Family Time

It has been a crazy week!

My sister Cathie flew in to Ohio last Sunday for a vacation. It's been a long time since all remaining siblings were in one place at one time. We had that opportunity this week for the first time since 1997. That's a long damn time.

Anyway, Cathie flew in last Sunday. I told her I'd pick her up at the airport and she wouldn't miss me, as I'd be the one crying. Hey, I can't help it. I'm an emotional kind of gal.

I got to the airport and stood at baggage claim next to the line of limo drivers. Sure enough, as soon as she texted me that she was on the ground, the crying started. I haven't seen her since Christmas 2007 and talking almost daily just isn't the same! The limo drivers were all giving me funny looks but who cares! I waited. And I waited. None of us are as young as we used to be but for crying out loud, if she walked any slower, she'd have been walking backwards! I swear!

We finally got our huge sister hug and the tears started to flow in earnest. Luckily, I had the foresight to put tissues in my pocket. We gathered ourselves up and got her bag and headed out.

As a side note, if you haven't been to the Cleveland airport in awhile, it's totally changed. There is a lot of construction going on both in and around the airport; what a mess. But, I digress.

From the airport, Mike, Mary Jane, Phil and Ron met us at a BBQ place not too far from the house for dinner, Moosehead. It was a great dinner. We laughed and giggled and hooted and hollered until they kicked us out to lock up the restaurant.

Monday Cathie and I spent the day being tourists in Lorain. From Lakeview Park to the Black River Landing and most of the places in between. Just about any place I've talked about going, I took Cathie to see. Even my local library!

We tried to go back in time for dinner. We bought the fixings to make City Chicken, hopefully like Mom used to do. The only problem was, we really weren't sure what it was that Mom did. We went to the meat department at Fligner's and picked up veal cubes, pork cubes and the wooden sticks to make the "legs". I trusted Cathie with a knife and she cut the cubes of meat to a more appropriate size while I jabbed at them with the sticks. After all was said and done, I have to admit, we were damn close to the way Mom used to make them! Way to go, Sissy! We make a great cooking team! Mom would have been proud.

Tuesday found us teaming up again in the kitchen as we had our friends Larry and Linda over for dinner. Again, lots of laughing, lots of joking and believe it or not, another great meal.

Then here is what happened on Wednesday:

Jim came from Erie, Michael came over and for the first time in a long time, we were all together. Good, bad or otherwise, we were all together. The old stories were told and retold. It's amazing that five of us have five different versions of some of our histories. That aside, I think a great time was had by all.

After all of the laughing and arguing and eating and story telling, Jim headed back to Erie with Cathie in tow. They had a whirlwind few days planned, touring New York and Pennsylvania. I can't wait to hear their stories when they return sometime Sunday evening.

Now after all of that, here is my public service announcement.

If anyone has an older brother, give him a good noogie. For real. Who'd have thought that at our ages, we'd still be pestering each other like this. Let me tell you though, that this simple act did me wonders. This has renewed my soul, just a little bit.

So follow my advice: if you have an older brother, give him a noogie. (Look out Phil, I'm not the only one that has you as an older brother!)

It Wasn't Me

Ok, this made me laugh so hard, coffee came out of my nose.

For real!

Tom Mabe: Eavesdropping

I'm A Snoop

I didn't realize how much fun, and how rewarding, snooping can be. I don't mean like snooping in someone else's medicine cabinet although I hear that can be its own kind of fun. I mean snooping in my own house.

I have issues with my basement. I can muster up some courage to go into the basement if it is during the day. But there are two rooms in the basement that I will NOT go into, day or night, alone. It has nothing to do with any ghosts that I believe live in this house but because of BUGS. Namely, spiders. Can you say EWW??

The first of these off limits rooms is a dry cellar that is directly under the front porch. It's called a dry cellar, but it's really not. When it rains, we get water in there. It normally is a little damp and dampness in my mind equates to bugs. There are some shelves in this dry cellar with some odds and ends on it and an oak barrel (it was there when we moved in!) and old sink (again, from when we moved in) and that's about it.

On the other side of the basement is the old coal room. Years ago, this house used to be heated by a coal furnace. The coal truck would back up the driveway, there is a little door on the side of the house that they'd open the door, put the slide in the door and the coal would empty from the truck, down the slide and into the coal room in the basement. From there, you would shovel out the coal and shovel it into the coal furnace. Sounds like a lot of work to me! This is a very dark room as there are no windows in it and the walls are cinder block. Damn scary to someone with arachnophobia! No way I'm going in there, with or without Ron!

So, Sunday afternoon, I was putzing in the basement. Ron happened to be in the basement having a cigarette, so I asked him to go into the dry cellar with me. I haven't been in there in a long time and I just wanted to look around. You wouldn't believe what I found in there!

I found a box that I packed up when I left Houston. All the breakables in the box were wrapped in pages from the Houston Chronicle dated October 14, 2001. It's sad I've never opened that box since then! I lived in an apartment here for a couple of years and never opened it at the apartment. Then, in this house for almost six years, and the box was in the basement. Right now, a few things have been thrown out, one thing was broken and the rest is in the dishwasher. Bonus for me.

Speaking of bonuses, I really hit the jackpot in the dry cellar while snooping. I found a box full of goodies! There have to be 20 balls of crochet thread! Plus, books and books of crocheted doily patterns as well as a home made book of favorite crocheted doily patterns!

For the life of me, I could not remember getting this box. I looked at the writing on some of the pages and couldn't recognize the writing. My first thought was that I got it from my sister in law, since both of us had crocheted doilies throughout the years. According to Mary Jane, they weren't from her. This was a mystery. When I saw my name written on the box, I was really stymied! My mind was just drawing a blank.

Finally, going through the books in the box, I saw a name written on one of the books. Lil! My friend Jeff's Mom! I have a huge box of goodies and I am ashamed to say that I don't really remember getting the box. And WHY did I put this in the dry cellar? I have no idea how long it's been there, but I'm telling you, it was like Christmas here yesterday afternoon!

Maybe for that reason, I put the box away when I got it, because it was meant to be found on a day that I needed to find something that happy. Then again, maybe it was Lil herself stopping by to say hello. I know she was on my mind all day yesterday. And now today my mind is filled with creating these beautiful doilies. Here's hoping my bifocals will allow me to crochet with the thread again!

So there you go. Start snooping in your own house. You never know what treasures you will find.

Where's George?

I have a little bit of CDO. That's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order, the way it should be.

I know I'm not as bad as most obsessive compulsives, but I definitely have my issues. One of the ways that this manifests is in my following of one of my favorite websites.

www.wheresgeorge.com

Where's George tracks currency. I know it sounds silly, but I am totally addicted to Where's George.

I suggest that everyone should start their own addiction to this website. Follow the link above and register for an account. Not to worry, it doesn't take but a minute. Then, start entering your one dollar bills.

You can enter any denomination, but I hold my addiction to just ones. You enter what year is on the bill. Then, you enter the serial number, complete with the alpha characters before and after the number. A box is provided for a note to go with the bill. Personally, I like to keep track of where I got the bill and I write that in. For example, I will write that I got the bill in change from the local post office in my city, or something similar. I am extremely anal about not spending a dollar bill before I can enter it into Where's George!

After I'm done entering my bills, I write on the bills. Please don't tell anyone because I'm not sure how the feds feel about me marking up their bills! I've seen some people purchase a stamp to promote this website, but I just like to take my favorite pen and write along the bottom margin of the bill, the website address of www.wheresgeorge.com.

Then I wait for the emails to come in. Where's George will automatically send an email when someone else enters your bill into their system. This was more common back when I was traveling and would spend my ones all over. But, now I still get excited that a bill I entered in Brunswick Ohio is in Portland Maine. Or how about my bill that I entered in Lorain Ohio that was last reported in Kenosha Wisconsin. Or, one of my favorites that I entered while staying in a hotel in Pittsburgh that later showed up in Erie Pennsylvania! See why I'm addicted? Where's George also writes statistics on your bills in more ways than I can ever explain in here. It is any anal retentives dream come true.

So, try it. Tell me if you like it. Just don't blame me if you get addicted too. And, if you see one of my bills with the writing across the bottom, please enter it into Where's George. I need some emails in my inbox!

We're Watching You

Call it shutting the barn door after the horse got out, but Ron has been working on protecting us from any future break ins.

We now have an alarm system. If you know Ron, this isn't just any run of the mill system, either! He has numerous components hooked up, and seems to be hooking up more and more each day. As each component is hooked up, there is a learning curve.

Like for example, remembering to turn on the alarm system when we leave. Or, remembering to turn it off before we open a door. Yeah, little things.

I said it was an alarm system. Aside from the plain old alarm that will go off should someone breach an opening, the system will also turn on and off lights for you, there are inside motion detectors and outside motion detectors. Some of the motion detectors also turn on the recorder on the cameras to tape whatever tripped the sensor. Pretty cool, huh?

Then of course, there are the cameras themselves. We have watched the activity (actually inactivity!) on our television as well as our computer monitors. This can be a whole new type of reality TV addiction for me. It's a darn addicting show, let me tell you.

Let's go back to the learning curve. Over the weekend, Phil had gone running around town. While he was gone, Ron and I decided to head out ourselves. Before we left, I sent Phil a text message letting him know we were leaving, so when he got home, he should turn off the alarm before opening the door.

Too bad I didn't take my own advice.

Ron and I ended up getting home before Phil. Since we took my car, I stopped to let Ron out of my car by the side door of the house before I pulled my car into the garage. I even reminded Ron that he should turn the alarm off before unlocking the side door . . . just . . . as . . . I . . . reached . . . up . . . and . . . opened . . . the . . . garage . . . door. DANG! Sirens, horns, lights flashing! A lot of to do in our neighborhood just because I forgot to wait for Ron to shut the alarm off before I opened the garage door! Yeah, that's hooked up to the alarm too. With all that hoopla going on, it's sure hard to get your head together enough to remember how to shut off the alarm. If nothing else, the neighbors now know we really do have an alarm.

So we are wired up. And, remember I said we also have cameras. So, the next time anyone drives by our house, make sure you wave. Chances are, one of us are watching on one monitor or another!

This And That

I have a whole lot about nothing to say. I guess when you think about it, this is nothing new for me.

Let's start with our newest guest. To the right is a picture of a praying mantis and she was huge!

I do have a fascination about bugs, when they are outside. Sorry people, but if they are inside my house, there will be a war; a war that Ron must win. But outside, I am like a little kid as I can watch a trail of ants marching all day long.

This is the second praying mantis we've had at our house. They are just amazing bugs. They are so huge, how can I go for years and not even SEE one. It's kind of hard to hide a good four inches of bug.

Ron and I were outside this afternoon enjoying the day on the front porch. Ron went to reach down to the can where he puts his cigarette butts and there was the mantis. Of course, I had to run and get a camera. Eventually, this bug took the tour of our front porch. He went from by the butt can to on the back of the glider. Luckily, I was not sitting there at the time.

From the glider he went to the ceiling and kept creeping until he was right outside our door. I kept waiting for a knock!

Ron ended up cooking out on our little grill on the porch. The praying mantis crawled across the ceiling to get a good look at what Ron was cooking.

Speaking of dinner we did go all out tonight with some surf and turf and of course, some Fenik's corn. All I did was the corn and Ron handled the hard part. This was one fine dinner! And, before anyone asks, the two of us pigs left nothing on our plates so no doggie bags for anyone.

Lastly, something I've wanted to blog about but it just didn't seem to merit an entire blog entry.

Our closest neighbors are in their 90s. They are truly wonderful people and we enjoy their company immensely. So, when we're working around the house, we try to do for them as we do our own. Ron cuts our grass then cuts theirs. Our trees or bushes need trimmed, theirs gets trimmed too. Plus, he thinks my home made bread with extra raisins is just out of this world. I'll do just about anything for compliments like that. But, I digress.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked Ron to trim a few branches from the neighbor's chestnut tree as they were hanging over our driveway. Here is a picture of the chestnuts on the tree; full of spines.

Ron went and grabbed the industrial pruners and I stayed there to point out which branches I wanted trimmed. Obviously my brain went on vacation without me because as soon as he cut the branch, my instinct was to reach out and grab it. Yeah, not one of the smartest things I've ever done. I ended up grabbing one of the chestnuts and now I have a hand full of spines.

This has to be two weeks ago and I'm still picking the spines out of my right hand. Being my right hand, it makes it doubly tough to try to pick them out left handed. And, these spines are almost invisible. I need to wait until the entry point of the spine gets infected, thus causing the spine to darken a little so that I can find it and dig it out. Trust me, this has not been fun. I've taken three out of my little finger so far and one out of the side of my palm. I think one or two more and I should be done with it. Yeah, see why I waited to tack this on to another blog?

There you go. Everyone updated on this and that.

Dang, I AM Old

Emmys, Oscars, VMAs, none of them matter too much to me. However, the next day I do like to surf the internet and check out who won what and more importantly, what were they wearing!

Granted I have no fashion sense of my own but I do consider myself the top judge on Project Runway as well as America's Next Top Model. I know, I know, I have issues. But, I digress.

I was looking around today to see what I could see on the 'net about last night's Video Music Awards. Granted, my taste in music runs the gamut from the 50s to the 80s with very little else thrown in there, so I really don't know too much about today's music.

I read about Taylor Swift (I have NO idea who she is) getting upstaged by Kanye West (whom I've at least HEARD about) and I think it was awful what he did to her. In case you missed what happened, here it is. You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. West.

Kanye West Storms The VMA Stage

Other than that, I was looking through the who's who and what were they wearing. C'mon now, some of this stuff has to just be made up! Am I really this old and out of touch?

Katy Perry - I've heard of her; I have no idea what she does or why she's famous.

Here are some I've NEVER heard of - Actress Leighton Meester, TV personality Kristin Cavallari (she's not on MY tv), Allesandra Ambrosio, Andy Samberg, Ashley Green, Chase Crawford, singer Adrienne Bailon (what does she sing???), singer Cassie (obviously no middle or last name needed here), FeFe Dobson (I can't make this stuff up!) and the list goes on and on. For real, has anyone ever heard of these people???

On the flip side of the coin are the people that were there that maybe shouldn't have been. Keep in mind, somehow these VMA awards are sponsored by MTV. You know, the channel that used to play music videos non stop. Anyway, two of the people that were there were Actress Faye Dunaway (Network, the original Thomas Crown Affair, Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown just to name a few) and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin who was on the crew during the first lunar landing; the second person to step foot on the moon. Why are these two people at the VMAs???

I am out of touch. I used to know all about this kind of stuff! I am old.

It Could Have Been Worse

From the "it could have been worse" files, here is one from my sister.

My sister Cathie lives in Ojai California. She lives in an out of the way spot that really is gorgeous. To show you just how gorgeous, the picture to the right is from the last time I went to visit her a couple of Christmases ago. This was the view out of my bedroom window!

From the main road that goes by her house, you take a private road that just goes to her house and I think one more behind her. Along this private road and down her driveway she has many pomegranate trees. I know this because at harvesting time, if the idiots by her don't strip the trees bare, she sends me a care package of pomegranates! (This isn't easy since she has to get them inspected by and approved by the Department of Agriculture to ship them! Thanks, Sissy!)

Anyway, she came home from work the other day and this is what she saw:

The entire tree was snapped right off from its roots and laying there. WTF??

First reaction is to swear and complain and wonder about some people. Especially on a private road, how could someone hit a tree in the middle of the day?

Cathie gets to her front door and believe it or not, someone left a note. Anthony took the back of an envelope and on it apologized profusely for knocking down the tree. He even left his name and phone number.

Of course, the naysayer in me said it was a bogus number. Cathie had more faith. The following day when she had a break, she called Anthony. Come to find out, he was driving down the road and had to swerve abruptly to avoid hitting what he thought was a coyote. I guess he figured out that the tree was better to hit than the animal.

So, Cathie made sure he was ok, (he was sore but ok) and Anthony again apologized profusely. I gotta give props to this guy. Most people would have driven off without a word, or if he left a note it was only because someone was watching and would leave bogus information to make it look good.

Anthony took it like a man, owned up to what was his responsibility and was willing to make right. Cathie thought no harm, no foul. The tree has been there for umpteen years, it's one of many, so as long as he's ok, she was ok to just move on from here.

I'm sorry that Cathie had a tree knocked out, and I'm sorry that Anthony is probably facing some fantastic car repair bills, but by leaving that note, it does start to renew my faith in human kind. After something bad happening, some people are actually out there that still do the right thing for no other reason that it's the right thing to do.

STOP THIEF!

Too late. The sons of bitches already broke in.

I went to go out today and what did I discover? Someone broke our garage door and had a field day inside the garage.

My garage door looks kind of like this, except that the second panel down is windows. The SOBs peeled back the weather stripping on the side and took apart a hinge enough to pop the panels from the hinges. That gave them enough room to fit an arm through and push the button to open the dang door. Of course, this was after they unscrewed the flood lights of the motion detector that is on the outside of the garage and put a wicker basket over the sensor itself.

The garage is a detached from the house and while it used to be a two car garage, one of the bays does not have a bay door. So my car is parked in one bay, the other bay is full of "stuff". To get most of it in or out, my car must be backed out of the garage.

What's in the other bay? Ron's motorcycle, the riding lawn mower, the hand mower, a big charcoal grill, tool boxes, etc etc etc. What is no longer in there? A snow blower we JUST bought last winter, an air compressor and a power washer. AARGH. I feel violated for sure, but overpowering that, I am just PISSED.

On the positive side, I could see that someone tried to get in my car. The doors were locked so at least a window wasn't broken to get in to steal my $10 umbrella in the back seat. Although they were nice enough to scratch my brand new bumper on my car getting something out.

This wasn't some kids going up and down the neighborhood looking for trouble. This was someone who picked US out and meant to do us harm. About a week ago, we saw that the flood lights had been unscrewed. The lights weren't taken out of the socket, just unscrewed enough to break the circuit.

Grr. Now what is the used value of these items? Enough to file a claim after my $500 deductible and watch my rates go up? Maybe this is the worst of it; knowing we're just screwed.

So now I just have to get over it. I hate this town; I hate this neighborhood. I will finish up this pity party with all of the outside lights turned on and then start anew tomorrow.

Can You Say EWW?

I warned you that this was going to be an "eww" blog! We all know how I'm fascinated with bugs! Fascinated about outside bugs - inside bugs I'm fanatic about. But, I digress.

Last night, Ron went to go out on the front porch to have a cigarette. As an ex-smoker, I like to go outside with him and live vicariously through him. Plus, I love being the busy body of the neighborhood.

I think it was about 8:30 last night. It was getting dark and we were out there maybe 15 minutes or so. The light was on in the living room, so we were standing in the dark of the porch looking into the light of the room. I can spot an ugly bug a mile away!

I was doing a mini freak out and Ron didn't even see it! For real? It was right there on the screen door. After I pointed it out to him he realized that I wasn't going through that door for love or money. He decided to run around to the side of the house, go in the side door and come to the front and turn the light on so we could see it. As if I'd stay out there by myself. I ran around the house with him into the safety of the house.

We turned the lights on and what did we see? A katydid! As you can see against my finger, she was huge. Ron was brave enough to go outside and look. I stayed safe in the living room content to look out.

So, we grabbed a couple of pictures, turned out the lights and Ron came in to leave our katydid in peace.

I quit then and there living vicariously though Ron. I stayed inside where it was a little safer from the neighborhood killer bugs.

Belly Dancing Included

As you can tell, I've had a bit of a blogger's block. Too much of same stuff, different day. Then, this weekend happened, and now I have a lot to blog about!

My friends, David and Edna, now live in San Diego. They came back to Cleveland and Ron and I joined them for a weekend of celebrating. We started with a get together at Edna's parents' house on Friday. Edna's family is of Middle Eastern descent, so we were introduced to an entirely new way to party! And let me tell you, this family can party!

Dinner was catered by a local Middle Eastern restaurant. I don't know the name of it but the food was as delicious as it was different. I was very out of my box and tried everything that came in the door. First, I made sure that no fish heads or cow brains were used in the making of this food. I am NOT as adventurous as some in my family! Once I was assured that nothing out of the ordinary was in the food, I chowed down. I had an explanation of everything that was on the table, but now I couldn't tell you what anything was! Let it suffice to say, it was all good!

After dinner, entertainment was provided. Did I mention that this family knows how to party? The entertainment was not a rousing game of pinochle or even bocce in the backyard. The entertainment was a belly dancer! True story!

The music is fantastic and I dare you to listen to it without dancing in your seat or at least tapping your toes. The girl worked the crowd and as you can see, David was more than happy to dance with her as well. Don't think he was the only one, as most of the people there took their turns dancing with the belly dancer.

One of my favorite pictures, here is a picture of Edna, taking a picture of me, taking a picture of her! Kodak moment, huh?

Saturday, I was the numb skull that didn't take my camera with me. Saturday, we went to the St. Elias Church festival. We started with dinner under the tent. Since again, we don't know one food from another, Ron and I each chose a sampler plate. We were treated to stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage rolls (not like our Slovak ones!), hommus, these meat or spinach pies and assorted other things that I had no idea what they were.

Edna's Dad was nice enough to give us instructions on the proper way to eat some of this food. For example, some things are to be eaten while being held in your hand, and not cut up with a knife and a fork. Also, the little chips that were on my plate were supposed to be put in this salad type thing I had and not just used to scoop up the hommus! Who knew? We took our instructions and chowed down with the best of them. All I can tell you is that both of our plates were empty when all was said and done.

Again, after dinner was entertainment. A band was there, playing Middle Eastern music. I can't tell you how they had the crowd going. There weren't many people in the chairs as most people were up on the dance floor either belly dancing or doing this dance where everyone was holding hands and snaking around the floor. I obviously can't describe it, but it was beautiful and very contagious. What started with three women by the end had maybe 40 people from the ages of 7 to 90!

What a great weekend. I got to learn so much about a culture that is so rich in customs and proud of their heritage. And, thanks to David and Edna for inviting us along to play their reindeer games this weekend! You guys definitely need to come to town more often!

Science CAN Be Fun

Since I can't carry a tune in a bucket, I find this fascinating.



Bob McFerrin Hacks Your Brain - Watch more Funny Videos

Picnic Lunch

Yesterday was supposed to be the last nice day this week. They are calling for thunder storms here for the rest of the week.

Ron and I decided to grab a few sandwiches and a couple of cans of Fresca and head out for a picnic.

I've posted pictures lately of a lot of our favorite lunch spots and this place is another one. We decided to go to Lakeview Park, right on the shores of Lake Erie. Lakeview Park has a picnic area, complete with grills, picnic tables etc, but we decided to just go alfresco. We just plopped down on the stairs that head down to the beach.

It was awesome! The sun was shining, a nice breeze coming in off of the lake, the lake was blue as blue can be. Suddenly, we had visitors.

One little bee. He was annoying, but we continued on with our lunch. Suddenly, another bee. And another bee. I don't do well with ONE bee, let alone a swarm of them. We both grabbed all of our stuff; half eaten sandwiches, bags, open cans of Fresca and we made the mad dash to the van.

If anyone saw us, you would think we were mad! I think we both ran in different directions, doing our best to ward off the swarm (ok, there were probably 10 bees, but that's a swarm to me!). We were zigging and zagging, arms waving like lunatics. I made it to the van first, and left Ron to fend for himself. Finally a minute later, he jumped in as well. The first order of business was to make sure no bees followed us into the van. Aah. Safe.

There was no way we were opening the windows in the van with the bees out there, so he turned on the van, turned up the A/C and we sat there at the beach finishing our sandwiches and soda. The true troopers we are, no food was dropped on the ground during the mad dash. Bonus!

We finished eating and then took a little walk around. This park has a lovely fountain that lights up at night and shoots water at least 20 feet into the air. During the day, it's not shooting water that high, but there is still a beautiful sight. Too bad my camera ran out of battery power after just one picture or else you'd be enjoying a few more pictures right HERE!

We each even through a penny into the fountain with a wish attached. It was a beautiful lunch in spite of the bees. If one of those pennies works out, it will be even better.

Honey Do? Honey Did!

To keep any household going, it takes a lot of work. There is the regular work like dinner to be made, grass to be cut, that kind of stuff. Then, there is the infamous "honey do" list. Personally, I think my "honey do" list for Ron is much shorter than most. As a matter of fact, I can't think of one item that remains on that list!

A couple of weeks ago though, there was an item on the "honey do" list.

Off of our kitchen we have a little room that we call our mudroom. This has our refrigerator, a pantry and a counter with cupboards. The door from the pantry to the outside is a good 3-1/2 feet off of the ground. When we first moved in, I vacillated between wanting just steps down to the ground to wanting a deck and then steps. Times have changed and other things were just more important. Now, it just is what it is until there is money to think about this option again.

Since it's so high up, the door is obviously pretty unusable. It became a great place to put my recycle bins in front of it.

Back to the "honey do" list. Late last fall, I noticed that the wood trim on the outside of this door was starting to peel. I asked Ron if one day he felt ambitious, if he'd do a little scraping and paint that little bit. It wasn't awful, but it was getting there. Through the winter and into the spring, it got a little worse.

Finally, a couple of Saturdays ago, Ron wanted a project and he picked painting that door frame. He was actually able to stand in the mudroom with the door open and paint all of that outside trim. With the paint wet, we just left the door open until it dried.

We did notice one thing though. We finally had a terrific breeze blowing through the house with this door open! Believe it or not, I have no windows that open on the south side of the house. And, the breeze seems to blow mostly around here south to north. I could open every other window or door here but nothing would really move in the house until that door was open on the south side.

We started to think: Wow. Do you think we should put a screen door there?? We've been in this house six years and this is the first time THIS subject came up! I just couldn't believe the difference that open door made.

Ron took that chat to heart and Sunday he was at the store buying us a door! Ron with my brother Phil's help, spent a good part of that Sunday installing the screen door. Isn't he a beauty??



Now I'm going to have to get steps there! And not just the one step that we put there as a joke!

This has really saved on the air conditioning bill. With us finally having air movement downstairs, it has been much more pleasant downstairs. Thanks, guys!

That's Just Wrong, Page 19

I don't have a restaurant level stocked kitchen. I have an average woman-who's-trying-to-emulate-Betty-Crocker type kitchen. My kitchen is stocked with most of the normal stuff. I know, I don't have a hand potato masher much to someone's dismay, (I prefer my hand mixer for the job) and I could use a few little things yet, but other than that, I'm jiggy with what I have.

One of the things that was on my list of stuff I wanted was another dutch oven. It's one of those things I only needed occasionally, namely when I'm making lasagna. After all, the sauce is being made in one dutch oven and I'd have to dig out my big soup pot just to do some pasta.

About six months ago, Ron and I bought another dutch oven! The other day I went to make lasagna and I think this might have been the third time I've used this pot.

With my sauce simmering nicely, I brought out my new dutch oven to start the pasta. Water and salt in, the pot was on the stove. About five minutes later, I look in the pot and what do I see? A bunch of little spots on the bottom of the pan that look like rust. That can't be! I figured someone just didn't clean the pot well and I must have missed it.

I dumped the water, scoured the pot, washed it really really well and started again. Water in, salt in, heat on. Again, in about five minutes, what looked like rust was all over the bottom. I dumped out the water and here is what I'm left with:

This is totally disgusting! There has to be something inherently wrong with the pan. However, after six months, I guarantee you that I no longer have the receipt. I don't even remember where I bought it from.

I did some internet research over the weekend. The bottom of the pan says it's a Chefmate. This brand, I believe is made by Ecko exclusively for Target. I can't find a website for Chefmate so I'm going to try contacting Ecko.

My original dutch oven I bought in 1993 and it's still going strong. This one, three uses and it's rusted? That's just wrong.

When Life Hands You Lemons . . .

. . . Make lemonade.

I needed to be reminded of this point this week. You see, I've had a really bad week. I don't know if it's just one event that made me feel this way, or just the compilation of a whole bunch of little things.

For example, I've been told once again this week that I'm not worth talking to about a job opening that I'm more than qualified for since I don't have a degree. I made a barely edible enchilada casserole but had to throw the Spanish rice away (even though I've made these two dishes dozens of times before), I was making home made bread in the bread machine when someone unplugged the bread machine instead of the coffee pot and I had to throw the whole batch away, I hurt so much more than usual this week, I'm frustrated, I'm disillusioned, I'm not returning emails or phone calls. I'm just not happy this week, after just a little bit of everything. I'm overwhelmed, I want to take my toys and go home and just be left alone.

I've even been so crass as to hang up on my sister after telling her that I'm just in a poopy mood and don't want to talk. Can you believe it? Well, I guess everyone was a bit tired of my mood this week.

Friday, I was walking past the front door when I saw someone walking up the steps onto the porch. That's not too unusual, Ron gets a lot of packages delivered to the house, replacement parts he needs and such. Only I see this guy has a big vase of flowers in his hand. Excuse me? You must have the wrong house. Sure enough, they had MY name on them. That's the flowers at the beginning of this blog! Cool, huh? The best part is that you need to look closely at what's in the vase - lemons!

They were from my sister Cathie in California, just reminding me that someone in California loves me. I called Cathie right away, just crying. You shouldn't be so terrible to the people you love that they feel they have to do whatever it takes to get you to snap out of it! Ok, I get it! Life hands you lemons, make lemonade!

I had a good cry on her shoulder (unfortunately, she was at work!) and I started to feel a little better. I need to just move on.

Then, Ron came home from a service call carrying these!

Yeah, he knows my favorite flower! So many bonus points for that! I didn't realize I was being that ornery that not once, but twice in one day, people are trying to cheer me up. Ok, I get it. Its time to put on my big girl pants, take a couple more Aleve, send out even more resumes, dust myself off and quit feeling sorry for myself.

So, now I want to apologize for everyone that I was a bitch to this week. I am truly sorry, and I will try to be better.

One day at a time. But I will tell you, it's really hard to be sad when you have these gerber daisies looking at you from your desk. Life will go on.

I've Tumbled Dry

It doesn't take too much to overwhelm me some days.

I dedicated Tuesday to doing laundry. I was on a roll with it, too. I stripped the bed to the bare bones and threw it all in the wash.

Now, I've had trouble before with melting a mattress pad in the dryer. Yeah, don't ask; I think I was lucky to have not burned down the house with that one. So as not to repeat that mistake again, I decided to actually read the washing directions on the tag.

Wash in warm water, no bleach, gentle cycle. Check.

Tumble dry. Huh?

Does any one's dryer have the specific instructions to "tumble dry"? Mine doesn't. I have high, low and fluff. Damn. At 46 years old, you'd think that this wouldn't just get the best of me, would you!

Fluff = tumble dry? Close enough. I set it and tried to forget it. I went upstairs and thought about the fact that this is one of those occasions I want to call my Mom for advice. Since I couldn't do that, I did the next best thing. I called my sister, Cathie!

Two intelligent grown women should have been able to figure this out. Lucky for me, Cathie knew that the fluff cycle of the dryer does not use heat. Rats, there I went back down two flights of stairs to correct that.

So, after much discussion, we decided that "tumble dry" just means to turn the freakin' dryer on! Why couldn't they just say that? That took six flights of stairs and numerous phone calls to figure this out.

On the plus side, the mattress pad is now spring fresh and clean. And that's what it was all about.

It's A Bug!

We have a ton of lightening bugs in my neighborhood. That's a good thing when it's night time and they are flittering through the yard. It's not a good thing when it's caught in a spider web outside of my window!

It's Friday afternoon and I'm sitting here enjoying watching the Cubs kick the Pirates' ass (hey, the Cubs lost every game this week. We were DUE for a win!) when I happen to see this lightening bug outside of the window.

Now I know, some of you out there are thinking I immediately called for Ron to come running and kill it. Well, if you thought that, you'd be partly wrong.

First, I don't' like killing any bug outside. That's where they belong and as long as they stay out there and don't come in the house, they are free to go about their business. But as a big kid at heart, I do love our lightening bugs. I begged Ron to get out there and save it from the web!

Seeing as how this bug is about 30 feet off of the ground, Ron said to forget about it. He wasn't doing anything for the bug. Dang.

So here I sit, fascinated by the poor thing struggling against the huge web. So far, there is no spider coming out to see what he caught for dinner which is a good thing. I don't want to see that.

I'll keep happy thoughts that the lightening bug can escape his prison and that the Cubs can break their losing streak.

Mom Would Be Proud

Can you believe it's been 12 years? I can't believe Mom's been gone that long.

Obviously, Mom has been on my mind today. I wanted to do something in honor of Mom, but what to do?

I cleaned the worst room in the house, the office! I threw out crap, shredded old paperwork, dusted and even washed the window. The office is CLEAN! What would have tickled Mom more than someone cleaning.

Yeah, Mom would be proud.

I miss you...

Don't Order The Wonton

For my one brother that absolutely loves wonton soup - I'd be careful from now on if I were you!


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