margaREEtaville

Nature, Photo Challenge

2012-02-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

Well Mother Nature sure has made sure that it was difficult the last few days to get out and take pictures! So, I don't have much for today. But, here is what I came up with.

Another shot of angry water at Hot Waters.

Here is a squirrel, making sure the coast is clear before he comes out of the tree! Pay no attention to the crazy woman with a camera. I am mostly harmless!

And now hitting the archives, here is a shot from the last time I was at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland. This is one of the walking paths and it's truly a very beautiful and peaceful piece of nature.

We could sure use some better weather around here. Or at least weather suitable for going out and taking some pictures!

Favorite Place, Photo Challenge

2012-02-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

I struggled with this one: favorite places. Where is my favorite place? I'm from Erie PA and to be honest, some of my favorite places are back there. Presque Isle, or as we called it, The Peninsula, was always a favorite place for me. I spent many an hour there, trying to find peace. That was sure a good place to do it.

I had to dip into the archives, but this nice quiet spot is Perry's Monument.

Here is another favorite spot in Erie, the channel. This is the channel from Lake Erie into the bay. My girlfriend and I used to go down here maybe 3 days a week and walk up and down the channel at lunch. Well, in the nice weather anyway! This was not a winter time activity. I'm not an idiot!

But I'm no longer in Erie. Even after 10 years, I'm trying to make Lorain my home and most days it feels like it. You have to find favorites in your new city to feel like it's home. One favorite you need to find is a favorite restaurant.

Once I learn how to eat on my new diet, I'm hoping I can go back to Mutt & Jeff's! I'm sure I can find something on their menu that I can eat! Right now, it's just hard figuring it all out. But that's another post.

Even on a dreary day like today, you gotta head to the shore some days to put yourself back into kilter. Just being at the shores of Lake Erie would make me happy. I really don't like being ON the water, but get me BY it and I'm happy. This is at Lakeview Park.

Even a dreary day by Lake Erie can be a good day. On the other side of the park is another favorite place that we don't get to often enough in the summer. The bocce court! Ron and I took up bocce a few years ago and we love it! We've played in our yard, but it's not the same. We call it "yard rules" with all of the funky hills, valleys and funny rolls we get on the balls. That's why I like this park better.

And, another favorite place of mine here in Lorain - the library. Some days you just need to get out of your head and escape reality. You can't do that any easier than going to your library and finding a great book to take you away. You can do some light reading

and follow the adventures of Kinsey Milhone as she goes about her job as a private investigator. Or, if you need more serious reading, John Sandford never disappoints.

These are about the good guys versus the bad guys and the good guys win. Some days that's just what you need to get you out of your own head and to a better place. The good guy needs to come out on top.

And these are just a few of my favorite places. I hope that I still have more favorite places just to discover.

Up Close, Photo Challenge

2012-02-09T23:20:00.000-05:00

Up close! Anyone that knows me knows I love the macro setting on my camera! One of the few settings I know how to use!!

Let's see what I saw in my camera today. A place in need of some paint.

I don't understand why the cats like it. If I had to eat this, I'd be really skinny!

My clock in the bathroom.

Now my personal favorite - a gerber daisy that is sitting on my desk! Ron sent them to me last week and they are still going strong!

I love close up! We should do this more often!

Road Signs, Photo Challenge

2012-02-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest, I chose this particular challenge. I chose it because I saw a specific road sign that I thought needed to be on the blog! Unfortunately, once we got the list settled and this topic made the cut, I can't for the LIFE of me remember what in the heck inspired me to call this challenge! So I had to wing it. I've been driving around town for a week trying to get re-inspired. Here is what I came up with.

I was driving aimlessly around, and the Five Man Electrical Band song going through my head:

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind.

Which means you have to start with a "do not enter" sign!

These signs crack me up. I have junk, you want some?? I did erase part of their phone number though. No free advertising from me!

No wonder I can't find my way around town! Who's turning the signs upside down, totally changing the Route number?? For real, people. You can't mess with me like this!

Lastly, welcome to the craziness that is the City of Lorain! Gotta love her!

Here's hoping the road signs are all in your favor and help you find your way home.

Share and Relish

2012-02-07T23:47:00.006-05:00

We are starting a new feature here. Post a simple but tasty recipe, only once or twice a month. The recipes must contain simple items that can be found in the United States as well as in Germany, especially since this is Georgia's brain child!

This should be a recipe that you actually make and eat, not just something you found in a magazine. With the new diet, I am going to try to make my recipes a little healthy. Well, maybe after this first one! Right now, it's only me and Georgia that has signed up for this project. Any and all are welcome! Let me know if you'd like to play and we'll include your name and link you up.

For my first recipe, I made my Mom's navy bean soup on Sunday. Beans are high in protein but they are also high in carbs. I'm not into my diet enough yet to know if this is really good or really bad for me, but it sure did taste good! And, this is definitely a comfort food from growing up. Being good Catholics, we always had meatless suppers on Fridays. Bean soup was a staple in the winter for us.

If you know how to cook, please don't point out all the errors in what we do! This is how my Mom made it, so this is still how I make it!

I know how to make this in my dutch oven size pot. You will have to adjust the recipe up or down depending on the size of your pot.

You will need:

1 to 1-1/2 lbs of navy beans
1 large onion
1 16oz can of diced tomatoes
1/2 stick of butter
small sized pasta

I start by cooking the pasta according to the directions on the box. Rinse, drain and put in a container in the refrigerator.

I pour out all of the beans on the counter, and go through them all by hand. It's not unusual to find a small rock in the bag.

I will throw out anything that is not a bean, or any bean that looks "funny" to me.

Put the beans in the dutch oven, cover with cold water and swish around to rinse. Throw out the rinse water and fill the dutch oven about 3/4 full with water and salt liberally. Personally, I think beans need a lot of salt. But, salt to your taste.

Once the water comes to a boil, put a lid on, turn the heat down to low and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 45 minutes, add the can of tomatoes.

Put the lid back on and cook for another 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Check to see if the beans are done. If not, keep cooking until they are! You can tell if the beans are done by taking a few of them out of the water on a spoon and gently blowing on them. If they are done, you will see the skin on the bean peal right back when you blow on them, like this:

I learned that little trick from my sister-in-law! When the beans are done, take a sauce pan and saute a large onion, chopped up, in the butter. As you can see, I only had about 1/2 of an onion so I just used what I had. I love a lot of onion. Once the onion is soft and translucent, add enough flour to the pan to make like a paste.

To this same pan, now add cool water until this paste is creamy.

Slowly pour this creamy concoction into the soup, stirring constantly until incorporated. Once this is all mixed together, let cook about another 10 minutes to thicken.

Now it's time to enjoy!! Take the pasta from the fridge, and put a dollop in your bowl. How big of a dollop is personal taste.

Ladle the soup over the pasta.

Enjoy! If my Dad were here, he'd add a BIG dollop of ketchup to this bowl, but that was my Dad! The man thought ketchup was a necessity in any soup.

Go check out Georgia's first recipe, pepper soup. It looks great!

This soup was mighty tasty. And it came out just like Mom would have made it!

Warm, Photo Challenge

2012-02-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

Warm. With this crazy weather we've been having, I am having a hard time getting into the spirit of this one. Originally, I thought of my favorite down coverlet. That is warm! Or my Snuggie! And yes, I do own one and I love it! But, I digress.

Warm. I was cooking dinner and I realized if you stand too close to the stove, you do get warm! Gotta love a gas burner!

Note to self: Watch how close you get your camera to an open flame. This is NOT a macro opportunity! Ouch!

Then, this is how me and Penelope are every morning and every evening. She is better than a warm blanket on my lap, I'm telling you!

You ever try blogging with a cat on your lap who thinks one of your hands should always be petting her? Good thing I love her!

Garage Door Update

2012-02-06T22:26:00.000-05:00

Well, at least it's in.

As I mentioned in a prior post, this had not been all rainbows and sunshine to get this door in. Home Depot was horrible to work with on this, as their staff from the door department to the girl in customer service who cashed me out, had little knowledge about what they were doing. They could also use a refresher course in "customer service".

J&S Door Co. was the subcontractor that Home Depot hired to install this door. Bill from J&S Door Co. is another one that I will make sure I don't do business with again. Here is what happened.

The paperwork from Home Depot states that the installer will be calling me in one to two business days to set up an appointment to measure for the door. After four days, I ended up calling Dave, the manager of Home Depot to find out why I haven't gotten a call. I tried to tell Dave how this order has been a mess since the beginning but he didn't want to hear it.

He did call J&S Door though, and lit a fire under their butts to call me. The office at J&S Door did end up trying to call that afternoon. They called the wrong number, but they did call me. They ended up calling Ron's phone, which I had told Home Depot was NOT the number to call and to take it off of the account. Ron let me know they left a message on his phone, so I called them back and left a message on Thursday evening with the correct number. Friday morning, we finally spoke.

I told the office that I wanted to be there for the site inspection and she hemmed and hawed and said it would just be a quick inspection and measurement. I explained that it's MY money being spent and I want to BE there when he comes over. We arranged for the inspection to be done last Monday at 5:00 pm.

I get a call from Bill the installer at J&S Door just before 2:00 in the afternoon telling me he just got done with the inspection and everything is fine. I said it's NOT fine as he was supposed to be there at 5:00! He actually asked me "well, why do you think YOU need to be here for this?" Um, I don't know, because it's MY MONEY??

He claims the office never told him to be there at 5:00 but the office swears it was on the paperwork. One of them is a bold faced liar, and at this point, I don't care which one it was. He's telling me that no one needs to be there for the inspection since he was able to get everything he needed just by looking in the windows. Well, I'd like to know then, why after he hung up with me did he rattle the man door trying to get in to the garage and then knock on the house door. Just curious.

He came on Friday to install the door and here is the door.

When I ordered the door, I asked for a handle on the outside of the door, no lock, just the handle, in case I have to manhandle the door up some day. Do you see a handle? Oh yeah! Bill decided that I didn't need one on the outside where I wanted it, so he put it on the inside! He thought it was better this way. Yeah, Bill. Here is another reason that had I been there for the inspection, perhaps you would have learned what I wanted and expected and PAID for. Just sayin'.

So, I'm not happy. I have already heard that I'm just being a bitch and it's fine the way it is. I don't agree. Well, maybe I AM being a bitch about it, but it's not fine the way it is. It's not the way I ordered it or paid for it. But, whatever. Bill liked this way better.

Through out the entire process, I was made to feel like my breasts and ovaries automatically discounted me as a customer who deserved respect. Just another stupid woman trying to do a man's job of ordering the garage door. What could this stupid woman know.

What this stupid woman knows is that I would not use Home Depot again.

What this stupid woman knows is that I would NEVER recommend anyone using J&S Door Co.

What this stupid woman does know is how to blog. Home Depot and J&S Door Co. - think twice before hiring either one of them.

Birds, Photo Challenge

2012-02-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

Birds! I bird sat years ago for one of my aunts. The longest two weeks but two of the best weeks of my life! I didn't kill the birds, but I came close with one of them. That will be a story for another day!

The photo challenge today is birds. Here is what I came up with:

First were some geese enjoying some sunshine. Today was a good day for that!

Some seagulls trying to find shelter inside of the break wall.

No bird post would be complete for me without a shot of my brother Mike's finches! His pair had babies! Gotta love baby birds!

Lastly, a stone eagle, from a monument downtown.

Birds.

Comfortable, Photo Challenge

2012-02-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

Some of our challenge topics are harder than others, and this is one of the harder ones.

Since I really don't like any of my furniture, I can't really show me as comfortable. I have a hard time getting comfortable anywhere in this house! Luckily, my cats seem to have no problem finding comfort.

Here is Benny. This pillow is one of the most comfortable things in the house and this pillow holds my head when I'm sleeping on the couch. As you can see, Benny likes to share the couch and the pillow! He does look comfy!

And then there is my Penelope. This was her yesterday morning in one of her favorite places, the recliner. For whatever reason, it's also THAT corner of the chair that she will lay in. I have never seen her on the other side of the chair. That really is her spot!

As long as my cats are comfy, I'm happy!

Good Food, Photo Challenge

2012-02-04T15:56:00.000-05:00

Good food! This is definitely something different for everyone. My brother eats fish eyes. Yeah, I would NEVER include that in a good food category, but whatever! So, here is what I think is good food.

This is a family favorite that we grew up on. Cut up a head of cabbage, throw some butter in a cast iron skillet, liberal amount of salt, and fry that cabbage until it's caramelized! YUM! We usually add this cabbage to some cooked noodles, or halushki or macaroni or whatever. OMG, it's just about the best thing ever!

Phil got me a new George Foreman grill last week. I used it over the weekend to grill up some steaks!

This was a George Foreman grilled strip steak, grilled portabella mushroom and onions and a baked potato. Winner winner! I love my George!

Then, one of the best things ever that I will probably miss the most.

Blueberry pancakes from Pete's Restaurant on West Erie Avenue!

I'm telling you, these are filled with blueberries, and tasty as tasty can be! I am at Pete's every weekend for my blueberry pancake fix!

I love good food. I'm gonna miss it.

Starting Over

2012-02-04T15:43:00.003-05:00

About a year and a half ago, I found out I was a Type II Diabetic. Talk about having the rug pulled out from under you! I don't know why I was surprised as I had a lot of the classic symptoms, as well as family history of the disease. Plus, horrible, horrible eating habits which sealed my fate.

I made appointments with a dietitian, I made a game plan and I was a rabid follower for a long time. I lost 63 pounds, I could barely walk. But, if you discounted the additional back pain from the exercising, the rest of my body felt better. I had to buy new clothes as my pants literally fell off of me. THAT had never happened before!

But, I burned myself out. Eating two spinach salads a day for over a year, trust me. If I NEVER see a spinach salad again, I could probably live with myself.

Don't get me wrong, it WORKED. The secret to losing weight is simple. Diet and exercise. Not pills, not drinks, but good old fashioned healthy eating and exercise. Period. I proved it. I burned out, I backed off of my diet. End result? I gained 30 of those 63 pounds back again.

When I was diagnosed with the label of Type II Diabetic, my doctor told me that I COULD control it and I COULD get myself off of medication and be happy and healthy. I dug my heals in and vowed to be off of meds in one year. For real, taking a pill a day? I don't think so. Once he gives you one pill a day, it seems to be a slippery slope to add another pill for something else "because you're a diabetic, you also have to watch your cholesterol, here's a pill." To "vitamin D is so important because you're a diabetic. Take another pill a day". I am NOT made of money and this is definitely in part a financial decision.

Anyway, I burned out. I flat out burned out. The getting back on the scale and realizing I gained 30 of the 63 pounds back was a scary sight. I do NOT want to go back to square one. But what do I do?

Start over.

I need help.

I am going on a real diet, a regimented and regulated diet. I'm not happy about it but I need the help. I enlisted some one's help and the two of us are going on this diet together.

We made this decision last week to start this week. Once that decision was made, it so happened that the next night I was going for my regular grocery shopping to Sam's Club and Giant Eagle. I KNOW my life is once again changing and it scared the crap out of me. Let's face it, I am addicted to food. And to know I'm going on a regulated diet, I KNOW I have to face my demons once again, get serious and kick good food to the curb.

I started shopping that night and had a bona fide panic attack. I thought if I'm going to give up good and tasty food next week, I'm blowing any semblance of healthy eating and I bought out the stores. I had ice cream, potato chips and dip, tortilla chips and salsa, cookies, pizza, Quarter Pounder with Cheese and any and all crap I could shove into my mouth. Ok, this past week was probably some of my gained back 30 pounds but whatever. I wanted to be able to eat one more time all the crap that I feel I will never be able to eat without guilt ever again.

So, we are starting over and hopefully getting healthy.

Today's photo challenge is good food. Since I feel like I'm saying good bye to good food, I thought this blog post was appropriate for today to go along with the pictures of some of the good food I've had this past week!

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it. I am starting over.

Numbers, Photo Challenge

2012-02-03T19:16:00.000-05:00

Numbers. That was easy! This first one is from when Ron and I went bowling the other day. As you can tell, Ron won. I think he cheated, but whatever! (I SHOULD have put the bumpers up!)

I still love our new bedroom clock too. The clock projects the time up on the ceiling.

And lastly, bad numbers. Ridiculous.

Up, Photo Challenge

2012-02-02T17:22:00.000-05:00

The challenge today is UP! So, I took my camera and looked UP. I was surprised at what my camera caught! As any novice photographer will tell you, your camera doesn't always catch what your eye sees. I finally got a picture of some seagulls in flight! This is a first for me.

I know, I know. I will keep working on that shot!

I was able to catch the moon next to the power line.

Then, Ron and I were just aimlessly driving around looking for photo opportunities when I spotted this. Honest to Pete, I backed up down the street, pulled the car over and jumped out to take pictures. That was a heck of a time for the home owners to come home! But, we had a lovely chat with Marie about the great job she did with the landscaping around their home, and our shared love of taking in stray cats! Kindred spirits for sure! I fell in love with their whimsical bird houses!

What a great concept for a bird house.

I'm going to try looking UP more often.

Out Your Window, Photo Challenge

2012-02-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

Happy February and welcome to our February 2012 Photo Challenge!! Just to remind everyone, the participants that I know of are listed on the right side of this blog. Please make sure you go on over and check out their pics too! And, as a final reminder, here is the list that we are working on.

All are welcome to join! If someone doesn't have a blog, I'll be happy to post pictures here and credit the proper submitter.

That being said, here are my pictures for Out Your Window.

This is out my work office window. Not a terrible view, just a dirty screen.

And, the home office window. Out of this window I have seen a lot in our time in this house. I've seen police stops, drug deals, fights, houses burned down, houses torn down and most importantly, it was out of this window that I saw my little Benny huddled in the middle of the street on that fateful day we rescued him.

This was the other day, out the window of the oil change place. Yes, I was bored waiting for my turn. We hadn't even started yet, as that is my car on the right of the picture! But, I was patient and I now have fresh oil in my car!

Lastly, out our bedroom window.

Welcome to February! I think it's going to be a good month!

I Wanna Pretend

2012-01-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

Do you ever just not want to be part of reality? Or more correct, do you want to be part of a different reality?

That's where I am today. Today is a slap in the face reminder of just about everything I've done wrong in my life. I can't blame anyone else as I made all of the decisions that got me to where I am today. I don't have to like it, but no matter how many times I click my heels together, I can't go back and have a do over. Most days I accept that, today just isn't one of them.

I knew that today would not be a day that I can put one foot in front of the other and get on with my life. Today, I was going to need to try to take a step out of reality and pretend for one day I'm someone else.

So I tried to play hooky from life today. I enlisted Ron's help and I took a day off of work and he took a half a day off of work. We started out hooky day last night at Mezcal Tequila. They say that drinking doesn't solve your problems but I'll tell you what, I had a couple of good hours last night!!

I learned one thing from last night. I really am too old for a hangover. Oy vey. But, for as long as Ron had off of work, we had a pretty good hooky day. We did stuff we don't ordinarily do, especially on a Tuesday. For one, we went bowling at Rebman on Oberlin Avenue. If you ever go there, tell Fred we said hello. He did a great job getting us two noobs up and at 'em trying to bowl. I warned him that we were not really sure what we were doing so he made sure we were waaay off on our own so that we didn't bother anyone. We sucked at bowling, but it was fun.

Fun that is, until Fred said that we'd be perfect for their over 50 seniors league starting tomorrow! DUDE! This bitch is having a bad day to begin with and you're going to assume I'm OVER 50??? I still have another year to go before I hit 50! Let's not rush things!

That faux pas aside Fred did help us have a good time. He didn't make me bowl any better, but he helped us have some fun. And, in three games, at least I had ONE game that I bowled over 100! I'm pretty jiggy with that.

I will make it through today but first I'm going to finish the pity party I'm having for myself. Tomorrow I'll put my big girl pants back on and go out to face the future I carved out for myself. Tomorrow WILL be a better day. It has to be.

Overreacting 101

2012-01-28T23:06:00.000-05:00

Maybe I overreacted. I'm not sure.

Today, I had such a hankering for a Quarter Pounder with cheese that we HAD to go to McDonald's for lunch today.

We went to the McDonald's on Route 611. Inside, there is a counter with four stools on each side. In the middle of the counter is a little privacy wall, maybe eight inches high or so. When we went to look for a seat, at the counter was a mom and her two daughters. The girls were maybe between six and eight years old. Little cutie patooties!

The three of them were all sitting on the same side of the counter and Ron and I ended up sitting behind them. I had my back to them so I wasn't paying any attention to what was going on. When we went to leave, I saw mom and one daughter go back up to the register while the other daughter stayed at the counter.

However, now I see an adult male sitting on the opposite side of the counter facing the little girl while mom and the other daughter are at the register. Then I hear the man say "so, where is your Daddy?" and then "why don't you show me your new toy?" (from the Happy Meal). This just did NOT sit right with me.

The guy wasn't there when we came in but now he was sitting on the opposite side of the counter from the little girl. If the guy didn't know the little girl, his comments were WAY out of line. If he did know the girl, I was way out of line.

We got up and walked towards the front of the store and I looked at Ron and just said "we can't go yet". I stood up front where I could see the little girl and I planned on staying there until mom got back to the counter with her. From where I was, I couldn't hear what he was saying to the girl, but I wasn't taking any chances.

I think Ron knew from the look on my face that something was up, but he was nice enough not to make an issue about it right there and just stood by me and waited. Once mom finished up and got back to the counter with the little girl, I said ok, we can leave. On our way out, I told Ron what I heard the guy say. I said there was NO way I was leaving her alone there with him. He totally agreed and thought we should have stayed as well.

I really don't know what was going on. Maybe in the way the world is today, I am always looking for the bad guy. I trust no one. Was this guy with them? He wasn't when I got there. If he was, why was he asking "where's daddy"? I don't know. I just got a bad feeling.

Did I over react? Maybe. Would I do the same thing all over again? Absolutely.

Addition to my Resume

2012-01-26T22:12:00.000-05:00

I work for a small company. Being small, we all wear more than one hat.

I always joke that my job description is Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Purchasing, I water the plants, sweep the floor, clean the bathroom, make the Gatorade, and anything else my brother, I mean my boss, deems necessary. I'm jiggy with that!

I am usually the first one at work in the morning. As soon as I walk in, I walk through the building turning up the thermostats, turning on the lights and starting every one's computers. This morning as I was walking through the lab, I hear water running. It was coming from the bathroom in the lab so I went to investigate.

The toilet was running. Should be simple. I did what I could do, then continued on my rounds.

When my brother, I mean my boss, got to work, I told him about the running toilet. He went to check it out but came back and said that nothing was wrong with it now. Taa daa!!! I had fixed it!!

Ok, I jiggled the handle but was out of there before the tank refilled and the sound of running water stopped. It doesn't matter. It counts in the "I fixed it" column.

Yeah, that is SO going on my resume! Now I'm maintenance, too!

Mystery Building

2012-01-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

Last night I posted this picture to our Lorain 365 blog. Lisa and I are each posting one picture a day of something in Lorain and we're going to be doing this for one whole YEAR!

Anyway, on occasion, I go through the Chase Bank drive through. The entrance to the drive through is located on 21st Street, just east of Broadway. This building will be directly in front of you as you exit the drive through on 20th Street.

For the last two years or so I have been using this drive through and this building has always just fascinated me. I have no idea what it is, but while I'm waiting in line at the drive through, this building absolutely mesmerizes me.

See on the top right? Why is that window missing? Who goes to that hole to watch out? Who or what are getting into the building through that hole up there?

For a long time, this building was dark and I assumed empty. Then, maybe a year ago or so, suddenly, there was a light on. Some of the windows are blocked by plywood or something, but if you look at the second floor windows, the second one from the right, I now see a ceiling light on through that window. What's up?? Every time I go by, that same light seems to be on. It can't be an abandoned building if the power is still on in there, right?

Lisa suggested I do my home work on this building and go check out at the library or the Historical Society to see what this building is or was. I just might have to do that!

All I know is that a lot of us bloggers are aspiring novelists. Heaven knows I always thought I'd have written at least one book by now. This building talks to me. I think if I ever DO get that novel written, it will be about this building. Who or what lives in there? Why are there lights on but it still doesn't look like anyone's home? It's definitely going to be a mystery book on this mystery building.

No Black Olives - EVER!

2012-01-24T21:22:00.001-05:00

Last summer when my sister Cathie came for a visit, I took one day off of work for us to go "bumming". That's aimlessly wandering around with little to no plan other than shopping.

Our day also included a stop at the local Subway for sandwiches for the two of us and our brother Mike. I may have been off for the day but he still had to work. We stole him from work for awhile as we headed to the Metro Park in Carlisle Township with our Subway sandwiches for lunch.

Now, I ASKED Mike what kind of sandwich he wanted the day before. He asked for a meatball sub and that was all the instructions I got regarding how he wanted his sandwich made. Meatball sub.

Cathie and I went into Subway, built our sandwiches and then I asked for one meatball sub.

Sandwich maker: Would you like that toasted?
Me: Um, ok!
Sandwich maker: Do you want cheese on there?
Me: Um, ok!
Sandwich maker: Would you like anything else on this sandwich?
Me: Um, what do people usually put on meatball subs?
Sandwich maker: Some people like black olives on the meatball subs.
Me: Um, ok!

I took a lot of crap from Mike about that sandwich! For real! If you don't like how I make your sandwich, make your own! If you don't like the black olives, knock them off of the sandwich and eat it! The olives are all on top! Oh no. It was much easier to eat the entire sandwich as is while busting my ovaries about putting black olives on a meatball sub!

Some things you never get over.

Tonight I went for my usual weekly shopping run to Sam's Club and Giant Eagle. The guys are on their own for dinner on my shopping night and generally as a treat I stop and get myself a Subway sandwich on my way home. I went in to the one on Oberlin (my personal favorite!) and there were a few people in line ahead of me. It never takes long, so I was waiting patiently for my turn. Finally, as they had my sandwich in the toaster over, I was listening to the woman and her son ahead of me building their sandwich.

Sandwich maker: What would you like on your sandwich?
Mom to her son: Do you think we should put lettuce on there? (he nodded) Ok, put a lot of lettuce on there.
Sandwich maker: Anything else?
Mom to her son: Um, what else do you think we should put on his sandwich? Some tomatoes? (he nodded) Yes, some tomatoes please. (they seemed to be picking up a sandwich for someone else)
Sandwich maker: Anything else?
Mom: Oh I don't know what to do. Maybe some pickles?
Sandwich Maker: Ok. Anything else?
Mom: How about black olives?

At this point, I had to add MY two cents worth!

Me: NO! Not black olives! You should NEVER put black olives on some one's sandwich for them! NEVER!

For real, I have never gotten worse looks from three total strangers! Mom, son and sandwich maker all looked at me like I was nuts! It might have to do with the fact that I was standing there laughing my butt off, but I digress.

If I have learned nothing from my brother, I learned NO black olives. EVER! I was just trying to pass along my knowledge to someone else. Did they listen to me? NO! They went ahead and added those black olives to that sandwich.

I know once they got that sandwich home to whoever they ordered it for, they thought of me. Yep, I'm sitting over here saying "I told you so"! Next time they'll listen to me.

Sorrento's, That's Just Wrong, Page 26

2012-01-23T21:11:00.000-05:00

The other night when Ron and I went to LCCC to see Damn Yankees, we had gone to dinner first to Sorrento's.

I've blogged before about going to Sorrento's and as far as I was concerned, it was on my "do not go to ever again" list. I can't find the post right now, but to catch you up, we had gone to Sorrento's for dinner awhile back. We were sitting in the dining room and I watched as the waitresses were folding the new cloth napkins. She had dropped a bunch of them on the floor, picked them up and continued folding. Really??

The germ-o-phobe in me had to say something. EWW. If something is on your floor, I do NOT want to be putting it on my face. I'm funny that way. Our server said she understood and would say something to the server who was folding the napkins but I said then that I wouldn't be back.

If your staff has no regard to the health code infractions, that comes from the top. If she actually thought there was nothing wrong with taking napkins off of the filthy floor and putting them back in the stack to be used by patrons, then I can only imagine what is allowed in the kitchen. Some people like to sit where they can watch what's going on in the kitchen. Not me. The less I know the better!

Anyway, we're heading to the show and want to eat somewhere close by. Ron suggested Sorrento's but I reminded him of my "do not go to ever again" list. He pooh-pooh'ed me, telling me that was just ONE server and that was a LONG time ago, blah blah blah. Some days it's easier to go along than to argue. Fine, let's go to Sorrento's.

You're never going to believe what happened.

We ordered 1/2 of a carafe of wine. That probably saved me from making a bigger scene. We both ordered dinners that included a salad. The salads were brought out and I'm eating and suddenly bite down on something that's NOT salad. You ever bit into foil? I don't know if it's the fillings in my teeth or just that it's foil, but you know immediately something is wrong. I fished it out of my mouth and it is is the foil that you take off of the top of a wine bottle before opening it.

Really? HOW does your food get contaminated in the kitchen??? Or, if the salad isn't IN the kitchen but at a stand where the servers prepare the salads themselves, the question remains: HOW DO YOU ALLOW CONTAMINANTS INTO YOUR FOOD????

There is NO excuse on this earth why this piece of foil from a wine bottle got into the middle of my salad. Even if it was the foil from OUR bottle of wine. The reason it happened is poor management and lack of following health code regulations. Ugh.

Ron did bring it to our server's attention and the restaurant comped our wine. That wine is what saved them from me going off on them in the middle of the dining room so that was probably a good thing.

Guess who's back on my "do not go to ever again" list? And this time, it's etched in stone. Contaminants in my food? Yeah, that's just wrong.

February Photo Challenge

2012-01-22T21:19:00.001-05:00

I guess I like a challenge! As if the Lorain 365 blog wasn't enough of a challenge, a few of us have decided to also do a daily photo challenge throughout February. Any and all are welcome to join in our challenge. Just post the pictures to your blog daily (or as many as possible!) and have fun!

So far, Georgia and Lisa and I are going to do this challenge. Pictures will be posted daily on our own blogs on the theme of the day.

If you're interested in participating, I can post links here to your blog. The most important requirement for this challenge it just to have FUN!! I think we came up with a good eclectic list for February and it's a good project to help us all get through a dreary winter.

Please make sure you stop by often and check on my progress. It's going to be a Fun February!

Home Depot, From Hero to Zero

2012-01-22T14:44:00.000-05:00

Back in September when I bought new windows for the house, I was totally impressed by everything that was Home Depot.

From Dave who came to my house for the estimate who educated me to the point that I felt that I was teaching things to the next two companies that came in to quote the job, to our installer Bob. Like I said, Dave made sure I was an educated consumer and I knew better what to look for in the rest of the estimates. He didn't leave my house until ALL of my questions were answered.

He explained pricing, financing, construction, and I knew exactly what to expect from the beginning to the end. Home Depot got that contract in a large part because of Dave. All three estimates I received were all in the same ball park price wise, but customer service wise, Dave won hands down.

Bob our installer came in and for two days worked harder than I could have hoped for. He was pleasant, engaging, and happily followed my rules to ensure no cats snuck out the door. And the icing on that cake was that he did a GREAT job on the installation and I have been nothing but happy about spending all that money on new windows.

So, when I needed to spend more money on home improvements, my first choice was to go back to Home Depot. Yeah, lightening didn't strike twice.

I went to the local store on Leavitt Road in Lorain. Now, I had done my research and even was at the store getting an estimate a few months ago so I knew what I wanted. This turned out to be one of the worst experiences spending money I've had. And, it's not over yet.

I have a feeling Home Depot doesn't sell many garage doors because this guy had a lot of trouble with the website to get the door ordered. He really didn't seem like he knew what he was doing. Another employee came over to help so I thought I was going to be in better hands.

When I bought the windows, I put half down and then paid the other half once installation was complete. I assumed that was the way it was going to be this time. Wrong!

When I went in previously, I had asked how to measure for the new door to get the estimate, and we just sort of guessed and used the standard size for a single bay door. I was told then not to worry since a professional would come to my house to get the measurements before the door was ordered.

So, yesterday, he took down all my info such as what door I wanted, what color, and he GUESSED at the size and then said I had to pay $XXX.xx in total up front! I said you don't even know the size, how do you know the amount??? He kept saying not to worry, someone would be out to measure! The next thing I know, I've handed over my gift cards. You know I'm all about getting some free gas from Giant Eagle with the gift cards!! Anyway, at his station, he couldn't seem to enter more than two gift cards, as the system supposedly wouldn't allow him. This caused his coworker to ask me if I bought those gift cards from a guy in the parking lot. Really?? I gave him the stare down while he laughed at his own joke. Really buddy? I'm spending a lot of MY hard earned money and you're questioning my integrity? You're questioning how I am paying for this? Let me tell you, had I not just spent all this money on gift cards, I would have high tailed it elsewhere for a garage door.

Home Depot: The two guys that work in doors and windows at the Lorain facility are NOT assets to your organization. These two would be best kept out of contact with your customers. I am speaking from experience here.

So, we had to walk up front so that I could pay for this purchase. The girl at customer service rang it up, took my gift cards then asked me to sign the screen where you usually sign for your credit card. She said this was their "customer agreement" that I was signing. I asked just WHAT was I signing? She said "uh, our customer agreement. I don't really know what it says."

Um, Home Depot: Add this girl to your list that needs to be taken off the front line and put behind the scenes.

Still nothing had been explained to me. I said I'm not signing anything until I see in writing that the old garage door will be carted away and that the new door would be hooked up to the existing garage door opener. The associate that filled out my paperwork was like a deer in the headlights. I said I'm serious, show it to me in writing.

Finally, paperwork was printed out and the THREE of us were looking through it. I finally found the clause that stated the old door would be hauled away. In the paperwork I had, there was NO mention of hooking up the new door to the existing opener. I finally gave up, resigned to the fact that we'll have to hook it up ourselves. The associate then told me "um I'm sure they'll hook it up for you." I told him that his assurance and fifty cents will buy me a cup of coffee but I doubted it would get my opener hooked up.

I was so frustrated by the time I left Home Depot over on Leavitt in Lorain. I just spent a LOT of money and I feel like I got nothing in return. As a side note, I went through the paperwork I was finally given AFTER my signature and did find in writing that the new door will be hooked up to an existing opener. That is the one bright spot on this.

This Mickey Mouse operation does NOT give me warm fuzzies about anything else. Mark my words, they will be getting more and more money out of me due to additional charges that the original associate had no idea about. I don't know this for sure, but I'm telling you, between the two of them working, neither of them seemed to know what they were doing. This is not going to end well, I'm sure.

I know it's going to cost me more money. You can't pay for something without measurements. WTF. Even I know that. I guess this is the down side to paying with gift cards. The money had already been expended, now I have to buy something for that much money. Ugh.

Hopefully when all is said and done, I'll have a new garage door. And the additional cost will be minimal. That would be best case scenario. What's the chances?

Benny's Got a Clean Bill of Health!

2012-01-21T16:48:00.002-05:00

Today I had Benny to the vet. That sounds like an easy task but let me tell you, it was anything but!

Back in the day of having Benny to the vet every other week, I carried him in a soft sided carrier. When I got Penelope, I didn't think that soft sided carrier was big enough for her, so I bought a hard sided carrier for her.

Benny used to try to push his way out of that soft sided carrier, so I thought that now that he's bigger, it might be better to take him in the hard carrier. The soft carrier, the cat goes in from the top. The hard carrier, they walk in from the side. Penelope went right in both times I had her in it, so I was silly enough to ASSUME Benny would walk right in too!

You never know how strong a cat is until you try to get it into a carrier that he doesn't want to get in to! Just like in the cartoons, one paw on each side and he said NO! I tried three times, lost a little blood to teeth and claws and said forget it. I grabbed his soft sided carrier and that he went right in to. He wasn't happy about it but he went in.

For a cat that rarely meows, poor Benny bellowed from the time he got into the carrier to the time he got out again back home! That poor boy let me know that he did NOT like what was going on!!

We made it to the Lorain Animal Clinic, Benny letting everyone know he was NOT happy to be there! Luckily, the staff didn't seem to mind! They said that most of their patients don't want to be there. I appreciated their understanding.

I've mentioned before that my cats have made me crazy since coming into my life. I am overly emotional when it comes to the cats. I'm just there for a check up for Benny, to get his booster vaccines and for crying out loud, when I get into the exam room with Dr. Hudson, I start having a breakdown. I am one crying mess! There is nothing wrong with the cat for heaven's sake! He just needs his shots!! But, Benny is unhappy so mama is unhappy I guess. But, Dr. Hudson was nice enough to listen to my concerns from a list I had prepared. She gave me some good ideas on a few behavior issues as well as reaffirmed to me that I'm doing a good job with him. I needed to hear that.

I talked to Dr. Hudson about how Benny is still into biting. I know if you over stimulate a cat, they will bite to tell you to stop. But Benny can start biting out of nowhere. I was sitting in the recliner last night reading and suddenly, he's biting my foot. I didn't even know he was by me! And poor Penelope. He will jump on her and start biting just because she's there. He doesn't draw blood or anything and some people tell me there are just playing but it doesn't look or sound like playing to me.

He's better than he was with Penelope but it's not perfect. That was one of my biggest concerns. So after a discussion with Dr. Hudson, we decided to try some pheromone therapy. It's just like a room freshener type thing, it plugs into the wall. It could take up to a MONTH to take effect, but it should calm him down. I'm not sure I'm on board with this as I don't want to take away from Benny what MAKES him Benny. We'll see. If the plug in thingie just stops them going at each other, then I'll keep paying for refills. If Benny stops being Benny, that thing will be chucked down the street.

I came home, and called Cathie and cried on her shoulder. Can you imagine if something was WRONG with the cats?? I'm a wreck for a freakin' check up!! Thanks, sister, for once again being there and listening to me just be stupid and talking me through it!

The bottom line is Benny is 11-1/2 pounds, he's happy, he's healthy and he still loves me. And I'm still a mental case. And THAT'S just the way things should be.

It Was a Real Date Night!

2012-01-19T22:13:00.001-05:00

Ron and I had an actual date last night!

Like most good dates, we started with dinner. Um, ok, this needs to be a post on its own. I know Ron thinks I'm nuts, and he may be right but . . . well, that will be in another post.

After dinner, we headed over to Lorain County Community College to the Stocker Arts Center. Linda gave us tickets to last night's performance of Damn Yankees. Ok, here's a little guilty pleasure of mine. I love live theater and if it's a musical, BONUS! I really think I CAN sing like these people. I belt it out like that in my car and to me, I sound fine. I ignore all the stares and looks I get from the people in the cars around me. But, I digress.

Somehow Linda got the tickets and couldn't make the show so she gave the tickets to Ron. As much as I love live theater, not much is worth driving into Cleveland for. Since this show was at the LCCC, I was in! Close enough to home for me!

After dinner, we headed over to find the Stocker Arts Center. The signs on campus were plentiful and lead us right to where we needed to be. The building was very nice and artsy! In the lobby were tables and chairs and benches all around for people to sit and relax and talk while they wait for the doors to open. Then, instead of the mad dash to rush into the theater once the doors open, Stocker is set up so that there is a separate door for every three or so rows. That really made it nice. You didn't have to walk over or through as many people trying to find your seat.

We went in and found our seats and ended up talking to the couple next to us. Here is a vibrant, active, retired couple that has season passes not only to the Stocker Arts Center but to just about every arts center or theater around. Good for them! The guy was really a hoot and because he was so outgoing and gregarious, his wife was much quieter. I think she had to be, because he would be too much to try to talk over! At first the conversation was pleasant and generic.

They he started in on the jokes. Really, people, this is 2012. Believe it or not, I do NOT want to hear any racist or ethnic jokes nor do I want to hear jokes about people with disabilities or jokes about dead celebrities. I do not see how putting down someone who is not the same color or religion or race as you as funny. Disabilities are not funny. People who have passed away too soon whether they are celebrities or not is not funny. This guy starts telling one Polish joke after another. I was offended. This is before the show even started, so I wanted to diffuse this situation without totally pissing him off since we're elbow to elbow for the next two hours.

My last name sounds Polish but is actually Slovak. Very close in geography, language and food. I politely told him that before he went any farther, my last name was "X". Without missing a beat, he said that's ok, his last name was "Y" and it was definitely a Polish name with a lot more consonants than my name. Just because you're Polish doesn't make it right for you to tell Polish jokes. I don't want to hear them! Luckily, I think he got the hint that I was getting ticked and we changed the subject.

Nice enough couple but totally out of line with some of the comments. Crazy seat mates aside, the show was fantastic! I had never seen Damn Yankees, but I could sure relate.

The wives are complaining that for six months of the year, they lose their husbands to baseball. The husbands are complaining because their beloved Washington Senators are 7th in the division. Hey, I'm a Cubs fan! I totally understand!

An unhappy Senators fan makes a deal to sell his soul to the Devil so that his beloved team will win the pennant! Don't worry though, it had a happy ending. The fan realizes his life was better than he thought and he uses his escape clause to go back to his old life and leave the life of a famous ball player on a winning team. You gotta love a happy ending!

The music was awesome, the dancing was fantastic and for real, the sets and costumes were absolutely amazing. Ron and I had such a good time and at the end, my hands were sore from clapping.

Not to dis the school, but I believe that this was a traveling show that had a one night stop at LCCC. I wish them MUCH luck and success on the rest of their tour. That really was the most entertaining two hours we've had in a long time.

Date night. We so gotta do that more often. If there is singing and dancing involved, all the better! It was definitely good for my soul. My soul that as much as I love my Cubs, I'm not quite ready to sell it to the devil, even for a pennant!

Cat's Meow

2012-01-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

My sister Cathie is way too good to me! Today for my birthday she sent me flowers to work.

I just had to share this. The frame is metal and that tail and neck are heavy duty metal springs. This is just the cutest thing! And, it kinda looks like Benny! Bonus!!

This was just so clever, I had to share it.

And, not to be outdone by my sister, Ron had sent me flowers today as well! He had them delivered to Mutt & Jeff's, where we met up with some friends and family for a little dinner celebration.

I had a theme working here! What woman doesn't like flowers!!?? Ron thought of everything tonight, even the birthday cake!

Thanks to everyone for their cards, phone calls, texts, comments and emails today! All in all, it was a GREAT birthday!

It's My Birthday! . . . in Korea!!

2012-01-15T14:25:00.003-05:00

January 16, 1963. Yes, I am going to be 49 years young!

Anyone that knows me, knows I love my birthday!! I can't help it, one day of the year it's MY turn to be the center of attention, queen for the day.

I have a few routines that I do every year on my birthday. I stay up until midnight the night before so I can welcome in my birthday. My sister Cathie then calls me at midnight, to be the FIRST to wish me a happy birthday on my day! She makes sure that I start my day off right!

Then, I have to stay awake until midnight on the night of my birthday, to say good bye to my birthday for another year.

This year, my brother Michael stole Cathie's thunder and was the first to wish me a happy birthday ON my birthday! You see, my brother Michael is right now in Korea, where it is 14 hours ahead of us. So at midnight his time, 10:00 am my time, I got a Skype call from Michael ON my birthday! How awesome was that??

People think I go nuts over my birthday. Guilty. It's my favorite holiday of the year. Every year should be better than the year before.

Now, did Mike start a new tradition? A girl could sure get used to this! I think from now on, I either need a new friend in Korea, or Mike needs to go back again next year!

Happy birthday to me! I can't hear that too many times!

Day in Erie

2012-01-15T06:17:00.000-05:00

It's been almost two years since I've been to Erie. I've had a feeling deep in my soul that I needed to get back there.

I've been trying to work up the oomph to make the trip and when I finally talked myself into doing it THIS weekend, the weather turned to crap. I sincerely felt though that I really NEEDED to be in Erie. So, weather be darned, we were heading out.

Ron was gracious enough to play my reindeer games with me and go as my copilot on this excursion. We headed out in the morning to light snow here in Lorain and I hoped for the best. Perhaps I should have my head examined because we should never have been traveling through that weather. Two words should have rung loud in my head: SNOW BELT. Really? Ever hear of it? When they are calling for a winter weather advisory in the snow belt, listen to them and DON'T drive through it.

We were ok heading east until we got to Painesville. There the weather started turning to crap with heavier snow but the roads were basically ok. Then we got to Madison and the plows hadn't caught up with the snow. I-90 was down to one lane and I think that one lane was just made from the traffic, not by a snow plow. The farther east we went the worse it got. I white knuckled it the rest of the way into Erie but we made it and met up with Jim for a great lunch.

After lunch, we went to Aunt Mary's, the real reason for my trip home. Aunt Mary is my second mother. We lived upstairs from Aunt Mary all the time I was growing up and so she was always a huge part of my life. I haven't seen her in too long and I missed her.

It was a surprise visit and wow, was she surprised! But a good surprise! There were hugs, there were tears and then there was just love. We sat and caught up with Aunt Mary and just got to have a great visit with her.

Unfortunately, she snow had NOT let up the entire time we were there, so I cut the visit short and we headed for home. If I thought the trip out there was bad, the trip home was worse! We hit a very small band of no snow right at the state line. I actually was thinking that we were getting lucky and would have an easy trip home. Man was I wrong.

Like I said, it was just a small band of clear weather. We hit snow again just into Ohio that just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I had been behind a semi and thought I was doing well picking a large target to follow down the road. We hit a white out that had me crapping my pants! I could barely see the hood of my car. I had NO idea where the side of the road was and for sure, that huge semi just disappeared in the snow. And to think I missed this crap when I lived in Texas!

Oh well, face to face time with Aunt Mary was so worth the trip!

Once again, the magic Painesville was the dividing line between good weather and bad weather. Once we hit that mile marker 200, the weather just cleared up. Suddenly, barely any snow falling and DRY pavement. Unbelievable.

Since I finally felt like we might live through this trip, we talked about stopping for dinner somewhere on the east side, since we never get over there any more with my back. I even let Ron pick where he wanted to go! One of his favorite restaurants, Phil the Fire, reopened just off of I-271. It's "Comfort Food for the Soul." And it sure was!

Their signature dishes are the chicken and waffles selections. Ron chose the dark meat fried chicken and I chose the grilled chicken breast, both over waffles. That's Ron's friend chicken in the foreground.

We also chose a couple of side dishes, just because we wanted to taste more of what was on the menu. We split an order of some buttered grits and some red beans and rice. Ok, we both ate too much but MAN, was it good!

So that was our day. The trip did me in. I am sore, it's hard to sit up, but again, it was worth it. I miss my Aunt Mary! And even though I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, I at least got to visit with Aunt Mary and my brother Jim.

Who needs to sit up today? I did enough of that yesterday. I think today will be spent holding the couch down, maybe with a heating pad to help. A good day for watching football! I think that's just what the doctor ordered.

No Longer A 3-D Virgin!

2012-01-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Saturday, Phil had gone out for the day so Ron and I were tossing around a few ideas of what to do ourselves. I voted for laundry, but Ron wanted something more fun! Luckily, I was talked out of laundry pretty easily!

We haven't been to a movie in awhile, so that was our pick for the day. We went online to see what was playing, and out of everything we chose Hugo. It looked cute.

I guess we should have looked closer at the write up on the movie! Neither one of us had any idea that it was a 3-D movie! Yikes! Hey, we're cheap. When we do go to a movie, we hit the matinee. It's still expensive but better than paying full price. Do you have ANY idea how much a freakin' 3-D movie is? Even at matinee prices? It was $21 for TWO of us. For real!

Now we're in line, just told it will be $21 and at the last minute we decided what the heck. We're there, we wanted to see a movie, we'll (Ron will!) cough up the extra cash and we'll splurge. Hence, my first 3-D movie in probably 25 years. Actually, now that I think of it, my last 3-D movie was Friday the 13th part III in 3-D!! That came out in 1982 so that means . . . damn, I'm old. But, I digress.

Back in my day, it was the paper glasses that never seemed to sit over your glasses right. Everything was still a little blurry, or at least as far as I was concerned. Gone are the crappy paper glasses with one red lens and one blue lens. Now we have Blues Brothers

kind of black plastic glasses! There at least were recyclable, which I'm hoping means that they clean and then rebag for the next person. At least the germ-o-phobe in me is hoping that! Stylish, huh?!

So, we saw our first 3-D movie in a lot of years. And man, have things changed! I don't think the point any more of a 3-D film is to scare the crap out of you with spears coming at your head. Now I think the point is taking you INTO the movie. When it snowed on screen, Ron and I both were reaching out to touch the snow. I swear, we were waiting for it to fall on us. That was pretty cool.

Did I like the movie? To be honest, I don't remember. I think I was concentrating so much on the 3-D effects, I really don't know if I liked the actual movie or not. It had Sir Ben Kingsley in it so that is a huge plus in my book. I have always loved his work, even when he played himself in The Sopranos! I'm a big fan. The movie didn't really end up being what I thought it was going to be, but I guess it was good. I really was too busy looking at the gear works of the clocks, the falling snow and of course, a charging doberman pinscher in 3-D to really pay that a lot of attention to much else!

Cool effects aside, was it worth the extra cash? I don't think so. But, you know me, I'm going kicking and screaming into the new technology age, so I'm probably the last one to ask about this. I can say now that I've been there, done that. It will be a long time I imagine before I'm willing to spend that kind of money on a movie again.

I told you, I'm old.

At least I'm not a 3-D virgin any longer!

Caturday

2012-01-05T23:20:00.001-05:00

Ok, I am sure I nicked this title from somewhere else. But, it's been awhile since I blogged about the cats and I have some good pics I wanted to share. So, it's "Caturday" or "Cat Update". See? I think I picked the winner.

Let's start with Benny. Benny isn't a cat that will curl up in my lap for some love for very long. I may get a little pounce by now and again, and he interacts with me in other places in the house, but when I'm sitting down relaxing, Benny isn't usually in my lap. He's all around my legs when I'm in the basement doing laundry. In the kitchen, he's my shadow. But heaven help me if I sit at the dining room table to read a book or work on the laptop.

Last weekend, I picked up a new book from library. Here I am, trying to enjoy page ONE! Please note that he needs to lay on TOP of the book.

The other night, I was trying to play some Pogo while I was cooking dinner. He finally laid down between me and the laptop. Made it kind of difficult to play this way.

The best was tonight as I was trying to blog on the Lorain 365 blog. Luckily, I was able to hit "publish" before Benny had enough of me blogging.

I love this little boy! Ok, I could take a hint. I shut down the laptop and played with Benny while the dinner finished in the oven.

Then there is Penelope. My friend Linda gave both of the cats little catnip toys for Christmas. (Thanks, Linda!) Penelope protected that little catnip pillow with her life! Benny's goal was to get that away from Penelope and for once, he failed. She was NOT giving it up!

Then there was the aftermath of that catnip. My Penelope was one happy little kitty!

Tonight, as almost every night when I come upstairs, here is what I find. Penelope, keeping my office chair warm for me. Ok, I have to push her out of it so I could sit down, but it's the thought that counts, right?

I know, I've said it before, but who would have EVER guessed I'd have pets. And, something beyond fish! Two cats. They own the house, and I work my life around their needs. Who needs another cat to be that "crazy cat lady"? I think I'm there already.

Lastly, a picture of each of them that I really like. Benny, napping in the sunlight, and Penelope reflected in the window.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love these cats!

New Toy

2012-01-04T21:28:00.000-05:00

You know, it doesn't take much to amuse me!

I have an alarm clock on the bedside table on my side of the bed. It's just used as a clock since I use my cell phone as an alarm clock. I can't seem to spend an entire night in bed, so the cell phone alarm just made it easier than remembering to turn off the bedroom alarm clock and turn on an alarm clock in the living room.

Just recently I found out that Ron isn't happy with the clock situation since he said he can never SEE it. On my bedside table is usually at least one book so that alone will obscure his view of the clock. I never thought about it as I can see the clock ok from my side of the bed, if I need to.

A few years ago when we were visiting my sister in California, my brother-in-law had this clock in our bedroom that actually projected the time up on the ceiling so you could see it from anywhere in the room. I know when we were there, Ron LOVED that clock. I guess he's been thinking of it ever since! He finally picked one up for us!

This is the view as I was laying on my side of the bed. The size of the numbers is somewhere between 3" and 6" tall. It depends on if you ask Ron or me! I guess we both measure differently! ;-) Anyway, it's a very cool little toy.

I was afraid this would give off too much light in the room but honestly, unless your eyes are open, you don't realize there is a light source in the room. The only bad news is that my eyes are so freakin' bad that without my glasses on, I still can't read it!

At least now Ron can finally see the clock and we have a new toy. Win-win as far as I'm concerned!

And Poof It Was Gone

2012-01-03T22:37:00.001-05:00

This one went too easy, therefore I don't think that the City of Lorain had anything to do with it.

This was one of the neighborhood houses. Granted, it's been empty for a couple of years and it's been showing the signs of neglect and thieving neighbors. By thieving neighbors I mean the neighbors that raided this house and took everything they could out of it. There haven't been any doors on this house in at least a year. I'm assuming the night the doors got lifted, the wiring and plumbing had also been whisked away.

Back on December 26th, they brought the back hoe in and we watched them drive it to the back of the house and park it. I know the guys that brought this in were obviously professionals, but MAN! It was awesome to watch them do their job! It was a two man crew. The first guy off of the truck did a walk through down the driveway. He held his arms out like mentally measuring the space. The back hoe had to be driving down the driveway that was a little less wide than the back hoe, and the turn at the top of the driveway was between a fence on the left, a garage straight ahead and the house on the right. The first guy had a conference with the second guy and the second guy drove it in nice and slow. Second guy made a lot of small moves but it was a beautiful thing to watch. He had to raise the boom up all of the way to make that turn, but he got that puppy behind the house and snuggled in until demolition day. That was today.

Thanks to my brother Phil, who happened to come home as they started the tear down on this house, I have picture goodness to go along with this blog. Thanks, Phil!!

If you look at the front left corner of the house, this corner has been crumbling. The damage you see wasn't from the tear down of the house. If you follow that basement wall towards the back of the house, that wall had caved in well over a year ago leaving an opening into the house. I've watched Hemingway go in and out of that wall a few times. When I heard that the house was coming down, I was having a bit of a panic attack at work worrying about Hemingway. I haven't seen him in a few days and I was assuming the worst. Luckily, he came by for dinner tonight. He was looking a little ragged, but he is still doing ok. He's not ready to come into my house yet, but after this, I may have to up my efforts to get him to change his mind!

The front screen door is in place, but the inside door had been stolen a long time ago. You see that note pasted on the door? That's a note telling the homeowner (whoever that is) that the grass is too long and if it's not corrected, they will be receiving a fine. Hmm. That sign has been on there for at least six months and the grass there has been kept up MUCH better than some of the houses in the neighborhood that ARE occupied. Go figure. Another good indicator that the City of Lorain does NOT own this house.

Take a look at these pics. Phil really did a good job getting the work in progress. This house came down fast! This series of photos took up a seven minute span! Unbelievable!

These shots are my favorites. This first one here with the claw in the second story I love!

And just like that, poof it was gone.

I know this needed done, just from the damage I could see to the house. It's just sad watching this neighborhood fall down one house at a time. It's hard to love or support a city as you watch it being torn down around you.

Lorain 365, 2 chix 2 pix every day

2012-01-01T17:35:00.000-05:00

I've been kinda missing our PhotoPhun challenges. I brought the subject up to my friend Lisa from Buster's House about resurrecting some form of our old project. Little did I know, but she was working on a photo project already that she wanted to do in 2012.

Lisa came across the 365 Project. This is taking one picture a day to document your life for one year. She put a twist on it and decided a picture a day, of Lorain. Lorain is her birthplace, my adopted city. This sounded like a GREAT project and definitely a way to make me get out there and take some pictures! I was thrilled to be invited to join her in this project.

And that is how Lorain 365 was born. You will see Lorain through our eyes. While 365 pictures is daunting, together coming up with 730 pictures in one year will be amazing!

Please go check us out. Stop in, look around, come back often! It's going to be an amazing year!

Lorain 365, 2 chix 2 pix, EVERY day!

Christmas Part 3

2011-12-31T15:07:00.000-05:00

Finally, the conclusion of Christmas for one more year! And we sent this season out with a bang.

Once more, Mike and Mary Jane hosted us all for a Christmas feast. People came from near and far to celebrate as a family.

Before dinner, everyone was just catching up, the kids were all playing and the adults were snitching pieces of ham as fast as it was cut. That's family time.

Of course, no candid photos would be complete without a good photobomb. This is me and Mary Jane, with my favorite niece and nephew providing the photobombing!

Lots of family, lots of noise, lots of food. And not necessarily in that order.

We had most of the family together. I'm proud that our family, while dysfunctional at times, can come together as a family. So many families that I know that want nothing to do with each other. I don't know what I'd do without the craziness and love of these people!

Yes, I know I'm in a lot of shots! When you write the blog, you get to be in as many shots as you like. So there!

So that was Christmas dinner # 3. While we were able to come together as a family, we are now scattered to the winds. Cathie is still in California. JoBeth and her family are back in New York. Jim is back in Pennsylvania (as is Phil right now) and tomorrow Michael heads back to China. We are scattered, but we're still family, like it or not.

And we have an addition to our family! Mike and Mary Jane have recently added a couple of finches to their home. The finches have gotten busy and added three babies to the family!! Here are mom and dad finch as well as two of the babies! The third baby was staying in the nest, away from all of the noise and my picture taking.

Gotta love babies, even bird babies.

Another Christmas season is in the books. Here's looking forward to a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous New Year for us all.

Keep watching! Exciting new news is coming tomorrow!

Christmas Part 2

2011-12-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

I know, it's been awhile. I told you the cats made it better, but that doesn't mean that the holidays are still no longer unbearably bad. But, it was better.

So let's get back to blogging!

The last you heard from me, we had Ron's family Christmas party. Last night, it was the three of us, Ron, Phil and I, for dinner. I figured since I'm so totally off of my diet this week, I'm trying to eat everything I usually try to watch. While I knew I was making chicken for yesterday, I really wanted stuffing to go with it.

When we had Thanksgiving at Mike and Mary Jane's, I learned something new. Mary Jane made the extra stuffing in muffin tins rather than in a regular 9x13 pan or whatever. Individual stuffing muffins, or "stuffins" as I have been calling them. They actually turned out great! Some times, only the tops get nice and cooked while the insides stay kinda raw and mushy. Putting them in the muffin tins makes more of the crunchy part and so much left of the soft part inside.

Here is what I'm talking about.

Stuffins!

This was a fabulous idea. Not only did they taste better since they were all cooked all the way through, it would be much easier for portion control (for if I ever go back on my diet!) plus, the little muffins just went right into a container after dinner and I can reheat just one at a time. Freakin' awesome! Here is the bowl full of Stuffins.

This was just the perfect compliment to a great chicken dinner. We had chicken done on my George Foreman grill (I LOVE that grill!), some Stuffins and some baked beans. That's just the way we roll on Christmas at this house.

Keep watching! I have Christmas part 3 coming up on Wednesday which should finally be the end of this year's Christmas season. I also have some surprises coming up in January! Exciting, huh? In the mean time, from our house to yours . . . Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Part 1

2011-12-04T17:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas with Ron's family at the Sand Run Metro Park. The family rented this cabin for the party.

This was the third year in this cabin and it seems to really work well for everyone. The cabin is beautiful with the wood burning stove it's also pretty warm. The cabin also comes with bathrooms and a full kitchen plus all of the tables and chairs we need. You can't ask for more than that!

Phil even puts on the suit and comes as Santa for the party. Here is Santa showing up, brought of course, by his eight reindeer. (see them on the dash??!)

The kids are always thrilled when Santa shows up! He handed out the Christmas stockings which means that the party had begun.

This year, Bev and her daughter Amy and her daughter-in-law Amy cooked all of the food. That was a crazy amount of work but the food was absolutely fantastic. From the lasagna to the rigatoni and meatballs, I don't think there was much left. We won't even talk about the dessert table! That's what holidays are for - no diets and way too much great food.

The other thing holidays are good for is visiting with family.

Then, there was Georgia, trying to convince Santa that she really WAS good all year!

And more family.

The day couldn't have gone better. HUGE thanks go out to Bev, Amy and Amy for all the hard work they put in making this party such a success. They showed up at the cabin early to get it decorated and get to work on the feast we enjoyed.

The weather was milder than it had been other years so that made the travel time a bit easier. Everyone made it to the cabin and there was time for catching up and hugs and stories. Like any good party, the place got pretty quiet once the food was set out! Hey, we were too busy stuffing ourselves to make much noise!

A big hit of the party is always the white elephant gift. This is where you regift something that you have that you don't want, or something that you have around the house, or something inexpensive. We draw numbers and then in turn, you go to the table to choose a gift. The next person in line then has the option to take a gift that has already been opened, or they go to the table to choose their own gift. Some gifts show up year after year for the white elephant gift!

One yearly favorite is the butt/face towel. One side is brown with "butt" written on it and the other side is white with "face" written on it. For those people that get confused when they get out of the shower!

You can receive a board like Tom did. Here he is, taking it around to a few people trying to get ideas on what in the heck he's supposed to do with THIS! I have a feeling it will be rewrapped and will show up at next year's white elephant gift exchange!

To Amy, who was lucky enough to get these crazy glasses!

It was a good day all around. Too much fun and too much food. No diets on Christmas, for sure! We came home with a huge bounty of homemade goods and I plan on enjoying as much of it as I can.

So, from our house to yours, Merry Christmas to all, and to all . . . a good night.

Perks

2011-11-29T21:57:00.000-05:00

When you look for a job, there are many parts of the job you need to consider before accepting a position. Is the job a good fit for your skills? Is this something you can see yourself doing for 40+ hours a week?

The paycheck isn't the only consideration when considering a position. You need to look at the perks. How about paid holidays? Vacation days? Sick days? Since you are at work for more hours than you're at home, perks can be VERY important in a job.

Let's talk about the perks I got with this job. By the way, have I mentioned that I work for my brother? I'm not sure if that's a perk or not most days, but I digress!

I will start with my job interview. I submitted a resume and I came in to discuss the position. When the job duties seemed to be to my liking, except for the fine print of "or whatever else I deem necessary" we got down to brass tacks.

There wasn't much wiggle room in the actual salary. So, I went for the perks. Hours started at 8:00 am. Yeah, right off, I had a problem with that one. Mike asked what I'd like to work and I said 11:00 am to 1:00 pm of course with full time pay! Hey, go big or go home! Mike nixed that idea right away. I hate it when he puts that boss hat on! So, we negotiated to my current hours of a straight eight hour day of 8:30 to 4:30 with a paid 20 minute lunch. I am SO jiggy with that! Perk!

My days of pantyhose are over. I want to work in jeans, or shorts when the weather permits. He said as long as my ass isn't hanging out of my shorts, he was jiggy with it. Perk!

When my car is in the shop, my boss drives all the way to Lorain to pick me up for work and then will bring me right back to my door after work. Perk!

I got invited to the Corporate Manor for Thanksgiving dinner. (There will be a blog about that coming soon.) Perk!

Even with family in from near and far, there was a ton of left over food. Mike asked me yesterday if I'd like for him to bring me a lunch. Are you kidding me? Of course I'd love that! When you have a 20 minute lunch, it just makes sense to bring your lunch in every day. Here is one day I don't have to pack my own lunch.

Mike made my lunch, put it in the microwave for me and even delivered it to my office.

Lunch consisted of some white meat and dark meat turkey, a little bit of mashed potatoes and some stuffing. All with just a little bit of gravy to make sure everything stayed moist! Did you notice that there is even dessert? Bonus and Perk!

And, of course a few minutes later, this is what I was left with.

Would you like to know what the best part is? I just got a text from Mike a little bit ago asking if I'd like lunch again tomorrow! I'm no fool, of COURSE I said yes!!

Having your boss make your lunch for you, PERK!

Welcome Home Benny!

2011-11-26T08:35:00.000-05:00

Happy welcome home Benny day!

Can you believe that one year ago today, Benny came into my life. On one hand, I can't believe it's been a year! On the other hand . . . I can't remember my life without Benny. I don't remember the days before scooping poop, before sweeping up litter, before cleaning litter boxes, before kitty cuddles, before kitty kisses. I know, I have it bad.

For someone that was never a pet lover, I've become one of those pet owners that people now run from so they don't have to listen to another cat story from me! I told you, I have it bad!

It's been a hard year with Benny getting him through all of his health issues to where we are now. He is mostly out of kittenhood so we are mostly through some behavior issues as well. Let's look at Benny through the last year.

My Benny. He came to me when I was in one of the darkest times of my life and let the light in for me. I'm not saying this holiday season is perfect for me now, but we do seem to be keeping some of the darkness at bay this year.

I wanted to celebrate this day with him for all he's done for me. So happy welcome home Benny day! You are definitely getting extra treats today. And, I didn't even yell at you for waking me up this morning so we could play with your favorite toy, a shoe string! May this be the first of many happy years together.

Mike and Mary Jane got me this magnet just after I got Benny. I know the answer. We saved each other.

Get Lost

2011-11-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

Ron has a subscription to Netflix. We used to get streaming and DVDs but with the repricing, he just kept the streaming and we find MORE than enough to watch through the Wii with that.

We have gone through a couple of older TV shows and were able to watch them from the pilot episode all the way through to the finale. Tonight, we just finished Lost.

O M G

The first season was absolutely phenomenal! It so went down hill from there. By the time we got to Season 6, I was ready to be done with it. But by now, we had invested so much time into this train wreck that I couldn't force myself to look away. Besides, the episodes where Sawyer took off his shirt made the show pretty bearable. But, I digress. We had to follow it through to the end. If you've never seen Lost and think you might want to pick it up, look away now. If you've seen it before, I have a few questions.

W T F ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

When they were flying over the island after the thermonuclear device was set off, you saw the island was under water. But in the end, did Jack prevent that or didn't he?

Ben Linus and Charles Widmore hated each other but suddenly, Charles Widmore knows all about the monster and how to stop him?

Speaking of the monster, did he EVER had a name? Since his biological mother didn't have a name for him before she died, the mom that raised him didn't bother to give him one? What did SHE call him?

And why, when he went into the light that is the life of the island, why did he turn into an evil killer? Really?

HOW did polar bears get on to the island????

Why were Michael and Walt not involved in the finale?

Why did Ben Linus not go into the Church with the rest of them at the end?

Speaking of the rest of them, I so don't get it! Are they dead? Are they alive? WHAT???

Lost. All 120 episodes. That is 120 blocks of 43 minute intervals that I will NEVER get back of my life. I have at least 120 more questions but right now my head is killing me. I think that finale is going to make my head explode!

Now I understand why it's an insult to tell someone to go get lost.

Taking After Grandpa

2011-11-15T19:32:00.001-05:00

I told you last night how my father's father was with the barn cats every day. Penelope used to be an outside cat that went from running away from me to running to me every time she saw me.

Hemingway, one of my outside cats, for almost two years wouldn't let me get anywhere near him. That has changed drastically in the last few months.

This is what happens to me almost every night after work. When the weather is nice, I will sit on the front porch steps and Hemingway will sit next to me and just lean his whole body against mine. You can't buy that kind of love!

Once he works his way into the house, I will no longer be that one cat short of being the crazy cat lady!

Before you think I'm crazier than I am, I did NOT walk down the driveway with a scoop of cat food in my hand! Ron was off camera coming out the front door with the food that he handed off to me.

Just like Grandpa, minus the mush.

Cats. That Hemingway is SO working on me. He is definitely positioning himself to be the next inside cat.

I Saw Her Standing There

2011-11-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

Family. You can't choose them, you just have to live with them.

Looks aren't everything but I don't think I look like any of my siblings. My three brothers all share a familial look to them. I don't think the three sisters in my family look alike at ALL. Nor do we resemble our brothers. I think we have family traits in us, but as far as looks go, I think us girls were all very different.

Families. I've been thinking a lot about mine lately. Must be the upcoming holidays. While I may not look much like my siblings or even my family, at least in my mind, I know I have taken some of the best traits from the family members that came before me.

My father's father. He was a farmer who in his day had dairy cows and chickens and a garden. Another thing he had was barn cats. I remember when I was a little girl, Grandpa would take a sauce pan of "mush" up the hill to the barn for the cats. I don't really know what was in the "mush" but I remember he'd carry it up in a sauce pan.

As Grandpa was heading up the hill, he'd start talking to the cats in Slovak. The barn cats would all come running and just be all over Grandpa. They'd rub against his legs, jump up on his shoulders, they looked so happy to see him! Granted, he had food in his hand, but I digress. As a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to be able to go and pet and play with any one of those cats. However, if any of us kids got close, food in his hand or not, the cats would all go running away from Grandpa. So, I watched from afar and wished that was me with those cats.

Now, Cathie tells me I'm just one cat away from being "that crazy cat lady". Have faith in me, Cathie! One day I don't be one cat short, I'm sure.

What else did I get from my family? Let's talk about my mother's father. He was the huge baseball fan in the family. He would listen to as many games at a time as he could. While I might not multi-task the ball games like he did, I do have the love of the game that he did. He died before I was born, but I think he would be happy that I took up his passion for the sport. He might not be happy that I picked the rivals of his beloved St. Louis Cardinals to root for, but I think I got the love of the game from this Grandpa. Go CUBS!!

I wish I took more after my Mother. I have NONE of her petite-ness. I also don't have her ability to always turn the other cheek. I have too much of the temper from her side of the family. Even when her own family would crap on her, she'd turn the other cheek. Instead of confronting the person that caused her the most pain, she'd say to let it go. She thought she'd never change some one's mind from what they thought was right, no matter how wrong they were. Mom told me that since she knew the truth, that was all that mattered. Ok, at least I got that from her. I know the truth too, regardless of what is said, even to this day.

I got a lot from my sister Barb. I learned my profession from Barb as she hired me at 15 years old for my first job. I learned the general ledger, the difference between a debit and a credit, balancing a check book, most other accounting functions, including making collection calls. Not bad for a kid! She actually taught me a lot about a lot of things outside of work as well. She was a very good sister.

I know I've heard Barb's voice in my head, finishing an argument we had a few weeks before she died. Fine, you were right, Barb! I concede that one!

So, in part, we are what we came from. The good, the bad, the ugly. Hopefully we take the best traits of those before us and leave the bad behind.

While I don't think I look anything like Barb, I have seen her a few times in the mirror. I have chalked it up to just being tired, looking into the vanity mirror in the bathroom, I swore a couple of times it was Barb looking back at me. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, I must have just been tired.

This morning, I got to work, grabbed my lunch and my coffee cup from the car and I went to unlock the door at work. Our front door in a glass door and as I walked up to the door, I swear, it was Barb's reflection. It was my coffee cup, my lunch bag, my jacket, my shirt. But I swear it was Barb looking back at me, I saw her standing there.

It was good to see her, even if it was just in my imagination. Now, if only she'd give me the winning lottery numbers, I'd forgive her for winning an argument with me five years after she passed away! The least she could do, huh?

Didn't Waste This License

2011-11-14T20:14:00.000-05:00

Two years in a row I've gotten a fishing license and on the day I get it, I get seasick going on the boat. Two years in a row, wasted money on a license I didn't use.

Yesterday, Ron surprised me. Even though the boat is out of the water for the season, we went to the bait store, got a scoop of minnows and headed out to fish while keeping me on dry land! How freakin' cool is that? I had high hopes of catching us dinner for the evening.

With minnows in a bucket, we headed down to Hot Waters at the foot of Oberlin. Thanks to Lisa for telling us how to GET there! We tried all over down at Hot Waters but couldn't even get a nibble. I caught a whole lot of fun, but alas, no fish. I even was using my tried and true secret of talking to the fish while fishing! My calling of "here, fishy fishy fishy" usually works! Damn, I was having an off day.

Hot waters didn't work so we packed up and went over to Riverside Park by the Coast Guard Station. Uh, probably not the best idea we had. There are a lot of rocks over there and after about a half hour of fishing, I got my line snagged on something. Um, well the FIRST time I got it snagged, Ron was able to wiggle it loose and I got everything back. For some reason, I thought casting into the same area was still a good idea. However, when I got the line caught the SECOND time, I had to pay the price.

The price I had to pay was to snap my line and lose my hooks, minnows and sinker. Dang.

All in all, Ron and I fished for probably 2-1/2 to 3 hours without so much of a nibble from a fish. In spite of that, it was a GREAT day!! Yes, it was windy but the sun was shining and we had a ball. And, we ended up at Mezcal Tequila for dinner since we didn't catch any fish but whatever.

I am kicking myself in the butt though over the fact that I walked out of the house with my fishing license in my back pocket but no camera in hand! Of COURSE there were photo opportunities that I just wasn't able to capture for the blog. I am mad at myself about that part. Not that my pictures of the geese flying over head would have come out as good as it looked in person, but man, that was a missed opportunity. With the clouds the way they were and all of a sudden, these low flying geese . . . yeah, missed that one.

The other one I missed was a picture of the Border Patrol van that came down to Hot Waters while we were there. While on one hand, it seems ridiculous to have Border Patrol in Lorain Ohio, I do realize that crossing from Canada into Lorain would be just too easy. Or Vermilion or any of our ports. I guess it's just hard to take seriously a border problem in Lorain Ohio. Just because I refuse to acknowledge it, doesn't make it less of a problem. It's just that van hit me as funny.

Aside from that, a darn good day!

Cathie Fixed It!

2011-11-10T22:32:00.001-05:00

As I've posted before, Cathie has my back in lieu of 1-800-Call-A-Mom. One of the areas she wins hands down over our actual Mom is pet advice.

One of the biggest problem I have with the cats is Penelope peeing outside of her litter box. The vet tried telling me that she does it because of stress, but I never really bought that. I may not know much about my cats, but I've been in the bathroom with her while she's in the litter box and I didn't believe she was doing it because she was stressed or mad.

With all four paws inside of the box, she backs her little behind up to the back corner of the box and starts to pee. Just because of the way her anatomy is, when she's backed up all the way and starts peeing, she ends up peeing up and over the wall of the litter box. Hence, I've been cleaning up a LOT of pee off of the bathroom floor. Thank heavens for a steam mop since I've been steaming the hell out of that floor while cleaning up the pee, but c'mon. That got old fast.

Cathie took one look at my problem and said she knew exactly what I needed. We headed to the nearest pet store and Cathie pointed out that there are different sizes of litter boxes. Really? Who knew??

I got the box with the highest walls and came home with it. Me and Penelope are thrilled with it! She gets in the box, backs her little butt all the way to the back corner and she can pee to her heart's content and it all stays IN the litter box! I know to most of you, this is NOT an exciting story. But, from me, who has been cleaning up pee and steaming the floor clean sometimes twice a day, this is HUGE. Penelope has NOT peed on the floor at all since I bought the bigger litter box. Who knew?

Cathie so hit the nail on the head with this one.

Too bad all of our problems can't be solved by buying a bigger litter box, huh?

Being A Tourist At Home

2011-11-10T22:03:00.001-05:00

Ok, I've been yelled at for not blogging! Sorry! No excuses, so I'm going to start catching up on all of my started blogs. So, quit yelling at me!!

When Cathie was here visiting a bit ago, we went out and tried to do a couple of touristy things right here at home. One of the things I've wanted to take a look at was a little cemetery in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. I've driven by Charleston Cemetery a bunch of times always saying "one of these days, I'm going to walk through there". Cathie being here ended up being the perfect time to do just that!

Like I said, it's in the middle of a quiet neighborhood and honestly, if you weren't looking, you could just drive right by and not know it.

I'm not from Lorain and I don't pretend to know all of the history of this city, but I have to tell you, I got goosebumps walking through this little place. It's smaller than a city block and I'm not going to guess how many graves are in this little cemetery.

Someone is taking loving care of this small cemetery. The markers are mostly unreadable from years of being out in the weather plus what I'm guessing is some vandalism. I could be wrong and maybe it's just age and weather. But, someone has done some research and has erected newer markers on a lot of the graves with the pertinent information that is no longer legible on the original markers.

The inhabitants of this cemetery are all from the mid to late 1800s. Back in that day, they found life a bit more precious because most of the graves are marked with people's ages in years, months and days. Every day counted. Unfortunately, the counts weren't too high. It was not common for people back then to see their 50th birthdays and the number of babies and children buried there was surprising.

I guess my point is that this is a gem in the middle of this city, between 6th and 7th street and between Hamilton and Oberlin. Some days exploring your own neighborhood can be more interesting than you'd think.

I heard there was a woman that used to give tours of this cemetery and told stories of some of the people that are buried here. For her own reasons, she has stopped the tours. I, for one, would be one of the first to sign up for one of her tours, should she ever decide to start them up again.

Go exploring in your own neighborhood. You never know what you'll find. If you're in our neighborhood, take a drive over to Charleston Cemetery. It's worth a walk around.

1-800-Call-A-Mom

2011-10-26T23:21:00.000-04:00

This could be my get rich quick scheme. Or if not get rich quick, a great retirement plan. I really think this could be a money maker!

For those of us that no longer have our Moms, and weren't smart enough or lucky enough to learn everything we needed while we had them here, we need this kind of service.

Mom was always on call, 24/7. After she passed away, my sister Barb took over her on call duties. While Barb wasn't my Mom, she KNEW everything that Mom did about Mom kinda stuff. Now with Barb gone as well, Cathie and I muddle through. She knows a lot more than I do, and we help each other out where we can.

1-800-Call-A-Mom. Think about it. It's a great idea, isn't it?

How long do you cook a beef roast? 1-800-Call-A-Mom.

How do you get that spot out of the couch? 1-800-Call-A-Mom.

How do you sew a pillow case on to the window seat pad after you take it off to wash it? Have Cathie come visit and ask HER to do it!! Ok, but I digress. (And, thank you again, Cathie!) But you get the idea.

I have a nice full nap kinda area rug in the bathroom to step on once you're out of the shower. I want to say like a shag kind of nap.

I was cleaning the bathroom last weekend and I thought hey, that rug could use a washing. I've washed it before, I knew it could be done. So, I threw it in the washing machine by itself to get washed.

I have a front loader washing machine and when it spins the clothes, it SPINS the clothes. Most times they're practically dry when they come out of the washer, they spin so hard! However, after the wash cycle, this rug was soaking wet. Soaking, dripping wet. What to do? I set the machine to do the spin cycle over again.

Same result. The rug was no dryer than it was before the second spin cycle. Mom? I wish. I put it through the spin cycle again. And again. Ok, probably a few more times for good measure. No change.

I had Ron grab one end of the rug and I grabbed the other end and we twisted the hell out of it by hand trying to get enough water out of it to be able to put it in the dryer. We wrung a bunch of water out of it, but it was STILL too wet to put in the dryer.

So, we hung it over the slop sink, hoping it would dry on its own with the help of the dehumidifier in the basement. The dehumidifier filled up with water, but it didn't seem like any of it came out of that damn rug. Mom would know exactly what to do, I was sure of it.

Tonight after work, I went to the basement to check out the rug. As I said, I had to empty the dehumidifier but the rug was still soaked. Ron and I were talking that just maybe if we hung it on the line in the basement, it might dry easier. The dang thing was heavy, but I got it up and over the line. And that's when I noticed the smell.

I guess after four days being sopping wet in the basement, the mold, mildew and whatever else decided to come for a visit. I am so frustrated at this point that I want to throw the damn rug out and buy another one. If I was made of money, I'd do just that. However, I needed to be more practical.

Ron and I threw around a few ideas and then it hit me. The problem had been that when this rug got wet, it got really heavy. When the machine would go into the spin cycle, the rug would clump up against one side, making the machine unbalanced. That's why it would never go into the full spin cycle leaving the rug wet.

I knew that now I'd have to rewash the rug to get that smell out and that's when I figured it out. Wash the kitchen rugs with it, which should even out the load! Taa daa! It worked like a charm and I now have all clean and DRY rugs! Go me.

Ok, it took me four days to figure it out on my own and I was this close to chucking it out tomorrow on garbage night. One fast call to 1-800-Call-A-Mom probably would have solved this back on Saturday.

I figured it out eventually, but it would have been nice to figure out the problem with one phone call. I know this is a great money making idea. No matter how old we get, sometimes a little mothering would go a long way.

Wait For Me!

2011-10-18T21:55:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I have a lot to catch you up on. It's been crazy around here and I have stories. But, until I get some pictures downloaded and some blogs written, I have to tell you about what happened this morning.

I had a bunch of stuff to take with me to work today. I wanted to hit the paper recyclers on the way home so I packed up my car with all of our old magazines that I had bagged up. I also needed to go to UPS to ship a package. Plus my lunch, my purse, my coffee, take the garbage out, blah blah blah.

I thought I'd make it easier on myself and bring the car out of the garage and park it by the side door. I grabbed the garbage and took it out on my way to the garage. I turned the car around so it was facing the street and pulled right by the side door.

I've told y'all before that I have some outside cats along with the two inside. Two of them in particular, listen for me and run to me when I'm out there. As soon as they realized I was in the driveway, they came running to me, meowing all the way. That is a terrific thing, but when my arms are full of "stuff", I was having a hard time packing up my car while not stepping on or tripping on cats.

My car has a standard transmission. I never park my car without setting the parking brake. I would have put money on that fact. Before today anyway. I have the last load I'm bringing out to the car. Part of this load is going in the back seat on the driver's side, and the rest of it will be in the back seat on the passenger's side. I am on the driver's side and loaded up the car. I know I slammed the door shut and walked behind my car to get to the passenger's side to put the rest of my stuff in there.

As I'm behind my car, I remember thinking to myself, "Self, you must be dizzy or something because it seems like your car is moving!" Crazy, huh? I got to the passenger's side, put my stuff in and that's when I realized, my car was going down the driveway without me!

My public service announcement for the day is: No matter how hard you try, you can NOT stop a 2,000 pound car from rolling down your driveway by trying to grab the fender. You can't do it. Yes, I tried.

I ran to the driver's door and was able to jump in before the car got to the street. Lucky me. My heart got a workout this morning and I have a few more gray hairs, but all was well that ends well.

As Cathie says, "it's good to have adrenalin for breakfast!" I think from now on, I'll stick with my yogurt instead.

What Came Out Of The Wash

2011-10-03T21:41:00.001-04:00

Benny has a toy that is a round wire cage with a fake mouse in it. You roll it across the floor, Benny chases it then bats it around.

The ball had been "lost" for awhile, but I found it when I had to move the couch for the new windows. Well, that toy and about 20 others! Anyway, Benny was playing with it Thursday night and then Friday I freaked out when I saw the "mouse" in the middle of the living room floor. The poor thing had his tail bit off but the rest of the mouse was in good shape. I found the ball part of the toy and saw that a couple of the wires had been pried apart and the mouse got out.

After stuffing my heart back in my chest, I stuffed the mouse back in the ball and tried to close the wires back up again. Saturday I found the "mouse" in the middle of the floor again. Ok, whatever. I grabbed the "mouse" and I put it up and out of reach so that at least I wouldn't have a heart attack when I'd see the dang "mouse" and think it was real. Again. And, I threw out the wire ball part.

Sunday I was doing laundry. I carry the clothes to the basement, separate them into loads and then pick up an armload off of the floor and shove it into the washer. I was doing a load of sheets when I went to pull the sheets out of the dryer, something came flying out at me. If you heard a scream Sunday around 6:00 pm, that was me! Little shit found where I hid that mouse.

Good thing I love that cat. Almost as much as I love the new gray hairs I got Sunday night!

My Life In Chaos

2011-10-01T18:49:00.002-04:00

I really don't like chaos! I am also not a big fan of change.

My house was built in 1900. Most of the upstairs windows were replaced just before I bought the house. The living room and dining room still had the original leaded glass windows. While they were gorgeous, they were not the most cost efficient. I decided to upgrade and buy new windows for the living room, dining room and upstairs in the bathroom which still had an old window. In all, 10 windows were getting replaced.

Wednesday night, Ron and I moved all of the furniture away from the windows. Everything was to be two to three feet away from the windows, inside and outside. I didn't need to do anything outside as we don't have much out there, but inside, we were a wreck getting ready for this.

Have I mentioned that I don't do well in chaos? Here is what the living room looked like:

The dining room wasn't any better.

I was kind of freaking out as were the poor cats. They didn't care for the chaos any better than I did!

Thursday and Friday, I took off from work. First thing Thursday morning, I took all of the window coverings down, and locked up the cats. Penelope and Ron were blocked upstairs with baby gates at the top of the stairs. They both behaved very well!

Benny was locked in the basement for the day. Before the installer got there, poor Benny was outside of the basement door meowing and not happy about being locked up. That added to the chaos of my day! However, once all of the work started with the banging noise, Benny was more than happy to be hiding downstairs. I went down a few times during the day to play with him and check on him and I think he made it through the day easier than I did.

I was off again Friday and Friday was spent trying to put the house back together. The installer was back to work on the outside of the house. I washed all of the curtains and sheers which was the easy part. Then, I had to iron them get them all hung. As long as the furniture was all moved, I did a real Mom cleaning. I have scrubbed the floors, taken apart light fixtures and cleaned all of them. Most of the furniture has been moved back to where it belongs and I'll get the rest of it hopefully by the end of the weekend.

The dining room is all together at least. The looks of this room almost makes it all worth it! Most of the living room is done, I only have one corner of chaos left in there.

It's a good thing my back is cured because if it wasn't, I'd be one hurting pup last night and today.

My reward today and my gratuitous cat shot for the day: Since I am still technically on vacation, I thought I'd lay down and take a little nap today. I walked into the bedroom and this is what I saw. No fighting, no drama, just two cats that just woke up from their nap when I showed up with the camera.

This definitely helps to ease any stress from the last few days. Maybe there is hope for all of us yet.

Cat Updates!

2011-09-25T06:53:00.000-04:00

After telling you what is wrong with my life right now, it's time to show you what is RIGHT in my life right now. I've already shown you pictures of me with the Busters, so it's time for MY little loves, my cats!

There's been a lot to tell. I've had issues with my poor Penelope. She really hates Benny and I'm not so sure any more that Benny is thrilled with her either. Penelope had gotten very sick one day about four or five months back. Ron was actually worried enough about Penelope that he called me at work and I rushed home to get her to the vet. She ended up spending a night in the animal hospital and that about killed me.

The one vet thought her stomach distress (she had thrown up all over the house!) was due to her eating a bug, probably a spider. Benny hunts spiders and bugs so I would believe HE'D get sick over a bug, but I've never seen Penelope go after any. But, what do I know.

She was sent home from the hospital with a diet of special cat food that cost me $45 for a TEN pound bag! With cats, they eat out of whichever bowl is closer. So I made sure the new food was ok to feed Benny and I had to put both cats on it. What one eats, the other eats.

A few days later, Penelope was not much better. I took her back to the vet explaining she's still throwing up a lot. This time I saw Dr. Wood. By the way, I had fired my old vet quite awhile ago. That's a whole other story. So, I have had both cats at Dr. Wood's practice on Oberlin and Tower Boulevard. I really love Dr. Wood. Anyway, Dr. Wood went over all of the test results for Penelope and gave her a good look over and said he felt her problem was stress. Especially after I told him that Benny gave her little to no peace.

Dr. Wood explained that cats need four things to be happy. They are, in no particular order:

Their own food bowls. Yep, got that.
Their own litter boxes. Yep, got that too.
Their own window to look out at the world through. Yep, had that covered.
The ability to sleep or rest without being accosted. Um, is three out of four good??

Penelope liked and still likes to sleep on the recliner in the living room. Whenever Benny would walk by her, he'd jump up on the chair and start to fight with her. I would separate them when I could, but I couldn't be there all the time.

Dr. Wood suggested separating them at night to give her at least that much peace to have some NO BENNY time. I tried to put her back in the basement for the night but she wasn't having any of it. She started her life with us in the basement and I think she just didn't want to go back there. So, I borrowed two baby gates from Linda and Larry and I put them at the top of the stairs. We kept Benny upstairs over night and Penelope would have the run of the downstairs all night long. I thought we could make this work.

Here were the baby gates. Night one, all went well. Benny slept in the office and had a food bowl and a litter box in the bathroom. Penelope was downstairs with a litter box in the mud room and a food bowl in the dining room. Good to go.

That lasted one night. Night two? At four in the morning, we had Penelope on her side of the baby gate meowing to beat the band. She did NOT like being kept out of part of the house, even if that part of the house had Benny in it!

That's her on the top step. Four in the morning, waking me up! I tried to explain that I was doing this for HER not me! She didn't care. I took the gates down and they never went back up.

Dr. Wood did give her a shot that was supposed to help calm her down and would last for six weeks. She was a little more mellow but I'm not thrilled with keeping her drugged. So we let that run out of her system in the six weeks and I didn't take her back for another dose. Dr. Wood felt they would be fine, once Benny got out of kitten hood. Based on their best guess counting back the months, we figured Benny was born last August. My goal is to hang in there until August until he got to be a year old. Well, my baby is now one, but he's still got some kitten in him!

I think he's a bit calmer. I think he and Penelope get along better than they did. I just hope I see the day that Dr. Wood promised where the two of them would be laying together and grooming each other. Yeah, I can only hope.

To show how far Benny has come, here is one of the first pictures I ever took of Benny. We brought him in on a Friday night and this was Sunday afternoon. All one pound, 11 ounces of him.

And then, a few months ago, we tried to recreate the same picture. Unfortunately, Benny's only still when he's sleeping! But you get the idea now that he's about 10 pounds.

He still likes to watch some TV with Ron though! It's a guy thing!

The kitten in him is still alive and well. He likes to get into everything! He'd watch the fish for a long time, trying to catch them through the glass. Then he learned that he could climb up on the fish tank and drink from the filter. I started counting the fish when he'd get down because I wasn't sure if he was getting good at fishing!

We've taken the fish tank down now and he misses it. He still gets up on that case he's on above and looks at the empty space like with the heck!

And then there is my five year old female, Penelope. I absolutely love her! She is a lover girl who loves kisses and to be petted and to be left alone by Benny. One of her favorite spots to lay is on the boot rug in the kitchen. I usually put the boots away after winter, but she loves to lay against them and she defends this spot from Benny, so I don't want to take away the boots. Oh well, I guess we're just ready early for next winter!

This is one of my favorite pictures of my little girl. Penelope is not much of a climber, she prefers to stay closer to the ground. Her place on the floor or on the recliner. When she needs to get away from Benny, she does like to jump up on the counter in the mudroom. Benny has jumped higher than that before but for some reason, he respects the counter. He will lay under neath her on the floor, but he won't jump up there after her. Anyway, I got one good picture of her up here.

She is beautiful! She must have known I was talking about her because I just had to take a break from typing because she came for a little visit with me. She was curled up in my lap enjoying a little ear scratching. Yeah, that can make you forget a lot of problems.

Here, Penelope is taking a little nap on the window seat in the office. You know, a cat may show you their belly, but they do NOT want you touching it. Yeah, learned that the hard way. This picture is my desk top at work. Every day I look at her and just say "aww"!

Penelope does like to climb on me. I do spend a lot of time on the couch and if I go down during the night, more times than not, she comes up to join me. A couple of weekends ago I was just laying there watching TV and luckily Ron had the camera! Me and Penelope, enjoying some girl time!

So these are my inside cats. They are both waiting at the door when I come home from work. I love that part of my day! Then, I have more cats outside that I feed. I have different relationships with each of them and if I had the money, the five outside would be inside with me. I'm getting worried about the winter already!

First, we have Hemingway. Hemingway has been coming around for a couple of years now. He comes running when I call him for breakfast and he is waiting on the porch for me when I come home from work. He's definitely got my heart!

The pictures don't do him justice. He is a beautiful little boy. This summer, I think he fathered three female kittens. I don't know where Mom is, but he has been bringing three kittens to the feeding bowls since early summer. When one of the girls is there to eat, Hemingway will always back up until they've had their share. The kittens are all gray but they have stripes like Hemingway does. I am just guessing about the paternity thing, but I don't know why else he'd be taking such good care of these kittens.

I have one picture of one of the kittens. This is Copa and she's still a little shy.

Her sisters, Lola and Cabana are also gorgeous! Then, we have a new kitten that's just been coming by for a month or so. She a tiny little thing so I'm guessing she was born about August like Benny was. Her name is Tinker! I'll try to get more pictures.

Some things don't change. I'm still allergic to the damn cats, and some days, this happens to me.

But you know what? I can live with this.

These cats have really changed my life. I love them and like I said, if I had the money, ok and the patience, I'd bring them all in. Integrating new cats is NOT an easy thing to do.

No matter how bad my day is, these guys all make it better. Pulling into the driveway after work, there will be Hemingway on the porch, meowing at me as soon as he sees me. The three older kittens used to be here twice a day but I've only seen Copa lately. She's usually waiting on the porch for me after work too. My little Tinker kitty is a morning girl. I hear her out on the porch yelling at me when she's ready for breakfast! It's good to be needed!

There you go, the good in my life right now. My babies!

Dr. Mengele Is Alive And Well In Ohio

2011-09-23T22:10:00.000-04:00

Yes, that is bad sarcasm, but I truly feel like I had an appointment with Dr. Mengele yesterday.

It's no secret that I have back problems. I fixed my lower back problem (I thought) back in 2002 with surgery. Then, my car accident in 2008 messed up my mid back. I did everything the medical community threw at me. I did therapy, I did a spinal block, I did exercises, I even did acupuncture. For whatever reason, I wasn't a surgical candidate so I was left with living with it. I am in pain 24/7. Whatever. I live with it.

Then, some time over the winter, both of my feet went numb. I went to my doctor and he prescribed some anti-inflammatory meds and said if it didn't go away, I might need to go for an EMG. The drugs did not help at all and in fact, my feet are still numb and now I have constant pain down my right leg. I'm not even going to talk about my right arm and hand going numb or the shooting, burning pains I get down my leg when I try to lower my head. I'm just not going to talk about it.

But, I couldn't deny any longer that something was wrong and should be looked at. I went back to the doctor so we could schedule an EMG and nerve conduction test, whatever that was. He said I needed four extremities done since I had the numbness in my legs and in my arm. The insurance company will automatically approve two extremities, but for four I had to get prior approval I was told.

I spent two weeks going back and forth with the insurance company and my doctor's office and canceling and rescheduling an appointment since this wasn't settled, to finally be told that I don't need prior approval. Fine. Whatever.

Yesterday was the day. I had no special instructions for my appointment and was told I would not need a ride home. So I put my big girl panties on and thought I would just go have this done before work and then head to work. Um, I should have had someone there with me.

I got there and I was told that they would NOT do all four extremities since that would be "too much on me". Uh oh. That doesn't sound good.

By the way, here is the Wikipedia link for an EMG. In case you don't want to read all that, here is a cut portion of that article.

Electromyography (EMG) is a technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles.^[1] EMG is performed using an instrument called an electromyograph, to produce a record called an electromyogram. An electromyograph detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells^[2] when these cells are electrically or neurologically activated. The signals can be analyzed to detect medical abnormalities, activation level, recruitment order or to analyze the biomechanics of human or animal movement.

An even better quote from the article is:

Some patients can find the procedure somewhat painful, whereas others experience only a small amount of discomfort when the needle is inserted. The muscle or muscles being tested may be slightly sore for a day or two after the procedure.

Yeah, this patient found this to be extremely painful.

I really didn't know what to expect. With my jeans, socks and shoes off, and a gown on, I laid on a flat wooden table. If you have back problems, you know that alone is not an easy thing to do. Laying on my back, I feel him taping something to different parts of my feet. He'd tape a few leads (I think) to my foot, then he'd use this instrument that would make me feel like an electric shock that would shoot down into my foot where the leads were. He'd move the leads, and do the same thing again.

I couldn't see the instrument he was using, so I'm not sure if that was inserting needles into me to send the electricity into me or if it was just like a small taser that shot the jolts into me. What ever it was, it hurt like hell! What did the Dr. Mengele wanna-be say to me? "Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Really.

I thought I was holding up very well. He kept asking me if I was ok and what the hell are you going to say? I kept telling him I was ok, just let's get this over with! I was doing ok until he couldn't find one of the nerves in my left foot. I swear, if he zapped me with that f-ing thing one more time I was going to kick him. He said I needed to tell him when I felt that in my foot. After about 30 times, he finally found it. Ok, I didn't do so good during that part.

He finally called the girl in to come and hold my hand. What, you never seen a grown woman cry before? I have a feeling he's seen that a LOT.

I told the girl I didn't need my hand held and to please just get ON with this. Finally, he put the torture device down and I took a deep breath. I thought good, I made it through. That's when this idiot tells me that NOW the hard part starts. Honest to Pete, it took everything in me not to run. But, in for a penny, in for a pound, let's get this over with.

Man, he wasn't kidding. NOW he took the big needles and went at me. Up until now, all of the testing was done below the knee. Now he was digging into my thighs. He gave me a count down for the first needle jab and that was it. Three, two, one JAB. Once it was in he had to dig around while telling me how to move my leg which I'm guessing was to move the muscle the way he wanted it. I had to push my knee down onto the table, or lift my leg, or press it against his hand. He did this to both thighs with me laying on my back, my front, and on my side. Finally, he tells me one more needle and we're done. By now I was laying on my side and he says the last needle goes into my back. Are you kidding me? That's when he finally notices the scar on my back from the surgery. He said to me "oh, I see you've had surgery. Well, then I won't touch that." Gee, thanks.

He tells me now that this is why they only do two extremities at a time as that's all people can take. I told him baloney. Keep going and let's get my arms done because I am NOT coming back. But, he refused to go on. I am keeping my word on this one. I will NOT going back for another round.

People, this is 2011! Is THIS the best that modern medicine has to offer? I don't think I'm a candy ass when it comes to pain. Like I said, I live with it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I think I can take more than most people. This test absolutely brought me to my knees. I was ready to tell him anything he wanted. You want my PIN number? You got it. Bank account numbers, here ya go. The title to my car? Where do I sign?

Finally, it was over. The greatest insult was before he left the room, I sat up on the table. That's when I saw all the blood on the table. Blood. A lot of it. WTF. He saw me looking at it, he grabbed a couple of 4x4s, wet them down, and handed them to me. He told me I needed to clean myself up a little since I was still bleeding. You have to be kidding me.

So, he walked out, I cleaned myself up, and was putting my jeans on when the girl came back in the room. She tried to tell me how she knew how I felt, and how terrible it must be to be in pain to begin with and have to endure this test. I know I'm not usually shy but it was the Dr. Mengele clone that I should have been bitching at, not her. This was absolutely BARBARIC. Again, 2011. You'd think we would have painless solutions to our problems! I can't wait until I get the bill for this. Something tells me I'm going to have to pay dearly to be abused like this.

I don't have the results from the doctor yet but at this point, I am calling UNCLE. I give up. After the accident, I endured the most painful spinal block (I have had three others before this one so I know what they SHOULD feel like) for nothing. And now this? I'm done.

Ask me how I'm doing. I'm going to tell you I'm cured. It's a miracle! After everything I've been through with my back, I am NOT going to submit to another procedure, another test. I can't do it any more. I will continue to take my Aleve by the handful and keep up with the working, cooking, cleaning, shopping, shoveling and whatever else life is going to throw at me.

See? I'm fine. I'm cured. I'm done.

Visting the Busters!

2011-09-21T20:02:00.000-04:00

Huge thanks to the Busters' Mom and Dad (Lisa and Chuck!) for letting me play with their dogs over the weekend. Yes, people, I said dogs!

Originally, Ron and I were headed over to see how the two puppies were coming along. Not that I know too much about dogs, but these are BIG puppies!! So, I got some puppy love but when the adult dogs were let out into the yard, I quickly went to the other side of the fence leaving poor Ron to fend for himself.

Well, perhaps not "poor Ron"! Dogs seem to love him. The adults came out, happy to see Mom, Dad AND Ron in the yard. Once again, Leeloo came right to me at the fence and wanted petted. Lisa was good enough to stand right there by me so that I felt I could reach over the give Leeloo a little scratch. That was as much as I wanted to do, though.

Then, something came over me and I wanted to try to walk INTO the yard, yes, where there were FIVE dogs. A huge thank you to the Lisa, Chuck and Ron for helping me to accomplish this feat! They really were wonderful at making sure I was ok in the midst of a whole lot of dogs and teeth!

Personally, I think Sadie enjoyed my visit the most. Does this dog not look like she's enjoying some Ree love??

Then, Buster stopped by to see me. If you notice, I did not move at all. My feet were so planted into the ground. But, the dogs all came up to me in an orderly fashion for a little Ree love. Gotta love well behaved dogs!

Then it was Leeloo's turn and Sadie got back in on the action as well. Yes, that is ME in there petting huge dogs. I swear, if I wasn't there, I wouldn't believe it.

Even one of the puppies, Gizmo, is coming back for more.

It was a great day! I had a little panic attack when the dogs first walked up to me but again, with the help of my friends and of course Ron, who never left my side, I did what I thought was impossible. This was a very empowering moment! I'm not saying my fear of dogs is gone, but it is an unbelievable feeling that I was able to at least overcome part of it and actually stand there in the midst of not one but FIVE of them. I never thought I'd get passed just being by the puppies.

I expect great things from me and my new four legged friends!

Another Sign Of Great Work

2011-09-19T20:42:00.000-04:00

Only in Lorain!

If you're traveling north on Oakdale, there is a sign at the intersection of 28th Street. The orange sign detours you east on 28th Street.

However, once you try to make that turn, this is what you see.

Only in Lorain.

When the new detour sign was placed on 28th Street to prevent any east bound traffic, didn't someone see the orange sign and think "hmm, maybe I should take that down?" Obviously not.

Travel through Lorain at your own risk.

Who Can I Thank For This?

2011-09-18T22:52:00.001-04:00

I always like to acknowledge people for the jobs they do. I'm not sure who should get the credit for this piece of crap though.

This shout out either goes to my buddies at Smith Paving of Norwalk Ohio or to the great city of Lorain Ohio themselves. I use sarcasm when talking about Smith Paving of Norwalk Ohio because of how I felt they started this job. You can read all about my butt crack guy starting work at 6:30 in the freakin' morning right here. For the record, I did call Nancy Greer, Clerk of Council, about the noise at that time of the day. I know you're gonna be surprised at this, but here is another city official that wouldn't return a phone call. Go figure.

But, I digress.

After the construction, either Smith Paving or the City of Lorain have to put your property back in the state it used to be in. I guess close enough works though. The grass was replanted, or rather weeds were replanted. I just took pictures at my house, but drive up and down Oakdale and look at where the new curbs are. Right next to the brand new curbs are weed infested patches of dirt. You think I'm lying, here are some examples.

Aren't you jealous? Don't you just want your property to look like this? I'm tellin' ya.

Now, this one I can blame directly on Smith Paving of Norwalk Ohio. They left a pile of molten crap right on the tree line. This isn't the only pile that was left, this is just the one in front of my house.

This is what it looks like after Ron put some work into it. This pile of crap was raised up quite a bit but Ron scraped and scraped and he was able to haul away enough of it so that we can get the lawn mower to go over it. Yeah, it was so high, I would have had to hand mow around it. Thanks, Smith Paving! Quality work over here.

As long as I'm complaining about the grass, I have one more to add to the list.

Last fall, someone came and dug up two places on the tree lawn. It was just before winter and it happened while I was at work, so I have no idea which agency was responsible for the dig. In the spring, again, I came home from work one day and it looked like grass was planted because these two spots were now covered with straw.

I was happy that someone came back and planted grass! That is until the grass came in. I don't know much about different kinds of grass, but this is SO different from what's already in the yard, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The rest of the grass in this entire neighborhood is a medium colored green. Now I have two light green patches in the tree lawn! Well, one light green patch and one light green and weed patch.

Does this look like the City of Lorain cares about the homeowners of this town? Or it is just this neighborhood that they don't care about? Who do I thank for this?

I'm A Tattletale!

2011-09-06T20:45:00.000-04:00

And darn proud of it!

But first, a let's back up a little.

I've posted before that every year we like to go to the St. Elias Festival in Brooklyn Ohio. The food is fabulous, the dice-on-the-wheel game is exciting, and the time spent with friends is priceless.

My friend Edna came home from San Diego for the festival and for her Mom's birthday. Since her Mom and Dad (Sally and Nick) had adopted me, I was all about celebrating her Mom's birthday too! We get together with Nick and Sally every year for this festival. It was an added bonus that Edna made it in this year to play our reindeer games.

We usually hit the festival on Friday night for dinner and then the music. The temps were in the 90s Friday night with the humidity not far behind. I could not deal with that. We all decided that it was just too hot to go to the festival, so we instead chose plan "B" which was dinner at Nick and Sally's house. That is always a great plan "B"! We got to eat, joke, talk and just catch up. We still planned on festival fun, but we were playing it day by day to see if the weather broke.

Sunday was our day. The temps fell but the threat of rain was there. We decided to chance it anyway! I am so glad we did!

We all met up at the festival in the tent with the food and the dice-on-the-wheel game. It's a big wheel that every space has three dice faces on it. It could be a 1 - 2 - 6 or a 3 - 4 - 5 or a 2 - 6 - 6 or any and every combination. On the tables around this wheel are corresponding dice faces numbered 1 through 6. You put a dollar on the number you want to come up on the wheel, the wheel is spun and if the wheel stops on your number, you're a winner! It's a one to one ratio, so if I bet 6 (which was my number!) and three 6s came up, I'd win three dollars. One 6 comes up, I win one dollar. No 6s, I lose!

I'm really not a big gambler, but I'm telling you, we have so much fun at this game! Part of it is I love to yell out SIX SIX SIX SIX while the wheel is spinning. Most of the time, I can get the crowd to join me in the reindeer games until everyone around the wheel is yelling out their favorite number! Our first time at the wheel that night, the woman calling the game was a hoot. She'd have these funny diddies that she'd say as the wheel was spinning that would just crack me up! My favorite one was "I spin, you win"! Ok, I had to run with that one! "C'mon! Spin it so I could win it!!!" We were having so much fun!

You have to understand that this is a fund raiser for a Church. That's almost always a good cause. So, I take my money there and plan on leaving it there for the Church. My hope is that I have a lot of fun losing my money. If I have fun, I'm jiggy with the donation!

Between screaming "SIX" and "you spin it so I can win it!" I had a whoop load of fun! Until some kids came up next to me.

I'm old, and the older I get, the younger everyone else looks. I'm guessing these kids were in high school or about there. By now there are a lot of people around the table, so the people working the table have their hands full trying to watch everyone and be fair. I'm laying my money on the six of course, and these kids have $2 on 2 and $2 on 3. Two 2s came up on the wheel. While the workers were going around the table trying to pay out or collect the money, these kids reached out and moved their $2 bet on #3 to the #2 spot. C'mon, really?

I thought the guy working the table saw that, but he must have missed it as he was paying the kid out $8 on what he thought was a $4 bet. So me and my big mouth entered the fun.

I chastised the kid right there. I said something to the effect of "really? You're going to cheat the CHURCH? You know all of this money goes to the CHURCH and you're cheating? You know that's just wrong, don't you?" The kid and I did a little back and forth where he tried to talk his way out of it and I wouldn't let him. So he stayed and bet until the money was gone, with me and the worker watching him like a hawk.

I believe there is a special kind of hell for people that rip off the Church and this kid was just way too young to be going down that path. I did tattle on him and hopefully he felt bad enough to turn his little ass around.

Other than this little hiccup, the festival was awesome. After playing the wheel for awhile, we all put the feed bag on. I really don't know the name of much of this stuff. All I can tell you is that we had some of the regular food, like the stuffed grape leaves and the kibbie and the little pie filled with spinach (I can't remember the name of this one right now) and Ron and I tried a couple of new sandwiches. I got a chicken shawarma and Ron got the kafka which was made with beef. Both very good sandwiches, hard to tell which was better. Like I said, great food at this festival! All that with no pictures! Ugh! I am such a slacker!

After dinner, we went back to the wheel for a little more gambling, then over to the music tent. I'm not sure if it was the same band from last year, but again, a three piece band playing the Middle Eastern music. You know, I don't have a clue what they're saying, but I LOVE this music! My feet were tapping, I was clapping along and cheering when everyone else did. Once again, I chickened out of getting up to dance, but maybe next year. The music is addictive, I didn't want it to stop!

Unfortunately, when we were on our second turn at the wheel, it started to pour. And I mean pour. It was one of those rains that you'd swear if you'd just wait a minute, it would HAVE to slow down! It never did! O M G! We were soaked by the end of the night as there was no other alternative in getting to the music tent than walking out in the rain. Then, we parked a whoop away from the festivities so Ron and I were drenched by the time we got to the car afterwards.

I was cold, tired, but fed well, my ears still full of good music, and happy. It's always great to spend time with friends.

I had no voice today, and answering the phone at work was a challenge! Most everyone was compassionate about my lost voice and were patient with me while I tried to get what I was saying across. I think some tea with honey is on my schedule for tonight!

I really don't feel too badly, I just don't have a voice. Hmm, maybe that was what I got for tattling on the cheating kid! Well, if so, it was worth it.

Does This Make My Ass Look Big?

2011-09-04T10:38:00.000-04:00

Well, my ass IS big, so it should LOOK big! But, I digress.

Friday I was at work when some guy came to the front door. Our usual visitors to the front door are FedEx and UPS. This guy definitely did not work for either of them.

He was looking for a woman that does not work in this building. I have heard her name, but I do not know which building she works in. I told him what I knew which was next to nothing. He said he needed a number to get a hold of her. Yeah, can't help you. What part of I don't know was confusing?

Then, the big insult. He asks me if I have any coffee. I said yes, I have my cup on my desk. He then handed me a business card with a phone number written on the back. He actually gave me directions on how to call his number. Please, I'm a woman. Telephone 101 is in my DNA. Anyway, he said that he also is somehow involved in selling this amazing product. He asked if I'd believe that coffee could make me lose weight! WHAT? I said no, I don't believe that! He said it's true and if I'd only call that number, I'd learn all about it.

Yeah, I think not. He went on to tell me that they also sell creamers and sweeteners that believe it or not, will make you lose weight! He said again, "can you believe it". To which I plainly said "no". Whatever.

He gave me his card and I threw it in the garbage! Yeah, I'll get right on that call! But for real, I know I have a big ass. It's not up to a total stranger to let me know I have a big ass though. Next thing he's gonna tell me is I'm old. No kidding. Tell me something I don't know.

# 800

2011-09-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my 800th blog post! 800 blogs of me rambling about mostly nothing!

In honor of my 800th post, I have changed the look of my blog. I'm not sure if this is the one I really want to go with, but at least it's something different.

Thanks for stopping by! Here's hoping for another 800 posts!

Gas Prices

2011-09-02T19:48:00.000-04:00

Can you believe this??? This isn't a sight you get to see too often! I LIKE it!! I need to see it more!

I gassed up my car Tuesday night at Get-Go. I had so many fuel perks saved up that I actually got a free tank of gas! Here is my price per gallon!

And, when I was done, here was the total bill!

I'm just mad at myself since I forgot to take the gas cans with me that morning. For free gas, I SHOULD have gotten all I could. But, I have a 17 gallon gas tank and I was trying to guesstimate how far I could go. After all the running around I did on Tuesday, I really thought I was closer than this to empty. I didn't think I had enough gas to go all the way home to get the cans and then back to the closest Get-Go. My darn outta-gas light comes on when I have four gallons left which is about 110 miles or so with all in town driving. I still had about 28 miles to go on this tank!

Oh well, I'm happy with what I did get. Free gas! Go me!!