Chores of late...

Check out this beauty that I bought recently!DH was very impressed which is saying a lot.

Darly has outgrown her little toddler desk so this will be her new desk. Although DH & I won't allow her to store all her junk in it, cuz it's going in the family room. Right now the desk is in parts and in my garage because I'm cleaning it up. This desk was formerly the school desk for a homeschooling friend of ours and she "decorated" the desk a bit. So I spent a bit of today washing the desk with some wood soap to get off the majority of the art work. I have to check with DH to see how much more art work he wants removed and how hard he wants me to try to remove it. Then I get to turn that project over to DH because when we moved it I noticed that a few of the screws that hold the top of the desk down are stripped out. It's an easy fix and we even have all the tools. Just maybe DH will finish it by the time Darly & I get back from our camping trip.

My second project has been to work on cutting down a dead tree in our back yard. It would have gone much faster if we had any power tools, but DH was worried about trying to cut down a tree with his skill saw...frankly I was too, but using a pruning saw was a lot of work. We finally got the stump down last night and today I've been working on cutting the stump into fire wood for my camping trip. I think I am about 1/2 the way through. YAY! It's been quite the workout and with daily temperatures pushing 100 degrees, it's been hot too. :P

And finally I've been getting ready for our camping trip. I need to print out my check list, but I'm pretty sure that everything that we need is all in the camping gear pile. I'll just need to pick up ice on the way, cuz I'm out of room to store it here. I should also start getting my food together. I could do all of that on Saturday. We leave on Sunday. DH & the attack rabbits will be here until we get back on Wednesday.

Grumble!

Today I opened an email that I almost deleted...and apparently I HAD deleted their first attempt to contact me. Even though I have requested NUMEROUS TIMES for them to put "Girl Scouts" in the subject line I keep getting emails regarding Girl Scouts with no mention of it... oh well. I'm sure they'll call me if it's really important...I know they have the number, cuz they did call about our Troop's financial report.

Today's email was informing me that I am required to take some more Leader Training and there was an attached doccument that had a listing of the locations for the training...none of the locations anywhere near me! (most locations were 30 to 40 minutes away) All of the classes are 3 hours LONG! and all of them set up for times that would be impossible for me to attend. (most of the start times were between 5pm and 6pm...my DH doesn't get home from work until 5pm to be able to watch Darly.)

But listed on the attached doccument (with the classes listed) was a note that EVENTUALLY this class would be available either online or on a CD! YAY!

So I emailed the gal it said to send your questions to and asked about the expected availability of the online or CD class. She said it would be at least two months, BUT that they had opened up 3 more classes and I should go sign up for one of those.

I explained to her that the classes were not on a day that worked for me, not at a time that worked for me AND not at a location that worked for me. I did this nicely. I explained that Sunday would NOT work for me because it is Family Day.

She responds back that it wasn't like they were asking me to take this training every year and that I should do the class. I just deleted her last email and said a not very nice word (only in my head) to describe this person...as I'm sure she is probably thinking the exact same word about me.

You know for an organization that depends on volunteers they sure don't treat their volunteers very well. They all seem to have the mentality that if they can do this, we should be able to drop everything and do it too.

I'm thinking that instead of deleting her email, I should have asked her what were they going to do if I didn't take the training. LOL!

This isn't the first time I've thought about DEFECTING from Girl Scouts. It isn't as if we NEED them for much. Really the only reason we have the troop is so we can sell & eat the Girl Scout cookies. Anyone can go into the council office and buy the uniforms & patches.

Burn For You - Tobymac

a little something to wake you up!



enjoy!

TMI - guys just surf on by!

Have you seen this commercial? It cracks me up.



Well the good news is Mother Nature won't be bugging me on my next camping trip. The bad news is that she showed up yesterday. BOO! I'm so waiting for her to get dementia and forget me all together.

BTW: This is not any kind of endorsement for that brand!

Why would someone do this???

There's a person I know that I'm pretty upset with right now. I'm so upset because I can not for the life of me understand why she would do such a thing.

What did she do that was so horrible??? She SHARED GERMS!!! (I know that you're laughing at me now.)

There is one thing on this earth that irritates more than anything else...that is for ME TO BE SICK! I cannot stand it. I'm not a nice sick person...I'm the screamer kind of sick person.

So this person knowingly brought her sick self and sick brewd and exposed them to all of us. There is currently a nasty stomach bug going around town (thanks to others like this person too) and I don't want to catch it (even if the weight loss might be beneficial.)

So far it seems that I might have dodged this bullet as another friend that was with us seems to not have been so lucky...this bug is ripping through her family, one by one (of course they don't all catch it at once...that would be helpful! No it has to drag on!)

So take this post as a warning... If you are sick and you know it, stay the heck away from me & my family!!! otherwise I might have to puke on you! paybacks!

Ice Skating & Camping shopping

Darly is taking Ice Skating lessons and her current session is over for her, but just about over for the rest of her class. See next week there won't be any lesson due to an ice skating competition at the rink and the following week is the final week...it's also the week that we'll be camping.
Darly & I got up early today to go practice. We have to go to the early public skate session because the summer camp kids invade the ice at the 1pm skate time. This doesn't make Darly happy, she would rather sleep in and go skate at 1. But she also doesn't want to compete for a spot on the ice either.
Our practice skate didn't go very well. Darly was very hard on herself. We both knew that she wouldn't be ready to test out of this class yet. However, when we got to class at 5:30 ... well I'm getting ahead of myself

after our skate this morning, we went shopping. I needed to pick up some camping items for our next camping trip. Items I needed: Tent stakes (I bent about 5 out of 12 on my tent in the VERY HARD ground!); a clear salt shaker (I ran out of salt cuz I had no idea how much salt was in it.); trash bags; dish towels (I just wanted them!); propane; metal flatwear & I was looking for some way to keep my coolers out of the sun so hopefully they stay cooler longer without me having to move them out of the sun!

So first we went to Big Lots. That wasn't all that productive shopping wise. I just bought the trash bags & towels there. And I'll be using the new towels here in the house and gathering up my old towels that I've already stained to use for camping.

Then we went to Target and actually walked out of the store with out buying ANYTHING!!! DH would be so proud! LOL!

Next door is Wal-Mart. We went in through the garden center and noticed that the folding beach chairs that Darly & I have already been using as cots were on sale for only $3!!!! I paid about $6 for the ones that Darly & I are using right now...each! I actually wanted to buy extra chairs because the price was so good. But I just got one for DH to use IF he ever decides to come camping with us. I could spoil Lilly and allow her to sleep on the chair, but then she would be harder to convince that she's not allowed on our beds. I did look to see if they had those pet hammocks that I've seen, but not at Walmart. But hey! While looking for that link for you, I found this link too! Lilly may still be in luck.

Next we stopped by the sporting goods department to pick up the clear salt & PEPPER shaker for only $1. Sweet! I first saw a prefilled shaker that came with 6 spices and mentioned to Darly that I would never use 3 of the spices in there. Then I looked up and saw the perfect shaker. Hopefully we'll never run out of salt again. I picked up the tent stakes too.

While in the sporting goods we looked at several other items...we originally went there looking for the propane and something to keep our food cool. I never found the way to keep my food cool, but decided that I would try to make something that I saw online. I have plenty of tarps and string. plus I have some leftover tent polls from my last screen room that bit the dust...I could even recycle the top of it for the tarp that I need if I wanted to. So I'm going to try to make one of those before spending any more money on this thing.

And finally I wanted to replace our plastic flatwear with metal. My friend Heather had told me that WalMart had some really cheap flatwear sets that I could get...and sure enough I found them. It took a bit of digging to find the knives though...oh and spoons that actually fit in our mouths, but I found them and paid $3 for 6 forks, 6 spoons & 6 knives. We should be all set!

After all that hard shopping we headed home to find that I had a package!!! I knew what it was when I saw the return address, but couldn't believe that my order was in that box. It was though. Wanna know what I "ordered"? It was this! Did ya notice how much I paid for it??? I'm so psyched! Too bad it didn't come this morning...then I wouldn't have had to rent skates this morning.

Okay now back to the skating thing. We went to Darly's class at 5:30 and I had Darly tell her coach that she wouldn't be there for the last class. So the coach decided to test her today. YIKES! Darly tried really hard but she didn't pass. However, the coach told me that this class is really hard and the kids rarely ever pass it on the first try. skills like the Bunny Hop and T-Stop are just too hard. The coach felt that none of the other kids would pass either. Luckily we won't be there to find that out. Yes Darly was disappointed, but she seemed to take it all in very well. I told her that we would check the class list and try to register her for the least crowded class. perhaps we'll avoid a class with a bunch of "hockey boys" like this time. Did I tell you about how one of them knocked Darly over? GRRR!

the camping report

TC said...
Well, I'm scared! I guess I'll stay home. (Have fun!)
Lynn said...
Hope you camping trip was as fun as ours:~) Can't wait to hear about it.

Joan said...
Oh boy...camping! I can't wait to hear all about your adventure. Hope you have a wonderful time.

Maura said...
Love the attack rabbits, too cute! Have a great time camping...

Kailani said...
The one on the right looks a little scary!

Jen said...
They're FIERCE!

He he! You all are funny. Actually Kailani, you picked the one rabbit that would give you a hard time. She’s our “grumpy bunny” although the other one is also grumpy, but she’ll just run away. Trudy the one on the right, will try to scare you off.

Well camping went very well. Thanks to my checklist I didn’t forget anything (well except to check my salt supply, but I didn’t need it.)
I took a break in my packing on Wednesday to eat lunch and blog a bit (such a time killer!) and we didn’t get to the campground until about 1:30pm…good thing it’s close!
Heather was already there, but she had only beat me by about 30 minutes. She was still getting her tent up when I got there, which gave me plenty of time to get everything unloaded from my car, cuz Heather had to borrow my car to run and get the rest of her stuff…her car wasn’t big enough for 5 kids and all the gear she needed. I watched the kiddos and got my campsite set up while she was gone.
Then K & R showed up. They had a bit of fun finding me because they were looking for my car and Heather had it. Oops! But they did find me and get settled too. Soon enough Heather was back with her gear and all set too.
Wednesday was HOT! and dusty. By the end of the day we were all sweaty and covered in dust. Blech! :p We were all very tired and ended up having dinner a bit late. Many of us (ME!) didn’t put on our sunscreen soon enough and got sunburned…oh and seeing as the kids thought a game of pass Renée’s hat was in order, I didn’t have my hat on to protect me.
We were going to make fire starters using lint, toilet paper tubes and wax…but I found that just using the lint worked great! I’m now making a bag in my laundry room for collecting my firestarters! My dead tree fire wood worked just great! I had a blazing fire going really quickly.
Dinner was great! Smores were greater ;o)… but come bed time it was so hot! I have NEVER been camping in Colorado and had it be that hot in my tent come bedtime. I spent most of my night trying to get my tent vented just right so that I could sleep…sigh!
Thursday was much cooler. We woke to a nice warm morning…so warm that I didn’t bother to heat my pre-made coffee (I make a pot at home, fix it up the way I like it and then cool it quickly…it’s then good hot or cold.) I did use my camp stove to heat some water for Darly’s oatmeal…and since I was at it, I made some grits for me. No, not those durn 20 minute grits they use in the south! I made instant grits from a packet…just like Darly’s oatmeal! I tossed in some cheddar cheese and you would never know they weren’t slow cooked. Okay maybe if you normally have slow cooked grits all the time you might notice, but they were good anyway!
We had activites that we brought for the kids to play, but they came up with their own games all by themselves. The girls played “Girl Scout Camp” where they pretended to be at Girl Scout camp…Darly & Iona were able to tell the other girls just how it goes. They kept trying to get one of us adults to be the camp director, but we didn’t play. The kids made crafts and used magnifying glasses to burn leaves (but only in the dirt…we didn’t want to burn down the campground!)
Sleeping on Thursday night went much better. A cold front had moved in and made it much nicer in the tents. I was cold this morning and put on my sweats until after breakfast.
We broke camp this morning after breakfast and were all out of there by about 10 I guess cuz by the time I got my shower (which was after the dog’s bath and unloading of the car) it was just noon.
Darly & I watched “Alvin & the Chimpmunks” this afternoon while I did camp laundry…I had to wash the sleeping bags too cuz they were dirty from all that lovely dirt. :P I should go check my camp dishes.

gone campin

Darly, Lilly & I have gone campin

I'll report when we get back on Friday.

The only house protection I have are the two attack rabbits!

Home again!

We made it back! But I bet you're wondering how the trip went. Are you ready for the play by play? If not...skip this post and come back later. and if you are...READ ON!

I woke up early (as usual for any time that I need to be somewhere) and started work on my list of things yet to do. I packed all of our clothes including some items that Darly had forgotten (turns out she didn't need them anyway...oh wait, she did use the sweater...okay, mom isn't that dumb after all!)

By the time Darly woke up, I had everything ready and all she had to do was get into the car. I had even packed a breakfast because I know two important things about my kid... 1) she likes to sleep until the very last possible minute. 2) like me, she can't eat the minute she gets up. She usually isn't hungry for at least an hour or so after waking. So breakfast on the go it is...thank goodness for cereal bars!

We were in the car by 10am. Just like I wanted. But there was still one more item on my "to do" list...that was pick up cookies for the dinner on Saturday night. I pondered, should I stop at my grocery store and get them...or should I stop at a store on the way and get the cookies? I decided on the store on the way because that would give me a chance to use the restroom. That worked out perfect!!! (the only item I forgot to pack was the bottle of water I had put in the frig to cool.)

We made it to Silverthorn at noon-ish (a bit early actually) and had lunch by the outlet mall. I think that everyone and their brother had the same idea!!! that place was PACKED!!! oh and they had only one restroom for everyone (male & female) so there was a line of folks waiting to get in there. While we had our lunch I noticed that the gas prices were only $3.99 per gallon. And even though I was only 1/4 of a tank down, I decided to top off the tank there because I knew that gas would be more expensive the farther I got away from Denver. (this prooved to be an extremely good idea!)

Back on the road again... we went through 5 tunnels! This trip was my farthest west through Colorado. (I've been driven to the west coast before, but that trip was farther north threw WY, UT, OR & WA.) I had no idea that I-70 had that many tunnels on it before. For the most part, once you get past Vail the road gets very boring. It wasn't until we reached Glennwood Canyon that the trip got interesting again...view wise that is.

On the way we passed a bike race called "The Triple ByPass" that takes the riders over 3 mountain passes. I didn't find out which race we passed until I saw it on the news. that was cool.

We passed two cars that weren't up for the trip. One had steam coming out of the radiator and the other was spitting out very black smoke from the muffler. There were times that I wondered if my car was going to make the trip. My car doesn't care for some of the very steep grades we had to traverse. I was a good girl and stayed to the right so that folks could pass me though.

We also passed someone who had rolled their SUV with a travel trailer behind it. I hope they're all okay...I could only see two little girls about Darly's age standing outside the vehicle and a fireman near the front windshield of the vehicle.

For the last 45 minutes or so of our drive Darly decided to start asking "How much longer?" every time we hit a stoplight. Towards the end I had no idea how much longer it would be...especially since it seemed that we were hitting every stop light they had. LOL!

We pulled into Snowmass Village at about 3pm...right on schedule! And I found our hotel very easily. Parking on the otherhand was not so easy to find. I knew that we had to park in the lots to the right of the hotel that are for the skiiers...but I didn't know that there was a Mountain Biking competetion going on so the lots were very full. But we found our parking and headed to the hotel to check in.

I had forgotten that I had read on the web that my hotel's lobby was closed and I needed to check in at the hotel next door. But that wasn't too far, so we hiked there. And now for the fun...

There is NO RECORD OF MY RESERVATION!!! They look it up by my last name. NOPE! They look it up by my first name. NOPE! They look it up by my confirmation number. STILL NOPE! They get a manager in on the deal. I ask if I may use the restroom while they try to figure it out, they have my copy of my confirmation info.
When I return from the bathroom, they have decided that they will give me an upgrade to the Silvertree hotel. I made my reservation with the Wildwood hotel, but they are both owned by the same company. The Wildwood is their "budget"/older hotel. And I have my key to the room as soon as I returned from the bathroom. YAY!

So Darly & I head up to our room to check out our "digs" before I go to get our luggage...I wasn't gonna lug our bags around while we were checking in. We had an awesome room! I didn't realize until just now that we had a delux room!!! WOW! I need to have my reservation lost more often. ;) They guy at the desk asked if we wanted a pool view and I said it didn't matter to me...he had given us the pool view. next time I'll ask to not have a pool view...some folks had decided to have a pool side party that night even after the pool was closed. boo

I left Darly in the room to check it out and play with all the gadgets while I went to get our bags. While getting our bags I realized that our floor had a ground level exit (we were on the 4th floor) but since the hotel is on a hill most all the levels had a ground level exit. This was cool as it eliminated our need to wait for the elevator! YAY! My walk back from the car with our bag was a lot shorter this way.

After I got the bags, I grabbed my cell phone to call my brother. I was very suprised to find out that not only did I have full coverage...there wasn't any roaming! YAY! Snowmass village must have a cell tower right there! Woo Hoo! (sorry if that sounds silly to you, but normally my cheap cell phone has lousy coverage at best and I pay roaming fees everywhere!!!) So I call brother and tell him that we are there. Then within minutes brother calls back and we agree to meet at a playground right outside my hotel for the kids to play.

Darly & I got to the playground very quickly and waited outside of the Pizza place for my brother & nephews. The smell was so good that we were both about to go and have pizza for dinner if brother didn't get there soon! LOL! Lucky for us a bunch of mountain bikers had arrived and the line to get into the pizza place was about 20 or more deep so we decided that we didn't want to get caught up in that.

Brother showed up with nephews. Baby nephew was sleeping. Nephew #1 played for a bit and then came to join us on the bench. Darly had determined that she was too big for that playground and was just sitting on the bench enjoying some Dog watching. There were a lot of dogs up there to watch!

Brother asked if we wanted popcorn, so we went in search of that...it wasn't open, but by the time we determined that we noticed that it was about time to head up the hill for dinner. So we ran up to our room (brother wanted to see it so he could recommend it to his friends who ski) to pick up the cookies for the dinner.

We then get to the condo clubhouse for the dinner party...and we are the first to arrive!!! So I took the kids to put their feet in the pool while Brother fed baby nephew. Even though the party was supposed to begin at 5:30, folks didn't start to show up until almost 6pm. LOL! It would figure that the only folks on time were with me.

Here's the guest list...

Brother, SIL & their two boys.
SIL's sister, BIL, neice & nephew.
SIL's mom & stepdad
SIL's aunt, uncle & 4 boy cousins
SIL's uncle & aunt.
Darly & me

Dinner went very well, but I ended up taking the younger kids to the pool. (that would be Darly, nephew #1 & SIL's neice) Nephew #1 & SIL's neice are both 4 (5 weeks appart in age.) The pool had two hot tubs (cuz it's a ski town!) and Nephew had to check both of them out numerous times! Neice kept wanting to visit the upper deck area to spin around. I felt that she needed an eye kept on her and since there was no water up there I had Darly be her "guardian" while I kept an eye on Nephew (I have lifeguard training, Darly doesn't swim yet.) Darly was getting tired of all the up and down, but I reminded her that she wouldn't be able to save Nephew if he fell in.

Darly decided that she was done with all of this and asked if we could return to our room. I was getting cold so I agreed and rounded up the kiddos to return them to their parents. We walked back to our hotel...it was all downhill and took less than 10 minutes. We hit the showers and found a good movie to watch "The Princess Bride." I kept trying to get Darly to see that Westly was played by the same guy who played Sir Edgar in "Ella Enchanted" but seeing as he had different color hair and the movies are about 10 or more years appart she couldn't see that it was the same guy. Oh well!

I had a fitful sleep that night, the room was too warm, the late night pool party, puffy pillows that put a krik in my neck and the refrigerator in our room had a very noisy cycle. So I got up way before the alarm went off.

I accidently work Darly up pretty early too but she wasn't too upset seeing as she got to watch Beakman's World twice...who knew that it came on every Sunday? But seeing as we are hardly ever up at 7am on Sundays how could we know that?

While Darly watched TV, I packed us all up and took our bags back to the car. We checked out of the hotel at about 8:45...their system wouldn't allow me to check out in my room (they have where you can check out threw your TV) because my account showed that I owed 6 cents. weird! the guy at the counter just credited my account for me. LOL!

The drive from the hotel to the Church was supposed to take us 30 minutes, it didn't seem nearly that long to me...must have been the fabulous view! We got to the Church with plenty of time. However, my brother didn't allow enough time for the trip because he was very late. SIL's uncle who is a Pastor officiated the service...so we didn't start until Brother arrived.

The service was very nice and the sermon was great and very meaningful...although a bit too long! I had to try very hard to not check my watch!

After the service there was a reception in the next room...with loads of food that Darly wouldn't eat. I think she had cookies and apples! :eyeroll!:

We decided to go home after that. Darly kind of wanted to stay longer but I reminded her that if we stayed it would be with SIL's family and she was quick to agree that we should head home then! hee hee! At SIL's suggestion we decided to head home via Independence Pass. It was a very beautiful drive! However, I missed one part of the directions and we ended up back tracking and adding 2 hours to our journey (partly due to the extra miles and mostly due to heavy traffic!) If you click on the first link you'll see that at Leadville I was supposed to turn on 91 and head toward Breckenridge. I must have missed that part of the directions and since all I knew was to stay on 24 we ended up taking longer. Oh well.

I was pretty miffed to find out that the reason traffic was held up from Silverthorn to the Georgetown tunnel was because of the tunnel!!! Once I got threw the tunnel traffic was fine the rest of the way. hummm folks don't know how to drive through the tunnel??? what gives?

We made it home right around 6pm, which is when DH was expecting us. However, I had given him that estimate based on us leaving Aspen at 2pm...we should have been home at 4:30!!! Oh well, we made it.

Off to the hills!

Darly & I are heading up to Snowmass Village to see my newest nephew get baptised on Sunday. The trip route is planned out. I've even checked out which towns along the way have food that miss picky will eat...where did I put my list???

Things left to do here...
make sure that DH & DD sign the gift cards
pack clothes!
take care of the rabbits and give them enough goodies for two days.
pack snacks & water for the drive

tomorrow
Don't forget the camera & batteries!
stop by the store and pick up the cookies
drive forever!

DH has to work, but not to worry...our ferrocious attack dog Lilly will be on high alert (probably sleeping!)

I'll post again hopefully Sunday night...but more likely on Monday. See ya!

I paid the ransom!

I got my car back Wednesday at almost 6pm...the mechanic supposedly closes at 5pm, but they stayed late and finished my car cuz they promised me it would be done that day.

They never noticed the smell (I think it's antifreeze) and now since it's really hot out the smell is worse than ever! I need to take it back to the folks who replaced the radiator last year cuz they should have fixed that then.

And now my oven says it wants some money spent on it too. But since it is too HOT to use the oven...I'm gonna make it wait! LOL! Dumb oven doesn't know that I once lived in an apartment for 2 years with no oven at all and lived just fine!!! Bwahahahah!

My car is being held HOSTAGE!!!

my car has been whining at me for a while now to check my engine. It had recently gotten so bad that every time I stepped on the gas the check engine light had come on.

that signaled to me that it was probably time to replace the air filter...as it turns out, it was WAAAYYYY past time to replace the air filter. LOL!

So after replacing the air filter the light is still coming on. Bummer! But at least now the light only comes on when we are trying to talk the car into going up a steep hill (like the ones that are just about everywhere in Colorado!)

Seeing as I'm planning to drive up to Mountains this weekend, DH & I figured it would be a good idea to get the check engine light checked out. I thought it wouldn't be a good idea for me to get stuck up there with a problem...can you say "hand over your entire wallet to the nice mechanic"?

So I called the shop Tuesday and the guy tells me I can bring it in Wed, Thurs or Friday. I'm looking at my calendar going... "Wed = Park Day; Thurs = Coop & Friday = help at church!" YIKES! At first I told him Friday, seeing as I could walk to Church if necessary.

But then I reconsidered because what if whatever is making the light go on takes longer than just one day to fix??? Then I'm stuck with no car for the weekend. not good.

So I called him back and switched the appointment (I don't really think they gave me a REAL appointment) to Wednesday.

We dropped off the car Tuesday night and hopefully they'll start the diagnostic test on it first thing in the morning. If so I should know by 8am what is wrong with my car. Seeing as that is normally way before I get out of bed, that should be good...right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm so Silly!

I called the garage at 9am to see if they had looked at it. AH..NO!

WTH? When I called yesterday they said if I dropped it off they would look at it first thing in the morning.
Now when I called they said that they had a bunch of "Quick Oil Changes" ahead of my car and that they would finish those up in about an hour and then get to my car.

GRRRR!

This is the MAIN thing that I HATE about mechanics. Lying about how long they are gonna keep your car hostage!!!! I've had where I took my car in for brakes and it took then entire day because they put it up on the lift and took off the tires & brakes and then worked on a bunch of other cars!(Sears Automotive in TX) I've also had where they kept my car for 3 days and when I finally called them they NEVER located the noise I was complaining about!!! In other words they never bothered to look at my car or call me either!!! (Firestone)

There's one mechanic in town I've found that doesn't do that. But DH said I shouldn't take the car to them for this... it's Brakes Plus. When I call them, they tell me when they can get my car in AND how long they need it to make the repair. I never feel as if my car is being held hostage.

~~~~~~~~

Well they finally called @ 12:30. He doesn't expect the parts to get here until 2pm, but says that they SHOULD have my car done by 5pm.

Damage done so far...
Mass Airforce Enter - I think this means that there is a leak in the air intake system (what I suspected too!) and this is $255
Transfer Case fluid is dirty $62

about due for an oil change...yeah, right! I just had the oil changed about 2 or 3 months ago and we don't change it every 3 months...more like every 10 months. ha ha!

a brake light out and a license plate light out. I am thinking that I probably should have just let them change those since he was only charging $2.50 each...but DH said no cuz he can change them AND we don't really need them.

So instead of sitting at the park with my friends...I'm stuck at home. :(

Maybe I can finish my book that is due at the library tomorrow.

Speaking of Summer Vacations...

Our family is just a tiny bit odd. We don't take our vacation in the Summer (UNLESS a certain SIL schedules a reunion or wedding for the July 4th weekend...when she KNOWS her town has a HUGE race and all the hotels will be booked! oops! sorry for that rant!)

anyway we like to take our vacation in Late September or in October. Why? you might ask? Well duh! Everyone else is busy at work and all the kids are in school. So wherever we go the crowds are not there!!! It's a very cool deal...and speaking of deals, we usually get some good ones too! Nuttin like "off-season" vacations.

I was pondering where we should go for our Vacation this year. And I know that my mother will be disappointed that we are not considering a trip to FL, especially since we went to MI last year. She gets all bent out of shape when it isn't fair. She feels that we should spend one vacation with DH's family and then the next with mine. Ummmm NO! Vacations should be fun. They should not an obligated visit with the relatives.

Oh and we just had a month and a half long visit with mother dear right here in my own house!!! YIKES!

When I brought this up at dinner this evening, Darly said that she did NOT want to go to FL...and who can blame her. Seeing her Nana is about as much fun as watching paint dry. Even I don't want to go. LOL!

So instead I need some options on where we should go.

Darly wants to go to American Girl Place. I'm just seeing dollar signs there. LOL! But we could manage one if we went to CA.

DH would like to take advantage of the Hero Salute program. We could do this if we go to Sea World in San Diego.

And that means a trip to Disneyland...right? hee hee

I think we could make that work with our budget. I just need to see what deals they are offering.

I'm also willing to hear your suggestions for a good place to go for our vacation. Remember though that we will be traveling in the Fall, so no place that we are likely to get snowed in please...I'm allergic to snow.

What I did for my summer vaca.... wait a minute!

this wasn't my summer vacation! This was just a Holiday. Okay, now that we have that figured out...here's what we did.

We were invited to go along with a friend to a museum... BUT instead we stayed home and cleaned the house. We started off by attacking the bathrooms with poisonous chemicals that claim to remove hard water stains...yeah right! I'm gonna go back to Comet and Bleach...they work. Oh yeah and some vinegar too. Seeing as I have to use elbow grease anyway, I might as well use the cheap stuff instead of paying so much for stuff that doesn't do any better. sigh

Then it was time for the vacuume. I got the downstairs. I was also injured by the vacuume...it jumped up and cut my leg. Okay, okay...what really happened is that I was trying to step over the canister (that always manages to get in the way!) and my leg was scrapped on the back side of it. They should really just design those suckers in a pillow or something. Then it wouldn't hurt me or my walls & furniture. Oh well. Now someone will come out with one that is all padded, but I won't get any credit, cash or even a padded vacuume cuz the one I have right now is still working!

After we cleaned the house we headed over to Home Depot cuz they had a 10% discount for DH. We looked at trees and played in their sprinkler. We didn't buy a tree. DH looked at fertilizer. We bought fertilizer. We looked at kitchen countertops & sinks. We didn't buy either of those...even though they're on sale this weekend. We looked at kitchen faucets. I picked out one that I like. We didn't buy a faucet. Then we looked at sprinkler parts. We bought sprinkler parts. And finally we looked for lightbulbs and bought those too.

I made my most favorite potato salad. (I actually did that before we went to Home Depot, but it's here with my dinner spread!)

Potato Salad
2 lbs of Red potatoes cubed
8 oz of fresh mushrooms sliced
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup chopped dill pickles
8 oz sour cream
8 oz mayonaise
1 tbsp Dill Weed

cook the potatoes in salted water until fork tender, adding the mushrooms about 3 minutes before the potatoes will be done so they can cook too. Drain and cool completely (if you add the rest while the potatoes are still warm, the potatoes will "suck up" all your mayo/stuff and it won't taste good!)

while the potatoes are cooking mix the remaining ingredients and let it chill in the frig.

once everything is good and cold, mix together well and let chill some more. The longer it sits the better the salad will taste. Stir well before serving. YUM!

I also grilled up cheeseburgers, with some garlic & butter covered veggie flavored noodles...(ya know those noodles that are red, orange & green)...and to keep the troops happy we also had potato chips (cuz they weren't eating my salad...they don't know what they are missing!)

After dinner and some playing around we watched some great fireworks put off by our town. They were shot off right down the road from us and our family room couch was the perfect place to watch the show.

The only way it could have been better was if the show was set to music (like they do in Tampa) where you tune in your radio to a certain station and it's all set. They would play songs like "They're Commin To America" and such and the fireworks are going off to that. Way cool! Oh well, maybe one day.

I found out this morning that some of my friends went to see fireworks and their shows were truncated due to fire. Seems the folks setting of the shows set some grass fires. Luckily the fires were small and put out quickly...but the shows were cancled.

There were plenty of other fireworks to view though cuz even though it is illegal in most towns to shoot off your own fireworks, that doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing it. I suppose that if you do shoot off your own fireworks and something catches fire you're in BIG TROUBLE!!!

Today we didn't do much of anything important. Oh wait...we did laundry. are your eyes rolling? mine are. I think I still have laundry to put away too. oh joy!

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

What am I gonna do with this kid?

I'm getting frustrated with my child again.

Recently she gave up her Gymnastics lessons...I'm not entirely sure why, but after her recent meltdowns I have a strong suspicion.

Monday morning I dragged Darly up out of bed so we could go hit the Ice Skating rink so she would be "warmed up" for her lesson later that day.

To fill you in a bit. Darly's Ice Skating lessons are only 30 minutes long and she needs a bit of warm up time in order for her to skate very well...If we don't hit the ice earlier in the day she doesn't do very well in her lesson as it takes about 1/2 of it to warm up. Her coach doesn't have enough time for her to warm up too. So I try to take her to go skating that same day before her lesson, so she'll get the most out of her lesson.

Well since it is summer the place that we go skating is having a summer camp (a place for parents to leave their kids while they go to work) and the "campers" get to go ice skating in the afternoons at the 1pm session. So that means that if we want the ice to not be over crowded, we need to get up and go skating at the 10am skate time.

For normal people a 10am skate time isn't a problem...however, Darly is a night owl. So she is whiney about having to get up so "early" LOL! once the kids go back to school we can switch back to the 1pm skate time.

However when we went skating on Monday, Darly went into another of her over exaggerated perfectionist fits. She sets these totally unrealistic goals for herself and then when she doesn't meet them she gets all mad at herself and wants to totally quit whatever activity it is because she can't do ANYTHING right. She whined that the coach expects her to get everything perfect and she just cannot do it.

I tried to reason with her that the coach does NOT expect for her to get everything perfect...if they did there would be no need for her to take lessons. I also mentioned to her that it is a very good thing that she got over herself when she was learning to walk and read because she threw the same fits then! I also pointed out to her after the lesson that none of the other kids in her class were any better at what they were learning than she was.

I think a lot of our problem here is that we still keep getting bad skates at the skate rental. No matter how much I've complained they STILL have not bothered to sharpen their skates!!! And I've been noticing more and more of the skates have weakened boots (the ankles are bent from other kids not lacing them propperly!) I really think that Darly would do much better if we bought her a pair of skates. However, Monday she proclaimed that she wanted to QUIT skating! So why fork out the money for Ice Skates if she's gonna quit.

I think what I might do is take her to go look at Ice Skates (used of course!) and see if perhaps once she gets a pair that aren't a mess on her feet if she changes her mind.

Oh and about her giving up Gymnastics? She has once again started practicing at home!