Terrific Tuesday

I gotta tell you, this is exactly why I love birthdays. All kinds of good things SHOULD and DO happen around your birthday!

As I've already posted, last Saturday was Ron's birthday. The three of us met up with our friends, Larry and Linda, and went to Jackalope's, our favorite restaurant, for dinner. We have never been disappointed with any food that has come out of their kitchen or service we've received. Plus the view can't be beat.

While we were there, we saw signs that Jackalope's was having an Easter brunch. While reservations were supposed to be needed, Sunday morning we showed up, hoping they could fit us in. Sure enough, they found a table for us. It was a great brunch, complete with a couple of mimosas! C'mon now, how can any day that starts with champagne and orange juice be a bad day?

Ron's best birthday present came on Monday. Ron's youngest son, Vince, flew in to town for his Dad's birthday! While it wasn't a surprise trip, it was sure the highlight of Ron's week. So, with Vince here for a week, there has been a whirlwind of activity around here. The boys are definitely ramping up the competition on the Wii system. I keep hearing "oh crap" or some variation of those words from each of them. It seems that they are pretty evenly matched and while one will win one game, the other seems to come back on the next. They have been a hoot.

The highlight for me was on Tuesday. My brother Jim was nice enough to drive all the way to Ohio again and join us for dinner. I made a mad dash to Sam's Club for some dinner supplies plus a trip to Fligner's for some great steaks. In my opinion, they are the best place to buy meat. We definitely weren't disappointed in the steaks they chose for me.

Ron and Vince were out in the rain on the grill with the steaks and portabella mushroom caps. Inside, I was on the steamed asparagus and fresh garlic bread. (I don't think I put too much garlic on there, but not everyone might agree with this. I thought it came out fantastic, but I might be biased here!)

For desert, we had some fresh strawberries and some leftover strawberry cake. It truly was a great dinner. After the dining room was cleared up and dishes were done, we got down to serious business.

Ron and Vince proceeded to the living room to pick up the Wii marathon. In true fashion for our family, Jim, Phil and I staked out the dining room table and broke out the pinochle cards! Ok, both of the boys had to be reminded of a few rules on how to play the game, but after that, the game proceeded.

It was strange. The three of us all recalled playing pinochle with Grandma, and when we'd argue about a hand or rehash it, we heard Dad's voice telling us he couldn't understand how we got enjoyment out of arguing over cards! Hey, it's how we grew up! The three of us enjoyed the warm fuzzies of the happy memories.

Best of all, is I won the pinochle game. Ok, maybe it was because they made keep score, but I think it was my superior pinochle playing. And maybe a little luck!

Yes, it was a terrific Tuesday.

As for the visit from Vince, all is going extremely well. He is a very laid back kid. I can call him a kid since we've decided he is exactly half my age. Yeah, somehow this should end up in the "that's just wrong" category but I digress. He's very agreeable to any idea as to what do to or where or what to eat. He's on vacation, and that's pretty much all he cares about.

And all I care about is his visit absolutely made Ron's birthday. And that's what it's all about.

The Perfect One!

Yes, we were bowling! And, the birthday boy has bowled a perfect game!!!

You can't tell here, but actually, the game before, he ended up with nine strikes in a row. On top of that, this game was 12 more, making a whopping total of 21 strikes in a ROW!

Of course, we were smart about it and stopped playing immediately!

Way to go, honey! What a great game!

Happy Birthday, Ron!!

Well, it's 22 minutes into his birthday and we've sung (loudly and badly!), opened presents, hugged, kissed, and already have a strawberry cake baked! That's a darn nice start to a birthday, if you ask me!

Saturday, we are going to Jackalope's for a birthday dinner; sitting outside, watching out over the marina. If anyone is around, stop by and join us in wishing the birthday boy another year of health, happiness and success.

Happy Birthday, honey! May the best be yet to come!!

And Yet Another Update!

Perhaps I should wait to blog until I have all of the facts!

Our furnace guy got here this afternoon. He said he usually just takes the recommendations of the gas company employee and changes whatever parts they have listed on the red flag. However, after looking at our furnace, he said it was just a pipe that was so loose, it was almost disconnected totally. After tightening the pipe, the bill came to $104. A LOT better than the $400 more he would have charged had he changed the part we called him to change.

Here's to someone actually looking and fixing what's wrong and not what will get him more money.

That made today a little more bearable! Go me!

Can You Smell It?

Well, I could smell it.

Ron and I had just carried the laundry down to the basement so I could start the washing. I smelled gas. Not very strong, but I could definitely smell it. So could Ron. He immediately started looking for leaks at all of the connection sites. Nothing.

I called Columbia Gas. The woman on the phone had me scared to death by the time I hung up with all of the warnings and "advice" she gave to me. The hell with all of the rest of her warnings; Ron and I just evacuated knowing that Columbia Gas was on the way. We waited on the front porch for the cavalry to arrive. (Before anyone thinks we left Phil to go down with the house, he wasn't home!)

Our technician showed up quickly and the lines downstairs were tested with a sniffer, and he couldn't detect any gas leak. Then the fun began. A test of the pressure did find that there was a leak somewhere in the house as the pressure dropped after a three minute test. Not good. After much up and down the basement stairs for Ron and our technician, we ended up with three red flags. THREE.

The first was because we have a flex hose going from the gas line in the basement up through the floor to the gas stove in the kitchen. I guess it has to be a hard line, not a flex hose. Ok, that wasn't our original problem, but since he was here, he had to write it up.

Second was a problem with the furnace. If there is a problem, there is a gadget on all appliances that should automatically shut them down so the flow of gas stops and doesn't fill up the house. That gadget is broken on the furnace, so it is allowing gas to leak out. Not good. This needs to be fixed immediately. We have a call in to a furnace guy. The technician wouldn't even hook the furnace back up until this is repaired, so let's hope that it doesn't get too cold until I can get this fixed. The good news/bad news is that it's a part that can be replaced for a couple of hundred bucks. Big yuck on that part. But at least it doesn't warrant a whole new furnace.

Last red tag issue was our water heater. I blogged recently that while doing laundry one other day, we heard a scratching from something that had gotten into the exhaust vent. Well, whatever was in there ended up blocking the vent, thus allowing carbon monoxide into the basement. I guess when it rains it pours. The gas company wouldn't hook up the water heater either. At least Ron was able to fix this problem and remove the poor dead bird. Luckily, I didn't have to look at this part. Poor Ron did go above and beyond the call of duty on this one. Ugh. At least now we have hot water.

I should have just held my breath and ignored the smell. Or else not thought about being productive and doing laundry. Oh the joys of being a home owner.

Update!

CUBS WIN!!!! 4-2!!!!!

Ok, there is the update!

Today was opening day. It might have snowed all day here in Ohio, but in Houston it was bright and sunny. The bright spot here in Ohio was that the Cubs won over the Astros. But, as always, it's also a melancholy day.

Who can watch opening day without thinking of Mom? How many times did I pick up the phone to call Mom and say "did you see that?" The realization that she's not there to answer is sometimes a hard reality that still comes up and smacks me in the face.

Thanks to my sister, Cathie, for filling in via instant messenger tonight. She took over Mom's roll with her appropriately placed "Holy Cow"s and "Way to GO"s. Thanks for watching the game with me, Sissy. It was a huge help!

Now in the words of Harry Caray, "Holy Cow! Now let's get some runs!!"

It's Finally HERE!

Yes, opening day of baseball is HERE! Today! In seven minutes actually!

In case you're new here, I am a huge Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubs are starting their season this year down in Houston, Texas, my old home.

I have a friend in Houston, Robert. We talk smack about baseball as often as we can. He's started already. He woke me up this morning, talking crap about my beloved boys in blue.

Sorry, Robert. The 'Stros are going down! Oswalt can't help you today!

GO CUBS!

I Was WAAAY Too Cute!

C'mon now, was I a cutie patootie, or what??

This is me (on the RIGHT) and one of the two dogs we had briefly while I was growing up. This one is Rags. Rags was half sheep dog and half poodle. Hey, somehow it worked. What I remember most about Rags is that when it was time to walk him, he took the rest of the kids for a walk! Seriously, he would drag them from here to there and back again. It was not easy to walk this dog. Well, for me it was! For some reason, he knew there was no way I could keep up with him, so he'd walk like a little old man with me. I could hold the leash with one finger and he'd never get away from me. Dang. How could I go from dog tamer to being so terrified of them now? Go figure!

Anyway, I was going through some old junk the other night and I came across this picture. I remember my t-shirt! This was a hand me down from my sister, Cathie. The front said over and over "sock it to me" from the old Laugh In show. I loved that shirt!

Now here's a segue from this picture to what happened to me today!

I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I do enjoy an Eat 'n Park breakfast buffet now and again. I've been having a hankering for their buffet. I don't know if it's at all Eat 'n Parks, but the one by us only has the buffet on Tuesday and Saturday and then a brunch on Sunday.

So I talked to Ron and Phil and even got them to agree to go to Eat 'n Park for the breakfast buffet this morning. Not much, other than food, would get the three of us out of the house at 7:30 in the morning!

So far, so good. We were all up, dressed and out the door. We even had a great breakfast. And then, the horrible event occurred. The server brought us the bill. She charged us for THREE senior breakfasts! HELLO????

Ok, Phil I can see. (Sorry, brother.) But Ron doesn't exactly look like he's a senior citizen and I sure as heck don't!! In spite of the picture above being taken in 1968 when I was five years old!

Looking back, I guess I wasn't too offended. I did take the discount!

Neighborhood Watch

One thing about not working, you need to find other things to do to occupy your day.

My crocheting is coming along nicely, thank you very much! I'm over half way done with the whole thing and I'm impressed with myself.

So now I've also taken on the job of watching the neighbors. Hey, I can't help it. My crocheting chair looks out of the window so it's not my fault that I happen to take notice of the goings on.

Like the other day for instance. I was sitting in my chair, and what do I see? Across the street, a man is sort of walking down the road. When I say sort of, it was more like stumbling rather than actual walking.

This is an old neighborhood. There are alleyways through almost all of these blocks. The alleyway that goes across the block across the street is used a lot. I see cars coming and going through there all the time. This poor guy fell right at the end of the alleyway.

At first I almost thought he tripped. I waited for him to get himself up, but no, he seemed to be down there for the count. By the time I rallied the guys to go and check on him, he was working himself to a sitting position. Finally he did get himself up and continued stumbling his way back down the street. Yeah, you could miss good fun like that if you weren't watching!

The next bit of fun happened to be caught by Phil. It was after dark, and he went downstairs for something. Once downstairs, he saw the police activity right on our corner. Of course, we all went running!

On the ground on the corner was a guy and a bicycle. In the street were two police cars and one ambulance. Our first thought was that he was hit by a car. But, there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity. For all I could tell, it was the same drunk I saw earlier laid across the alleyway. It was dark, so it was hard to tell. The end of that story was the ambulance left without him and the two police cars also pulled away without him. I know, I know. If I'm telling a story, I should have more details than this.

Lastly, we have one of the trouble houses in the neighborhood. This house was filled with teenagers who did love to point their stereo speakers outside and dance on the porch to the volume at full blast. Yeah, we all love that, don't we? I guess if that was the worst that they ever did, I should consider myself lucky.

Well, last weekend, it seems that they have moved out. On Sunday I believe it was, there was about five or so bags of garbage outside. Then, every day, the pile has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Keep in mind, garbage around here doesn't get picked up until early Friday mornings. Well, we've been looking at this all week. And, of course, the never ending line of lookie-loos that come routing through the garbage looking to take away anything they can. Bags are torn, crap is blowing loose all over. What an eyesore.

Now you can see our yard. Crap from across the street has blown all across our yard shown here. This is putting it lightly. I took this picture a few days ago. Today I went out to pick up all of the crap and you'd be surprised at what I found!

Now, we police our yard often. The street we live on is relatively busy, and people seem to love to drive up and down throwing crap out of their windows. Common items in our yard are cigarette packs, beer bottles, liquor bottles, candy wrappers. I've also found condom wrappers, condoms (I don't want to know), homework, utility bills that aren't mine, among other things. Keep in mind, I do put protective gloves on when I clean up the yard. Part of my germ phobia!

Today's bounty had new items. I can't be sure they were all blown over from the garbage heap next door or if they were items thrown from passing cars. Today, I found a dip stick. You know, that thing in your car that you pull out to see how much oil is in your car! I also found two sets of wiper blades, in their package. Too bad they were too small to fit any of our vehicles. I also found a wheel that looks like it came from a coffee table or something of the sort. That I'm guessing was chucked from across the street. All in all, I had one garbage bag full of crap.

Tomorrow morning the garbage men come. It will be interesting to see how much is left on the ground and how much is actually picked up.

Yeah, watching in this neighborhood is definitely an interesting experience!

WTF??

C'mon now, if this had been the rule 20 some odd years ago, none of us would have graduated! This is ridiculous!

Not Fair

Sunday night, I was tired. I was yawning by 7:00 and it didn't get any better as the night wore on.

Finally at about 10:00, I headed to bed. I read for awhile, (Robin Cook's Vector in case you're curious) and was asleep probably between 10:30 and 10:45.

Then came 12:30 am and I was awake. Not just a little awake like I need to pee and then I'm going back to bed. No, the kind of awake that you know it's going to be awhile until your head hits the damn pillow again.

Basically, I had a two hour nap. It's now 2:24 am and I'm bored. There are two other people fast asleep in this house so I'm trying to stay relatively quiet. There is only crap on tv and none of my favorite informercials are playing.

As a side note, c'mon now, there are a couple of informercials that are really good! Not good as in I'd like to buy that, but good as in they are definitely entertaining. One that comes to mind is that Magic Bullet. This informercial takes place in someone's kitchen supposedly, with bunch of their friends sitting around at the counter.

There is a British guy and a blonde girl. This Magic Bullet is supposed to replace your food processor and a bunch of other kitchen appliances. They make an omelette, frozen drinks, grind coffee beans, make pesto sauce among other things. I think the best part of this infomercial is one of the "guests" of this couple demonstrating this appliance. She is just like my Aunt Aggie! Right down to the house dress and cigarette hanging out of her mouth! Yeah, that's why I like that one.

Another goodie that I love to watch but do not want to buy is the GT Express 101. I think what I like about this is the hostess, Cathy Mitchell. I'm not sure what makes her the "kitchen expert" that she is reported to be, but I'm telling you, I could watch her demonstrate this dang contraption until the cows come home. My favorite is the chocolate cake she makes and puts a small candy bar inside for a "surprise". The only thing that's a surprise is that the candy bar somehow doesn't melt and just ends up a lump inside of the cake. Classic!

My last favorite informercial is the spray on make-up. No longer just for Tammy Faye Baker, now we can ALL apply it with a spray hose! I can't find a link to it now, but I'm sure most of you have seen it. Again, I could watch this stupid thing over and over.

So, if I gotta be up all night long, the least they could do is play my favorite informercials. I know, I have digressed off topic. What do you expect from me? It's almost three in the freakin' morning!

Beat That

This is a new record!

With gas prices what they are, I at least stretched my dollar as far as it would go.

I had filled up my gas tank on the morning of my car accident, 9/19/08, at over $4 a gallon I might add. That tank of gas lasted me until 3/10/09! Can you believe it? As an added bonus, I only spent $1.79 a gallon on the fill up!

Now that's making my money last.

Of course, getting lugged around by Ron and Phil has also helped in my cause. I am not going to ask them how much more gas they've used carting me around!

If You Hear Me Scream, Come Running

Yesterday was laundry day.

While Ron was humping the laundry downstairs for me, my job was to open doors and turn the lights on. As soon as we got downstairs, I thought I heard a noise. I am especially attuned to strange noises in and around this house. As you know, it's not unusual for a noise to be "strange" around here!

But I heard a noise, something like a scratching. Since it is my belief that unless it's paying rent, it doesn't live here, whatever was scratching I knew didn't belong. I put a death grip on Ron's arm and said "listen!" Sure enough, a scratching was coming from somewhere.

Ron hunted down the noise while I got in my ready-to-make-a-run-for-it stance. He finally followed the sound to the source. As best as he could figure, a bird was caught in vent from the hot water tank! Geez, that ain't good.

My first question of course was "could it get into the basement?" Ron thought the opening on our side was too small for a bird to get in. I remember when we had the bat in the basement. Reading up on bats I remembered that a bat needed a hole smaller than a dime to wiggle into. I was kinda worried this might be a bat!

Ron assured me that it was probably a bird and he was just trying to find his way back out, not into the basement. Sometimes, Ron can be very convincing. He offered to take the whole thing apart and get the bird out, but then I feared that it might not be a bird and whatever it was, could end up in the basement. What a dilemma!

So, Ron stayed with me in the basement while I sorted clothes and got the first load going. Shortly after that, he headed out for awhile. Holy crap, I was on my own to deal with the noises in the basement!

When it was time to go back downstairs, I told Phil the onus was on him to keep me safe. I told him, "If you hear me scream, you better get your butt down to the basement!" He did come and check on me during my first trip downstairs, but I'm happy to report that I hear no noises. After doing six loads of laundry, there were no scratching or banging noises in the basement. I am hoping that the bird or whatever did find its way out and it's not stuck in the vent. Yeah, that's it. It found its way outside again.

Just in case; if anyone hears me screaming down there, please come running!

Itches And Stitches

You know, getting fired from your job, really plays havoc with a blog. Being cooped up all the time, it's hard to come up with a blog story!

Here's what I do have. A story about itching and a story about stitching. First the itching.

About a month ago, I got a new pair of blue jeans. Way cool, huh? Well, I wore these jeans for two days, before I washed them. I developed a terrible itch that I was blaming on the new jeans. It's right where the waist band hits, about an inch wide strip, but here's where it gets weird. I itch half way around my body along that line. From where my belly button is all the way around my left side back to where my spine is. I itch. I itch bad.

I really did blame it on the unwashed jeans. I thought maybe some fabric dye, or just the roughness of the new jeans was irritating me. Unfortunately, it's now a month later and I still freakin' itch! At times it's almost unbearable.

I've had Ron check me over pretty closely. He can see no rash, no bug bites, no irritation other than my scratch marks. I've work old and worn jeans, but I still itch. I've worn elastic waisted shorts and I still itch. I wear no pants, but where my shirt touches that half band area, causes me to itch. I've tried hand cream, Gold Bond powder and even Benedryl ointment. Nothing is making it better. It's bizarre.

Any itch remedies would be appreciated.

On to the stitches side of this story.

As most of you know by the towels you've received from me recently, I've taken up crocheting again while I've been laid up. The towels just weren't challenging enough any more plus I have more finished towels here than I have people I know. (If anyone needs more, let me know!)

I've eluded to a new project in my previous blog post. Here's the story.

I bought a few books of patterns for afghans. I picked probably the hardest one in there, but it is so the most beautiful of them! Here is a picture of a work in progress, to give you an idea.

Here is my workspace! The afghan is a bunch of squares with raised pansies. Then you sew the squares together and voila, an afghan is made!

I need 54 squares. In the middle I have a bag with all 54 centers. On the right is one completed square! Underneath all of that is my instructions.

Each square is done if four parts, as there are four colors in each square. The center, the pansie petals, the leaves and then the outer square.

This picture was taken a few days ago, so now I'm up to two completed squares, probably 20 or so completed with the pansie petals and a few more with the green leaves. It's like I'm on a mission with this thing.

If you gotta be laid up, it's good to have a hobby. I've read more books than I can count since I've been off, so this is a nice addition to occupy my time.

Anyone need an afghan? This is definitely one I will do again!

Plan "C" Just Isn't As Good As Plan "A"

Today was a plan "C" day.

Originally, we started out with plans to have my brother-in-law, Bill, come for the day along with my brother Jim. I was so looking forward to a day of family, and laughs, and reminiscences, and hopefully edible food.

Stuff happened, and Mr. Bill had to back out of family day. That's ok, on to plan "B", the one where brother Jim would make the trip and all the fun previously planned would still come to fruition. Well, once again, stuff happened.

Jim happens to be on vacation this week, and do you want to know how he's spending his week of vacation? Home, sick. Ugh, that boy sounds absolutely horrible. Needless to say, there was no Jim today. However, the guy is really sick and in no mood to cook. So, if anyone is in the neighborhood of his house, please stop by! He is in need of some chicken soup, or a sandwich, or a hot meal. Something he doesn't have to cook; ready to eat. But, for your own health, leave it in the porch and call and tell him it's there. Sorry, brother. It's the best I can do to help you out from here!

There you go. That's how you get to plan "C". What was plan "C"? Movie day!

It started with Ron finding something to watch on tv while I made us sandwiches for lunch. Air Force One with Harrison Ford (his best movie, in my opinion!) was just starting on one of the cable channels. We watched maybe the first 10 minutes, and decided it was going to be hunker down and enjoy a movie day. But, if we're going to enjoy a movie, I'd rather it not be on a cable channel all chopped up and full of commercials. I happen to own a copy of this movie. Ok, it's a VHS but I still own it!

I grabbed the movie and my newest crocheting project (a whole other story) and we watched the movie from the beginning. Dang, that is one GOOD movie! I almost broke Ron's hand a few times, but we enjoyed the movie.

We did decide to get something productive done between movies. We tore the fish tank apart and gave it a good cleaning. Poor fish. They needed a good scrubbing. Now the fish are fat and happy and clean!

Once work time was over, we were back to movie time. We went through our video collection and chose The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis as our second feature. Need I say any more about Bruce? Wow.

So, there was our Saturday. I missed out on family day. And, now I'm afraid to fly again and afraid of the dark again. Plan "C" kinda sucked in hindsight.

Feel better, Jim! You were missed!

My Two Cents Worth

Ron and I went to see Gran Torino today, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.

I have been a huge fan of Eastwood's ever since he got out of the spaghetti westerns. I gotta tell you though, this was the worst waste of celluloid I've seen in a long time. This was one piece of crap movie.

Could he have hired ANYone that could act??? Grandma was ok, the rest of the cast should be arrested for impersonating an actor. Geez.

If you haven't seen it, don't. If you have, well, like us, there went two hours that you will never get back.

This has been my two cents worth.

I Actually Won An Argument!

The argument was with two men, in a parking lot. Unfortunately, it wasn't with the two men I live with!

Tuesday was my big out day. I went out all by myself! No driver assistance. C'mon now, once in awhile, a gal has to break free.

First stop, post office. Ok, I only stalled out my car once. I guess I'm not so used to that clutch anymore. Second stop, K-mart. I know, I know, this IS an exciting life!

I walked around K-mart, just trying to enjoy some alone time. I looked at this and that, and even picked up a few things. A few of my purchases was some storage totes. I guess I'm trying to make some order in my life. Nothing says order like Rubbermaid.

I had two 21-gallon totes, plus a smaller tote and a few sundry items. I was in the parking lot trying to put my stuff in the trunk of my car. The trunk in my car is surprisingly large. From the outside, it doesn't look like it would be.

I have my cart, my trunk is open, and I'm trying to do most of this stuff one handed which wasn't working. Two "gentlemen" were walking through the parking lot and both of them felt the need to stop and tell me that there was no way those totes were fitting in my trunk. I said, "really?" Both kinda chuckled that chuckle I've heard before. The "I'm going to humor her until she fails" chuckle.

I don't have much in my trunk, but I did have one item that was getting in my way. I pushed it back a bit, grabbed the totes with two hands, and they both went into the trunk, straight up. The rest of the stuff was nothing with most of it fitting into the totes.

I looked at the two guys and said something like "I guess it's going to fit" and I closed my trunk and went to put my cart in the corral. I got a few dirty looks from them, but no apologies or atta girls or anything. It's ok, I did my happy dance back to my car, proud of myself for going out alone and for fitting all that into my trunk!

I also did a happy dance in my driver's seat all the way home. I unloaded my car, then pulled my car into the garage. I thought it was a good day.

Ron and I were going to go out for lunch today and I said let's take my car! When we went into the garage, we saw that the trunk was wide open.

I know from experience that leaving your trunk open will run down the battery of the car because of that darn little light in the trunk. Sure enough, there wasn't enough power in that car to unlock the doors with the clicker!

Moral of the story is that I might not be smart enough to close the lid on my trunk, but I WAS smart enough to win an argument with two men! So there!

Friday The 13th

I have a great Friday the 13th story!

I got fired today, via the FedEx delivery man! C'mon now, that's a great story!

Yes, today the FedEx man showed up with an envelope for ME. The envelope came from my corporate office in Atlanta. Imagine my surprise as I read that as of 2/11/09, my position was no longer being held open. Hmm. Phone lines must have been down since this is the first I've heard of it.

So what do we have here. I no longer have to look at a boss that has previously hit me with a car and laughed about it. I no longer have to listen to his thoughts on how he wants to kidnap a little girl off the street just for fun. I no longer have to deal with a boss that steals money from me, just because he's the boss and he can. I no longer have to listen to his diatribes on women, minorities, gays, senior citizens or anyone else that isn't a WASP. Aside from the financial thing, how can this be a bad thing?

So now I am brushing myself off, and getting ready to turn the page to get to the next chapter of my life. And, work on healing. Tomorrow will be another day.

But for now, I got fired by the FedEx guy. That's just funny, I don't care who you are.

I Hope It Will Be Worth It

Every week, brother Phil and I have a date at the library. We take books back, we pick up more books. I do love my library.

I have a couple of lists of books that I want to read. Before we go to the library, I will look up a few in the library's system and I can see if what I want is in stock at my local branch. If it is in stock, I can also see exactly where in the library it would be. I love my library AND the electronic age!

If my local library doesn't have one of the books I'm looking for, I can see if any library in the Cleveland system has a particular book. If I can see they own a copy, I can put a hold on a book. Usually, the books I am looking for are not new releases, so I can get a requested book in a few days. I get an email stating my book is ready, I go to my branch and the book will be sitting on a particular shelf with my name on it. Piece of cake.

Once in awhile, I have to get on a waiting list for a book. Again, I have never waited too long to get through a queue to get my requested book. Until now.

I have heard a lot about the Twilight series of books. I guess there are four books in the series, and the first book has been made into a movie. I know, it's about vampires. That is one of the last things I of all people should be reading about. But, the target audience for this series is young adult, so how bad can it be? It seems to be so popular, I at least want to judge for myself if all the hype is true or not.

On January 6, 2009, I put a hold on the first book, Twilight. I was # 364 in the queue for this book! For real? I have to wait for 364 people to read this book before I can read it? It's a good thing the library has a bunch of copies!

It is now February 9, 2009 and I am up to # 100 in the queue!

Maybe I'll get a copy of this book by June. I sure hope it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, it's a good thing I have a gazillion other books on my list I want to read.

Get Your Motor Runnin'

Head out on the highway! Lookin' for adventure, and what ever comes our way!

Can you see me? Born to be wild?

Saturday, the local Harley Davidson dealership had a party. We love parties, so we went. Hey, any excuse for free hot dogs and beer, plus plenty of Harleys.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Ron said to me that he's only looking, he is not buying. I, however, made no such promise.

We went into the Harley dealership, had our hot dogs and beer and met a nice salesman named Joe. We talked, we walked around, and I think I fell in love. Can you just see me on this bike? C'mon now, it's ME!

Ron was fond of a few touring bikes, but this one had my name all over it. My new buddy Joe and I are in discussions regarding formal lessons. Before I spend this kind of money, I should be able to drive one of these things.

As a side note, I did drive one once, but it was MANY years ago and it was after MANY beers, so it was something I definitely should not have been doing at the time. But, I digress.

We continued to walk around, checking out the new bikes and the used bikes and talking about signing up for lessons.

We were at the dealership towards the end of the party. As time got closer to closing time, a handful of the Harley employees started moving a few of the bikes away from the front of the showroom. Another employee started sweeping the floor. Dang, that's one way to get people out! Start working! But, no, that wasn't it.

We watched two more employees struggle to move an arch from the service area to the showroom. This arch was adorned with orange and black bows (Harley colors) and some little piggies (HOGS, get it??!!). There was to be a wedding in the showroom! Hello? Who doesn't love a Harley, but c'mon now!

We didn't stay to crash the wedding, as we weren't dressed properly. Well, Ron did have his leather jacket on, but we had no other Harley regalia with us. We finished our beer, talked again with Joe, and we left. For now.

Like a true nature's child, I was born, born to be wild!

Eggs Update

Well, we tried.

And, we've learned a lot, so maybe if there is a second attempt, it will be more successful!

The eggs, when they are viable, are amber in color. If they turn white, they are no longer viable and the dead eggs will immediately start to develop a fungus. One of the tricks is to get the dead eggs out quickly so as not to infect the good eggs.

We did have a few eggs that hatched , but they never got big enough to call them baby fish! The first thing to happen would be tails sticking out of the eggs. We got to that point!

From what we've read, these eggs would start hatching in three to seven days, depending on water temperature. Sure enough, on day three, we started to see movement in the breeder tank. Every day, it seemed that there was more and more movement.

However, in spite of treating the water and trying to keep the white eggs out, we lost the battle.

It was a fun project though and we did learn a lot. Maybe next time.

25 Random Things About Me

I read a lot of blogs. Sometimes, I borrow ideas from other people to write about. One of the blogs I read recently had a list of 25 random things about this person. Hey, it beats the heck out of those insipid chain emails! Read it or not: In fact, I'm not sure I HAVE 25 random things about me to tell you!

1. When I was about 17, I stole my Dad's new car to take my lazy butt to the store. He wasn't due home from work (as he took the BUS to work every day!) for another 20 minutes or so, so I thought I had time. I drove the eight blocks to the store, the eight blocks back only to find the neighbor across the street had parked his car almost exactly where Dad's car had been parked at the curb! I had to knock on his door, confess to him what I did and beg him to move his car to save my life! I owe him one.

2. I still hate flying.

3. I love seedless grapes. Frozen or unfrozen.

4. My friends, Ruth and Jeff, from Ripley NY came to Ohio to visit me about six year or so ago. We were driving around over by Ohio City when we saw someone had set a bus shelter on fire. Jeff, a volunteer firefighter, calmly pulled over and put out the fire. Nothing to see here; he got back in the vehicle and we drove away. A true, quiet, hero.

5. I tended bar for 10 years.

6. Coincidentally, or not, I dated an abusive alcoholic for 10 years. Go figure.

7. I hate peas. And lima beans.

8. I am color blind.

9. My favorite color is blue. Or at least I think it is. Being color blind I guess I can't really be sure.

10. I love to watch Judge Judy. I think because she looks like my Mom.

11. I hate my feet.

12. I am afraid. All of the time. Of everything.

13. I was almost arrested; twice. The first time, the DUI laws aren't what they are now, and the police officer that pulled me and Maura over for my sitting on the car door half out of the car let us go with a warning. He shouldn't have done that. The second time, a friend and I were filling an acquaintance's car up with snow. The acquaintance was an idiot. The cop was a friend of mine. The cop said if we just walked away, he'd let us go. We walked. I owe him one too.

14. I went to a baseball game at the Astrodome all by myself! Astros vs Cincinnati. The scariest part was finding my car by myself in the parking lot after the game.

15. Right now, my favorite food seems to be Chinese food. I could eat it every day.

16. I love hugs. I can't get enough of them. And foot rubs too! The best!

17. I have a lot of nightmares. And weird dreams.

18. I love reality TV. I seem to add more and more shows to my list every year. This year, I started to watch The Bachelor. I can't tell you why I am watching this, as it's a freakin' train wreck! How could 25 beautiful, educated, supposedly intelligent women demean themselves like this on national TV? How can these women, 2 hours after meeting a total stranger, profess their love for this man and their desire to marry him at the end of the show? Hello??? A train wreck. I just can't look away. Insecurity is a terrible, terrible thing. Nothing like the awesome reality shows like Big Brother, Survivor, Top Chef, American Idol, Hell's Kitchen, to name a few.

19. I have an addictive personality. And, CDO. That's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order, the way it should be! Pogo pushes all my buttons; that's why I can't stop. I'd be an alcoholic if only alcohol didn't make me throw up.

20. I am easily offended. You may not know it, but I don't forget.

21. I feel better mentally when I can escape reality into the fantasy of a book. My favorite books are police or detective or mystery books. The kind where good triumphs over evil. Yeah, that makes things good in my world.

22. I wish I could dance.

23. I have been blessed with the best siblings, E.V.E.R. A great boyfriend, too! Bonus!

24. I am allergic to eggs; I can't eat them without severe gastric distress. I had two eggs over easy on Saturday and I was sick through Tuesday! But they were some damn good eggs.

25. Tomorrow always scares me. I don't know what's coming, but I am not ready for it. Every night, it hits me that a tomorrow is just around the corner. Scary.

Damn, I could probably go for 50 random things about me! Who knew I could ramble! Yeah, I know. Better question is who didn't think I could ramble!

Eggs - Day One

I know, I know. Another fish tale. But, hey! I haven't had much else to write about!

Here is a better picture of the eggs on our scrubber. The scrubber is safe and sound in the breeder tank with the netting around to protect any hatched eggs.

At the very top of the picture is one snail that will remain safe for the moment! I don't want to upset the breeder tank to try to get at that one snail. Trust me, there are many more snails in there for smooshing!

One warning that we've read about separating the eggs from the parents is that this can cause the parents to start fighting, as if blaming each other for the loss of eggs. This will sometimes stop the pair from future breeding. I was kind of worried about that. Yes, I am over here worrying about the feelings of my fish!

However, I think we're lucky. The parents, since they can still see, smell and almost feel the eggs, are still united as a team in protecting their offspring. This picture you can see mom on the right watching her eggs while dad is off to the left shooing away the silver mollys who came to feast.

Hopefully, mom and dad will continue to watch over their brood, safely tucked away from them. Who knows? Maybe by day six or seven we'll see little tails sticking out of the eggs! That's the next step in their growing. Their tails stick out first! Here's hoping I can capture THAT with a camera!

We're Grandparents!

Don't get too excited! This is another fish story!

In case you're new here, we have a 65 gallon fish tank with community fish. (Don't get me started on THAT decision!) We have some live bearers, silver mollies and red wag platys, both of which we have successfully bred. The life span of the red wag platys has been short, but we do have at least 20 silver mollys from the original four that we started with.

To stop the population explosion, we also have some blue gouramis. They are wonderful for keeping the fry population in check! We have never been successful in getting them to lay eggs, let alone hatch any. That's ok, they are a lot of work to breed, and I'm allergic to that much work.

When we first set up the tank, we tried to get angel fish in the tank. We had a horrible time in the beginning trying to get them to live for any length of time. We had to go through about a dozen or so before we got the water just right and all that. Out of our original dozen or so, we only had one survive.

Our lone survivor has thrived! Her body alone is at least as big as the palm of my hand, with her fins making her larger than my hand. She's beautiful! But, I thought she must be lonely, being the only one of her kind.

A few months ago we were in the fish store and they had a total of four little bitty angels. We bought them all! Their bodies were about the size of a dime and they were so cute! You really can't sex angel fish at that age (or at least I can't!) so we had no idea what we had.

The four have grown and thrived and played well with all of the other fish in the tank.

A couple of weeks ago, Ron was upstairs on a conference call so I stayed downstairs to stay out of his way. I was in the living room when I noticed two of the angel fish sliding one at a time on their bellies up a large flat leafed plant. It was mesmerizing! It took me quite awhile to realize they were laying eggs! Woo hoo! We were lucky enough to get a breeding pair! At one time or another, Ron, Phil and I were at the tank marveling at this tiny yellowish marvels! The thoughts of all these baby angels were running through my head!

Unfortunately, morning brought the reality that someone in the tank had a smorgasbord of caviar the night before. There was not one little egg left.

So, there you go. It was beautiful to watch, but no success. We thought if they laid eggs once perhaps they would do it again.

Today was the day!

We have a scrubber in the tank. It's two pieces, one goes inside of the tank and it has a soft scrubbie that goes against the glass. It is held together by a magnet that has a soft felt piece that goes against the glass on the outside. It's a great tool to keep the glass inside of the tank clean. You just grab the piece outside and work it up and down the glass. The magnet keeps the inside piece up against the outside piece and voila! Algae gone on the inside of the tank! When not cleaning, we keep it on the side of the tank, and I run it around every couple of days to keep the glass clean.

Today I was at the tank, inspecting my fish and I started thinking about angel fish eggs. I looked all over the plant they used before as an egg depository but I saw nothing. I looked the rest of the tank over and there they were! On the scrubber!!! From what I understand this is not an optimal place for the angel fish to lay their eggs. They prefer a flat rock or a pipe that goes from the ground at an angle to the side of the fish tank. We don't have that, so I guess they are making due!

This first picture on the left is taken from the outside of the tank. You can see our water level is down about an inch (hey, it needs a good cleaning! What can I say?) and you can see the white scrubber against the glass on the left. If you look closely, or click on the picture, you see little yellow dots on top of the scrubber. Those are the eggs!!! And, that is the proud daddy fish standing guard over his offspring just to the right of the scrubber! I know, it's kind of hard to see but there are about 200-300 eggs on that little space!

This picture on the right was taken from above the tank looking down into it. You can again see the little yellow spots on the scrubber at the top of the picture.

It's really hard to take pictures of the fish in the fish tank! But, maybe you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.

To say the least, we are thrilled! No, we're not looking at becoming angel fish breeders. But, a few new fish in the tank at no further cost to us would be wonderful! Plus, who doesn't love babies? Even if they are fish?

Also, at this time of the year with the cold and snow and gloom, it's good to have something like this to get excited about. Yes, I know, I need a life!

Ron read up on how to get the eggs to turn into fry, or baby fish. Of course, what is recommended is a lot of work. Remember, I'm allergic to that kind of hard work! They suggest first a 2-1/2 gallon tank for the eggs with it's own filtration system, then a 5 gallon tank, then a 10 gallon, and finally back to the original 65 gallon tank. Yeah, right. I don't think so.

But, Ron thought he wanted to try to get at least a few fish to hatch and not get eaten through the night. We're going to do our version of the hard work!

Ron took the inside part of the scrubber and placed it in a breeder tank. This is a little plastic tank that sits by hooks on the inside of the tank. The plastic keeps the other fish away from the eggs or fry, and we also have a netting around this in case any fry do develop and go like they are supposed to, out the hole in the bottom of the breeder tank to get to the plants and rocks below. Ron is going to try to keep them segregated in the main tank until they are big enough to make it on their own. We'll see.

Just so that everyone is up to date on everything going on in our fish tank, to round off our "children", we have our plecostomus, Fred. Fred is nice and big and healthy and at least 7" long. He's hard to measure (yes, we've had a ruler in front of the tank before trying!) so that is a guesstimate. I think I'm pretty close. And, our newest addition is snails. Ok, they were an accident.

When we bought the last batch of angel fish, I wanted to try live plants as well. Live plants help keep the water in balance. They are relatively cheep, so I picked out three plants and off we went. I asked the sales kid what I needed to know about live plants. Did they need washed? Were there any special instructions? The smart aleck said "yeah, just put them in your tank". Cool. I can do that.

What he didn't tell us that if you put live plants into your tank, chances are VERY good they are coming with either snails or snail eggs. You wanna talk about breeders? It is amazing how quickly the freakin' things reproduce!

And, yes, JoBeth, I have finally become a snail smoosher. You stick a finger in the tank, smoosh the snails in reach against the glass and the fish fight for the smooshed goods. It's pretty gross, but it has become the favorite food of the angel fish.

Between the three of us, we smoosh at least 30 snails a day. A day. Who'd have thought? Eww.

A Party In The Making

Don't ask me why, but today I watched part of Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. In the life of the show, I've maybe seen two shows. For some reason, it was on the tv today. That was a great thing!

Today was Ellen's birthday. For her birthday, they had to play whatever game she wanted, and she chose blindfolded musical chairs.

Check out the woman in yellow named Karen. She so made this game! All I know after watching this is that for my next birthday, we're playing blindfolded musical chairs, and I want this woman at my party!

I know, the video is nine minutes, but hang in there. I was laughing so hard at this I wanted to pee my pants!

Just When You Think You've Heard Everything

I'm still scratching my head over this one. I guess it beats the three shells method!

Bad Hair Day

I had my hair cut a couple of weeks ago. I didn't go for a trim this time, I had a LOT taken off! Now it's just about shoulder length, but not by much. I'm very happy with it.

When I got it cut, the hair dresser dressed up my hair with a curling iron. Who doesn't love curls? I haven't used a curling iron since high school.

For my birthday, my sister Cathie sent me a curling iron and hot rollers. I have no idea really, how to work either instrument. I decided to start with the hot rollers. It took only one phone call to Cathie to ask what the extras with the rollers were for (one set of plastic clippies and one set of metal U's. I still have no idea what the metal U's are for.) and I was off.

I got the rollers heated up and installed in my hair. After a few minutes, the rollers came out, a few finger rubs through my hair and I LOVED it! It wasn't too curly, just nice body, and relatively easy. I emailed Cathie all excited and told her I looked so cute! Of course, she wanted pictures.

The batteries in my camera were dead, so Ron offered to take a picture with his phone. From his phone, he does some voodoo where he plugs his phone into his computer and he can then put the image on my desk top. He told me where the picture was and I went to grab it to put it in the email to Cathie. Here is what he sent:

Yeah, good thing Ron's cute, I can't be mad at him. And, for the record, I came out looking a LITTLE better than this!

That Was Helpful

With me being home so much lately, I have been trying to cook dinner most nights.

Since I have very few recipes in my repertoire, I have been asking for help and ideas on how not to cook the same five meals every week.

In comes my sister, Cathie! She gave me a magazine subscription to Taste of Home magazine. While the magazine is great, even better than the magazine is their website. Once you sign up for their website, not only can you search all their recipes, but you can put the ones you like in a recipe box so you can go back to them at any time.

Another great feature is their grocery list option. I pick a couple of new recipes a week, put them on my grocery list, then print out the list. The list has everything needed for the recipes I've chosen. The list is then divided into sections of the grocery store! So, spices will all be together, meats together, produce together, etc. It's awesome! Then I take the list to my cupboards and cross out what I already have. I have spent many an hours on this website!

Today I was planning my menus for the week and decided I wanted to make scallops with alfredo sauce. I've tried a few jar alfredo sauces and I've not been overly excited about any of them. I wanted a home made alfredo sauce. It couldn't be that hard.

So, I went to my new favorite website, and in the search window typed in "alfredo sauce". In return, nine pages came up that all had some kind of alfredo sauce in it.

One of the things I like about this website is that the recipes all seemed easy, and the ones I've tried to do I did with no problem. That said, I randomly chose six recipes from the first three or four pages to see if I could get a good recipe for alfredo sauce. Yeah, each and every one of them said under ingredients, "one 17 ounce jar of alfredo sauce".

Duh.

I could have done that without searching the doggone website! Luckily, a little more digging and I found an actual recipe to create the sauce from scratch.

So, scallops alfredo is scheduled for Wednesday night.

Tomorrow, I am making what I make best for dinner: reservations at Applebee's!

The Day After

The best part of the day after my birthday?

Breakfast was left over pizza! Lunch was leftover cake and ice cream!

Oh, yeah. That's why I love birthdays!

It Came In With A Bang

Yes, today is my birthday.

Out of 365 days in a year, I think your birthday is the best day of the year. After all, many people celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, 4th of July, Arbor Day, etc., but your birthday is all for you. People who know you and love you should tell you on this day that they are happy you were born. People, it's all about the phone calls, the cards, the emails. Yes, I live for my birthday. I am awake at midnight to usher in my birthday and I stay awake until midnight to say good bye to my birthday for another year.

This year was a pretty good birthday for me. It actually started on January 15th, at 11:55 pm. Let's go back to that time last night:

My sister Cathie lives in California. For as many years as I can remember, Cathie calls me at midnight to start the birthday celebration with me! Last night, she called me at about 11:55 pm my time.

Cathie was sitting outside with her dog, talking on the phone with me. Suddenly, even here in Ohio, I hear the loud, long screech of tires followed by a large BANG. Anyone who has been anywhere near an automobile accident knows that sound.

Since it was dark, Cathie couldn't see what happened, so she grabbed her flashlight and was going to check on the driver. It ended up that an SUV laid down some series skid marks on the road, crossed the road, flew over the ditch and wrapped around a tree. Cathie was on the scene with a couple of other neighbors within a minute of the accident. The fire and rescue squad was right behind them, and they were there trying to cut the driver out of her SUV. At last update, the driver was conscious and answering questions, but was not getting out of the vehicle without a lot of help from firefighters.

So, that's how my birthday started with a bang!

I had a good family day. I spoke to, heard from, or saw all of my siblings! That is always a darn good day! I heard Cathie and Jim sing happy birthday, just like Grandma used to do it, accent and all! I don't care how many times you hear those imitations, it always gets me right here. Yeah, that was a good thing!

Michael came over with cake and ice cream and joined in on the pizza party with me, Ron and Phil. (Did you read the last post that it's freaking -13 degrees here? There was NO way I was leaving this house to go out in the cold!) It was a great pizza party, and Michael even provided the cake! We added candles, and I had them blown out before the fire department had to be called!

There was even a surprise video chat with my niece JoBeth and her husband and two little boys. Like I said, a darn good day!

Now, I'm going to enjoy the last 42 minutes of my birthday, sitting here on my heating pad and just enjoying the quiet.

I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Happy Day To Me!

Today is my birthday!

And it's -13 degrees outside according to my MSN homepage.

-13.

Yes, that's a negative number.

It may be my birthday, but I think I'm staying home!

Call me!

Now That's Talent!

Ok, this might have been seen before, but I thought it was worth repeating! This is way too cool! Turn your speakers on and enjoy.

And, thanks to Ruth for sending this to me!

Dumbed Down Day

Ever have one of those days where you are missing a few too many brain cells? That was my day on Saturday.

There was no extraordinary reason for the lack of brain cells; it just seemed like some of my important brain cells decided to take the day off. Lucky for me, it wasn't the cells that controlled breathing or my heart beating or anything like that.

Let's start with dinner. (Recipe to follow this blog.)

Phil had a hankering for something that our sister Barb used to make for him. I told him if he could find a recipe, or remember how it was made, I'd be glad to make it. He did a web search and did find the recipe on the Betty Crocker web site. Cool, I can follow directions.

Or, so I thought. For a simple recipe, I forgot to add two ingredients. I guess they weren't major ingredients (like the meat or the onions) but none the less, I forgot the salt and the cheese. The dinner was still ok as I remembered about the cheese with three minutes left to bake. Instead of being IN the pie, the cheese was ON the pie. As for the salt, well, the salt shaker on the table got a work out.

So, dinner wasn't catastrophic, but I know I could have done better. Where do you go from dinner? To do the dishes.

I rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. There is one well on the inside of the door where you add the detergent. There is another well where you add the rinse stuff. I'm not sure exactly what it does but your dishes are supposed to be streak and spot free if you keep this stuff in the machine. Maybe once a month I have to fill this well with the rinse stuff and today was the day since the well was empty.

I opened the cabinet under the sink and I saw bottle of yellow liquid detergent and a bottle of orange stuff. Since I knew I didn't want the liquid detergent, I grabbed the orange stuff and started to fill up the well. It was too late when I realized that this stuff was way thicker than it should have been. Yeah, I really goofed up. This was orange liquid dish soap (bought because I didn't like the yellow stuff) and what I should have grabbed was the blue stuff. Yeah, now you tell me.

I did what I do best. I yelled for Ron. He and Phil came running and I told them my story. We couldn't clean out my error without taking the whole door apart, so Ron thought the best course of action was just to turn the machine on and let it run it's course to get the orange stuff out of there. I may end up running the dish washer a few times to make sure all of that extra soap is out of there, but at least the good news is that after one washing I don't have a floor full of soap bubbles.

See, nothing terrible, just a lot of dumb mistakes today. And, the best is here for last!

My sister Cathie lives in California and we've finally got into the 21st century and decided we wanted to try video conferencing. Hey, even my almost seven year old great-nephew can do it, so why can't I? Ron hooked me up with a camera and a microphone and Cathie and I decided that tonight was the night to see if this would really work.

At the appointed time, we met on MSN Messenger. A minute to install the camera into MSN and we were up and running. Well, video anyway. I had no sound. I futzed and futzed, trying to open every menu that I could, trying to find a button that said either "sound" or "volume". Nothing. Dammit, it can't be this hard! Finally, I again yelled for Ron. He gave it a cursory look to see if there was an easy "sound" button but alas there was none. He wanted to sit down and start searching to help me figure out what was wrong and it suddenly hit me! I had the sound shut off on my computer! DUH! The constant sound bothers me on the computer, so I turn the volume off. Yeah, that was my problem.

So, Cathie and I had a great face to face chat, the first time in over a year! I even marked this situation properly. Before the chat, I got out of my jammies, took a shower and got dressed in real clothes! My poor sister had to see me naked before (She helped me out for a week a few years ago when I had surgery. Poor girl had to help me in and out of the shower! I'm still sorry for that, Sissy!) and I didn't think she deserved to have to see me in jammies with my hair in a pony tail. Definitely the down side of the 21st century.

A few brain farts today, but no injuries. All in all, that makes it a damn good day.

Now, if anyone is interested, here is the recipe, in full, from the Betty Crocker web site. It really was pretty good and very easy.

Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Original Bisquick mix
1 cup milk
2 eggs

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 9" glass pie plate with cooking spray.
2. In 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain. Stir in salt. Spread in pie plate. Sprinkle with cheese.
3. In small bowl, stir remaining ingredients with fork or wire whisk until blended. Pour into pie plate.
4. Bake about 25 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

That's Just Wrong, Page 16

Take a good look at this picture. Go ahead; I'll wait.

Tonight, Ron and I went to Sam's Club after dinner. I shop Sam's Club the exact same way each time I'm there. I go up and down all of the aisles on the left, across the back and then up and down all of the aisles on the right. I pretty much stay out of the middle of the store.

The last aisle on the right comes through the candy aisle and then we go over to the cash registers. As I'm walking through, looking if anything catches my eye, here is what I see.

Middle shelf, left to right, is Double Bubble bubble gum and York Peppermint Patties. Top shelf, left to right is Fruity Snacks and on the right is Imodium. Yes, Imodium. You know, the anti-diarrhea medicine?

Now, I understand merchandising to a point. I know that in the grocery stores near the pork roasts I will find sauerkraut. By the cereal will be some bananas. I get it. But for what reason would someone stock the Imodium in the candy aisle? I mean, for real. If you were looking for Imodium at Sam's Club would you think to look in the candy aisle?

I think we can all agree . . . That's Just Wrong!

Stupidity Should Be Painful - And It Was

Yesterday I was stupid. Ok, that might not be unusual for me, but I was more stupid than usual! And, this time it was painful.

I was making pork chops for dinner last night. I was pan frying the pork chops just long enough to brown them and then they were going into the oven. I could only fry two chops at a time. As one pork chop came out of the pan, I went to put another one in the pan. I had the raw pork chop on a fork for the transfer to the hot pan and PLOP! The chop fell off the fork and into the pan and the hot grease flew everywhere. Considering the hot grease got me from head to toe, I ended up VERY lucky. I have a small burn on the top of one of my feet and that was my only injury.

As I was cleaning myself up and I realized just how much grease I got on me, I am amazed, and truly lucky, that one small burn was the only injury.

So, here I am, taking inventory of the damage and the worst part is that I have grease ALL over my favorite blue sweater. As soon as I finished with the chops, I ran upstairs with my bottle of Dawn dish washing liquid (it is a de-greaser after all) and my sweater and my one sock are now soaking in one of the bathroom sinks.

My concern is what if the grease doesn't come right out? How am I supposed to get grease out of my favorite sweater?? Any suggestions would be welcome.

The good news of this story though is the pork chops. This is one of my favorite meals and I don't cook them often because mine never come out that well; always too dry. This was the exception though. These were the best darn pork chops I ever made! I paid a price for them, but they were very good.

Next time I'm working with hot grease though, I'm wearing an old t-shirt and not my favorite sweater.

A Major Reward

It is now Ron's turn!

His largest client was on a conference call with Ron and Ron's company, talking about how the service has been in the last quarter. Ron has not only met the client's goals, but exceeded them by leaps and bounds. To say the least, they are thrilled with Ron. Then again, what's not to be thrilled about with Ron?

After this conference call, the VP of Ron's company called to give him the company's attaboy for making a very large client very very happy. To show their appreciation, they told Ron that he should take me out for a very nice dinner and expense it! Dinner is on them! Hey, I'm just thrilled I am able to share in his reward!

So, Saturday night, I have a date with my boyfriend. We have reservations at one of Ron's favorite places, Pier W.

Thanks to Ron's company for footing the bill for dinner. But more importantly, way to go Ron on a job well done! As if you could do it any other way.

Phil Had An Idea

Yes, Phil had an idea. And, it was a good one, too!

Phil was nice enough to take me for a few groceries last week. One of the things on my list was a box of cake mix. I don't bake cakes very often, but I do like to have a mix on hand just in case I want one.

There we were in the boxed cake mix aisle and I was trying to make a few wise choices. A good yellow cake is never a bad choice; check. Hmm, lemon cake? Hey, one of my personal favorites; check. Then Phil pointed out a box: strawberry cake. Hmm, this would normally never make my top 10 list of cakes mixes to buy. However, Phil seemed interested in it so I thought what the heck. Phil should be allowed to choose dessert once in awhile too! We also chose the strawberry cake mix.

The more I started to think about this the more it was intriguing me. Strawberry cake with Mom's chocolate icing. Hmm, almost like chocolate covered strawberries? By last night after dinner, I couldn't take it any longer. As soon as dinner dishes were done, I started in on the cake.
Ron was nice enough to mix the frosting for me so we all had a nice late night snack! Don't knock it until you try it. And by the way . . . darned good idea, Phil!

I Am Thankful

Thanksgiving weekend. A time to give thanks. And, yes, I do have a lot to be thankful for.

Let's start with the big day itself; Thanksgiving Day. I am thankful that brother Jim made the drive out here to Ohio to join us for dinner! Since Jim was willing to do all the driving, the least I could do was make one of his favorite meals. Instead of turkey with all the trimmings, we had ham! Before you start to laugh, my ham was absolutely the best ham I ever made! I didn't do anything differently than I usually do when cooking a ham but this baby was the bomb. A good day of family and laughs and good food. Can it get any better?

Yes, it can, with another entire Thanksgiving dinner with more family!

Saturday we headed over to Michael and Mary Jane's to join in their family celebration. Hey, like I need another excuse to put on the feed bag, especially when I wasn't the one cooking it!

Ron provided his famous ranch beans, vegan style, and I went and spent all day over a hot oven baking a couple of pies. Ok, I lied. I had Phil drive me to Mama Jo's Pies and bought a couple of pies! But, if anyone asks . . . I slaved all day, ok?

The young ones of the family were in overdrive, and Papa and Grandma were in heaven in the midst of the chaos! Since Noah and Grady just woke up from a nap around the time we got there, it took them a little while to feel the warm fuzzies in a house full of adults, but they warmed up soon. Isaiah and Evan were everywhere and giving love to us all! I hope when they grow up, they carry with them the happy memories that we all have of having holiday meals with the family. Lots of people, lots of food and lots of love.

Yeah, it was a good weekend.

So, Thanksgiving. What am I thankful for?

• Ron
• Family
• Friends
• Large print books at the library
• Vicodin (for which I am VERY thankful)
• Pomegranates
• Light traffic days
• Yellow finches eating from our bird feeder
• Foot rubs
• Sitting on my front porch on a nice day
• Halushki and Cabbage
• www.fark.com - curses to you, Michael J for teaching me this one!
• Laughter
• Kitchen curtains

What? Kitchen curtains? Ok, this is only a partial list as I am thankful for so many things. And, after being in the house for five years now, we finally put up kitchen curtains! Ok, Ron put them up, but I supervised! I supervised him installing the rods and I supervised his hanging the curtains. If I do say so myself, he did a great job!

Cute, huh? And, as a cutesy detail, there are little grape clusters covering the loops that you put the rods through. Is this just too cute or what?

Ok, I happen to love these curtains. Good thing they are hanging in my kitchen!

Last but not least, today is my anniversary. December 1, 2001, I moved to Ohio. I only lasted six years in Houston and here I am seven years now in Ohio! What's next? Time to move yet?

Now That's An Allergy!

I've written before about recently finding out that I'm allergic to cats.

We figured it out when we were at our friends' house and upon coming home, my eyes were red and watery and puffy, plus there was an air pocket on my cornea. It was crazy!

Going to California last Christmas, my sister Cathie did her best to de-catify her house and keeping the cats far away from me. That worked until Christmas Eve when she and brother Phil exchanged gifts of stuffed cats. Not real stuffed cats, but like stuffed teddy bear kind of cats. No real fur or cat parts were used.

Playing with their Christmas presents, I had an allergy attack. I had to go shower, then stay in my room after a dose of Benedryl trying to get the swelling down.

Tonight was an all time high.

Ron and I went for Chinese food for dinner. Coming back from dinner, we drove by a pet hospital that had a sign in front "Kittens available for adoption". HEY! Who doesn't love a cute cuddly kitten? I half heartedly joked with Ron that we should go adopt a kitten. He promptly said no. So, I countered with how about adopting two kittens? Again, his reply was NO! He reminded me that we are both allergic to cats! Ok, fine. I was sort of just kidding anyway.

Now, we've come home and my left eye went crazy. It again feels like someone threw sand into my eye. I've flushed it out to no avail. It's red, watery, swollen, and it has an air pocket on the cornea.

Yeah. That's an allergy.

I think I'm gonna take my Benedryl and just go to bed. Next person who mentions the word "C-A-T" to me gets a kick in the shin.

Nothing To See Here - Just Move Along

I know, I've been quiet. But, when you're not getting out much, there is nothing to report on a blog, phone call, smoke signal, etc.

Let's see what my excitement has been lately. The library. One of the guys will run me about once a week to my local library. I have my favorite sections in the library, lately which is the large print book section! But, I digress. I also have my favorite authors. So, when I'm in the library, I usually look through the mystery section and fiction section, mostly looking for my favorite authors. There is also a section in the front called "New Releases". Here is where I find new favorite authors!

Recently, I picked up a new book called Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin. I whipped through this book in two days because I literally could not put it down. I highly suggest this book for anyone that is in to reading a good mystery. Mr. Margolin is reminiscent of John Grisham. If you like Grisham, you'll definitely like Margolin.

So, this is where my CDO kicks in. (CDO - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order, the way it should be.) Since I loved this book, I wanted to read more by this author. I printed off a list of his books, in chronological order and have been working through the list through the library. He has written a total of 13 books, and I am on the sixth one. Like I said, I am now a big fan!

Aren't you glad you decided to read my blog today to read all about my new exciting adventures?!!

What else is happening in my world?

I am living vicariously through my siblings who are at opposite ends of the country as well as the weather spectrum. We go from my sister Cathie in California experiencing a heat wave that has her lilac bush so confused, it's blooming in November!

From Cathie we go to brother Jim in Pennsylvania, experiencing over a foot of snow last weekend. Ugh!

I know it's November, but I am going kicking and screaming into winter this year. I got up this morning, looked out the window (as I do every morning and evening) and saw a dusting of snow outside here in Ohio. I am NOT happy about it! I need to get over that quickly as I don't have any choice but to accept the fact that the snow is coming. I guess I don't have to like it, just deal with it!

What else? Since I am home, I have been doing a lot of cooking. I kind of like that part! I don't like the deciding what we're having every night, but once I've decided, I like the cooking part. Since we all know that cooking is not my forte, dinner has definitely been . . . shall we say . . . entertaining some nights! Take the spaghetti fiasco, I mean dinner, we had last week.

I am having a few issues with stretching any recipe that I used to use to feed two of us to now feed three of us. That sounds like it should be simple, but it's not. Phil and I are big left over eaters, but Ron has never been thrilled with left overs. I try to cook just what we're going to eat for dinner. That is trickier than it sounds. We ate that spaghetti for a week! I'm trying, Ron, I am!

Another thing that comes to mind when talking about all of this cooking is that I am my Mother's daughter. So many things I do are because that's what Mom did.

I made kielbasa and sauerkraut one night and Phil's comment was that the sauerkraut was not cooked the way he was used to eating it, but it was really good. Hmm. It's the only way I know how to cook sauerkraut and I happen to love it that way!

The other night I made a pot of Mom's chicken soup. For anyone in my family, one of the treats of having this soup was that Mom would put carrot chunks in the soup, she would take a little broth out of the soup into a smaller pan and cook potatoes in the broth. Then, at dinner, you'd take a few carrot chunks, a few potato chunks, a little salt, a little butter, and mush it all together. Then, add some noodles into your bowl and viola! Smash carrots, potatoes and noodles! Hey, quit laughing. It's a family favorite over here! After a bowl of this, THEN you'd have a regular bowl of soup. Ahh, happy memories.

As I was making the soup, I took out some of the broth and was cooking the potatoes in the broth. Then it hit me. Why in the hell did Mom do this? Why do we not just cook the potatoes in the soup? Why cook them separately? Does anyone know the answer to this question?

Regardless of the answer, whenever I cook potatoes for smashed carrots, potatoes and noodles, I'm doing them in a separate pan. Just like Mom.

I've Been Here Before

I finally got the results from my MRIs.

The lower back turned out to be ok and is healing on its own. The problem in my mid back however is not ok.

I have two herniated disks. One is very small and not believed to be causing any problems. The other one however, is another story. If anyone has any anatomy knowledge, the herniation is at T8-T9.

You know, I've been down this road before. I had a herniated disk before and I suffered with it for 10 years before I finally had the surgery to fix it. I have visions of the past running now through my head now and I don't want to go through that again.

The good and bad news is that the thoracic region of the back is a much riskier place to surgically correct since the spinal cord is not as pliable in this area than it is in the lower back area. So we will do everything we can to avoid surgery.

My next step will be a pain clinic. Possible solutions from the pain clinic will be spinal blocks again, however as with surgery, these are also more risky with the mid and upper back areas. There is also a chance of more physical therapy or a change in medications.

I went to a pain clinic in Westlake before and I know it is not the same as it was when I went there so I'm not thrilled about going back there for my treatment. I chose a pain clinic closer to the house but unfortunately, I can't get in until 12/3. So, I'm still researching other clinics to see if I can get in any sooner than that.

There we go. Back down the same road I've been down before. The doctor said the good news in all of this is that the back isn't broken. Yeah. That's some good news.

One More Time

Yes, tonight was another one of those nights.

It started with a little beep outside. The kind of beep that an emergency vehicle emits just to let you know they are behind you. I heard that beep, looked out the window and was pleasantly surprised with the sight of an unmarked black SUV pulling over a black Lincoln right in front of our house! When I saw four men pop out of the SUV with bullet proof vest emblazoned with POLICE I knew we had won front row seats once again!

Ron and I ran downstairs (ok maybe not run, but a good brisk walk) and just stood in our front door watching the excitement. The police officers all had their hands on their guns while they got the driver out first and then pulled the passenger out a little more forcefully.

A thorough search was done on the car, including an officer flat on the back seat checking under the seats. The picture above was taken on Ron's phone and the picture below was from my camera. Both were taken from just inside of our front door.

Yeah, we need to move. Next excitement will be when they break down our front door because they have a wrong address! And, absolutely nothing has been in the papers about the last two incidents on our street, so I don't expect to find out just what this SUV full of officers was looking for. So much for the information age.

Nothing About Nothing

I try to be frugal. I buy in bulk to cut costs and I'm not afraid to buy generic or store brands. However, some things just have to be name brand.

Toilet paper is one of them. Another is macaroni and cheese. Specifically I only buy Kraft macaroni and cheese, white cheddar being my favorite. I'm bringing this up now because we had some of this as a side dish last night for dinner.

Now, I've eaten Kraft mac and cheese for as long as I can remember. If you can imagine the blue box in your mind, the instructions on the box state that you should push in the tab on the side and then pull the top off.

Years of eating Kraft mac and cheese. Not once have I ever been able to use my finger to push in that damn tab. I always have to use the stem part of the spoon to poke through that damn tab.

Is it just me? Can anyone else open that blue box with no problem?

Police Blotter

Yes, it's another Friday night at our house! And here is the picture proof of some of the police activity as seen from our front porch.

Ron and I were sitting in the computer room watching tv. I face the window and since tonight is such a beautiful night, we actually have the windows open. Outside of the window, I see a police car go by slowly with a search light scanning the fronts of the houses on our side.

The next thing I see is another car with no lights on pulling right in front of the next door neighbor's house and the officer getting out of the car. That's all I needed to see! Ron and I went downstairs to the porch to get a better look.

Before it was all over, there were five state police cars, at least 12 local police cars along with the paddy wagon. The neighborhood was suddenly full of the red and blue flashing lights.

Of course, I did the right thing and came back in the house to yell up at Phil that we were having a family meeting on the front porch. He was all about it as well. What in heaven's name would bring out the state police as well as local and unmarked cars?

We did see two or three young men handcuffed and taken from the house one or two down from our next door neighbors and put into the back of the paddy wagon. Next thing we know the helicopter comes in with the search light. This thing has been over our neighborhood with that darn search light for the last couple of hours. In case you couldn't tell, this below is a picture of the police helicopter!


We sat out there for quite awhile when one of the police officers was walking back to his car in our driveway to leave. Since he was right there and I was right there, I asked him what was going on. Talk about blowing smoke up my butt, he actually told me that it was a party that got out of hand. Hello? I've lived in this neighborhood for over five years. Especially with the windows open, if this was a party, it was the quietest damn party this neighborhood has ever seen. Yeah, we're not buying that one.

So, this activity we were able to watch from our own porch. The only bad thing about that was I had no tree to hide behind!
There are no more officers searching our backyards and it looks like they all packed up and went home. So, I don't think this was a party gone out of hand, but if I do find out anything about what happened, I'll pass it along. Don't count on it though, as the last activity that was complete with the SWAT van was never mentioned in the paper. Just another day in our neighborhood.