TYPING ROSEBUSHES PART DEUX

Maybe it's time to leave....

2009-10-16T07:14:00.001-07:00

My hubby got a frantic phone call from his mother the other night. She lives in California with his sister and her family and has been there for about 3 years now...a rather long visit in my opinion. So, my mother-in-law (MIL) calls very upset to report that my sister's husband is secretly videotaping her while she is in her bedroom! Now, if you knew my brother-in-law...probably one of the nicest, most benign people you would ever meet, you would know that this is preposterous. After listening to his mother go on and on about the intolerable videotaping sessions, he called his sister to get the real story. Apparently, my brother-in-law had disassembled an old computer and had placed some of the pieces in his MIL's room for storage. One of these computer pieces was an old webcam that no longer worked. It was placed on a shelf in her room. Well, she recognized it, knew what it was and decided that there was a conspiracy to secretly videotape her and send it out over the internet! She called her sisters in San Francisco and told them the same thing. The awful part? Stu's aunt called him and demanded that he speak to Luis (sis's hubby) to remove that awful camera......(shaking my head)....I truly think it is time for my MIL to head home...3 years is an awful long time to live with your daughter.....

Stroller gets overridden by train - baby survives

2009-10-16T06:28:00.001-07:00

The only good thing about this video is the fact that the baby is FINE....just a bump on the head - but how shocking, huh?

Remembering Dad....

2009-10-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned briefly, my father, Bill, died rather unexpectedly this summer, on 6/13/09. I say unexpectedly, but as you may recall, I had seen him 3 months before in March and knew at that time that he was not long for this world. He still was not even admitting to anybody that he was not well, even thought just looking at him it was patently obvious that he was on his last legs. My sister reminded me that during our visit in March, I looked at her after seeing our dad and saying flatly, "he won’t be alive in six months". How heartbreaking it is that my prediction came true with 3 months to spare….

It’s really hard to believe that my dad is gone. He was always so vital to me, never sick really, never weak. Even though his health in the last few years had been plagued by many "middle-age" diseases like diabetes and high cholesterol and the like, he still seemed strong and healthy for the most part. The first inkling I had that he was ill was for about the past year, whenever I talked with him on the phone, he would cough. Around the fall of 2008 the cough was so bad that it was impossible to talk with him on the phone because he was constantly coughing. I’m ashamed to admit that I put off calling him sometimes because it killed me to hear him coughing so. He protested that he had been to the doctor for the cough, but I was not convinced. Nobody can cough like that for 6 months and still have nothing wrong with him. It wasn’t until it was too late to do anything about it that we found out a chronic cough often accompanies liver and kidney disease.

It must be said that my dad was an alcoholic, but a very high functioning alcoholic. For as long as I can remember, alcohol was a part of his life, of my life, but not in a bad way by any means. One of my first memories as a kid was me and my sister playing in a bar as my parents and their friends sat around and had drinks. There was nothing sinister about this; it was just the way things were. Just as it was that our family vacations many times were disguised as golf vacations for my parents. They just found really interesting places to go play golf and turned these into our vacations. I just figured this out relatively recently! So, my sister and I grew up with alcohol being a very constant presence but also a comforting presence because as my parents drank they always were in the company of friends and their friends usually always had kids of their own and therefore, my sister and I were content to play with our friends as our parents drank. I hardly ever remember seeing my parents drunk, maybe once or twice in my entire childhood and even then I don’t recall anything bad happening…they were happy when they drank, which trickled down to us. So alcohol, while pretty much was always present in my dad’s life, never seemed to be a problem for him or those around him. Towards the last few years or so apparently the effects of 40 years of alcohol were slowing making their impact known, in the form of liver disease. Even when he was faced with this knowledge, it still took my dad a long time to quit drinking completely, an unfortunate truth that severely cut his life expectancy down from perhaps a few more years to mere months. Now my dad was not a big doctor-lover and it really took a lot for him to even go to the doctor. In fact, he never admitted to me that he was ill, even when I told him I was concerned over his appearance in March. He just didn’t want to upset us or burden us with his health issues I guess. This in and of itself is a big deal because my sister and I both work in the health field and I am certain that had he confided in us even a year ago, his life would have been prolonged because we would have recognized that his present doctor was not treating him appropriately and that things were much worse than what he was being told.

The last two weeks of my dad's life were rather miserable and I regret that he was unable to trust his daughters, if that is what it was, to know the truth. About two weeks before he died, my dad was functioning fairly well. He was going to work as usual, keeping to his usual routine. However, apparently the day before he went into the hospital he was having a bad time of it at work. His coworkers later told us that he had eaten lunch in his car, as usual, but that he had taken an extraordinary amount of time to do so. This was not like him and that concerned them. They could tell he was not breathing well and was weak. My sister was summoned to my dad’s apartment and she was absolutely shocked to find him in such a weakened and obviously ill condition. She was frightened and horrified to find him like that and insisted that he go to the hospital immediately. It is a great testament to just how bad dad felt that he agreed to go to the hospital. He was admitted and it was immediately clear that he was in bad shape. His liver and kidneys were failing and he was at the end-stage of both diseases. He was so bad that kidney or liver transplants were out of the question. He had so much fluid in his belly that it was causing him to have trouble breathing and causing his heart to work very hard. They removed over 10 liters of fluid from his belly. Now just stop and think about this for a minute. Think of five 2 liter bottles of Pepsi standing in a row and that is how much fluid they removed from my dad’s belly. I later found out that this is an extraordinary amount of fluid to remove at one time and in fact, I believe that the shock of this much fluid being removed at once caused his body to go into shock and led to his death, much sooner than it needed to, but that is another story. He did feel better after the fluid was removed but the indignities of being in the hospital and having everyone finally know the truth of what he did to himself over the years, I think caused my dad to lose his faith. My sister called me to tell me about him being in the hospital and while it was a shock, it was not unexpected, as she had been keeping me updated on his deteriorating health. I was glad he was finally somewhere that he could receive some help. Three days later, it was determined that my dad’s condition was grave and he was moved to the hospice part of the hospital. My sister generously offered me a plane ticket to fly down and be with him and I was scheduled to arrive 4 days later. Each day I would call my dad and speak with him and he seemed to be in better spirits after the move to hospice; he had a private room which was a great thing for him. He was happily anticipating my arrival and on Tuesday evening, he seemed like my old dad. On Wednesday afternoon my sister called frantically and told me that I had better try to get an earlier flight, that dad was going downhill fast. I was stupefied as, having just spoken with him the night before and finding him lucid and feeling good, the sudden turn was unbelievable. Unfortunately, an earlier flight was not to be had and I had to wait until my original flight on Thursday. I was horrified that I would not reach him before he died. However, I did arrive just after lunch on Thursday and my sister and I raced to the hospital. I walked into his room and was momentarily confused, thinking for a split second that we were in the wrong room. I could not believe the person lying in that bed was my father. Surely this shockingly thin man was not my dad. He was in and out of consciousness by that point and I loudly announced to him that I was here. He opened his eyes wide, recognizing me I’m sure, but then slipped back to sleep. That was really the only response I would see out of him at all. He was basically comatose until his death 2 days later. This was not an easy death though; and it was not an easy death to watch. There was moaning and thrashing and near the end, he began having strange seizures where he would fling his arms up as if he were trying to catch a ball being thrown to him. His arms would stay up and he would shake. His eyes would roll up into his head and it was just ghastly to watch this and be helpless to stop it. More medication was given but it really didn’t help. He was restless even in his coma. On Saturday, we were all gathered in his room and were reminiscing about him and the fun we used to have with him. We knew the end was near as his eyes opened and would not close anymore. This was eerie and disturbing for us, to see him lying there with his eyes open, so we covered his eyes with a wet washcloth, which certainly made us feel better. We decided to grab a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria. As we were coming back up in the elevator, we heard a sudden thunderstorm boom its approach. We were heading down to dad’s room when the nurse stopped us in the hall and we knew instantly that dad was gone. He had waited for us to leave as he did not want to die in front of us. The hospice nurses assured us this was a very common way for people to die. The thunderstorm continued to make its presence known and it was comforting in a way because all his life, dad loved thunderstorms. This was a fitting way for him to say goodbye to us. My dad was only 66 years old when he died on Saturday June 13, 2009. He leaves behind my sister and I and our 4 children….gone too soon.

My biggest regret is that our children won’t be able to know him the way we knew him. I used to think my dad was the smartest guy in the world. He seemed to know everything about everything. My dad was not perfect however, as evidenced by his decision to leave his wife and children and make a new life for himself on the other side of the country. This was a selfish decision and I still have yet to come to terms with it, even nearly 30 years later. Now that I am a parent it staggers me that he was able to walk away from his family. I loved him despite this, much to my mother’s chagrin, I think. Those wounds will probably never heal, for her or for my sister and I, but we have learned to deal with them in our own ways. In some ways I think I have swept a lot of my initial anger at him under the proverbial rug and now that he is gone, that may be just where it will stay. I choose to remember my dad as someone I have always looked up to and admired and someone I loved unconditionally, the way all parents and children should love each other. I will miss him with all my heart and wish I could hear his laughter just one more time. I love you dad.

Oh my....so long.....

2009-10-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to check in and say I am still here, still alive, although it has been a hell of a couple of months - lost my grandmother, lost my dad, Lulabell had more surgery...and may need even more....lost our power for a day and i thought I would die - school is back and kids are doing well...almost halloween and my daughter yearns to be a vampire - literally. She has been reading the True Blood series and the Marked series and of course, loves Twilight....My son is now a senior and we will have to get senior pics done soon - he is looking for a job at the moment, wish him luck! Stu and I still plugging away at our jobs - no news there - same old crap....still only 1 car between us and that sucks big time - my grandmother completely blew my sister and I off in her will and that hurts so bad - my dad died unexpectedly and that hurts the worst. I can't believe i don't have a dad anymore - we got to go to florida (my third time this year!) for his memorial service, which was nice. What are we doing in icky Pennsylvania? the kids are dying to live in florida....i don't know. So, that's about it for now - i will be back soon for more updates - need to get back into this again....

Memorial Obituaries Rommel, Edith

2009-04-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Memorial Obituaries Rommel, Edith

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Edie has gone home....

2009-04-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

My grandma Edie passed away quietly at the nursing home this morning. I was blessed enough to have been able to see her just two days ago, on Thursday. We had been told by the staff that she wasn't doing well and so Stu, the kids and I headed west to Canton for a visit. I thank God that He allowed us one last visit with her and we gathered around her, listened to her stories one more time and hugged and kissed her goodbye, not realizing it was for the very last time. Edie is home at last, which is what she wanted, to be in heaven with her beloved family - her mother, father and sister, all of whom left her too soon. For my sister and I and our families, we will miss her very much but feel she is where she needs to be now. I will be back soon with more thoughts on my grandmother's passing.

Day 5 - Goodbye Florida (sniff)

2009-03-18T15:56:00.001-07:00

Our final day in Florida began fairly early with laundry and breakfast. I made everyone eggs and bacon and managed to completely burn the bacon in the microwave. It was a plate of blackened, smelly strips of carcinogen and I grabbed the plate (burning my thumb badly in the process) and tossed it out the back door onto the patio lest the smell overcome us inside. My mom's landlord happened to stop by unexpectedly to get something from the house and I suddenly remembered the plate of burnt bacon out on the patio. I ran to the back door and scooped up the mess, tossing it into the trash can, hoping that she hadn't seen me. My mom's neighbor stopped over for a visit with her dog and to ask my mother for the thousandth time to consider staying forever....she is seriously taken with my mom and thinks she would make a great addition to the neighborhood on a permanent basis. My mom was having some computer issues, specifically, internet access issues and the neighbor was the cause of it all. She did have wi-fi at her trailer but was not using it appropriately so mom asked if I would go check it out for her. The neighbor was willing to allow mom access to the wi-fi and so I went over to her place and in about 2 minutes figured out the problem (yay me!) and got her wi-fi up and running. Back at mom's place, she was thrilled to note that she now had internet access! (I learned that a few days after we left, the neighbor re-secured her wi-fi for some reason and mom was left in the dark again). So, finishing up the laundry, Lulabell and I packed for home. It was a real challenge as we had acquired some things to take home but we got it done and soon were headed to the airport. Lulabell had been complaining of an upset stomach, but this in and of itself is not abnormal for her. She often complains of a stomach ache, probably due to some GERD she has had her whole life. I downplayed it and told her to keep her mind off of it. Soon we were waving goodbye to grammy who had dropped us off and we went into the airport to make our way to our gate. Lulabell's bag was pulled out and we had to go to a table to have it searched. "Is this your bag?" the TSA guard asked my daughter, who looked to me for support. "I packed the bag" I told the guard and wondered what in the heck could be in there that would draw their attention. After rooting around in her bag the guard finally pulls out a bottle of suntan lotion that I had forgotten I packed in there. "Did you forget that you can't pack liquids over 3 ounces?". Sheepishly, I admitted that I had and cursed myself as my $10 bottle of suntan lotion was now garbage. Oh well, we repacked Lulabell and headed to our gate. Lulabell was still not feeling well and I had her sit at the gate while I went to procure some food for us to eat on the plane. I found a Burger King and got sandwiches and drinks and headed back to the gate. I realized then that we were sitting at the wrong gate and hurriedly moved her and our stuff to the correct gate. A man noticed what I was doing and figured out he was at the wrong gate too! We sat and ate our food and waited to board the plane. Finally, we got up to get in line when Lulabell suddenly announced she was going to be sick. I hurriedly pointed her to the ladies room and she made a beeline for it where she was unceremoniously violently ill. My mind raced as I tried to figure out what to do, do I abandon our place in line to help my daughter? I stayed where I was and she returned looking pale and sweaty. She felt it was the hamburger she ate and said she felt a little better now. We boarded and found our seats with her at the window, me in the middle and a nice lady on the aisle. The plane soon took off and we settled in. They served a light snack and Lulabell ate a little of it but very soon began to look a little green around the gills and headed to the restroom where her little snack made a return appearance. Meanwhile, I had asked our seatmate if she wouldn't mind switching so that my sick daughter had quicker access to the restroom. She readily agreed. However, this turned out not to be a good idea because I think she was just as sick as Lulabell and we were pretty much up out of our seats constantly so she could use the restroom. Lulabell returned and we settled in again but before long she announced once again she was ill. I glanced aft to see if the restroom was available but there was a line and so I grabbed the air sickness bag and shoved it at her, where she proceeded to fill it to the brim. I had to call the flight attendant to help me with napkins and they provided us with several more bags. Finally the restroom cleared and I deposited the bag and its contents in the garbage. Finally, we landed in Cleveland and Lulabell made straight for the restroom once more. I knew she was not going to be able to make it to the next gate so I flagged down a cart and driver and we jumped on and zoomed at about 70 mph to the escalator. We got to the top of the escalator where another cart was waiting and we zoomed to our final destination. Thank God for those carts because it was like a mile to the next gate and she would NEVER have made it. We arrived at our gate about an hour before our scheduled departure and relaxed. Our flight was on time, according to the little sign over my head (scheduled to leave at 5:00PM). At one point Lulabell looks at the sign and asks "mom, why does our flight say 8:00 PM now?" I laughed at her and chided her for trying to trick me....and glanced up at the sign where it did indeed say 8:00 PM. I did the classic double take and even took off my glasses to clean them so I could be sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. Sure enough, the gate attendant finally gets on the overhead to announce that our flight was now postponed until 8:00 PM (3 HOURS LATER!) because there was no flight crew available and that they were now flying them in from Harrisburg....WTF???? Well, that's just great. Of course, out of all the passengers receiving this news, some took it well, and others took it not so well. Some man, who looked like he would be more comfortable sleeping under an overpass than taking an airplane walked up to the gate and began to berate the poor lady, claiming that he had a "very important meeting" that he "could not miss!" (yeah right). Well, there was really nothing to be gained from yelling, as I could see it. We did have the diversion of watching a family with 3 badly behaved boys under the age of 6 slowly begin to unravel and the astonishing moment of when the oldest boy stood his ground in front of his grandmother, hands on his hips and SCREAMED horrible things at her. Mother was talking to the gate attendant at the time but when she heard him screaming at the grandmother she whipped around, grabbed his arm and MARCHED him into the ladies room and I seriously hope she put the fear of God into him for his little scene. Soon the attendant announced that Continental felt so bad about the delay that they were offering food vouchers so we could eat dinner, on them! Yippee! Lulabell was feeling better by now and decided she wanted to try to eat. I tried to call Stu and let him know what was happening but for some reason, my phone decided to go all wonky. There was a picture I had never seen before on my wallpaper and I couldn't access my contacts - seriously strange. It was like I had a stranger's phone or something. Lulabell's phone was dead as she had forgotten to plug it in the night before. I finally reached him and asked if he thought he could make it to Cleveland as we had a delay. I truly did not think this was going to happen as it had been so long since I myself had driven to Cleveland airport that I couldn't even begin to tell him how to get here. I then went to the attendant and asked if perhaps they would provide a rental car voucher and I could just drive home (about a 90 minute drive) instead of waiting 3 hours to fly to Pittsburgh and then having an hour drive from there. Unfortunately, while this sounded like a stellar idea to me, alas, the airline did not think much of it and I was denied. Oh well, we waited it out and finally got on the new plane at about 9:30 or so. The flight only takes about 30 minutes and the flight attendant did not even get out of her seat. Finally, we landed and Stu and Peaches showed up right on time to pick us up. Hugs all around, with Peaches begging to see what I had brought him. I made him wait though and we headed home, arriving at close to 11:00 PM - it was a good thing I decided to take that day off too, huh? Lulabell was still feeling a bit queasy and so I decided she could stay home from school the next day to recuperate. So, our trip, after such a long time in planning and waiting for it to happen, was over. It was such an awesome trip and the only thing I regretted was that Stu and Peaches couldn't share it with us. However, after regaling Stu about the wonders of Disney, he is now determined that we will be making a trip soon to go as a family, perhaps next summer. That sounds great to me!

Day 4 - Florida - Goodbye Disney World

2009-03-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

Too soon our last day at Disney World was upon us. My brother-in-law J and nephew J had to leave as they had another baseball game to play. That left my mom, me, Lulabell, my sis L and nephew C to pack up and check out. We took a last look around at our home for the last 2 days and I regretted not getting a chance to swim in the beautiful pool - Lulabell was upset at this too but we just didn't have time. We checked out and found our way back to the real world and stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast on our way home, which is a treat for everybody, right? We didn't get home until about 3 PM or so, which didn't give us much time to relax before we had to scoot over to my sister's house as Lulabell and I were having dinner with them and my dad that evening. I had seen my dad briefly on Thursday night and what I saw worried me a great deal. I had known that he had lost weight but when I saw him Thursday night, I was a little shocked. He has basically wasted away. The weight loss does NOT look good on him as he has always been a robust guy - not hugely overweight, but stocky and healthy-appearing. I instantly became suspect at his denials that he was "fine" because after 20 years in the medical field, I know he is not "fine". My dad has always had a thing about doctors and I know had not seen one in many, many years prior to his current situation. Now that he is on Medicare and medical insurance is not such a big issue, I hope that he is taking care of things. I noticed he had some lacerations and bruising over one of his arms and when I grabbed his arm to take a closer look I was shocked at how thin and frail his arm felt. We compared strange skin lesions (I have a patch on my leg that two doctors have yet to diagnose) and he showed me his legs and again, what I saw worried me. He definitely has some circulation issues, to say the least. In contrast, my dad's SO (significant other) M looked like a shining star next to my dad, and she has her own health issues she deals with, but looked at least 10 years younger than my dad! In short, my dad's health is definitely an issue and my sister and I are beyond worried. We are both in the medical field and we can tell, just by looking at him, that he is ill. The bad thing is, he won't tell us what's wrong with him and basically blows us off. That evening we all met up at my sister's house and my sister had a lovely surprise for me - a new bag! (my backpack had basically disintegrated at Disney World). She had given the exact bag to my mother for her birthday and I fell in love with it - especially as it is my signature color (lime green). She saw how much I liked it and she went and bought me a new one! THANKS! We all headed to the beach for dinner, with Lulabell and I riding with my dad and Lisa, M and C in the other car. It felt a little stiff trying to talk to my dad, what with the white elephant of his health just staring at us in the face, but we made small talk and parked and walked towards the restaurant. It was lovely and we sat the two kids together at a table on the patio and we took a table nearby. Dinner was nice, although the food wasn't what I would have expected a nice place on the beach - but we enjoyed ourselves and decided to take a nice walk on the pier just outside. We walked and talked a bit but then my dad was getting cold (this in and of itself is a huge thing - my dad is NEVER COLD) and so we headed back to the cars. I kind of expected that they would come back to L's house to visit some more but my dad wanted to get home and so we said our goodbye's right there on the beach. I wasn't sure how to feel about all this but my sister had been dealing with it for sometime and we both feel that we won't push him, he will tell us when he is ready. We all headed back to L's house with a quick pit stop at the store to get some dessert. My brother-in-law and J soon arrived from their game and we sat and talked a bit and had dessert. Then, it was time to say our goodbye's as Lulabell and I were heading home in the morning - it was over too quickly and we were sad to put an end to our visit (Lulabell cried in the car on the way back to grammy's). We had a fantastic time with them and I renewed my resolve that someday my sister and I would actually live near one another in the future. Back to grammy's for Sunday night TV and relaxing, washing our clothes to get ready to pack them up for the (sniff) trip home. Tomorrow, day 5 of our trip and the fun of traveling with a sick child - UGH!

Day 3 - The Magic Kindom!

2009-03-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

We woke Saturday morning to bright sunshine and warm breezes. My brother-in-law J and nephew J had arrived late the night before and it we greeted them with enthusiasm! We showered and dressed when my sister announced that she had no shoes for her son J! He had arrived in his baseball outfit and cleats and she had unfortunately not performed her motherly duties and packed any real shoes for him! (She also forgot to pack socks for her husband - for shame!). We decided a trip to the shoe store was in order and so L and I and the kids set out for Wal-Mart. L had asked about the location of a Wal-Mart and was told by a staff member there was one "just down the road". So we set off, leaving J and my mother to fend for themselves. It was about 9 AM or so at this point. L figured with traffic and whatnot, we should be back by 10 or so. (hahahahahaha). We left Disney grounds and headed towards Orlando seeking Wal-mart. However, it was certainly not in the location expected by my sister and we drove and drove and drove (for miles and miles and miles) and STILL did not find a Wal-Mart. I kept suggesting we pull over and ask but my sister apparently didn't hear me. We found a discount store and all piled out of the car and into the store where we assaulted the clerks with "where are the shoes?" questions. Alas, there were no shoes to be found there. They told us about a Nike shoe store up the road (my sister's eyes lit up at the word NIKE) and off we went. I thought we should try to find the Wal-Mart store still as I was hoping to buy a pair of shorts for myself to wear to the Magic Kindom. When I pointed this out to my sister, she told me "well, they HAVE shorts at the Nike store for God's sakes" in her most withering voice. I answered back smartly, "well, they don't have BIG GIRL SHORTS, do they?" and she conceded defeatedly that they most likely did not (HAH!). On our way to the Nike store, in answer to my prayers, we spotted a SUPER TARGET store and apparently these words also make my sister's eyes light up. We made an illegal U-turn and swept into the Target store parking lot. We flew threw the nearly empty store and found the shoes where my nephew immediately found a cool pair of skateboard shoes that he fell in love with, much to my sister's chagrin. I hightailed it over to the "big girl clothes section" and started searching for appropriate shorts, but could not find ONE SINGLE PAIR OF SHORTS! My God! Where are the shorts??? I grabbed a sales clerk and dragged her over to the big girl section and challenged her to find me a pair of shorts....she also could not locate any shorts. I was mystified and angry and my voice started to rise as I wondered aloud how a freaking SUPER TARGET store in FLORIDA for God's sakes, didn't have any shorts....??? The clerk slunk away and my sister came over and asked brightly if I had any luck???? One glare from me told her I hadn't and she turned around and INSTANTLY found a rack with perfectly nice shorts on it (how did she do that?). I grabbed a pair and we ran to the registers. We decided that we were now famished and needed to eat something before we returned to the park and stopped by McDonald's for takeout. We headed back to the park and when we returned it was nearly 10:45 - Mom and J had a lovely, leisurely breakfast at the hotel, although their 2 breakfasts cost more than our 6 breakfasts had cost at McDonalds! We gathered our belongings and headed to the buses to go to the Magic Kingdom. We didn't have long to wait and finally, we had ARRIVED! We headed straight to the scooter rentals and mom and I obtained our scooters in no time. I really felt glad that I made the decision to rent the scooter and my sister was glad because now we had double the space to pile our belongings on! The sunshine was warm and our spirits were high as we passed into the park and began our trek towards Cinderella's Castle, which loomed in front of us. Main street was packed as the parade had just ended and it was quite difficult to maneuver the scooters around people. I found it quite astonishing that people really didn't look out for scooters and would walk right in front of me without hesitation, necessitating some quick stopping and starting on my part. We headed to Monster's, Inc laugh factory first and afterwards we made a delightful discovery. My sister stopped to talk to a cast member at the entrance to Stitch's Great Escape and she told us, because of the "handicapped" members of our party, we could go to City Hall and get a special pass that would allow our entire party to have what amounted to a group fast pass to ALL the rides. Well, my sister hightailed it down to City Hall as we waited for the rest of the group to come out of one of the rides. When she returned, she showed the pass to my brother-in-law, whose eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning! He KNEW what this meant...that we could ride and ride and ride and never have to stand in line! WOOOHOOO! We decided to test it out on Space Mountain and boy, did it ever work - we got right on the ride - no waiting! Space Mountain is DEFINITELY my favorite ride at the Magic Kingdom. We also took a ride on the overhead tram which was nice and cool and had expensive wieners, chips and pop for lunch ($8.50 per person!). After lunch we hit Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain and several other rides. They were awesome as well. The crowds were huge but again, no waiting in line for us! We then went to the Haunted mansion and although we did have to go through the main line, it moved fast and we could remain on our scooters. We then were diverted to the handicapped line at the entrance, where we left the scooters and walked a short distance into the mansion to wait for our escort. We made it in and I really enjoyed this ride as I remembered it from my trip here in 1972 when I was 7. It had really made a big impression on me at that time. It was about 4 PM by this time and our thoughts had turned to dinner - my brother-in-law J decided he wanted a big, fancy, sit down dinner in the park and we decided to make reservations at a nice place. Unfortunately, our reservations weren't until 8:20 or so! We thought this would be fine as we could get a snack or something to tide us over and continue to enjoy the park. The only bad thing, according to my sister, was we would miss the fireworks show....damn. So, we headed out into the park and re-rode some of our favorite rides. By 6:00 we had wandered back to the restaurant and were trying to decide what snack we could have that would get us through until dinner TWO HOURS later! Nothing seemed good to us and finally, my mother told my sister just to go into the restaurant to see if perhaps they could seat us earlier than our reservation. Miraculously, the next thing we know, L is waving us over....it worked! We could eat NOW!!!! We hurriedly parked the scooters and made our way inside where we were seated at a lovely table overlooking the street out front. We ordered our drinks and then our server brought us rolls and salad, which we devoured instantly - mmmmmm, so good! Our dinner was family style, meaning, they would bring us platters of food and it was all you could eat, so if we ran out, they would bring us more! The first dish he brought was all meat, roast beef, turkey and ham and it was delightful, with homemade mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, mac and cheese. We fell on the food like ravenous lions, grunting with pleasure at every bite. We ate till we could eat no more (at least until dessert was served), which was a delightful apple cobbler and ice cream. Finally sated, we sat there congratulating ourselves on the way we handled things. My sister decided she needed to get my mom to the prime viewing spot for the fireworks, right in front of the castle, so they took the scooters to mark our territory, while my brother-in-law and I sat with the kids. We were going to meet my sister at Pirates of the Caribbean in about 30 minutes. My brother-in-law decided he needed to find a bathroom RIGHT NOW (dinner had kicked in I guess) and took off, leaving me with the kids and the check (actually, my wonderful brother-in-law had treated us all to that lovely dinner - thanks J!) Unfortunately, the bathroom at the restaurant was inadequate for J's needs (only one stall) and he hightailed it out of there in search of a more appropriate one. The kids and I sat outside watching the crowds and waiting for him to return. We finally met up down the street and headed over to the Pirates ride. There was absolutely no line as the crowd was already queuing up on the street for the fireworks and we got right on. It was quite entertaining and I managed to snag a 30% off sweatshirt for my son when we finished the ride. We scooted over to our fireworks-watching site and waited for it to get dark. Finally, Tinkerbell flew out of the castle and down into the crowd (this was actually a real live person!) and the fireworks started in all their glory. Very, very nice and lots of oohs and aahs from the crowd. We had decided (learning from our experience the night before) that instead of rushing off to the buses after the fireworks were over, that we would linger in the park and ride some more rides to avoid the crowds. We decided we HAD to ride the race cars, another ride I remembered from my youth. Mom didn't want to ride this one so we waited in line with the rest of the crowds and after about 15 minutes, finally made it to the cars. I insisted Lulabell ride in her own car and this kind of freaked her out a little bit, but she did and off we went. These cars were MUCH harder to control than I had remembered and I had a devil of a time pressing the gas pedal - it was very hard to push! In fact, I got a horrible foot cramp and kept having to switch feet to power the car - not enjoyable! Finally, the dumb ride was over and I looked back at my sister in her car and mouthed "I GOT A CRAMP!" she smiled and nodded and waved at me. We got out of the cars and I limped to the walkway. My sister asked me what was wrong with me and I said, "i told you, I got a cramp!" My sister said, "Ohhhh, I thought you said you had to CRAP!" and we doubled over in laughter at that. So, our wonderful time in Disney World was coming to a close and really, we had the best time ever. My mother told us many times that it was her best birthday ever and she would never forget it. I would just like to say thank you to my family because without them, the trip could not have happened and without them, it would never have been as much fun....thank you to my mom, J and L for everything - you guys rock! Tomorrow - our fourth day as we leave Disney World and head back to the real world.

Day 2 - Disney World!

2009-03-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Day 2 in Florida started VERY early - 5 AM to be exact. We were excited to begin the extra special part of our trip and packed our bags. We got to my sister's house right on time (grammy is NEVER late) and picked up L and my nephew C. My brother-in-law and J would join us later tonight as they had a baseball game that day. So, we headed out and were on the road by 6:15 AM. It takes about 3 hours to Orlando from my sister's house so we settled in for a long ride. About halfway there we stopped for breakfast on the turnpike and then continued our journey. It wasn't long before we saw the magical entrance and then we really began to get excited. We were headed to the kennels first as my mom was going to board her dog Lily there for the two days we would be there. The kennels were quite lovely, clean and friendly and though Lily didn't want us to leave, we were confident she was in good hands. That taken care of, we headed off to find our hotel. We were staying in the "value" hotel called All Star Movies and after several wrong turns, my sister finally guided us to the right place. It was all very disneyish and we parked and went inside to register. The hotel was large and absolutely crawling with people. L and my mom went to register and I took the kids to the lobby gift shop to see what we could find. I immediately found hats for me and Lulabell and a cool little ID card thingie on a retractable line for C, who was thrilled. I was surprised to find that Lulabell's hat was on sale for $5! What a bargain. So, with our gifts we headed back to the front desk to wait. L and mom completed the registration and we decided to head right to Epcot as our rooms were not quite ready yet. So we gathered our things, parked the car and headed to the buses that would take us to the park. It was already hot at high noon and I was glad for the hats. Mom is wearing oxygen now and has to rest frequently but we were fine and pretty soon our bus arrived and we boarded, excited to be starting our adventure. In no time at all we were pulling up to the park and we exited the bus to begin the long walk up to the ticket lines. Mom had to rest every now and then but we made it and purchased our tickets. We immediately headed to the scooter rentals and mom was soon ensconced in her little scooter, which we immediately filled to the brim with our bags and supplies. We headed immediately to the center of Epcot, the big round golfball, which is actually a ride, Planet Earth. We were pleased to discover that having a scooter was going to be a big boon as we were immediately escorted to the handicapped entrance of the ride, where we literally waited 2 minutes before we were inside and seated on the ride! YIPPEE! Mom is our golden ticket! The ride was a slow moving car in complete darkness with fun computers in the cars that required us to answer questions and such. Very enjoyable. The ride soon ended and L wanted us to head to the Land section of the park so we could go on the ride, Soaring - a simulated hang-glider ride that was supposed to be awesome. Unfortunately, there was no handicapped entrance and we had to stand in line like the rest of the people. This line took us about 65 minutes and we were entertained by huge movie screens that we could play games on. Still, it was a little tedious standing there and unfortunately, somebody very close to us had a gas problem and periodically we were treated to noxious fumes that we couldn't escape from. My sister kept accusing me but I think it was the strange boy and his mother ahead of us that were the culprits. At one point, L sat down on the ground and her head was strategically placed exactly at the level of the kid's butt in front of her and I made sure she was aware of the danger she was in. Soon we were escorted into the ride itself, mom parked her scooter and walked to the actual seats where we were strapped in right in front of a huge screen that curved around us. The ride lifted us up and the screen started and suddenly, we were flying over the Golden Gate Bridge! It was tremendous and there was wind and sounds and even smells to experience. This was a knockout ride and lasted for about 10 minutes. Truly, it turned out to be just about my favorite ride at the park. We exited the ride and found ourselves inside a huge room where we made our way down to the lower level and decided we needed to eat lunch, along without about 1000 other people with the same idea. After some confusion about what to eat, we finally got our food and then the trek began looking for somewhere to sit down to eat. We had sent the kids out earlier to scout for empty tables but they came up empty-handed. Finally, L found a table that would accommodate us all and we gratefully sat down to eat. We finished up and headed to the elevator that would take us back up to the level we needed. Mom was still a little iffy about steering her scooter and nearly took out a little kid as she backed onto the elevator but we made it and pushed the buttons. We waited a few minutes and finally figured out that we hadn't moved. We determined the elevator was broken and exited where we started to inquire about a different elevator. Unfortunately, that was the only one and we were told to be patient because it was slow. So, we headed back onto it and finally made it to our desired floor exited into the bright sunshine. We headed to Nemo's Undersea experience and again, had almost instant access to the ride. This was a lovely ride and we headed to the next one. It was probably about 4 o'clock by this time and I was feeling an uncomfortable burning sensation in the bottoms of both my feet. I was determined to ignore it though and we continued our trek through the park, stopping for ice cream. We were heading to a new ride (Test Track) and Mom decided she didn't want to go on this one. We were disappointed because we knew without her, we would have to wait in line with the rest of the peons. Finally, a light bulb went off and I figured out that I could ride the scooter as the designated handicapped person, thus assuring our good place in line. So, mom sat on a bench and I got on the scooter. My sister insisted that I had to wear mom's oxygen as well, which I was hesitant about as I didn't particularly want to stick that thing up my nose (no offense to my mother). However, she persisted and I relented and off went went to the ride. Sure enough, we were escorted right to the front of the line and I parked the scooter and walked to the cars. The attendant walked up to me and asked if I thought I would be able to walk down 3 flights of stairs if an emergency occurred and I had to exit the ride. I didn't know what to say, but said "would I have to walk UP 3 flights of stairs?" in my sickest, most pathetic voice. He assured me it would only be DOWN the stairs and I told him that I thought I could make it, with my sister snickering in admiration of my acting abilities next to me. We got on the ride and it was great, like a race car zooming along. We got out and I staggered to my scooter and hurriedly donned my oxygen, just to make everything look good. We headed back to mom, victorious in our scheme. We decided then to head over the countries at Epcot and began the long trek. My feet were definitely burning again and I was afraid to take off my shoes for a look at what was causing this pain. The evening was cooling down and Lulabell and I realized we had left our sweatshirts in the car. We felt we would be fine as we had come from subzero weather and it would only get down to about 60 or so, which was like a heat wave for us. The sun was setting over the lake and it was absolutely gorgeous as we meandered through country after country. By about 8 PM we were definitely hungry and headed to America for dinner. We grabbed our food and sat outside to eat in the dying light of day, enjoying an expensive dinner of hamburgers and fries. It was close to 9 PM and we decided to head to the lake to catch the fireworks. Somehow we got separated in the crowds and L, Lulabell and I tried to find grammy and C. We found ourselves next to a store and we just waited there while L went off in search of Grammy. The fireworks were just about to begin when I heard a god-awful crash in the store just behind me. I turned slowly to see what the commotion was and in horror noted that the source of the sound was my mother as she was dragging a display that had gotten caught in the wheels of her scooter. I rushed over to assist her while my sister stood in front of her, berating her for going too fast. The top of the display was filled with little glasses that were now falling off and crashing to the floor, one by one by one. My mother had thankfully stopped the scooter with the display just inches from crashing into the plate glass window. The store clerks had rushed over by now and were trying to untangle her from the display. I stooped down to try to pick up the shattered glasses, or least get them out of the way so my mom wouldn't crush them with the scooter. The clerk turned into some sort of demon as she growled at me "DO NOT TOUCH THE GLASS". I was taken aback at the tone of her voice but decided to do as I was told and backed slowly away. My mother by this time had been freed from the display and motored out of the store. My sister and I decided it would be best to distance ourselves from her and stood apart from her while the fireworks started over the lake. I looked back at mom and noticed a strange look on her face, one I knew only too well. It was a look brought on by the strain of trying not to laugh, with her body shaking with the effort of holding back the giggles. This set me off instantly and I burst out laughing. I walked over to her and when she saw MY face, well, that did it and we all three dissolved into those helpless giggles that you just can't stop. We have a history of setting each other off and everytime we looked at each other, the giggles started anew. Finally, the fireworks were over and we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. We giggled intermittently all the way back to the scooter rental place. The attendant approached us and I asked about a wheelchair that could take my mother back to the bus as she really could not walk all that way. Here is what he said (I think) "yesth, you can useth a wheelchair and then leave it at the busthsthtop where we will pick it up". Well, I didn't quite hear him the first time what with his lisp and all and said "okay....ugh, what did you say". He repeated himself once again and this time I caught the jist of it but was struggling mightily with myself not to burst out laughing in his face. I handed him the rental receipt and he said "oh yesth, I will alstho need your vistha card". I bite my tongue and retrieved my mother's vistha card to complete the transthaction (I mean transaction). So, we grabbed a wheelchair and headed to the buses. There was a HUGE line at the bus stop and we ended up waiting a good 30 minutes. Little did we know, because of the wheelchair, we could have bypassed the wait and headed straight to the front of the line (Disney is SO good to handicapped people), but we just waited and soon we were on the packed bus back to the hotel. It was about 10:00 by this time and we were whipped. I was barely able to walk by this time as my feet were just burning bricks of goo. But we made it to the rooms and found that they were adjoining so we could flit between our rooms. Lulabell kicked off her shoes and we were instantly assaulted by the worst sweaty foot smell that I had ever experienced. Even my sister could smell it all the way in her room and she came to the door to inquire what in God's name was that smell? I hurriedly instructed Lulabell to take her shoes outside and threw her socks into the tub with water and soap to let them soak. I sat on the bed and peeled off my shoes and socks to get a gander at my feet. Sure enough, I had HUGE blisters on the bottoms of both feet, which certainly explained the burning I had been feeling for the last 6 hours. I literally crawled to the shower to soak my feet. I was very disturbed as I knew tomorrow would be just as walking intensive as today was and how would I manage? I made the decision that tomorrow, I would be renting my own scooter as there was just no way I would be able to enjoy myself in pain. So, happy with my decision, we headed to bed, anticipating the tremendous day in store for us at the Magic Kingdom! Check back for day 3 tomorrow.

Day 1 - Florida!

2009-03-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

Lulabell and I had planned a trip south to visit my mother at her "winter place" and see my sister and her family for a few days. What Lulabell didn't know was our plan to spend two glorious days at Disney World! We all kept it a BIG secret from her and it just about killed me to do it too. My sister nearly let the cat out of the bag when she told my daughter on the phone that "we have your Disney packet ready!" Lulabell thankfully didn't quite catch that and so the secret was kept to the end. We had a rather uneventful airplane trip down and soon we exited the airport in West Palm Beach into the glorious hot sun. We waited just a little while for my mom to pick us up and managed to change into our flip flops while we waited. Mom arrived soon enough and whisked us off straight to the beach! Deerfield beach is one of the prettiest beaches with parking right on the beach basically. Lulabell and I joyfully kicked off our flip flops, rolled up our pants and sprinted to the water. Our toes drank in the glorious blue-green surf as it rolled up the beach. I must admit the water was colder than I expected, but it was not cold enough to deter me from standing there, basking in the glory of it all. We hung out for awhile there, and then headed to grammy's place, which was in a trailer park, right on the intercoastal. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, with a screened in porch double wide trailer, very comfortably appointed. We hurriedly changed into our "Florida clothes" and grammy served us some soup to tide us over until dinner (steaks on the grill, roasted potatoes and salad, YUM!) My sister and her family came by about an hour later and we quickly fell into the comfortable rhythm of family. My mother began cooking the steaks, which were absolutely the best steaks I have eaten! We sat and talked for awhile and then decided to break the BIG NEWS to Lulabell. We gathered everyone together and let her have it......stunned silence followed as she tried to figure out if we were kidding her...great delight finally hit as the news sunk in. We were leaving first thing in the morning to spend two wonderful days and nights at the Magic Kingdom! I was psyched because it had been 13 years since I had been there. Mom's birthday was Friday and she was able to get in for free! We finally said goodnight to my sis with promises to pick them up by 6 AM! Lulabell and I headed off to bed with visions of Mickey Mouse in our heads and the thrill that awaited us.... More tomorrow on our first day at Disney World!

LOST-All These Things That I've Done

2009-02-24T20:59:00.001-08:00

Awesome Lost Video - check it out if you are a fan!

Breakfast anyone?

2009-01-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of my favorite breakfast - an egg-in-the-hole! Yum! Strangely, most people I tell about this don't know about it - this was especially true when I lived in California - I think it is an east coast thing. My mom just told me about another egg dish - baggie eggs, which sounds intriguing. Okay, what you do is take a quart size Ziploc baggie, break two eggs into it, then add whatever you might like in an omelet - just throw whatever you like in there. The close up the bag after getting as much air out of it as you can. Then, put the bag into boiling water for 16 minutes - that's it! Apparently, according to mom, you will have a perfectly cooked omelet! I haven't tried this yet, but if you do, let me know the results, okay?

Spring?

2009-01-31T09:24:00.001-08:00

Hello from the frozen north! Our snowpack is about a foot right now - we had a major storm on Wednesday that provided a welcome no school day for us. I do enjoy the big snowstorms, but the aftermath, well, that ain't so pretty. The snow plows helpfully come by and block us in, or they don't come at all and block us in....hmmmm. Going to the grocery store is a hassle because it is almost impossible to maneuver your cart through the parking lots. And, it's been coooooolllllddddd - sometimes not even getting above 10. So, why am I complaining? I live here, I know what winters are like - the only thing getting me through is the delicious thought of a trip south coming soon - I actually have to buy a bathing suit! Which is a physical impossibility here in Pennsylvania in February - sigh.

Tomorrow is the Superbowl for those of you who might not know - western PA is Steelers country, unfortunately. I am NOT a Steeler's fan and the pro-Steelers attitude around here is almost more than I can stand - UGH! Fortunately, tomorrow will be over soon. Here is my prediction - Cardinals over the Steelers, 27-21. Let's see how I do. We are in a crazy Superbowl pool and we have had good luck in the past with these so keep your fingers crossed for us.

Lulabell is a reading maniac right now. She is reading the Twilight series and is in love with this book! I read it over last summer and was so voracious about it I read all four books in a week. She is not far behind me, on her second book in less than a week (there are 4 total). It is nice to see her doing something besides watch TV, talk on the phone or monopolize the computer. Now I have to get to work on Peaches, whose main activities include all of the above, plus playing Wii.

I've been enjoy my TV shows, especially Lost and American Idol. I think Survivor and The Amazing Race will be starting soon too. Thank God for DVR! With my work schedule I have to record the shows usually and watch later - which is fine with me because then we can fast forward through the commercials - DVR is a gift from heaven in my opinion.

Our cat Belle is in heat once more - the yelling and screaming are intense at the moment and we have to lock her in the basement at night because no one can sleep otherwise. The other day I went out to start the car and as I was coming back in, Belle got the door open and escaped to satisfy her lust. I was pretty incredible to see her leaping through the snow, which was pretty deep, like a gazelle leaping for freedom. I didn't even try to catch her and she pretty much disappeared into the snow drifts (she is all white). I had visions of kittens in my head but 10 minutes later she was yelling at the door to come in - I'm pretty sure that wasn't enough time to call her boyfriend and do the dirty deed. I guess we will know in 60 days or so. Truth be told, we REALLY enjoyed having the kittens a year ago and Lulabell and I especially wouldn't be THAT upset if she wound up preggers - although my mother would be furious. She thinks I'm irresponsible about not having them spayed but I can always find something better to do with that $100 it would cost - like paying the gas bill or something. I'm telling you though, as soon as I win the lottery, those cats are FIXED!

Otherwise, not much to talk about, although I did want to go on record about something. I am talking about the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets. News is slowly leaking about her and I am a little outraged by these reports. Apparently, the latest news is this woman is already the mother of 6 children (all under the age of 7). My outrage comes from the knowledge that some doctor felt this woman had fertility issues and implanted 8 embryos in her. All of the standard practices with this type of thing is to implant at the most 3 embryos, and in a women who has already had children, is young and healthy otherwise, only 1 embryo would be implanted. This woman also apparently is not married and lives with her parents, who already lost their house trying to help her out. There is just all kinds of wrong here in this situation. I don't mean to judge, but somehow there has been a breakdown of sorts here and I want to know why. How does ANYBODY raise 14 kids? I'm just saying....

Well, I did have a birthday last week and spent it performing my current favorite activity - napping! I pretty much slept my whole birthday. Not sure why I need to sleep so much - my theory is that during the week I am lucky if I get 5-6 hours of sleep a day and I guess my body just has to make up for it on the weekends - which kind of pisses off my family i think. It seems that whenever Stu calls from work to talk, I am always sleeping - you can just hear the tone of "sleeping again?" in his voice. I don't know, maybe I'm anemic or something - I feel pretty well otherwise, just tired all the time. Zzzzzzzz

Oh my - i have no excuses

2009-01-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a month since my last post - no excuses here, just apologies. We celebrated the new year as we do most every year, we had C&D come over and we had a major Wii bowling tournament. I had to work from 7-11P but then we all saw the new year in together with lots of yelling and such. However, upon the stroke of midnight, D became sick and began a 12 hour round of vomiting - nice, huh? Poor kid - I put him up in Lulabell's bed so he could be near the bathroom - we all went to bed late and slept late the next day. It was almost 11 before I got up and I checked on D and he was still asleep - I had made sure he had water and a bucket next to him all night. They finally went home about 2 PM and I began to not feel so well. I ended up getting the nasty bug D had and spent the next 24 hours wearing a groove in the floor between the bedroom and the bathroom - awesome! I finally began to feel better by Monday though, ugh.

The kids have been back to school and things seem to be moving along for 2009. Our weather went from no snow to TONS of snow and in fact, we had a snow day the Friday before Martin Luther King day - so the kids got a 4 day weekend (YAY!) We got a total of about 15 inches of snow over about a week's period which was really nice - you know I love extreme weather, right? I'm a little worried about our trampoline, which is completely filled with heavy, wet snow and I'm pretty sure that is not too good for it, you know? I should get the kids out to clear off the snow from it.

Big news for Lulabell and I - in early March she and I will be taking a little trip south - to Florida!!!!!! My mom is down there now, as she goes every year for several months. At the last minute her place to stay became available and off she went - she always wants me to come down for a weekend or something and I just haven't been able to do that financially and otherwise. Well, just for the heck of it, I checked out the flights and was pleased and surprised to find them very reasonable - about $150 round trip. So, I talked to Stu and it was decided that I should go. However, the guilt of not being able to take my family with me was always one of the reasons I have not gone before. How could I go and enjoy myself in the sun and sand of south Florida while the rest of my family suffered in the cold and snow of western PA?!?!? So, to assuage my guilt, I thought I could take one of the kids and decided on Lulabell - who was of course thrilled beyond measure at the thought of going to Florida - Peaches was a little upset but I told him that if we go next year, he would be the one to come - which he was all right with, surprisingly. Stu was a little miffed because he loves it down there too, but he just got to go to SF this past summer and there wasn't much he could say about things - So, Lulabell and I will be getting our swimsuits ready and we will be spending 5 days with grammy and aunt Lisa and family and we are so psyched! It's wonderful to have something so delicious to look forward to, you know?

Peaches is no longer wrestling as his grades plummeted and he was failing 4 classes. I had to pull him out and I don't think he was that upset about it....he was resistant to the wrestling at the end (they only had a month left) as I think he had become the "punching bag" for the wrestling team - not in a bad way - I think the other boys were fond of him and generally treated him well, but he usually ended up being the fall guy for the wrestlers, somebody they could wrestle and beat every time! He was in it more for the social aspects and the exercise but the bruises he had were overwhelming, not to mention the six stitches he got early on. So, he is done wrestling for ever, he says. Hopefully now he can start pulling those grades up.

Lulabell made honorable mention at school for her grades, just a smidge below honor society (we'll get there). She is enjoying her friends and it is a relief that the singing thing is over for now. December was insane with practices and performances taking over our lives. She did enjoy it very much though and hopefully can become involved in something similar once she moves to the middle school next year. That's right, my baby will be in 7th grade next year and moving to the middle/high school - ARRGGGHHHHH!

Work is going all right - keeping pretty busy as always. I am enjoying the heck out of working at home and in fact, had to work last weekend at the hospital which was just about the worst torture I could have imagined for myself. I was grumpy all day last Saturday just thinking about having to actually go into the hospital to work - how did I do it for all those years then? It didn't seem so bad when I actually worked at the hospital to go in everyday. Now that I have it good working from home (usually in my pajamas and slippers), having to actually go somewhere to work is just tortuous. Stu is still with Blowes and he is doing well there. We are just working and living, like everybody else does, trying to get along and have some fun every now and then.

The excitement of our new president is keeping me even more involved in politics these days. Having voted for Barack makes it even more exciting for me - I am caught up in the possibility he represents for a new world - keep your fingers crossed for this wonderful man and his family, will you?

Unfortunately, the stoopid Steelers are going to the Superbowl again - ugh. You can imagine how Steelers-crazy western PA is right now - torture for all the non-Steeler fans, I can tell you - I'm sure you can guess who I am hoping will win on February 1st!

Just a quick mention that this is my birthday weekend - I'm going to be 44 on Sunday the 25th! Spare me a thought on Sunday will ya? I certainly don't feel 44 - although some days are better than others. However, my health at the moment is good and I am lucky to have my family and friends - overall a good life. I certainly hope my 44th year continues to see me through good times and avoid the bad - or at least minimize the bad.

The after-Christmas let-down has begun....

2008-12-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well, it's not so tragic as all that, but there is a certain post-traumaticness to after Christmas, isn't there? I certainly hope all who stop by here on occasion had their Christmas wishes fulfilled! We narrowly avoided a catastrophe with our outside Christmas lights. I had forgotten to protect the outlet strip I used from the weather and apparently the strip got wet and melted from all the rain we had. I think our home was saved from a fire due to how wet everything was...sheesh! Our family did very well for Christmas otherwise as my mother and sister chipped in to get us a Wii! I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we are having with this. It's a great family gift as we were all up past midnight challenging each other with this thing. I did put my shoulder out while golfing however! I even managed to hook it up to our wireless Internet here at the house and you can check the news and weather on that thing. You can even insert your digital camera's SD memory card and do fun things with the photos. The only thing that is a let down is that it won't play regular movies, like our old X-box did, but it's a small complaint and otherwise, this thing is "da bomb"! Really, tons of fun and many thanks to my mom and sis for this great gift. Otherwise, the kids did well with their requests and each got their fondest desire, Lulabell a game for her DS and Peaches skater shoes, plus a few other things. Stu and I didn't really exchange gifts this year, although he did surprise me with 8 pounds of fillet Mignon (which I thought was strange too), but we are stocked up with delicious steaks for awhile! Also, my mom got me a 72 pack of bacon from Sam's Club (which she thoughtfully wrapped for me) so I guess it was a meat Christmas for me...which is good!

Stu and I celebrated our 21st anniversary on Sunday quietly without much fanfare. I haven't been feeling well the past few days, very nonspecific symptoms of fatigue, loss of appetite, headache - not sure what to make of it. I know I have a cold as well so Sunday I pretty much took it easy and Stu was very understanding. I didn't even cook for our anniversary dinner (guess what? fillet Mignon), so our 21st passed in a quiet fashion.

Looking forward to the New Year - we will probably have C and D over as usual. I am planning on working a half day that day and Stu is off for the next few days. No big plans though...boring as usual! I extend my best wishes to each and everyone of you readers for a terrific new year! I will post Christmas pictures in the next day or two so check back, okay?

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (

2008-12-27T01:54:00.001-08:00

My new fave singer and song Enjoy!

Tired of the bloody eye, eh?

2008-12-16T17:05:00.001-08:00

That's what my friend said in an email to me today, that he was tired of seeing that bloody eye and when was I going to post again? Okay.... here you go! Oh I am so neglecting this site….when things around you are exploding and raining their hell down on you…..well, it isn’t THAT bad, but I do feel like a chicken with it’s head cut off, running here and there. I even forgot to call one of my best friends for his birthday yesterday. I have lost my address book so all the christmas cards I bought are just sitting in their box because unless somebody sends me a card first, I can’t send them a card! I totally went off on a store clerk the other day and I NEVER do that…it just isn’t me! It was at Lowe’s for God’s sakes too…I’m so ashamed. My daughter was trying to calm me down and the clerk looked at Lulabell and thanked her for trying to defuse the situation. My hubby had sent me to Lowe’s to look at what was left of their anorexic christmas trees because he said they were cheap now, about $20. So, I packed up the kids, plus D&C and we headed to Lowes. Once there, I had the choice of about 10 trees, all of which were terrible. I finally located the least terrible looking one, about 6 feet tall, and headed to the checkout. She bundled up the tree and totaled up the price, which came to an astonishing $29!!!! Well, I was a little taken aback at that price, considering how crappy the tree really was… "Just how much was this tree before the discounts?" I asked incredulously. She told me the unimaginable sum of $59!!! Oh My GOD!!!! $60 for this tree? Are you crazy????? I completely lost my sh*t for some reason…and began berating this poor woman, who had absolutely nothing to do with pricing the trees…..I could not see reason….I was ranting and raving while my daughter was tugging my arm and whispering frantically "calm down mom". I was having none of it. Meanwhile, the boys were just staring at me with their mouths open….I finally just threw my credit card at her and paid for the damn thing because the last thing I wanted to do that day was go traipsing around at the tree lots looking at expensive, ugly trees. So, I asked for and got some twine and the boys and I tied the tree down to the roof of the van and set off for home….with me still mumbling to myself about the outrageousness of those people to charge so much for so little…I’m still a little peeved but I have come to realize that my behavior was not appropriate. In fact, when I told Stu what had happened he was absolutely horrified and said, "you know, WE HATE those kinds of customers, who just yell at you even though we didn’t have anything to do with their problem!" Well, that made me realize even more how shitty I had behaved and I am quite remorseful about it, especially that I did it in front of my kids….what kind of mother am I? A stressed out one, that’s for sure. I intend to go apologize to that woman sometime in the very near future.

Part of my stress has to do with worrying about christmas, trying to arrange for rides for my kids to all their events and wrestling and singing and school things, plus getting my husband to and from work and myself to appointments and such….this is a very difficult time of year to have only one car…but we seem to be managing so far. Peaches is training constantly and attending wrestling meets left and right. The boy is just covered in bruises and apparently is being used a punching bag by his wrestling/training partner. He is afraid to let loose on this kid but I have encouraged him that he needs to stand up for himself and give this kid as good as he is getting, you know? He is having a good time overall though and was pleased as punch with his new wrestling sweatshirt he has earned. Lulabell is singing her heart out 2-3 times a week at functions for her show choir (only 2 more concerts, YAY!) They are being very well received but I have to say I know all 4 songs by heart now! She is having fun with it though and I am glad she has had this opportunity.

Well, that’s all I can manage for now, got to work now. I will try to post some pics here so check back….

Ouch!

2008-11-25T16:59:00.000-08:00

This is the eye of my son after he had been stitched up at the hospital on Monday night. He suffered a bit of an injury at wrestling practice when he didn't scramble out of the way fast enough (note: my son does not scramble). He got a kick to the head which actually was straight on to his left eye (the good one). Thank GOD he was wearing his protective goggles like a good boy, although, ultimately, the goggles are what cut him. So, after a CAT scan and 6 manly stitches (he told the E/R doc he "got into a fight"), we headed home with a HUGE headache. I was trying to recall all of my sons head injuries, of which he has had a few and my mother reminded me of another one that I had forgotten:

1. Age 2 - sliding down a HUGE spiral slide (30 feet tall), head first, screaming the whole way down with daddy powerless at the top to help and mommy powerless at the bottom to help. Peaches banged his way face first down this thing. He ended up with a goose egg the size of a golfball right between his eyes and I seriously thought his brain had herniated out of his skull. This, along with a huge cast on his arm certainly made him look like a poster boy for child abuse.

2. Age 3 - playing baseball in the front yard he was the catcher and his friend the batter. Peaches got a little too close to the swinging bat and wham! Right in the face....blood everywhere.

3. Age 4 - Roller skating on our side walk, took a header into the front stoop, whamo - his two teeth came out right through his lip - horribly bloody.

4. Age 13 - assaulted at school and thrown head first into a locker....nice. (The kid who did it, a 16 year old was expelled from school and arrested - totally random attack).

5. Age 13 - clocked by a baseball to the side of the head (mom reminded me of this one).

6. Age 16 - kicked in the face while wrestling.

Nice, huh?

Oh, is that present for me?

2008-11-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

This is the thought my mother had earlier today when she went out into her garage and found an exquisitely wrapped package just sitting next to the door. Hmmm.....how lovely, she must have thought. She excitedly brought it into the house and contemplated where it could have come from...I must have a secret Santa, she thought....For a moment she did pause to contemplate that it was a very LIGHT package, but she forged ahead with unwrapping it to see what was inside. Small presents can be just as exciting as bigger ones! She got it all unwrapped and was surprised and disappointed to find that it....was....empty! What the heck? mom wondered...why would someone leave a beautifully wrapped gift for me and then have nothing in it? Mom's brain whirled at the possibilities, trying to think of a good answer to this....nothing. Oh well....she shrugged, I can just use this to wrap a present for someone else. It just so happened, that she DID need to wrap a gift for a friend and this box was a perfect fit. So she put her present inside and carefully wrapped it all back up and put the gift in the car so she could drop it off to her friend later...

REWIND: Lulabell and I finally put the finishing touches on her fake gift that she needed for show choir. We got an empty shoebox and wrapped it in green shiny paper, with ribbons and bows and made it look as lovely as we could as it was a prop for her performance. I asked Stu if he would be kind enough to drop it off at my mother's house the next morning as she was kindly picking Lulabell up from school the next day to take her to show choir and I didn't want Lulabell to lug it to school and risk ruining all our lovely packaging. He agreed and that, I thought, was that.

FAST FORWARD: Mom arrives to pick up Lulabell and when she enters the car, she asks Grammy if she brought her gift with her and spies it in the back seat....whew, what a relief! Grammy is now confused and wonders how Lulabell knows about the gift...!?!?!?!? Finally, things start to click when Lulabell informs her that her daddy brought this to Grammy so she could give it to Lulabell for show choir practice. OMG! Grammy finally realizes that this was NOT a gift for her and figures out that in the next ten minutes, she has to get her chicken out of the box and they have to rewrap the box so Lulabell could take it to practice. ZOOOOOM they go to Walgreen's because obviously, in order to rewrap the gift, they will need tape and although Grammy has lots of stuff in her van for emergencies, tape is definitely not something she has just laying around in her van (too bad they didn't need Kleenex or dog biscuits). So, Grammy sends Lulabell into Walgreens for tape and Lulabell comes out triumphantly with a roll of tape. Unfortunately, it is not the invisible kind of tape she comes out with, it is tape with TO and FROM written all over it, which was not the look we were going for with our elegant and tastefully wrapped gift. However, there was no time to waste and they retaped the present as best they could, which was difficult as the TO and FROM tape just didn't stick as well as the invisible kind. By this time, grammy was quite worked up and trying to rewrap a gift, balancing it on the steering wheel with the dog jumping all around did not improve her mood, nor did the fact that they had exactly 38 seconds to make it to the school before Lulabell was late. They sailed out of Walgreen's, fighting the after school traffic but as they neared the school, grammy was quite frustrated to realize that the road to the school was blocked (as it always is at dismissal). Frantic now, because the show choir director takes a very dim view on latecomers, Grammy spies the entrance to the church next to the school and decides to take a detour into the church, but alas, church officials, having taken a very dim view on parents using their church for a school pick up place, have blocked the road through and grammy is stuck. Grammy decides then that the only choice left is for Lulabel to get out and hoof it the last half block to school and kicks the poor child out of the car with her present that is now decidedly worse for wear.

The moral of this story? Do not ask your husband to do any favors if you don't want your mother to kill him....Stu is toast.

What's new pussycat?

2008-11-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, oh....or something like that I guess. (I'm channeling Tom Jones here). So much to say, it's late on Sunday nite, Thanksgiving is almost here (that's just crazy, isn't it?). Busy for our household to say the least. I'll try to get you updated here...

Peaches started his training this past week and I am happy to say that he seems to be keeping up with things...although boy, was he sore this week! The poor kid started the week off with a terrible cold just to make running more interesting, but I guess running was just the ticket because by Wednesday his cold was gone! He went to his first wrestling scrimmage to cheer on his teammates on Saturday, which he thought was cool...Keep your fingers crossed that things continue to go well there.

Lulabell is also doing well. She got a new pair of glasses and almost simultaneously got a new boyfriend! Weird how that worked....this is a kid who has been hanging out here this past summer and finally, over dinner the other night he asked her to be his girlfriend! She was kinda surprised and said "yes" before she even thought about it. He was thrilled and later asked me how I felt about kissing!?!?!?! I told him absolutely "NO!" He seemed down about that then perked up with "well, how about hugging?" I told him that was up to Lulabell but I didn't want him to rush things. About two days later, he called for her on the phone and when I asked who was calling (even though I knew it was him) he said, "tell her her BOYFRIEND called.....and that I love her) AWWWWW.....he really is a sweetie but definitely wears his heart on his sleeve and is a little needy, which is making Lulabell nervous. Two days ago he asked what my policy is on sleepovers! Now I'M NERVOUS! Again, I had to deflate his sails with a resounding "NO!" on the sleepover thing. His mom actually came over to meet me and to tell me how wonderful they think Lulabell is...and how thrilled that their son has picked such a lovely girl....(these kids are 11, you know!) Anyway, she couldn't have been nicer and did have such nice things to say...I told her that I loved her son as well (I do! He is a cutey-patootie) and that I hoped everything worked out well. Hmmmm, this should be interesting.

My mom has had a rough week health-wise. I mentioned in a previous post how she has not been feeling well recently. Well, we found she had some alarming results on her stress test and she had some blood tests which showed she may have an embolism. We hurried off for a CAT scan and luckily that was negative but it did show something else that was just as worrisome, some enlarged lymph nodes in her chest. This could mean anything from an infection to cancer, so we were freaked out a bit. Her doctor will do another CAT scan in January but he didn't think we should worry about the big C at this time....he also gave her some new medicine to help her breathing and she definitely has improved with this. So, catastrophe averted for the time being there. I'm still making her cook Thanksgiving!

My sister's haranguing finally got to me and Stu and I made a trip to Canton to see my ailing grandmother on Wednesday. Actually, it was nice just the two of us going somewhere and the visit turned out rather well. We brought her lunch from her favorite diner and she seemed to enjoy it very much. She was in the nursing home part of the retirement home and this has her understandably depressed as she cannot have her little dog with her (who is making a home with her groomer now). She looked okay, was a little thin but her mind seemed very clear. After visiting for about an hour or so, I could tell she was getting tired (although she did put away her vanilla milkshake like a trooper!) and so we started to say goodbye. Suddenly, she piped up with, "if I can get this ring off my finger, I'm going to give it to you". Well, this was a little shocking to me and I protested that of course she didn't have to give me her ring...but she insisted and finally got the ring off her finger (YAY). She told me that it had belonged to my grandfather's mother, that she had it made from a diamond broach she once had, back in the 1940's. Wow! It really is beautiful and I was stunned that she wanted to give it to me. She did though and I was pleased to accept her gift. I made sure to let the nursing staff know because I didn't want a hassle for them when she forgot that she gave it to me and began to accuse the staff of stealing it....So, all in all a nice visit and now I have something from my grandfather's family (remember my china?) and I am very pleased. When we got home I took it to my jeweler to have it sized (it was about 2 sizes too small) and to have it valued so we can insure it. My sister was very happy about it, saying that I deserved it after all I have gone through with her...I'm feeling good about it too.

Work has been going very well from home. My line counts have remained high and I qualified for our new incentive program, so the more I type, the more $ I get...woo-hoo! I need it too because it seems that financially I have fallen into some kind of shit hole which I don't understand because we don't have an extra car payment anymore....where does the money go? Man....I do not know.... So, I will be back to post some pics in a day or two...hope you and yours have a terrific holiday!

Fear not!

2008-11-10T08:34:00.000-08:00

I have not abandoned you! You would not believe how busy things have been...here's a little taste:

I have been training on our new dictation system at work all week, on dayturn. This has been nice and while training did hit a few bumps, on Thursday I actually worked from home for the first time. Believe it or not, things went swimmingly and my line counts were awesome! Friday was terrific too and I am feeling good that this is really going to work out! Tonight is my first midnight shift at home and I am SO looking forward to just walking into my office and not having to get dressed and go out at night now....how nice will that be? Thank you to the powers-that-be who have made this happen...I am excited about my job again, can you imagine? Keep your fingers crossed that things continue to go well!

It's been so long since I last posted, I forget what I've posted and what I still have to tell you...hmmmm. Peaches is all ready to start wrestling, practice starts on the 17th. We got his hair cut and I shaved his beard off this weekend - he looks like a new man! He is really looking forward to this and I need everyone's good thoughts that things work out for him there. He was FINALLY able to pee for his urine testing (after 2 failed attempts - shy bladder). So we are just waiting for the doctor to fill out his physical forms and then we are off into the world of high school wrestling. I really don't see him wrestling competitively yet, just learning and working out for now - at least I hope! Lulabell is excited about her show choir but I don't have any info on when her concerts will be...more info to come I hope. Grammy has been laid low with a bad chest cold - it seems she gets one every year and tries to skedaddle to Florida each year before it hits, but this year it came early for her...I hear she is feeling better now though.

My nephew's football team lost the "Superbowl" a few weeks ago and I am sure my brother-in-law was devastated....they are sports crazy down there in South Florida....my nephews have apparently inherited my athletic gene though, which is nice! (Did you hear that roar coming from the south?).

By the way, here is Lulabell's very scary costume for Halloween ----- get ready!

Yikes, huh? She looks like that face you see when you are sent one of those seemingly benign pictures to look for the difference and then some hellion picture pops up complete with a screaming banshee to scare the bejeebers out of you...(make-up by mom).

One more thing...

2008-10-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have posted a picture of Lulabell's eye down below 2 days after surgery...so if you are squeamish, maybe you better skip it.

I forget to tell you the stupendous news.....Lulabell made show choir!!!! This is a pretty big deal around here and we are very proud. This is a group of about 30 kids from the entire school district who auditioned and won a spot in this group. They will travel around to schools in the area, plus business, nursing homes, etc., to perform. They will have a X-mas and Spring show. Lulabell worked hard and made it. There was a shaky moment when right after we found out she made it I had to call and explain to the choir director that Lulabell would have to miss the first two rehearsals due to her surgery/recovery. This was met with silence as although the director was very nice, and praised Lulabell through the roof, she reminded me that the kids can have only 2 excused absences before they are kicked out of the choir! This understandably upset me and I tried to reason with her but she was firm. So, Lulabell is not able to miss even 1 more rehearsal and even if she starts to bleed out of her eyes, she will go to rehearsal! It's a harsh world, isn't it? However, she has 2 rehearsals under her belt now, is loving it and we are certainly looking forward to seeing her perform with the group.

Ewwww......

WAIT! I'm still here....

2008-10-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

Hello there good friends! I have NOT abandoned my blog, but as you will see, life has been keeping us busy here in Western PA…now for a couple of updates!
First of all, Lulabell’s surgery was quite successful, as noted. We saw the surgeon the following day (THAT was fun, driving all the way back there the next friggin day). He said that the swelling in her optic nerves had already gone down a bit….very good news. Her eye is blood red though and kinda scary looking – great for Halloween! Speaking of which, her next doctor’s appointment is actually on Halloween, which means she will have to miss her school’s Halloween parade, which would have been her last one (sniff). They do grow up fast, you know? We still have NO IDEA what our costume will be, but I’m still working on it okay? She keeps shooting down my fabulous ideas (decapitated head on a dinner plate, static cling). We’ll see I guess!

VERY exciting news regarding my job….the long awaited plan to send us transcriptionists home to type is nearing its fruition. My last week of working in-house is this week and by Thursday, 11/6 I will be typing at home! YIPPEE! I’m very excited about this and hope that all goes well. My friend K and I were the two "guinea pigs" to be the first to go home and type, considering our proximity to the hospital in case there is a problem. My boss had to come to my house last week to check out my home office, which he pronounced was "great". In fact, it is, as I actually kicked my son out of his bedroom to turn his room into an office, where I now type for my home business. It is quite lovely and cozy and it is such a relief that I don’t have to type in my bedroom anymore. Peaches was only too happy to give up his room. In fact, the kids and I spent six hours last Saturday to make the switch, cleaning and organizing and moving furniture. They were a great help to me. It was funny though because I expected Lulabell to be the one who wanted to share our bedroom but she was quick to say "no way Jose" when I approached her about it (she would move into our room and give Peaches her room). So, I moved his bedroom furniture into our room, which actually fit perfectly and is not too overwhelming. Now I know what you’re thinking….having your 16 year old son in your bedroom may put a crimp in your sex life, right? Well just remember, that Stu and I have been on opposite schedules for a year now and we have had to be creative about that, so I just wanted to put your minds at rest…..no problemo!

Stu had a gift card from Lowe’s from some sort of promotion they had there and we ended up getting about $50 worth of stuff for $5.00 yesterday – whew! what a bargain! I did get some paint and will be painting my office a nice tropical blue color and plan to make some drapes as well. I tell you, the office is a wonder to me and I am thrilled with it. The cats think it is fabulous too and constantly are trying to get inside but I am determined to keep that area cat-free, thank you very much. The biggest thing, I think is that the room is warm. I am so used to typing in my big cavernous bedroom with frozen fingers. Just think how much faster I can type with warm fingers! The fall colors have reached their zenith here in this area, I think and really, we have had spectacular weather this fall. It has been getting a little nippy at night though and the furnace has been starting to kick on again.

As you may or may not known, we have only one car now and it has been a challenge to figure out how to get 4 people to 4 different destinations and then get home again, with only one car. So far though, it has been working out, but I confess, I feel like I am driving ALL THE TIME NOW. Here is a recent schedule for my day: 1PM wake up. 1:30 take hubby to work so I can have the car. 2:30 pick up kids from school. 5:00 Pick up Stu from work. 5:45 drive myself to work. That was a freaky day though as I worked early that day. Normally I don’t work until 11 PM. But as you can see, my private, alone time has greatly diminished with having only 1 car. However, we are definitely having an easier time of it without the extra car payment, insurance and gas $. Speaking of gas $, right now, low price is about $2.85 in town, $2.55 just over the Ohio line. Now, why is gas 30 cents cheaper in Ohio? I have no idea, but it definitely is!
Lulabell has been playing with a couple of very nice boys lately, classmates. They have been coming by EVERYDAY after school to play and they really are dear boys. One in particular, is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen - I am seriously digging this kid! He is very small for his age and kind of delicate, but definitely a boy’s boy, if you know what I mean. I think he may like Lulabell a little and it is so cute! For example, the other day I asked if he wanted to stay for dinner and he did. As we were sitting there I noticed he did not have anything to drink and so I asked Lulabell if she could get him something. She said, "of course" and popped into the kitchen. The boy popped out of his seat too and said "wait, I’ll come with you". It was the cutest thing. Then later, I was asking if he was enjoying school and how he liked his teacher. I thought he and Lulabell were in the same classroom and when I asked him, he just looked at Lulabell and said "I wish…." in the cutest way… I want Lulabell to marry him soon and in fact, I would have no problem if he just wanted to move in right now! I’m telling you, this is a sweet kid.

Update on Lulabell!

2008-10-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hey there - Lulabell had her surgery today! She did well, but again had much trouble coming out of the anesthesia. More on that later...here are some pics for ya, the first one is our arrival at the Cleveland Clinic - Lulabell = Happy.....the second one is just before her surgery....Lulabell = not so happy and the third one is in the recovery room - Lulabell = pissed. Suffice it to say that surgery was successful and we have to turn around and go back there tomorrowing morning (appointment at 8 frickin 30 in the morning!) to talk with the doc....I will definitely be posting more on this in the next day or two so check back, okay!

Two-wheeler success!

2008-10-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of a milestone in our house this weekend….you may remember that my 11 year old daughter did NOT know how to ride a two-wheel bicycle and steadfastly REFUSED to learn. Well….SHE DID IT! YAY! This weekend, Lulabell learned to ride her bike…after many threats, bribes and tears…(mine). She has been motivated lately because all her friends ride bikes and she has had to ride her scooter to keep up with them…I kept asking her wouldn’t she like the freedom of riding a bike? Yes…so, the other day I was reading Popular Mechanics and it had a hint in it about how to get a kid to learn to ride a bike…take off the pedals so the kid can propel herself easily and learn how to balance herself. A huge light bulb went off in my head and I thought "THIS IS IT" the secret….so yesterday Lulabell and I took off her pedals (with the help of a nice, muscular neighbor) and she started scooting along on her bike, balancing herself quite nicely. I was of the opinion (still am) that she is too big for her bike and tried to get her to use Peaches’ bike, but she refused. So, we continued and I could see she was nearly there. Her friend was also there to provide moral support and begging me if he could ride Peaches’ bike…so I let him. I put the pedals back on Lulabell’s bike and we gave her a go…she tottered and swerved and may have swore once or twice (I let it go….this time) but she was riding! A little further each time. Finally, she was riding a good 100 feet and I pronounced her a new bike rider! She was very happy and proud and wanted to know when we would be going to get her new Webkinz that I had rashly promised her earlier in the day to get her to ride her bike….Her little friend took off and soon came back with another friend, so proud was he that she learned…(he is SO cute!). Later that evening, we were invited to Grammy’s house for dinner – she had a new recipe she was trying out. I kinda knew Lulabell and I weren’t going to like it but I was trying not to be rude. Stu will eat anything and was happy to have a hot dinner. Sure enough, even with Grammy glaring at us and saying things like, "just it eat for God’s sake….it’s only a little corn", Lulabell and just I couldn’t get it down. Stu had 2 big plates (trying to make us look bad) and Lulabell and I hung our heads in shame. We didn’t want to hurt Grammy’s feelings, but it just wasn’t our thing….so, we went home and made a couple of sandwiches for ourselves. By this time, Lulabell’s butt was hurting like a son-of-a-gun and she could barely sit. I told her that her butt has to build up a callus and the more she rides, the easier it will be…Sunday morning her friend showed up and off they went on the bikes…Sweet!

We did (finally) get a date for Lulabell’s surgery, it will be on October 15th, a Wednesday in Strongsville, Ohio. It’s still the Cleveland Clinic. What a pain in the butt it was to get the insurance straightened out. I certainly don’t remember such a hassle when Peaches had HIS surgery there…ugh. She goes to her pediatrician this week for her preop history and physical and any labs they might need. I still don’t know too many details about the surgery itself as her doctor has not returned my phone call yet. More info when I get it though, okay?
Work is going well…although things are kind of up in the air about some things…the hospital just purchased a dictation system that will allow us to type from home, which is a very good thing (I hope). The details have to be ironed out and we will (hopefully) get a chance to have our questions answered at a meeting in the next week. I am looking forward to doing this, but I’m not sure where exactly I’m going to have the new computer as I already have 2 computers in my bedroom and besides, I don’t really want to be typing at night while my husband slumbers 10 feet away….hmmm. I would prefer to have my desk in the basement but it gets really cold down there and my fingers do get cold very fast, even when I’m typing upstairs. Perhaps a space heater in the basement? Still many things to work out, but if we are lucky, perhaps we will be typing at home by the holidays. YIPPEE!
Peaches got his first quarter progress report and he is doing pretty well. He is a solid "C" student at the moment, with a couple of "A"s thrown in for good measure. His favorite subject is still "lunch".

Lulabell had several tryouts this week for various performance groups at her school. We haven’t heard any results yet so keep your fingers crossed. The hardest one was for "show chorus" which sounds like a fun one. We are really hoping she got into that one – should know by the beginning of this week. I certainly hope her surgery doesn’t interfere with this as they seem to be very strict about attending rehearsals and such. We’ll see I guess.

This just really makes me smile....

2008-09-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

She shaved her WHAT????

2008-09-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of a milestone in our house last night...Lulabell shaved her legs for the first time! She had been bugging me for WEEKS (months) about it and I finally gave in...not that she was extremely hairy or anything but she has been extremely self-conscious about her hirsuteness lately and I decided it was time....I gave her a tutorial in the bathroom and she did very well, no nicks or cuts. She was VERY pleased with this new development and I told her that most women just shave in the shower (some more than others!) She apparently took this to heart later that evening while she was showering. This is the conversation heard later in our house:

Me: Well, you like nice and clean, honey (to my newly showered daughter).

Lulabell: Oh, yes...I feel SO much better...my skin is so SMOOTH! (whispers to me) I even shaved my arms!

Me: What?!?!?!

Stu: (perking up on the couch) She did what?!?!? She shaved her what?!?!?! Arms?!?!?

Lulabell: Yes, daddy, I shaved all that awful hair on my arms and now they're so SMOOTHHHH!

Me: I told you SPECIFICALLY to NEVER shave your arms!!!!

Stu: What??? She shaved her what?!!?!?

Lulabell: You didn't say SPECIFICALLY to not shave my arms...

Me: I most certainly did young lady...now your hair will grow back in and it will look like daddy's beard (mothers lie ALL the time, trust me).

Stu: She shaved her what????!!! (daddies are a little slow on the uptake sometimes).

Me: SHE SHAVED HER ARMS!!!(sometimes Stu has a little trouble hearing)

Lulabell: But it feels SO NICCCCEEEEEEE!!!!

So, Lulabell is destined to have her arm hair grow back like a man's beard and I am sure that she will be SO pleased with that...sigh.

Last night Stu wanted to do our regular "picnic in the park" that we try to do on Sundays. Last week we went back to our favorite place by the river and did some hiking. This week we decided to tone it down and got sandwiches to eat at our local park. However, the sun is setting much earlier now it seems and by the time he came home from work and picked us up (7:15) the sun was starting to set. We hurriedly got our sandwiches and made a beeline for the park, with me fretting about the park closing at sunset. Stu assured me it didn't and we arrived at the park just as the sun was going down. We found a spot to eat and wolfed down our food lest we be accosted by nighttime muggers in the park. It was actually quite beautiful though, with the lights going on and such and really, there were still quite a few people lingering there after dark. Peaches was in a hurry to get home as some TV show was on and I did want to try to catch the Emmys and all. It turned out that the Emmys kinda sucked and we ended up watching American Gangster on HBO, which is a heck of a movie (Yay RUSSELL!) This morning I watched the Emmys as I DVR'd it and I fast-forwarded through all the boring parts, which was most of the show. It's hard to believe today is the first day of fall again...didn't we just do this? However, I do enjoy this season here in the northeast, but I am seriously NOT looking forward to my heating bills this winter....man!

Birthdays, hand cream and crazy grandmothers (again!)

2008-09-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Drinking can be hazardous to your ability to continue shopping at Rite-Aid....as my husband found out last night. By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO STU! He is 43 today Woohoo! He decided to celebrate with a couple of friends last night, one of whom shares his birthday. I had to work until 2 AM and so could only bask in the wonderfull afterglow of his liquid celebration.....NOT! He called me as he was leaving the bar and I was concerned that he shouldn't drive if he had been drinking. I was fully prepared to walk the 10 blocks to HIM, but he felt he could drive and so I began to wait. Finally, 15 minutes later, he arrived and seemed to be driving all right but I insisted immediately that I drive home. I had to stop at Rite-Aid for a few necessities first and as I parked, I FORBADE him from coming into the store. He reluctantly agreed and I went in. I was standing at the cash register a few minutes later when out of the corner of my eye, I saw my husband wandering through the front door....He had this BIG smile on his face and was looking right at me, like a bad child knowing he was doing something forbidden....I yelled "YOU PROMISED!" but he just smirked and kept on walking. Suddenly, as he was turning around to say something else to me, he lost his balance and crashed into a display of Nivea hand cream....have you ever seen those little blue discs of cream they have? Well this display must have had about 100 of them all stacked up nice and neat and they all came crashing to the floor in an instant...right in front of the two sales clerks who were standing there looking on in disbelief. OMG! I ran over to help my husband who was clumsily attempting to pick up all the hand creams and frankly, not doing too good of a job at it.

Me: (hissing) WHAT are you DOING HERE!

Stu: (hic) I had to peeeeee....

Me: OMG! Just give me those....go PEE!

And he lurched his way to the back of the store to the toilet. For a minute there I panicked because as many times as I've shopped at that store, I don't ever remember there being a public restroom. I suddenly had a visual of my husband peeing nonchalantly on a display of Charmin. The clerk quickly assured me that indeed there WAS a bathroom back there, so I breathed a quick sigh of relief. I got the little blue cylinders all back into the now crumpled display box and waited anxiously for Stu to return to the front of the store. I felt I had to say something to the clerk by way of an apology and explained that it was his birthday and he had been out celebrating...she dismissed this with the air of a person who has done some hard birthday celebrating of her own in the past. Finally, Stu returned with a big smile on his face and we headed home. At least we gave the clerks at Rite-Aid a little entertainment at 2:30 in the morning...huh?

The rest of Stu's birthday was spent with him sleeping until 2 PM!!!! Then he got up and we headed over to the Eastwood Mall with the kids and wandered around there for awhile. I got acosted by this strange little man who was trying to sell hand cream (!!!!) from a kiosk in the middle of the mall. He was in his 20s, with long hair and the longest eyelashes I have ever seen on anybody, male or female. He had these weird buggy eyes too and long, beautiful, polished fingernails. I mean, any woman would be PROUD to have these fingernails. He immediately squirted some cream onto my hand and began rubbing and massaging my hand, rather intimately I felt. (Later, Lulabell would confirm my suspicions about this). Then he made Stu and the kids feel my skin and compare it to my other hand with the old, dried out skin. They ooohed and aaaahed on cue and then he grabbed my thumb and exclaimed over the poor condition of my nail....tsk, tsk....he began buffing the hell out of it with this little square box and magically, after a few minutes, my thumbnail was a gleaming, glistening wonder of naildom....really, it was quite amazing that he did this with only a buffer of some kind. Again, Stu and the kids were bidden to witness the amazing beauty of my thumbnail. Then he grabbed my thumb again, and went at it some more. However, this time he got so into the story he was telling about the origins of the nail buffer that he began rubbing my thumb so frantically that I began to feel heat and realized my thumbnail was about to burst into flames from the friction! OW! I said, "hey!" and he apologized profusely, then grabbed Lulabell's thumb and decided to demonstrate his product on her! Finally, it came down to the sales pitch and while I did find the product quite amazing, I was just waiting to see how much this little thing cost. In my head I was thinking that if it was under $20, I would get it. He pulled me in close and whispered the magic words of "only $59.99" and I nearly burst out laughing at the preposterousness of the price for a nail buffer, some hand cream and cuticle oil. He seemed genuinely shocked at my reaction, then quickly recovered and said he would offer it ONLY TO ME at the considerably reduced price of $39.99. There! I had to take it now, didn't I? I just gave him a sly smile and said the two most hated words in his universe..."too much". He honestly looked like he was about to cry....I started to walk away but he grabbed me back, grabbed his calculator and punched in the magic digits of his BEST PRICE EVER! ($29.99)....No thanks, I said and again, began to walk away....HOLD IT! He desperately whipped out his pricing sheet to show me that he would give me the product at his cost but that was it....Now I'm thinking, he has worked really hard for the sale and if he comes in at $20, I'll buy it....he painfully punches in the number on his calculator and reverently turns the calculator so I can see it.....$24.99. SORRY! I told him I was hoping for $20 and he looked like I had just suggested that he kill his grandmother....Well, no sale I guess and the family and I took off, knowing that he was sending silent Israeli curses my way and flinging imaginary daggers into my back. Sigh - just another relaxing day at the mall, you know? By this time we were getting hungry and since there are SO MANY restaurants around the mall, we decided to let Stu pick where we would eat. The kids and I were rooting for Steak N Shake but Stu wanted something different. We drove to several restaurants in the area and Stu got out at each one to grab a menu so we could see the type of food and more importantly, how expensive everything was....Unfortunately, everything was VERY expensive ($8.00 for a hamburger) and I yelled that if we wanted to spend THAT kind of money, we should just go to Red Lobster and be done with it (Red Lobster being the be all and end all of expensive restaurants in my book). So, I suggested we head to a nice family restaurant in Hubband, Frankie's, where the food is quite reasonable and very tasty. Stu seemed to have an attitude about the place from the minute we sat down. He was not happy that it took 10 minutes for the waitress to take our drink order (pointing out that the people seated AFTER us were already ordering their food)....he was not happy that he could not get the waitresses' attention when he wanted more salad dressing, and when she finally brought more dressing for him, he was not happy about the size of the little cup ("it's smaller than the original cup!"). Finally, though, he settled down and enjoyed his dinner, as we all did. We headed back home with a beautiful purple sky to our backs and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Happy Birthday honey! Luv you!

So, my sister was talking with my grandmother Edie the other day. She has been in and out of the hospital recently with her congestive heart failure and has been staying in the nursing home part of her assisted living facility. I admit I have been remiss about calling her lately but my sister faithfully continues to call and speak with her. It's a crapshoot when you call as you never know if she is going to be "with it" or not. My sis happened to get her on an apparently clear day the other day and they had a lovely conversation about things. Then, as they were getting ready to hang up, Edie began to describe the lovely visit she had with me and my mother the other day....Now, this raised the alarm bells for my sister immediately as she knew that Edie had previously forbidden my mother from visiting her for reasons that are only clear to Edie. My sister was confused and unsure how to respond as Edie went on and on about the wonderful visit we all had. Then Edie mentioned how she had just finished dinner (it was 4:30PM)..... and that she had to hang up the phone because it was almost time for breakfast (4:32PM)....My sister was now thoroughly confused and quickly hung up so that she could call our mother to ask about the visit she was not informed we made....mother assurred her that in no way did we make the visit and the insanity of her phone call with Edie finally hit home. Whew....poor Edie - when my mom told me about our "visit" I was ecstatic because suddenly my position on the "favorite list" apparently went up a few notches without me having to do anything at all! My poor sister goes out of her way to call Edie and her nephew and her doctor while I just sit back and bask in the glory of my status as "favored one"! Sorry, sis....

The criminal speaks out....

2008-09-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

Who's the criminal you ask? Well, that would be me apparently. I was planning on meeting a friend for lunch today, got up early, showered and happily sped down the freeway for lunch. Sped, being the operative word here, as I was clocked going 61 mph in a 40 mph zone....I knew as soon as I passed the cop that I was caught and for a moment, just a split second, as I saw him turn onto the freeway and his lights came on, I thought about making a run for it....just for a minute or so, but then reality hit as he came up behind me and I knew for certain it was me he was after and I pulled over to the side of the road. From where I sat ,waiting for him to come up to the window, I could see Lowe's to my left and imagined Stu was there, watching the whole thing go down. Then, just a bit past Lowe's I could see my destination, Applebees, where I knew my friend was waiting for me....GRRRRR! In fact, she texted me just then with "where R U?"....I didn't think it would be appropriate for the cop to see me texting right then so I ignored her. I got the "can I see your driver's license, insurance and registration please, ma'am?" and had to dig for a minute to find everything. Thank God Stu had put the new insurance card in there just a couple of weeks ago. The kind cop did point out to me quite helpfully that my registration would expire in 10 days (thanks!). So, he very politely told me he caught me going 61 mph (damn --- I like to drive fast, and that freeway is so deliciously easy to do it on!)....he handed me the summons (161 FREAKING DOLLARS) and told me I had 10 days to contest it if I wanted.....so, I was soon back on the road, making sure I buckled up and used my turn signal and headed to the restaurant. My friend was waiting and she knew by the look on my face that something had happened....when I told her she started laughing and said she had SEEN ME with the cop but wasn't sure because it was kinda far away...I assured her grumpily that indeed was me....MAN! So, my little lunch will end up costing me about $170....I haven't told Stu yet....can you keep a secret?

Zac!

2008-09-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Lulabell with the love of her life, Zac Efron....he was at the mall! Nah....this is just a lifesize cardboard cut-out of him that we saw and as you can see by Lulabell's grin, thrilled the daylights out of her...He had a price tag on him of $29.99...not sure what this would buy but I'm sure my daughter would pay ANY amount to have this hunk at her disposal permanently....!

Not much of anything going on....

2008-09-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well, after the drama of last week I am breathing a sigh of relief that this past week was thankfully way down on the drama scale. Nothing much really happened at all except for the fact that I went temporarily insane on my kids yesterday....we were sitting in the dining room doing homework when I finally lost it as my son's disrespect towards me finally made me blow a gasket. Here I am, practically doing his homework for him and he STILL speaks to me like I am the tiniest speck of dust on his shoe.....so I threw his homework at him and screamed at him to get his a** upstairs and out of my sight before I really lost it. He has this tendency to make comments under his breath, LIKE I CAN'T HEAR THEM and I started tearing around the house, looking for masking tape because I seriously was going to tape his damn mouth shut...I started screaming for Lulabell to find some tape and she (like a good girl) ran to the kitchen to find her crazed mother tape. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there was nothing but scotch tape and I felt that just wouldn't do the job. I was so frustrated that I just started screaming and told them BOTH to go to their rooms. Finally, with Lulabell crying in bewilderment at her banishment and my son stomping off to HIS room, I was able to collect myself and calm down. I really don't know what made me lose it but I did.....I finally went to Lulabell to apologize for my behavior. I did feel SO bad about yelling at her. I was still very angry with Peaches and took his homework to his room and told him that he was not leaving his room in the near future until that homework was done to perfection....and if he just wrote in nonsense answers that I would erase EVERY answer and make him do it all again. I know that sounds harsh, but this past week saw him forget his homework TWICE and I was just at the end of my rope with him in that department. To be fair, he is doing VERY well in his school work so far, averaging mid-90s for all of his classes (our school is able to post grades online daily, which is VERY helpful). So, he is obviously doing his work, but I just resent that he is so blase' about it. I guess this is something we BOTH have to work on....

The kids and I got the pool down this week - which is a relief. The kids really didn't swim for the last month or so...not really sure why as I kept that pool pristine all summer. My friends who also have pools said this was NOT a good swimming summer for them either. We will be thinking very seriously about putting the pool up next summer though.

Mom's knee is holding it's own...she is walking on it and pretty much able to do all of her activities. The doctor told her that arthroscopic surgery is most likely down the road, but for now, with decreased activity in the winter, she can probably wait for this. If she wants to golf next spring though, she may need to consider having the surgery done. We'll see....

Not too much else to report right now....have a good week!

Busted knees and the love fest in Cleveland

2008-09-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is Stu and Peaches at the American Idol concert on Thursday in Cleveland...and my beloved David....Grammy went with us too and because she was in a wheelchair, she got even better seats than we had! Why was Grammy in a wheelchair? Well, keep reading…..

First though, the concert was a blast and my little heart was fluttering to see my beloved David Cook. We had to sit through 2 ½ hours of the other idols first, as they came on stage in the order they were kicked off the show, starting with Chikeze – who did a good job. The boring ones for me were Ramiele, Brooke, Kristi, Syesha. Michael Johns was VERY well-received by the crowd and did an amazing Dream On. He was very cute and energetic and he is definitely my second fave. Carly also did very well and she is my third fave. Jason Castro was up next but unfortunately I didn’t really see him as I was making a very important trip to the bathroom and then stopping for some souvenirs and shirts. Then the screaming started in earnest for the Davids….first up was Archuleta who has a VERY strong voice and I enjoyed his act, although for me he did better on the songs that I actually knew….the crowd (and Lulabell) really screamed themselves hoarse. Our seats were off to the side of the stage, which made it very difficult to see the giant screen and so we took turns sitting with Grammy who was lower and more in front and so had a good look at the screens….then, David Cook came up through the stage singing and the crowd literally went insane….I went a little insane too! He was AWESOME…in very good voice and charming and funny and I fell even more in love with him (can you say crush?) All of his songs were wonderful and then the concert was over before we knew it. All together it was 3 ½ hours long – very respectable. We grabbed Grammy and made a beeline for the doors and soon were outside. For some reason, we seemed to have trouble pushing Grammy’s wheelchair…the front wheels didn’t seem to work well. We kept getting them caught in the ruts of the sidewalks and I’m afraid Grammy was jolted quite a bit as we pushed her to the car….Suddenly, we heard someone calling her name and were surprised to see a friend of hers from the marina, whom she hadn’t seen in years….I recognized him right away as her neighbor up there but she had to ask me afterwards who he was…..So, we continued our struggle to the car when all of a sudden we heard screams coming from behind us. These weren’t scared screams, they were excited screams and knowing that the idols sometimes come outside after the show to sign autographs, my mind decided that my David was somewhere nearby and Lulabell and I quickly abandoned Grammy in her wheelchair to rush to the screamers…..Alas, it was just the TV news so we jumped up and down with the others, screaming for no reason and cavorting for the TV camera (we may have been on the Cleveland news). Dejectedly, we walked back to Grammy and Stu and Peaches, who remained behind to guard her. We then found that we had gotten Grammy irretrievably stuck in a sidewalk rut and no amount of pushing or pulling could free her. By this time, Grammy was a little grumpy as she HATED being in that wheelchair and she was yelling at us to get her unstuck. Suddenly, swooping down from nowhere, four burly men came to help and miraculously lifted Grammy and the chair out of the rut and got us on our way. For some reason I found this incredibly funny and dissolved into helpless giggles, rendering me useless in the rescue operation. This did not endear me to Grammy, who I think gave me the finger at some point. So, as soon as I recovered, we continued on our way, continuing to have difficulty but making it to the car. The freeway entrance was just outside the parking area and zooooom, we were on our way home. Overall, a VERY fun night and very exciting for everyone, although SOME of us were still grumbling about the humiliation they felt….but the warm glow of the concert soon won her over for good.

Now, WHY, you ask, was Grammy in a wheelchair? Well, it started on Wednesday with a call from Grammy after I had received about 2 ½ hours of sleep, having worked the night before. She seemed in some distress and all I heard was “my knee”. I groggily got up and drove over to her place to find her stuck on the back porch with nothing but her cell phone. She had stepped down the ONE step from the garage to the porch when her knee kinda gave out and began to hurt….she was unable to walk AT ALL on it. Fortunately, she had some crutches in the garage and with much difficulty, I was able to get her to the van and we went off to the E/R. I grabbed a wheelchair for her there and we began our wait to see a doctor. Fortunately, we didn’t have long to wait, although we only ended up seeing a physician’s assistant. She sent Grammy off to x-ray while I waited in the exam room. The x-ray came back suspicious for a fracture (!) and we were told to keep the knee wrapped, elevated and iced, until she saw a doctor (isn’t that what we came here for?). Anyway, we headed back home and I tried to make her comfortable in her den with her knee up and iced. She later called me from her chair, saying she was trapped in her room with a big wasp and had nothing to kill it with. I sympathized but there was not much I could do as I had to hurry --- that was the day I had to pick up Stu from the Pittsburgh airport…so I ran to get the kids (stopping at a local convenience store for a sandwich) and together we traveled to Pittsburgh to pick up Stu…who was very glad to be home. We were equally glad to see him and we headed back home. Fortunately, I called my boss to ask if I could only work 4 hours that evening, as I had to be up early to help Grammy, figuring we would at least be getting an MRI for the knee, as the radiologist advised. Thank God my boss said “yes” to my shortened workday and I felt somewhat better, but extremely tired. I worked from 10 PM to 2 AM and then fell into bed for a blissful 4 hours of sleep….the next morning I got the kids up and off to school while Stu caught up on HIS sleep (grumble, grumble). Then I swung by Grammy’s to pick her up for her MRI. Afterwards we decided we were hungry and stopped by the local pizzeria for lunch. I had gone earlier to rent Grammy a wheelchair, as we knew this would be the easiest way to get Grammy from place to place. At one point she had decided she was not going to the concert, but with the wheelchair, this now seemed possible. So, pushing Grammy in her rented wheelchair, we attempted to enter the pizza establishment. However, with her holding the door open and me pushing her from behind, we hit a snag as the wheelchair’s front wheels decided to stop working and adhere themselves to the door jamb. No amount of pushing helped to get her over the hump and we were stuck. Did you ever see a dog humping somebody’s leg? Well, then you can imagine the type of spectacle we made as I attempted to “hump” my mother through the damn door (heave-ho!). Of course, my struggles were made weaker as I got the giggles and was not able to exert myself to the fullest. Mom was also not helping things as she too began shaking from the laughter and humiliation of it all….all through this, do you think anybody from inside came over to help us? NOOOOOO! They all just sat there staring at the entertainment in the doorway. Finally, with one final push, we were in! I could barely walk from the exertions and from clenching my legs together to prevent a public incontinence spectacle. I got mom situated at a table and hunched my way to the bathroom. I was finally able to get control over myself and grabbed our lunches, while we could barely look at each other for fear of starting laughing all over again. Finally, we left with no trouble whatsoever from the door and headed home, stopping once or twice for some errands. I left her about 2 PM with the promise that we would pick her up by 4PM for our trek to the concert in Cleveland. The rest of the day is as I mentioned above….I hope you noted that by the time we got home that evening, about 12:30 AM, I had logged about 6 hours of sleep in a 48 hour period and I was TOAST! The next morning I was up early once again as mom had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. We had to return the wheelchair that morning and as I was lifting it out of the car, I noticed that the rubber on the front wheels was completely gone and there was nothing left but the rims (looking considerably worse for wear). I was horrified and decided to pretend I hadn’t noticed this (this wheelchair was brand new 24 hours ago). I hastily returned the thing, but not before the nice lady noticed the front wheels…..I spoke up with “I saw that just now……I wonder what happened…” (thinking that this readily explained our struggles last night). I made a quick exit and told mom to gun it….We made our way to the doctor’s office where we were ushered into a tiny, airless exam room and waited. Again, however, we were seeing the physician’s assistant, who was so cute and charming I didn’t mind at all that we weren’t seeing the doctor. He checked mom over, fondled her leg quite a bit (I was SO jealous) and looked at her MRI. He told us she had degenerative tears of the lateral and medial menisci, which is cartilage that cushions the knee joint. He told her that arthroscopic surgery was a possibility here but he wanted to try a cortisone shot first. Grammy was very leery of this as she had this once before in her wrist and it was EXCRUCIATING. However, his charm and logic wore her down and she submitted to the injection. Incredibly, although he explained that it would take a day or two for the effects of the steroids, Grammy WALKED OUT of the office under her own power…her knee miraculously improved. This was just too incredible for words, but the shot was amazing and she felt like a new woman! We decided we both need to hit the grocery store and she dropped me off at Lowe’s to get the van. As we headed to the agreed up on store, I saw Grammy drive off in a different direction and I figured she was dropping me like a hot potato after 2 days of togetherness….so I headed to Wal-Mart, our original destination, alone and she headed to her favorite grocery store. She was nice enough to call me to tell me of her plans though…. So, that is the story of my sleepless week and our delightful time at the concert….I hope to God the wheelchair rental place doesn’t call….

MOVIE!!! Stu's SF trip....2008

2008-09-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

As promised....

2008-09-02T16:34:00.001-07:00

Stu looks stunning in his suit, don't you agree? The second pic is the view from Twin Peaks overlooking the lovely city. Just on the other side of that green blob on the left is where I lived when I first met Stu. The street cutting diagonally through the pic is Market Street, which travels all the way to the bay. I miss my city!

Stu has been having a very good trip - he landed at SF on Wednesday morning and caught a Greyhound bus right to Sacramento where he stayed with his sister and mother. On Friday they headed back to the city for his cousin's wedding (the suit). They stayed the night in the city at his aunt's house and then did some touristy stuff on Saturday before heading back to Sacramento. On Sunday they had a grand ole time in Old Sacramento which is really neat and set up like it would have been in the late 1800s. Stu caught a Greyhound back to Oakland on Monday and spent Monday and Tuesday with our friend Owen and lots of friends. He has been having a great time, but I think he is looking forward to coming home. We did miss him a lot and will be glad to see him home again.

Say what?

2008-09-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

The following is an actual conversation between my mother and my sister:

Mom: "So, I saw P.S., today, you know she's really lost a lot of weight recently."
Sis: "Really? How'd she do that?"
Mom: "Well, she had her knee replaced a couple of months ago. (Laughing) I'm thinking I should get BOTH my knees done!"
Sis: (silence for two beats)...."Why don't you see if they could do your hips too?" (maniacal laughter...)

I swear that's a true story....the kids and I spent a lovely weekend at the lake, while Stu is traveling by Greyhound between the Bay Area and Sacramento...he's sent me some pics and I will post his news in a day or two. Hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day...we certainly did. More in the next few days, so check back, okay?

Note to self....

2008-08-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

When you are preheating the oven for dinner, make sure you check inside it first....because there may just be something inside you DON'T want to cook.

The other night I had to go to work a little early. I had just bought a bag of Doritos and decided to hide it because I knew that the kids were scarf them down as soon as I walked out the door...so, I just popped them into the oven, KNOWING that I wasn't planning on using it for a couple of days AND that the kids would NEVER look in the oven. Hmmmm....so tonight, I preheated the oven for dinner and was on the computer in the next room waiting for it to hit the right temperature. I began to hear something crackling in the kitchen, but just figured it was the wind blowing the papers on the fridge as the back door was open. I finally began to smell something (rather good actually) and suddenly my brain kicked in, put the smell and crackling sound together and BOOM! Cooked Doritos! OMG! I flung open the oven door to discover this:

Of course, when I went to grab the bag with my hand (stoooooopid), the bag disintegrated and the Doritos spilled ALL OVER the oven. Now, how would YOU clean up hot doritos out of a hot oven, because you HAVE to cook dinner NOW as you are leaving for work in an hour....so, I got two spatulas and attempted to shovel the burnt chips into a Tupperware bowl. Now, the funny thing is listening to Peaches try to explain to Lulabell why she doesn't have chips to go with her dinner:

Peaches: The chips are gone...
Lulabell: No they aren't...I just had some last night!
Peaches: They're just gone....mom cooked them.
Lulabell: WHATTTT!
Peaches: Mom cooked them in the oven....
Lulabell: You're lying!!!! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT??? SHUT UP!!!!
Peaches: (Laughing) I don't know why, but she cooked them...
Lulabell: (Stomping up the stairs) MOMMMMMM!!!!!! (Outrage) WHY DID YOU COOK THE DORITOS!
Mom: Well, it's kind of a funny story actually.....
Lulabell: (Tasting the burned Doritos) Mmmmm, they taste pretty good actually (munch, munch). They're fine!

So, that's the story of my burned Doritos....gotta get a move on now....more soon!

Guess what? More surgery...

2008-08-26T13:35:00.001-07:00

Yep, that's right boys and girls....the surgery fairy has struck our family once again and this time aimed her wand at......Lulabell. We took a trip to the Cleveland Clinic yesterday to check her optic nerve swelling and the doctor, after 2 years of poo-poohing my suggestion for surgery, took 1 look at her nerves and said, "it's time for surgery". Just like that..... So, sometime in the next month or so, Lulabell will have surgery to create "windows" in her left optic nerve sheath, to allow the excess fluid she mysteriously has in her head to flow out the windows, thereby taking the pressure of the optic nerve. The pressure causes her optic nerve to not work well, which causes blind spots in her vision. She is not aware of these blind spots per se, but visual field testing did reveal these to be present - mostly in the left eye, although her right optic nerve is similarly swollen. Fortunately, in about half the cases, surgery on one eye reduces the swelling in the other eye as well, so both eyes are not usually operated on. There is the possibility however, that surgery on the right eye will need to be done at some point in the future though. She has had this condition (usually called pseudotumor cerebri or idiopathic intracranial hypertension) for at least 3 years now. It is in no way related to her retinal issues, which are presently quiescent (not active). She was on medication for this for about a year and underwent several spinal taps for it in the past. The usual symptom for this condition is headaches, but fortunately, Lulabell has not suffered from these - her only symptom is visual, which is dangerous as the visual loss could be permanent if not treated. So, her surgery is called optic nerve fenestration ("window") and is performed as an outpatient under a general anesthetic. I have included a link for more information if you would like to follow it.

http://www.nanosweb.org/patient_info/brochures/PseudotumorCerebri.asp

I though this information was helpful and easy to understand. I will, of course, put up more information when I get it from the doctors - Sigh.......never a dull moment, eh?

Vacay Pics!

2008-08-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hey - the first pic is a picture of Stu industriously cleaning out the pop cooler not 5 minutes after our arrival to the trailer....then the sunset our first night....then Lulabell enjoying the sunset, then Lulabell at the beach our second day and Peaches at the second beach...beautiful huh?

Our wonderful mini-vacation.....back to the rat race....

2008-08-20T14:21:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, I'm so tired, but I'm soooo happy! Just got back from our mini-vacay....had a terrific time, even though it was only for 2 days....Mom let us stay at her trailer and it was perfect for us....nobody is really there on the weekdays so we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves, especially the pool! Monday we got there about 2PM or so and mom's neighbors D&G were there, welcoming us. We hung out with them a bit and made plans to hit the beach later for the sunset. We hiked on over to Wal-Mart and got a few supplies we needed, then headed back to the trailer for dinner. I just started reading the Twilight series and needed the second book DESPERATELY! Dinner was hamburgers and corn on the cob, which was delish (I know corn isn't strictly a veggie, but it is in MY book!) We decided to head to the beach for the sunset and boy, am I ever glad that we did....I was indescribably beautiful...D brought her dog, and we had a great time lobbing huge sticks into the water for her. It was well past sundown when we finally left, reluctantly. We watched the Olympics and settled in our very comfortable surroundings. Tuesday morning we were up VERY early, I'm not sure why. The weather was a bit of a letdown from the day before, overcast, rainy and a little chilly. We hung out with D and played Uno, which is almost a requirement when you stay up there. It was fun and finally the sun was peaking out a bit. Stu, Lulabell and I went for a walk around the entire marina, stopping to chat with various people along the way. By about 3 or so it was obvious that the sun had won its battle with the clouds as brilliant sunshine arrived to stay. We had gone to the mall to get me the third book in the series (I had read the second book in about 8 hours or s0). We headed home and the kids talked us into a swim in the marina pool and we really had a good time as we had the entire pool to ourselves! Even Stu, who is not much of a swimmer, fooled around in the deep end and managed to keep himself from drowning. Dinner was spaghetti and garlic bread which we completely devoured. It was about 7:30 by that time and we decided to head back to the beach for another sunset. This time we headed to a different beach, which was a little more private. Again, we had a great time playing in the sand and surf and Stu and Peaches walked along the breakwater on the big rocks. The sunset didn't disappoint and we just wished the day wouldn't end. Ice cream was the order of the day at that point and we headed over to the DQ where the kids (to their surprise and delight!) were allowed to get blizzards...which are perfectly scrumptious if you have never had one..... We headed home in the dark and settled in for another night of Olympics. I swear, I don't what I am going to do with Stu after the Olympics are over as he is absolutely GLUED to the TV every evening from 8-2AM! He's gonna go through Olympics-withdrawal, I'm sure of it. Wednesday morning began with bright sunshine and a bit of a breeze. We cooked breakfast and then settled in for another game of Uno. We began to reluctantly clean up and pack in preparation for heading home (NOOOOO!) Lulabell really wanted to swim at the beach, although nobody else really wanted to. She made such a pest of herself about it that we decided to go and have a picnic there prior to heading home. It actually turned out to be rather beautiful and Lulabell got her fill of swimming in the lake while the rest of us sunned and walked the beach looking for "beach glass". Finally, we headed to the picnic area and made our lunch and ate it in the company of a million seagulls (Mine! Mine! Mine! - if you have seen the wonderful movie Finding Nemo, you'll get my reference). Finally, by about 2 we decided to head home, with Stu thankfully driving so I could read some more....home again. The cats had spent the last 2 days in the basement with plenty of food and water, but there were definitely glad to see us (where the HELL have you guys been?). Back to reality - work, school, grossness.....Stu is heading to CA next week (I hate him) and the kids start school on Wednesday. I think they are a bit excited but won't admit it. I'm definitely NOT excited as you know that I HATE HOMEWORK!!!!! Well, that's our story....what a great couple of days...BIG thanks to my mom who graciously allowed us to stay in her wonderful trailer....

NEWSFLASH - Splitstone is burning.....

2008-08-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture taken less than 30 minutes ago on East State Street in Hermitage (thanks to Stu!). The building is leased by Splitstone Video (formally Stigliano's Book Shop and coffee house). It has been burning for about an hour or so and there are lots of people watching apparently....more later.

Just another week - bone and skitters

2008-08-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of a piece of tooth/bone that migrated out of my gum this morning. I had been feeling something sharp in my gum for a few days and thought it was just a sliver of bone coming out (I've had this before, but really, it was just a sliver). Then this morning, this monstrosity fell out of my mouth and the place where it had been felt SO much better! Yikes! I hope you appreciate it's size next to the dime...Okay - I know it's kinda gross, but come on!

Hey good friends….a week has just flown by and I’m afraid I don’t have too much to say about it. It was just another week, getting us closer to Stu’s trip and closer to school. We are hoping to get away for a few days next week, just a mini-vacay, but desperately needed. I spent the weekend getting rather intimate with the toilet as I had some "intestinal problems" that Imodium just wasn’t touching. Had a lot of back pain too….not really sure what was up, but I finally got some Imodium Liquid gels and that seemed to "stem the flow" of things. Feeling much better today, thank God. Nobody else at home was sick, so it is a mystery. Peaches saw the eye doctor yesterday and everything is A-okay with him…we got him a haircut also and he is looking mighty fine…..we are considering contacts (contact?) for him because he looks so good without his glasses…Lulabell piped up about getting some too…we’ll see I guess. We’ve done some school shopping but certainly not enough to satisfy the kids…as if they could ever be satisfied. Weather has cooled down somewhat but it has been lovely…mid-70s. The pool needs a little attention but since the kids aren’t begging to use it I have not made it a priority. I’m hoping to get it back up to speed here in a few days. I wish I had more to tell, except that we have been enjoying the Olympics here, watching it most every night….the very exciting men’s swimming relay where America beat the French was awesome! Stu and I were laying in bed watching and we both WOO-HOO’d our heads off when they won….I’m sorry to have missed the men’s gymnastics (I SO enjoy seeing them in their little shorts), but the men’s diving more than made up for that! (teeny-tiny speedos!). Looking forward to women’s gymnastics and track and field personally. REALLY enjoyed the opening night ceremony – outstanding. Although I did hear today that the little girl who sang was only lip-synching for another little girl who apparently just wasn’t cute enough to satisfy the Chinese politicians – pretty sad. She certainly has a wonderful voice and may I say, after seeing a picture of the singer, that she is just cute as a bug in my opinion….what a superficial society we are living in. Well, that concludes my social commentary for the day…have a good one!

I affectionately call this simply, "Joe's tongue"

2008-08-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

Here it is August again...

2008-08-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

The first two pictures show the garden we made for Daisy in our back yard. It really turned out well...we sprinkled her ashes there and planted the flowers. Stu will take the rest of her ashes to California with him and sprinkle them where we used to live....

The third picture is Lulabell and Stu hiking at a nearby park. We just kind of discovered this place...that wall dates back to the French-Indian war! It runs along the Shenango River, just downstream from the Shenango Dam. It is a beautiful place and easy to hike. Sunday evening was probably the most beautiful evening I have seen in a long time and we took a picnic dinner and sat next to the river to eat it...very relaxing and peaceful. I had to work that evening and then had to stay up Monday morning so I could take Peaches to his doctor's appointment for his legs. We found out, after a very cool x-ray of his entire lower body while he was standing, that his right femur is about 3 cm longer than the left! This is about a 1 1/2 inch difference in leg lengths, which explains his unusual gait. The doctor said that unfortunately, because his growth plates in his legs are just about closed, there really isn't anything to be done. If he had been younger, with open growth plates, she would have performed surgery on the longer leg to stop it from growing and let the other leg "catch up" to it. Sigh...so, what's left is that Peaches needs to wear an orthotic in his shoe. Now, because an inch is too much to just place a lift inside his shoe under his heel, that we have to get him shoes that the orthotist will then cut into the sole and place the orthotic there. Don't know yet how much this is going to cost, but I am hoping insurance will cover it...I finally got to sleep at about 2 and slept until 6. Thank God I didn't have to work tonight or I would be a zombie....I asked my mom if we could use her trailer for a mini-vacation in two weeks, just for a few days, and she graciously said yes, so that will be nice. There's a lot to do up there, swim in the pool, fish, swim at the beach, etc. It will be nice to get away at least for a few days. Then at the end of the month, Stu heads west and school will start, which the kids are actually looking forward to. I'm not as I HATE HOMEWORK!!!!! Several of my friends have also said how much a pain in the ASS it is to help with homework. It's funny, I do not remember my parents having to help me with my homework - except once when my dad and I made a pretty cool volcano, which I think won a prize. I wonder what ever happened to that volcano.....mom?

2008-07-30T15:55:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of Peaches (I took it from my desktop) having a grand old time at his camp….when I saw it I had two thoughts: First, that he really does have a GREAT time there and second, that he DOES NOT LISTEN to his mother, who implores him to wear a T-shirt when swimming! The reason for the T-shirt would be evident if this picture were taken from the back, as you would then have a great view of Peaches’ butt. We must always fight the butt crack……

The pictures are here!

2008-07-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well, here they are! Our portraits are done...aren't they nice? We got the CD from Sears so if anybody wants one, just let me know and I will email it to you and you can print out a nice big poster of us! HAHAHA! They came out pretty good if I do say so myself.

We went to see the Dark Knight last night and wow, what a movie! REALLY enjoyed it, got scared a couple of times, but it really isn't the deep, dark, terror-filled movie it has been built up as...at least for me. Although, I did go home and dream about the joker kidnapping my family all night, but otherwise, not a problem! Heath Ledger is everything to this movie and without him I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much....In my book, he has already wrapped up the Oscar....wow - that's all I can say...you MUST see this movie, if only to see him.

As you may have noticed, I have added Twitter to the blog, which is this really cool thing where I can send updates instantly from text messaging from my phone...I'm having fun with it. You know me, I'm a big techie and love anything new....more later.

Life without Daisy.....

2008-07-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is a great pic of Daisy that I didn't know existed. Apparently Lulabell had taken a picture of Daisy with her phone a couple of months ago. Isn't it exquisite! I Love it!

We are slowly returning to normal here, although I don't know what normal is because Daisy was such a huge part of our lives for nearly 13 years...I'm not sure how to act without a dog constantly at my feet. In fact, the other day I was fixing dinner and I happened to spill some food on the floor. Well, I just left it there, because I am so used to having an instant vacuum around. I sadly had to remind myself that my dear little vacuum is gone and had to bend over and pick it up myself. I also am having a hard time eating, because I am so used to giving some of my food to my dog that I never used to eat an entire meal. Now, if I don't eat my entire meal, I have to throw it away, and not give it to the dog. Sigh.....

We ended up getting Daisy cremated at this place in Ohio....they only wanted $90 (the other places here in town wanted $250!). So, Stu, Lulabell and I put her in the car (the poor thing had become rather ripe by then) and we drove as fast as we could the 25 miles to the crematorium (all windows down, thank you). The people there were SO nice...really. I had printed out a picture of our family and wrote a lovely little note that were cremated with her and then, later that day, went to pick her up. They handed me this lovely little tin box with her remains (which were were rather more coarse than I had expected, with bone chips and things). We plan to sprinkle her ashes here at home and, I hope, at the lake as well, two places that Daisy loved above all things. She is now sitting here next to my computer....staying close, just like she did in her life.

So, life goes on...Lulabell has been having friends over, but no one is swimming! GAA!! I keep my pool nice and clean but the urge to swim is not there I guess...what's wrong? Not enough time left after playing on the computer, talking to friends on the phone, etc. Speaking of the phone, Lulabell has had hers confiscated...she was a bad little girl after using HALF of our family's 1400 monthly minutes last month....HALF!!!!! Bad girl. Also, while on the computer recently, a pop-up offered her FREE ringtones if she would only type in her cell phone number....well, those FREE ringtones ended up costing $10 a pop! (x2). BAD GIRL!!!! So, she has been warned and has lost her phone for a week...which is really tearing her up. And so it goes.....

I feel kinda let down right now, after the fun and excitement of having my sister in town last week...now it's just boring nothingness and not even something good to look forward to, like Stu has going to SF....well, I take that back, I do have the American Idol concert to look forward to which is cool and they are getting great reviews too. But, something just seems to be missing -- the summer is going WAY too fast....school is starting in five weeks UGH! I do hope to see the Dark Knight soon, and perhaps Mamma Mia, which got rave reviews from my mother. Peaches is in Erie for two days with his summer camp at Splash Lagoon...so at least SOMEBODY is having fun. I don't think I am even going to get a vacation this year as I have been taking days off here and there and don't have enough saved for a real honest-to-goodness vacay now. Okay, now I'm starting to depress myself so I'll just stop....hope YOUR life is more exciting than mine...at least the weather has been pleasant (that's me looking at the glass half-full).

2008-07-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

DAISY
1996 - 2008
Daisy had a good, long life and was loved and loved us back. She died relatively peacefully in a place she knew to be home. She was honestly one of the best dogs that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing…and loving. Stu, who was not exactly a dog lover, came to love her very much and was always good to her. Daisy always had the best temperament of any dog I knew, NEVER went out into the street, once stayed in the yard when we unknowingly left her out ALL DAY when we went to Cleveland and never so much as nipped a person in her entire life, although she sure gave the bees a run for their money! She obeyed everybody and her only desire in life was to be wherever I was, be it the bathroom, next to my desk, the bedroom, the kitchen, the basement, anywhere. If I were to run up and down the stairs like a madwoman 20 times, she would be right there at my heels every time, no questions asked. Stu used to comment how much this dog loved me, when she came over to put her head in my lap, waiting for permission to half climb up on me for a hug. She was my love and my faithful companion and my heart feels ripped in two at her loss. I find myself still looking for her before I go down stairs because she would inadvertently trip me sometimes in her haste to follow me. She NEVER had an accident in the house, unless she was sick, and one winter, during a rather severe illness, had to put up with indignity of wearing child’s pull-up pants when she was incontinent. We had a cancer scare with her two years ago after a large mass was removed from her leg, but she pulled through like the trooper she was and God granted us another two wonderful years with her (Thank You). She loved going to Grammy’s house and Grammy’s trailer and seemed to sense where she was going and would get excited about getting there. She never complained when we brought home cats and let the kittens crawl all over her. She even let our cat Tinker use her as some weird sexual toy now and then. Her only bad habit was an occasional cat poop snack, but we cured her of that pretty quickly. Everyone who knew Daisy knew what a good dog she was and will miss her dearly. She can never be replaced…she was a one-of-a-kind dog and her family will never forget her. In time our hearts will heal I suppose but oh, how much it hurts…..Goodbye Daisy – we love you very much. Estuardo, Lorie, Christian and Lauren

OUR TERRIBLE LOSS - DAISY IS GONE

2008-07-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

A terrible day for us here.....we lost our dear friend, Daisy yesterday. She passed away peacefully at home. Our hearts are broken....please take a moment to say a prayer that God has taken her under His arm, for He will find no companion more faithful or more loving. I found this poem, that really says it all for us:

Dear Lord, please open your gates and call St. Francis to come escort this beloved companion across the Rainbow Bridge. Assign her to a place of honor, for she has been a faithful servant and has always done her best to please me. Bless the hands that send her to you, for they are doing so in love and compassion, freeing her from pain and suffering. Grant me the strength not to dwell on my loss. Help me remember the details of her life with the love she has shown me. Grant me the courage to honor her by sharing those memories with others. Let her remember me as well and let her know that I will always love her. And when it's my time to pass over into your paradise, please allow her to accompany those who will bring me home. Thank you, Lord,for the gift of her companionship and for the time we've had together. And thank you, Lord, for granting me the strengthto give her to you now. Amen.- © Brandy Duckworth, 1998

The last day together....back to my boring life - ugh

2008-07-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

The first pic is a beefcake of Peaches, cooling himself in the cave and the second pick is a really creepy tree on the side of the mountain...weird, huh?

Our last day together started hot and stayed hot – weather-wise I mean. I was up early typing and trying to stay cool in my air-conditioned bedroom. Stu was fretting because he was supposed to go to work at 2 PM and would miss our trek to Nelson’s Ledges. He was trying to get in touch with a co-worker to see if she might switch with him but so far had not heard from her. We were planning on heading to Sears for our portraits at 12 noon and it was a real challenge trying to maintain my hairdo in the wilting heat. We were dressing in blue and my sister and her family were supposed to be in reds with Grammy in a salmon color. We finally headed to Sears and actually beat Grammy there, which NEVER happens. Grammy is unfailingly prompt. Stu got the good news that his coworker would switch days with him and so he was in a FABULOUS mood. Last minute touch-ups to hair and makeup and finally, we were ushered into the sweltering little photo studio. We inquired about the lack of air-conditioning and were informed that today (of all days), one of the hottest of the year, Sears had no air conditioning…..UGH! So, 10 people crammed into the little studio (including the photographer) as we posed and smiled, smiled and posed. I was sure I was going to get the giggles, as I do every time we get this done. Last time we did this, Grammy set me off by announcing that the last picture made her look pregnant. For some reason, this hit a nerve with me and I lost it. I had to struggle through the rest of the picture-taking to keep a somewhat straight face. This year, as my sister and her family were getting their photos taken, the photographer had them casually posed on the floor, but my sister couldn’t get her legs situated. Finally, she sat spread-eagled in defeat as the "magic" just wasn’t there. Well, seeing her sitting there with her legs spread, fighting the sweat and struggling with her youngest who was determined to goof around, set my laughter off and I had to leave the room. I finally got a hold of myself and we were able to finish the photos, which did come out very nice, by the way. We hung around for another half hour or so picking our "package" and whatnot and then we decided to head back to Grammy’s to change for our next adventure, hiking at Nelson’s Ledges in Ohio, a really cool glacier place with lots of rocks and caves and such. My family went there when I was a young girl of about Lulabell’s age and I remember TONS of people wandering around, with concession stands and whatnot. We decided to take 2 cars to make things easier and stopped for lunch first at Arthur Treachers, a local fish place that L and J don’t get to have in Florida. Then, stuffed with chicken and fish we headed west.

Grammy seemed to know where she was going so I didn’t fret, but soon, with detours and road work, we kind of lost our way. We stopped to ask for directions and finally were on the right road. A sign announced we were at the right place, but it didn’t look one bit like the park I remembered from my youth. There was just a parking lot and a sign pointing to hiking trails. Our 2 families got out, but Grammy elected to sit in the car, which I thought was kind of odd. So, we walked across the street to the "ledges" and began climbing and hiking. I soon figured out why Grammy wanted to sit in the car. We took the "easy" trail and soon came upon some likely looking rock formations and caves. We kept walking and eventually came to a dead end at a stream with a little waterfall. We tried to take an unmarked trail, but the bugs, mud and heat forced us back to the main trail. I was sorely disappointed and decided I didn’t want to go any further. Peaches, sweating and slipping in the mud, agreed and he and I decided to hang back and wait for the others to investigate the "moderate" trail. As Peaches and I waited, we discovered a small cave. The entrance to this cave was about 20 degrees cooler than the outside air and he and I gratefully stood in the entrance and delighted in the cool breeze blowing over our sticky bodies. He and I headed back to the start of the trail to wait for the others. We were in view of the parking lot and I could see Grammy sitting in her van, waiting. Peaches announced he had to pee and he wandered off to find a tree. After a moment I heard Grammy beeping her horn and looked to see her waving her arms, but I couldn’t figure out what she wanted. Finally, our family returned with tales of much better rock formations and even a fairly big waterfall on the moderate trail. I was not inspired to check it out. We headed down the hill to Grammy and the cars. Grammy told me that she had been watching our progress and then had the uncomfortable pleasure of watching Peaches take a leak, which he apparently did in full view of the road and Grammy (hence the honking and waving). Also, he had started to walk straight down the hill from his "urination station" and she was trying to warn him not to do so as there was a large ravine right in front of him. Sigh…… We piled back into the cars and headed for home. Everyone was invited to my house for swimming and dinner. We were just planning on ordering pizza. We had a very lovely evening watching the kids play and eating. We had stopped to pick up our friends D&C on the way home because they had wanted to see L and J and the boys too. My sister had discovered my Ipod and all my songs and she confessed that she had NO MUSIC on her Ipod because she could never remember what songs she likes. So, she spent the time listening to my IPOD and writing down songs. Then, I went ahead and burned CDs with the music she wanted from my computer. This made her VERY happy and now she can actually use her Ipod. We then spent the evening talking and laughing and telling stories and pretty soon our time was up. I had to go to work that evening (damn) and needed to start getting ready. As we said goodbye, I surprised myself and didn’t cry, although Lulabell was almost inconsolable at the departure of our beloved ones. So, another great visit with my sister and her family. Like Lulabell says, "why can’t we live in Florida with them, instead of here in this stupid house?" Hmmmm, I don’t know, but I sure do hope it won’t be another 2 years before we see each other again……Now it’s back to our blah, ho-hum, everyday life….yech.

Hi-Ho - Canton fun!

2008-07-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Some pics for your enjoyment....the top one is my nephew, C - the second pic is my BIL and Peaches at the fair, then my BIL and C at the arcade, then Edie and the grandkids in her apartment, then Edie, my sis and Lulabell on the veranda. Nice, huh?

Tuesday morning’s sun blinded me as I lay in my bed. I knew by the brightness of the blue sky that it was going to be a hot one, which is par for the course on a trip to Canton in mid-July. Unfortunately, my alarm didn’t go off and I didn’t get to do the typing I was hoping to get done before our full day today. Lulabell was most helpful though as she came in to wake us up. I quickly checked the dog and prodded her with my foot to make sure she was still alive, which she was. We dressed and prepared for our trip to Canton and loaded into the car to pick up the rest of the family. We hit the bank and the coffee shop and headed for Grammy’s. When I spoke with my nephew J that morning, he told me that he was worried because he couldn’t find Grammy anywhere in the house and that her bed was made and he was a little freaked out. I quickly assured him that all was well as Grammy was working at her job. Well, this was quite a concept for him as he had no idea that Grammy had a job. I explained she volunteered at the local athletic club and this seemed to mollify him. I told him to make sure his parents were up and he said he would. Our seating arrangements in the van were worked out and Lulabell made herself comfortable in the cargo area with pillows and our Ipod (the big one with movies on it). Off we went, hopefully to have a good visit with our grandmother, who was already pissed because we didn’t show up last week……(please see yesterday’s post for more info).
We made good time to Canton, although we were about an hour late of our promised arrival time (about 1:30). We had to stop twice to let J out of the car because of his car-sickness situation. We were planning on taking Edie out to lunch as she wanted to hit Heggy’s, her favorite restaurant of all time. I personally felt that we were wasting our time, that she would renege on her desire to go out to eat with us, but my sister was still hopeful (so naïve). We walked into the well-appointed lobby of the retirement home and there were oohs and aahs from my sister and her family, as they had never been there and it really is very plush and luxurious. We parked the kids and hubbies in the lobby and L and I headed to Edie’s apartment. We knocked for several minutes but there was no answer. Perplexed, we headed back to the lobby and inquired at the front desk whether they knew where Edie might be (they did not). We checked all the little activity rooms and the dining room but no Edie. Getting a little worried now, we took the receptionist’s advice to check outside near her apartment as she may have been taking the dog for a walk. We all trooped back to her apartment and out the back door, but still, no Edie. I headed back in and decided to try her neighbor’s apartment as they were quite close friends and she may know what happened to Edie. As I got close to the neighbor’s door I heard Edie’s dog barking from inside. I excitedly signaled to my BIL to tell my sister that I HAD FOUND OUR GRANDMOTHER! She was hiding out in her friend’s apartment! L and I knocked on the door and sure enough, out popped Edie, looking a little haphazard and stressed (we found you!). L and I leaned in for a hello hug but none was forthcoming. Instead, Edie warned everybody quite gruffly "don’t touch the dog’s head". Hmmmmm, okay. Apparently the dog had been to the groomers and had her topknot tied just so (she is a Yorkshire terrier). Well, nobody was even REACHING for the dog, but okay. Edie pushed her way through the crowd, pausing only momentarily to great us perfunctorily and headed to her own apartment across the hall. We were all exclaiming how good it was to see her and by the time she opened her door, she had warmed up and we began hugging hello. She graciously offered us seats and we sat. Conversation was a little stilted as hearing is a real problem for Edie. My poor BIL tried to talk to her several times but she completely ignored his relatively loud, baritone voice. Stu offered the opinion that perhaps she could only hear the higher frequencies of my sister and I. This seemed quite plausible as she did not have too much trouble hearing L or I. The kids made themselves comfortable and L asked about lunch. "Oh no….I never eat lunch….no, never, ever". This was a bit of a surprise as she had wanted to go out to lunch with us when we spoke by phone. Okayyyyyy….no lunch. It was approximatedly 2:30 by the time we headed outside for a sloooooooowwwwww walk around the grounds with Edie exclaiming every once in awhile about how well-kept the building and grass were. We came to a dead end and turned back. The slow, hot walk continued with the kids fanned out ahead and behind us. I was in charge of the dog, who really only wanted to walk near Edie and was determined to basically weave in and out of Edie’s legs as she walked, which to me was an obvious hazard. I kept yanking the darn thing back, but it was no use. We finally headed inside for a tour of the lobby and amenities. We headed to a sit down area where there was coffee and OMG – DONUTS! By this time it was about 3:00, most of us had not had breakfast, let alone lunch yet and the kids fell on the donuts like ravenous dogs. When the dust cleared there was only white powdered sugar on the plate with a few crumbs. Even the adults, for whom powdered sugar donuts are usually taboo, made quick work of them. Smacking our lips, we talked to Edie about this and that and made googly eyes at each other to signal that we needed to move things along. The kids were being great actually and were momentarily sated by the donuts. We decided to head out to the front veranda to sit and talk some more. It was really a lovely day and rather pleasant sitting out there. We took some photos and Edie inexplicably asked me to take a photo of the couple sitting in front of us. I asked if she knew them and she said "no", but she definitely wanted me to take their picture so I could send it to them. ?????? Alrighty then….. I introduced myself to the couple (Ray and Isabella from Massillon) and asked if I could take their picture so that I could send it to them later…..they were confused about this concept but readily agreed to the photo op. I took their picture and Ray was VERY talkative and told me his whole life story in about 5 minutes. He was really very nice and I enjoyed talking to him. Edie was VERY pleased that we got the picture. A pink, kinda familiar-looking truck pulled up to the front of the place and we saw, to our delight, that it was an ice cream truck. ICE CREAM!!!! What a fabulous idea. The kids instantly started begging for money for ice cream and we, of course, complied because they were being such angels, really, sitting there, doing nothing at all. So, we got Edie some ice cream and she felt that her good friend Evelyn ought to have an ice cream too. So, L bought her an ice cream and then went to get Evelyn to join us for ice cream on the veranda. She did and was delighted with the ice cream and the company. By this time it was 4:30 or so and now we were REALLY trying to signal to each other that it was time to go. So, bidding Edie and Evelyn warm goodbyes, we made our way to the van. All in all, it was a rather pleasant visit and Edie told me we should come again soon and not to wait for Christmas. Ummm, okay! We had hoped to visit our aunt in town, whom we have not seen in several years and we called to ask her what her food situation was. We arrived to find chips and pretzels and pop waiting for us and it was like manna from heaven. We completed decimated this women’s snack supply and then the kids went to watch TV while we chatted in the kitchen. Again, a VERY nice visit with our aunt and it seemed that the day was turning out rather successfully. It was about 6:30 by then and even though we were starving having provided our children with only donuts, ice cream and chips, we felt we should just wait until we got home so we could eat dinner with Grammy, who was waiting on us. We finally hit our home town about 7:30 and headed to a neighborhood Italian restaurant where he had quite a delicious dinner. I was so ravenous myself that I ate my entire dinner (usually I can only eat half because the portion is so big). Everyone ate with gusto as we were finally sated. Grammy made the announcement that she had made an appointment for us to get our family portraits done at Sears the next day….which sounded fine to us. So, with full tummies and the warm glow of a successful family visit, we said our goodbyes in the parking lot and headed to our respective homes, only to reconvene on Wednesday for a day that promised to be another exciting one. More tomorrow!

Day Two - fishing, sick dogs, sick kids and kickball!

2008-07-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

Our second day together dawned bright and beautiful and we were eager to get moving. We all enjoyed a rather restful night it seemed and we decimated Grammy’s supply of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches which were surprisingly tasty! Promises of fishing prompted me to get out the fishing poles and check our gear. Only my sis and I and Lulabell and C really wanted to go so we grabbed the poles and fake worms and headed over to the best fishing hole. It was already starting to get hot as we tossed out the lines. I really wasn’t too hopeful but we persevered and it was relaxing and enjoyable just throwing out the lines and reeling them back in. My BIL and nephew J wandered over to check our progress and we explained that the fish weren’t really biting today. My sis and I were just about ready to pack it in so without too much protest from the kids we decided to head back to the trailer and get ready for our next adventure.

We were heading home that day with a detour to a tourist attraction in nearby Linesville, where the “fish are so plentiful, the ducks walk on top of them”. We had been there many times, but still, it is such a striking site, that we were always willing to go back. We needed to buy bread first to feed the fish so we stopped at a local discount store and loaded up on $1 loaves of bread. The vans were packed, my sis and I and the kids and Daisy in our van, Grammy leading the way in her van with the daddies. It took about 40 minutes or so winding our way through country towns to get there. At one point, Daisy, who had been lying between two kids on the back seat, made her way to stand between my sis and I in the front. She sometimes does this, trying to get into the front seat, but as L was already sitting there, I tried to get her to go back and lay down. However, she kept pushing her way forward and then started to pant very loudly. I was mildly alarmed at this and then all of a sudden Daisy kind of stiffened up, with her front legs out in front of her, then she kind of fell backwards and my first thought was, “she just died!” My sis was alarmed as well and turned in her seat to find out what was going on. She too thought something horrible had just happened and I determined I needed to stop the car to help my dog. I beeped the horn frantically to alert Grammy that we were stopping and pulled over. The van’s doors flew open as we all jumped out to see to Daisy. Unknown to me, my BIL, thinking that his car-sick-prone son had just puked up his breakfast, hurried over to us to assist. I slid open the back door where my dog was lying prone on top of my daughter’s legs. She was upset and couldn’t get out of the van fast enough. My dog was just lying there and I grabbed her and carried her out of the van to the grass. I laid her on the grass and she was starting to come around, looking a little dazed, but definitely alive. I was nearly in tears as I stood over her and petted her, willing her back to health. We all stood around the dog, trying to figure out what just happened. I offered her water but she didn’t want to drink. I made her stand and although wobbly, she was able to walk a bit. We determined she would live and felt it was safe to continue on. On to Linesville we went. When we arrived, it was so hot that I left Daisy in the van with the car and air conditioning on and we proceeded with our visit. The fish (carp) were just as disgusting as we remembered and we had a grand time throwing bread to the fish where they used their huge mouths to suck the bread down with icky, disgusting sucking sounds. The fish are so plentiful that they just lay on top of the water waiting for bread to eat. It really is a site to see if you are ever in Western PA. We took pictures and then headed back to the vans. I really wasn’t sure if I would find a dead dog in my car, but thankfully, she was alive and kicking and I offered her more water. We packed it in and headed back to town, thinking we would stop at our local sub shop for sandwiches we could take home to eat. As soon as we pulled in, my nephew J (the one prone to car-sickness) announced he was not feeling well and jumped out just in time to vomit all over the entrance to the sub shop. My BIL and sister had tried to obtain a plastic bag for him to vomit into but alas, were not quick enough. I ran across the street to get chips for us and then ran back to make our sandwich order. The others had gone back to Grammy’s house already and we brought the sandwiches home. My sis had decided that soup was in order for J and she made a beeline for Denny’s where they apparently have some delicious soup (I had no idea). J, feeling much better by then, gobbled up his soup and was ready for some kickball. Stu and I headed home to change clothes and tend to our cats. We watched some TV and relaxed and then got the grass cut and trimmed. We bathed and then headed back over to Grammy’s house for a corn roast and barbecue chicken dinner. Dinner was delish and the kids were bugging us to play kickball, so off we went to the local baseball field for a quick game. It was adults vs. the kids (4 on 4) and we began. It was beautiful and hot and sweaty and hot and fun and hot. The kids gave us a real run for our money and the score quickly built up. We played and laughed and fell and rolled and yelled and tried to kill each other with the ball. The adults, looking decidedly worse for wear than the kids, with sweat pouring off of us, yelled for the last inning and the kids rallied and beat us! We began the walk home and promises of ice cream were made. Grammy was cool and comfortable waiting for us at home and we headed out to walk the block or so to Dairy Queen. The night was gorgeous and the ice cream just what we needed to cool our steamy heads. We walked home talking and laughing in the twilight and feeling happy and content just to be together. My sis decided to call my grandmother to remind her once again that we were planning to visit the next day. Unfortunately, my confused grandmother accused her of not showing up LAST Monday and stated she had waited all day for us and why didn’t we show up? My sis sputtered and heatedly told her they weren’t even IN TOWN last week and that our visit was scheduled for tomorrow. My grandmother went on and on and I could see L getting more upset. Finally, L convinced Edie that we would be showing up TOMORROW and hung up. L was very upset and I was nodding knowingly at her, because now she KNEW exactly how I felt when dealing with our grandmother. I was even silently wishing that the visit would be cancelled, but I knew in my heart that my sister was determined to see our grandmother and the visit would go on, as scheduled. The dilemma was how we would all fit in one van. Grammy was definitely NOT going but still, we had eight people to fit. The idea of two cars was thrown out as ridiculous with the cost of gas these days. So, we decided we could definitely fit in one van with some concessions by Lulabell, who would sit on pillows in the cargo area at the far back of the van. I know it isn’t strictly legal but she insisted she would be comfortable and we really had no choice. So, more tomorrow on our visit to Canton, which you know is ALWAYS good for a few laughs….

And let the fun begin.....!

2008-07-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

As promised, my sister and her family arrived safe and sound to Ashtabula on Sunday afternoon. My family and I spent a rushed morning cleaning and me typing. The day dawned dark and gray and wet, which dashed any hopes I had of Stu getting the grass cut before we left. We were finally ready to head off to the marina and looked forward to seeing our cousins. The sky lightened considerably the farther north we traveled and our excitement grew. The kids had butterflys in their stomachs and Stu and I were equally excited about seeing them. We finally pulled into the marina and lo and behold, there they were! Hugs and kisses all around, along with exclamations of mutual admiration on our continued good looks. Grammy was beaming and happy to have all of her family there. Several friends stopped by to say hello and we discussed our evening plans. We headed over to Geneva-on-the-Lake where we planned to eat at the famous Eddie's Diner. Unbelievably, Grammy decided to try to park right in Eddie's parking lot which is sheer madness, let me tell you. I was grumbling a bit because I knew that she had a better than even chance of getting a space with her handicapped placard but wouldn't you know it, as soon as we entered the lot, TWO spots opened right up! Amazing! We fought our way through the bikers and the rest of the crowd and began to spy out empty booths where we could sit. THERE'S ONE RIGHT THERE! Yelled Stu, and I pushed him towards the empty booth. THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! Yelled Peaches and I shoved him into that one. GRAMMY! She found a third booth....wow, we were really on a roll. My sis and I decided we had better get in the line to order food, but with everyone spaced out like crazy it was a little hard to organize food orders. We made a snap ordering decision on the spot, cheeseburgers, fries and a drink for everyone - THAT'S IT!!! Oh, and a wee little cup of coleslaw for Grammy. I realized that I had no money on me and pantomimed frantically at my husband that I needed his wallet.....Peaches races over with Stu's credit card, but alas, they only take cash. I had to scramble for the cash while being buffeted by all the crazy people trying to place their orders. I finally ordered and it seemed that everything I asked for, the order lady said no to. For example, I ordered 3 plain burgers, 1 with everything. NOPE - they are all plain, you put your stuff on after. Okay....four small fries....NOPE, there is only one size.....and so on. I got my number and quickly spied a larger booth opening up and made a beeline for it, plopping myself down in it before anyone else could take it. We waited for our numbers to be called and finally got to eat. It was a rather crazy, stressful atmosphere as people were hovering all around us trying to gauge whether we were almost done eating so they could take our spot. We finished and scooted out and decided to take a walk up the street to see the sights. Grammy opted to wait for us on a bench to people watch. We quickly found an arcade and spent $20 in about a fraction of a second, although I did beat my sister's ass in air hockey. On up the street we went looking for more fun things to do. A terrible sound assaulted our ears as we round a corner. There was an outdoor karioke thing going on and we stopped to figure out what exactly was the problem as the music was definitely stomach-turning. Ohhhh, it was kid's karioke night and they were singing that song from Annie "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow"....OMG....these kids were the most awful, tone-deaf, screechiest singers and Lulabell was outraged as she KNEW she could do a better job. We almost convinced her to give it a try but she chickened out. We finally made our way back to Grammy, who had made friends with some bikers, and then we headed to a church fair we heard about back in Ashtabula. The word was, there were going to be FIREWORKS! Yippee! We got to the general area of the church but hit a massive traffic jam...we desperately looked for parking (we had two cars) and I was seriously ready to give up but again, miraculously Grammy found a spot, then we found one just up the street. We met up at the entrance and walked inside. The music assaulted us but my BIL (brother-in-law) was happy because it was Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra or somebody like that and there was also a live band playing 50's music. He was psyched! We walked around and it was a pretty big fair...lots of food and games and big rides. We allowed the kids on a couple of rides and Grammy got herself some fried dough which we all helped her to devour. My nephews were having a blast on the big slide while my sister tried to take their picture at the exact moment they came down....which din't work out as well as she hoped as all she kept getting was the tops of their heads. We walked around trying to figure out how we could spend some more money on crap. AHA! A dart game....let's play. Clutching our dollars we made our way up to the front of the line, only to find out it was $5 for three darts!!!!! OUTRAGE!!!! That's just crazy....we quickly herded the disappointed kids away from the dart game and decided to make our way back towards the exit. We had heard a rumor that the fireworks weren't going to start until 11 PM!!!! NO WAY! We were beat. We therefore decided to head home when somebody suggested ice cream! YAY! Grammy led us in our convoy to the local ice cream place but....it was closed.....Man! Frantic phone calls between the two cars ensued and Grammy promised she would make S'mores if we would go home - OKAY! So, we headed back to the trailer and devoured our S'mores. It was close to 11 PM by then and we decided to bed down for the evening. This involved some maneuvering as we had to figure out how to sleep 9 people in the trailer. Several of Grammy's friends came by with very kind offers to let some of us sleep in their trailers, but we decided we wanted to stay together... So, it was: Grammy and Lulabell in her bed, my BIL and J in the sofa convertible bed, my sis and C in the dining room convertible bed, Stu and I in the full bed in the back and Peaches on the bottom bunk bed....there! We did it! Actually, it was the best I have slept in the trailer in a long time and I woke up refreshed the next morning. Well....our first day together was full of laughter and fun, just like I knew it would be. Stay tuned for news of our second day....and it was just a fun....

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008)

2008-07-10T18:40:00.001-07:00

This video just makes me happy....I don't really know why, but you gotta watch it. I think it has something to do with the fact that no matter where you go on this earth, there are happy, goofy people, just like you and me....

Happy 4th! Fishing gone wrong....

2008-07-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is Lulabell zooming by on one of her ATV rides...the other two pics are the fireworks these people had....insane! This was only part of them too!

Hope everyone had a superb 4th of July holiday! My dog generally HATES this holiday but this year, thankfully, due to her advancing age and deafness, did not seem bothered at all. Usually she spends about a week doing nothing but laying at my feet and shaking. This year, nothing….thank God for small favors I guess, huh?

Friday we headed to the lake, our first visit this year. It was absolutely gorgeous up there weather-wise. The kids immediately headed off to the pool (by themselves!) while grammy, Stu and I hung out and chatted with friends. It is very crowded at the marina where every space now is filled with trailers and even some tents. Also, there was tons of traffic on our little road, filled with cars and golf carts. It seems EVERYONE has a golf cart now (‘cept grammy) and they are constantly zooming everywhere. After dinner we went visiting and had a lot of laughs. Grammy now has satellite TV at her trailer (it’s about time!) and we enjoyed watching her Cinemax up there and eating popcorn. A friend stopped over and he invited us to go fishing with him the next morning. Stu, Lulabell and I were excited at the prospect of going fishing on a boat, instead of just fishing from the docks. Peaches didn’t want to go, so we just hung out with Mike and talked about fishing the next day. It dawned on me finally, by the way Mike was slurring his words, that he had been drinking a little, but that’s not unusual so I never gave it another thought. We agreed to meet at his trailer at 8 the next morning. When we got up the next morning, I prepared our breakfast and we got dressed to go. By this time, Peaches had caught on to the idea that we were going on a BOAT and wanted to come along. I offered to give up my spot for him, which actually was fine as we then didn’t have to buy two fishing licenses, only 1 for Stu. At 8 AM Stu and the kids headed to Mike’s trailer but alas, there was no answer. They came back and then decided to walk over to his boat across the marina. They arrived home to report that Mike’s boat was there, but there was no sign of Mike. We headed back to his trailer where again, there was no answer. We were quite perplexed…..We tried calling him on his cell phone but no answer. Finally, by 10, we figured fishing was definitely off…and we were pretty bummed. Stu, Lulabell and I headed out to our favorite beach to walk around and Peaches decided to stay and swim. We returned for lunch and still, no sign of Mike and no sign of life at Mike’s trailer. We had to leave after lunch to go home, as we had a party to attend that evening.

We got to our friend’s house about 6 PM for the party. They live on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, about 20 minutes from our place. They have cows and chickens and dogs and live on a beautiful piece of land with woods all around. We got some food to eat and settled in. They had some ATVs which the kids got to ride (Stu and I opted out as we didn’t want to have to ride with someone and we didn’t want to admit we had no idea how to operate one). We decided to walk up to the cornfield where they were getting their fireworks display ready. Our eyes popped out of heads at the site of all the fireworks. I mean, these people take their fireworks seriously! There was about $5000 worth of fireworks out in that field…..it was insane! Finally, at about 9:30 the show started, and didn’t stop until 11:00! MY GOD! It was like being a big fireworks show. All of the party guests lugged their chairs out to the middle of the cornfield with our food and drinks and settled in to watch the show. It was spectacular, but about an hour too long. By 10:30 or so the kids were a little bored and decided to finish watching the show in the car. I too, was a little bored but I didn’t want to appear ungrateful as the owner of the house was sitting right next to us. So, fighting the evening chill, we watched the whole thing. At one point I had to make my way to the bathroom, in the pitch black cornfield and on the way back to my seat, I managed to step into some sort of rut and pitched head first into the dirt. I went down pretty hard, hard enough to lose my breath. Lulabell was just ahead of me and I called to her to come help me. I struggled to get up, mentally checking myself for injures. I scraped my knees and hands pretty good but nothing serious. I felt like ass though….of course Lulabell went right to Stu to report my fall, and he was worried and thought I had really hurt myself. Nope…I was fine, but hoping the show would end soon. Finally after 11 or so, it ended and we headed home. A very nice day overall.

I have a couple of skin things on my arm and legs that I wanted to get checked out so I headed to the local surgeon’s office today and he was so funny. He looked at my arm and leg and then said “I have a confession to make…..I have no idea what those are”……silence…… He called in his nurse and she looked and said she too had no idea what they are. They both called in a third nurse who used to work for the local dermatologist and she was quite perplexed as well. Hmmmmm…..Okay then……So, the gist is, he wants me to see the dermatologist, who will probably do a biopsy on the lesions….he doesn’t think I should worry though. I’m trying not to, but I just wanted him to take them off, you know? Now I have to wait a month to see the dermatologist. Oh brother….being fair-skinned I try to keep an eye on things and these two lesions are bothering me. I’ll keep you posted….

Fish Fry....Happy B-Day to my dad....poor doggy

2008-07-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

Picture of Lulabell and her fishing party...way to go! I also added this picture of my cat, Belle, because I think it is a great picture. Can you believe I took it with my cell phone? Obviously, I took it over this winter, but I don't think I posted it yet...cool huh?

On the eve of our country’s birth, 65 years ago today my father was born. Happy Birthday to Bill in Florida – you made it! Wish I could be there with you dad….have a good one!

Ahhh - been a little busy these last two weeks. Let me try to get you up to date. A week or so ago Peaches had his 11th grade physical and I pointed out to the doc that we feel his leg lengths are irregular. He has always had a peculiar gait but over the last six months it has gotten worse. I think, now that I give it some thought, that it is because he has been in a growth spurt recently and the discrepancy has been accentuated. When the doc measured his legs there was no discernable difference, but when he measured his height, when he stood on his right leg he was 5’4” and when he stood on his left leg, he measured 5’3”. Quite a difference…..so, off we go to ANOTHER specialist, this time a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, as the doc feels there may be a hip problem or something else going on….Never a dull moment around here, you know? Another obscure medical problem. I’m going to list our health issues, just to get them out there for you:

FEVR (familial exudative vitreoretinopathy) – Stu, Peaches and Lulabell
Wedge vertebra - Lulabell – ( a type of congenital scoliosis)
Strabismus – Lulabell (lazy eye)
Punctured ear drum with repair – Lulabell
Vesicouretero reflux – (ureters cause urine to back up into kidneys) with repair – Lulabell
Diabetes type 1 (me)
Weird skin things (me) – seeing surgeon next week
Developmental disorder (form of autism) – Peaches

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I think we have had our fill of health issues now…please make them stop. So, we will just see the specialist and find out what, if anything, can be done to help Peaches with his legs…he is not in any pain though, so that’s good. Otherwise, he is healthy enough to attend 11th grade in the fall. His summer camp is starting next week and will go through the end of the month culminating in a two day trip to the waterpark in Erie – great fun! Lulabell doesn’t have anything scheduled as far as camp goes. Grammy took her for a 4 day visit to Lake Erie last week and she got to go on a fishing trip and caught 3 walleye, 2 perch and 1 white-tipped bass. She had a lot of fun and made a new friend, Michael, who unfortunately lives in Arizona. They exchanged Emails though.
We are definitely looking forward to a visit from my sister and her family in about a week. Haven’t seen them for a couple of years and we ALWAYS enjoy seeing them – lots of laughs, you know? Can’t wait….

Stu was a good boy for me yesterday…he took care of a lot of things around the house that I have been bugging him about – like fixing my gutter, YAY! He also put the blinds on our back patio so the western sun doesn’t blind us when we are eating out there. I stupidly had left them up over the winter and they were SO trashed…learned that lesson the hard way I guess.

We are heading up to the lake for the holiday and then back to town for a friend’s big 4th of July spectacular party with fireworks and everything on Saturday night. Right now, as I sit here, I can hear the city’s fireworks going off…big booms. My poor dog is quivering beside me just now…she HATES the 4th of July….poor baby. She has been acting strangely recently. She is almost 13 now, so I know we can expect some things but yesterday was really weird. She came down stairs and lay at my feet but then when she got up, she started staggering around. It is a strange thing to see a previously healthy dog to suddenly be staggering around, as if she were drunk. She kind of collapsed and when I called her to come, she just didn’t. She just kind of hung her head and looked around with a dazed look. I went over to her and picked her up, something I NEVER do (she goes about 55 pounds), and she was just kind of limp. I set her on her feet and she held her weight, but refused to move. Really scared now, I encouraged her to move and after she got her bearings, she did walk and seemed almost back to normal. I was freaking out a little. I kept her close to me and all seemed well until a little later when it happened again. She got up, tried to walk but couldn’t. It was like her back legs weren’t working properly. She finally just toppled over and panted. Then, after awhile, she got up like nothing had happened. It hasn’t occurred again, but she seems a little lethargic and slow now. She has been stumbling up the stairs for a month or so. I am worried that perhaps the cancer she had two summers ago has somehow returned or metastasized to her brain or something. It could be seizures too or perhaps a stroke or something. I hesitate to take her to the vet because I don’t feels he is in pain and I KNOW we couldn’t afford all those tests that they would do there. Besides, it’s not like they will do an MRI or anything…their guess may be just as good as mine. So, we will keep a close eye on her and I will start giving her a baby aspirin daily. I was absolutely in tears yesterday, thinking that it was time to put her to sleep….I couldn’t bear it.

The big news here also is that Stu is going to San Francisco in August for a cousin’s wedding. No, I’M NOT GOING (I’m upset) but we couldn’t afford it. He will be able to stay with relatives/friends and will get around on BART and such. Today we ordered the wedding gift from Macy’s….it was a little disheartening because all their registry stuff was top of the line stuff – like a $12 whisk and a $22 cookie sheet! We finally settled on some glassware ($35) and then, it was the easiest thing, they will wrap the gift and send it to his cousin! Now, we don’t have to worry about him carrying a gift or finding something out there when he gets there. I wish I could go….I have been dreaming of seeing SF again…it’s just in my blood I guess….I am waiting for the day when I return. I have been using Google Earth recently to spy on my old haunts and I am so ADDICTED to this thing! Try it something, it is awesome!

We are being royally screwed by a finance company. We arranged to make a payment over the phone on the 20th of the month a few weeks ago. However, when we had some money on the 18th, Stu called in the payment. Much to our chagrin, the company took the money out AGAIN on the 20th….completely without our permission. This caused our account to be overdrawn 7 times (at $35.00 a pop), in addition to the amount they took out! We, of course, freaked out and have been trying since that time to get our money back. We are getting the run-around from the company and meanwhile, Stu’s paycheck was deposited into that account, but it is now gone to cover the overdrafts and the fees. This was our mortgage money and so we are now LATE on our mortgage. Now, I am not the best person dealing with finances and admit that I am late now and then on some bills, but we have NEVER been late in the 5 years we have owned this house…I mean it. It is very disheartening and frustrating and I am about at my wit’s end with these people. Now, they say they will reimburse our payment and our fees, but of course, with the holiday, it won’t be until next week. GAH! I can’t wait to pay off this account…these people are crooks!

Oh, when I look out my window, I can see the big fireworks….ooooh….ahhhh….! Happy 4th to everyone...please have a safe and fun holiday!

Food from above....a stormy party

2008-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Stu and Lu at the "pond"....beautiful place!

Another weekend is upon us, isn’t it? First day of summer and all, huh? I worked Friday night as usual (long, boring, lonely) but couldn’t go to bed right aware Saturday morning as I had to go collect some food I had ordered. There is something called Angel Food Ministries around here that provides food at a reduced cost. My friend and I had seen the flyer and decided to try it out. I think this is mostly for lower income families but as the flyer said "if you eat, you’re eligible". So, what the heck I thought. I ordered an extra "special" of 8 steaks and hamburgers, so the whole thing cost $50, which I thought was pretty reasonable for the amount of food you supposedly get. Stu had to work early Saturday and I didn’t want to ask my mother to go get my charity food, so I stayed up until 9:00 AM when they opened. I was instructed to bring a laundry basket or a cooler to collect my food in, so I dumped the dirty clothes out of my best, newest, most expensive-looking laundry basket and headed down to the church. There were many cars there and people standing around and I waited in my car because I didn’t want to look like a fool with a laundry basket if no one else was. Finally, I decided to suck it up and head inside. I was met by a very lovely lady who took my receipt and directed me to the end of the line. I was then met by one of the doctors I work with at the hospital, (Dr. G.) He was very nice too and as we don’t know each other personally, I didn’t feel too weird. We began to stop at each food station to fill up my basket. As we were going around, I began to realize that I recognized A LOT of the volunteers and I began to feel a little strange. These people know that I work and I do not actually qualify for charity food, but I kept telling myself that I had PAID for this food, dammit. I kept running into people I knew thought and feeling more and more sheepish about things. The food was not name brand by any means and looked suspiciously like surplus government food. I began to feel like I was taking food away from people who could have really used it. Finally having reached the end of the line, another volunteer came to carry my basket to the car (my 2005 large SUV, which was probably nicer than the volunteer’s car!). Again, though, he couldn’t have been nicer and wished me well. I suddenly felt very dirty for some reason and resolved that I would NOT be ordering more food next month. I called my friend, who had not yet picked up her food, to warn her that it most likely would be her former gynecologist that would gather her food for her…and to tell her how weird it all was. My mother was AGHAST that I had done this but again, the food wasn’t free, and I am not sure how happy I am to pay $50 for food that is nowhere near the quality of the name brand foods I usually buy. So, my experience with Angel Food Ministries, while overall a positive one, will most likely be my last, although I wouldn’t be opposed to volunteering there as I feel it is definitely a worthwhile cause.

I came home bleary-eyed with tiredness as I unloaded my goodies. There was a lot of frozen foodstuff and I had a heck of a problem jamming everything into my freezer. Finally, I said "good night" to the kids and asked Lulabell to wake me about 2 PM. I turned on the air conditioner (more to drown out noises than because it was hot) and fell asleep. I woke up 3 hours later absolutely drenched in sweat and feeling shaky. Determining that my blood sugar had bottomed out, I made my way downstairs to fix something quick to eat. I sat there waiting for the sugar to hit my bloodstream and was absolutely pouring sweat. At one point I put my head between my knees because I felt faint and the sweat literally dripped off my head and soaked the carpet at my feet. Finally, finally, I was starting to feel better, but I was suddenly very, very tired. It’s kind of like when people have a seizure they have to immediately sleep to recover. That is what it is like for me when my blood sugar gets too low. I have to immediately sleep and so, not having the strength to make it back upstairs, I just collapsed on the sofa and basically p assed out. I finally woke up at 2:45, feeling a little better, although my eye still felt like they need to sleep, you know, kind of blurry and burning. I jumped into the shower to wash off all the dried sweat (ew) and wake up more. I had to hurry up and fix a pasta salad for a birthday party we were going to that evening. I made the pasta but it really needed to sit in the fridge for awhile. Unfortunately, Grammy was coming to pick us up at 4:30 and there really wasn’t time. There was no WAY I could have jammed that bowl into my over-stuffed freezer either. Finally, Stu got home from work and we waited for Grammy to pick us up. We finally were on our way to our friend’s house, where we would celebrate her 60th birthday. We arrived and found about 50 other people there or so, but she has a huge property with a big pond that kids were swimming in. Fortunately, Lulabell brought her swimsuit and excitedly got changed. Peaches had opted NOT to bring his suit and was regretting his decision about that pretty quick. We settled in and began to eat all the delicious food people had brought. I stuck my pasta salad in the fridge for while, hoping to perk it up. (It never perked up and I took home an almost full bowl). They were cooking about 6 turkeys and a beef roast on a pit and everything smelled wonderful. There were several dogs running around, including the cutest little Australian cattle dog, with no tail. His name was Duncan and he was the friendliest, cutest thing! Then, there was Coco who must have weighed close to 200 pounds. A MASSIVE dog who didn’t walk, she lumbered around the yard. She was quite friendly though. Fetta (like the cheese) is another lab whose greatest desire is to dive for rocks at the bottom of the pond and carry them out so that you can throw them back in and she can retrieve them once again. This dog will stand for hour at a puddle, pushing rocks around with her nose, arranging and rearranging rocks for hours…it’s the funniest thing! We continued to eat and eat and played some games with the kids. Lulabell, after swimming for about an hour, decided to get out because she said she finally realized the pond smelled and she couldn’t stand it anymore! The sky to the west was getting ominously dark and the wind started to blow. I was excited because obviously we were expecting a storm soon. The men hurriedly disassembled the barbecue pit and took down the tarp just as the storm it with a bang of thunder and the partygoers huddled in the barn to watch the storm. It was very exciting and fun with lots of lightning and thunder and then the rain. We sat in the barn and ate birthday cake and picked at the turkey and roast beef. Finally by about 8 we decided to head on home. When we arrived, I saw the pool that I had just vacuumed was FILLED with leaves and I wanted to cry. Stu had to leave right away for ANOTHER party, this one a bachelor’s party, out in Mercer. I had downloaded a map for him and he headed out. The kids and I settled in for a nice evening at home and Lulabell and I got to cuddle on my bed for while before passing out. Stu got home early (the rest of the men were heading to the local girly bar and Stu had to get up early for work and so didn’t join them). Sunday I plan to work, work, work as I did not do ANY of my home typing yet…ugh! So, that’s it….how was YOUR weekend?

A bowl full of Peaches...

2008-06-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

Just a few quickies in between my typing and cooking dinner (salsbury steaks and mashed potatoes, yum!) Last night after a trip to the mall we decided to grab a quick bite at a favorite local diner. As we were sitting there waiting for our food, we were just chatting about various things. Suddenly, Lulabell pops up with "oh, by the way, SOMEBODY has been pooping in my room!" Well, this was a bit of a thunderbolt and both Stu and I immediately thought one of the cats was the culprit. Peaches, however, announced with certainty, "Well, I didn’t do it…." to the stunned silence of his family. Then I burst out laughing because he sounded SO sincere about it! Wow!

Later that night, Peaches called me at work to report that SOMEBODY had peed on his bed! Well, obviously we are having some cat issues, but I had noticed earlier that he had left his wet bathing suit and towel on his bed and asked if it was possible that the wetness could be due to that. "Mom", said in the tone of voice indicating that I am an idiot, "of course not! It was the damn cat….the whole bed smells like…like....COCAINE!"

WHAATTTT???? Cocaine? First of all, how does cat pe smell like cocaine and second of all, what the hell does cocaine smell like? I am 43 years old and have never even SEEN cocaine, much less smelled it, and how the hell does my 16 year old son know what cocaine smells like (does it have a smell?). His comment was just so "out there", you know? Well, his daddy helped him change his bed and all was well. Bedrooms are now obviously off limits to the little kitties, what the heck is going on with them? Not good. So, just a couple of fun Peaches items for you….

Calmer days....

2008-06-16T13:16:00.001-07:00

Lulabell trying out for the part of the new "Pocahontas"....

Stu enjoying his Father's Day dinner....

This is Stu trying to get the hang of his new hammock!

Well, hope you all had a lovely Father’s Day weekend…we certainly did around here. The weather was hot and pleasant and we spent Saturday in and around the pool. Saturday night we headed to the movies to watch the Incredible Hulk, which was not quite incredible, although it was entertaining (doesn’t even come CLOSE to Ironman in my book though…). Lulabell spent most of the movie pissed off because she would have PREFERRED to see Kung Fu Panda and wanted to be able to see that movie by herself in the theater right next door but daddy said nope, although he promised he would take her to it next weekend. Then she spent the rest of the movie cowering in her seat as we were assaulted by the sheer NOISE of the movie. I swear, that was the LOUDEST movie I have ever seen…man…..Sunday had Stu enjoying a nice sleep-in and then up for coffee with Peaches, just the two of them. They made the coffee rounds and then headed over to the car show that blocks our main street every year on Father’s day. Lulabell and I opted out of the car show this year for two main reasons:
HOT!!!
BORING!!!
Really, I have ZERO interest in cars, new or old, and I don’t really need to walk around on hot asphalt for a couple of hours, blowing my money on junk food, which is all there is to do there. So, letting the boys have their fun, Lulabell and I (well, just I) worked on the yard and the pool. I got all the trimming done and then decided I needed to figure out a way to vacuum the pool. We bought a pool vacuum last year but couldn’t quite figure it out and then subsequently lost some important parts over the winter. So, I decided to improvise. I had a relatively short piece of hose and I used those plastic ties to attach it to my long skimmer handle. Then, taking a big breath, I sucked and sucked on the end of the hose (the other end was under water) until water started coming out. WALLAH! Pool vacuum is born! (I’m a really good sucker….) I then spent the next hour getting sunburned but was happy with my invention as it really, really worked! I got all the dirt off the floor of the pool and it is SPARKLING clean now! I was so proud…..Stu hung out in his hammock enjoy some new music I downloaded to his Ipod. We then got dressed and headed out to dinner at La Isla and sat on the patio in the very fine evening weather. Lulabell was pushing for ice cream but mom vetoed it as we had perfectly good ice cream at home. So, all in all, a lovely weekend, much less dramatic than last weekend! Shout out to my friend Nancy M. Thanks for stopping by! Hey ….let’s actually TALK to each other soon, okay? Shout out also to my own Dad B in Florida who had to work on HIS father’s day…..bummer. More soon….

David Cook - 06.06.08 - Wal-Mart Concert

2008-06-14T12:12:00.001-07:00

Two of my fave songs from David....enjoy!

S'mores ina storm....vandalism is a drag

2008-06-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

Well, what a week it’s been! Hope yours has been just as much fun as mine was. Last Friday started off bad as when I got home from work I noticed that the van, as it was parked in the driveway, was listing to the left rather oddly. I drove around and saw to my horror that both tires on the left side were complete flat! WTF????? Apparently, our local juvenile delinquents had struck and punctured both the tires….I wonder if it was the same A**holes that broke our van window several years ago. CRAP! I dragged myself to bed and informed my slumbering husband about the trouble. I went blissfully off to sleep, confident that my hubby would handle everything. When I got up about six hours later, my daughter had me call my hubby at work to get the info on the van. He told me that he had managed to get the van to our buddy who is a mechanic across town. The van was fixed and all we needed to do was pay the money ($250!) and we could get the van back. Stu told me he would come pick me up at the house and we would then go get the van and he would go back to work. Sounded good to me so Lulabell and I sat down on the porch to wait for Stu who said he would be there “shortly”. Now, in Stu-time, this could be 10 minutes or 30 minutes. Usually, when he says he will be somewhere in 10 minutes, it is best to just double that estimate. So, for 45 minutes, Lulabell and I cooled our heels waiting and phoning Stu who did not answer. Finally, he called in a panic to report that he was in the parking lot walking to the car but realized all of a sudden that HE DID NOT HAVE HIS KEYS! They were with the mechanic and the van……GOD! We had been waiting there ALL THAT TIME for nothing. My mind whirled as I tried to think of a way I could get to Lowe’s to give Stu my keys…..most people I knew were working, except my friend Killerbee, who may or may not have been working at her second job as a babysitter. I took a chance and called her. She answered and said she had just arrived at her job. I quickly ran down the problem for her and she came up with the brilliant idea of asking her employer, who was just on her way to work, if she could swing by (they live just 3 blocks down) and drop me off on her way to work. Incredibly, she agreed and I was thrilled that I had solved our problem so quickly. I called Stu back, who was still wandering around the parking lot at Lowe’s trying to come up with a solution. I quickly told him of the plan and he agreed. Lulabell and I walked out to the alley to wait for our ride and nearly walked into……..our car, sitting quietly in the driveway….my mind went blank for a minute as I had thought that Stu had the car at work. Now, who is parking in my driveway? I thought incredulously….finally, as I stared at the car, it dawned on me that this was MY CAR, and that it had been sitting here the WHOLE TIME (now about 50 minutes into the situation). My ride showed up at that moment and I ran over to explain to her how I didn’t need the ride anymore. I think I said something like “my car!....it’s here….my husband…..thank you!....I can’t believe it…..how stupid……that’s my car…..what was I thinking?” Anyhow, she slowly rolled up the window, as you might do when there is a crazy person standing babbling at you nonsensically. I was still in disbelief that I could have been so stupid and not thinking. Oh, wait, in the middle of all this craziness, as I was trying to call people for a ride and talking to my husband, my cell phone died. I had to borrow my son’s phone, which of course didn’t have any of my phone numbers in it, so I was running back and forth to where my phone was plugged in to get the phone numbers….CRAZY! I finally called my hubby back to REMIND him that he was running around the parking lot looking for a car THAT WAS NOT THERE! The silence that followed confirmed my belief that we had both lost our minds for a while. He finally got a coworker to give him a ride to the van so he could just pick it up and I really didn’t have to do a damn thing at all! So, that is the story of my crazy Friday and how my hubby and I really aren’t stupid, just crazed.

Saturday we had decided to put the pool up after never-ending prompting from our daughter. Since we have a slight tilt to the backyard, and there were several pits and holes in the yard where the pool would go, I determined that we needed to purchase some topsoil to “even things out” so that the pool wouldn’t tilt and it would be smooth on the bottom. I figured, oh, about 10 bags of dirt (40 pounds each). Dirt is pretty cheap (literally!) about $1 a bag, so Stu brought home the dirt and the kids turned into pack horses as we brought the dirt into the yard. It was pretty easy to see that we didn’t have NEAR enough dirt, so I sent Stu and Peaches off to Lowe’s for LOTS more dirt. Lulabell and I figured out a pretty cool way to figure out where to place the dirt. We determined the center of the yard and from there used a 6 foot rope anchored in the middle to circumscribe a 12 foot circle, using spray paint to mark the edges of the circle. I thought we were pretty clever actually. This way, when Peaches and Stu brought back the dirt (20 more bags) we were able to dump out the bags and rake the dirt within the circle, adding more at one end to counteract the tilt. I was pretty damn happy with the way I figured that out! Peaches’ friends, D&C were over and they helped us to get the pool put up and cleaned out and FINALLY we started to fill. It took about 4 hours total to fill the pool and Lulabell couldn’t contain her excitement! We promised she could swim Sunday morning after I added the chemicals and such. Really, it went pretty easily and Sunday dawned hot and glorious, perfect for swimming. The kids inaugurated the 2008 swimming season bright and early (the boys had spent the night) and by 10 AM were splashing and yelling. We pretty much were in and out of the pool all day and barbecued our dinner. Even Stu and I got in for awhile and we had a bang up game of ring toss of which I was the ULTIMATE CHAMPION! We looked up into the sky and noticed that it was getting kinda dark in the west. We had hauled out the fire pit and had promised the kids S’mores and so I got a fire started. Almost immediately, the wind started to blow, pushing the fire alarmingly all over the place. Still, even when the rain started, the fire pit is pretty protected by all the foliage overhead and so while a mini-tornado raged, the kids fought back the flames to sear their marshmallows. I had the Hershey bars, which I had unfortunately NOT put in the fridge and were tubes of chocolate goo by then. I just cut off the ends of the bars and squeezed chocolate onto graham crackers for everybody. Finally, the storm died down just as we were finishing up the S’Mores. It was kinda crazy there for awhile though…. So that’s the story of our crazy weekend….more soon.

Oh no you didn't....

2008-05-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

I just have to tell you a little something funny.. Stu and I were going to out to Panera for lunch today and I just threw something on quickly. We got to the car and as I was lifting my leg to sit down into the car, my flip flop got caught and in my struggle to free my foot, I tooted helplessly. Well, that set off kind of a chain reaction and as I tumbled into the car the tooting continued and I began to laugh hysterically, which kind of negated any attempt to control my bodily functions and I landed quite ungainly in the passenger seat. This whole time my husband was sitting in the driver's seat watching the whole process, not quite believing what he was seeing.....I was by this point so hysterically laughing that my eyes were watering and I started to snort. This caused me to produce a ball of phlegm that I unceremoniously hawked out the window....the whole show played over in my head, which brought on another burst of laughter. Meanwhile, my husband was calmly waiting for me to get control of myself before saying with a sigh, "put your seatbelt on, dear", which brought on another laughing fit. Geez....see what getting older does to you? Later, as we walked to my office, my dear husband got his payback when apparently a bug flew into his mouth (close your mouth, dear) which caused him to hawk and snort and spit like a bull in heat....I immediately got a visual of us 40 years from now as some old decrepit couple...then I asked my husband, what if this was our first date? What would you do if on your first date these things happened, would you continue the date? Probably not, so I guess we were made for each other.... laughter = love in my book.....I'm still giggling!

Yesterday was a big day for Peaches as he got to drive the car for the very first time! Lulabell and Stu had decided they were going to go play laser tag and since there wasn't enough money for ALL of us to go...they went by themselves.....hrrmph. So, I decided to take Peaches for his first drive and we headed to the huge empty parking lot at the local mall. He was a little stunned when I told him to get in the driver's seat but like all teenagers, quickly got over that and hopped in. We spent a few moments going over what all the gauges and things in the car meant and we had a bad moment as I was explaining the pedals to him. He kept trying to use his left foot on the brake and I knew I needed to stop that crap right now...so after about 10 minutes, I felt that he had mastered the foot thing and we turned on the car. He hesitated about putting the car in drive, but I just told him to keep his foot on the brake and then let up on the brake to let the car drift (no accelerator yet!). He did this pretty well and got the feel of the brakes, then we gave it a little gas but he was concentrating so hard on his feet that he forgot to steer the car.....I grabbed the wheel and reminded him to look at the road, not his feet. We drove up and down the parking lot, even reversing and turning. He really didn't do too bad....he was SO psyched, that I was glad I let him do this. We then went into the mall and I bought him a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and he actually got the card he was looking for....so all in all, a nice evening for us. Lulabell and Stu had a blast at laser tag and we all met up later at home for dinner.

A walk through Peaches' mind...and very exciting news!

2008-05-27T11:58:00.001-07:00

What a beautiful Memorial Day weekend here in these parts…how was it in your neighborhood? Of course I had to work all weekend but managed to have Monday off. Stu has been working like crazy…when they have overtime he ALWAYS takes it. He is trying to save up some money to make it to SF in August for his cousin’s wedding. I truly have not seen the man in 3-4 days, except in passing. He sure can’t work like he used to though…it’s been kicking his ass, that’s for sure. If we happen to be sitting together on the couch he nods off like a 70 year old man! It makes for very exciting times, I’ll say (not!). Sigh….we had a lovely holiday and invited some friends over to barbecue…which turned out very tasty, if you don’t mind my saying so…Caesar-marinated chicken on the grill (delightful!), cheesy potatoes (sublime), a Caesar salad (yum!) and garlic toast (crunchy!). It rained briefly but the kids managed to entertain themselves between the raindrops on the trampoline. We had been playing football with Peaches and he was out in the yard tossing the football up in the air, playing by himself. At one point, he tossed it too high and it landed on the roof of the office building next to us. The next moment or two are the perfect illustration of how my son’s mind works….the wheels are turning but they aren’t going anywhere. I don’t mean to be harsh or unfeeling, but that is how it is. So, we watched Peaches as he contemplated his next move and taunted him about losing his ball (as all good mothers do, right?) He suddenly turned and ran into the garage. My friend and I looked at each other in amazement, realizing that perhaps Peaches had figured something out. The next thing we see is Peaches hauling out a ladder from the garage! Bravo, I thought, until I saw exactly what ladder he had…..he had brought out the four foot stepladder….He leaned the ladder against the 20 foot wall and looked up helplessly, as he tried to figure out if he could perhaps jump the other 16 feet to the roof…..Finally, in frustration he called, DAD!!!!!!
Fortunately, Stu was not too tired to haul out the BIG extension ladder and nimbly ascended to the roof to rescue the football. I tell this story because I think it is the perfect example of how my son’s mind works….it’s like the pistons are firing but the engine just won’t turn over….okay, enough metaphors. He had the right idea though and for that, I applaud him.

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you may recall another illustration of how my son’s mind works. About two years ago Peaches and I were trying to get his broken futon down the stairs and out to the garbage. Now, this thing weighed a good 100 pounds, but I though with my big strong son’s help, he and I could do it. Afterwards, I had promised that I would make fruit smoothies in our new Bullet blender! So, with me going down first, the metal futon in the middle and Peaches anchoring it from above as we slowly descended the stairs. Suddenly, the futon shot out of Peaches’ grip and the entire weight of it was now propelling me down the stairs, face first. I tumbled and slid down the stairs with the weight of this metal monstrosity at my back. I finally came to rest at the bottom of the stairs, with the futon on top of me. The noise brought my husband and daughter running and when my daughter saw my crumpled body lying at the bottom of the stairs she screamed in distress. Calmly, my son walked down the steps and called from the stairs, “does this mean we aren’t having smoothies now?”……To me, that story shows 100% how my son’s mind works. Everything that happens is about how it affects him. I’m sure he was concerned about my well-being, but the immediate problem was, of course, the promised smoothies. You may recall my telling you recently of my mother and Peaches at the lake, opening the trailer. My mother had given Peaches fairly intricate instructions about how to place her garden lights around the porch. She just wanted them stuck in the ground lining her patio, a fairly straightforward procedure, no? Well, she turned her back to do something else and left him to his own devices. Finally, after about five minutes she returned to check his progress and found that NONE of the lights had been placed as she had requested, but there was 1 light WAY over in the middle of the yard, like a lonely beacon in the grass….Peaches was lolling on the picnic table, confident in a job well done, which is why he reacted so defensively when my mother called him out on the terrible job he did. It’s like he doesn’t care, he just wants to get the task over with. However, most people would at least try a little bit, knowing they are in for a tongue-lashing I they mess it up. He just does what his brain tells him to (which is usually wrong) and he doesn’t consider the consequences. I can come up with hundreds more but I’ll stop for now….the rest will be in the book I’ll be writing one day, I’m sure. I tried to get Peaches to pose for a picture with his ladder, but his dignity finally spoke up and he refused….bummer.

Very exciting news to impart to you, well, it’s exciting for me at least. WE ARE GOING TO SEE THE AMERICAN IDOL CONCERT in September!!! OMG!!!! I’m going to see my love, David Cook! Can’t wait….did you know he has the four top downloaded songs on ITunes? Yep, he’s pretty great…saw him in Regis and Kelly this morning and boy did he look fine…sounded pretty good too! Grammy’s coming too, which will be fun for sure. The venue is smaller than the usual concert arenas so I am hoping that our seats (second tier – off to the side of the stage) will be okay. Our seats for Billy Joel were in the highest section (definite nosebleed) and were BEHIND the fricking stage…which didn’t cause me to lose my enthusiasm one bit…so I am definitely looking forward to September.

David Cook - Guitar Hero Commercial

2008-05-25T11:32:00.001-07:00

OMG! This is even better than the one I saw....I'm in serious lust here...

DAVID COOK WINS!!!!!

2008-05-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to watch last night. I figured I would DVR the finale and watch it later so I could zip through commercials and the boring parts, but something told me to watch. So, with my laptop on my lap, live blogging with hundreds of other kooks on the Internet, I watched and was amazed. Probably the most entertaining two hours I have spent recently...really, much improved show over last year. For me, the hottest moment was at about 9:00 when David Cook's commercial came on....I heard the familiar music and looked up briefly from the computer. I caught a glimpse of a man in a long shirt, underwear and socks playing the guitar, doing a good Tom Cruise impression...when my mind registered that it wasn't Tom Cruise, but DAVID COOK! OMG!!!!! Lulabell was sitting on the couch watching too and I looked over at her to see her mouth hanging open. I screamed, "LULABELL! IS THAT DAVID COOK?" She screamed by "I THINK SO!!!" OMG! My heart jumped and whatever fence I had been sitting on regarding whether or not I had a crush on this man instantly disappeared and I fell head over heels in LUST.... My mouth hung open, my heart pounded and I believe I felt a tingle start somewhere LOW.... The commercial ended and Lulabell and I just sat there looking at each other and I said again, with more control, "Lulabell, was that just David Cook?". She nodded her head and I began to breathe once again.

Okay, maybe that was all a little melodramatic, but that is how I felt. Later on, when David Archuleta's commercial came on, I thought it was David Cook's commercial for a second but then my mind started saying, "not David Cook, not David Cook, not David Cook..." and I watched but felt a little weird, you know? I mean, come on! The difference between the two commercials is night and day people! A hunk of a man vs. a little teen boy...no contest.

So, needless to say, I was really psyched when my man won and I believe I screamed a little bit and my eyes teared up. I am SO going to see him in concert and buy all of his music....I have already downloaded whatever I can at ITunes....I am trying to convince my mom to join us for the AI concert, if it comes around here. The last concert she attended apparently was Sonny and Cher! ARGGHHHH....then she amended that to "Tom Jones". I think Grammy needs to get back in the 21st century, don't you?

As I noted, I did enjoy the show and the highlights for me were: ZZ Top and David C., Michael Johns singing anything, seeing Chikezi again, seeing Ryan almost fall off the stage on the Love Guru's motorized rug, seeing George Michael sing and of course, David winning! I didn't even mind his coronation song...he could sing the phonebook (a Randyism) and I would melt. Also, seeing Robert Downey Jr dance, which made me tingle some more. How I love that man! Hope David doesn't get jealous....Low points for me were: the Love Guru, Ben Stiller (he is so OVER don't you think? I think he peaked, for me, with Meet the Parents. Now I find him just irritating.) I thought Jordin Sparks was a disappointment...hated the new song and girlfriend looked like she gained a little poundage, compounded by the terrible dress she was wearing. So, my quest today, in between typing, was finding anything and everything on the internet about David C. Stand back people, my crush is in full bloom and it will be around for awhile I think. David ranks right up there with my main life crushes:

Mr. Katakowski (fourth grade teacher)
Erik Estrada
Billy Joel
Russell Crowe

These are the main crushes, which is not to diminish any of my dozens of other mini-crushes (including Robert Downey at the moment). My hubby knows me well and has accepted my fantasy life pretty well...my Russell Crowe poster is STILL up in our bedroom (hee-hee). So, hope you got to watch and enjoy AI finale as much as I did.. adios for now!

Robert Downey Jr singing River

2008-05-21T11:54:00.001-07:00

I'm deeply in lust with RDJ at the moment...Ironman rocks, and so does he...His voice is amazing. Enjoy!

Just a few more things....

2008-05-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

Ta-da!

Make a wish....

Just uploaded these pics of Lulabell with her birthday cake (which we made!). It was quite delicious.

I also wanted to publicly proclaim my profound love for American Idol finalist David Cook and I think he SHOULD win, but I don't really want him to because I think the AI production company sucks and I don't want him tied into them...I want him to be free! I have downloaded all his songs from ITUNES and he is awesome. So, I want him to do well but I really do think he is gonna win it all...poo!

Oh, I also have a funny video below. Our three cats are not altered yet, but will be soon! However, they can get a bit randy and often the poor dog is the object of their sexual attraction. Tinker usually waits until Daisy is laying down and then "gets her groove on". Here is a quick video I took of the cat sexually assaulting the dog as she slept...

The 11th year of Lulabell begins...

2008-05-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

We had quite a busy weekend, the weekend our dear daughter turned 11! Friday started off with perfectly lovely weather, a real gem of a day. Lulabell had a friend over and we hit the movies to watch the new Narnia movie. Grammy met us there and we loaded up with popcorn, having stopped previously to load up on candy at the dollar store. The movie was pretty awesome and we certainly enjoyed it. We stopped to eat at Wendy’s for dinner (good dollar menu!), then took Lulabell’s friend home. Then we headed for the home of a friend of Peaches who was going to spend the night. Peaches and his friend were headed to a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament early the next morning, which Grammy graciously agreed to take them to as I had to work. So Saturday began with the tournament, which Peaches unfortunately lost. He apparently needs to work on his cards because his weren’t strong enough. His friend, J did rather well and got to the second round. The people playing in this tournament are a bit strange, I must say, but the boys had fun and Lulabell and I picked them up and headed home. We dropped off J and got ready for Lulabell’s friend to return as she was coming to spend Lulabell’s birthday evening with us and then spending the night. Stu got home from work and we headed to the phone store as we were intending to turn Lulabell’s cell phone (my old cell phone) on for her birthday present. However, Stu’s good friend M, who works at the Verizon store, got us a fabulous deal and we decided to get Lulabell a brand new kickin’ cell phone (it’s purple!). We also found out we could get a second phone for free and so decided to get a new one for Peaches too, as the one he has, Stu’s old phone, actually doesn’t ring very loud and Peaches had a hard time hearing it. So, for the price of $0, we got two brand new cell phones, which the kids were VERY excited to get. We headed off to our fave Mexican place and presented them with their new phones. The rest of the evening was spent texting back and forth on all of our phones….. Lulabell enjoyed her very own burrito (usually she and I share a burrito), and we had a lovely evening. We stopped at the video store to rent some movies and then headed back to the house where Lulabell blew out the candles on her birthday cake and the girls proceeded to propel themselves around the house in blistering speed as they had a huge pillow fight. Peaches wisely secreted himself in his room, away from the ruckus. Stu and I hid in the basement to watch our scary movies, Cloverfield and 30 days of night, which were rather good. Finally, the galloping upstairs quieted down and around midnight the house was completely silent. Stu and I made an egg strata for breakfast the next morning which was rather delicious, I must say. Sunday dawned gray and cold and Peaches and I headed to Ashtabula with Grammy to help her open the trailer for the season. This entails lots of lugging in of TVs and food and cleaning out the mouse turds that inevitably we find. We also made a rather disgusting discovery of a bag of potatoes that had been forgotten last fall when we closed up the trailer, and they had liquefied on the floor of the pantry…..ewwwww. The smell was nauseating and Grammy graciously handed over the cleanup to me….ugh. Peaches and Grammy worked on turning on the electricity and the water and all the little housekeeping chores outside and I got the pantry cleaned and the TV antenna put up. So, it's official, the trailer is now open for the summer and if the weather is nice, Grammy will be heading up for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, I get to work this weekend and won’t be able to go. Perhaps the following weekend though, at which time the pool should be open and hopefully the weather will be more accommodating. Grammy treated Peaches and I to lunch as thanks for helping her, at our favorite place, Steak and Shake – delicious! We then headed home and I got to work as I really hadn’t had time to type much this busy weekend. Soup for dinner and then getting ready for a new week. Stu and I had a lovely evening Ped Egging our feet and then he wanted me to put lotion on his feet for him, which I kindly did. I was just settling into bed and getting comfy when I noticed a bad smell and determined it was coming from my hands! OMG! It was his foot smell transferred over to my own hands!!!! Gag! I flew out of bed to the bathroom to scrub my hands, with Stu laughing hysterically at me. That was gross, man…..what we won’t do for love, eh? So, busy and fun, our weekend was officially over and its back to work and school once again. The kids are finally finishing up school, with only about 12 more days to go. Peaches has a couple of friends having to go to summer school and I keep waiting to see if he is summoned, but surely, they would have told us by now, right? I’m thinking he is free and clear on that one, I hope. I can’t handle summer school….

A Ped Egg miracle....hairlessness is good?

2008-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have lusted over a particular "As seen on TV" product for quite sometime now. I hesitated because if you are a frequent reader of this site, then you know the dismal result with the Tater Mitts (check out the Christmas posts for further info). However, this particular item really seems to be the real deal and I have just been waiting until I had an extra 10 dollars before I could get it. Every time I walked into my local Walgreen's I would walk past the display and stare with longing at the PED EGG! Yes, that's right, the Ped Egg. Of course, you must have seen it...a little white egg-like device that you simply rub on the dry skin on your feet and WALLAH! Instant soft feet. I hoped that it wasn't too good to be true and guess what....IT'S NOT! It is wonderful! Being a diabetic, I really try to keep me feet in good shape but have noticed that in the winter especially my heels are cracked and I snag my socks on my feet! So, I bought one, tried it out and found that it really is as good as the commercial says. My feet were smooth and soft for the first time in months. When I opened the egg, sure enough, there was a little pile of skin shavings. I dumped them into a little dish and found to my delight that they were as soft as velvet. I even had a hard time just throwing the shavings away (surely I could use them for something!) but convinced myself that they belonged in the trash and carried on. This is the first product I have tried from TV that really does what it says it is going to do. Even today, 4 days after my first "shaving", my feet are still soft and pliable. I have been eyeing my husband's feet, which are about as soft and pliable as thorny bricks, to demonstrate the wonders of Ped Eggery on. If this thing works on his feet, which feel as if I am playing footsies with a hedgehog, then that would be the final test and I would be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the best thing since peanut butter!

Yesterday was an eventful day, to say the least. Mom wanted me to go help her burn her fallen branches in her burner and we have been waiting for a day without wind or rain to do it. There was quite a pile in her burner and we attacked it with rolled up newspapers and fire starters. We plugged in the newspapers and lit them over and over, but the wood was just too wet to catch. Since mom doesn’t mow her own lawn anymore, there was no gasoline or anything in the garage to use as an accelerant. I found some bug killer that said it was flammable and dripped that all over the wood, which did catch fire, but burned itself out before it even got going. I just happened to have an empty gas can in the van intending to fill it up and so mom decided to go get a gallon of gas in it. When she returned I was bound and determined to get that damn wood burned because I had already spent about 30 minutes fooling around with it. So, I poured some gasoline onto the wet branches and readied myself to start the fire. Lulabell was standing about 10 feet behind me and mom was safely back on the porch. Confidently, I lit the nearest branch, not believing it was still going to start without a little more help. WRONG! With a huge whooshing sound, the fire went up like some conflagration from hell. For a split second my mind said “RUN!” but my body failed to respond. Lulabell gave a scream as she thought she was watching her mother go up in flames. All I remember is this huge orange fireball and I turned away so that the entire right side of my body was suddenly rendered hair-free. Too bad I wasn’t wearing shorts or I could have saved myself a lot of leg shaving in the future! My mother was yelling something and I turned to look at her and she was pointing out that there was fire UNDER the bush next to the burner. I waved her off and said “don’t worry, it will go out!” hoping with all my might that it would go out. The ground under there was soaked so it did, and we only lost about a quarter of the bush (it’s seen worse, believe me). We monitored the fire for about 20 minutes as it burned down and we finished gathering all the little wood bits and pieces and burned them up to. Fortunately, I didn’t sustain any burns, but my right arm is smooth as a baby’s bottom now and my right eyebrow has definitely seen better days. The good news is that I won’t have to do that again until next spring!

So, later that night I was heading into work and stepped into the elevator that I use every night. The doors closed, I pushed the button, but there was no familiar jolt as the elevator began its ascent. Thinking I had pushed the wrong button, I jabbed at another, and another, but still…………nothing. I hit the button to open the doors – nothing. I pushed ALL the buttons - nothing. I finally began to realize that I was stuck on the frickin elevator! I used my cell phone to call my coworkers in the office to report my predicament. Fate stepped in as right at the moment of my call, the security guard stuck his head in the office and my coworker reported the problem to him. I could hear my friends laughing maniacally in the background as I waited for salvation from the security guard. Hrmhph! I spent a magical 10 minutes or so in the elevator and finally, the elevator began to move…it stopped on the second floor and for a moment I hesitated about getting off there and using the stairs to the next floor……….NAH! I’ve gone this far, why not try to go all the way? So, the doors closed again and my heart lurched at my stupidity, but then with a jolt we headed up to the third floor where my friends cheered my safe arrival but dammit, I was two minutes late!!!! I am NEVER late for work…I wrote on my timesheet the reason for my tardiness. Hopefully my boss will understand.

Weird phone calls.....

2008-05-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

Friday started off about as weird as it could get. I was woken up from sleep with a phone call from my mother.

"I’ve been trying to reach you…I’ve got Peaches" she said.
"Whaaaat?" I said, still groggy. "Why?"
"The school called me to come get him….his eye fell out."

Ummmmm, now if that isn’t the strangest phone call a mother is ever going to get, I don’t know what is. Apparently, Peaches was scratching under his eye in class and managed to pop his prosthetic eye right out of the socket….POP! He was quite surprised as I am sure, were his classmates around him. (If this doesn’t cement my son’s status as social misfit in high school, I don’t know what will.) He apparently was able to inform the teacher of his little problem and was sent off to the nurse. She tried to reach me at home but I turn off the phone when I sleep. I do remember hearing my cell phone ringing and even roused myself to look at who was calling, but not recognizing the number, didn’t answer it. She also apparently tried to reach Stu at Lowe’s and on his cell phone but couldn’t reach either of us and so thank goodness, Grammy was home and able to pick him up. She said he was sent home with his eye in a little Dixie cup. She kept him at her place, waiting for me to get a few more hours of sleep. She kept Peaches entertained by watching a couple of movies, one of which is that terrific movie which I am sure grandmothers and their grandsons everywhere sit and watch together all the time…..Good Luck Chuck! I’m sure she didn’t have any idea what that movie was about when she got it (I guess a friend loaned it to her) but she sure got an eyeful as the movie played……Grammy, you now have no right to criticize my parental controls (or lack thereof) when picking movies appropriate for the kids! I told her she now has graduated to being able to watch the movie Superbad….by herself!

I did feel compelled to phone the school nurse and assure her that I had control of the situation with Peaches. I also wanted to ask if that was just about the strangest phone call SHE’S ever had to make in her school nursing career! "Um, yes, hello, can you come pick up your child because his eyeball just fell out…." She laughed and agreed that it was a strange one all right. Later that afternoon, after Peaches steeled himself about putting his eye back in (he is a bit queasy about the process), I washed that sucker and popped it right back into place, almost before he knew what happened. It IS about time for us to head to Pittsburgh to have it polished anyway….So, that is the story of my weird Friday.

On Saturday it was rainy and a perfect day to be lazy at home. I was cooking dinner when there was this horrific pounding on the front door. I opened the door and found my son’s friend, J standing there, smiling from ear to ear saying, "I’m here!" Well, yes you are I agreed… He said, "did you get my message? Is it all right for me to stay over tonight?" Now I hadn’t gotten any message and Peaches certainly hadn’t asked if he could have a sleepover, but I decided to roll with it and said, "sure, come on in!". This kid is one of the sweetest kids in the world and there is no way I could ever break his heart by refusing him to stay. Luckily, being absolutely flat broke at the moment, I had nowhere I had to be and so I called to Peaches that his friend was here and decided to make the best of it. Later, I checked the messages and sure enough, there was J asking if he could spend the night and wanting Peaches to call him back, which Peaches never did as he never got the message in the first place. So, having invited himself, J settled himself in for a fun night. I was in the basement later, about 9:30 when J plopped himself down on the couch next to me and asked if he could watch TV with me. I said of course, but in the back of my mind I was wondering, well, this is strange. Peaches has a friend over and I have to entertain him? So, I asked where Peaches was and J said, "oh, he’s in bed". WHAAAT???? That’s crazy….you do not have a friend sleep over, then go to bed, leaving the guest to their own devices, most notably, having to hang out with your mom. So, I surreptitiously excused myself and made my way upstairs to find out what the HELL Peaches was doing. Sure enough, I found him lying in bed! GRRRR! Get your butt out of that bed….what’s the matter with you???? You can’t gave a guest over and then just ABANDON him! I made him get dressed (he was only in his underwear….ewwww) and go find his friend and do something (J wasn’t tired yet). Finally, at a more respectable teenage bedtime of 11:00, they went off to bed. That was just weird man….

Lulabell had a fabulous weekend playing outside, even Saturday when it rained all day. She has a little friend next door who is only here on the weekends when she visits her mom. The little friend is very sweet and these two get long like two peas in a pod. She also has a little brother who I am afraid is a little left out in all the doll playing these two do, but they also jump on the trampoline and play basketball. This morning I woke up to find my water hose on the back porch all uncoiled, trailing out the back gate where they were making mud pies in the alley with my good mixing bowls, AAAAAHHHHHH! I found them more appropriate bakeware and left them to their own devices. So, it’s been busy around here and it’s already Sunday night….gonna grill up some chicken and maybe get the grass cut (the moaning you hear is the sound of my children’s enthusiasm for this chore). Got Lulabell’s birthday coming up on the 17th and another try at the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament for Peaches that same day (this time, we KNOW what time and he is taking his friend J). I’ve managed to get a day off on Monday (yay!) and will be at Lulabell’s school doing some kind of parent-kid program….then I have my dinner that evening for work to celebrate my 10 year anniversary, so it should be fun. Carry on….

Pictures, as promised!

2008-04-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

Stu and the kids cooling their heels waiting
for dinner to be over...

Edie, Misty and her new boombox!

Peaches and Edie (and Misty)

Lulabell and Edie...

The family at the entrance to Edie's place

Last trip to Canton.....

2008-04-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

My last trip to Canton started when I got up on Friday at 1 PM. Stu was getting the kids early from school so we could make the trip to Canton and get back in time for me to go to work (yay). I still needed to purchase Edie's gift and had asked Stu to take care of this for me this morning while I slept but alas, he didn't. So, off the whole family goes to Wal-Mart to get a CD boombox, some CDs and flowers and a card. My sister had sent up some money to go "halfsies" on the gift, so off we went. Fortunately, we did find quite a fetching boom box (blue) which also had a radio and cassette tape player (wow!). It was the last one on the shelf so we grabbed it and went looking for some CDs. Edie's favorite singer is Frank Sinatra so I found a double disc set of his original songs, plus a 3 disc set of all the old time singers from his era. I was rather pleased about these. We saw many people we knew at the store, including a surprise visit from MA! She wished us luck and hoped we had fun (only slightly sarcastically, I must add). We checked out and Peaches and I bought some pop for he and Lulabell to have to drink in the car on the way to Canton. He thoughtfully picked out her drink, which was something I knew she liked. Well, he and I waited until Stu and Lulabell met us in the cart return area. Peaches handed Lulabell her drink and she had a less than grateful response to him (she didn't like the drink he picked out for her). This apparently pissed off Stu (I wasn't really paying attention to the situation) to a great degree. I declined to stand there and listen to him lecture our daughter in proper gratitude etiquette so Peaches and I headed off to the car, forgetting that Stu had the keys with HIM. So Peaches and I were waiting at the car and I noticed that Lulabell was exiting the store by herself and began walking towards us. I was a little irritated that I didn't see Stu with her because I wanted to GO! However, the next moment, my ears were assaulted by the most hideous bellowing coming from the store. It took me a minute to recognize that it was coming from my husband! "LULABELL!!!!! GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW". I am telling you, this voice literally stopped people in their tracks throughout the parking lot and my heart broke when I realized it was MY FAMILY providing this spectacle. Lulabell froze in shock and turned herself around to go back into the store. I literally wanted to run to her and save her from the big bad monster in the store, but wisely stayed put. Stu and Lulabell finally exited, where she received yet another discourse on how to wait for her father when leaving a store (sigh). When they reached the car, I calmly said to Stu "I'm only going to say this once...." and proceeded to inform him how horrified I was that he had yelled like that...it was thoroughly mortifying and depressing and I felt he had lost his temper totally unnecessarily. When Stu and I were in the car discussing the situation he accused me of dropping the F-bomb but I seriously don't recall that. I may have, because when we argue I tend to curse like a sailor, which completely makes him lose his sh*t, but I can't help it. ANYWAY, we headed back home so I could get ready to go (washing hair, changing clothes, etc). We needed to get on the road by 2:30 to be in Canton by 4:00. Now, the day before, Edie and I confirmed the time we would arrive and she even said how it would be close to her dinner time and maybe we could sit with her while she ate in the dining room. This sounded good to me and I assured her were would like to do that. Oh, but, we should NOT expect to eat because we probably wouldn't like the food. This was fine and dandy with me (I had plans to take the family to a local diner for dinner anyway). So, we headed to Canton with high expectations and a movie playing on the van's DVD player (Shark Tales). In no time at all we found ourselves walking into the main door at the retirement complex and Stu immediately spies Edie as she is walking around a corner. I follow and sure enough, it's her. I catch up to her and tap her shoulder and she spins around looking shocked. She, in fact, is SO shocked that she doesn't even hug me, just says, "Oh! it's you!" I brightly confirm that it is indeed, me, and she spits out, "I'm going to dinner now!" I would like to point out that we arrived at precisely 4:10. She had told me that dinner was at 4:30. I said,” great, are we still joining you in the dining room?". She gives me a look of pure horror, as if I had just asked her to prance naked through the lobby. "NO!!" she shrieks, "there's not enough room, and besides, you probably won't like the food!" I was a little taken aback by her response, because having spoken to her just last night about this, I thought it would be okay for us to sit with her. So, backing away from me toward the diningroom, she finds her friend Ev and they hurriedly disappear into the dining room. "We'll just wait for you in the lobby...." I yelled to her as she walked away. So, the family and I spread out and find seats in the lobby and wander through the complex. The kids and I ended up in the library which is strategically placed just outside the dining room, so we can spy Edie when she exits the dining room. Fully 45 minutes later, Edie exits the dining room (I believe she was literally the last one to exit) and we stop her at the library door. She still doesn't seem all that comfortable with us being there and the whole thing is very awkward. We show her the flowers and the gift bag we brought her and she invites us back to her place. At the door to her apartment, she cautions us to "wait out here" while she checks to see what kind of a mess the dog has made. Apparently, the dog sh*ts on the carpeting when Edie leaves her. So, once again, we are waiting, waiting, waiting, and after 15 minutes, Edie gives us the "all clear" to enter the apartment. We sit her on the couch and give her the flowers and cards and she spends a few minutes looking at the cards and some pictures my sister sent of her family. I produced the "big gift" for her and prefaced it by saying how badly my sister and I felt that her neighbor (the nasty one who apparently is shagging Edie's nephew, M, we recently found out) threw out all of her music when Edie moved to the retirement home. OUTRAGE!!! Anyway, I know how much all the music meant to her so we decided to give her the CD player and some CDs for her birthday. Needless to say, we scored HUGE points with this gift, but in the overall picture, we are still losers. I set up the CD player and even used markers to color code the buttons for her (green for start, red for stop). I watched her put in a CD and start it, which she did just fine. Her man, Frank Sinatra's voice filled the room and I know she was happy at last. She really seemed to be happy with this gift and for that I am glad. While we were setting things up, Peaches kept trying to talk to Edie, but due to his quiet voice and her hearing loss, they were just never able to connect. At one point she turned to me, pointed to Peaches and asked "is he talking to me?" I finally told Peaches to just give up, which he gladly did. Lulabell was strangely silent during the visit and was not even interested in Edie's dog, which I found to be a little strange. She is usually quite outgoing, especially when it comes to animals. We took a few pictures of Edie and the boom box and the kids and then a knock on the door startled us. The nurse was there to give Edie her meds and was quite inquisitive as to our relationship with Edie. I explained who we were and she was VERY shocked to learn that Edie has family.....hmmmmmm. The nurse reminded Edie that a big musical event was happening in less than an hour and she needed to go find a seat before all the good ones were taken. So, after a good 15 minute visit, we were shown the door. We said our goodbyes, she gave us all hugs and we walked her to where she would watch the show with her friends, who were very nice and very happy to meet Edie's family... we finally left. In my mind, that was my last visit to Canton for anything but a real emergency. My heart simply cannot take the whipping it takes every time I talk to or see Edie. I KNOW she is demented and probably doesn't realize how she is coming off or saying hurtful things, but I just can't continue. I will be happy to call her now and then and keep in touch, but I really think I am done visiting. My sister has agreed that things have gone too far with Edie now and won't subject me to more brutality. Whew..... We headed to the local diner in town, Heggy's, for some outstanding burgers, fries and shakes. Happy and full, I bought some peanuts for MA, as they are her favorites and we headed home. It was a lovely evening to drive, weather-wise and we got home about 8:20. I was able to relax for about 40 minutes before I had to get ready to go to work. So, that is the story of my last ever visit to Canton.... Pictures will be up later!

Freedom!

2008-04-22T06:00:00.001-07:00

Peaches had a big day yesterday...he FINALLY got his braces off! After 3 1/2 years no less. His teeth are perfect and beautiful and he couldn't stop smiling yesterday...which is quite something for him I must say. He even decided he needed a haircut, all on his own, which we accomodated. We also got his scruffy beard and sideburns shaved off, which is a big improvement! He will need to wear a clear retainer for about a year I guess, but that's nothin.....

It's a beautiful morning here, primary day in Pennsylvania. I won't be voting because I am a republican but if I could, I think I would be voting for Hillary. Bill Clinton was actually here in Hermitage on Saturday stumping for his wife but I didn't get to see him. I hope Hillary wins here today because if not the news pundits are predicting she would drop out of the race, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her.

I'm having some issues with my job recently, got a less than stellar review at work that has depressed me beyond belief. My enthusiasm for my job all of a sudden is in the toilet and that worries me. I've always felt that I was good at what I do and objectively I still think that but subjectively I have doubts. I have been at the hospital for 10 years now and maybe it's just some sort of job fatigue that I hope I can pull out of. I certainly hope things turn around at work. I know I am not the only one feeling this way. Morale has been kinda low for a while now and I'm not sure how that can be fixed. Think good thoughts!

My grandmother's 90th birthday is this Saturday and I will be seeing her, if she consents to see me that is. I have been trying to call for several days but she is not answering...sometimes I get the feeling that she knows its me calling and just doesn't answer! I know that can't be (no caller ID) but this feeling just won't go away. I am bringing the family and I have fears that if she knows we are all there she won't open the door, so I am going to park everybody in the lobby and see if I can entice her to come out and see everyone. My sis and I are buying her a small CD boom box and some Frank Sinatra CDs so she can enjoy her music again because all of her music was lost when she moved into the new place. She seemed to really enjoy my Ipod when I saw her last and if there was an easy way to get one for her I would but I think she may have trouble working it. Wish me luck!

The kids are getting antsy about school as there are only about 30 days left. We don't have any big plans for the summer but are hoping to steal a weekend or two up at the lake or perhaps our friends will lend us their cabin in Cooks' Forest again since we had such a good time there....

M.A. decided to resign from her post as president of her bowling league, after 18 years! I think its about time and she does too, but I know she enjoyed it while it lasted. Still, 18 years of organizing and worrying is enough and I think she should just enjoy bowling and not have the worries, don't you? Golf is starting up now for her and the weather just couldn't be nicer. It'll be about time to open the trailer at the lake in a few weeks...now summer is really on the way. Hope everyone out there is healthy and I'll return soon, I hope!

Spring is here!

2008-04-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my...the time is flying right past us, you know? Spring has finally arrived here in western PA and there are only something like 40 days of school which is just crazy! The cats are really pestering us to get out now but that's not gonna happen as they haven't been fixed yet...maybe soon though. Peaches got good news about his braces....they are FINALLY coming off on 4/21/08 WOOOHOOO! It's been like 3 1/2 years for these suckers. He will have to wear a retainer for quite some time but what a relief!

Lulabell has been birthday partying like a madwoman recently, three in the last three weeks, which of course means we have to come up with money for birthday presents every weekend! Her birthday is coming up in May so maybe she'll get some payback, huh?

Congrats to Stu and I for celebrating our respective ten year anniversaries at our jobs this past week...seems like yesterday we just started there. Stu was presented with a lovely Relic watch and a pin and I will get some money, I believe, when the hospital has its annual dinner this summer. Not too shabby. Long range plans include another ten years and then its off to greener pastures for us! We hope....

Nothing too significant has happened recently, just work, work, work, school, school, school. Hope everyone reading this finds themselves feeling well. Back soon....

Free firewood...

2008-03-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

It was a particularly bleak day in our household today. My beloved pine tree in front of the house is now nothing but stumps of firewood. The power company finished destroying this dear friend today. I know intellectually that the tree had to go but still, every chainsaw rip was like a dagger through my heart, not to mention the fact that trying to sleep with three chainsaws going right outside your window is not fun. The house looks SO bare now...driving down the street and seeing just the house...well, it's just so foreign. I don't like the house so much now, you know? That tree protected and shaded our house and provided some lovely privacy to the front porch. Now we are bare and exposed and it feels gross. It is also now blaringly obvious that we need to fix our gutter on the porch...ugh! I have a headache...

We also lost our dear friend, Jeffrey, the fish I was trying to help by cleaning his aquarium. Jeffrey apparently liked the polluted water he was living in as he expired last night in his nice, clear, clean water. I suppose the shock of it was what put him over the edge...the shock of actually seeing outside the aquarium I mean! Lulabell and I had a quick funeral for him before we dumped him into the toilet. We flushed and Jeffrey swirled.......and came back! I had a moment's pause about fishing him out, thinking he was too big to go down, but reasoned that plenty of bigger loads have gone down, if you know what I mean! I don't want to get too graphic here, but plunging the toilet is a daily occurrence for SOME of us (not me of course!). So, after an extra flush, Jeffrey stayed gone and we went about our business. I do feel some relief that he is gone and the awful, icky aquarium is gone. There was definitely some new kind of gross fungus growing in that thing..which we decided to pitch the whole thing. We are now fish free for the first time in several years and it is a bit of a relief.

Peaches returned from his overnight school trip today a little subdued. I had feared that things may not go well because none of his close buddies went and we all could use a little help from our friends at times, but he says everything was fine and that he did have fun, so I'm not pushing for details, but my feeling is that he is glad he is home now, especially since it is Easter break and he doesn't have to go back to school till Tuesday! YAY!

Whew, yesterday was a weird day also because after getting up around 1 or so I felt dizzy and kinda drunk. I called my mom to chat and even she noticed that I was slurring my words...I thought my blood sugar may have been low but it was fine. I was able to rouse myself and type a little but then had to take a 2 hour nap immediately afterwards. This wasn't like me at all...I couldn't figure it out. Even after my nap I didn't feel so hot and had no energy...what is wrong? I thought. I recently had blood tests done which showed that I basically have no thyroid left, which would explain all my icky symptoms like weight gain, hair loss, tingling in my hands and such. My doc put me on Synthroid and I have been feeling better with this, but jeez, yesterday was just a mystery to me. Then, I remembered that when I went to bed that morning I had taken a Nyquil capsule because I felt a stuffy nose coming on. That was it! I wasn't having a stroke or some strange metabolic problem, the damned Nyquil had drugged me and it took a whole day to get over the effects. Never again, I'll tell you, that stuff is crazy! Today I woke up to the damned chainsaws and even though my heart was heavy, at least my brain was working right. My new midnight shift seems to be working all right...I definitely like being home in the evening and seeing the kids and relaxing with them. It will be nice in the summer as I love summer evenings in the back yard....It's basically what I live for....I appreciate that my boss is flexible with me. It is of note that on 4/6/08 I will be celebrating 10 years working at the hospital, quite a milestone for me. It is the longest I have worked anywhere and I still enjoy it. They are talking about sending us home to type at some point and I hope that I will be chosen to do this...they're not saying much at this point however so keep your fingers crossed!

A visit to grandma's house

2008-03-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

This is grandma Edie at the aviary
in her apartment complex.

The lobby of the apartment complex

Edie in her kitchen

Well, I finally made it to Canton on three hours of sleep in the wet, cold rain. I had been planning on seeing my grandma for some time and (finally!) made it on Friday. Usually I make plans to see her but then she calls or writes me a letter (!) to tell me not to come as she had better things to do (like get her dog groomed or her hair done). But, since no phone call or letter came, I sensed a visit was coming. The day before I gave her a quick call:

Me: Hi Edie! It's me...
EDIE: Yeah....?
Me: Uh, just making sure you're still expecting me.....
EDIE: ARE YOU HERE NOW?????!!!!!
Me: Um, no....I'm coming tomorrow, remember?
EDIE: Oh, yeah, right...what time?
Me: About noon, is that still good for you?
EDIE: I guess.....

So, with that warm welcome, I set off for Canton. I truly only had about 3 hours of sleep having gotten home from work at 3 AM and getting up at 6:30 to get the kids moving for school. However, I made it in good time and had no trouble finding the place. It really is very plush and comfortable and I made my way to her apartment. I knocked and she opened the door and immediately announced that she wasn't going to lunch......um okay....I told her I thought we were going to eat in the dining room here and she said "NO!" in such a way that I was a little taken aback, but not too surprised frankly. She told me she would give me money so that I could go out to eat, but that she wasn't going, but maybe I could bring her back a hamburger from Heggys? Fine...we settled down and she showed me her place which was really very nice. We sat talking for awhile and my phone rang...it was my mother, who at that moment was minutes outside of Canton on her way home from Florida! She suggested coming into town and meeting me at Heggy's for lunch, which really worked out rather well, you know? So I let Edie know my plans with mom and her response was "well, don't bring her back HERE!" Now, I know this sounds harsh, but my grandmother is nearly 90 and you KNOW her mind isn't always right. She offered no further explanation for the banning of my mother so I just dropped it. We continued our visit with a tour of the whole facility and I was rather pleased with it. We met her friend, E across the hall who is in her upper 90s and weighs about 92 pounds. She was VERY excited to hear I was going to Heggy's for lunch and wanted a hamburger too. So, I headed off to the restaurant where my mother and I had a perfectly lovely lunch with two hamburgers to go for the ladies. I drove back to Edie's and delivered the lunch to E who was laying on the couch. She directed me to put the lunch on the counter as she didn't feel like eating. Edie later confided that E never eats and she didn't know why she had ordered a hamburger. Besides, she has having her "nerves" at the moment and the doctor and her son were on their way. Well E looked just fine to me, but I let it go. Edie proceeded to gobble up her hamburger so fast that she choked 3-4 times and I actually had a moment where I was considering the Heimlich maneuver on her. However, she happily kept eating and sharing her meal with her little dog, Misty. So the visit continued. I got out my Ipod and played her some Frank Sinatra music as apparently all of her music was gone. I was a little stunned by this as she had quite a big collection of music, plus a boom box that we had bought her to play it on. All gone she said, courtesy of her neighbor who apparently tossed everything when she was moving here...(BITCH!) This is the same neighbor who, when we were frantically trying to locate my grandmother after she had been hospitalized, told my sister that we were NOT Edie's family and therefore she was not going to tell us where our grandmother was...(NOTE: Don't EVER tell my sister that she is not part of her own family....NOT a good idea). So, I think Edie enjoyed our visit and the music and I am hoping to maybe get her a new boom box and some CDs for her birthday in April. All in all, a good day, I'm glad I visited. Edie looked so old though (she is) and small. She always used to be taller than I was but now I TOWER over her and I am no giant (5'3" in my tall shoes). She seems relatively happy in her new place and I am glad she is there because the thought of her tottering up and down her steps at her house was terrifying to me. The house and its contents were sold at an auction a week ago, so my whole family's heritage is gone I guess...even my china, which she had promised to me for years (I even have about half the set), but she had apparently sold it to a friend some years ago! ARRGGHHH My sister got HER china, but I'm screwed I guess....sigh. If you know anyone who would like a half set of Wedgewood china, let me know....

All kinds of this and that....

2008-03-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

Elephants!

Peaches at the circus!

Oh my, so much to report...sorry for the delay in posting...you know I go hot on cold on this blog...sometimes I post everyday for a week, then nothing for two or three weeks. Busy, Busy, Busy.....Let's see. Today my kitten came up for breakfast and I picked her up to give her a loving hug and nearly puked....she smelled SO BAD that I had to immediately strip off my shirt and wash my hands and face and STILL the smell clung to me. Now what she got into to make her smell so bad, I don't know. The worrisome thing isn't that she smelled so bad, the worrisome thing is WHAT THE HELL is in my house that is SO STINKY? I mean, just a cursory walk through the basement did not reveal anything. The litter box was fresh and sweet (well relatively, having just been emptied the previous evening). The only thing I could liken this smell to was something that had died many days (weeks) ago, and I can assure you, there is nothing dead in my basement....so, the hunt continues. Needless to say, little Miss Cookie promptly received a good bath and was a relatively good sport about it too.Her mother, Tinker was anxiously peering up trying to figure out why her baby was crying, but pretty much kept her distance. The Cookie finallystopped yelling and settled down to receive her bath. Let's hope tomorrow morning does not present another stinky kitty.

Last Saturday we had the chance to visit the circus in Youngstown, the honest-to-God real circus...Ringling Brothers....not some two bit circus in the boonies, which we have been to before. No, this was the real deal and what a swell time we had too! We had pretty good seats right down front, although we certainly were not in the center ring region of seats, more like the FAR right ring region...where they do all the lights and things. But, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, even though their prices there are OUTRAGEOUS! For a tray of plain nachos (just cheese and chips), a soft pretzel and two 16 ounce Diet Pepsis I paid 14.75!!! I grumbled but paid up. As I was walking away with my food, the woman behind the counter called me back...curious, I returned and was told that I owed them another $3.25!!!WHAT!!! YOU made a mistake and you want ME to pay you more money????Yeppers...so what did I do you ask? Well, like a fool, I gave them more money. I told her that I didn't HAVE to since it was THEIR mistake, but what am I gonna do? I'm an honest person and I just paid it, although it burned my hide a little and when I got back to my seat I was frothing about my idiocy....later, Lulabell, who had brought all her money ($6.00), decidedshe had a hankering for some cotton candy. What they heck...we're at thecircus, let the kid have some cotton candy, right? So, I let Lulabell walk to the cotton candy place, which was just down the steps from our seats and made sure she knew our section number and seat numbers (she did). Five minutes later she comes back huffing and puffing and complaining (loudly)that she didn't have enough money....well, how much money could some cotton candy cost? Are you ready? $12 freaking dollars! (which is just howLulabell said it to me!) Now this was not some HUGE bag of cotton candy mindyou, it was just regular size, about 10 inches high....what a gyp! The next day at Wal-Mart I saw a can of cotton candy, about the same amount, selling for 2 for $1!!!! COME ON!!!! (I bought that one for her). No info so far on the canceled concert for Lulabell...we are REALLY hoping they do reschedule this...what a letdown....
/
Okay, for you TV watchers...here are my thoughts on Lost: The episode with Desmond and Penny just ripped my heart out....I cried buckets at that last seen with them on the phone. I think he is relatively safe now from dying from the time travel now that he has his "constant". I think the Oceanic 6 are (Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Sun and Aaron). These are the only people wehave seen in the future. Here is a theory: what if these people were allowed to leave the island but their "partners" had to remain on the island so that they would "keep quiet" about the island (Juliette for Jack, Sawyerfor Kate, Claire for Aaron and Jin for Sun). The holes in this theory are who are the people for Hurley and Sayid? Do I REALLY think Claire would allow Kate to take her baby if there was not something drastically wrongwith her? NOOOOOOO. Another theory: The Michael we saw on the boat is really...wait for it.... a grown up Walt!!!! Think about THAT!

American Idol - okay....I started off the show really liking David Archuleta and David Hernandez and Michael Johns. I had no real feelings for any of the girls except Amanda kind of intrigued me. My faves now? At the moment JasonCastro, Carly Smithson, David Cook, Brooke and Chikeze...go figure. Although everyone is talking about Jason's "Hallelujah" song and referring you to hear Jeff Buckley's version, my own fave is Rufus Wainwright (theversion you hear in the Shrek movie). Also, kd Lang does a bang up job on this song...but be warned, when you hear it you may cry. Stu and I saw the Academy Award-Winning movie No Country For Old Men. Myquestion is...what is the big f'ng deal about this movie? I HATED IT! It has no purpose. It is violent and boring. The main character dies and at that moment, the movie just dies and I don't care what happens to the other people. I do LOVE Tommy Lee Jones generally and he did an interesting job with his character, but he lost me towards the end. I think people who like this movie must be smoking some kind of crack because I DON'T GET IT!!!! I apologize if you liked this movie but could you explain to me how this won Picture of the Year? Thanks.

&#&@(@_#!~SNOW!

2008-03-08T15:31:00.001-08:00

Do you remember how, a few months ago, I was SO excited about it snowing?...well, I'm SO over that now. In fact, snow has screwed up things here royally, so much so that Lulabell's concert was cancelled!!!!NO!!!! We have worked so hard! They all went down to Pittsburgh from school yesterday morning, practiced with the whole group all day and then we were to join her for the concert at 7:30 that evening. However, the weather decided NOT to cooperate, we got the biggest snowstorm of the year and they cancelled the concert by about 3PM. Lulabell got home around 5:00, VERY DISAPPOINTED, as you can imagine. Of course, the hope is that it will be rescheduled...More later.

Welcome to the family!

2008-03-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

This little sweetheart is the newest addition to our family (no, he's not mine...). Stu's sister FINALLY had her baby, a boy (JD), arriving a week late and weighing in at 9 pounds, 9 ounces. We are very blessed and thrilled to have a new little nephew to enjoy, one who has three older sisters (YIKES!). God willing we will see him and his family soon. Welcome JD!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEACHES!

2008-03-03T10:48:00.001-08:00

Well, the day has finally arrived, my son's 16th birthday..GAH! This is a bit of a milestone, don't you think? We just had another milestone, on 3/1/08 we had our 10 year anniversary of arriving in Pennsylvania after a week long car trip with a 9 month old baby, an almost six year old boy, 1 dog and 3 cats. Remind me to tell you about THAT trip someday! But, suffice it to say we arrived safely and began our life here in PA. It's been terrific so far, albeit with a few bumps in the road here and there but we are presently happy and healthy, and that's all that matters, isn't it? We all went out to dinner to Peaches's favorite restaurant last night (Jalisco) and had a lovely time with D&C as well. Then we went home and had cake and I forgot my leftovers at the restaurant! However, my wonderful hubby graciously went back to the restaurant to get them for me! Thanks Stu! So, all in all a low key birthday for my son, but a nice one spent with loved ones. I will be taking him out to lunch later this week as it is kind of a tradition to do that and one the kids look forward to. Happy birthday honey...I love you very much!

It's a big week for Lulabell as on Friday is our concert that she has been getting ready for. We have our outfit all picked out and it's getting exciting....oh, did I tell you that the other boy from Lulabell's school who is going is actually the one she has a HUGE crush on? Saturday I had to go to Wal-Mart for some things and Lulabell decided to go and spent a VERY LONG time getting all spruced up to go...which is strange because it's just Wal-Mart for God's sakes. Here is a picture of the finished product:

Doesn't she look nice? Well we messed around in the store, took our time, looked at stuff and then headed for the checkout. As we settled in line, didn't Lulabell catch her breath and start tugging at my coat, pointing to the people in front of us. What did my eyes behold? The CRUSH!!!! Lulabell whispered fiercely to me, "Mom! There he is! This is why I got all dressed up, in case I saw him!!!!"OMG, why it's fate, isn't it? Did we have to go to Wal-Mart? Hang out? Get in the SAME EXACT LINE????? I'm sure it was fate. So, I introduced myself to the CRUSH's father, who was very nice and asked him some things about the concert and made small talk. Lulabell and the CRUSH were all shy and such but it was so cute because they BOTH BLUSHED! Then, HE said goodbye first, giving Lulabell heart palpitations and fodder for daydreaming for the rest of the day...ain't love grand?

Britain's Got Talent Connie Talbot Conny

2008-02-27T09:53:00.001-08:00

This sweetie totally made me cry..listen and see if you do too.

Let it snow...c'mon on baby!

2008-02-26T09:48:00.001-08:00

This is the view from my bathroom window...the snow has been coming pretty much all night, except this morning it was rain, so you can imagine how heavy the snow is right now! We had a 2 hour delay this morning (YAY - sleep!!!!) but it's kind of stupid because the kids have a short day and so will only attend school for 3 hours today. Kinda wrecks my nap schedule, you know? Just kidding, I RARELY have time for a nap anymore. I'm typing my fingers to the bone as the doctors I work for have been dictating a ton recently and I'm hitting a wall. I have serious carpal tunnel symptoms right now (my hands are asleep almost constantly) and I'm a little worried. I am going to try to get some wrist braces to wear at night but as I only sleep 5 hours a night, I'm not sure how much this will help! Hah - I just noticed how many times in this small paragraph I referenced sleep....I must be on to something here! More later....

Painting sickness.....

2008-02-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

Killerbee paints! Yeah!

G taking a break....

Good job K!

Today I went over to help a friend, K, paint her new house! WooHoo! It's her first house and it is very nice and cozy. We were painting her dining and living rooms, plus a room that she will use for her office and the bedrooms. I went over for several hours and contributed to the living and dining rooms but then had to scoot home because of my typing demands....SOB! I actually kind of like to paint. We did a pretty good job and K supplied pizza...then Stu stopped by to try to light the pilot on the water heater but alas, was not able to. I told K to call the gas company and tell them she smells gas and they GOTTA come out and help! She was going to see if her neighbor could stop by later...

Lulabell has been good and sick all week. She stayed home from school all week, much to Peaches' incredulous disbelief (she's gonna stay home AGAIN?!?!?). However, she was legitimately sick with the flu, vomiting, fever, bad cough, headache, aches and pains. Thankfully, she seems to be over the worst of it now and nobody else has caught it (Thank God!) She has been monumentally bored however and actually REQUESTED to return to school but mom had to turn her down. She should be good to go on Monday (let's hope!) We are desperately trying to learn all her songs for her songfest which is in two weeks! There are like seven of them so this has been a little overwhelming but we are making progress. Not much else to report except we got a lovely snowstorm Thursday evening with about 5 inches of snow, making everything all pretty again. Now (Saturday), it's all getting slushy mushy again...ugh! Trying out a new recipe for dinner. I had these chicken wings, made a batter out of mild, egg, flour and salt, dipped the chicken in that, then dipped it again in crushed cornflakes....so, it smells good so far and I will let you know how they are next time. Have a good week!

Monday, blahs...

2008-02-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

It's Monday...again! Thankfully, it is a holiday so no school! That meant I didn't have to get up early, which is always a boon. It was actually very warm here yesterday, about 60 degrees, and the snow has all thankfully melted, but now winter is back and we will have snow showers today...oh goody. My sister-in-law in California is about ready to burst with her fourth child, the first boy! We are anxiously awaiting the new arrival to our family...keep good thoughts for her, will ya?

Lulabell is still sick, spending all her time on the couch, much to Peaches's chagrin. Don't worry though, he is keeping himself busy with other activities, like singing along to the computer. We actually videotaped him doing this yesterday, to a very bizarre song. I won't post it though because it is really rather embarrassing! I TOLD him that I posted it on Youtube and he totally flipped out...something to hold over his head though, huh?

Last night I was messing around with my network here at home and I apparently am still a computer genius! We bought a wireless printer last year and I could never get the damn thing working. You know, like working on the laptop downstairs and having it print stuff wirelessly to the printer upstairs? Well, now it works! Also, somehow I have the two desktop computers upstairs able to communicate and I can print on both printers upstairs from either computer...not too shabby, huh? I don't want to toot my own horn, but TOOOOOOT! Be sure to watch Ellen on Tuesday as my boy, Josiah Leming will be on...this from the horse's mouth as I am on his friend's list on myspace now! Do well young man! I guess that's all I have now...check back soon!

Good bye tree

2008-02-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

Well, got some news from the power company….they want to cut down my pine tree in front of the house….which I am just sick about frankly. First, because I HATE TO CUT DOWN TREES! Second, because that tree really gives us privacy in the front and protects the house from harsh winds and sun. However, I do know that a very large branch fell from that tree during a recent windstorm and it could easily have hit the house and damaged it. About half the branches are dead and I KNOW that the tree has to go but still…..it will leave a HUGE gap in the front and I will sorely miss it. I won’t miss the pine needle mess and the sappy goo though, so I guess, before something horrible happens like the tree falls onto our house or the neighbor’s house, it should go. And, the good news is, they will do it for free…which is good, plus we apparently will have lots of pine fire wood to burn in our fire pit this summer….know anyone who could use some firewood? I guess they are planning on doing this in a month or so….sigh…

Lulabell isn’t feeling up to snuff these days, headachy, stomach achy, body achy and mean as a hornet! Naw…I know when you don’t feel well you don’t even try to be nice (I do!), so I’ll give her a break. Hope it’s not the damn flu though…thankfully I get a flu shot every year but noone else does. We are in the ugly part of winter in these parts, with snow on the ground but it’s an ugly snow, gray and icky with potholes everywhere. Driving up our street is like driving down a giant slalom ski race, zig-zagging the whole way but still you have to hit at least one bone-jarring hole each trip, don’t you? You know the one where you think you’ve lost jarred something loose inside ….(Hey, is that my ovary rolling around over there?). Some guy lost his muffler the other day right in front of Stu who was driving home. C’mon city people, lets get out there and fill those suckers!

Josiah Leming - One Last Song

2008-02-14T07:12:00.001-08:00

This boy was absolutely robbed on American Idol last night. I post this beautiful song to remember a true talent and hope I get to hear him on the radio some day.

And the judges say.....

2008-02-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

Now that Lost is back on (squeee!) I have added a little something extra to my sidebar for my Lost buddies...check it out!

The other day I was trying to get dressed for work. My son was at the computer, my hubby was laying on the bed, a dog was beneath my feet, three laundry baskets were placed on the floor and a cat or two were weaving themselves in and out between my legs. I was pulling off my sweat pants when, I don't know what, but my foot got caught in my pants and I started to tip over. I had enough presence of mind to spin myself towards the bed, away from the laundry baskets, kid, dog and cats and launched myself towards my napping hubby. My head connected with his elbow and I went down (phoommph!). My husband yowled indignantly (What's going on?????) and my son was collapsing in laughter because he happened to catch the entire performance....nice, huh? I know I must have scored a 10 on that one!

Oh and if that wasn't enough, the other day I was cooking and my daughter decided to play a trick on me, something very silly, and I was so startled that my hand jerked and hit the upper burner (broiler) in the stove for a half millisecond. Here is the result of that three days later:

Dayummmmmm.....

2008-02-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

I do try to keep my blog G-rated but for some reason I just can't tear my eyes away from him....Enjoy!

A miraculous week...

2008-02-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

And how was your week? We had kind of a miraculous week and I will tell you why. First, on Superbowl Sunday we did win the first quarter of Stu’s football pool and while it wasn’t that much, still, it was a victory! Then, I had kind a miracle happen on Tuesday when I unknowingly lost something very important for work. It apparently slipped out of a packet I was carrying into the house. As I was leaving for work later than day I had to put something in the backseat of the van and so instead of walking right to the driver’s seat as I usually do, I stopped to open the back door and looked down and saw it! I nearly had a heart attack! What is THAT doing on the ground, I wondered???? I couldn’t believe it but my heart froze as I thought of the possible ramifications had I lost that…it truly may have meant my losing my job. But for some reason, God or some good karma or SOMETHING led me to that. I was grateful of course and still can’t believe my luck that I found that. THEN, the other thing that happened was REALLY weird! I have mentioned before that Stu and Lulabell have an unnatural love for stuffed animals (well, it’s not unnatural for a little girl but kind of weird for a grown man, you know what I mean?) They have this puppy that they adore and share it between them, one sleeping with it one night, then the other person will sleep with it (which means I have to sleep with it!). So, bottom line is, they LOVE this puppy. Stu sometimes takes it in the car with them just to be silly. Well, one day last week the puppy could not be found…I mean they tore this house up looking for that puppy…..nothing. Both Stu and Lu were desolated, I have to say. Well, on Wednesday while taking Lu to school on a particularly cold, nasty, wintry morning, Stu pulled up in front of the school and Lu got out. While doing so she happened to look down and VOILA! There was the puppy in the gutter, all dirty and wet and run over…..it was a MIRACLE! This was like a week after they had lost the puppy and all of a sudden, THERE IT IS! In the gutter…just waiting for Lu to find it! It kinda breaks your heart, doesn’t it? To think of that puppy lying in the cold, wet street all this time? Well, it broke my heart and I don’t even like the damn thing! Stu and Lu were rapturous at finding their puppy and Stu immediately came home to throw him in the washing machine. Two hours later, the puppy was good as new, dry and clean. So, those were our weekly miracles and I sure hope we didn’t use up a whole year’s worth of luck in just a week!
Lulabell got accepted into a very good after school program which starts on Monday and it means that I probably won’t ever get to see her again. She basically won’t get home from this program (by bus) until 6 PM and of course I leave for work at 5:45, sooooo…….I won’t be seeing her except for a few minutes every morning (when I am generally very drowsy as I had only gotten to bed at 3:30!) and on the weekends. Hrrrmmmphhhh….But, as I said this is a wonderful program and Lu’s friends are in it too so not only does it have educational benefits, there are many social benefits as well. Peaches is ecstatic to realize that he won’t have to compete with anybody for the computer or TV after school….SWEEEEET!

My daughter is turning into a cyber slut! What I mean is….she has an online club that she is part of called Club Penguin. It is actually very nice for kids and it is private (you have to pay to be in it) and you are a penguin that lives in this community. You have a house and clothes and friends and places to go and to do all this you have to work and earn coins…which I think is kinda neat. Lulabell is a very good worker and has a LOVELY home with lots of clothes and furniture. However, I caught her the other day trolling for boy penguins. She would sidle her penguin up to an obviously boy penguin and ask him if he wanted to come back to her place!!!! If he acquiesced, she would endeavor to keep him there as her "boy hostage" and say sweet things to him (do you like me?). I was astonished and quickly informed her that I was not paying for her to find boyfriends in this club, you know? However, she was undeterred and continued to look for likely boy penguins. I thought it was funny that apparently the boys have figured her out because while they promise to go to her house with her, she goes there to wait and they never show up! HAH! She’s being stood up! This makes Lu VERY MAD and she has to go out and find ANOTHER prospect. Sigh…..

Lazy Superbowl Sunday......

2008-02-03T16:16:00.000-08:00

Well, how has your week been? It's Superbowl Sunday and we are all sitting at home watching the game. I must say that Jordin Sparks rocked the national anthem. She looked and sounded, well, super! We have been enjoying the commercials, especially Pepsi Maxx with Chris Kattan and the head-banging....oh and the Budweiser horsey, Hank/Rocky. Plus, we think Stu has won his football pool for the first quarter score! WooHoo! We have been eating hors d'ourves (spelling?) for dinner, pigs in the blanket, kielbasa and I made strata for breakfast this morning which we just finished off. Ohh, I forgot, my show Lost finally returned, after like nine months. Still as confusing as ever but I do love this show! Can't think of anything else to report so that's all for now...

Our daughter, the star....

2008-01-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

We are very proud of Lulabell who was recently chosen to represent the school district in a singing festival that will be held near Pittsburgh on March 7th! Here is the actual note from the music teacher:

Dear Parent:

I have selected your child to be part of the fifth grade Spring 2008 District 5 Songfest to be held this year at R****** High School on Friday March 7. Many fifth graders auditioned for me, however, eight students stood out from all the rest. These students are excellent vocalists as well as outstanding students in music class. I will be proud to have your child with me representing S*** Elementary School.

Well, as you can imagine, we are thrilled that our daughter's talents have been recognized at last! (I'm only half-joking here). This is quite an honor and I already have arranged to take the day off so we can attend the concert which is about an hour away. They will be making a CD of the concert and everything so this is a big deal here.

Birthday food and shopping!

2008-01-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

Well I had a very nice birthday on Friday. I arranged to only work four hours which was sweet! I had a lunch date with a friend whose birthday is also in January and Stu decided he wanted to come to, which he did. We had a lunch buffet at a favorite restaurant of ours in town but apparently they were having an off day. When I asked the waiter if I could have crackers to go with my soup, I was told “no, sorry”. No explanation. Well, this seemed kind of odd to my dining partners and I. What, were there no crackers because this was a buffet and they don’t put out crackers on a buffet? Were there no crackers anywhere in the restaurant? What? So when he passed by again we asked and in fact, they ran out of crackers A WEEK AGO and still didn’t get any crackers in. Now COME ONE….there have to be crackers somewhere…if it was my restaurant, I would have called my food service people and demanded crackers RIGHT NOW dammit! A week? That’s just nuts…..Plus, I thought the lunch buffet was $5.99 and sometime between now and two months ago when we last had the lunch buffet, it has gone up to $7.99! The food wasn’t all that great either. Sigh, cross another one off my list, I guess.

Then we went over the Goodwill because it was “half off Friday” and I ALWAYS try to go there on those days (last Friday of the month). If you are willing to dig, you can find some really nice things. I always find things for Lulabell, not so much for Peaches though because men are notoriously hard on their clothes. Women are more likely to give clothes to Goodwill because they are tired of them or they are out of style. Men given their clothes to Goodwill because they have worn the crap out of them and must retire them, or they have outgrown them (after wearing the crap out of them). So, the men’s clothes aren’t usually in such great shape, especially T-shirts, which is what Peaches wants. So, we had some luck and I even found myself one or two things. Then Stu went to work for a few hours and I went home and laid on the couch to watch a movie. My friend lent me The Lords of Dogtown because Health Ledger is in it. It was not one of his better movies, I must say (I LOVED him in the Patriot), but I was really saddened by his death this week and I wanted to see him in a movie. I feel just terrible that he is no longer with us, what a sad, sad thing. I must confess, I hope they release the Batman movie he is in because now I really want to see it. I also really want to see Rambo as it has gotten sensational reviews on IMDB (reviews by regular people, not by paid reviewers). My birthday continued with the kids, Stu and I going to ANOTHER restaurant for dinner, ANOTHER buffet. However, this buffet is ALWAYS pretty good and it was absolutely packed. We found a table at the back and dug right in. My faves are potstickers and butter shrimp with a little fried rice. They even had (gag) frog’s legs which nobody wanted to try, not even Stu. I asked our little Chinese waitress if she could please refresh my diet soda and she said “you wait” really harshly. I was a little taken aback, but tried not to let it get to me. She was cleaning the table next to us. Finally she took my glass and refilled it. Then, as we were leaving, we had the check and were standing up to put on our coats when the waitress came running over exclaiming, “I take check…you sit down”, again in a really forceful, mean kind of way. Stu said something like, “no, that’s okay, we can do it”. She says “NO!, I take….you sit down”. Okay, then, geez….we were kinda shocked by her tone, but Stu explained that these waiters and waitresses were always in a bad mood on account of how they are brought here from China and then forced to work to pay off their debt. Well, now I know why….thanks Stu!

Today Lulabell and I decided to hit Goodwill up one last time for 50% off Saturday! We found a few more things for us and then hit the local discount grocery store for some groceries. I don’t usually buy my meat, veggies or fruits at this store, but do buy my staples and a few treats here and there, plus they have THE BEST kettle potato chips. So, we were standing in line and all of a sudden, Lulabell’s doctor is standing behind us! It was a bit of a shock to see him as this IS a discount grocery store and he IS a doctor, but they had just stopped in for a few snacks to take on their bus trip to a casino! We let them get in front of us, for which they were very grateful. As I was placing my items on the belt, I realized that most of what I had on the belt was kind of junk food and now when we go to see the doctor and he asks what kind of food I am feeding my kids, he will KNOW!!!!! Not that I don’t feed my kids good food…..I do….but I also like my chips and Reese’s cups….sigh.