Random thoughts and Acts of Stupidity

School buses

2011-01-04T20:55:00.002-05:00

Why do school buses have to stop at every block?

Can't the kids group up every few blocks? It took me nearly 20 minutes to go 8 miles because I got stuck behind a freakin' school bus that stopped at every freakin' corner for 3 miles.

WTF?

I wonder if that affects their gas consumption? Maybe there should be a study on this and it could help trim the school budget if buses don't have to stop and start so often?

hmmmm

Monday, monday

2011-01-03T10:02:00.001-05:00

I think it's monday?

Between the snow and the holidays I seem to be mixed around a bit.

It's monday right?

Black Swan

2011-01-02T22:18:00.002-05:00

This movie has jumped up on my list as being my favorite.

It was amazing, intense, confusing, brilliant and fanfuckingtastic!

Natalie Portman has really matured as an actress and I think this will be an Oscar nom if not a win for her.

Hi

2011-01-01T14:29:00.002-05:00

January 1, 2011 - here it is!

I've fallen victim to Facebook and hav neglected my blogs big time, but I hope to change that in 2011.

Let's see - what happened in 2010:

I was working at a cookie bakery - that didn't work out. I had a lot of fun, but unfortunately things got a bit messy in the end.
I was taking classes at school - that worked out well. My computers class teacher was a real bitch and quite proud of it too. One of those short people with a Napoleon complex. I was excited about that class too, but on the very first day when she listed all of the things that will "piss her off" I know I was done for. There is something about those triple "A" personality types that rubs me the wrong way. She dictated the entire time and if you asked her a question she became irritated. Excuuuuuse me, I never took speed writing and I don't understand "bitch" so I need to ask questions. I passed the class and that is all that matters.

I hope to be able to take more classes soon.

Margie and I opened up our own business - that has been amazing! It's a lot of work, but it doesn't feel like work. I could go on and on about it, but I have another blog for that so I won't elaborate here.

We also got a new puppy - Cody the monster. He is another Westie and he's cute as hell but he is a maniac. Margie bought him as a 50th birthday present to herself. He is very sweet, but just one of the most frustrating dogs to train. We are pretty certain he was a puppy mill dog. He came from Missouri and was brought up to NJ at a very young age. Too young probably. There are some things that have been imprinted on this poor little guy. Loud noises scare him, reaching over his head to pet him scares him, the dishwasher totally freaks him out. He is improving, but he has a way to go still.

We had one the hottest, driest summers on record. Brutal. Our front yard was totally scorched and then the weeds took over. The only green lawns were the rich people who have sprinkler systems.

Two days after Christmas we got hit with a blizzard. 34 inches of the white stuff landed on us. Not fun. Most of the roads were impassable for 3 days. Today it's 57 degrees! Wacky.

So that was 2010 in a nutshell. I am going to try to post more often in 2011. I miss the blogworld.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T19:39:00.001-05:00

One of my New Year resolutions is to blog more often!

Happy New Year all!

Dragon

2010-12-12T09:26:00.002-05:00

Hello blog world have you been?

It's been a while since I've been on the blogs been playing around with Facebook and twitter, and now I have a new toy that will hopefully put it back on the blog sphere.

It's called Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software! So I am trying it out on this blog post to see how it works.

So far so good basically just say what you want it to do and it does it. I haven't hereinafter how to correct it using my voice but I'm working on that. But it's nice to have something that can type faster than I do so I can actually do more blogging as I wanted to do in the first place.

So I'll be experimenting with the Dragon for couple times and see how it works out and hopefully you'll see more frequent posts for me.

Hope you all are well out there in the blogosphere here and I'll be talking to you soon!

Hello

2010-08-13T11:15:00.004-04:00

My plan was to post weekly to share with you my experiences at the store.

That was the plan.

Somewhere along the line things got kind of busy and the plans flew out the window.
This is a good thing really. I would much rather be busy than slow.

Today - we are slow. Actually this whole week has been slow. I am going to guess that people are spending money on "Back to School" stuff for their kids and not shopping for gift items and art.

It happens.

The slow bits here and there give me time to rearrange the store and think of new ideas.

We've had our first Artist Show and Reception featuring the work of Fine Artist Jean LeBaron. That went pretty well and I was very pleased with the turn out

Here is Jeannie with some of her paintings.

Here is a sampling of her work.

She ranges from very traditional/representational art to very abstract.

The Art Shows and receptions will be once a month and we have artist's booked through March of 2011 which is awesome and extremely exciting. There is even some talk about my sister Anita and I doing a "Sister Show" sometime in June or July of next year.

How cool is that? (very)

We have offered Fused Glass classes and an Artist's Way Circle based on the book by Julie Cameron. Those have been well received and I hope to add more classes in Precious Metal Clay soon!

Now we are trying to "gear up" for the holidays.

It is strange to me to think about Christmas in August, but I have never done this kind of retail before. It's a case that if you don't order now - you may lose out on some gooooood stuff man.

The down side is that I will have to take down some near and dear art to make room for new pieces.

We need to keep the place fresh.

Overall - we are doing very well for a new store in a bad economy and I couldn't be happier!

Gentle Ben

2010-07-21T22:05:00.004-04:00

He came into my store about 2 weeks ago.

Not my typical customer. Most of the people that come in are women...somewhere between 35 - 60. We don't usually get a lot of men who wander in by themselves...but Ben did.

He is a slight man. Tall, slender, with a relaxed look about him. He doesn't look like a "Jersey guy" and perhaps that is the reason I felt a connection to him.

Two knee braces were loosely hung around his ankles.

He looked kind of tired, he looked a bit sad.

"Bad knees?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I am a disabled vet. Got injured over there."

"Wow...I'm very sorry about that, but thank you very much for being there for us. You are a brave guy."

"Naw...not so much. I just love my country."

I felt myself take a deep breath when he said that.

We all love this country, only a few brave souls put their lives on the line though.

"Well Thank you...I really thank you for being there for us."

He nodded and remarked that he gets thanked by a lot of people and he appreciates it, but...

As he trailed off he kind of wandered around the store and told me I had some cool stuff.

It seemed as though he needed to get away for a bit. Somewhere different.

I asked him if he lived locally and he told me that he has been staying with his relatives right next door. He lives in Spartanburg, S.C. with is wife and family. He loves his wife dearly and can't say enough about his kids.

I've heard him next door with his nieces. They put up a trampoline and he jumps around with them. And laughs. They all laugh.

They are enjoying the moment.

He came up to NJ because his Uncle has cancer and it's getting close to the end. The family has been going to see him every day and are comforting each other.

Ben told me that his Aunt can't let go. She sees that some days he seems better so she thinks that he is better.

He shakes his head.

He knows.

He knows death.

Ben roams around the store looking at all of the different things and likes each one.

He is in pain.

Emotional. Physical.

***

Ben came in a few times over the past 2 weeks and then went back home to his family. He told me he would be back when his uncle passed to go to the services.

He came in today.

His uncle passed on Saturday.

I told him I was sorry for his loss - he was just barely holding it together.

He was trying to be strong for his other uncle who he said was always strong...until now.

Ben teared up a bit...and changed the subject.

He was trying to be strong too.

As a distraction I asked him how his wife and kids were doing. His son's birthday was on Saturday. He smiled.

Then he got the call about his Uncle.

We promised to keep in touch. By e-mail. By Facebook.

Gentle Ben.

So much pain and sadness in this mans eyes.

I gave him a hug and a 90% dark chocolate bar to bring home to his wife. He told her about it and she really wanted to try it.

He smiled....blushed a bit.

He's a good man Ben. Too young to be so disabled, in so much pain.

I think he is happy though.

I hope he is.

Gentle Ben...say a prayer for him please. Keep him and all of the other men and women who have served in your prayers. They so deserve it.

Thanks Ben - thanks.

Excuse me waiter?

2010-07-18T21:56:00.003-04:00

There is no food on my table!

:::Warning - general rant in process:::

Margie has a new job! After what seems like an eternity of phone interviews and in person interviews and online personality tests, comprehension tests (which she did very well with) she is finally leaving "The Little Troll" behind in her dust and head on to greener $$ and happier pastures!

What happens when you celebrate? You go out to dinner or something.

I chose a restaurant that is close to home, has a wonderful view of the Metedeconk River and supposedly has wonderful food.

And it was all true - basically.

So let us start from the very beginning - it's always a very good place to start.

I called "Antonino's Sunset Grille" to see if they took reservations. They did! (This is on a Saturday night). I asked if they had any openings for 7:00 PM. They did.

That should have been my first red flag. What restaurant along a coastal town in the middle of summer takes last minute reservations for the prime dinner hour?

OK...whatever.

Margie and I promptly arrive at 7:00 with our bottle of wine (BYOB) let the hostess know we had a reservation, she found our name and said it would just be a few minutes.

No biggie.

Another couple arrived after us, they too had a reservation at 7:00 - hostess gave them the same spiel. They decided to wait outside by the docks. We waited inside, which was our first mistake because it was probably 20 degrees warmer inside than it was outside which was about 90 F.

Apologies, apologies...we'll have your table in a minute folks...yadda, yadda, yadda.

No worries - it's Saturday night, during the summer...you expect this here.

About 15 - 20 later we got our table. In the spillover room with no way to view the docks, the water or the sunset.

(red flag #2)

Alan - our charming and somewhat humorous waiter told us he would get some glasses for our wine, the busboy came over and filled our water glasses.

Approximate time: 7:25 PM

Busboy - brings the obligatory bread/olive oil and seasoning dipping things in it and overfills the olive oil just a weeeee bit. No worries - we munch on the bread and enjoy the wine.

10 - 15 minutes later the hostess comes out and asks us how everything is?

Wait - what? everything? We only have bread and water.

I make the snarkey remark: "I feel like I'm in prison and we're only being given bread and water." She chuckles. Poor thing, she was about 12 she had no clue that I was serious.

Sometime later the charming and delightful "Alan" brings our wine glasses and opens up our bottle!

Thank you JEEESZUS!

Approximate time: 8:00 PM

Party of 4 comes in...sits down. Definitely a wiseguy...right down to his little leather loafers and shorts and his slicked back 5 strands of hair. His "real" wife and 2 boys were with him. Meanwhile he must have gotten up about 4 times during dinner. (maybe he has a small bladder...I dunno)

Alan comes sweating in...and announces the specials to both our table and table of 4. Then tells us he'll be back in a few minutes to take our order.

tik tok

:::drumming fingers::::

Oh..here he comes!

He takes our order and also the table of 4's order. (meanwhile there to 2 tables in the spillover room that have been sitting empty for about 30 minutes. Lot's of laughter and food in the "main" room while Margie and I enjoy our wine (on our 2nd glass now) and bread and water.

We were kind of glad we didn't get the window seat because the sunset was blinding the other people in the room who did have the view. (Poor bastards)

The sun was heating up the spillover room and I'm sweating like a horse. I excuse myself to go to the ladies and the AC is crankin' in there. I actually linger a bit just to cool off.

We get our appetizers: clams casino for me, fried calamari for Margie. Both very good.

Meanwhile we try to slow down on the wine because it's going fast. Busboy had refilled my water glass about 20 times to keep me hydrated because it's so freakin' hot in there. (we like busboy)

Salads come - Alan forgot we ordered the dressing on the side. Not a big deal...we nibble because we ate the whole basket of bread, our appetizer and a bit of salad now so we want to leave room for dinner.

Approximate time: 8:30 PM

Meanwhile our 12 year old hostess as come to us about 5 times and asked how is "everything" and I removed all snarkiness and just said: we would like our dinner please!

8:35 - charming and delightful "Alan" serves family of 4 who came in 30 minutes after us their food.

WTF? Obviously Mr. Wiseguy made a "few phone calls" and got preferential treatment.

Charming and delightful "Alan" does not even look at our table when he waits on them.

::::my Irish is getting up:::

Table of 2 enters the spillover room...they have a very pleasant waitress, takes there order, gets their drinks, and their salads all in a fraction of time that we've been sitting there.

Margie and I decide that if and when our dinner comes we will tell them to wrap it up we are going home.

Approximate time: 9:01

2 seconds later...our dinner comes.

Do we tell them to wrap it up? Nooooooooo, we did however tell "Alan" to bring us our check because we need to leave. He tries to be charming again, but it doesn't work.

Ha, ha, ha...heh, heh, heh. fake laughter ensues.

The wine is long gone, it's a sauna in the spill over room, we've been there for over 2 hours and I'm cranky.

Margie and I both had one of the specials: steak and shrimp with Jamiacan jerk sauce.

eeeeeechiiiiiiiwawa

That shit was spicy! But...to their credit, it was grilled to perfection, and it was very tender.

12 year old hostess asks yet again "how is everything". I don't know how to answer her anymore. The poor thing looks so pathetic. She knows we aren't happy, she is afraid we will yell at her, she had nothing to do with this fiasco so I just mumble...food is good, we need to leave" and she timidly takes our bill to process.

2 hours, wine is gone, sweating like a horse AND I have Jamaican spices making it worse and we are DONE.

I made another trip into the ladies to cool off for a bit in the mean time.

We take our little styrofoam containers and leave. "Alan" says..."good night Sharon...good night...oh...what is your name again?" Margie says: "Margarita", "Alan" tries to put on some last minute charm and says" oh not...it is NOT Margarita...I thought you were joking!?"

Fuck off asshole and enjoy that measly little tip we left for the busboy and the hostess because you're an idiot!

All in all - Margie and I had some great conversation, a nice bottle of wine and great story to tell anyone who asks us about "Antonino's Sunset Grille".

If they still want to go after hearing all this...that is their problem!

Good night all!

Mental diarreah

2010-07-17T00:40:00.002-04:00

verbal constipation.

Or is it: verbal diarreah and mental constipation?

I guess it all depends on the day, the time, the place, the situation.

BP and the oil leak - whose fault is it really?

Obama vs. the U.S. - did he have a chance? I mean really? Did he?

Tea Party - WTF?

Coffee Party - WTFF?

Sometimes you feel like a nut....sometimes you don't.

I'm feelin' like if we (as a nation) keep this shit up we will have another war (on American soil, against Americans) on our hands.

Jiminy Crickets people - wtf?

Warning crazy woman rant

2010-06-19T20:58:00.005-04:00

B.P.

British Petroleum.

In the slight chance you've been living under a rock for the past 2 months let me give you the cliff notes:

April 20, 2010 an explosion on the oil rig "Deepwater Horizon" occurs. Of the 126 on board the rig 15 people were injured, 11 died. The rig is owned by Transocean Ltd. and was under contract with BP to drill an exploratory well in an area that the rig was operating.

April 22 a second explosion on board the rig causes it to sink into the Gulf of Mexico. A Riser pipe which goes from the wellhead to the drilling ship breaks as the rig sinks.

April 24 - two oil leaks from the well pipe down about 5000 feet underwater are found. Initial estimate of 1000 barrels a day could be leaking into the water...estimates were later revised to 5,000 barrels a day. Each barrel holds about 42 gallons, so that is an estimated 210K gallons per day.
Consider that we here in the USofA consume over 10 million barrels a day, doesn't seem like a big deal does it?

10 million barrels a day people!!! How many oil rigs would we have to have to satiate our lust for oil anyway? Hmmmmm? Drill here, drill now - yadda yadda yadda. It's a freakin' drop in the bucket and it would NOT lower the price of the barrel because we would STILL be dependent on foreign oil.

But I digress...

April 27 - Sec of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano and Sec of Interior Ken Salazar sign an order for a joint investigation of just what the hell happened. Napolitano later declared the incident to be a "spill of national significance."

Yadda, yadda, yadda - lots of people telling lots of other people what to do...

May 2, 2010 - BP tries to drill a relief well 1/2 mile from the leaking well which will "attempt" to intercept the existing well. BP estimates it will take about 90 days to complete.
(Meanwhile we are on day 12 of 5000 barrels of oil just pouring into the gulf)

May 4 - the Pentagon mobilizes up to 17,500 National Guard troops to help various states deal with the spill.
(day 14 of 5000 barrels of oil just pouring into the gulf)

May 5 - BP announces it stopped 1 of THREE leak points, but it does not slow the rate of the leak.
(day 15 of 5000 barrels......)

May 8 - The cofferdam or dome cannot be placed over the leak. (The dome at this point is just sitting on the ocean floor)

May 11 - Secretary Salazar announces that he's going to restructure stuff around and establish an "independent safety and environmental enforcement entity". ohhhhhh....ahhhhhh...an entity is born. My vision is a bunch of people sitting around a big conference table with coffee and assorted pastries discussing what to discuss about what's being discussed about this disgusting disaster.

May 14 - President Obama announces he has ordered Sec. Salazar (I can't type that name without thinking in my head "Sal a ZAAAAAAARRRRRR" in a superhero voice) to conduct a "top to bottom" review of the Mineral Management Service. (I'm not saying he's a superhero OK because he isn't. He's just a guy who probably doesn't get much sleep right now)

Wait! Who? MMS (governments love the use of acronyms). YES...MMS, they are the Federal agency that manages our natural gas, oil and other "mineral resources". They also collect, account and disburses an average of $13.7 per year in revenues from Federal offshore drilling and other stuff! How about that?

(things that make you go hmmmmmmm.)

I'm so glad that the Prez was on top of things. 24 days into this and he finally makes a decision.

May 16th - a (RITT) riser insertion tube tool was inserted into the leaking riser and captures slightly more than 2,000 barrels a day. Whew...at least they are slowing things down a bit...still for over 24 days we had 5,000 barrels a day worth of oil spewing into the gulf. Meanwhile Secty's Napolitano and Sal-a-Zaaaaaar sick the dogs after BP CEO Tony Hayward. (Go get 'em Blue....aaaaaoooooooo, aaaaaaooooooooooo, aaaaaaoooooooo)

May 17th the second relief well project begins. (remember it will take about 90 days)

May 18th - 22nd - blah, blah, blah...lot's of b-b-bureaucratic baloney and bullshit starts flying around reacting to what has happened.

Oh...and Mr. Hayward claims the impact of the spill will be "very modest". (I want whatever he's smokin' dude) He says this as some of the clumpy, lumpy, nasty tar balls are discovered around Florida. (must be some goooooooood shit man)

May 22nd - ahem, ahem....let me use my announcer voice: "OBAMA SIGNS AND EXECUTIVE ORDERRRRRRRRRR." Words like bipartisan , recommendations...more baloney and bullshit.

Meanwhile over 2000 barrels of oil is still spewing into the Gulf...I lost count, but we are over 1 month of this black, sticky, messy shit creating havoc to a beautiful body of water that is creeping towards the shorelines of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida cutting off fishing and ruining our shoreline. Pictures of endangered species covered in brown sticky oil are all over the news.

People are getting really pissed off here.

May 23rd...statistical report to make us feel a little better: "1.73 million feet of containment boom and 730,000 feet of absorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill. Approximately 10.2 million gallons of oil-water mix had been recovered. Approx 785,000 gallons of dispersant deployed on the surface and underwater.

May 24 - 65.6 miles of Louisiana shoreline have been impacted. Fisheries have been declared a disaster.

May 28 - BP attempts to "Plug it up, plug it up!" They kind of say that it's never been attempted before at such depths...and they aren't really sure if it's going to work.

But what the hey? Nothing ventured, nothing gained right?

Fast forward to June 1 - BP shares take a tumble, the "top kill" operation fails and BP CEO Tony Haward announces: "I want my life back"

Awwwwwwwww...who feels sorry for Tony?

Hello? Anyone? Hello?

Ohhhhh...hey George...how's it going? Liking the retired life are you? How is Laura doing?

OK...anyone else?

Hmmmmm...sorry Tony. Most of us just don't give a flying fig!

Now...let me just tell you this little tid bit - We...the USofA gave BP the rights to drill because THEY PROMISED, crossed their hearts and hoped to die, stick a needle in their eye that they were equipped to deal with a spill 10 TIMES LARGER, than the current leak.

Oh yeah? Soooooooo...um...what's the deal dudes? What did you have your fingers crossed behind your back or something when you made that promise? Hey...USofA, did anyone ever CHECK this promise to see if it was true?

Nah...gentleman's agreement. We're all adults here. No one is thinking about themselves...or the money, or the big payoff at the end. nope...not us...huh uh.
:::walking away whistling:::

Oh...BP has lost 30Billion pounds of it's market value....boooohoooo.

June 7: BP tells everyone a second containment system will be in place by mid-June.

Yay....hoooraaaay...yippeeee...yahoooo!!!

So we are up to what day 38 now from when this started and still 2000+ gallons of oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico.

But hey....if you look at it from really far up...it's not really THAT big. Come on...the ocean is HUMONGOUS! This is just a blip. No worries.

Oh...BP share continue to drop. wah, wah.

June 8 - Norway says "No Way" to deep water drilling! Good for you!

June 9th - Ohhhhhhh...I LOVE this one: BP BUYS the top Google and Yahoo! search result for terms like "oil spill" in a bid to recover it's public image.

Let me say that one again: They are buying search terms!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ALL ABOUT?

Hello Dr. Spin? Paging Dr. Spin? Is Carl Rove in the house?

June 10 - The US government "signals" it will take legal action to force BP to stop paying a dividend to shareholders.
British Prime Minister David Cameron basically says - I'm OK with that. I'd be pissed off to if a US company did that on my shores. (my spin OK...I'm allowed to spin too aren't I?)

Chairman of the BP's insurance RSA says that Obama's approach to BP is "prejudicial" and urges him to stop criticism of the company.

Well uh yeah of course it is because BP is "responsible" for all of this. Remember r-e-s-p-o-n-s-a-b-i-l-i-t-y? Stuff they taught us as kids?

This is when it really sucks to be The President: You suck if you don't do enough and you suck if you do too much.

I wouldn't want that job EVER and in my personal opinion...anyone who does want that job is a nutcake.

But that's just my personal opinion.

OK...were up to June 11 - David Cameron (remember him...Prime Minister and all that) tells BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to tell everyone that the company is still strong.

June 12 - Obama calls Cameron on the phone...they chat...ask how the families are, Obama asks: "Do they celebrate Father's Day in the UK?" Cameron sighs...chuckles...ha ha and then officially they tell us that Obama told Cameron that his criticism is all smoke and mirrors and I have to say this or....well....you know the drill Dave...it's all B.S." (these are my interpretations of some of the things I've read...stuff that goes on in my mind on how two politicians of power talk on the phone. )

June 13 - Obama declares: We need more money!!! Someone has to clean this shit up! (uh yeah because we're broke over hear)

June 14 - Obama compares the impact of the oil spill and it's aftermath to the Sept. 11 attacks. 911 made us change our foreign policy and realize how vulnerable we are and this disaster "is going to shape how we think about the environment for many years to come."

I sure hope so.

(we're getting close to the end...hang in there. Stretch...get a glass of water...go to the bathroom, let the dogs out, have a smoke.

Take 5 and then come on back.....

Ok...here we go. Ready?

June 15th - Obama accuses BP of recklessness and names an "oil tsar". A tsar is born!

BP's credit rating...sucks.

June 16th David Cameron wants protection from the US against excessive compensation. (Anyone hear the lawyers in the background telling him what to say?) (Anyone here our lawyers in the background telling us to "take it all! Crush the infidels!" ) (again...my words...people...MY words)

Today is June 19th - it has been about 60 days since the first explosion happened. Everyone is screaming at each other, citizens are appalled and in shock about what has happened.

Boycotts of BP hit the Internet - but listen to me folks...it doesn't hurt BP...it hurts the poor guy who runs the station. BP could really care less about them...trust me. My ex-husband had an Exxon station when the Valdez spill happened. We were vandalized and harassed. Not by people we know...but by strangers who were angry at Exxon. Exxon really didn't give a rats ass about the dealer. If the dealer went out of business...they'll find another one to run the station.

60 days of thousands of gallons just pouring out of this well.

You know things are bad when they actually hire Kevin Costner to help!!!

Serious!

He and his brother have created a machine...a centrifuge type thing that will separate the oil and water and help clear up this mess.

Kevin Costner. Waterworld boy!

If you build it...they will come!

And they are.

And he is!

So, that's my rant. I took information from various places. The facts are there, the interpretation is pure Shazza. This is what I would be saying to you if you and I were at a cocktail party and this subject came up.

It's all me and how I see things.

How do I see it?

A freakin' nightmare. A colossal disaster. A finger pointing, I don't want to take full responsibility pissing contest.

Just shut up and fix it please.

one last thing...i'm up way past my bedtime so I didn't spell check this or edit it. I'm tired.

night night!

Act of stupidity

2010-05-20T15:14:00.002-04:00

Note to self: turn the ceiling fans off before climbing up a ladder in the near vicinity.

F-*-C-K!!!

Thank goodness for hard heads.

Busy, busy, busy

2010-04-23T07:22:00.003-04:00

I am going to try to keep an on-line journal of my experiences in the world of retail on a new blog called: IdiosyncraziesNJ

This is a whole new unexplored world for me so if you are interested in following my journey - come on along!

Random Thought for the day

2010-04-19T11:42:00.001-04:00

Does anyone play the saw anymore?

Idiosyncrazies!

2010-04-09T10:47:00.006-04:00

Definition: Idiosyncrasy

1. quirk: a way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is peculiar to an individual or group, especially an odd or unusual one.

Definition: Crazy

1. offensive term: an offensive term meaning affected by a psychiatric disorder

2. ridiculous: not showing good sense or practicality

Add them together you get Idiosyncrazies!

That is the name of our new business.

Having been unemployed for over 1 year and dreading the thought of going back to a corporate environment again Margie and I decided to create our own business.

Idiosyncrazies!

It will be a gallery/gift/studio store with a focus on local artists and artisans, also on Fair Trade items and products that use recycled goods. There may be a few odd things thrown in there for my personal amusement.

Margie has been the driving force on this project. She has encouraged me and supported me and gave me little booster talks when I told her how scared to death I am at failing at this. She kept egging me on and egging me on and little by little I started to get excited about the idea.

Margie's philosophy is: If we fail we fail, but at least we tried!

So I have been researching different places for "stuff" that I want to put in my store and my daughter the retail maven is going to help me set up the space and I have friends who have offered their input on how to market and set up, so I feel very confident now that this is all good!

We are only waiting on a few little things to get the lease on the space we found and by April 15th we should be able to get in and get to work.

The Grand Opening is planned for Memorial Day weekend with a sneak preview for friends and family the week before.

Robyn from "Just Sayin'" had a post called: "One Mans Garbage" about a group called UniquEco that takes the flip flops that was up along the coast of Kenya and recycles them into beads. This story has stuck in my mind and was one of the many incentives for the items I want to put in my store.

I will keep you posted on our progress and perhaps start a new thread of posts on my journey.

Here are a few pictures of the space we have rented as it is now. I'll take more pictures once we are all done!

Act of stupidity

2010-03-25T08:39:00.003-04:00

Last night I took my meds without my glasses on.

Squinting to read the lables I just took one of each - not a good idea.

I'll be in zombieland if anyone needs me today.

(stupid is as stupid does)

Today

2010-03-24T07:05:00.003-04:00

Lot's to do. Some running around, some homework.

Got up at 5:30 and it feels good to be back to my old schedule again. I got real used to getting up at 8:00 or 9:00 AM. Puppies are great alarm clocks.

So, while I pitch my idea to the networks, where I"m SURE it will be picked up I am trying to figure out who to cast.

A little Julia Sugarbaker mixed in with Rosanne Barr for the lead. (scary, but that's what I picture). She's a bit on the heavy side, but was a knock out when she was younger. She's smart and has a lot of skills (obviously) but trouble finds her wherever she goes. (Maybe a Suzanne Sugarbaker). She needs to pull of slapstick well. We don't have enough of that on TV today. When she's not working she wears big T-shirts and baggy sweat pants, but when she dresses up for an interview she looks good!

The daughter: Zoe Dechanel would be perfect. Quirky and odd but smart.

Partner: Hmmmm, if I were to go same sex partner I'd have to go with someone who was kind of femme and loves the lead character in spite of herself. Kind of like Wilma Flintstone. If I were to go on the male partner, maybe a "mans man". Doesn't understand why the wife wants to work, he's a construction worker or mechanic or something. Wants her to stay home and take care of the house, she would rather have bamboo shoots under her fingernails than stay home. (she knows she'll get hooked on soaps and she's afraid the other stay at home wives/Moms will have her assimilated into one of them)

Best friend/next door neighbor - single, goes out a lot. Has kids that are too super smart and are always finding ways to teach their Mom how to be a "Mom". (Kind of like Sapphie on AbFab)

Burbs or city living? Hmmmmm...not sure of that one. Maybe a small historic town where you live right next to each other and know everything about each other. A local village where everything is within walking distance but still metropolitan enough to have some small office buildings around.

Someone said this sounds a lot like I Love Lucy. Yeah, I guess it kind of does.

Ok, so the idea isn't original, but it would be fun to see something like it again on TV.

Is it me?

2010-03-23T20:01:00.004-04:00

I thought of an idea for a new sitcom today.

A woman in her mid-40's is once again unemployed. She's a bit snarky, a bit overweight, a bit anal retentive, a bit opinionated.

She's had several different jobs in her lifetime. All of them have ended in her being "terminated" in one way or another.

Sometimes it's her fault - mouthing off at a superior. Stealing office supplies. Playing games on her computer. Sending out photo shopped pictures of her boss in non-flattering ways. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Standing up for herself.

Other times it's not: lay offs, re-orgs, downsizing, relocating, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The show will open up with her getting ready for her first day at a new job. She eats her breakfast, her grown daughter comes down to wish her luck and dashes off her in Anne Taylor suit to a corner office job somewhere (but still lives with Mom). Her partner (male or female) in a gesture of "good luck" packs a lunch for her and gives her a kiss.

You love her. You hate her. You side with her or you don't. She has bosses that are idiots, co-workers who are lazy, police officers who seem to always catch her when she is already late for work, office managers who count every paper clip and every sticky note pad.

Her family and friends mean every thing to her. She is a good Mom, a pretty good cook and a great friend. She speaks her mind, has a razor sharp wit and sarcasm is never wasted with her. Unfortunately her mouth can be a bit faster than her brain and gets her into trouble a lot.

She has had a LOT of jobs. From dishwasher, burger flipper, truck driver, postal worker, Supermart greeter, crossing guard, school bus driver, beautician, masseuse, dog catcher, secretary, sales person, office manager....you name it.

The show would take you through her different attempts to get meaningful employment and why it never seems to go right for her.

She starts to wonder: Is it me?

Acts of Stupidity

2010-03-22T11:40:00.005-04:00

I had some random thoughts earlier today, but unfortunately they go as fast as they come. If I don't catch them right away, it could be days, weeks before they come back.

Instead I bring you some wonderful Acts of Stupidity I found in the news today.

If you ever needed proof that people are getting dumb and dumber by the day let me introduce you to Elbert Lewis Thompson II. (Elbert - people actually named him that! And he's the II! Oy!)

At the ripe age of 20 years old, Mr. Thompson II is wanted for armed robbery. A shining star! A pillar of the community!

Police captured Mr. Thompson for a traffic violation and brought him into the hospital because he claimed he was not feeling well and then fell unconscious. The police then brought Mr. Thompson to the hospital for treatment.

Mr. Thompson obviously woke up very thirsty, because walked out of the hospital and into a bar. The police (who were obviously on a coffee break) later found him sitting at the bar in his hospital gown and his IV still attached to his arm.

I wander what Mr. Elbert Lewis Thompson I thinks of his son?

"That's my boy!"

The best story comes from Kennewick, WA.

A 17 year old youth (whose name is withheld because of his stupidity would be an embarrassment to his family) broke into a furniture store. During the 5 hours he was there, he logged into the business's computer, checked out his MySpace account, watched a bit of porn and then tried to sell some stolen items! (I found some really cool office chairs on ebay CHEAP!)

They should add extra time to his sentence just for being a dumb ass.

Here Comes the Sun

2010-03-01T13:31:00.002-05:00

Do di do do

The church bell version of this song was playing from the library clock tower at my community college as I was walking to class this morning.

Normally I can never figure out what song is playing. I guess I thought it was always some kind of traditional church bell type music.

Why I would think that I don't know, but I did.

I smiled recognizing the song, then I thought - yikes! Beatles songs are now being played on bell towers.

It was the same reaction I had when I heard a muzak version of a Rolling Stones song in an elevator.

Really weird.

Sympathy for the Devil in bells would be fun though wouldn't it?

This may even fit into WTF Monday over on Dive's Small Glass Planet blog.

Appropriately though, we have a nice sunny day here in NJ. It's about 48 and a little windy but the sun is nice and warm.

The pups and I sat outside in the backyard for a bit just soaking in the rays. Our own light therapy.

Now I want a nap!

I hope it's warm and sunny where you are.

Peace!

Bread Blog

2010-02-27T08:47:00.009-05:00

First of all let me say: @#$%&*!%$**&!!!! Freakin' cut and paste failure.

Ok...now, where was I?

My last post I threw a few four letter words at you and one of them was B-A-K-E

I had a notion to make cookies or scones, but I've been baking them a lot at the Cookie Cab I decided to do something I haven't done in a while: Bread

The ol' fashioned way - no bread machine.
I didn't get the idea to take any pictures until I was halfway through the process, but I think you'll get the idea.

Simple white bread is easy - at least I think so.

All you need is:

1 package of dry active yeast

2 tablespoons of sugar

1/4 cup of warm (not hot) water

Add the yeast and sugar into a small bowl or glass and add the warm water. Set it aside and watch the yeast start to do it's magic.

It kind of looks like a glass of Guinness doesn't it? All that foamy, frothy stuff on the top tells you that the yeast is ALIVE!

Next add 2 cups of warm milk and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil or butter that's been melted and cooled (I like butter for the taste) to a large bowl.

Add the yeast mixture and stir it up a little.

Measure out 6 cup of flour. I like to mix it ahead because I will always forget to count how much I've added in so it helps me to do it ahead of time.

Slowly add the flour cup by cup to the yeast/milk mixture.

It will start to get sticky and somewhat elastic looking. I will keep adding the flour until it's firm enough to pick up with my hands without being too stringy.

On a board or counter, generously spread flour down to cover - this is where you will be kneading the bread and it keeps it from sticking to the counter. Don't be too shy with the flour. I usually use about 1/4 - 1/2 cup.

Flour up your hands, grab that sticky ball of dough and plop it on to the floured surface.

Now comes the fun part. Kneading

This is kind of therapeutic for me and once you get used to it, it can become very rhythmic. Maybe next time I'll ask Margie to take a little video of the action. I'm sure you can find it on YouTube somewhere if you are really curious!

What you want to do is get the air out of the dough and mix in the ingredients. Grab the part of the blob that is furthest away from you and pull it up over the blob - then mash it down with the heel of your hand. Spin the blob around a little and do the same thing. You basically repeat this process for about 10 - 15 minutes.

If you need to add more flour so that the blob isn't sticky that is fine. Just add a little at a time.

When you are finished, the sticky gooey blob should feel smooth and almost velvety.

Grease a large bowl with butter and then place the blob into the bowl. Flip it over so that the greasy part is on the top.

Cover the bowl and blob with a moist towel and put it in a warm place to let rise. The temp in your house will really make a difference in how fast the dough will rise. I usually put my oven on warm and then put the dough on the stove top.

You will know when the dough has risen enough when it is about 1 in above the top of the bowl.

You will know it's ready if you take two fingers and poke the top of the dough. Your fingerprints should remain.
Next, with a sharp knife - cut the blob into two smaller blobs. You will be making 2 loaves of bread.
I decided to make one plain and one cinnamon swirl. I added 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. You spread it on top of the dough and starting and the shortest end, roll up into a spiral. Put the loaf seam side down into a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
Set the two loaves aside to let them rise. The higher they rise the fluffier your bread will be. I like a denser bread to I don't let it rise too much. Into the oven they go! Temp is at 375f for 30 - 35 minutes or until golden brown.
Mmmmmmmmm, fresh from the oven! The smell is wonderful!
There you have it! Two fresh loaves of bread with no preservatives, no chemicals, no crap and the ingredients for 2 loaves will cost you less than it will to buy 1 loaf at the store.

Amazing eh?

You can slice them up and freeze them so that they will last longer if you want.

Next time I will add more cinnamon and sugar to the cinnamon swirl loaf. It wasn't quite cinnamony enough for me - but it makes for a great french toast!

Bon appetite!

Four letter words

2010-02-25T07:21:00.004-05:00

S-N-O-W!

Another Nor'easter is coming through dumping another 6 - 12 inches on us.

C-R-A-P!

We were just beginning to see the ground after the other 2 storms.

W-I-N-D - this storm will also have near hurricane force winds blowing around tree limbs with wet heavy snow on them. Candles and flashlights are on the ready.

B-A-K-E Days like this are made for baking. I may have enough ingredients to whip together some chocolate chip cookies, maybe a few scones and if I am feeling particularly adventurous - home made bread.

C-O-O-K - I think am also going to make broccoli canneloni's for dinner tonight. The home made bread will go very well with that!

W-O-R-K - poor Margie had to go to work. The snow isn't expected to get bad until later this afternoon/evening. I just hope it doesn't get real bad for her drive home.

P-R-A-Y - for Margie, Caitlin and Rick to get home safely tonight.

D-O-G-S - snow+dogs=wet paw prints all over my house.

P-O-O-P - I need to pick up all of the dog poop in the back yard before it gets covered up. Nothing like walking a puppy in the snow and stepping in a little surprise.

D-R-A-W - I may make this an art day too. I have been playing with Sharpies! I love them!

H-O-M-E It's good to be home on crappy days like today.

S-A-F-E - stay safe and warm where ever you are!

It's Cody's fault

2010-02-20T08:09:00.009-05:00

This is Cody:

Cute little bugger isn't he? He's gotten much bigger since this picture was taken, but so have his ears so he isn't too photogenice at the moment.

He's the reason I've been using lately.

I can't clean the house because I have to watch Cody.
I can't do my homework right now because I have to watch Cody.
I can't take the big dogs out for a nice long walk because I have to watch Cody.

This all translates into: I haven't gotten off my increasingly sizable butt because I've been using a 16 week old puppy as an excuse.

As excuses go, this is at least the cutest one I've used, but as someone once told me long ago: "Excuses are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink!"

How true.

I'm going through one of those cycles. Once called "bi-polar" I call it "this is how life goes, up and down so just get freakin' used to it".

The upswing is starting to kick into gear - thankfully.

I checked my biorythm (because they are so accurate don't cha know) and this is what it looks like for today:

Looking at this chart one can see that emotionally and intellectually I'm on a downswing - but my physical cycle is gearing up.

I interpret that as don't try to talk about anything I don't konw anything about, don't look at me cross-eyed or I'm likely to break out into tears and any given moment, BUT I could probably rearrange my living room, clean the house, do the laundry, take the dogs for a walk, go for a run (ha), and leap tall buildings in a single bound all in one day.

Whew! I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

I did a post back in June about things I wanted to work on with myself (here's the post if you're interested:http://randomthoughtsandactsofstupidty.blogspot.com/2009/06/work.html)

Looking back at that post I see I've come full cycle just about. Looking back at my biorythm for that day and it kind of looked like this:

It seems my physical and intellectual self was on an upswing but my emotional self was crashing.

What does this all mean?

Nothing really.

Well nothing that I didn't know before. I go through cycles just like everyone else where you either feel: Really, really good, really good, good, not so good, bad, really bad and then really, really bad.

I should make a little Shazza psycho meeter so I can post it up on my white board and keep track of that!

LOL

Anyway - Cody has been my excuse lately - and now it's time to wipe off my asshole, put a little powder on and get moving.

But:

"There's an abvious attraction
To the path of least resistance in your life
There's an obvious aversion no amount of my insistance
Could make you try tonight

'Cause it's easy not to
So much easier not to"

"Wake Up" by Alanis Morissette

Here is a link to the Biorythm calculator that I used if you want to check it out: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/biorhythms.html

First Time Meme

2010-02-03T21:14:00.004-05:00

This Meme I stole from 8th Day Planner - it's one I haven't seen before so I thought I would play along.

Meme - The First Time

1. When was your first kiss?
In the back of the school bus coming home from kindergarten with Danny Orth. My Mom had to come and break us up. We were hiding!

2. When did you first start buying holiday or birthday gifts for other people and stop thinking about what people would buy for you?
Oh...this is horrible, I still think about what people will buy for me and then I have this tremendous guilt because I worry that I didn't get a gift for them that will equal the gift that they will give me...even though I don't know what it is.
Catholic guilt will really screw you up for life!

3. When was the first time you thought of yourself not as a kid/teen, but as an adult? When I could legally buy alcohol. I felt like such a big shot!

4. What do you remember about the first time you drove a car?
My Dad let me drive down our street. I was really surprised how sensitive everything was! Steering is not like you see on TV or the movies where the steering wheel goes crazy back and forth. The brake was a lot of fun...nearly put my Dad through the windshield!

5. Tell me about your first pet.
I think our first official pet was Firequacker the duck. I don't remember too much about him really. Only that he pooped a lot.

6. What was your first job?
Paying job - cashier at McDonalds. I went vegetarian for a year while working there. It was pretty disgusting.
Non-paying job - working at the local community theatre doing odds and ends. To this day it was the best job ever. I even got paid a few times!

7. Who was the first teacher to make a positive impact on your life?
Mr. Shields - 12th grade U.S. History teacher. He was the first teacher who I ever saw cry. He actually took the photos of my wedding.

8. If you’ve lived in more than one house or apartment as an adult, tell me about your first one.
I will use the 1st place I ever lived in by myself. I was 34, divorced, just recently came out and moved out of my 1st G/f's place. It was a little tiny 1 bedroom place above a store that I thought was my very first peace of heaven.

9. What was it like the first time you got drunk (assuming you remember).
I was at my first party in high school. I had 2 beers and I remember how heavy my feet felt all of a sudden and how everything was so hysterical. I also remember making out with some boy behind a bush and getting "felt up" for the first time. I wasn't too thrilled with it.

10. Did you marry your first love?
No

Random Thought for the day

2010-02-03T11:29:00.001-05:00

regarding laundry:

If you have a white shirt with dark blue sleeves, do you wash it with the whites or the darks?

Random Thought for the Day

2010-02-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

How do you "draw" a blank?

Staring into space

2010-01-31T16:16:00.004-05:00

Do you ever find yourself just staring into space?

Someone will come up and say to you: "Hellooooo....where are you?"

or

"You looked deep in thought - what were you thinking about?"

Nothing really.

I am not focused on anything, my mind isn't thinking of any thing, it's like a little power nap for the brain. It just kind of goes into "hibernate" mode like my laptop does when I walk away for a while.

I've read somewhere that it is a symptom of ADHD.

Honestly - I think we all have our ADD or ADHD moments when the brain just screams out: TIME FOR A BREAK! I'M OUTTA HERE!

School was the worst - I'd be off day dreaming or doodling on my note books.

As an adult it was meetings or listening to a customer rambling on the phone that would put me in a daze.

A few times as a teenager I remember getting those lectures from my Dad about something I did to disappoint him or whatever. He'd be going on and on and on and I would just blank out. I would get myself into more trouble because after this long winded narration he would tell me: "Now repeat back to me what I just said to you!"

Uhhh....well.....ummmmmm.

His face would go from red to brilliant crimson!

I thought steam would blow out of his ears.

When I made the decision to go back to school I was petrified that I would fall into one of these dazes, but also determined to learn.

So far I haven't drifted off because the subjects that I have taken were ones that I am interested in, but this semester I have math.

:::shudder, shudder:::

I barely passed math in high school.

When they tested my skills for the community college that I am going to they determined I needed to go to a remedial math class before I could take the required math I need to earn credits.

A funny thing happened in those classes - I got an "A" in each of them. Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.

How do you like that?

Having a really great teacher who actually wants you to learn is a big help and also being in a class with other "older" students who were in the same boat as I am made the situation a little less uncomfortable than I thought it would be.

I actually kind of "liked" it. (shhhhhhhhhh...don't tell anyone OK?)

The class I am taking now: A Survey of Mathematics is basically designed for the Liberal Arts major.

People who don't like math but have to take it to get a degree.

The class is full to capacity. The professor has all of her lesson's on Powerpoint and then posts them to internet so we can review them at any time.

It should be easy enough.

We shall see. The Prof speaks in "mathenese" which means that it's either "black or white", "right or wrong".

Cut and dry.

Matter of fact.

She uses the same word to define the word she is trying to teach you.

She spaces out!

Mid - sentence!

What's going on there?

The difference with her spacing out and my spacing out is that you can see the wheels spinning around in there looking for different way to explain to all of these "non-math" people math!

She tries.

But there are a lot of blank and confused faces and we've only had 2 classes!

So, wish me luck as we learn about sets, sub-sets, finite sets and infinte sets, equivalents, quotients etc - I may need it!

Perhaps this song will help!

I need a list

2010-01-27T20:14:00.003-05:00

A list of things to talk about in this months session with Counselor G.

If anyone has ever been to therapy perhaps they can relate - but there are times when I have absolutely NOTHING to say and then there are other times when I'm just getting warmed up and my 45 minutes are up.

Counselor G has suggested that I write things down to talk about - ok. I've done that in the past and it does work, but when you only go once a month and you write things down almost every day - that's a lot of "stuff".

So I try to make a bullet pointed list.

::::drumming fingers::::

This comes from that Virgo side of me - the list maker. It also comes from many, many years as an administrative ass. Write down the important stuff - don't worry about the little stuff.

I had a boss - ex-military guy who wanted all communique to him in bullet pointed lists.

Then in true bureaucratic fashion he would print up the e-mail/list and walk over to your desk and re-hash the list with you. THen go back to his desk and send you a reply in his own long winded un-bullet pointed, reconstituted version of the same story. Only this time it came from Him so it was right.

I'm sure everyone knows at least one person like this in their lives.

As I get older I realize I need more lists.

Actually it's usually just one list - kind of like an extended "to do" list.

I have the "Overall" to do list: paint the laundry room, new refridgerator, call the plumber, yada, yada, yada.

Then I drill it down to the daily list: wake up, take a shower, eat your breakfast, take your vitamins, go to the store....which drills down to what to buy at what store. Grocery store or general store like Target etc.

In there somewhere is always the "honey do" list. Things Margie may have asked me to do for her during the day. Call the vet, go to the post office that sort of thing.

Everything runs along very smoothly in my life with my little lists.

Written down on little scraps of paper, post it notes, on the white board in the kitchen or in a journal. I have lists every where.

Once in a while - I lose my list.

CRAP!

What did I need from the store? Olive oil, ground beef, eggs and what? toothpaste? Foil? toiletpaper?

Why is it that last item you can't remember is always the one thing you needed most?

I've put my list in my coat pocket and then reached in and took out the list from the week before and has a vague sense of deja vu until I'm halfway through the list and think: D'oh!!!

Appointments are the new lists in my life. It's not that I always remembered my appointments before, but now it's that I have too many appointments to remember which one is when!

Doctor(s) - various
Dentist
Counselor
Electrolysis
Vet
Meetings with friends
Work - since it's so sporadic these days

I never thought I would have to keep a calendar - but now I do.

Now I need a list to list all of the things that I need a list for!

(Ok...you knew that was coming, so sue me)

This is all part of the aging process and part of life. I remember my Grandmother having lists every where - then my parents...now me.

I wonder - is it because of failing memory or because I have too much going on or a combination of both.

Selective memory plays a part too.

I will remember a lunch date before I will remember an appointment for the dentist!
(Pleasure vs. pain)

Everything will be fine....

unless of course I lost my lists!

HA!

The mind...

getting older...

Do you worry about your mind?

Is it playing tricks? Is it age? Information overload? Something else?

Should I really care if I AM losing my mind?

While writing this post I was thinking of a movie that Margie and I watched a while back called: Young@Heart

It is a chorus of seniors singing contemporary songs. It's a great movie and I think it may alleviate some fears about getting older. It may make your fears worse - but all in all it's a movie about life.

Spirit

Fun

Getting old

Failing memories

Enjoying the life you have!

Here's a clip from the movie. I hope you enjoy it and if you have a chance to rent it please do. I think it will definitely make you smile!

If you search around YouTube - check out "I want to be Sedated" it's great!

Peace all!

Don't drink and blog

2010-01-23T12:19:00.004-05:00

I was a bit afraid this morning to read the post I wrote last night. I had a few glasses of wine in me at the time. It turned out not to be too bad after all. Luckily no secrets were revealed, no "I love you all out there in the blog world" meaningless blurts.

Change was basically the premise of the whole post. How I deal with it - that sort of thing.

I immerse myself into projects or a new job. Sometimes a little slowly at first and then after a while I become totally focused on it. Almost to the exclusion of anything else.

During the summer it was the little garden project, and then the rain barrel project and then the little pool project. I had a few other projects on my list, but I didn't really want to do them and so I never did. Painting the laundry room and painting the bilco doors keep getting recycled on my list. They aren't hard jobs, but for some reason I keep putting them off.

Once all of the little projects were done - slowly I started doing some things for me! I had nothing better to do, so I grabbed the camera, went on walks with the dogs, took some fun bike rides which led into eating healthier, losing a bit of weight and really feeling good about myself.

I was energized. Margie and I joined a gym and we were going pretty regularly.

Then another change happened - my friends opened up a little cookie bakery place and asked if I could help.

SURE - no worries. I worked with them to do some clean up and set up. We got together to figure out what recipes we wanted for our basic cookies and I became immersed in the entire process. Having a blast!

Unfortunately my focus on the cookies took my focus off myself. No more bike rides, no more gym, screw eating healthy I had cookies to taste test.

Talking with counselor G, she asked me what is it that I think rattles me the most and it's obvious that change is the answer.

This is where I think the ADD part kind of comes in. I like the change as long as it's challenging. When I lose the challenge I become bored and complacent. Looking for the new next exciting thing.

Something else to focus on for a while.

I've always admired people who have worked for the same company for 5 - 10 - 20 years. I like the concept, but it seems elusive to me. Sitting in a cubicle 8 hours a day doing the same thing over and over is like slow torture. Let me do something new, move me to a different department but change it up a little.

My focus is a bit scattered at the moment. There have been a few new changes in my life so I am re-adjusting myself again. The new puppy - BIG change. Working less hours at the cookie place - little change. Starting back to school next week - expected change.

If I look at it as a whole - all of these changes are happening at the perfect time. My decreased hours at work will give me more time to do my homework for school and play with puppy as needed.

Counselor G asked - that's all fine, but what are you doing for YOU?

Me? Me who?

Going back to school is for me - all me not for anyone else.

Counselor G asked - what about your photography and your painting?

That has taken a back burner recently.

Counselor G - and why is that?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm....well. Becaaaaaaauuuuuuse I'm too busy doing other things?

Counselor G shakes her head slowly - uh uh. Not good. Your homework for our next session is to give time to Sharon AND - tell me exactly what you've done.

Crap.

Why is doing something for OTHER people easier to me than doing something for myself?

Guilt? Co-dependency? Laziness? Unselfishness?

Overcompensating for being too selfish earlier in my life?

All of the above?

:::drumming fingers:::

OK...so what am I going to do. I am going to do some work on a stippling picture I started and numb my mind with tiny little dots. it's actually very therapeutic. I really have to focus and I get in a zone.

Off I go - here is a picture I was playing with last week. It's kind of trippy looking. Let me know what you think!

Made totally without the use of any mind altering chemicals - scary place my brain sometimes!

Have a fabu weekend all!

Peace!

Ramblin'

2010-01-22T22:36:00.003-05:00

I'm a ramblin' gal....I'm ramblin', ramblin', ramblin', ram......blinnnnnnnnnnnn'".

More with my thoughts than with actually ramblin' around.

I am in sort of another transition phase.

It happens quite a bit with me. I get comfortable with a situation, job, mental phase and then "snap" everything changes.

At first it throws me for a loop. The direction my life was going takes a sudden turn so I need to slow it down, re-group and get my feel for the way this new direction is taking me.

In one sense things never get really boring, but on the other hand it gets a bit hard to settle into a routine.

Sometimes I think that perhaps I don't think I like routine and maybe I cause the disruption myself in some way.

It's a possibility.

Change is fun. It mixes things up. I like the unpredictibility of it. What is going to happen next? Ohhhh, there is something new to learn/experience.

Maybe there is a bit of ADD in this. Hey - I've already been diagnosed as bi-polar...why not throw in a little ADD in there too.

Mental condition of the week.

Can a pill help it?

Sure!

OK...sign me up.

As long as I can go to sleep at night - no worries for me.

(are you all still with me so far or have I scared you all off at this point?)

You have to admit, this is not my usual kind of post.

Sure - I can be random, but not usually this scattered.

I put the extra spaces in the way I write this to illustrate how my brain actually works.

Scattered at times.

SometimessoorganizedthatIdon'tknowwhereonethoughtstopsandthenextbegins.

Please tell me that I'm not the only one that this happens to?

Nah...I know I'm not.

Perhaps it's just the wine?

Yeah - that could be it. I don't usually blog if I have been drinking. My thoughts are too scattered to put into any kind of coherent form.

(heh, heh, heh)

So - it's about 11:00 on a Friday night. Margie and I are sitting on the same sofa with our laptops and headphones. (Margie - Shinedown, Nickleback, Seether and me - Lady Gaga, Leona Lewis, Herman and the Hermits and Freda Payne) The doggies are passed out because the new puppy has run them ragged. The puppy is wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping next to me.

Sipping wine.

Singing along.

Extremely random.

Reading random blogs - new blogs. Old blogs. Really weird blogs!

It's OK.

(Mrs. Brown you have a lovely daughter)

Did you know that I make a pretty good scone? I do! I found a fabulous recipe on-line and it's become quite a hit at the cookie place I work at. I need to add some additional ingredients.

(I don't tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you)

Well - now that I've scared the heck out of you, but I hope not to the point that you won't come back I just want to leave you with this song that has been "ramblin" through my head for a week or so now and I've learned that the best way to get rid of it is to put it on to someone else!

That is YOU!

Heh, heh, heh!

Have a great weekend all. I'm really not as crazy as I seem to be with this post. I just need to let it out once in a while.

Random thought for the day

2010-01-21T12:35:00.001-05:00

Why do puppies love to play with poop?

I never quite understood it.

Cody not only likes to eat it, but he likes to step in it too.

This is NOT fun.

Why did we get a puppy?

I try

2010-01-17T10:15:00.004-05:00

My astrological sign is Libra. Actually I'm a Virgo/Libra cusp so I am really well organized when I make up my mind - there in lies the rub!

Some of the attributes on the Libra side are: always trying to find the good in everyone, hates conflicts, tries to be a mediator and likes harmony.

The flip side of that is that I am often blinded by trying to find the good side that I don't often see the really bad side of people until much later. Also - in a argument situation I could never mediate because both sides seem equally valid to me. Decision making - horrifies me to the point of paralysis. If you ask me "what would you like for lunch?" my typical answer will be..."anything you want is fine with me".

I am learning to ask for what I want and be OK with my decision, but these are life long patterns that won''t be changed easily.

The reason I bring all of this up is that my children are starting to hear from my ex-husbands side of the family. There is a long story in here that I really don't want to get into for my children's sake but I will say that when my ex and I divorced and I came out as a lesbian - his fundamental religious family were not too thrilled with it.

I was told that I would still be loved by them, but I would never be allowed to enter their home if I choose to life this lifestyle. I was harassed by telephone calls from my former sister in law telling me that I am a sinner and i will probably go to hell and since my ex-husband defaulted on a load that his parents co-signed with them they will be in debt and somehow that was my fault too.

My ex in-laws sued both my ex-husband and myself for visitation rights - we never denied them those rights in the first place but we did ask them to respect some guidelines to which they refused to do.

To say that what they did was hurtful to me is only part of it. I just could not understand how quickly people can turn against you. Especially Christian people.

I cut them off from my life a long time ago, but I had always thought it was very important for my children to stay in touch with them. They are family. They went away on vacations with them (most of them were religious camps that I never had a problem with).

Over the years though both my son and my daughter have slowly pulled away from that family. I don't know all of the details but both of my children have said to me many times that they are extremely judgemental, and have repeatedly said some unkind things about me and my lifestyle which has hurt them.

Now that both of my children are over 21 my ex's family has been trying to get back in touch with them.

Out of all of them - the ex sister in-law is the worst. She like the rest of that entire family are very good at manipulation and spinning things around to make whatever they say as being right and whatever you think or feel is wrong.

They love to throw a bit of the bible in there where necessary, remind them that their Grandma had to sell her home so that she could pay off the debt her son left them with but wants to invite them to sit down and meet face to face to talk about this in person so that they can hear "their" side of the story.

This is from an e-mail that they sent to my daughter: "I know that you know we've always tried to make the best of the time we could spend with you. If you want to try and pretend that that never happened and you want to 'buy' your parents story 'hook, line and sinker', then there is nothing we can do about that."

Oh and this is another good one: "We have done the damage? Think you should thank your parents for that."

This are the kinds of things that they have been telling my children for over 15 years now.

Now - I am not a saint. My children are very aware of my views on organized religion and so I know that has had an influence on them, but I've tried to be open to whatever they wanted to explore. Unfortunately I feel that they have only seen a very negative side of Christians. The ones that buy into the Pat Robertson ideology and probably thought that Ted Haggard was the most amazing man. They gave me James Dobson's books when my kids were young - and I could never get through them with out getting very angry. And that was at a time when I was pretty involved in my local church!

I was the superintendent of Sunday School until I came out and then all of a sudden no one wanted their children around me.

I'm a lesbian - not a pedophile!

I sang "This little light of mine" not "I'm Coming out!"

arrrrrrggggghhhhhh - this crap makes me really pissed off when I re-hash it so I don't usually.

Now - for some reason my ex in-laws are trying to reconnect with my children and my children don't want to be reconnected with them at this time. Both my son and daughter have told them that they do not with to be contacted anymore and the ex sister in-law keeps harassing them with e-mails and text messages.

I'm no biblical scholar, but harassing someone is not like witnessing is it?

My daughter came to me in tears last night about this and I asked her to share with me everything that was going on. I can only comfort her and let her know that I love her and how ever she decides to handle this I will be on her side.

My son has not really said too much to me about it right now - but I've seen the correspondence back and forth and I am very proud of him for standing up for himself.

It makes me sad and angry when people hurt the people I love - ESPECIALLY my children.

So to end this cheerful post and in true Libran fashion I wish that my ex in-laws have a long happy life and will respect my children's wishes. Peace be with them.

As a peace offering I think it only fitting to play this song:

Bless the ENTIRE world

Nevermind

2010-01-15T21:48:00.004-05:00

I had wanted to write a post about my trip to NYC yesterday, but after a few glasses of wine my thoughts are a bit muddled.

SO - instead this will be Random thoughts which is what I am best and and one of the reasons for the title of my blog anyway.

Why do people on trains feel the need to carry out conversations as though no one else can hear them?

Quote that I overheard from a 20 something young girl to the guy she just met on the train sitting in the seat across from her. Which by the way she talked the entire 1 1/2 yours to - but who's counting: "So like to get anywhere you would like have to work the old fashioned way from the bottom up. Can you believe that? I was like No way!"

(Ok...this may not have been the "actual" words, but it's close.)

Old fashioned way? Like "earning it"?

Heaven forbid!! (is this a republican statement or just an older person's view on things?)

Next - why do people feel the need to talk about their personal lives to perfect strangers?

Is it loneliness? The need to unburden oneself? Anyone? Please help me to understand why a grown woman would tell a perfect stranger (not me thankfully) about the staff infection she got while visiting someone in the hospital which landed her in a quarantined section of a different hospital for 7 days?

Also - does talking loudly about a potential business deal while you are on a train make you important or just really annoying to everyone else who could care less?

Lastly - if you are sitting on a train and you smell something foul and there is only one other person around you and you know that that foul smell didn't come from you - should you ask them to at least say "excuse me?"

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh....so many questions - so little time.

And so inconsequential compared to what is happening in Haiti.

How many people have perished? Over 50,000? Maybe more?

And we are subjected to Acts of Stupidity like this from the moronic idiot Rush Limbaugh: "I do believe that everything is political to this president," Limbaugh said on his radio show yesterday. "Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion."

or this from TV Evangelist Pat Robertson:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

I ..... am without words.

P.S. - If you find any typo's or grammatical errors, oh well!

I really don't give a flying fig! :)

We'll have a gay ol' time

2010-01-13T19:40:00.003-05:00

My new job has the makings for a great sitcom!

There are the main characters: Kim and Helen - partners and owners of "The Cab".

Both ladies are in thier 50's. Kim is the business woman - knows how to play the price game with the vendors and it always looking for a new thing to get in customers. She deals with the money and how to keep the business afloat. She as recently been knick named "Mama Cab" buy some of the regulars. Mama Cab is quite animated and loves the kids that come in. She's quick with a baloon for the little ones or a free whip cream shot to the teenagers. Mama Cab organizes the contests: Crazy Hat Day, Silly Sock day, Knock, Knock Joke day etc.

Helen is an artist. Completely the opposite of Kim and thinks from the right side of the brain. Her art is hung on the walls of the Cab only to serve as a bitter reminder that now dough is her canvas and buttercream frosting is medium these days. Helen is a bit more serious than her partner of 9 years. She is a bit nervous about the business and is always going through a mental check list of things that need to be done. Highly organized, perhaps a bit anal and runs around like a chicken with her head cut off but she gets things done!

Then there is me - Shazza, sort of the comic relief at times, but often moody. Has been known to break out in song at the spur of the moment and dance with dough. Decorating hundreds of gingerbread people is enough to drive her absolutely freakin' nuts! I am kept in the kitchen and only occasionally amd allowed to come out and mingle with the customers. Keep her baking! Keep her baking!!!

The customers are the real gems of "The Cab". There are "the students" who come in for their lunch breaks to load themselves up on cookies, mega brownies and double layered cookie pies and then wash them down with pure cane sugar Jones Soda. The Geeks, the freaks and the jocks all co-existing together for the sugar rush and a cheap lunch.

Some of the students we actually know their names but we have given them nicknames that best describe them. Not a lot of thought has been put to these names, but they work some how: Brownie boy - buys at least 1 double dark chocolate Ghiradelli brownie a day, Root Beer boy who is addicted to our root beer flavored milk shakes, pink hair girl (she has pink hair), blue haired girl (she has blue hair), tree nut boy (cannot have anything with tree nuts) etc.

Tea lady - comes in every day for a cup of tea, reads the paper and puts on her make up.

Love birds - the work together and come in every morning for a cup of coffee and a bit of intimate conversation.

Thumbprint addict - is in 2 - 3 times a week to buy up all of our raspberry thumbprint cookies.

Bran Muffin man - he looks like he's in his 80's. Runs 5k's and comes in for the occasional "healthy harvest" bran muffin. Sometimes a cookie as well! ;)

Hot dog guy - two hot dogs with mustard and kraut, and a chocolate chip cookie as desert.

Yadda, yadda, yadda - and so on and so forth!

There is a group of out and proud gay kids who have made "The Cab" their home. Mama Cab organized a "make your own mini cookie pie" day and all of the gay kids came in and played with cookies and frosting and gummi bears and all sorts of sugary sweets. Then they hung around and played their music and a few got a bit "cuddly" with each other.

"The Cab" has become a place where they feel safe and know that they can be themselves with us.

Very cool!

Wednesday nights are Teen nights and the place gets packed with kids from all over and an impromptu karaoke and dance seems to evolve. Mama Cab lets them have their fun but at 8:00 PM it's over and "The Cab" is closed. The teens dutifully return their tables back to where they were, and clean up after themselves and say thank you as they walk out the door.

We laugh a lot at "The Cab". This has been the most fun I've had at a job in ages. I seem to be channeling my Grandmother Harrison who was actually a master baker and have made some scrumptious scones and marvelous mocha munchis as well as the freakin' gingerbread armies!

I will somehow have to find a way to put all of the shenannigans down on paper - who knows maybe I'm on to something here!

Oh boy!

2010-01-10T21:00:00.005-05:00

It's a boy!

His name is Cody and he's the new addition to Casa Murphy/Perez.

Now we have 3 Westies and 2 goldfish (Herbie and Freddie were survivors from my rain barrels).

Oh how we have forgotten how much work a puppy is! He has been pretty good about doing his business outside and loves harassing his bigger brothers! He chases THEM around. He is very bold, very energetic and completely fearless.

I will try to get a picture of all three of them eventually - but for now here is the new addition all by his fearless little self.

Hellooooooooooooooooooo!

2010-01-09T09:25:00.005-05:00

Yikes, it's been so long since I've been on here I forgot my password. Well, actually I forget my passwords constantly so - whatever.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. We sure did. I have to say it was probably one of the best. Most definitely the poorest, but we had a great time!

So, what has been going on in the life of Shazza these days? I guess you could say a lot. I've changed careers. I am now a cookie baker! 3 months ago if anyone would have asked me what royal icing was I wouldn't have had a clue. Now I decorated hundreds sugar cookies and created an army of gingerbread men and women and have delighted many folks around the holidays.

It's been a blast!

This all came about in a moment of synchronicity.

Back in the summer I went to a friends bar-b-que. Many of the guest were artists and their spouses. Some I knew...most I did not. It was interesting that I went to this party as I was reading a book my sister gave me called "The Artists Way" by Julie Cameron. I've been trying to get more in touch with my creative self and the book has some really great exercises to help you become "unblocked".

Anyway - at the party I met some really wonderful people. We all sat casually around the table like we had known each other for years. Now normally I am a little pensive at parties with people I don't know, but I felt at home with this group.

Two of the ladies I met were Helen and Kim. Helen is a watercolor artist. You can see here work here: http://www.helenharrispaintings.com/ and Kim was working for a large corporate company that paid the bills and kept them both covered by insurance. (Hooray for Civil Unions in NJ)

It was one of those meetings where you talk and laugh and have so much fun that you didn't want it to end. We had an immediate bond.

We befriended each other on Facebook and told each other to keep in touch.

Then....one day I got a call from Kim. Her job at the company she worked for had been eliminated and she was now unemployed. BUT - she had an idea!

She wanted to open up a cookie delivery place. Bake cookies and deliver them warm to your house with any topping you want. Kim wanted to know if I was interested in helping out.

Sure...why not? I am still unemployed and had the job rejection blues. This would get me out of the house and make some new friends.

Then Kim asked me: Do you know how to bake?

Um...well sure I guess. I've baked cookies and cakes and breads in my life. How hard could it be?

Next thing I know - Kim and her partner Helen found a little store front in downtown Toms River, NJ and created the Cookie Cab! http://thecookiecab.net/ (There isn't much on the website at the moment, they have been VERY busy!)

So, since the end of October I've been baking my little heart out and I am having the time of my life! Helen and Kim are two great ladies, I get to be a little creative finding new recipes and playing with royal icing and we have fun! Lots and lots of fun!

The high school kids have made the place a hang out and even though we were initially hoping it would not be that way, the kids have been great. Respectful and nice. They can plug their iPod into the stereo and play their music. We have a few games around the dining area for them to play and they in turn buy a lot of soda and cookies and brownies and chat with us and their friends.

That is what I've been doing these past few months. The holidays were crazy busy with trays and trays of cookies ordered for office parties and gifts. Our cookies are a bit different than some of the other trays around the area in a sense that we don't bake the same ol' mass production cookies that most of the other bakeries do. We use all fresh ingredients, no frozen cookie blobs and we change our specialty cookies almost every week.

I've gained back all of the weight that I lost over the summer, but I really don't care.

The initial "make your cookie, your way" idea has changed but this is a growing little business and we are adapting to what the customers want. They've given us a lot of positive feed back and ideas and through word of mouth they have really helped us grow.

Thank you wonderful customers!

Now - for my New Years resolution I want to get reacquainted with my blog, because I do miss it and I think I'll have some amusing stories to share about "The Cab" and also because I am wasting WAY too much time on Facebook stalking other people and playing Mafia Wars.

What a time suck that is!

And - I want to get more in tune with my creative side. I finished a painting for a friend of mine and it got the ol' juices flowing and now I have a gazillion different ideas in my head that I hope to work into some kind of reality.

I need to find something to do with all of the paper I've shredded to clean off my desk. A friend suggested paper mache! I haven't done anything with paper mache since I was in the 4th grade so this could be an interesting challenge!

Stay tuned folks - I'm not sure what you will see on here in the next few weeks, months etc., but hopefully it won't be boring!

Happy New Year and peace to all!

And here is a photo of my latest painting. It's called "Sailing Bob" and it's a portrait of my friends father who passed away in October after a very long battle with cancer.

Dive's 500 Word Challenge

2009-11-27T12:50:00.002-05:00

I decided to take on Dive's 500 Word Challenge of the week.

This week's sentence is: "So, you fancy going over the road for a bit of looting and pillage?"

It's titled: Crog and Titus

Crog and Titus were sitting by the fire feeling quite satiated from their dinner of geese and partridge. They were big and strong men – hunters.
This had been a good hunt and they would go back to their village proudly and share their bounty with their families.
All in all they managed to bag six geese, seven swans, two turtle doves and three French hens. That should keep them feed for at least a week before they would need to hunt again.
Crog grunted opening up the front of his loin cloth to accommodate the expanding belly.
“We did good Titus. Our village will be proud of us. We will be hero’s among our people and shall be treated like kings!”
Titus who was Crog’s young apprentice hunter viewed things a bit differently. “I don’t we got enough to sustain our families and we will have to hunt again too soon. This is too tiresome for me.”
Crog scratching his belly looked impatiently over at Titus who was neatly folding his furs, burying the bones, preserving the leftover meat in small tightly closed leather pouches and sweeping up around the fire. “You fuss about too much Titus. Stop sweeping, that is woman’s job.”
“We are cro-magnon and highly evolved. We need to show our future generations that we cared about our lands and stored our foods so it would last longer. Look Crog, I was able to use some scraps of leather to make these wonderful patchwork pouches in which we can carry our bounty better! Aren’t they wonderful?”
Crog burping rolled his eyes and started drifting off to sleep.
As Crog slept, Titus felt the call of nature and wandered off into the nearby bushes to take care of business.
Carefully digging a small hole in the ground, Titus crouched down and concentrated. While admiring the stars up in the sky he heard a sound in the distance. Always the curious one, he finished up and quickly covered up the dung hole with some lovely pine branches and set off to find the sound.
Crossing over a small dirt road Titus saw a small village of people dancing around what looked like a bright fire. There were seven lords a leaping, eight maids a milking, eleven pipers piping, twelve drummers drumming. Titus noticed that it wasn’t just a fire they were dancing around there were 5 golden rings sitting perched up on a small alter with 4 calling birds around them.
Running quickly and quietly back towards their camp, Titus woke Crog up and told him about what he had seen.
“Eight maids a milking and 5 golden rings!? Crog said excitedly! “We will surely be treated as Kings if we bring them back to our village!
“I wouldn’t mind a lord a leaping or two for myself!” exclaimed Titus, we can kill the rest of them the noise is just so irritating”.
“So Crog, "So, you fancy going over the road for a bit of looting and pillage?"

Black Friday

2009-11-27T11:54:00.002-05:00

In my entire life I have only shopped once on Black Friday. I was about 18 and my friend Robin and I were bored and drove up to a shopping mall with no money in our pockets and decided to experience the Black Friday phenom.

That experience has cured me for life!

Driving home from Thanksgiving at my Dad's house last night we past the Best Buy store nearby and at 8:00 pm there were already people camped out in front of the store to get bargains.

I don't get it. I really don't.

First I hate crowds. I hyperventilate when there are swarms of people around me. I don't have that aggresiveness to fight and push my way to get to a "must have" item for sale. Luckily for me my kids were never the type that needed certain toys at Christmas. They had their wishlists of course and most of the time they got what they wanted when I could afford it, but camping out in front of a store in the cold and rain for hours and hours just to have either the bragging rights that I was the first person in the store at 5:00 AM to get my kid the hottest toy this year seems just 1 step away from total insanity to me.

Is there anyone out there who has ever done this? I would love to hear what you bought and why you did it.

What is the lure?

I know that sometimes the prices are incredible - but still...I just don't get it.

I hope all the Americans had a lovely Thanksgiving and I wish you all a safe and bargain abundant Black Friday.

I myself am staying home, in my jammies where it is relatively safe and stress free.

Cheers

Here's a song for all of those Black Friday shoppers out there!

Of mice and women

2009-10-17T10:12:00.002-04:00

I caught one!

The snap trap got it.

The little thing was about as big as my thumb and so darn cute.

I feel wretched now.

RIP little mouse - I'm sorry.

They're baaaaaack - again

2009-10-16T09:55:00.010-04:00

Those pesky little critters!

Mice!

So far they seem to be in our garage only. Usually we get them in the basement as well, but I haven't been down there to properly inspect the place since our new roommates have moved in.

They were freaking out over crickets, can you imagine if they knew there were mice down there too?

In the past I have used snap traps, glue traps (horrible, I do not recommend them) and poison. I have even tried gizmos that are supposed to kill the mouse and then keep it in one container so you don't see it.

Usually one of the above techniques work. Except for that last one. What a waste of money that was.

This year the mouse population in my neighborhood have put up little bulletins in their little mouse dens and have spread the work that I am out to get them because they have alluded capture so far.

First was the snap traps. I tried Cheese Whizz- they licked it clean off without setting off the trap. Then came the peanut butter - I thought it would be a bit sticker and hard to lick off. They licked that off too! One little bugger not only licked the peanut butter off the trap but it must have gotten caught on his/her tail and they dragged the trap to the middle of the garage and left it there. No sign of blood so I don't think it was injured.

Getting really ticked off now.

I put two glue traps down. I really don't like these because the mice get stuck to the glue and basically starve to death and you have to pick that trap up and throw it away eventually. It's not humane in my mind, but I am getting determined.

Two days...nothing but a few little mouse droppings around the glue traps.

I tried to put a dab of peanut butter in the middle of the trap and do you know that little varmint licked the peanut butter clean off the glue trap without getting stuck!!! one trap actually had some pieces of insulation on top of the glue so it wouldn't be sticky.

I even think I see a little teenie tiny, itty bitty, little teenie tIIIIny (think of Emily Litela people).....paw print on the adhesive.

You can just make them out in this picture!

Seriously!!!

WTF?!?!

This is one smart little mouse.

I have to say I am very impressed with his evasive maneuvers!
BUT I am the human - I am "supposed" to have a superior brain!

Now this is personal.

Now I feel like Wyle E. Coyote chasing after the Road Runner. (looking for the ACME anvil to drop on my head any moment)

:::drumming fingers:::

I would try the catch and release traps but I have heard that mice can find their way back to your house unless you take them far, far, FAR away.

With my luck I'll let it go in the woods and he'll tell all his little mice friends and next thing you know I'll have a Willard situation on my hands.

Any tips, tricks, helpful hints from Heloise will be considered!

Stay tuned...the saga continues.

Maybe I can hire this guy:

Dive's 500 Word Challenge

2009-10-15T13:50:00.003-04:00

Dive over at Small Glass Planet has a challenge he posts every week. He provides a sentence and if you're up for it you write a 500 word essay and the sentence has to be included.

Here is this week's sentence:

"Witchcraft once started, as we all know, is virtually unstoppable."

Here is my entry:

A Witch Named Fred -

In his cubicle Fred sat working on yet another boring report that his troll of a manager had demand he get to her “As soon as possible!”
Everything with her was “As soon as possible.”
Murmuring under his breath and wondering why she can’t print her own damned reports Fred’s thoughts wandered off. It was late October, the leaves were changing colors. Driving to work he saw all of the houses decorated for Halloween. He remembered as a child he wanted to dress up like a witch one year.
“A witch?” his mother shrieked and laughed. “Boys can’t be witches Fred. Don’t be ridiculous. How about Freddy Krueger instead. It suits your name! You can use your brother’s costume from last year. It may be a little big on you but it’s only for one night.”
Fred didn’t want to be Freddy Krueger. Freddy was mean and evil. Witches were cool with their magical powers. Besides his older brother Thomas was disgusting. Overweight and lazy and a mouth breather. They shared the same room since they were babies and Fred knew the reason he was tired all of the time was because Thomas snored and farted in his sleep constantly.
“Actually Mother, boys CAN be witches, although they are called Warlocks.” Freddy answered his mother impassively.
That was the last year Fred went out Trick or Treating. The Freddy Krueger mask smelled like rotten eggs and it was stained with chocolate and god knows what else. He was horrified. If he couldn’t be a Warlock for Halloween he wouldn’t go out at all.
“One day…I’ll be at witch and you’ll all be sorry” he cried into his pillow as he fell asleep that All Hallows Eve.
“Necromancer! Necromancer! Where is that damned report. I needed it yesterday!” his boss screeched from the other side of the room.
Fred snapped out of his day dream.
She was only about 4’9” tall and you could barely make out the top of her head over the cubicles as she was roaming around the office.
“I’m sending it to you now.” Replied Fred not even trying to disguise the annoyance in his voice.
“Sending it? Sending it how? I need that report printed and on my desk. I have a meeting that I am supposed to be at 5 minutes ago…I need it NOW!”
Fred felt a growing burning inside him. He stood up, aimed his #2 pencil at his boss and shouted: “I wish you would just shut up and print your own damn reports you little troll!”
“Ugh! Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here myself” sighed his boss and went to her computer and actually printed the report and left to go to the meeting.
Was it him or did her nose seem to grow a bit bigger and her ears a little pointier?
He sat down, shaking…but grinned.
This felt good, very good!
"Witchcraft once started, as we all know, is virtually unstoppable."

Seasons

2009-10-15T12:19:00.005-04:00

Ahhhhh Autumn.

My most very favorite time of the year.

Cool days and crisp nights.

The smell in the air changes.

Sweaters come out of the attic, jackets are kept nearby for those nights when it's a bit nippy out.

"They" predict that it will be a very cold winter. They don't expect too much snow, but it will be cold.

I think the birds, chipmunks and the squirrels are able to predict the up coming winter. I have seen more activity on my bird feeders this year than I have in a while.

At the park where I walk my dogs I have been picking up extra hickory nuts and black walnuts to throw down for them.

One over appreciative squirrel came up to my back door this morning looking for more I think. Thank goodness Margie wasn't there. You would have heard her scream from whatever part of the world you are reading this from!

I try to feed them on the other side of my fence to discourage them from coming in the yard. #1 - because I'm afraid the dogs will kill them. #2 - Margie isn't a big fan. She has a bit of sciurophobia! (I think this is a made up word but someone actually has a website about it. of course)

I even found a video called "Fear of Squirrels" by a group called Scarlett Angel. There aren't any real words to it, just a lot of crazy music. Perhaps it is supposed to be symbolic of what someone feels when they see a squirrel?

Anyway - where was I?

Oh...winter. Cold. Furry animals stocking up.

Hibernating.

Winter appeals to the lazy part of me. Staying inside bundled up. Snuggling. Not doing a whole lot of anything.

School will keep me busy. Painting I hope will as well.

I will probably blog on a more frequent basis since I won't be outside as much.

By March I will be going stir crazy and looking forward to Spring again, but for now...bring on the Autumn and the Winter!

I think I'll go up to the attic and get down all of my mothball smelling "winter" clothes so I can air them out a little.

Yeah...this is good.

Hello ol' friend

2009-10-12T20:27:00.005-04:00

It's been a while.

It almost seems weird to be here. What used to be a place I went to almost every day has become strange anymore.

Damn Facebook.

That instant gratification gets me every time.

I still don't get the whole twitter thing though. That is just weird.

So, what have I been up to lately? Eh...not much and a lot at the same time. I'm still unemployed but am not as panicked as I was two months ago when I wasn't sure I was going to get an extension of my benefits (I did). I've lost a bit of weight, joined a gym, have gotten a few house projects done - still have a few more that I need to do, but it will happen. I'm taking a class at my local community college - some day I'll be a college graduate! Before I'm 50 if I'm lucky!

There are all those little things in life that happens on a daily basis that unless you are Seinfeld are neither interesting or funny.

Rick and Cait have settled in somewhat. Rick went on tour with his band shortly after they moved in so he hasn't been here all that much.

Margie is good. Still dealing with the little bitch troll from hell at work.

The woman is under 5 feet tall and has a horrible Napoleon complex.

Margie seems to be her favorite target. She likes to manage by fear but it's hard to take her serious because she's a freakin' nutcase.

If she didn't make Margie's life so miserable I would say she is too insignificant to mention. Just another middle manager who kisses upper managements ass to make herself look good.

Nasty little person.

I've met some new friends. Started painting again - all of that feels good.

Feels like my life is changing in a more positive direction. Positive in the way that I it's moving the way I would like it to be.

This is good yes?

Two of the new friends I met at a party and we hit it off instantly. Two lesbians that have been together for a while and have children. Very similar to Margie and I. It's always nice to know another couple like that around here. One is an artist - a painter and the other worked for a large corporate business for over 14 years and then one day was told she was being laid off...escorted to her desk and asked to empty it out and leave.

After 14 years!

WTF?!

Now - she and her partner are opening up a small business and have asked me if I would like to work for them.

HELL YEAH!

The place is called the Cookie Cab and they will deliver fresh WARM cookies to your door!

They have a little store front in a downtown area near here which will be like a small bakery/cafe for the folks immediately around town but they want to push the delivery side of the business.

Just think about having warm delicious cookies delivered to your door on a chilly night when you are just craving something sweet but you don't have anything in the cupboards to satisfy you!

Mmmmmmmmm....mmmmmmmmm!

So much for the weight I've lost! HA!

Another new friend I've made is in my English class. She is just a few years younger than I am and is from Georgia (the country, not the state) and has been in the US since 1997. Our professor assigned us as "study buddies" on the first night and we hit it off pretty well. Her English is OK. She is still learning. Especially what is considered slang. I've been to her home a few times to review our lessons and to try to help her interpret what we are reading and discuss the stories.

She is very bright, but she struggles. She is still translating what she reads into her native language and then back into English and often reads things quite literally.

As a person who can only speak one language - I cannot even imagine how difficult this is.

She is very eager to learn - to make a better life for herself here in this country.

She works hard.

Her hard work sometimes makes me realize how much I take advantage of what I have in my life.

My life in a "free country".

She told me once: "I cannot wear pants in Georgia or I am a whore. I cannot drive in Georgia...or I am a whore. You get married and you give up your education because you are expected to stay home and take care of the house and the children and the husband."

I can't even wrap my head around this.

She was so proud when she got her U.S. citizenship and her driver's license she thought that nothing could stop her now!

How can you not admire someone like that?

When I go to her house to study with her she always feeds me. It's her way of being grateful for my help. She makes an awesome pizza, from scratch! She made me two extra pies to take home with me.

I've gained almost 2 pounds this week!

Tonight our class was cancelled. Our teacher said there was a family emergency. My new friend - her name is Maia, had another class to go to but it wouldn't start for another 1 1/2 hours. She didn't know what to do with herself so I invited her to the student center and thought we could go over the story we read and perhaps chat a little.

I also felt the need to "come out" to her. I like her and would like to be friends with her beyond our English class.

Coming out to someone is strange for me.

When my ex-husband and I seperated and I came out to all of my "friends" I realized that they weren't friends at all. I have not spoken to any of them since I came out.

That was painful.

I expected a few of them to naturally have a hard time with it. Here is a person you think you know then all of a sudden...maybe you don't really know them.

After that experience I threw myself into the "gay life" and just surrounded myself with "gay friends" and stuck rainbows on my car and did the whole "out and proud" thing for a while.

When some asshole called me a fucking dyke in my car with my kids in it...the rainbows came off.

If you have a problem with me...fine, but don't get into it around my kids.

For the most part I am not a closeted person. One look at me and you would probably guess that I am gay.

I get called "sir" a lot.

Coming out at the work place is fine. I didn't really care if my co-workers knew or not - but when I build a personal relationship with someone, someone I think I will see outside of the workplace or outside of a classroom it's a whole different place in my head.

It's letting yourself be vulnerable.

To...whatever? Prejudice! Religious views. Hate? Fear? Loss. Ignorance.

I don't do the whole vulnerable thing very well.

I guess there aren't too many people who do really.

Most of us are very guarded.

With good reason.

Sometimes it's just "no one else's business."

Sometimes there are scars.

Whatever the case may be...it's not an easy thing to reveal a part of your personal self to someone else. I always hold my breath a little whenever I come out to someone. You can never really predict how they will handle it.

As Maia and I were chatting, I told her that I wanted to tell her something. That if we were to continue a friendship there is something about me she should know.

I told her I was gay.

She said she guessed that I was, but it was really none of her business and it was my private/personal life.

I've heard this before.

Sometimes it comes out OK...sometimes - not so much.

She became a little nervous - but then shared with me some of her life in Georgia and some of her life here.

Her struggles.

How tired she is.

She let herself be vulnerable for a while.

We learned a lot about each other tonight. I think we are both good people and will have a good friendship.

We will both process all of the information we shared tonight and think about it over the next day or so.

Our next class is Wednesday night.

So...I hold my breath a little.

Maia is a good person...a nice person. I would like to have her as a friend in my life.

I hope she feels the same.

TGIF

2009-09-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

Just because this makes me smile!

Enjoy!

People of Walmart

2009-09-19T15:50:00.001-04:00

Click here if you dare:

Guess Who’s Back?

Oh crappy day!

2009-09-11T12:28:00.003-04:00

So...I'm sitting here, "waisting time" by doing various job searches, looking around on Facebook, playing solitair (I've won 3 out 10 so far) and looking for some "peppy and snappy" songs to play on this very grey day. (What is the correct spelling of that word please? I always use grey and then I'm corrected to use gray)

A few Facebook pals gave me suggestions for some peppy songs: Kari suggested: And She Was by the Talking Heads...very peppy indeed.

My pal Jenni in Chicago threw in: Mr. Blue Sky by ELO...also very peppy and quite apporpriate for a crappy day!

I played them both...felt a little better for about 8 minutes or so and then I started looking around on YouTube.

I typed in: Snappy and I found the Snappy Theatre Vagina Dance!

This would definitely fall into Dive's WTF? Monday because...WTF.

There are some strange things going on in this dance.

Around 1:22 I think these vagina's get crabs. But that is just my interpretation.

Then around 2:15 I'm thinking there is a yeast infection of some kind. But again...that is just my interpretation.

But I only have one opinion...I would LOVE to hear yours!

The ending is kind of odd, but cute...but still kind of odd.

Enjoy!

You'll have to click on the link...they've disabled the embedding...sorry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbHkhGr6-A

Waisting time

2009-09-08T15:11:00.004-04:00

I should be cleaning - but I'm so not in the mood.

Perhaps exercise?

Nah - tomorrow. There is always tomorrow.

This is how I spent my day today!

Well, I kind of messed up the leave. I didn't like the shadow, it was really bothering me. The colors, the angles etc. Unfortunately the leaf that I used as a model for my painting kind of shriveled up and changed colors so I couldn't use it as a reference any more.

Soooooooooo...I just kind of went crazy on it and added some swirly things. I actually like this version better!

Oh...and sorry about the spelling error on the word "waisting". eh - spelling and grammar aren't my "thing".

It's like riding a bike

2009-08-29T09:04:00.007-04:00

It's been over 2 years since I've painted anything other than basement walls. I was very nervous about the whole thing. Actually it was more like fear. That fear has kept me from doing something that I really enjoy.

Painting.

It's not like I was jumping out of an airplane or climbing a mountain - but still the fear was there.

Minds -they do funny things sometimes.

For months I have worked hard on unblocking myself and conquering my fear. I've been reading books and other artist blogs.

Excuses kept popping up here and there and found their way between me and my paint brushes. (excuses are like assholes...everyone has one and they all stink!)

Yesterday I kept repeating the Nike mantra: Just Do It.

Just Do It, Just Do It,Just Do It,Just Do It,Just Do It.

So I did!

The first little painting was just a pop artsy kind of thing. Something I doodled on a post it note one day and thought it would look good as a painting. I got kind of sloppy with it and the lines aren't as crisp as I would like them but it was a fun warm up exercise.

The next one was an experiment in schmearing colors with a palette knife. Something I've never done before. Unfortunately I used a little too much stand oil so it came out a little runny but I think this qualifies for the blob I wanted to paint.

I like the colors at least. Kind of reminds me of my palette after I've been painting a while.

This last one was just something I wanted to try. I have always curious about portraits. I love to study faces. The small laugh lines or creases along the forehead. The cheeks and nostrils. Mouths, eyes...everything. I find them infinitely fascinating.

Rummaging around my photos I came across one of my Dad that I took when we were in Ireland. We were waiting for a shuttle to take us to the Cliffs of Moher I believe. It was misty and grey and he just stood there staring into space deep in thought.

So...my brain said...give it a go. If you don't like it, paint over it. No one will have to know!

But I like it...a lot. And I am very unforgiving about my art.

This isn't 100% finished. I just have a few touches to do, but it was getting late and my eyes were getting a bit blurry and so I stopped and will let it dry for a few days and then just add a few things.

Here he is. I hope you like him.

If you don't that's ok too. I do!

Now I have the painting bug so I will try to tackle a few more this week if I can.

Have a great weekend!

Something different

2009-08-28T14:52:00.003-04:00

Now that the basement project is done, I thought I'd post something different.

A friend of mine (Yvonne Yaar <- click here for her website) is a glass artist and she taught a glass fusion class a few weeks ago. I signed up because I had been wanting to give it a try.

Hey - you never know what you can do 'til you try right?

Here are the pendants that I made:

It was a fun class and it felt good to be creative again. I don't know if I will actually wear them but they have become a sort of artistic talisman.

A start to find the creative me inside.

It's out there...I know it is. It's been hiding out in Facebook and endless games of computer solitaire and working in the yard and various house projects.

So today - I promised myself to dust off the ol' easel and paint something.

A blob, a flower, a dot, a stripe...just SOMETHING!

Sooooooooooooo stay tuned Romper Room pals....next week I'll post the "something".

Basement project - part 4

2009-08-23T18:59:00.004-04:00

Ta da! I give you the 98% finished photos of the basement project!

Kudos to Caitlin and Rick and Rich (Rick's Dad) for the vision and hard work they did to make this project a reality.

This once dark and gloomy basement is now Chateau McKowski!

Unfortunately Rick had to go on tour 2 days after they moved in, but when he comes home he'll have a nice little place to chill and relax in!

Cool lamps over the bar that just happen to match the very cool floor they did!

Here's the very cool floor. Very Jackson Pollack doncha think?

This is the "bar" area that still needs to be finished. They have time though...they have time!

Basement project - part 3

2009-08-06T13:15:00.007-04:00

I haven't posted here in a while, but I've been lurking around on everyone else's blogs.

I hope all is well in your part of the world.

The basement project is coming along quite well. Rick and Cait have accomplished a lot! Rick's Dad has been a big help and we all found out what a real drag spackling and sanding is.

It really sucks.

People who do this for a profession make it seem so easy and effortless.

Pfffftttt - it's not.

We glopped and schmeared and scooped and sanded and glopped some more and sanded some more. It's a dirty messy crappy job. The first day I have to admit I got into a "zone" and just had the radio on and once I found a rythym it was ok. After a while though your arms start to shake, you curse every screw hole you missed and have to go back and cover and generally start hating it more and more as you go along.

But enough about that!

This weekend Rick is hoping to lay the grid for the suspended ceiling. Everyone who has ever done this tell me it's a breeze.

I'm glad Rick is doing it and not me!

I am very impressed on how Caitlin and Rick have managed their expenses on this project.

Margie and I told them we will pay for the basics to get this project done and anything above and beyond the basics will be their responsibility. I told Cait that they have to keep in mind that this is NOT a permanent place for them and not to go too crazy with fixtures and paint and carpeting. The whole idea behind them moving it was to start saving money for their own space someday. (And to also not let them get TOO comfortable so that they never leave! Love ya guys, but we all must leave the nest sometime.) The expression "bargain basement prices" have really applied.

Here are a few pictures to show you how it's coming along. There is still some clean up to be done obviously, but it's much better than it was a few days ago trust me. I still have white foot prints all over my house from the spackle dust, but the worst is over - I hope!

To give you and idea of how dusty it is down there. I moved a tarp to get a better shot of the bar Rick is making and when I took a picture the flash captured all of the particles floating around.

Nasty!

America's favorite pastime

2009-07-26T17:23:00.006-04:00

Baseball.

The boys of summer.

Peanuts and Crackerjack, hot dogs and beer.

Margie bought tickets for herself, me, my Dad, my Bro in-law and my sister to see the Philadelphia Phillies vs. the St. Louis Cardinals, in Philadelphia.

We all met up at the park, had a nice lunch and then got to our seats.

It was hazy, hot and humid but luckily we were sitting on the shady side of the stadium.

My Dad, my sister and Bro In-law are Phillies fans.

Margie is a Cardinals fan.

I'm indifferent. I've never been a fan of baseball. I don't watch it on TV, but I don't mind seeing it live. There isn't much to it really. You sit, eat hot dogs and peanuts, drink beer and chat about this and that. Stand up and clap when your team does well, boo and hiss when the other team does.

America's favorite pastime.

Being at a live game and watching the fans can be more entertaining than the actual game itself. There are the real die hard fans that are decked out in full fan attire (that would be Margie), there are families that come and sit together, Fathers and sons, friends and neighbors...and the occasional "special group" of people.

We had a whole bus load of "special people" sitting in front of us. Now I don't mean special like people that may be handicapped or challenged in any kind of "apparent" fashion. I'm talking about that special group that comes together on a bus, start drinking on the bus and continue drinking all throughout the game. This was a really odd group because you had a mix of trailer park people and frat boys all mixing together. They kept changing seats. A bunch would get up and leave and then a whole new set of people would come in and take their place.

It was a bit bizarre.

My sister and I were enjoying them - they were entertaining...for a while.

Before I continue I need to explain something first. Baseball in the Northeast of the US...especially in NY and NJ has somewhat of a wacky cult following.

I guess you could say that we are "passionate" about our sports and enjoy showing our passion by yelling and screaming and jumping and clapping. You get the idea. In the Northeast, if you walk into a Yankees game wearing a Boston Red Sox hat you are taking a chance with your life. If you go to a Phillies home game wearing the opposing teams hat, shirts whatever - you will be heckled.

Some people are good natured about it. Some are just assholes.

Meet Mr. Asshole:

As soon as he walked in you could tell he was an "over enthusiastic and quite inebriated" fan. He would start clapping for no real apparent reason and wouldn't stop. He would stand up and just stay there blocking every one's view while we were all screaming at him to sit down.

Plain ol' obnoxious, stupid jerk.

As the game went on and the Phillies were kind of giving the Cardinals a whoopin' this guy became more and more vocal.

And then he spotted our lil' Margie sitting there with her Cardinals hat and shirt on and she became his target. He started yelling at her and making fun of Albert Pujols (who is like THE best player in baseball at the moment) insinuating that Pujols takes steroids and aiming all his drunken idiocy on Margie.

Neetzy remarked that she has kids in her high school class that act the same way and she always wondered if they grew out of it.

The answer to that question is: NO!

Mr. Asshole was living proof!

Mr. Asshole's friends were trying to get him to shut up and he even got a warning from Security to behave himself.

He is "special" that is for sure.

And so Mr. Asshole, I dedicate this song to you.

Everybody sing along!!!

We will never forget you!

Basement project - part 2

2009-07-16T19:46:00.008-04:00

Just a quick update on the basement project.

Rick and Cait have been working their butts off on this and I have to say I'm quite impressed!

Rick and his father started the framing this weekend and managed to get a good start. Rick has been here almost every night this week and should have it all finished by tonight. He will work on the electrical next. Then comes the fun part of sheet rocking, spackling, sanding and installing the drop ceiling!!!

Caitlin doesn't really have any wood working skills but she has been doing her part by painting and packing and moving boxes (many filled with Margie's books) and carrying some furniture up and down the two flights of stairs! Today, she and I dismantled the entertainment center that was down there, carried it up to my new space (her old room) and rolled up the area rugs and put them outside for the trash. The padding underneath was absolutely disgusting. It's been down there for nine years and was deteriorating and smelled a bit like old shoes.

They are trying to get as much done as possible before Rick goes on tour again with his band The Racing Kites. He is the drummer and they will leave sometime mid-August and won't be back for 6 weeks!

I don't think it will be 100% finished but they should have a livable space anyway!

Here's Rick with his trusty drill and a curious smirk! (Caitlin was making fun of his "apron".)

Caitlin is painting some shelves. (Rick said she is just jealous because she doesn't have an apron and will probably get paint on her clothes!)

Chaos

2009-07-11T21:53:00.003-04:00

Just when I had the basement organized and the garage cleaned out we now have boxes piled up and chaos about the house.

:::just breath:::

I'm trying.

Luckily the weather is nice. I can go outside...take a deep breath.

The basement walls have been sealed and the framing has started. Caitlin packed most of the boxes and helped seal the walls. Rick and his Dad were here to start the framing.

Rick took a lunch break for a bit and sat with Caitlin and chatted together. I have to admit it - it was sweet to watch them together. Talking...bickering a little. They are good for each other.

This makes this transition easier.

It's still an adjustment and this is just the beginning. They haven't moved in yet.

Stay tuned!

Basement project - part 1

2009-07-07T09:03:00.003-04:00

We have begun the process of clearing out the basement so that we can convert it into an apartment for Caitlin and Rick.

It seems just a few months ago I was cleaning it to make it into my office/art space.

I worked on packing up my desk and throwing away a lot of junk. Margie organized her books and then Caitlin and Rick moved my desk and some other pieces of furniture up into her bedroom which will now become my office and our exercise room.

They got a lot done, I was surprised. Caitlin was running on the rush of the experience, Rick was just doing what he was told. (She is training him well!) Today I will clear out some more of my things and dismantle the fish tank. We are down to 1tetra. He's a survivor. He's been around for 4 years. He and his little buddy who I found floating in the tank last week, have chased/eaten any other fish we tried to introduce into that tank. I think I am going to add him to the rain barrels and see how he does. The temperature is warm enough to sustain a tropical fish and there will be lots of little mosquito larvae for him to eat.

Good luck little buddy. Thank you for many hours of lazily watching you swim back and forth in your little glass home.

For now I'm off to walk the dogs and then give them a bath. They really stink.

Just float

2009-07-05T22:12:00.003-04:00

Breathe deep....inhale.........exhale.

Changes are good - they rattle you up. Take you out of your comfort zone and give you a new challenge to tackle.

Most of the time I will agree with that theory because I don't like to get settled into one thing for too long. Restlessness settles in.

During my unfortunate unemployment I've been trying to "mix it up a bit" by taking on different tasks that have needed to be done around the house. There are some projects that made me think "outside of the box" which was both wonderful and sometimes frustrating.

It's kept my mind from going to mush.

Recently I registered at a temp agency. Just for work. ANY kind of work. Something that will put me back in touch with the human species again.

The agency tests you on your office skills. You have 3 timed test for Microsoft Word, Excel and basic typing.

According to them - my skills with Word and Excel were "above average" for that office.

It was a nice little boast to the self esteem!

Then there was the typing test.

Typing - only 44 WPM!

I used to be at 60 WPM!!!

DANG!!!

Never mind - I'm just rusty. It will flow again once I can exercise my skills again.

Hmmmmmm....

I had an interview last week. It was up in Cambridge, MA. I hopped on a train in Trenton, NJ and it took me 5 hours to get there. The interview was about 2 hours and then 5 hours to get home.

Loooooong freakin' day.

I felt really good afterwards though and I'm crossing every body part that can be crossed that this is THE one.

The downside to the position is that I would have to drive to Somerset, NJ.

It's only 43 miles, compared to the 80 miles to Philly but it is 43 miles of NJ rage road driving it's kill or be killed traffic. The two major roads that I would be on: The Garden State Parkway (aka Garden State Parking lot) and 287 are infamous for traffic jams, aggressive drivers and speed traps.

I hate traffic. That is one of the few times in my life where anxiety gets the better of me.

But...I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't even have an offer yet.

Roommates.

We're getting 2!

I guess it's really only 1.

Daughter Caitlin and her boyfriend Rick are moving in.

I thought this would never happen.

Well...let me re-phrase that - I kind of hoped it wouldn't happen.

Is that terrible?

Nah, I don't think it's so terrible really.

Caitlin is 21. She's employed full time and goes to college part time. I had thought she was the independent one.

She has known Rick since High School. They've had this friendship/relationship thing going on and off for a few years now. Always more on the friendship side. Now they've been together for over 6 months.

Rick lives with his Dad and Step-Mom. Caitlin has been "living" there for a while now. We see her about once or twice a week maybe. The only time she comes home is to do laundry and hang out with me for a little bit and then she is gone again.

Silly me mentioned that they should just "fix up the basement and move in here" one time and "snap" that was all they needed!

(I need a censor for these things sometimes)

Before the economy tanked and I lost my job, Margie and I had dreams of buying that ol' farm house and raising Alpacas.

We've put that dream on the side burner now that I am unemployed and the housing market sucks the big one. We think in a year or two we can start looking again. I need a job and we need to make sure we can make enough on this house that we can use as equity on a new home. Otherwise what is the point?

Soooooooooooooo...Caitlin asked me when did we think we would move. I said, "Oh, probably not for a year to two."

Caitlin: "So, do you think Rick and I can finish off the basement and live there for a while and save up for our own place then?"

GULP!!!

So...here we are.

Caitlin and Rick are making plans for framing out and installing a drop ceiling into the basement and Margie and I are just in this weird moment of WTF?

Please - don't get me wrong. As far as "room mates" are concerned. I think they will be fantastic. BUT - as far as our vision for the immediate future...it has been sidelined.

I was getting used to the quiet.

The uninterrupted times when I could just chill. Margie could watch her baseball games or study and I could either sit on the back deck and watch the stars or read or futz around on the computer.

In the quiet.

Maybe a few interruptions by the dogs...but basically quiet.

Inhale........exhale.

Just float.

Stream of conciousness

2009-07-01T21:57:00.002-04:00

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

Life is but a dream!

Yes? No?

(just a note...my original post had roll, roll, roll. Thank you Robyn!)

It is me?

2009-06-24T09:40:00.002-04:00

Or is this kind of...well...gross?

I was chatting with my next door neighbor last night and at one point she told me that she checks her 19 year old sons sheets to look for evidence that he's been having sex with his girlfriend of 1 1/2 years.

She picks them up and looks for stains and then smells them?

um....EW!

Random thought for the day

2009-06-21T20:18:00.002-04:00

Does breaking out in a sweat while struggling to get my sports bra on count as my daily exercise?

Sugar and Spice

2009-06-19T13:21:00.005-04:00

Did you ever have one of those mornings where you are still between sleep/dreaming and being awake?

That was how I started my day today.

A friend of mine (check out blog here: http://yvonneyaar.blogspot.com/) and I were to meet at one of the local flea markets at 9:00 AM this morning.

I had some really weird dreams last night. I don't remember the details or actually it would be hard for me to write them down because they are so fragmented, but at one part of my dream I read an e-mail from my friend saying she couldn't make it to the flea market because she had to have a medical procedure at 5:00 AM.

No worries - I'll go it alone (and then some other weird stuff happened in the dream)

M usually leaves the house around 6:30 AM and she gives me a kiss goodbye and I drift back to sleep.

So I drifted and then I woke up...or thought I woke up and looked at my alarm clock and it said 9:30!!!

I sprang up in a panic because I was going to be late in meeting my friend. I clumped down the stairs - sometimes it takes a while for my ankles to loosen up so I really don't walk...just kind of clump and grabbed my cell phone to call her and at the same time I was trying to open up my e-mail to see if I really read that she had a medical procedure this morning or if it was part of a dream.

Her phone rang a few times and her voice mail picked up and I looked down at the clock on my computer and it said: 7:10 AM.

I hung up the phone and didn't leave a message - embarrassed.

My e-mail finally came up and there was NOTHING about a medical procedure anywhere and in fact she sent me an e-mail last night to confirm the 9:00 AM meeting.

Talk about confused!!!

It wasn't 9:30 it was only 7:10. I wasn't late at all and just sat in front of my computer trying to figure out where I was.

Oy!

Actually what did happen was that my friend had really weird dreams too and she overslept and she was late!

(que in Twighlight theme now)

SO - for today's song I thought I would post something that kind of gives you a glimpse of my spaced out frame of mind this morning!

Love the trippy ink blotty things in the background!

Far out!

Peace all!

Have a great weekend!

Are you kidding me?

2009-06-18T14:57:00.003-04:00

Normally I post a photo on Thursdays, but I was just scanning the news and I read this headline:

"PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly"

In case you missed it, President Obama swatted and killed a fly during an interview the other day.

I was pretty impressed!

Now PETA is in a bit of a tiff over it and they are sending him: "a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside."

Bruce Friedrich said that "PETA was pleased with Obama's voting record in the Senate on behalf of animal rights and noted that he has been outspoken against animal abuses.
Still, "swatting a fly on TV indicates he's not perfect," Friedrich said, "and we're happy to say that we wish he hadn't."

Give me a break.

Work

2009-06-15T19:29:00.004-04:00

Officially it's been 107 days since I was "let go" from my former employer.

Since then I have been spending my time working on various projects around the house that I needed/wanted to get done.

We keep a white board up in our kitchen to remind us of appointments or write little notes to one another when we're feeling silly. I have been using it as my job jar. It works pretty well if I write down the things I need to do, but if you don't write it down...it ain't gettin' done!

M will ask me: "Did you remember to do such and such yesterday?"

"Nope...sorry I forgot. Write it down so I'll remember please."

Then we go on about our business and neither one of us remembers to write it down. A few weeks later she may ask me the same thing.

This will go on and on until ONE of us remembers to write the damn thing down!

There are a few jobs that I don't have on the white board that I haven't forgotten about. Maybe deliberately, maybe I'm just being lazy or maybe I'm scared.

1. Lose weight. I've been successful at losing weight in the past, but I have not been successful in keeping it off. Kind of like Oprah. I'll shed 40 50 pounds and swear never to put it back on again. And I do. This is a job that I deliberately put off because it's SO much freakin' work to diet and exercise and I don't enjoy either one. I can work outside from dawn til' dusk and sweat my ass of mowing, raking weeding, pruning or whatever but 30 minutes on the dreadmill is B-O-R-I-N-G!!! Dieting or changing my eating habits or whatever you want to call is not as easy as it used to be. I used to be able to go on Weight Watchers for a while and really do well. Now as my body has been changing the weight loss is much slower and I lose my patience with it and then go out and buy myself a cream donut. (pathetic isn't it?)

2. Work on my art/creative side again. I used to enjoy picking up my camera and just go out exploring. Sometimes I'd go through 4 or 5 rolls of film and sometimes I'd only get off a few shots. Time of day, lighting and location will always dictate this. I've wanted to start painting again I enjoy it. It's very soothing and I can lose myself for hours doing it, but it's been at least 3 years since I've seriously painted anything. I've just been lazy really. I've made all kinds of excuses: I needed to clean up the basement (which I've done), I needed to clean off my art desk (check), I need more time to myself (bloody hell I've got gobs and gobs of it now). So now I've run out of excuses.

3. Me This is the scary one. I've been to counselors during times of crisis in my life: divorce, coming out, post-partum depression, grief, relationships etc. Each time has been very helpful in getting through the tough times. An objective opinion, someone who can give you the tools to help you get through whatever it is you need to get through. The counselor that I see now - she's different. She's sharp and sees right through my bull shit!

She's asked me to write. Freestyle- whatever comes into my head. Stream of consciousness. Carry a notebook around with me and whenever I feel like writing something down - just do it.

It doesn't have to mean anything, it doesn't have to be a journal of what I've done - just whatever goes on in my head.

Random thoughts!

Thoughts like: "I've had this chair for so long it's perfectly conformed to my butt."

or

"Why is it when you open up a new box of tissues you always get two tissues and so you try to stuff the other one back in the box and then it looks crappy?"

Hmmmmmm...

Excuse me, I've got work to do.

Sugar and Spice

2009-06-12T12:03:00.006-04:00

Another Friday is here! For all you 9 to 5er's a two day reprieve before you have to do it all over again.

I hope it's a good one!

We have had THE crappiest weather this week. Rain, drizzle, more rain...throw in a little fog and humidity levels that do not dip below 90%.

Can we say sticky and disgusting? You never feel completely dry. My dogs have tracked in so much dirt and mud into my house I've just about surrendered to the fact that my house won't be clean until it dries up a little.

On the brighter side - both of my rain barrels are full again!

But the silver lining to all this crappy rain was that I got to spend all day with BOTH of my kids yesterday. My son is in from Chicago for a few days and daughter C had the day off so we went to our favorite little town: Ocean Grove and had a nice lunch. Afterwards my daughter wanted to put in an application to THIS store so my son and I moseyed about and he was getting ideas on how to decorate his new apartment since this one is bigger than his postage stamp size one he previously had.

My daughter played chauffeur and I have to tell you it was kind of nice being driven around!

We had to stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and then my son and I went to the liquor store and he picked out a very nice Chilean Pinot Noir. Agustinos Reserva if you want to check it out. Nice and light and it went very well with our dinner which was beef, chicken and shrimp kabobs.

My daughter and her boyfriend were there and M came home just in time for us to serve up dinner.

We chatted and laughed and I am still smiling today because I enjoyed myself so much.

Here is a picture of my son, my daughters boyfriend and my daughter. (there was a picture that included me in there as well but between the sunburn I got on Sunday and the reaction to the sulfites in the wine I was as red as a lobster so I'm not going to post that one!)

Also - I want to mention that R (daughter's boyfriend) is in a band called Racing Kites. He's the drummer. If you ever want to check them out please do!

I let you know what my son's theme song was when he was a baby, but now it's C's turn. It's not a tune that is as well known but the first time I heard it was right after she was born. The very first time I got to hold her in my arms I said: "Hello little sweet pea! You have the brightest eyes!"

Sweat Pea was her nickname when she was little and she still is my little sweet pea, but she's all grown up now.

Thanks for a great day yesterday kids! I love you both!

Peace all - have a great weekend!

Photo of the week

2009-06-10T10:53:00.002-04:00

Playing around with the macro feature on my digital camera and came up with this.

Sugar and Spice

2009-06-05T10:35:00.003-04:00

TGIF all!

I went to my counselor yesterday. It was a good session. She's sharp and is not afraid to call you to task. She's the first counselor that I've ever had that has done that. Usually I can use my wit and charm to disarm them and skirt around the heavier issues in my life. Not with this one. She watches every move you make, every rise or fall in your voice. Any change in position and notices when you are avoiding something.

That is what they are trained to do obviously and some people are better at it than others. She's excellent!

She noticed that a lot of the things that I do are for other people (hello co-dependence) and asked me what was I going to do for myself after this session.

"Go home and take a nap?!" said the coy and sly little me.

She just shook her head.

"Um, go home and walk the dogs?!"

"Much better!"

I've been trying to get my ass moving to exercise and lose weight and I just have been extremely lazy about it. One week I will be great - eat right, work out in the yard, take the dogs for nice long walks and then the following week I'm eating crap, lying about the house, surfing the web and feeling like a blob.

I'm sabotaging my own self.

We have a white board in our kitchen and I write all of the things/chores that I am trying to accomplish while I'm unemployed. I've managed to get a lot of things done so far. I also ask M to write things that she needs me to do as a reminder because I'll just plain forget.

This morning on my list of things to do M wrote: 1 task for Sharon 6/5/09. What is she doing for herself today? and added a little smiley face to it.

I loved it!

So the two things that I want to do for myself today is read the book I've started. It's a good rainy day and perfect for book reading and give myself 30 minutes on the treadmill. I need to get moving and if I start a little it will help me a lot.

There is a play list I have on my iPod that I've made just for walking on the treadmill. There are slower songs in the beginning and then the songs increase in tempo as I go along.

The last song I usually play is Trouble by P!nk. I can usually jog through the entire song and I feel pretty pumped up afterwards.

I freakin' love her. She scares me a little but I really like her music.

So for this weeks spicy song I give you P!nk and maybe if you crank it up a little it will get you moving too!

Happy Weekend all!

Peace!

Photo of the week

2009-06-04T18:13:00.006-04:00

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

I remember the morning I took this picture. It was a brisk morning in March. I wanted to get to the boardwalk before the sun came up. I think I got out of bed around 4:30 in the morning. M probably murmured something like: "What the hell are you doing?"

The ocean has always been at my side since I was a baby. I grew up with the smell of the sea air and tidal changes. I don't know if I could ever move too far away from it.

When we were kids and we used to drive up to my Grandmothers house for holidays. She lived up in Bloomfield, NJ. A BIG difference to the southern NJ that I'm used to. On the way home my siblings and I would more than likely fall asleep since it was about a 2 hour drive home but as soon as we got around Exit 40 on the Garden State Parkway we could smell the coal tar coated pilings and salty sea air and it would wake us up because we knew we were close to home.

.....

Normally I post black and white photos, but this one popped into my head today when I went to a service for a neighbor's wife who passed away recently. Actually the song popped in first and then the photo.

Heidi was her name.

I only met her a few times. Mostly I chatted with her husband Ray.

M and I called him the little Amish guy because he had that mustache-less beard of white hair like the Amish do.

He is a very spry 70 something year old man. Always outside doing something. I watched him and his son put a new roof on his house. I've watched him replace all of the windows on his house by himself and he scared me to death when he single handledly (sp?) took down a 50 ft+ pine tree in his back yard. It took him about 2 weeks to complete it, but day after day I watched him climb up that tree and rig some kind of line to the branch he was cutting and HAND saw it off and slowly lower it down to the ground.

When I told him he nearly gave me a heart attack as I watched him, he just chuckled and waved his hand and said he knew what he was doing.

There is/was a hedge that separates our two yards. When M and I first moved in the hedge was about 8 feet tall and had slowly but surely replaced the wood fence that the previous owners of our house had put up.

It was a beautiful hedge. I'm not sure what kind of plant it is but it stayed green all year round and was just very calming to look at. I tried to keep up with Ray in to make sure my side pruned and neat.

Then one day I came home and the entire hedge was gone.

Just GONE!

All that was left was the bits and pieces of the old fence that lay between our two yards.

First I was kind of pissed of. I have two dogs who will run away any chance they can. Well, one will run the other will just follow him around and look kind of stupefied.

I had to rig up some kind of chicken wire temporary fence just to keep my dogs from running away.

I spoke to Ray the following day and he told me the reason why he took it down. It was too hard for him to keep up with and his wife was ill so he needed to take care of her, not the hedge.

He also offered to help me replace the old fence that had deteriorated over the years.

One of my neighbors offered to drive me to Home Depot to pick up the fence panels I needed. The posts were still in good shape so they didn't need to be replaced.

Then one sunny spring day Ray and I were up early and put the fence up together.

He also offered me cuttings from the old hedge to replant.

I did - it's growing very nicely. I won't let it grow 8ft on my side because it's too hard to prune back but it looks healthy and green.

We chatted as we worked. He was a carpenter and taught shop at one of the high schools nearby. He lived in the neighborhood most of his life. First at one house in our development where he layed all of the brick in the front of the house by himself and the next in the house that he and Heidi resided in which was a little smaller and easier to take care of.

It was a very nice day and he is very easy to work beside.

Heidi very rarely came out. I always wondered why.

I met her the first time when I went to return a pair of snips that he used to trim the hedge that must have fallen on our side of the yard.

She was so sweet with bright sparkling dark eyes.

She didn't say much, but let me in and called for Ray.

One summer night I remember talking to Ray over the fence (it's 6 Ft high). Heidi came out and she is so tiny she couldn't see over it so he propped her up on some cinder blocks so she could say Hi!

As her illness progressed, we saw less and less of Ray outside. He only came out to mow the lawn or do some simple maintenance.

Every once in a while I saw him pull out an upholstered chair from the house and Heidi would come out and sit and watch him tend to her garden which I found out later was her pride and joy.

M and I used see them walking hand and hand around the neighborhood and he would take her down to the Metedeconk river and sit on a bench and just gaze outat the water.

Later we would see him pushing her around in a wheel chair wrapped up warmly in blanket.

I saw Ray only occasionally over the past year. He was a very devoted husband and kept Heidi home throughout her illness. She had Alzheimer's.

It is not an easy illness to witness.

There was a woman who came to help Ray out once in a while so that he could run errands and take care of things and I'm sure to just get a break once in a while. She used to walk Heidi in front of her house and I would say hello to them. I gave Heidi a little squeeze of the hand one time.

I don't even know if she knew where she was at that point.

This past Monday I was working out in the yard and Ray peeked over the hedge that has been re-planted (very Artie Johnson like) and let me know that Heidi had passed away.

He stayed strong when he told me and invited me to her service.

I asked him how he was holding up and let him know that M's Mom has the same disease and it's horrible. We were both so touched at how he cared for her.

Today at the service I shook his hand and you could tell the day had been tough on him. So many people offering their condolences. It can be comforting and emotionally exhausting at the same time.

I listened to the stories that each of their children shared about their mother. Her great cooking. Her homemade ginger bread houses and all of the fine detail she added. The endless tins of holiday cookies she would make. Her garden and how she passed the seeds of her plants down to her daughter who shares the same passion as her mother did in tending to each plant.

The moment that everyone was in tears was when her youngest son Christopher played a recorded message from his answering machine of his Mother and Father singing Happy Birthday to him. He's kept it all this time.

Damn I wish I had brought tissues.

I dedicate this post to the memory of Heidi Bruker and wish her family sympathy and peace.

Sugar and Spice

2009-05-29T11:04:00.005-04:00

I talked to my son last night. He's moving again. The poor guy has had to move every 6 months for the past 2 years or so for some odd reason or another and now he has signed a 1 year lease and will become a permanent resident of the state of Illinois!

Congrats!

I know I keep posting stuff about my kids and if you get bored with that kind of thing - sorry, but I am still having these "OMG I can't believe they are all grown up" thoughts.

I swear it was just yesterday when he looked like this:

and now he looks like this:

That's him and his girlfriend K.

Not a little boy anymore...definitely a man now.

I'll spare you all of the trips down memory lane. I want to keep some of them to myself but I will tell you that each of my kids had a song I used to sing to them when they were little. I'd play it on the stereo and dance around the living room with them. If it came on the radio when they were in the car I would tell them that this is their song and turn it up and sing along.

So looking at the picture of my little guy and his golden hair and eyes of blue I used to always sing this song to him:

(My head is boppin' back and forth and I'm getting a bit choked up)

I love you S and I'm so proud of you!

Happy weekend all!

Peace!

Falling...asleep.

2009-05-28T10:32:00.005-04:00

I ran out of ambien so I tossed and turned until I finally just got up and came downstairs so I would not wake M up.

I took stupid Facebook quizzes to let me know what my Stripper name is: Lacey Tickleheaven

My Naughty Elf name: Pirate Elf (???)

My Hobbit name: Belladonna Puddifoot ( I love this one)

I took the Random Survey for the Bored (I won't bore you with the results)

What my job in heaven will be: Placing drops of dew on fresh grass on foggy mornings (wtf?)

AND I found out how feminine I was or more approprietely am not but they advised me to wear more dresses and that will help.

Uh huh...sure.

After that I played some mind numbing computer game.

After that I was trying to look up some of my Irish family history on the Internet and then finally around 4:00 AM I decided I'll try to get some sleep.

I got to feeling a little floaty...then started drifting off and then I fell right off a cliff or something and jolted right back awake again.

I hate that!

When my kids were babies and I would watch them sleep you could kind of tell when they were dreaming. Every once in a while their little arms and legs would stiffen straight out from their bodies, their eyes would open wide, they'd give out a little whimper and then fall limp and right back to sleep.

Is this what they mean by falling asleep?

A difference

2009-05-26T14:27:00.003-04:00

I woke up late this morning. I didn't feel like getting out of bed so I allowed myself to just lie there and wander in and out of random thoughts.

My alarm clock is always faced away from me for two reasons: the light is so damn bright it keeps me awake and if I have a sleepless night (of which there are many) I don't want to keep looking at the clock and see that it has only been 5 minutes since the last time I looked.

M had already headed off to work - more than a bit reluctant to return. Her boss to whom we've affectionately nicknamed "the Troll" has been out on vacation for the past two weeks. M has had that time to actually get some work done and get caught up on misc. things that seemed to get pushed to the side because the Troll has other work for her to do, like print reports and take pictures of every piece of equipment that is about to be thrown away.

I've never met the Troll, but I think we have all seen the type.

Daughter C was home last night. The first time in a while. She and her boyfriend spent the night here instead of at his parents house. We love him - he's a good looking guy and treats my daughter very well.

When I woke up this morning and walked out of my room I could smell his cologne lingering in the air. It was a bit weird.

Wow - it's been a while since the scent of a man has been in this house and perhaps it hit me how things have changed.

You see it happening all around you but on a day to day basis those changes are small. It is when you look back over a few months or a year that you really see the differences that have occurred.

I'm starting to feel the first twinges of an empty nest. My son has made a life for himself in Chicago and I only see him 2-3 times a year and now my daughter has been spending more and more time with the boyfriend aka Rick and it will be 4 or 5 days that I won't see her.

She does call just to check in and let me know she is OK (I worry about that stuff) but now the house has become very quiet in the evenings.

M has her baseball games to watch, I will putz on the computer, watch Keith and Rachel, pay the bills or try to focus on a book to read. (Menopause has really screwed up my ability to concentrate).

I like the changes. It makes me feel proud that my children have turned into responsible adults and learning to work out life's problems on their own.

On Saturday M and I will meet Rick's parents. They are coming over for a bar-b-que. That's a big step and I have to say I'm a bit nervous. Even though I'm fairly certain that his parents are aware that M and I are a couple I just worry about how it's received. Some people don't honestly care, some say that they don't and will keep up appearances but when they get home it's a different story.

I don't know why I care about this so much, but I do. More for the sake of my children than anything else. There is also that "needing to be approved" thing I have going on too.

Does one ever grow out of that?

Hmmmm?

So all of this deep thinking was brought on by a young man's cologne in my house. It's amazing how one little thing will make a difference in your life.

A nice ending

2009-05-25T19:26:00.003-04:00

To a nice weekend!

I am sitting out on our deck with the chiminea glowing and the tiki torches lit. They are both more for ambiance than anything else. The temp is about 70 degrees, not really cool enough for a fire and there aren't really any mosquitoes buzzing around.

If you ever need to hear a voice in the middle of the night
When it seems so black outside that you can't remember light
Ever shone on you or the ones you love in this or another lifetime

M is inside watching one of her horror movies.

We're both doing what we want to right now.

And the voice you need to hear is the true and the trusted kind
With a soft, familiar rhythm in these swirling, unsure times
When the waves are lapping in and you're not sure you can swim
Well here's the lifeline

Tomorrow she will head back off to work and will have to deal with "The Troll" who will be back from vacation. This is her boss. I've never met her but from what M has told me I wouldn't like her very much. Overbearing, micro-managing, hyper active, and doesn't have a clue.

M is feeling a bit stressed and anxious about going back. I can't blame her. Who the heck wants to work with that?

If you ever need to feel a hand take up your own
When you least expect but want it more than you've ever known
Baby here's that hand and baby here's my voice that's calling, this is love,
all it ever was and will be
This is love

We've talked about moving from this area. It's become way too congested for my taste and way too expensive for M's. Our taxes have nearly doubled since moving here in May of 2000.

And if you ever need some proof that time can heal your wounds
Just step inside my heart and walk around these rooms

We had another conversation about it tonight. M told me she would like to have a "meeting of the minds" this weekend. This is her way of telling me she would like to have a serious conversation about something. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's about family, but this time was about our future.

Where the shadows used to be, you can feel as well as see how peace con hover
Now time's been here to fix what's broken with its power

She asked me to start this conversation. (I'm kind of like a deer in the head lights whenever subjects like this come up)

I took a deep breath and said what I wanted was the alpaca farm.

The love that smashed us both to bits spent its last few hours
Calling out your name, I thought this is the kind of pain
From which we don't recover

She fidgeted a bit and asked: Do you really want a to sell and breed Alpacas?

"I would like to have a big enough property, maybe 4 acres or so that I could have a few alpacas to raise plus have a garden I can futz with. I definitely need space around me.

What about you? What do YOU want? I have told you of the places I'd like to live and you've always gone along with my thoughts...what do you want? Where do you see yourself living?"

But I'm standing here now with my heart held out to you
You would've thought a miracle was all that got us through

M thought about it for a while and then said: "I would like to have space, but I need to live near a city where I can make a living." (This is why she's the analytical one. It's not that I didn't think of "how to make a living", but it was a secondary thought to where I want to be.

Well baby all I know, all I know is I'm still standing
And this is love all it ever was and will be
This is love

Ok - so let's narrow it down to perhaps an area we can both agree on. My choices have always been: North East, North West.

To narrow it down a bit more I can pick the states I've always imagined myself living: Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire - maybe Maine.

And I see you still and there's this catch in my throat and
I just swallow hard till it leaves me

Pennsylvania is leading in all of this because we've both seen a lot of it and like it and my sister lives there and I would like to be closer to her. We may need each other in our old age!!!

There's nothing in this world that can change what we know
Still I know I am here if you ever need me
And this is love

We can both agree that we want do "downsize" a bit into a smaller house. Preferably one story or at least a home where the main bedroom is on the ground floor. Spare bedrooms or offices on another floor would be fine and a basement for me to descend to would be ideal. We both agree fireplace would be nice, a yard that I can have a garden in (at the very least) and where the dogs and roam around.

And if you ever think of me let it be around twilight
When the world has settled down and the last round of sunlight
Is waning in the sky, as you sit and watch the night descending

Suburbs or opens space? It will be up to me to find the space I want to be in. M really doesn't have an opinion either way. Where I live is very important to me. It's my comfort, my safety at the end of the day. Even though the area we live in now has become more congested we both love the house, the yard and we have been fortunate with very nice neighbors for the most part.

A car will pass out front with lovers at the wheel
A dog will bark out back and children's voices peal
Over and under the air, you've been there lost in the remembering

So I'll check out different areas online and in the real estate sections. Look for job prospects and try to prepare my daughter for this inevitable step. I'll get caught up in it for a while. There is a thrill in looking into something new.

Still - it will be hard to take that first real step.

And if you ever wish for things that are only in the past
Just remember that the wrong things aren't supposed to last
Babe it's over and done and the rest is gonna come when you let it

For now I think I'll put my iTunes on shuffle and listen to whatever comes up, and the sounds of the birds as they get ready to settle in for the evening. The smell of someone's bar-b-que (heavenly) and the cracklin' fire in my lil' chiminea and the distant sounds of M's horror movie just to add the right mix of chaos to the evening!!! (I'll never get that)

Sipping my wine...watching the last few minutes of sunlight contimplating all of this will keep me busy for a while.

Eh...maybe not now - tomorrow is another day after all! ;)

Cheers all!

And this is love, all that it ever was and will be
This is love, when you let it, if you let it now
This is love, all it ever was and can be
This is love

Song: This is love by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Sugar and Spice

2009-05-22T18:55:00.005-04:00

Ooops - sorry I'm late folks.

It was one of those days of endless errands so I was away from the computer most of the day.

The first thing on my "to-do" list was to get a hair cut. I've been doing the hair color thing for about 2 years now. Getting the expensive color and cut. Now that I'm unemployed I've decided to go back to my basic hair cut and to let the color grow out. Since I wear my hair relatively short it doesn't take long to get rid of the color and WOW is my hair white! And you know what? I kind of like it!

So the white stays and I'll save a few bucks too!

I finished all of my errands relatively early and decided - heck...I think a nap is needed!

And so it was - a wonderful 2 hour veg out time. I don't think I slept, but it felt good to do nothing for a little while.

M reminded me that there was one thing I forgot to do today and that was my "Sugar and Spice" post for the week.

She helped me with this week's selection because I wasn't coming up with a good "spicy" song. She suggested "Conflict" by Disturbed first. Um...no. Not my cup o' tea. It just sounds like a lot of screaming and banging.

We went back and forth and we finally agreed to a classic Aerosmith hit.

M's been a fan of Aerosmith for a long time and actually talked me into going to one of their concerts. I have to admit I am not a fan, but seeing them play live gave me a whole new appreciation for the band. That Steve Tyler is a maniac and M thinks that Joe Perry is HOT! (personally I don't get it, but hey - whatever)

SO for this week's SPICE song we have picked Crazy by Aerosmith.

Have a happy and Safe Memorial weekend all and please don't forget those who have served and have sacrificed their lives for our country.

Peace!

Photo of the week

2009-05-21T09:25:00.005-04:00

M and I were trying to plan a little getaway to the UK. Unfortunately those plans were put on the back burner for a while.

I was reminiscing my last visit and the two days I had to spend with my friend Kathy. I could have stayed with her for the whole week and relaxed in her gardens just sipping wine and chatting or hiking through the woods to see the bluebells popping up! A nice long stroll around the Blenheim Palace would be fabulous as well.

:::sigh:::

Maybe next year!

For this weeks picture, here is a photo I took inside Kathy's house looking over her garden. This one I actually have framed and hanging in my home.

Whew!

2009-05-20T20:23:00.005-04:00

I got this little idea in my head to build me a raised garden.

Talk about your random thoughts!

So I scoured the Internet for ideas and I found several kits I could "buy" and a few little hints on building my own.

The kits were way too expensive and the build your own types were not what I was really looking for.

Then the idea popped in my head to build a little garden based on the one design that I liked and on the do-it-yourself plans that I found.

I've never "built" anything so why I thought I could do this was beyond me. But I drew a little blueprint of my idea I went and bought me a circular saw and some lumber and went to it!

The big name home improvement store that I went to was not very helpful so I kind of did this on my own.

Here are the results:

Stage 1 - just a beginning as I worked out some of the flaws in my plan! For some strange reason I thought I could get this done in one day! HA!
(did you know that if you by a 2x6 it's actually only 1 3/4 x 5 3/4? I didn't know that! so much for what I thought were careful measurements!)

Stage 2 - it's looking a little more like something!(my dogs did a lot of supervising but did not offer much help)

Stage 3 - Ta da!

It's not exactly "square" but I think it ain't bad for a beginner! I got to play with power tools, I spent most of my time outside and I got to play in the dirt so to me this was a very fun project. Plus it was kind of like putting a puzzle together and I love puzzles!

There was a bit of cursing and swearing during the process but only the dogs were around to hear it so I guess it doesn't really count. (does it?)

All in all it took me 4 days to complete (including 5 trips to the county recycling center to get free compost and buying the plants).

Ask me if I would do it again I would say "hell no!"

I learned my lesson!

Happy Gardening!

Sugar and Spice

2009-05-15T08:36:00.006-04:00

Happy Friday for all who get the next two days off to relax and enjoy. I hope you have nice weather predicted.

Yesterday I had all of these things flying around in my head that I was going to share with you for this post, but today all of those thoughts are gone.

Vanished! POOF!

I need to start writing stuff down.

As I am typing I am listening to the racket that a pair of starlings are making. They've decided to build their nest in my vent again. They weren't here last year thankfully, but they are back now! Time to get out the ladder and shoo them away. Unfortunately I've become rather shaky on high ladders as I've gotten older. Maybe it's because if I fall now, I'll probably get hurt as opposed to when I was younger I would have just cursed a little, rubbed it off and gotten back up there. Getting hurt really didn't enter my mind as much.

Middle age - blech.

I did some more work around the yard this week. One of my rain barrels sprung a bit of a leak so I had to fix that, I got some planting done and I'm working on building a raised garden bed. My veggie garden is going to be a bit late this year unfortunately.

Yesterday while I was tooling around the yard a group of neighborhood kids whizzed by on various means of transport. One was on a bike, another on a razor skooter, then a lil' dude on a skate board and the last guy was whizzing along on those sneakers with the little wheel in the back of them - roller shoes.

Those are pretty cool I have to admit. If I was a kid I'd be wanting me a pair of those.

Instead we had these:

Later I graduated to these:

(add a pair of striped knee socks and you were a totally hip and happening kind of chick)

Fun times! Scraped knees and elbows - no helmets or pads, just put them on and ZOOM we were on our way! Well maybe not so much in the metal skates - they just kind of did a "scuff, scuff, rool - scuff, scuff, roll" kind of thing.

The skating rinks were big back then too - roller disco! (That's a whole other subject for a whole new series!)

Watching these kids zipping around got me thinking of a particular song and it's been stuck in my head so now I have to let it loose and get into your brains instead of mine!

Brand New Key - by Melanie
(Does anyone remember her?)

She had this shrilly, squeaky kind of voice that kind of went right back to that nerve in the back of your neck and your shoulders would skrunch up and winced - but you probably sang along too. (Yeah...you did, admit it)

So let's pay tribute to the past and remember our first pair of metal skates and looking for that freakin' key that you needed to adjust the things so that they would stay on your feet. We could never find that key when we needed it!

Happy Weekend all!

Peace!

Photo of the week

2009-05-14T08:47:00.004-04:00

I'm getting the photography bug again. I go in spurts with it.

M got me a very nice little digital camera for our anniversary which was very sweet and I've been playing around with it but I still love my ol' 35mm SLR. My Dad let me borrow his old 35mm as well so I usually keep one loaded with color and the other with black and white.

My color photos are OK - but I love the way black and white photographs look. I like the shadows and the moods they provoke.

This weeks photo was taken up in Stockton, NJ along the D&R Canal. It's an old structure that is slowly deteriorating. There are weeds growing along side of it and most of the windows are broken or just gone completely. It was set back off the side of the bike path a bit so I had to climb through the weeds to get the shot I wanted.

The Bean

2009-05-11T21:44:00.003-04:00

Actually it's called "Cloud Gate" and is a sculpture by British sculptor (naturally) Anish Kapoor.

The first I ever heard of this was on a painting blog by Karin Jurick (she's on my artist blogs I like to visit on my side bar.

I hope that you can visit her blog to see her paintings of "the Bean" and other paintings. Even though I'm a big fan of my sister's paintings over at Negativespace I also peruse other artists blogs to see what they are doing as well!

Someday I will get back to Chicago with my trusty 35MM SLR camera loaded with black and white film to give you my perspective of "the Bean" and other great Chicago sights!

Until then - pleas check these out: http://karinjurick.blogspot.com/search?q=bean

Back from Chicago

2009-05-11T10:26:00.003-04:00

WE had a wonderful time!

I got to see my son graduate from Loyola University, I met his girlfriend of 2 years finally, we walked all over the place and saw lots of interesting things, we met a blog pal and just had a really nice weekend away!

Unfortunately I have so many things to catch up on today that I really can't do a full blog post but I'll leave you with a few pictures!

Here is M having a session with Bob Newhart near the Navy Pier!

My newly graduated son and his beautiful girlfriend!

Some guy doing some very odd things in Millenium park!

The Bean!

And an nice evening meeting Deborah from the Middle Girl Blog! I am in the center and M is on the right.

It was great meeting you Deborah!

We arrived back home early Sunday afternoon and just plopped. I took a nap (of course) and M watched baseball (naturally).

Now off I go to cut the grass before my neighbors complain and run a bunch of errands.

I hope all of the "Mom's" out there had a great Mother's Day!

Will catch up with everyone soon!

Just a few things...

2009-05-06T10:12:00.009-04:00

before I go!

M and I are flying out to Chicago tomorrow to see my son "S" graduate from Loyola University! Yikes - this is one of those - I feel so proud and so old at the same time! (I'm only 45 though)

We're looking forward to the trip - it's been a while since we've gone away just the two of us. My son has promised to be our tour guide on Thursday and Friday and then on Saturday I think we'll roam around ourselves for a bit. We hope to meet up with Deb from the Middle Girl blog on Saturday if we can. It's always nice to meet a fellow blogger! The weather is supposed to be so-so, but that's ok. With all the rain we've been getting this spring I've developed web feet and gills so it shouldn't bother me.

I haven't had much time to do any work around the yard this week because of the soggy weather but I've been keeping myself busy by taking lots of naps and trying to plan a trip to the UK for sometime in June. That's my new project.

SOooooo, since I won't be around for the weekend I thought I would leave you with some odd picture of things around my house. These aren't really my artsy pictures that I have but more of the mundane, the odd and the fascinating variety. Or at least I thought so.

First up is this little gem I found in one of my bushes while I was cleaning up the leaves:

It's a Praying Mantis egg sack! I've been watching it closely and it still hasn't hatched yet, but soon hundreds of these little guys and gals will be roaming my gardens eating aphids and spiders. Very cool bugs!

Next up: Two lazy squirrels.

This guy was hanging out on a really hot day last week. It was about 90 degrees and he just looked tired and hot and was trying to just take a break from running around.

Same branch a few days later in the rain and there were two squirrels huddled together. I thought it was adorable how the first one is all tucked in.

Here is one of my completed projects:

My rain barrels! I didn't paint them just left them their industrial blue color but maybe next year I will get the chance. I finished these on Wednesday - and by Saturday afternoon each 55 gallon drum was filled. That is just from a few days of light rain! I was amazed how quickly they filled up. This should keep my house plants and gardens happy for a while!

Last up is an object of questionable nature and if anyone can tell me what it is I will be truly thankful:

It's a blob of some sort. I don't know if it's a fungus or what? It was in my neighbor's cedar tree and I kept seeing this bright orange blob so I investigated. It is quite slimy in nature and sticky so perhaps it's a sack of sap - I really don't know.

Anyone have a clue?

Last but not least I thought I would leave you with this weeks Sugar and Spice selection.

The spicy songs are a bit harder for me to come up with because I'm not really a "spicy" kind of girl, but since I reference Axl Rose in my last music post I thought it only fitting to leave you with him this week.

What a loon this guy is, but they knew how to rock!

I know it's only Wednesday - but have a good weekend all!

Peace!

P.S. The orange blog is Cedar-Apple Rust! (thank you Google)

Sugar and Spice

2009-05-01T16:27:00.002-04:00

Yikes it's nearly 4:30 and I never posted this week's song.

Forgive me but I was hangin' with a friend today and I was having so much fun talking to a live person (besides M) that I just totally forgot!

I need a freakin' job!

I may have an interview next week - so that is promising - keep your fingers crossed for me please!

Most of the "sugary" songs that I have selected for this segment have what I call the "head bob" factor. When I hear them my head just kind of bobs from side to side along with the beat.

This one qualifies and I also think that Axl Rose got his dance moves from this guy.

Maybe it's me - you be the judge:

The song for this week is Daydream Believer by The Monkees (sung by Davy Jones)

and there is the Axel Rose dance:

Coincidence?

I think not!

Have a great weekend all!

Peace!

Photo of the week

2009-04-30T09:31:00.002-04:00

I took this photo over a year ago on a cold but clear winter day in Seaside, NJ.

It's simply called - Ferris Buckets

Enjoy!

Worms

2009-04-29T08:55:00.007-04:00

I've got worms!

1000 Red Squigglers were delivered to my house yesterday.

Here they are!

Red Wigglers or Eisenia foetida for you Latin nuts out there are wonderful composters. They can eat more than their own weight in food every day. 1 lb. of organic food scraps will keep these little guys very happy.

I've created a worm bin out of an old plastic storage tote. I drilled plenty of holes along the bottom and sides for ventilation. You don't want your little guys to suffocate - they have work to do. I lined the bottom with about 4 inches of shredded paper/newspaper/cardboard that is moist. Don't over water it, it just needs to be the consistancy of a wrung out sponge. I also added some dead leaves and some grass clippings and a bit of dirt for the grit they need to help them digest.

These little guys will create compost that is wonderful for house plants or gardens and it's a natural way to get rid of food scraps that is environmentally friendly.

If you want to know a little bit more about vermiculture here are some great articles I found helpful:

http://earth911.com/blog/2007/04/02/composting-with-worms/

http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html

http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/Easywormbin.htm

The only bad thing about my little worm friends is M hate them! She doesn't like ANY kind of bug. To her the only good bug is a dead bug! So I've been warned to keep an eye out on my new little pets because if she sees any worms crawling across our garage floor she's gonna let me have it!

Happy composting!

Oy

2009-04-26T20:14:00.005-04:00

I'm pooped!

We're having a little heat wave here in the east, it's been in the high 80's for two days in a row and it's supposed to be in the 90's on Tuesday.

I hate the heat.

I sweat, I chafe, I get rashes, I get grumpy and I never feel clean. I always feel damp and just yucky.

Did I mention I hate the heat?

Does it stop me from working out in the yard? Helllllll NO!

If I'm going to sweat and chafe I may as well get dirty and have some fun with it. I slathered myself up with SPF 50 and a baseball cap and out I went!

I asked my kids to get me this for Mother's Day for my gardening days:

I think it's cool, but I promised that I would not wear it in their presence!

Yesterday I ran around all day picking up "things". First I had to pick up some manure for my compost which is not heating up enough. I found a woman on Craig's list who is giving manure away for free so I filled up a few bins and brought them home!

Free shit!

Next I found a guy - again on Craig's List (I guess I'm lucky I'm still alive)- who sells 55 gallon plastic drums so that I can make rain barrels out of them. I've been chasing these suckers all over the place. Everyone has been selling out of them before I can obtain one. Finally I got someone who still had a few. I bought 2. Now I have to adapt them to collect the rain and put a little spigot on the bottom so I can fill up my watering can. I've been looking at different plans to convert plastic drums into rain barrels and every one I look at is so completely different it's crazy!

::::sigh::: I'll figure it out - I hope!

Today my daughter's boyfriend came over to do some electrical work for me. I love this guy! He's cute, he's sweet, he treats my daughter well and he's handy. What more could you ask for?

He put up a ceiling fan for me and replaced two outside lights. He is also going to replace the vent fan in our bathroom.

Do you just love this guy or what?

I can do some handy work around the house but when it comes to electrical and/or plumbing I'm a complete idiot. They always turn into disasters. I usually call in the pros for this kind of thing but the boyfriend noticed "call electrician" on my list of things to do that is posted on my white board and asked what I needed done. Then he said: "I can do that!" and he was hired!

Love, love, LOVE this guy!

Also today I turned my compost over and added the manure that I obtained yesterday. I am hoping that this will heat it up and start my compost cooking a bit more.

I spent the rest of the day futzing around the yard, doing a little of this and a little of that. Taking lots of breaks and drinking lots of water.

Now I'm just wiped.

So M and I sit here, on the couch - she has her laptop and I have mine. The dogs are passed out. We have our glasses of wine and we're just chillin'

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh - life is good!

Hope all is well where ever you are!

Peace!

Sugar and Spice

2009-04-24T11:36:00.004-04:00

Hey ho - Happy Friday all!

Another nice weekend is forecasted for the weekend here in the Northeast. We are supposed to get temps in the 80's That's a little warm for me, but the humidity is low so I can cope with it!

I'm off to run some errands for the day but didn't want to leave you without this weeks song.

If you were a big hair ban fan of the 80's you may like this one. I am not, but I thought the song was fitting for the theme that I'm going with here.

The song is a bit more spicy than sugar, but it has sugar in the title. I think one of the famous lines of the song goes something like this: "I'm hot, sticky sweet, from my head down to my feet! Yeah!"

Can any one guess before peeking?

It's Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me. The idea of the song was actually taken from the song "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies, but it's a bit more sexual than their song I think!

The interesting thing about Def Leppard is that the drummer Rick Allen lost his arm in a car accident so only plays the drum with one arm. I give him a lot of credit for that - he kept doing what he loves to do despite his loss.

Turn up the volume and rock on all!

"You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste, saccharine
'Cos I'm hot, say what, sticky sweet
From my head, my head, to my feet"

That ought to get the blood pumping for your weekend!

Peace!

Photo of the week

2009-04-23T09:11:00.003-04:00

:::sigh:::

3 job rejections in 2 days leaves me feeling a bit down in the dumps. SO - for this weeks photo I picked something that I have titled: Happy

I think you'll see why!

Happy Spring everyone!

Rain, rain go away

2009-04-22T13:11:00.005-04:00

And don't come back until I get my rain barrels in place please!

Thinking about all that water I could have saved - darn.

I've had a couple of very productive days this week which has been very rewarding! I got all the extra wood from the ol' maple tree that was cut down in my backyard stacked and out of the way. The big chunks of wood I saved for my pal Kari over at Village Carpenter. Trying to get it to her may pose a problem, but I'll work it out some how! I also have some leftover pieces for firewood for my sister and bro in-law. I'll work out how to get that to them as well. Maybe I'll rent a truck and just dump it all in there.

Monday started off kind of lazy - but ended with me staying up until 2:00 AM on a mission to find a missing pool table that is down in my basement.

One would think it would be a bit difficult to lose an 8 Ft pool table, but I did! It became a repository for everything I didn't feel like putting away! The junk table! It was that one task I have had up on my white board that I've been putting off and putting off because it was just one of those things that seemed impossible to tackle. But it was there all along and now that it's cleared off I can finally post an ad and sell it. If anyone is interested in an 8 ft drop pocket pool table just send me an e-mail! I'll give you a good price but you have to figure out how to get it out of here!

This is what it looks like:

It looks a lot like a pool table doesn't it?

My next project was to clean off my desk here in my basement office. It's better, but I have a lot of shredding to do yet.

Yesterday I was on standby to help my daughter cook for her boyfriend! You know it's serious when they start offering to cook! She made some wonderful broccoli canneloni's, had a nice tossed salad and some home made garlic bread. All in all a wonderful meal. M and I both love the boyfriend - he's cute, he's sweet, he's talented and has a nice job as a carpenter working with his Dad.

Today was a little slow to start. For some reason my one dog Corky wanted to snuggle with me this morning. He crawled under the covers, snuggled in and we both fell asleep for another hour! Happiness is a warm puppy cuddled into you!

I had a few errands to run. There was a blog I found while roaming around the blogosphere called: i think i love you michigan who is looking for red yard so I sent her an ol' red sweater than I never wear anymore.

Stopped into the bank because I locked myself out of my ATM card yet again!

I FINALLY got to a framing store to get my giclee of my sisters painting "Chimbley's" done.

The nice guy behind the counter and I chatted for nearly an hour playing with different matting and frames with this very cool program that lets you see what the final product would look like. He was talking about his partner, I was talking about my partner and we just had a gay ol' time! Plus this framing store was offering 60% all custom framing!

It's going to be gorgeous!!!

On the way home from the framing place I got a call from one of the jobs that I applied to. Unfortunately I didn't get the job, but they think I'm a good fit for the company and the company is growing so they will keep me in mind if other positions open up that they feel I would be good for.

:::sigh:::

I really wanted that job too. Darn.

Oh well, I do have another interview today - we'll see how that goes. Time to dust of the suit and heels.

Wish me luck!

Oh and I'm waiting for my worms to arrive! I am going to start a worm composting bin! How cool is that? I'll take pictures when they arrive! M thinks I'm a little crazy - but that is what she loves about me! ;)

Off I go to get ready for the interview!

Ta ta!

Sugar and Spice

2009-04-17T09:25:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday all!

We've have 2 days of glorious sunshine here on the east coast. It's been a cold, wet, windy, raw spring this year. I'm not going to complain too much because the rain has been watering my plants and filling up little lakes and ponds in the area that have become so low in the few past years.

The rainy days give me time to get some things done inside that need to be done and the warm sunny days I have been outside working in the yard.

It's all good.

Today's Sugar and Spice song has been stuck in my head for over a week already and so perhaps if I post it here I will get it out and push it on to all of you!

Originally the song came from a musical that made it's debut back in 1967. I was but a wee lass at the time so I don't remember it, but there were plenty of song from the musical that made it to the radio. Among them were: Aquarius, Donna and of course Hair.

But the song that has been stuck in my head for over a week now is Good Morning Starshine!

Oliver climbed the charts to #3 here in the states with his cover of Starshine in 1969 and with lyrics like:

Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo

You can see why!

You can also see the effects of the drugs people where taking when they wrote that song!

I have this mental picture of some guy in a beanbag chair, trippin' out on LSD muttering:

Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo

Someone in the background saying: "wow, that is like totally cool man. I think that would make a great song."

Far out!

For your spring time ear worm and sugar sweet song of the week I give you: Good Morning Starshine by Oliver (the video kind of sucks so just listen)

Happy weekend all and I hope where ever you are you are getting a nice taste of spring!

Peace, love and all that good stuff!

Photo of the week

2009-04-16T09:53:00.004-04:00

Mother Nature has been having some wild mood swings this spring.

We'll have 2 nice warm sunny days followed by 3 wet, cold windy days and then back to some mild warm sunny days and then raw crappy wet days again.

Today is a bright sun shiny day! A little on the cool side at the moment but not a cloud in the sky!

So here is my dedication to Mr. Sun for his presence!

Thank you! I needed that!

Susan Boyle

2009-04-15T18:31:00.003-04:00

I cannot stop watching this video of her. I am completely mesmerized by her voice. It just doesn't match her dowdy appearance but definitely matches her tenacity and talent.

She said she was going to "rock this audience" and she did.

Just beautiful - absolutely beautiful.

The embedding feature has been disabled, but here is the link if you haven't seen it yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY&feature=related

I love the little smile she gives just before she starts singing.

Martha, Martha, Martha!

2009-04-14T19:47:00.007-04:00

M and I went to a book sale a few weeks ago. It was a warehouse sale where paperbacks were $2 and hardcover books were $5. All of the proceeds went to charity - which was pretty cool.

The books were in order by ISBN # which when you are looking at a warehouse full of books does not help you if you are trying to find something specific. So we took our time and just browsed through the covers looking for authors we knew or titles that seemed interesting. It was a bit overwhelming but fun as well.

I found a few photography books and some fiction to read. M found a few thrillers I think, but the gem of the bunch was this:

Is Martha Stuart Living? is a parody on Martha Stewart Living and it's hilarious.

As you can see by the cover there are articles for "Making water from scratch" or "collecting glue guns".

Neetzy got the most joy from an article about making your own condoms out of sheep intestines! I don't think I've heard my sister laugh so hard in my entire life!!! She seemed to get the most enjoyment when Martha wrote about "stalking, slaying, bleeding and eviscerating the animal". And if you have any leftover membrane you can use it for a nice lamb kielbasa!!!

There are even some wonderful illustrations showing Martha with the sheep intestine and a zucchini. She even adds a nice romantic touch by stenciling a winged cupid on the side.

How sweet!

We have a weird sense of humor in our family!!!

The magazine has many helpful tips and recipes, but one recipe Neetzy and I decided that it just had to be posted for our mighty blighty buddy Dive over at Small Glass Planet.

I myself am culinarily challenged and my apologies to both Dive and Scout over at Just Sayin' to inform you that although I do like "real' cheese I made mac and cheese for Easter dinner using...you guessed it...VELVEETA!!!

It was delicious!

Anyway - I digress.

Inspired by Dives famous "What's cooking with Dive?" series I wanted to share this recipe with you all.

If you haven't read any of his cooking posts, check out: Tentacular Shenigans or Οκταποδι Κρασατο .

He's an adventurous gent our Dive is and loves all things squishy and rubbery.

Here is one dish that I think would be even too adventurous for you my friend!

Bon appetit!

(check out the garnish on this dish - is it not gorgeous or what?)

So don't delay! Run out and get your copy of "Is Martha Stuart Living?" today!

Random throughts

2009-04-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

I don't like parking lot stalkers and I take my time when I know someone is trying to get my spot just because I'm like that!

Why do people who are in their car try to have conversations with other people in a different car at a busy intersection when the light turns green?

And last but not least, let's talk about "Tea bagging" shall we?

Do we all know what "tea bagging" is slang for? If you don't please click here! Tea-bagging

Ok - now that you have the definition let's talk about a Libertarian group calling themselves the "Boston Tea Party" who have started noise about hosting a Tea Party on April 15th to protest the the current administration's American Recover and Reinvestment Act aka the stimulus bill.

So what you can do is "tea bag" Obama, or "tea bag" any other politician who approved of the stimulus plan and we can have a mass "tea bagging" party going on all over the US!

And they thought Bill Clinton was a naughty boy!

Here is a fun little segment from one of my favorite TV personalities Rachel Maddow to give you a little more about the event!

Sugar and spice

2009-04-09T17:07:00.003-04:00

I am going to post this tonight because tomorrow I won't have time.

Me, M, Neetzy and the Semi-Conductor are going to Philly to see the Cezanne exhibit and have lunch. It should be fun!

The song I picked out for this week is on the "spice" side of things.

When I first heard it on the radio I was like: "What the fa is that?"

I didn't like it, but unfortunately it has a way of becoming an earworm very quickly. The group quickly rose to the top of the charts and then fell apart just as quickly. Now most of them are more famous for their shennanigans after stardom.

Believe me when I say that this isn't normally a song I would pick for this blog, but it fits the category well so I just couldn't resist. And - you gotta admit, you can't help but "slam it to the left and then shake it to the right" when you here it!

hee, hee, hee!

Unfortunately YouTube has blocked the embedding feature so you'll have to click on the link below to hear the song.

If you dare!

Shazza's Spicy song of the week! <-----Click here!

Happy Passover/Easter/Weekend all!

Sugar and spice

2009-04-03T11:19:00.004-04:00

...and everything nice.

We all know that isn't true. Especially these days.

Unemployment here in the US is the highest it's been since 1983!

I'm so glad I'm doing my part. Actually I think I was jobless in 1983 for a while.

I hate being left out.

Me and my unemployed self have been taking a lot of naps, doing odd jobs here and there and watching a lot of political shows for some silly reason. Mostly because I like the personalities, not really because I'm interested in politics.

Rachel Maddow - cute and smart and funny and willing to challenge the people who come on her show. What a gal!

Keith Olbermann - I like him - I don't always agree with him, but his long standing feud with Bill-O is very entertaining.

I tried to watch a sitcom last night: In the Motherhood thinking it would be just as funny as the MSN short episodes - but it wasn't. It was kind of stupid. Luckily my Dad called me in the middle of the show and saved me from myself!

This is why I don't watch regular TV. News maybe, History Channel, Discovery Channel and Tuesday night is The Biggest Loser night here, but that's about it. (Everyone cries on this show)

This is the life of an unemployed woman - she actually tried to watch a sitcom.

I NEED A JOB!

(heh, heh) Not really - I'm kind of enjoying the down time and I've had a few good leads on some jobs so I'm not in panic mode yet. It will happen.

Today I thought I would start a new musical Friday post and this was inspired by driving along on a beautiful spring day listening to one of those radio stations that play a variety of music and promises a "no repeat work day". I like it because they play a lot of "older" music - stuff I grew up with and they smather in some newer stuff and then mix it around.

So the song: Sugar, Sugar by the Archies came on and I was transported back to those wonderful Saturday mornings as a kid laying in my pajamas eating breakfast cereal downstairs (which we were not allowed to do but Mom worked early on Saturdays and Dad slept in so we got away with it) and watching Saturday morning cartoons. The Archies was one that I liked: Archie, Jughead, Veronica, Betty and Reggie.

I had a "thing" for Veronica! ;)

Such sweet innocent times. I often think that a lot of kids these days aren't as innocent as we were because they are exposed to so much more. Oh well, times change.

So for my new series I will select some "Sugar" songs: songs so sweet they will make your teeth hurt and I will select some "Spice" songs: maybe not so sweet, maybe a little anger in there! Just a little something to get you started off on your weekend!

TGIF everyone - here is "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies!

Blogging blahs

2009-03-30T16:28:00.003-04:00

I'm having a bit of the blogging blahs again lately.

I started writing a response to Poetikat and Neetzy's post about cleaning and lost steam about halfway through it and ended up deleting it.

I also haven't been around to visiting any one's blogs either. You would think with all of this time off I would be visiting everyone, but I just haven't felt like it.

Nothing personal mind you - just kind of blogging blahness.

My attention span has been very short lately - so if I start reading a blog and it's more than 2 or 3 paragraphs or if it's too wordy I simply lose interest. Again - nothing personal - its just my frame of mind at the moment.

My mind has been wondering about trying to think of things like: what do I want to be when I grow up? Should I sleep in another hour or exercise? Do I want to clean the house or do yard work (I always will do yard work over cleaning anytime). Should I play another game of Bubble Spinner or Mahjong or Spider Solitaire? I wonder who is on Facebook right now.

Spinning, spinning, spinning - with all kind of random unnecessary thoughts.

Home projects

2009-03-26T19:25:00.007-04:00

Unemployment has allowed me the time to work on some projects that I've put off for a long time.

So far I've managed to clean out the garage and finally put the holiday decorations away. Take all of the cardboard and an old computer monitor to the recycling center. Donate 4 bags of clothes to the Red Cross. Thatch the front yard and fill in some bald spots with seed, cleaned up the front and side gardens. Cleaned up the side of my neighbors house because if I don't all her leaves blow in my yard and started another compost pile because mine is full.

Sounds like a lot but trust me there were a lot of naps thrown in there too.

Today I started on the basement.

I've been putting this off for a loooooong time now.

When my kids were younger this was the place to hang out. They could play pool, watch movies, play video games or play on the computer. Daughter C had many sleep overs down there.

I kind of liked when they were all here. I knew they were safe and having a good time.

Our basement isn't finished, but it's a nice big space. It's 13 courses high so you don't feel like you are in a basement. I think if we just painted the walls and installed a drop ceiling and new carpet that is all it really needs.

So now that my kids are grown up and they don't really entertain down there too much anymore I've decided to re-arrange things a bit.

We don't have the money to paint the walls or add the drop ceiling or get new carpets right now so I'll just move things around and throw things away and hopefully open up the space a little bit more.

I took some pictures and stitched them together to give you an idea of what it looks like now: (you'll have to click on it to make it bigger sorry)

The pool table will go (it's buried under a pile of "stuff at the moment) - we don't play it anymore. I am going to put an ad in the paper and hope to sell it fairly cheap.

My daughters desk is gone. I had fun taking that apart this afternoon.

Then it's a matter of moving things around and trying to open up the space again.

With lots of caffeine and loud music it should be a fairly simple project!

(M can tell you - I have a knack of taking something simple and making it more complicated than it needs to be.)

Blog worthy

2009-03-25T20:34:00.002-04:00

I am not one of those bloggers who can write about their daily lives and make it sound intriguing. All in all I'm a pretty boring person - once in a while I have something interesting to say. Interesting to me anyway.

Today - I did yard work.

How interesting is that?

Not very I suppose, but it's something I enjoy. One thing about being unemployed is that you get to do things that you want to do. Monday I volunteered at the Alpaca farm, Tuesday I stayed in my PJ's until I needed to get ready to meet an ol' friend for dinner and today I did yard work.

It was a nice day - I wanted to be outside!

The neighbor on the right side - we'll call her "D" keeps an immaculate home, but could care less about her yard. Today I cleaned up some dead leaves and unburdened her from a large trash can filled with dirt left by her ex-husband several years ago. That dirt helped me fill some holes I have in my backyard. Thank you "D"!

The neighbor on my left side - we'll call him "J" is an extra special guy. He's 62 and worked 32 years for GM and got laid off recently. Single guy all his life he helped his Mom through sickness until her death. He met a gal during a grief counseling session and turned into a 16 year old boy. He was so excited and wine and dined her all over the place. He even had a stretch limo come and take them to NYC to see a show a few years ago. It was so wonderful to see him that way. Unfortunately his new GF - we'll call her "M" got sick. She had a kidney transplant many years ago and that transplanted kidney is failing too.

He has been amazing for her. By her side through all of this. So many opportunities she has had to get a new kidney and each one has failed. Just lately they've had two matches for her and each time the kidney went to someone else.

J is a Great guy

J was home for a while today - most of the time he's with "B" at her home but he comes home once in a while when she is in dialysis. He stopped for a bit to chat with me. Told me what was going on with his life, asked me about my life. He didn't mind I was "playing in his yard" and gave me about 5 hugs.

He smells like Old Spice.

He is one of the most gentle men I've ever met.

I could have hugged him 5 more times.

I wish there was something I could do for him, for her...for them. My little contribution is to clean up his yard when he's not around. Mow his lawn...part of it anyway. He has a BIG property. Leave him tomatoes when I have extra.

I could have hugged him 5 more times. Breathed in his Old Spice scent and smiled for the rest of the day.

Great guy!

I don't get it

2009-03-23T20:33:00.001-04:00

What do you think they are trying to say in this ad?

Random thought for the day

2009-03-20T16:41:00.001-04:00

I am very impressed on how far a jar of red pickled cabbage can splatter when it hits a tile floor.

I am not however, impressed with the stain it left on said floor.

Weird connections

2009-03-19T21:31:00.002-04:00

Natasha Richardson passed away yesterday - blunt force trama to the head from a skiing accident.

Another life gone way too early. She was 45.

I am 45.

It made me pause a bit and think about my life.

The weird connection I made was that Natasha Richardson and her mother Vanessa Redgrave appeared together in a performance of "A Little Night Music" in October of 2008.

I've never seen "A Little Night Music" but it was one of my Mom's favorite musicals. She used to play the album all of the time and from her listening I learned many of the songs from the show.

Some of my favorite songs: "You Must Meet My Wife" and "A Weekend in the Country". I remember my Mom singing those songs along with the album. She used to ask me to put the album on when my Dad was out of the house. She didn't know how to work the stereo too well so I was always there to help her.

I am smiling at the memory and I hope Natasha's family has the memories to carry them through this difficult time.

Fun week!

2009-03-19T20:24:00.005-04:00

It started off on Sunday night listening to the sounds of first one dog throwing up all over our carpet and then the second dog throwing up all over our carpet.

Ever 30 minutes they threw up from 7:00 PM Sunday night until 7:00 AM Monday morning. I didn't get much sleep as you can imagine.

As soon as I thought they were going to hurl again I picked them up and tried to get them outside - but I didn't always get the timing quite right.

We took them to the vet on Monday morning and we can narrow the cause down to perhaps a can of food they ate on Sunday night - since that is when the hurlfest started. He gave them a shot and some meds and put them on a bland diet.

To see two very lively little dogs just laying about sleeping and barely responding to their names is heartbreaking but I am glad to report they are finally on the mend.

This is Casey - in all his glory!

And Corky the best little dog in the world!

Casey started eating again yesterday, Corky not until tonight - finally. Their last meal was Sunday night!

With that crisis over I can finally relax.

I did have a good conference call with a potential new job on Wednesday and a wonderful e-mail from my former T&F Big Cheese giving me words of encouragement. Tomorrow I get to volunteer at an alpaca farm - so the week is ending on a good note for sure!

Here are some of my new alpaca friends:

I don't remember this gal's name, but I love her color.

That's me with the little plastic booties on - so I don't bring any "parasites" with me.

This is a cria (baby alpaca) letting us inspect him. He's a handsome little guy isn't he?

With all this time off you would think I would be blogging a lot more but the opposite has been true and the reason has been I just haven't felt like it and I haven't really had anything to say.

I hope to get back into it again soon.

Hope you all are well land I'll be visiting everyone again soon!

Take care!

12 years and counting...

2009-03-15T12:55:00.002-04:00

...and they said it wouldn't last!

Happy Anniversary M!

I love you!