did you know that if you take ibuprophen for a dehydration headache it makes it worse because ibuprophen works by drawing off fluids?

Anyway...my head hurts.

Oh wait...I think I figured out my headache. My jaw hurts too. Must be a TMJ headache. Great! Time for more biofeedback exercises. *eyeroll* at least I'm not on muscle relaxers again...although I have some...maybe if I take a little bit.

oooh DH will love that. I take the muscle relaxers and he has to come and get my car from the mechanic cuz I can't drive from being loopy. ha ha ha ha!

oooh! Did I tell ya'll about my new Discover Card? If I did, I'm sorry. Forgive me, I have a headache. If I didn't here it is.

We got a letter from Discover Card saying that they have all these new designer cards that we can (sorry TOBY MAC on, had to go dance!) Okay, where was I?

Oh yeah, we can change out our plain old boring credit cards for a pretty one. I tried to link you to the designer cards but Discover won't let you do that without logging and if you think I'm giving you access to my account, YOU MUST BE CRAZY. Anyway so I go log in and look at the designs. DH wants his card changed to be Beach scene. I click on the beach card and it says "We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So he picks the Eagle..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So then he picks the Mountains..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." DH is Furious but I'm seeing a pattern here.

So I grab the phone and call up 1800Discover. I get a really nice lady and tell her what's up. She asks all my security info first and then asks which card DH wants, I tell her he wants the Beach. She says that they have plenty and he can have it. I say go for it! So she begins processing that for him and I have to hurry to pick my card! So I'm flipping through the cards and come across the Flags from around the world set... I tell the Discover lady that DH HATES that they have a French flag. She laughs and says that no one has ordered a French flag card from her.

Finally I find the card I would like. It's called Flowers...it appears online to be tulips, but if you click on the thumbnail you see it's actually poppies. There are two purple poppies, one red and a few poppy seed pods.

We finally got our new cards, just took about a week. I'm thrilled! But wouldn't ya know it, I haven't had much places to use it yet. So far I've used it twice for fast food and the silly kids working the counter don't even care to look at my card. *sigh* I need to go to a craft store so the lady actually looks at my card and says how pretty it is. LOL! What a great reason to shop, huh? maybe the mechanic will notice it when I pay for my car? Doubt it.

Comments to this post:

Lynn said...
I tend to pass on the designer cards. I don't want to get so in love with how it looks that I would be tempted to use it more often. lol. Sorry about your headache, and your car. Hope that both are better soon, and that your mechanic doesn't give you a "here's a gigantic bill" headache:~)

Well, I did spend $750 today with my fancy new card...but that was all in one place on my stupid car! I needed a new radiator and brakes. I'm wondering if the old radiator was broken when DH hit that deer? hummm Oh well. I never did take anything for my headache...I got busy making a bunch of phone calls and totally forgot about the headache & the pills...and it went away. They did a bunch of stuff on my car (at least it's on my receipt) that they charged me $0 for...so that's a good thing, right? LOL! Actually I really like this garage, mostly because they tell me how long they expect to keep my car and when they try to get me to spend more they aren't that pushy about it. They're more like "well your user manual says you need this, but you could wait..." LOL

TC said...
I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...

Renee! ;-)

(I couldn't resist: it made me laugh.)

I keep my boring 'ol black and silver card. No designs for me.

I haven't had that kind of drink in a long time. We're pretty much "tea-totalers" (is that how you spell it?) here. I'm a really cheap date and a control freak, so anything that messes with my head is so scrutinized that I usually don't mess with it. We've had our plain cards forever and they've been offering us designer cards for a long time, it was just finally this year that we liked the designs.


Barbara said...
Your much too overjoyed with a credit card, are you sure those are ibuprofen that you are taking?

LOL you're funny. I never did take anything for my headache. I just found the story of what it took to get the cards amusing. Maybe I was a bit loopy. LOL

Communion

Please pray with us
this blessed day
as our daughter
Darly
receives her
1st Holy Communion
Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 10:30am
Renee & DH



Wow! Can you believe it? My "sweet" little girl is growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday she was a baby.

Today was Darly's 1st Communion retreat. This was a class for the kids to learn what Communion is all about, decorate their chalice, and learn how to take Communion. So in two short weeks my baby will have her 1st Communion.

She and the rest of the 22 kids in her class have already started on the journey that will end with their Confirmation in 2012. (25 kids showed up for this retreat!) I'm teaching them and have taught most of them for the past 5 years. Next year I'll have a break, possibly as two other ladies have taught the 6th graders for year (one is thinking about teaching her baby girl's class next year instead.)
For me it is a bit of a learning experience as well since I was never Confirmed...instead I had a Affirmation. I grew up going to a different kind of Church.

I was a bit surprised that she didn't learn anything that I didn't know today. I felt for sure there was something I didn't know about Communion, and I'm sure there still is but they just didn't teach it to my child. Oh well. And there was one thing they didn't go over at all that I told Darly about...
The actual taking of Communion. I told Darly about how some Churches the Pastor places the wafer on your tongue, and how some Churches use bread instead of the wafers we use (and gave her examples like MIL's Church.) In our Church we have two methods...the early service receive the wafer and a cup of wine...the late service are handed a wafer that they dip into the wine.

I decided to make this super easy on me by having us go out for lunch afterward. Darly picked The Black Eyed Pea. And can you believe it? We got a coupon in the mail today for 25% off the bill. YIPPEE! We can take MIL & Darly's God Parents out and get a huge discount...or maybe cover the tip if they're good. LOL!

she's growing up so fast.

I'm not gonna be your friend if you're friends with her!

Wow! Can you believe those words came out of my sweet little Darly? I'm a bit shocked that she's trying to be such a b!tc#. I don't know where she got the idea that this kind of behavior was acceptable.

Well it looks like a good long discussion is in order for us and I'm sure the eye rolling will ensue.

I think that the first thing I'm going to do is suspend her email privileges...that's where those horrible words were first spewed. This isn't the first time she's used her email account to be a nasty. So until she can be trusted again, all email goes through me.

Any ideas?

Comments:
Heather said...
ARGH! I just lost my whole comment... I HATE when that happens...Yeah, hate it big time.

The jest of my comment was... I think I would turn the tables on my child and roll play a little to show the "do unto others" scenario and how it might make her feel to have things turned around. well I pretty much did that. I asked her how she might feel if the girl she said this to said "I won't be your friend if you're friends with BESTFRIEND." Well apparently something like that had never occured to her.

Its such a hard subject... part of growing up but sooo hard. It is. And I guess for me the big thing was that I had thought I taught her to be better than that. So it was shocking to find out she did this.

*HUGS* Thanks!



Bone said...
Hey, at least she's still a kid. I've seen people in their 30's and 40's act that way. True. But she's gonna learn now to not be that 30 or 40 y/o. I've seen what happens as an adult. Perhaps I could share that with Darly, it wasn't pretty.


TC said...
I used to hear that a lot as a kid. I know that doesn't really help or make it right, but I think it's probably a phase that most little girls go through. It could be a phase or something she picked up from a TV show that she watches (great educational programing that she watches!). I don't care where she learned it, she now knows that the girl she emailed those hurtful words to never saw them. And she's okay with me approving her outgoing messages. We need to talk about her mis-directed anger at the people who "get her into trouble" when she should be looking at her own behavior.

Barbara said...
You're on your own, I can't help you. I'm gonna cut and run. What? Boys don't do this kind of thing? LOL! hee hee I think I've covered her punishment pretty well. I made her realize that what she did was wrong and hurtful. Hopefully she'll think twice before trying something so mean again.

HELP!

I deleted my ticker that was driving so many of you nuts and now everyting is centered. I guess I deleted too much, but it was just one line of code. :(

Please help me.

Conversion post-poned

WELL, I thought I was transfering this job over today!

I don't know the entire story yet, but when I called her just now she was on a city bus that she had taken to her chiropractor's appointment and she didn't expect to be home for about an hour.

I'm assuming that she had car trouble and couldn't make our appointment. She's not too good at calling about such things. Hummm & sigh

Well I'm not gonna worry about her doing the job, I'm just worried about how much longer I need to do it. See I have a bunch of really large bills to pay and need to transfer some money to do that. All of our accounts are two signature accts. Normally I would write the checks and mail them to another person to cosign...but I figured that since I was just about to see her, I would wait, get her on the account and have us both sign the transfer right at the bank so that it could be immediate. Then we could come back to my place and cosign the checks and mail them all at once.

I have to wait until after Darly's gymnastics class to call her back and find out when we can do this. Lovely.

The Conversion

Today was the beginning of the end. The end of my being a LLL Leader.

I first became a Leader in October of 2000. We were stationed in S. Korea and there was no LLL group there. So I knew if I wanted to keep my LLL I would need to become a Leader. So I would drive to Seoul once a month for meetings and then every two weeks for my work with the Leader there (who was from Germany but she was accredited in Japan!) to become a Leader. I think my entire process took about 13 months and most of that was the hold up of getting stuff shipped to me overseas and my contact was in Oregon.

I didn't actually lead my first meeting until about June of 2001 because right after I became a Leader we moved back to the US and it took a while for us to find a place to live and such.

In my career as a Leader I've led with two Groups, for a bit both at the same time. I've been a Leader all by myself, I've been a Leader with as many as 3 other Leaders at a meeting. I've helped 4 women become Leaders (3 of them have already retired). I don't know how many women I've actually helped with breastfeeding...I could count my logs but there were many calls that I didn't log as they were simple "when is the meeting?" calls and then there were all the calls from people who had no idea who LLL is or what we do. I've had at least 2 prank calls...one I wasn't home for, thank goodness because he was the one we had to turn in to the police. And I've been the treasurer for our area for the past 3 years.

It seemed a bit odd Leading my last meeting this morning. I am really going to miss those moms and their babies. There's one mom that was there today who I've known since she had her baby and now her baby is 3 and weaned. She made sure I would still answer her other questions. LOL! She's very sweet and I'll be happy to talk to her about anything. But it was also a huge relief to know that was my last one.

I can really see that my heart just isn't in this anymore and it is time for me to move on. And of course there are already plenty of things in my life to "fill the void" for that.

Now I just have to meet with the new treasurer, hopefully tomorrow and pass that torch as well. The new gal is going to be awesome. She has the same kind of "money sense" that I have. I feel good about passing this over to her and soon will be totally done.

Confession

Hello... My name is Renee and I'm an adict

I'm adicted to....

WEBKINS WORLD!

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with a code that allows you entrance into the Webkinz World...an online community of virtual stuffed animals. These are so popular that folks are stealing the codes off the animals in the stores (one store had used those security sensors to staple the code to the animal's paw!) And I saw online where you can buy the animals with no code really cheap...but who wants that? I sure don't. I don't even want the stuffed animal...just gimme the code!

LOL!

So my addiction began when Heather gave Darly one innocent looking Webkinz that resembled the infamous Princess in appreciation for us caring for the beast.

We entered the Webkinz World and began exploring. Your Webkinz comes with a room and one special item. We quickly learned that in order to take proper care of this puppy we needed to earn KinzCash (you get a little starter KinzCash to begin with). You earn KinzCash by playing arcade games, playing in tournaments and by checking the daily activties. This was getting very cool. I just liked the games. See there's this game called Goober's Lab and it is exactly like Bejeweled! And there is a tile game like Mahjong and there are a lot of other really cool games. The higher your score the more KinzCash.

Well as of yesterday I had played enough to earn this pampered pooch a gameroom, a yard & a kitchen with all the accessories including a pool for the yard! We were stylin! (oh yeah, she has lots of clothes too!) And today I did something truely unthinkable...

I bought Darly two more Webkinz! She picked out the Yellow & White cat and the Grey & White cat. She had originally wanted the Black & White cat but once she saw it compaired to the Grey & white she didn't like it as much. Some of the Kinz don't look as cute in person as they do online.

When we first got the cats we assumed that the new animals would have their own "houses" where we would have to go buy the rest of the rooms. But we were shocked to learn that their rooms connected to our puppy's room. And we learned the hard way. It was funny!

First Darly put in the yellow cat and when we tried to walk it out of it's room through the door to see what was out there...it couldn't get through! What was going on??? We look at the map and see that the room is connected to the puppy's room! So we go to the puppy's room and find that the cat can't get in there because the puppy's bed is in the way! Oops! So Darly moved the puppy's bed to another wall. Then she entered the Grey cat and we learn that it's door connects to the puppy's room again...and you guessed it, right where the bed was moved to!

So Darly spent this afternoon moving the puppy's furniture to make room for the cats. They all get along very well and share everything very nicely. I'm not sure why but Darly bought the cats their own kitchen, maybe it was because the one cat came with a refrigerator. I wonder if she can sell it? The puppy already had a refrigerator and it's cuter.

Now I have 3 kinz to earn KinzCash for. And it's fun.

Oh I should mention that Webkinz World closes at 10pm for us so there's no chance of Darly staying up too late to play it...or me either for that matter. LOL!

I should also mention that it's pretty obivious that there are lots of adults out there playing the games because I can't beat them.

but before you get all worried about the kids safety...it's totally safe. While the kids can "chat" with each other they can only use pre-written phrases (never typing for themselves!) So they can't give another player their name or any personal info...it just won't let you.

So if you don't see me blogging, I'm probably in Webkinz World.

The Wiggles - I'm Too Sexy

For all the Moms out there who suffered through years (or even just minutes) of the Wiggles...here's a laugh for you!

comment answering post

These are selected comments from my camping trip post and my answers to them...

The Meezers said...
you camping trips sounds like lots of fun Miss Renee. Glad that you took your litterbox wif you and that it was helpful!! - Miles

NO! Thank you Miles for all your camping tips. You're such a smart cat.



Heather said...
Sounds like you had a good time! And I had to mention that I think its comical DH didnt go... Jake wouldn't go either. He says, "That is why Got created Electricity and In door plumbing so we didnt have to go camping!" LOL Sounds like they will get along peachy ;)

Well since Dh's "in the field job" is setting up "tent cities" he's a bit spoiled by all the amenities that his employer provides. When we were packing once he asked "where is the A/C? where is the communications tent? where are the showers?" He thinks that he's so funny. I don't know if we'll ever drag him out for real camping...which is why I haven't bothered to buy him a cot or air mattress yet. Yeah, our guys should get along just fine.


Jen said...
I'm gonna have to tell people to come read about the camping trip here, because I just haven't gotten around to blogging it (or much of anything!) yet.

I'm all over that ferber thing, loved it and did it with all the kids. But if that's what they were doing, they were doing it WRONG! Jeez, it's not that hard of a concept, is it? No one's kid should be crying that long before bed, or ever.

LOL! yeah, it's totally okay to send your commenters over here for a peak at your camping trip. Glad I didn't got to Bear Creak with you. That sounded very harsh even though they have flushies!
And I really hope that the baby was just being ferberized wrong cuz if the baby was cold like I suspected that was just plain MEAN to let it cry like that. The second night really sounded as if it were in pain to me.

Barbara said...
Nice to have you back in the blogosphere.

Thanks Barbara, and thanks for your Google Next button tip. All I have to figure out now is how to get my printer driver on here...I think that I might have the right one from the website...just have to do all the disconnect the usb cord and connect the cord...and roll my eyes. hee hee


Kailani said...
I give you credit for going through all of that. I know I wouldn't bother since I'm just not a camping kind of girl. The main thing is that Darly enjoyed herself!

Yeah, she had a great time. I'm not sure why I'm so attracted to camping...maybe cuz I feel as if I was born at the wrong time. When Frontier House came out on PBS I was totally thinking "I Can Do That!"



Goofy Girl said...
Sounds like quite the adventure!!

It was a lot of fun.(except for the screaming baby and horrible latrines!) Monday morning I was kind of torn about leaving. In a way I would have liked to stay up there longer, but we needed to get back to town for Darly's gymnastic's class.
I was wishing that we had done some real hiking and exploring or other campy things.


Lynn said...
After reading your post I want to go camping again. I absolutely love tent camping. (Don't like the bugs though). Sounds like you had a fantastic camping trip...minus the crying baby and the cold, but oh what great memories you are creating.

That is the one wonderful thing about camping in Colorado...no bugs! I think we saw maybe two mosquitoes. The flies kept trying to get in our screened room, but that's it.


Bone said...
Sounds fun. I'm very impressed by the variety of food that you cooked while camping. I usually just have hot dogs.

Who takes a screaming baby camping? Isn't that what people go camping to get away from? :)

I purposly try to have food OTHER than just hot dogs when we go camping. Mostly to prove to Darly that you can eat other foods and cooking them is not that hard.
Here's how I cooked our food: Night #1 I put some water in frying pan with the ham and the corn and just heated that. The mashed potatoes were instant. Night #2 (when I did my "fancy cooking!") I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and covered that in a mixture of barbque sauce & water (cuz the heat makes the sauce dry out quickly and then you just get pasty chicken...blech!) I heated that in a covered pan and then cooked the instant rice and peas separately. Night #3 Darly sliced the hot dogs and I got the macaroni cooking. About 4 minutes or so before the noodles were done we added the hot dogs. Drained the noodles/dog mixture and made the Mac & Cheese according to the Kraft directions. Peas were cooked in water in a separate pan. I CAN cook more elaborate camping meals...but remember I'm also catering to a very picky kid. On previous trips I've cooked foil pouch dinners, which I LOVE but Darly isn't a fan. I can also do a dutch oven stew, but I'm waiting for someone's palate to mature for that.
And I don't know why those people had a baby cuz they certainly did there best to ignore it. At one point they had the kid in the pop up crying while the mother was outside doing nothing that looked important telling the baby "I'm right here."

m said...
Sounds like you had a great trip! Have you warmed up yet? :)

RYC: If you're going to be driving a lot on 470, you'll probably want a transponder. Having one makes it so much easier!

It was fun, can't wait to go again! And yes I've warmed up. Now that I know the secret of a warm night's sleep I'll never go cold again!
And I should go get a transpoder. I'll ask DH about it, maybe if I tell him that I'll keep it in the glove box except for when I actually need it and only use it when it's really necessary he'll let me get one.

How the camping went

I just realized that after all the excitement about my new computer and the terrible miserable days I had without internet that I totally forgot to tell you all about our camping trip.

I'm gonna follow the good old journalism techinque of using the famous W questions.

Who (all went)?: My real life buddy Jen and her entire Hoard, Darly, Lilly & myself.

What?: We went camping. Jen's gang in a pop-up and my gang in a tent.

Where?: Columbine Campground, just a bit up the road from Central City (apparently kinda North West, but I can't be sure). I'm not sure what you'll see when you click on that link...but look for the two loops. that's the campground...we were in the loop that is more to your left.

When?: Aug 24th threw the 27th. We were home by 11:30...that's when I learned that we had no more internet. :(

Why?: cuz I like to camp!

Here's what happened:
On Friday the 24th I loaded up the Explorer with all our camping gear and we headed up toward the mountains. For us it is about an hour & half or so. The new Central City parkway takes a lot of the time off...but you still have to drive through Central City to get there...'cuz they made the road to go to the town on purpose so folks would come there to gamble and leave all their money behind.

So Darly & I arrive there about 3:30 or so. I don't remember exactally. It was nice and quiet because most folks weren't planning on getting there until Saturday. Our campsite (and all of the sites there) was really intended to be for a RV. So figuring out where to put our tent at first took a bit of looking around. Right behind the "driveway" of sorts was a clear area, but it was on a sloap and it had a lot of tree roots in it. And even though we have "cots" I didn't want to try to set up there. Luckily behind the picnic table there was a relatively flat area without too many bumps.

So we got to work removing all the rocks, sticks and mushrooms! Let me say right now that grabbing a mushroom when you aren't expecting one is a very creapy feeling! There were partially buried mushrooms all over this place. And no, I don't know what kinds there were. Although, I did learn that the red ones with white spots were poisonous. Luckily I don't think any of us wanted to try to figure out which of the other ones were edible.

I grabbed our whisk broom and began sweeping our tent area to be sure we got all the little pokey things out of the way. I really don't want to poke a hole in my newish tent. We got that all done and set up the tent. I did a good job at making sure we had room for our screened room out the front without running into the picnic table and keep us on fairly level ground.

Next came the fun of setting up our beds. I let Darly work on that while I worked on getting our "kitchen" set up. I assumed that Darly would be setting up my bed as well...she did not. So I had to go blow up my air mattress (with the pump) and get my cot all set.

After that we began getting our fire started and working on dinner. I think that Jen arrived around that time. She wasn't very happy that her campsite was not a pull through like the website said. She discussed this with the camp host. The camp host said that this description stuff is written by folks in New York who have never even been here. Jen says that is why you should contact them and let them know what the site really has. I was expecting a pull through. Camp host says that no campgrounds have pull throughs. Luckily Jen had her hubby along who could help her get her popup in the parking spot. But unfortunately they were unable to use the awning because it would have hit the tree next to it.

Darly & I had Ham, mashed potatoes & peas for dinner. I learned that night that for the next two nights I wanted to have dinner finished earlier so I wasn't washing dishes in the dark. But we had a nice evening and went to bed around 9ish.

Silly me, I did not set up the camp potty that I had brought because on first inspection of the campground facilities they were not all that bad for a vault toilet. There were a lot of flies in there, but they stayed mostly at the top of the latrine and didn't bother us. Well for some odd reason I needed to go to the latrine about 4 or 5 times that night...I'm guessing that altitude squeezes the bladder or something. So I had to get up in the cold and take Lilly with me because she would wake up Darly if I left her behind. This is not fun once, after the 4th time I was Seriously NOT happy. Oh and it was cold in the sleeping bag too. I had one fleece blanket inside the bag with me and an old quilt on top of my bag...still cold!

I think I woke up about 6:30 for good and started my camp stove to make my coffee and some hot water for oatmeal. After I had my breakfast I woke up Darly so she could have a hot meal too. She was freezing and after eating she went back into her sleeping bag.

We spent Saturday exploring our campsites, chatting with Jen's hoard and going to the Cemetaries down the road from the campground to go check them out. Lilly did very well with the cemetaries...I didn't know that she could climb over stiles that well. I wonder if it hurt her feet any as they were the open grid stairs. She didn't complain at all.

Saturday night we had Chicken cooked in barbque sauce, rice and peas. I also made "apple cobbler" for dessert. The cobbler never got cripsy, but it tasted good. I shared our leftovers with Jen & the hoard. They seemed to like it too.

Saturday night I had the camp toilet in the tent. That made the night go much better, but one of the new camp families that had arrived also had a bunch of kids and the baby cried about an hour from about 10pm or so. To me it seemed as if the baby was cold...but I could be wrong. I know that we were cold. I had brought those Therma Care packs and Darly & I each had one in bed with us.

Sunday morning I let Darly sleep in...figuring that she would be warmer in her sleeping bag and that went well. I had my coffee and read some Harry Potter (again!).

After Breakfast Jen drives up to let me know that they are heading into town for more supplies...do I need anything? I ask her for more Therma Care packets. And thank goodness the store actually had them! Oh I was doing such a happy dance. I'll never go camping without them again!

It was sometime after lunch that Darly's bestest buddy and her family came up for a visit. Darly was beside herself with excitement. You would hardly know that BB & Darly had just seen each other on Friday morning. Those girls are so silly. So the girls played in our tent and the guys (BB's dad, brother, Jen's son & Mr Jen) went for a hike, while us "women folk" sat around the camp fire "swappin womanly stories" (sorry I coudn't resist...we watched Shrek here last night.)

All too soon it was time for BB's family to head back to town. The girls pealed themselves away from eachother and said their goodbyes, without any tears. And as soon as they pulled away, Darly says that she misses BB. *eyeroll!*

Sunday night dinner was hotdogs cut up in Mac & Cheese with corn. Smores for dessert. Sometime after dessert while we are watching the fire it starts to thunder and sprinkle. So I start scrambling to get everything that shouldn't get wet put away and things that might blow away tied down. We had left the lantern in the tent so I was using just my flashlight and at one point I ran into the picnic table's bench because I didn't see it. OUCH! We got everything put away and went into the tent. Darly was upset because we hadn't put out the fire. I figured the rain would take care of it...but we watched from our tent the fire still glowing. It didn't rain much.

Darly & I weren't that tired so we sat on the tent floor next to the lantern reading our books. I went to bed before Darly...that was odd. At some point after I dozed off I woke to the baby next tent site screaming. It was screaming as if it were in pain. My tent doesn't have any window flaps on that side so I couldn't tell if the parents were doing anything for the child or not. I could hear other noises from over there, but it didn't seem that they were doing anything for the child.

I later told Jen that I couldn't tell if the child was screaming because it was in pain (like the ear infections that seemed to be going around) or if the parents were trying to ferberize the kid and it wasn't going very well. I think the kid quit screaming at about 2 hours or I fell asleep at that point. Who knows?

Sunday I had decided to put our extra blankets inside our sleeping bags and oh how much better we slept. I was nice and toasty...especially since I had my Therma Care too. Ah! Oh did I mention that instead of having my Therma care on my tummy that I had it on my butt? That was the coldest part of me, so that's where I put it.

Monday morning we had all had enough of camping. Since a lot of my stuff had been put in the Explorer the night before for the rain I was able to get the rest of the stuff outside the tent packed away quickly...well except for what we needed for breakfast. Again I let Darly sleep in and she was a happy girl.

Right after breakfast we packed up and were on the road before 10am. We got home at 11:30 and I got the RUDE note that there was no internet. BOO! How dare DH mess with my computer. LOL!

Oh well. Now I have internet and a new computer. Now I just need to find a driver for my printer that will run on my Vista operating system.

The $50,000 Question Meme

Wouldn’t I just love to have this happen!

A philanthropist awards you $50,000 with the stipulation that you may use half of it for yourself and the other half you must use for the benefit of others. By “benefit of others” it can mean anything really, buying a gift for a family member or donating to a charity.

Thanks to An Island Life, I get to dream big for just a little while.

First I wanna whine because the stipulation is that only $25,000 can be spent on me and then $25,000 has to be spent for someone else. but then there are these questions that really mix it all up. Let's see how I do.

1)How do you spend the money on yourself? see #2

2)How do you use the money for others? Please be detailed, so if you say “give X dollars to charity, let us know what charity and why you select that one. My mom really wants to move here to be near my brother & me. So I would spend the entire $50,000 on helping her get a house and move here.

3)If you were to spend part of your money to have a performer do a show for you, who would it be and why? well I don't think that $25,000 will cover the cost of having a performer do a show for me. but perhaps if I asked The Newsboys nicely, they might come do a benefit concert here and we could donate all the procedes to their favorite charity. (choosing their charity would make them more likely to come preform.)

4)If you were to use it on a new vehicle for yourself, what kind? To get anything decent it's gonna take the entire $25K and then some...but I would love a new Explorer.

5)If you spent part of it to go to a “fantasy” camp, what type would you choose? I'm not sure I understand the concept of a fantasy camp. but I would be happy with a trip up to the YMCA camp at Estes Park. They've got tons of fun stuff to do up there...course if they had a spa too that would be great. So there's the fantasy of it, take the place that already exhists and add to it. ha ha!

6)If you were to use it to buy season tickets for a sports team, what team would it be? I’m not all that into sports. I personally prefer watching high school & college sports, but if I had to choose a local team I would probably go for the Rockies. We had a blast at their game...course it helps that they WON! when we went to see them.

7)If you were to use it to go on a cruise (assuming you like cruises) where would you cruise to? Humm...at first I thought this would be easy cuz the first answer that popped into my head was a Disney Cruise, then I remembered that I wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and then I remembered that I would like to do a Hawaiian cruise. decisions, decisions!

8)If you were to use it to go to NYC to see a show (or shows) what would you see? Gosh, I'm not sure. I've never wanted to go to NYC...ever. That just doesn't appeal to me (not a big city gal!) But to see a show, hummm I would have to do some research on what shows there were. Now to go see a show here, I wanna see The Blue Man Group! but since DH has already seen them in Vegas he doesn't wanna go again. whah!

Now it’s back to reality. *sigh*