nonna's nonsense

hellooo out there

2009-02-18T12:53:00.005-06:00

hello...

is there anybody out there...ere....re (echo dontcha know)

class.

anyone, anyone. (ferris bueller dontcha know)

well, if there's anybody out here still lurking and waiting for me to post, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE.

i'm over here at wordpress: http://nonnasnonsense.wordpress.com/

hope to see you soon!

i guess i'm gonna be in 2 places at once

2009-02-05T13:43:00.003-06:00

since i can't get some things like "followers" and i totally need the reassurance that ppl like me and are reading me, i'm gonna just keep this blog active, so new peeps can still click on that wonderful follow me button. i will provide the links to my "new sites" on this blog and hope that you will all follow me over there.

nonnasnonsense @ wordpress and my hopefully beautiful to you, too, nonnasnapshots site

i moved!!!

2009-02-03T14:47:00.003-06:00

I'VE MOVED!!!
I HAVE NONNASNONSENSE
and NONNASNAPSHOTS

now i still have the girl with books over here on blogger since it isn't "mine" i don't know what to do with it.

also, i'm still figuring out archives and blogrolls and all that wonderful stuff. could really use some help on where i find the "edit layout" type things and "edit font, colors" or if i'm stuck with the colors of the theme select.

ready for wordpress help now Mr.Lady :)

super clean saturday

2009-01-30T23:56:00.005-06:00

Yea!! I did it and all by myself too! I removed one of the shelves on the left, which let me hang the coats there and still have room underneath for our shoe box. notice I left hubby’s boots on TOP of the shoe box knowing that he will never put them in and out everyday buy hey, at least they are close to where they are supposed to be and out of sight. I have easy access to my toolbox and ahhemmm my roller blades should I ever convince myself they will do more good than damage should I dust them off and head to the roller rink.

on the top half of the closet we have a game section, a shelf where I can actually lay out my pool cues flat to prevent warping, a box containing various dog grooming items that I probably won’t use, but you just never know. oh, and there is a pump to pump up my airless mattress that went to mattress heaven. it had a little hole in it and so industrious me decided to patch it with the kit that CAME WITH IT. Well I patched it and it looked good so I aired it up. Then POOF! A big ass whole on the other side of where I patched it appeared. Seems like their glue works really good at soaking down through both sides! I digress, so the Wally-world bag is filled with winter necessities such as gloves, toboggans, and scarves. I need something prettier to store that crap in, but I have no idea what to use. What do y’all Yankees do with all that junk?

you should see the pile of crap hubby has to haul off to the dump! hey are you supposed to recycle vcr tapes? My stupid chamber of commerce can’t even tell me what to do with my LCD computer monitor that died! I feel bad about just hauling this stuff to the dump, but I am totally not letting it sit around here after all that work I spent cleaning the house up!

friday freaking gross fragments...i warned ya!

2009-01-30T18:47:00.006-06:00

Brought to you by none other than Mrs. 4444

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probably gonna be pretty short cuz i'm hungry and we are headed out to The Eagles's Club for some cheap hot wings. woohoo. yeah we're exciting :)

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first off, who the heck and why the heck would somebody design a drain for a bathtub like this:

i think i must have been a man. who else wouldn't care to stand in ankle deep dirty water while taking a shower than a man. i mean come on. you have pretty much guaranteed that every flipping hair that goes down this drain will get caught and eventually clog the flow of water. leaving some poor woman to spend way too much time on her knees with a coathanger scooping out this disgusting mess:

and no, that's not hubby's toothbrush (but it should be) i put it there so you could have a reference of just how freaking much hair that is!!

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after asking why my allergy shots have started hurting and itching again, which they haven't done for months now, i was informed that i had been moved up to "the red tops" which means......drum rolllll....that by August i will only have to be going to cookeville every other week!!! woohooo.

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don't know why, but i have all of a sudden been "found" by tons of people from high school on face book. it's pretty neat to reconnect with them, but i find it funny that some of the people who treated me like total shit, are now "oh, i'm so glad i found you". yeah, right. either they are full of shit, have "found God", or going through a 12 step program and are starting their ammends. lol

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i am really truly starting to turn into a REAL housewife. i don't know how this happened except maybe out of guilt from not working. i have made a sock-it-to-me cake last week, snickerdoodles and chocolate oatmeal cookies this week, and i think i even managed to cook a couple of meals allll while still continuing my cleaning saga.

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that's all i can think of for now. see ya next time. same bat time. same bat channel

thmore cleaning stuff tidying up, thursday

2009-01-29T22:00:00.016-06:00

so, my brain wasn't working with coming up with a good alliteration, but what ev. so first off i wanted to prove that i am maintaining my clean living room. i even dusted again last night. so here is proof of that. now, you might have noticed that i didn't include my desk in this pic. while i am keeping the clutter off of the desk, i was just given a stack of books from my aunt to read, and they are stacked there for lack of a better place. i have also done a major cleaning on the spare bedroom and did a major dusting in our bedroom. they will be given their own blogs once i get to actually rearrange them and make them look nicer.

now, my current project is my coat closet. some idiot forgot to take the before pic because i was all hyped up about starting this project and just totally spaced. i did however take a "just after starting" pic which might even be scarrier. all of the stuff in bags, boxes, or piled on the floor and chairs came out of the bottom of the closet. jackets and such actually were hung on the bottom rack, but that is annoying as all get out, cuz you can't see the floor. in my house, if i can't see it, it ain't gonna get clean. let's be honest, even if i can see it, it will be lucky to get cleaned. so here is the simi-kinda before pic. the big black bag is stuff that i have decided to donate or trash so far. to be honest i dont know if anybody would want some of the stuff, but i'm goin the donate route first. the boxes and grocery sacks are easy. these are all books that i, my mom, and my aunt have read so they will be going to the library. hmmmm seems like i said that when i took them outta the living room and shoved them in the closet. ok, i am gonna go put them in the van right now. oh, i might as well take a smoke break while i'm out there. be right back...

....ok, i'm back. now where was i? oh, yeah so that is/was the disaster in/on the bottom of my coat closet. here is the disaster that is the rest of my closet cobwebs and all:

as you can see, i have an abundance of old vcr tapes that i picked up from an auction, yard sale, or family member. don't ask me why. i just did. i had no use for them until recently, when i hooked up my old vcr in my bedroom - no, dirty minds, it's for the g-kid to watch movies on instead of the dvd player in the living room or my computer. the problem is, at the moment, the only vcr tape i have is the lion king. i am hoping as i go through all of those old vcrs that i will find kid friendly ones that i will store some freaking where but don't have that planned out yet. there are some old 8mm films from my dad and from hubby's family that i am hoping to be able to transfer to dvd myself (yeah right!). i do plan on goin' through the rest of the stuff to either donate or trash as much as possible.

my main goal for this closet is to make it be a coat closet of course, but in a way that they don't completely cover up the floor, so we can store our spare shoes (read: hubby's nasty work boots that i don't want anywhere else). of course my tool box needs to be stored there for home repairs and YES it is MY toolbox with MY tools in it. that was all i asked for as far as presents one year. i know. i should be a dude, but i don't like girls that much although seashore and i were just discussing how hot and sexy cote de Pablo who plays Ziva on NCIS is:

mmmmmmmmm.......oops got a little sidetracked there. ok. i'm better now.

so my faithful readers (over 26! now-which is wierd cuz i think i gained a few while i was being lazy and not really posting alot. maybe i should take the hint) my question to y'all is this...do you have any suggestions on how i should re-do the shelves, etc.. so that i can hang coats up higher (not too high i'm only 5' and i gotta be able to reach them) i need to have a specific place for board games, and possibly storage for 8mm, vcr tape, and dvds. i reallly hate my ugly dvd rack in the living room anywayS. the closet is 3'x3'x8' which is really wasted space up top cuz i'll never be able to reach that shit unless somebody can come up with some kinda cool built in step or two that i could set like shoes on and then just move outta the way when i need to reach the top shelves. i'm open to any and all suggestions as long as they don't cost a lot of money, well any money. i have tons of access to scrap metal/wood out in hubby's shop (sshhhh)

thankful thursday

2009-01-29T14:05:00.004-06:00

i knew somebody had told me they had given me an award. i was pretty sure it was tiff over at making room for serendipity , but as y'all already know or are starting to figure out my memory chip is full/broken/has a bug/ or is just plain gone! so after much brain prodding and blog surfing i finally verified that yes indeedy it was my fellow "hubby: whatch doin'?" owner. so many, many thanks to tiff for bestowing this award to me, and while i have already received this one before, i plan on posting it again cuz i'm like that :)

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

yeah, and i'm gonna be a rebel and not pass this one on to eight people cuz that just seems like too much work for me today. if ya want it, steal it! lol

weary wednesday

2009-01-28T18:13:00.003-06:00

i've just been too busy cleaning, babysitting, reading blogs, and just too worn out from above activities, to do much of anything. please check out my new "photoblog" over at:

http://nonnasnonsense.wordpress.com/

and also my s.daughter's that she is just beginning over at:

http://canigetanaddress.blogspot.com/

oh, and like running two blogs isn't enough, i'm contributing (don't really know what exactly that entails) to this blog:

http://girlswithbooks.blogspot.com/

sorry, that's all i have the energy for today...maybe i will be playing around with some pics on my photoblog later after the house calms down.

-peace out hommies, as the g-kid says

moving...kinda..but not really, yet, monday-UPDATED

2009-01-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

i'm trying out wordpress, but first just as a photoblog just to see if i like it and can manage to understand all the bells and whistles over there.

yeah, real original name, but hey, less confusion for me is better :)

http://nonnasnonsense.wordpress.com/

and while i am pushing other blogs... the s.daughter aka Jamie has started her own!! she was having trouble finding a name for her blog so her address ended up being

http://canigetanaddress.blogspot.com/

which i find compeletly hysterical! so go check her out and give her some followers to boost her self esteem up a little. why someone who is like almost 6' and weighs less than my thigh could ever have low self-esteem is beyond me...but to each her own ...we all have issues.

so go check out these sites and tell us what you think. um, oh yeah, please.

school time, saturday and sunday

2009-01-25T20:39:00.005-06:00

well, i was bored and my hubby was working out at the shop so i asked him to teach me how to weld. he took some cell phone pics of me "at work" but you can't really see my work yet. and you won't. not until i can actually make it look good :) so here are some action shots:

it was reallly cold out in the shop so i have like layers upon layers upon layers. (read: i'm not quite that fluffy) so as soon as i have even come close to mastering some techniques, such as not burning holes through the metal i'm supposed to be joining, leaving a bunch of spatter, and learning what spatter is. i will be posting some more pics of my artwork....errr attempts at art work.

this is it for tonight. i'm wore out from puppy sitting and jamie, james, & their puppy spending some time with us. hopefully more prolific tomorrow.

funny, friday....ooops forgot this one :)

2009-01-23T21:35:00.001-06:00

SOMEBODY (read:girl in the glasses) decided last week to do a "funny friday" thing so i saved this for friday, then promptly forgot all about it. i would be linking you to HER funny friday, but it seems SHE forgot it too :)

i admit it. i stole it from an email, but it's too funny to pass up :)

While on vacation a married couple walked into a shoe store. The Salesman said to them, I have some very special Jamaican sandals I think you would be interested in.. Dey make you wild at sex.

Well, the wife was really interested in buying the sandals after what the man claimed, but her husband felt he really didn't need them, being the sex god he was. The husband asked the man, 'How could sandals make you into a sex freak?'

The Jamaican replied, 'Just try dem on, Mon.' So, the husband, after some badgering from his wife, finally gave in, and tried them on. As soon as he slipped them onto his feet, he got this wild look in his eyes, something his wife hadn't seen in many years!

In the blink of an eye, the husband grabbed the Jamaican, bent him violently over a table, yanked down his pants, ripped down his own pants, and grabbed a firm hold of the Jamaican's hips. The Jamaican then began screaming, 'You got dem on the wrong feet! You got dem on the wrong feet!'

freakin' friday already??

2009-01-23T20:14:00.005-06:00

wrong turn, wednesday

2009-01-22T14:06:00.026-06:00

sis pointed out that i left out the best part of my story sunday night. everybody was settled down for the night, and i tried to get comfy on my makeshift bed. it was working BUT it had started to SNOWWWW. of course it's the middle of the night, nobody to play with, and damned cold! well, i guess i was feeling artsy so me, my camera, and my smokes headed out into the cold.

at first, i just went around the house taking pics of the halfway frozen LAKE-don't call it a pond around my mom-at least not to her face :) and the garden ornaments but then i got bored with that. the chocolate lab was following me around and i tried to get some shots of him, but with no light source other than my flash, every time i snapped a pic he was nowhere to be found.

i did manage to get these two shots before i gave up and went for reinforcements. it's so cool how his eyes can be one color in one shot and then a completely different color in the next shot!

i decided to go back inside and get a flashlight and my ipod. i knew tom would have one of those gazillion candlewatt flashlights because we have all bought him several over the years. voila! it was sitting right by the door, i clicked it on, and it worked. so off i go again. after I decided to take the newer path that leads to a little stream, i realized that i am not in proper foot atttire. yes, i am wearing my slipper/all occation shoes.

i headed out down this new, easy, path (in my head anywayS) that tom had shown us earlier. it led to a little stream and was pretty much a straight shot there and back.

i thought.

i got some great shots of some cool looking trees:

i guess while looking up and snapping away at trees and such is where i made my mistake, and that's where the story takes a wrong turn. the gazillion watt flashlight faded out to, ummm, mabye 2 watts and my brilliant plan of clearing the leaves away in several places so i could find my way back, backfired.

it's kinda hard to see where you're makers are when you can't even see the ground in the first place. i switched bewtween using the screen on my ipod and taking pics and then looking at the pics to see if i recognized and thing. nope. no good. well i knew i had to walk uphill, so i did, but i kept running into things like this:

which required so much back tracking i was getting pretty confused. so after meandering around awhile i eventually came out in an overgrown field which, while on our property, is totally not where i thought i would be returning to :)

the next morning before i had to leave i got to take these wonderful pics. of course, I didn't get to play in it because i had to leave before the roads got worse.

(L pic) this is moon (the ex-communicato bro's cat)

(R pic) broom at the ready to sweep off cars-thanks!

this is what it looked like when i got back home. notice the lack of snow on my side of the road and all the snow the on the in-laws' side of the road. they totally hogged all the snow! sheesh! a woman just can't get a break around here!!

what i've been up to, wednesday

2009-01-21T21:30:00.004-06:00

well, saturday i bailed out on lil sis for a trip to my mom's because i found out there was a benefit tournament going on in chattanooga that day. the first event started at noon (hour ahead of my time) so i knew i wouldn't ~~drag my aching butt outta bed~~ make it down there by then. i was shooting for the 3pm singles crickets match, which just happens to be my favorite game. well, around noon, it still wasn't looking to good for me to be up and moving so i bailed on that venture as well.

hubby had been flip/flopping back and forth about driving to nashville for a car show/swap meet. he is still trying to find a front "real" chrome bumper for the '54 pickup that he has almost finished but, doesn't want to order online and pay too much for oversize shipping charges. i really didn't feel like going, but i also knew my poor hubby wanted company, so we went.

not, to bore y'all to tears with my on-going aches and pains, but to make a long 20+ year history of pains short, i have fibromyalgia, complicated by scoliosis (among many other things). well, when the muscles around the scoliosis get inflamed, they pinch a nerve behing my shoulder blade. this causes extreme discomfort, lack of sleep which causes MAJOR GROUCHINESS, and just a generalized feeling of shit. i sucked ~~the pain pills~~ it up and decided to go to nashville with hubby. it was a waste of time. no good finds but, they will be back in 2 weeks as a pure swap meet, so hopefully better finds to be found. (huh?)

sunday, i was supposed to be going up to dial-up hell since i didn't go on saturday. the day did not start off well for me. unbeknownst to lil sis i had planned on sleeping as late as i wanted to so i could recharge. since she had no idea this was going on, she called to see if i had left yet and to remind me to bring some stuff to mom. i preceded to call her back and chew her out which caused her to hang up on me.

FYI - major pet peeves of mine:

1)don't take without asking (i will literally give you the shirt off my back, just ask)
2)don't hang up on me, for any reason, period.
3) don't lie to me OR call me a liar

i'm sure i have others but, those are the major ones that stick out.

so, i called back, got the answering machine, told the machine some very mean things until mom decided to intervene-thank you, mom :) i tried to explain to mom what i wanted her to tell sis, cuz i knew i would not be able to express it properly, and then proceeded to just totally breakdown and bawl. like. a. baby. now, i don't even want to go up there, cuz i feel like a total idiot blowing up over something so stupid. luckily, while i taking a smoke/coffee break sis called while i was outside. i called her back and she wanted to know if i was ok. i said, yes and apologized for yelling at her and told her i was glad she called and i would be up in a little while.

i got up there and everything was cool. mom, tom, me, & sis went diggin through a storage shed looking for our old kid books and mom's recipe "bible" that had all her recipes that she had saved over the years. no luck on the recipe book but, i did manage to salvage some books the g-kid will like, if i can clean them up enough. (they had some water/mold damage)

so, after scrounging through the shed, sis & i decided to help twinfaye (aunt) put her christmas stuff in her shed and pull some chairs out for her. we worked up an appetite and headed back down to mom's for some homemade (as in not stouffer's frozen variety- like i make) lasagna and garlic bread. yummmmy

then sis & i challenged the terrific twins to a game of pictionary. mom made the mistake of smack-talking before we started game. oh yeah!! me & sis demolished them! maybe next time we play i will try to rig up some video clips of the game. it is crazy how good we are at that game!

as it was now dark, i decided to just go ahead and spend the night since i really don't like driving in the dark anymore and especially down mountains. they dragged me outta bed around 11am to go to a thrift store to look for some things they wanted. i, not being a shopper, was not looking for anything in particular but ended up with FOUR tops for just 11 bucks. you can't beat that! i just wish i had found some jeans that i liked. i pretty much live in 3 pairs of jeans that are all exactly the same and have become too big for me. oh well, they ARE comfy and that's all i care about :)

i got home sometime monday evening and was bushed. again. set my alarms (3) to get up so i could go watch the g-kid at 1pm and relieve the other grandma from her duties. wellll jamie called me about 1:15 and wanted to know if i was almost there. SHIT!! no, um, i musta fallen back asleep, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. i'll be there in 15min. well, mighta made it in 15min. if it wasn't softly snowing and all the freaks in TN think that means you have to ~~drive~~ idle at 0 mph. i got there at 1:40pm big OOPS. oh, well, she'll get over it eventually and if not, jamie & the g-kid will just cram back into our tiny little home and she won't have to burden herself watching him. ever. :p~~~

to make tuesday and even LONGER day, hubby went to Lowes to get a power cord for a dryer we acquired and gave to jamie. she and i rearranged g-kids bedroom and did a power clean (well she did) on it. now all she needs is some kind of great CHEAP storage bins for all his toys to stay in and organized. any suggestions on what works best for the buck?? we ordered pizza and then headed home around 8pm. loooong day, but fun and we got alot accomplished :)

today, umm wednesday, right? he (g-kid) would normally be at pre-school but, heaven forbid, he have to sit inside in the heat on a cold day, so no school. i managed to get there only 10 min. late today (not my fault this time. i was on hold with the VA and wasn't about to hang up until i got what i needed). fed g-kid peaches and attempted to get him to eat some mac&cheese with cheese hot dogs sliced into it. didn't happen, but oh, well, saved it for him to eat it at some later date. played a game of
"3 monkeys jumping on the bed" (oh joy) and then read him a couple pages of his Animals Around the Watering Hole book that i got him from a chicago museum with all the dinos - whichever one that is :)

i got all of jamie's tax papers together, came home (stopped at chicken chef for carry out dinner) and attempted to read blogs, but it wasn't working for me. so i did some laundry and dishes and just chilled for all of 5 minutes. then i decided if i didn't get up and do jamie's taxes now, they would be forgotten about. got them all done and she should have it direct deposited by next friday i think. wish mine were gonna be that easy. i keep tellin hubby we should foster a kid for 6months and 1 day and then ship him back just for the tax break! lol plus they pay ya 7-800 bucks a month i think. i could totally put him on a modified survivor diet and make money off of him! j/k!!

well, it wasn't funny, exciting, or enlightening but, it was my life the last few days. hopefully i will get caught up reading tonight and tomorrow and be back to my smart alecky self :)

two days behind, tuesday

2009-01-20T21:12:00.004-06:00

ok, i'm now officially two days behind on reading and not really feeling it much tonight either. don't worry peeps my big mouth won't be silent for long. i'm gonna try to get caught up, commenting here and there, but not necessarily everywhere or i'll never get done. if you've got something in particular you're wanting me to comment on, or just think i may have missed something important, just comment me!

posting something about something (hopefully) soon...

something's up, sunday

2009-01-18T00:56:00.007-06:00

although i don't really care for the color scheme, i was sick of my blog being all squished and this seemed to be the "roomiest" layout i could find. well, other than the one that totally abolished the sidebar to the bottom of the page, and i figured that would annoy the crap outta me.

SO, whadya think bout it the new look? also, if there are any techno types out there who can answer me these questions, please chime in:

Can i design my own page in dreamweaver and just copy the code and paste it onto the Layout: Edit Html page and still add blogger's gadgets? Also, would doing that make me lose any of my archives, etc..?

thanks for the input and hopefully some answers so i can make my blog reflect ME and not just be another template that i have to make do with.

oh, and that's all you get for this weekend probably. i will be up in dial-up hell at mom's so i doubt i will be getting to post sunday. wellll, i guess maybe if something really good pops into my head i could compose it there and then post it when i get back to DSL heaven later on sunday evening.

maybe.

if you're really good.

and you can beg properly.

and maybe kiss up nicely, too.

:)

friday fragments

2009-01-16T13:11:00.015-06:00

i was smart this week. i kept a little notepad by my desk and wrote down stuff all week. i couldn't wait for friday to get here so i could post it!! well, until friday got here at 8am since the g-kid spent the night cause his mommy's sick. then i didn't want friday to be here. so, i set him up with a real poptart, milk, and a movie and crawled back into bed. ok, enough chatter, on with the fragments! oh! and don't forget to check out Mrs. 4444's fragments who got me started on this.
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does anybody else want to go on survivor just for the diet? i mean i would love to do all the competitions (duh) but i realistically know that my body can't do that stuff anymore. and there is NO way i could sleep on the ground but, still, i really want to lose all that weight that the contestants do!! i know i don't have the will power to just eat rice and water at home, and i also know i sure as hell wouldn't supplement my diet with any bugs out there, so it would have to work!
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i have decided that my dog, charlotte, is one of the smartest dogs i've ever had. if not the smartest in the world! She could totally be another lassie. we came home from that car show last weekend and charlotte came up to the door wigglin' and a wagglin' her whole body. i went outside and gave her some lovin' because i thought she was just happy to be gettin' my full attention. (dale is jeallllllous and always pushes her away so i will pet him instead) so i come back inside and sat down and she was still there just a wigglin' away. i went back out and petted her some more and then i came in and told rickey "i think she's trying to tell us timmy fell down the well, or somethin" a lightbulb went off in hubby's brain. "hmmm i wonder if i locked dale up in the shop" sure enough, he went out to the shop and dale came flying out! lol so charlotte was trying to tell us something was wrong!
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hubby came in from the shop the other night and asked me if i wanted something for my blog. i say sure, thinking a funny shop story is emminent. he says, what are you doing now? UGGHH
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i showed g-kid this pic:

he says " that's mommy and lyric passed out!"

i have no idea where he heard that phrase, but there you go. funny thing is, mommy was passed out. she had come to the house to spend the night, drink some beer, and watch movies with me for her birthday. hehe
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i was cooking dinner the other night and jamie & the g-kid were in the bedroom watchin' a movie. g-kid asked several times if dinner was ready yet and the last time i told him, "don't worry i will let you know when it's ready. i won't let you starve." the next thing i here is "mommy is starving for dinner, nonna" i replied, "she is??" jamie hollars back, "i never said anything like that!! he asked me if i was starving and i said i could eat." the little booger is already learning how to manipulate people!
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one last thing. heinous had some links over to mama still wears gucci, she had a pic of her hubby in his laying around the house outfit, and thought he looked ridiculous in it. i say HA! i can totally beat that...

hubby is such a good sport! i still can't believe i talked him into wearing a woman's shirt and letting me photograph him. :)

well, once again my fragments seem quite long winded, but i guess i just don't know how to tell a short story :)

too much electricity, thursday

2009-01-15T19:13:00.003-06:00

sorry my mind just went blank while i was trying to think of a title. so for now it's just thursday. if something hits me before i hit that publish button it might change. then again it might not. this is gonna be a shorty because my hands are cold and i've already turned up the heat and put another sweatshirt on and my hat. i gotta get off of here soon and get me a hot cup of coffee or sit on my hands or something.

remember my hubby got me these great slippers for christmas? of course not. why would you remember something like that?! duh. although, at this point i don't think i can technically call them slippers anymore. i have worn them non-stop since christmas. yes, everywhere. i even wore them to our dart banquet because, well, i forgot to put on my boots. i'm serious. they are cloggy type shoes anyways, so it's not like i was out in pink fuzzy bunny slippers*, but they are supposed to be my house shoes. i just have one problem with them.

i am creating enough electricity to power our house, i think. i'm being shocked constantly. all day long. i shock myself, my hubby, the g-kid, both dogs, my cat, my s.daughter's dog. nobody and nothing are safe from me. i need to figure out a way to harness this electricity or to stop it in it's tracks. i'm afraid i'm gonna short out my computer or my cell phone the next time i touch them. it's getting to the point where i'm afraid to turn out the light for fear of the electricity in my body arcing to the electricity in the switch and ZAP i'm gonna be dead. i don't know or care if this could actually happen or not. i'm afraid it might happen, so that's good(bad) enough for me.

anybody have any suggestions? well, other than getting rid of my slippers/clogs/shoes whatever the heck you want to call them. they are comfy and keep my feet warm so that's not an option! ok, so added more to the title, but it's still kinda boring. i think the cold has frozen my brain cells kinda like it's sapping all of the strength outta my car battery.

~~~copying my master who copies her master~~~

*i have accidently gone out in blue, fuzzy, slippers before, now that i think about it. but i did go back home and change before being seen in public with them. well, now that i think about that i think i have gone to the dump in slippers before and just decided it wasn't worth it to go back and change. i mean come on, it's just the dump guy, right?

wanted: woody woodpecker, preferably dead, wednesday

2009-01-14T18:48:00.000-06:00

**disclaimer**

you can send me all the hate mail you want for this post, i don't care. i know how to hit the delete button, so just save yourself some time and pretend like you sent it and i deleted it. whatever you say is not gonna change me anyways, so there!

now don't get me wrong. i LOVE animals (when they aren't destroying my property) but, i have entered into a war with the woodpeckers and carpenter bees around my house. we have been cursed with carpenter bees which bore holes in exposed wood (like the wood that holds my house up!) and lay their larvae in the holes.

EXHIBIT A:

guess what likes to eat carpenter bee larvae?

yep. woodpeckers.

so not only do i get woken up in the early mornings (a really bad thing, trust me) by the woodpeckers looking for breakfast, but now i don't have small holes in my wood. i have GINORMOUS gouges in the wood.

EXHIBIT B & C:

my house is gonna crash down on my head one day! luckily, the bees are gone during the winter, so the woodpeckers are too, but they also damage my baccy barn, my trellis for our muscadines, and our trees.

so, does anybody know how to humanely get rid of woodpeckers? if not, i'm gonna have to resort to using my shotgun this spring! oh, and don't tell me to get rid of the carpenter bees, because we try to do that too. we have this lovely sport we invented called "bee whacking" (my nutritionist loved it, because she said it's good exercise! lol) i think the last two years we have gotten over 200 bees each year, and yes we do keep count, right on the marker board on the fridge. :p~~~

bee whacking requires badmitton rackets*, lots of energy, and good hand-eye coordination. it's actually really fun to particpate, but even funner to watch somebody else attempt. if you get really good at it, you can get 2-n-1 when they are connected together in the air**. also, if you hit them just right, you can whack them right in half or sometimes they just get stuck in between the strings.

EXHIBIT D & E: not a great pic, but you can tell she's missing her butt or abdomen or thorax or whatever you call that big part! and yes, i DO know that's a she because of the white dot on her head.

just like this one is a she too. the females are usually the more aggressive and territorial ones. the males (aka: wussies) usually just fly away when you swing and miss, the females keep coming after you :)

~~~copying microblogologist*** copying literalDan section~~~

*i guess tennis rackets would work too but badmitton rackets give you a longer reach :)

** i don't know if they are getting romantic or fighting (they are very territorial) but they join up in flight and that makes them much slower and easier to hit.

***if i'm your minion for copying you, what do i call you? my master? and does that mean you are literalDan's minion and he is your master?? lol

two for one tuesday: pantry raid

2009-01-13T14:28:00.006-06:00

i give up. i have gone back through other people's blogs for the last week or so and i can't remember or find who it was that i told i would do this pantry thing. i'm sorry! i wish there was something that kept up with where i left MY comments! ugh! i know i saw over at sprite's keeper that she did it, but i just started following her today, so i know it wasn't her. whoever it is, is a librarian i can at least remember that part! somebody, anybody, please tell me who that was! lol

so here are my pantry pics (there's 3 of em cause i have a lot of pantry with wasted space! i need to turn my, so deep that you can never see what's in the back, shelves, into slide out shelves like my mom has. they are wonderful!

oh, and you aren't allowed to straighten up the shelves either before you take the pic. i so should have cheated on that, but i didn't so you get to see me in all my unorganized glory. here they are:

the top half of my "real pantry":

the bottom half: (yes, i love peanut butter and have been known to eat it straight out of the jar..... frequently)

and this is another cabinet that i use for snacks and stuff: (yeah, i need to go shopping - not near enough snacks in here for my taste)

notice the little debbie german chocolate cookies are front and center and on the bottom shelf within easy reach for my shortness! oh, and the welch's fruit snacks were originally snacks for the g-kid but i have become addicted to them! they are pretty healthy as far as a snack: 100% daily vitamin C, made from real fruit (no preservatives), excellent source of vitamins A & E, ZERO grams of fat or calories from fat, and only 80 calories, and yet they still taste good!

not that i really care about any of that stuff for myself, but i would like to keep the g-kid a little healthy. oh, and the Cake Mix Magic in Minutes is an AWESOME recipe book that my mom got me for christmas. it has tons of recipes where the base is a box of cake mix and then you add all kinds of goodies to it to make it look like you slaved for hours to create it.

so, now i've shown you my pantry, will you show me yours?

today is what day, tuesday?

2009-01-13T09:01:00.007-06:00

ok, so my brain hasn't kicked in even though i have read all of my blogs, ate a poptart, and had 2 cups of coffee so far. it is tuesday, right? yesterday was s.daughter's birthday. she's 25. the youngest kid is now 25. that just seems wrong. seems like just a few years ago they 14, 16, & 18. now, they are (or will be sometime this year) 25, 27, & 29.

we had a nice quiet birthday dinner with jamie & james, me & rickey, and norene. i played susie housewife and made pork chops, fried okra, corn, and some cheesy bread. i even baked a birthday cake, which was plain yellow with white frosting and sprinkles. can you tell it's a 2 and a 5?? i have discovered it is very hard to make candles spell out a number or letter.

i warned her this pic was definitely going up (oh and for future reference, don't stand down wind of the candle blowing unless you like a mouth full of smoke). i mean really, how could i pass up, not only a pic of all smoke, but check out those cheeks!! LOL (oh, and don't be looking at the little table full of clutter behind her. i haven't got that far in my cleaning yet.) and YES, we do have a dart board, along with the scoreboard, in our kitchen. i've also got a throw line stuck down on the floor and speaking of floor, ours looks like it has the measles from all the dart ricochets :) who cares? not i!

i think jamie is the 1st and only person i have ever met that does not like chocolate. at all. i mean lick the cream out of an oreo and throw the cookie part away, not like chocolate. she won't even eat m&m's or reeses! i'm pretty sure it's a sickness.

anywho, i digress, she got an mp3 player that my s.son got me for christmas (remember i got the ipod nano from g-kid's dad) but since she knew that was not really bought specifically for her, i wanted to get her something else from us. she recently got a laptop so i found a great deal on a HP all-in-one printer, scanner, copier from wally world. of course, it doesn't come with a usb cord (why is that?? it's ridiculous!) so i had to buy one of those too. i wrapped the cord and the printer & hid them in the room so the only present she saw was the mp3 player. here comes my great acting ability part...

after she opened the mp3 player, i was like, "oh, i forgot, i got you something else i think you'll need for that" and brought out the usb cord. she opened it and i picked up the mp3 player box saying "i'm pretty sure you need that cord for this. oh, man. this thing says it comes with a usb cord already! well, i don't guess you'll need that cord for this afterall." then i go back in my room and say as i'm coming out, "but i think you'll need it for this." her eyes lit up and she said "i bet i know what that is." and the little stinker did know what it was before she opened it! i guess that just means she was hoping for one, right??

oh, and btw, for the record, yes, i was up at 8am. about 4 am g-kid was standing beside my bed ( i just asked him if he woke me up or what. after making sure that he wasn't getting in trouble, he told me he said "nonna, nonna, nonna, nonna, nonna" lol he said i was very hard to wake up. it's surprising how deeply i can sleep in just about an hour! so anywho, he climbs up into poppa's spot (who is out on the couch, by his own choice-i didn't kick him outta bed) at 8 james sits up and says "is it time to get up nonna?" i looked at the clock and said "no, go back to sleep" hoping that would work. i didn't, lol

now what the heck am i supposed to do for the rest of this lonnnnng day?? i've already read my blogs and have now written my blog. yall best get to writing some more stuff!

see? who needs to see to drive? saturday sunday

2009-01-10T19:50:00.013-06:00

this was our view for about 20 miles across and down a mountain on the way home this last evening. that isn't even glare from the flash or anything. you can just barely make out the lines about 10' in front of you and then, nothing. we used to live on top of this mountain, so i should have been prepared for this sight, but i guess i had forgotten the joys of driving blind. luckily, hubby was driving because not only was it dark (i'm night blind), and raining, but then we hit the fog. it was so bad he was only going like 20-25 mph (we usually go about 60 mph through here) and a couple of times he had to stomp on the brakes suddenly because the road just disappeared. gone. you couldn't even see a glimpse of the lines. very. scary. i had to take off my ipod and help watch the road just to make sure we didn't go sailing off into the wild blue (white) yonder.

so, the reason we were on the road in the first place, was because we had decided to drive down to chattanooga to go to a car show called the World of Wheels. (thanks Norma for the directions!! yeah, we were dumb butts and left the house without a clue how to get where we were going) the admission was waaay too high for the number of cars there. it was 14 bucks apiece!! and we walked the whole show in less than an hour. the quality of cars that were there was good, but good grief. for that amount of admission, we were expecting to run out of steam before we ran out of cars to look at. wrong! i won't bore y'all with pics of all the cars, but i am gonna show y'all some funny things we saw there. hubby will probably be uploading the pics to his webshots albums (what am i saying? I will be doing that for him) and if anybody is interested in checking them out, feel free. he also has pics of his 1954 Chevy pickup that he has done a frame-off restoration and a 1953 COE that he is turning into a 4 door (with suicide back doors!!! i likey).

like, i said, i'm not gonna post a bunch of car pics here, because i don't wanna lose the handful of followers i have gained. i am however, gonna post a couple of funny things we saw at this show. first, one of the funniest business names/signs i have ever seen:

and this is some random couple that we saw walking around the show. it wasn't too hard to get the shot of them from behind, but i have discovered it is very hard to nonchalantly snap a pic of somebody facing you, without them realising what you are doing. i was trying to get a shot of her from the front because, well, God (or the plastic surgeon) was very generous to her, and her outfit was a hoot.

my hubby wanted to know if i thought she would still be taller than her man if she took her shoes off. i said, "i didn't even realise she was there with somebody else!". i was too busy trying to be slick and sly, and not get "busted" (pun intended of course or it wouldn't be in freakin' quotes!)

unfortunately, she took the opportunity to take a picture of a car (what fun is that??) right when i snapped this shot, blocking the view of her endowments (natural or otherwise-am i the only person that has no idea how to tell fake from real?) i chickened out, and didn't try for another. her purse and bustiere/corset (i really don't know the difference) were covered with skull and crossbones, and the bustiere was def doing a good job of lifting. i watched her lean forward at one point and couldn't keep from staring 'cause i thought for sure that the girls were gonna come out and play!

this is the cooolest chair i have ever seen! i sooo want hubby to make me one, so i took 2 pics of it, just to make sure he would know how to build it. hint, hint, hubby.

doesn't it look like the arms would perfectly hold a solo cup of your favorite mixed beverage?? i'm not real crazy about the saddles, tumbleweeds, and boots upholstery, but i guess it goes along with the horseshoes.

this isn't just some pipe dream i'm having about my hubby making this for me. he is amazing with metal. he built his own rotisserie to rotate his frames (if you're a car restoration type you will know what i mean, and if not you're not you won't care so just ignore that sentence). he has also made some cool yard art:

well, if you made it all the way to the end of this looong post, i might have to add you to my BFF list. (you should be honored, it's a very, very, short list)

friday fragments

2009-01-09T21:22:00.007-06:00

first things first. i want to thank Mrs. 4444 for generously awarding me this award:

for my friday fragments post last week. i am truly honored to be selected for this award amoung all of her other choices. i thanked her on her blog, but then realised that not only was i passing up an opportunity to toot my own horn, but also to thank her once again and show her some link love :)

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while looking at pics of the g-kid on his mommy's puter:

me: ewww james, you're picking your nose, that's groooss
james: i like picking my nose
me: you do? why?
james: cuz sometimes it's full of boogers and i gotta get 'em outta dere
(duh, nonna don't you know anything??)

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hubby: whatcha' doing?
me: reading blogs

15 min. later

hubby: now, watcha' doing?
me: why? (a little exasperated-just a little)

hubby: cuz you're smiling

me: posting comments

hubby: so why are you smiling?

me: because i'm a smart aleck, and it amuses me

15 min. later

hubby: now what're you doin?

me: reading more blogs

this has turned into an almost daily routine. somebody save me from my hubby's weird sense of humor

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i'm trying to decide if it's worth shaving my legs so i can take a pic of my kick ass calves for heinous ;) that will totally ruin my attempt at breaking my record last year for seeing how long i can go without shaving. i think he may have to wait till spring. i've decided it helps keep my legs warm, i swear it does! plus, it's really cool cuz when i swing my legs back and forth i can feel the breeze rustling through the hair.

oh, and for all of you who i just totally grossed out, in my defense, i don't have hardly any hair on my legs and what i do have is so fine and sparse you don't really even notice it. not that i would go out in public in shorts like this, but as long as i'm wearing jeans - screw shaving! plus it hurts my hips to shave and it def is not worth the pain :p~~~~

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in my quest for a clean(er) house, i have washed, dried, folded, AND put away like 6 or 7 loads of clothes. i think i'm gonna take tonight off and see if i can talk hubby into helping me do the floors tomorrow

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does it make me a bad person if i LOVE how mean and manipulative Hugh Laurie is on House? what if i secretly wish i could manipulate people like that too? it would never happen, because i don't have that sneaky gene that you need to do that. ask, seashore. i used to drive her crazy asking questions during any movie that had plots that contained ulterior motives behind the characters actions. i just can't think like that.

fantastic little gangsta g-kid, friday

2009-01-08T21:56:00.007-06:00

ok, first the disclaimer, cuz i don't want any hate mail. the g-kid spent the week with his daddy and turned into a movie star/rapper. he made a cute video about pirates and monkey island, with an interview at the end. it's kinda long and you hear more of baby daddy talking than the g-kid, so i'm gonna skip posting that one. this video, while i might not necessarily approve of some of the lyrics for a 3 y/o, is freaking hilarious. that being said, he is a 3 y/o and sometimes a little hard to understand so i included the lyrics below the vid. enjoy!

my name is james

i've got bread on my head

i always know, that it's right to do

what my mommy said

i got shoes on my ears

i got my frank and beans

i'm a nice, nice boy

never mean

i'm momma's boy

i'm momma's boy

and daddy's little man

my name is james!!

you want some of this?

what are you thinking?

you see these fists?

i got a fat sack of candy

i drink juice all day

i got da toys

you want to play?

i'm momma's boy

i'm momma's boy

and daddy's little man

take that! you stupid bill collector, thursday

2009-01-08T13:08:00.008-06:00

yesterday and today the phone rang early in the morning. yesterday, i didn't bother to get up and see who it was. later when i checked the caller id, it had the wonderful "unavailable name" and "unavailable number". i thought, boy i'm glad i didn't drag myself outta bed for that. (we'll come back to this train of thought in a minute)

well, for some weird reason i woke up at 7:40 AM with a yucky

...don't read this if you have a weak stomach....

mouth full of phlegm (i warned you!) so i got up to dispose of said mouthful. i very briefly considered staying up, then my natural desires squashed that thought and i crawled back into my nice, warm, comfy bed.

twenty minutes later, there was a knock at my door. now, hubby and i, are not social creatures so i couldn't even begin to imagine who would be knocking on my door at 8am, especially since anybody who knows me, knows i would not normally be up at that time of day. so, curiosity overcame me and i went to the door with my bed head in a tank top with no bra, and shorts. i'm sure i looked lovely. i looked out through my wonderful front doors:

what do i see out there? your friendly neighborhood Fed-Ex man with a glorious box:

Woohoo, i've got a package!! he apologized for waking me (i obviously looked like i just got out of bed) and i told him that this was one thing i didn't mind getting up early for.

now, if you remember from my clean desk post, recently, i mentioned that my monitor had died and i have been using sis's monitor. who, btw, has not been asking for it back, even though that meant she couldn't have a computer at home for the last few months! i LOVE my sis!

well, just for kicks the other day i went to the Dell web-site to see how much a new monitor was going to cost. i couldn't believe it! they had a monitor that was bigger than my old one on sale with free shipping (two of my favorite words!).

so, even though i HATE credit cards and never use them, i was contemplating putting a monitor on my sears card so i could give sis back hers. well, i thought what the heck, it can't hurt to ask, so i asked hubby if he would rather me use my credit card or if he wanted to just buy it for me. he gave me the go ahead to just buy it!!! yea!!! i realllly didn't want to be paying payments and interest, etc..

so, without further ado, my new monitor:

woohooo! it's so cool! it's a 19" wide screen format with a stand and backside that are black and the trim around the front is silver. it even matches my current 'puter & accessories' color scheme! i'm thinking that hubby wanted to treat me since i've done such a good job cleaning these last few days, and i owe that all to you guys! if i didn't have you people following my progress and encouraging me, i never would have done as much as i did. so to all of my new bloggy friends....THANK YOU!!

now, back to the stupid bill collector...

since i had already been woken up by my yucky surprise and my good surprise, when the phone rang at 8:21am i decided to go see who was disturbing my peace yet again. yep, it showed unavailable, and while i was happy to receive my monitor today (4 days earlier than dell said it would be delivered) this was the 3rd interuption of my beauty rest. suffice it to say i was NOT in a generous mood toward the poor soul on the other end of the phone.

a little background info so this next part will make sense...

i have been divorced from my 1st husband since 1996. he has never, ever lived at this address. i didn't even take his last name while we were married, so when i did move here, there shouldn't be any connection between me and him associated with this address or phone number. HE doesn't even know my home number or address, as far as i am aware. i occasionally get credit card offers in the mail addressed to him and i have always wondered how that has occured.

back to the phone call...

the lady asked to speak to (insert ex's name here). I. Lost. It. i, very meanly, told that lady, "that is my ex-husband who i have been divorced from for 15 years (which wasn't accurate, but i'm surprised i even got that close) and don't ever fucking call my house again!" i heard the poor woman say "mam" before i slammed down the phone. i know, the poor thing was just doing her job, but you know what? i don't care! i pay my bills and i will NOT be harrassed for bills my ex might have accrued in the last 12 years.

so that is all of my ranting and raving for today. i'm off to fold some clothes and wash some more... hope y'all have a great day!

P.S. - ok, i thought that when you clicked on a picture it would open it open in another window full size so you could actually read all of those little comments i added onto them. somebody let me know if it works that way and blogspot is just being difficult again, or if i should just go back and take the comments off. thanks!

P.P.S. - so i was told that they are NOT opening up bigger, so i uploaded them again using the large choice. of course i deleted the Photoshop version (i knew better than to do that) after i saved them as JPEG so i can't modify them to make the text larger. c'est la vie :)

wow wednesday

2009-01-07T13:15:00.007-06:00

first, i must confess. if it wasn't for this blog and everybody knowing i was supposed to clean last night and expecting to see results, i ~~probably~~ would have been lazy and not done anything.

BUT you were here waiting (i hope) to see my success, so i couldn't let you down. heinous is probably waiting for my before pics, so he can laugh at me, don't try to deny it mr! i probably would be too :)

oh, and the pink paper sorter thing that is FULL of papers to file, i haven't sorted it yet. i just cheated and moved it out of the pic. hahaha. what? i'm gonna do it. i just got tired around 2am after 2 more freaking hours of cleaning! and this time i even got all sweaty. for those of you that know me IRL you know that doesn't mean i was glistening a little. my hair was soaked and it was dripping into my glasses and i was afraid i was gonna short circuit my ipod! thanks evvvvvver so much granddaddy for passing on your "sweat like a raped ape" genes!

so enough jabbering, on with the show! the befores:

yeah, i could write in the dust on my tv. the sad thing is, i have dusted it way more recently and often than the rest of the living room.

notice the vacuum in the living room. i put that there thinking i would use it more often. i only have the one rug in the whole house, so you would think that i could at least do that regularly. nope. hubby went to use it the other day and it had spider webs/cob webs all over it. what the heck is the difference between spider and cob webbs anyways?? are they the same or what?

the wal-mart bags are full of books that i've read. i am going to the library to donate them this week, but i did move them into a box and stuck 'em in a closet so it wouldn't ruin the nice clean look.

and now, the moment we have all been waiting for, drum roll please, my clean living room!! (that for some reason seems huge now that all the crap is gone, hehe.

you see that painting up all the wall? my mommy painted it! you can't really see it that well, but it is a beautiful fall river scene and just happens to match my house perfectly :) did i just call her mommy? ok, i guess i'm regressing a little, but since she has empty nest syndrome (bad) i'm sure she'll like that.

on top of the left hand speaker is my gorgeous print by Marie Natale that i won from michelle over at Pandora's Box. her blog seems to be having technical difficulties for the last couple of weeks, but hopefully she will be up and posting again soon. oh, and i did move the g-kids toys under the desk, but then i ended up putting his little rocking chair that holds all of his books where they were. i will probably have to move it back over by the little table (that mom also painted) because he has already made me move it back there once before because "it goes over here, nonna". bless his little OCD-in-training heart.

i just threw this one in because i love my coffee table. it's one of those that has a drawer under the glass so you can display stuff. i have my seashell collection displayed along with my clay "soccer dude" i made in high school and my newly acquired water bottle full of lake michigan water, sand, and pebbles. i got to journey up to yankeeville with seashore this summer and i had to get something to remember my 1st trip to lake michigan.

so that's it for my living room de-clutterfication (yes, you may use that word i just made up). the next few nights/days i will be catching up on my laundry and i won't bore you with pics of my dirty drawers :) the next project will be the spare bedroom and then i'll tackle the master bedroom, which i guess will have to be done during the day since hubby probably won't like me cleaning it whilst he's sleeping lol.

oh, and if you're wondering why i'm not doing the other half of my living room, it's because it contains 2 recliners and a love seat. even i can't clutter those up :)

and i might add, i have kept the kitchen clean for the last few days and even baked a sock-it-to-me cake (cleaning up as i went!). damn i might turn into domestic goddess after all! lol

tada!! tuesday

2009-01-06T13:52:00.004-06:00

ok, so after TWO HOURS last night i got one section of my living room clean. it was the most cluttered, so hopefully tonight, i will be able to get the rest of the living room clean. i thought about doing a before and an after shot, but honestly, i was too embarassed to show how bad it was before. i might do a before and after tonight. maybe.

(notice the spare monitor. it's broke. it turns on, but just shows a white screen. does ANYbody actually repair things like that these days?? let me know, cuz i sure can't afford a new one. i'm using lil sis' monitor right now, and i'm sure she would like hers back)

hey, i even managed to get my lazy butt outta the house last night and went grocery shopping! i have decided i like grocery shopping at 12:30am on a rainy night. there was NOBODY at wal-mart except for the stockers and floor cleaners. i was even able to leave my shopping cart with all of my purchases sitting at the checkout while i ran to get something i forgot (facial scrub) and nobody stole anything! i also liked the whole no traffic thing too.

my hubby did wake up in the middle of my putting the groceries away and asked me if i was on speed LOL. i told him i was sorry for waking him, but he informed me that i didn't, he had acid-reflux again. i wish i could get him to go to the dr. he eats tums like they are candy, takes over the counter anti-acid/antacids (i've seen it both ways, but the 2nd way looks Wrong, lol) pills, and still ends up having to drink baking soda and water most nights. he won't take tagamet or the other stronger meds cuz he says they give him leg cramps. i'm sure his esophagus is gonna turn into swiss cheese.

all in all i think my experiment worked last night. i got stuff accomplished and now i don't have to feel guilty for not doing anything all day long except sleeping and recovering from sleeping. hopefully, i will be able to keep this up and do a little bit of cleaning every night. they say once you do something for more than 6 weeks it becomes a habit. we'll see if they are right or not. (whoever "they" are)

mmmaybe not today, monday and a morph monday too!

2009-01-05T17:40:00.011-06:00

so far the cleaning extravaganza has been limited to bagging up the "too big to fit in the garbage can" garbage. you know like the pizza box, the tube from used up xmas paper, milk cartons(what do you call the gallon sized jugs? they aren't really cartons), etc.. oh and i did go through s.son's pile of old mail that has been collecting since his last leave.

yep, that's it. oh! but i did manage to cook the spaghetti for dinner tonight. hubby just came home and i was on the couch playing my ipod. i made sure to get off the puter shortly before he was due home so he wouldn't think i had done nothing but read blogs and comment all day (otherwise known as what i actually did do).

so he asks me "whatcha doin'?" (duh, sitting here playing a video game on my ipod) and i reply with "sitting here like a lazy fart, not getting any of my cleaning done." i go back to playing my game (well, i never actually stopped), and realise he is looming over me. i glance up real quick (can't lose my game ya know) and see him giving me the hairy eye with his hands on his hips. i chuckle at him and he says, "is that good enough?" (which i actually GOT*. meaning he is pretending to be mad at me.) i tell him "yeah, i'm beating myself up internally enough for both of us anyways."

he is such a good person. how can he go work everyday and come home to a filthy house and not be mad at me??

i know i would not be that generous with him, even if he did have physical pains which lead to depression (you can't hurt for almost 20 years and not get depressed every now and then) for an excuse. i HATE that i can't motivate myself to do the things i need to do. uggh, now i'm getting all weepy. enough of that shit!

subject change.....

let's play morph monday. it's much more entertaining and doesn't cause me to feel like a total POS....

this photo is really hilarious in it's own right (just look at those facial expressions!), and really didn't need any morphing to make it funny, but what the heck:

and one more, just to be fair to the two s.sons, i'll show the s.daughter too. original photo is a bridesmaid's dress she wore to a friend's wedding:

yeah, yeah. oooh aaah she looks pretty. bleck...now for the fun:

i named this one broomhilda. hehe. ok, so i got over my weepiness now and it's all good. i have decided that i will do some cleaning tonight. hopefully, i will manage to do it quietly since the cleaning urge always hits me after hubby goes to bed. i always tell myself to just wait til the next day so i won't wake him up, but then it never gets done. i'll let y'all know how it turns out :)

p.s. does anybody go back and edit their posts over and over again as you continue to find typos?? or am i just turning all OCD about it? i realllly wish i could edit my comments, because 9 times outta 10 as soon as i hit that enter button i see a typo. i hate that!

~~~copying micro copying literalDan (who i thought fell off the face of the earth lately) section~~~

*for some reason 95% of the time, if there is a different way to take something that hubby said, that's how i take it. it drives him bonkers, but i have just learned to accept that our brains work on different wave lengths.

seriously, i have nothing sunday

2009-01-04T20:21:00.007-06:00

i have nothing, nada, niet. which means i resort to pulling out silly pics for yall to amuse yourself with. the 1st of which is a pic of my great-grandmother (who is now 101!) at her last trip to the fair to ride "the ponies" as she says:

she was 95 in this pic. can you believe that the stupid carnie (sorry if any of y'all actually are carnies) actually tried to tell us she couldn't ride the carousel because she was too old?!? obviously, i didn't let that stop us. i had quite a time trying to get her up in the saddle, but once there she had a blast.

and this pic is what my dear hubby looked like while we were riding the carousel:

i love, love, love this pic of him. from the purse to the flags coming out of his head, it's just flat out funny!

unfortunately, i have been sitting around doing nothing all day today, which makes it really hard to come up with stuff to blog about. i am planning to do a major clutter removal & dusting session this week, because:

1)i reallly need to and no-one else is gonna do it
2)i figure it will help my allergies to get rid of some of the dust that has accumulated since, oh, i don't even know when the last time i dusted was
3)we live in a tiny 1030 sq.ft. house and small houses and clutter just don't mix

i even went out to the shop and got a box of hubby's big, huge, heavy-duty garbage bags in preparation for this de-clutterizing event.

wish me luck! hopefully i won't just end up buried beneath my mountains of clutter and dust :)

short and sweet saturday

2009-01-03T23:46:00.008-06:00

ok, this time i really am gonna make this short and sweet. i have two library books i need to read before they are due, since my library borrowed them from another library. i just wanted to post this pic for yall to check out. i almost deleted it because it's waaay out of focus, but sis said she liked it, and it's grown on me.

that's it.

no really.

i'm done.

go away.

are you still here? get outta here. that's an order!

fudge! i missed friday, but here are my fragments anywayS

2009-01-03T00:42:00.009-06:00

i have my "my pictures" folder set as my screen saver on my computer and the g-kid loooves to sit there and make comments on the pics that come up. usually, it's "who's that nonna?", "what are they doing nonna?", "that's me and mommy, nonna", etc...ad nauseam (i guess that's better than watching tv saying i need that toy)

the other day, in an extremely cutesy voice he said "that was me when i was a little, bitty, baby." yup, i replied. then a few minutes later when a pic came up that looked like this:

he said "look, that's me when my eyes used to be red" LOL the poor kid actually thought his eye color was red and then changed to blue. guess i need to get out the photoshop and fix all of those red eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

thursday g-kid spent the day with us and his uncle jon decided to open a can of salmon to eat with some crackers. i hate tuna or salmon (more of those things i was forced to eat). i can't stand the smell of it at all. so, i was complaining about the stench and i guess g-kid wanted to know what the fuss was about, so we told him to take a sniff of the salmon. LOL if i thought i could get him to fall for it again i would SO video it for here. he took a big ole sniff and immediately proceeded to gag, choke, and try to spit the smell out of his nose. then he started crying. i know, i'm a mean nonna, but i couldn't help it. we laughed our butts off! i finally had to tell him to stop spitting (he had slobber all over his shirt) because he couldn't make the smell go away that way!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i actually talked hubby into sitting down and reading a couple of my posts and then directed him to heinous' psycho neighbor posts. he read those and then said "damn!" i asked him, "damn that was funny or damn you didn't like it?" he said "no, it's funny, but i can't believe he has to put up with ppl like that; and i also don't know how the heck you sit here and read all of this stuff." i don't know how anybody wouldn't like to read this stuff! it's funny, friendly, inspirational, and my favorite, down right twisted! i don't know how i didn't get into this blogging stuff sooner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

s.son* is leaving to go back to washington tomorrow. leave is over :( silver lining: grocery bill will go back down :) that boy (man, really) can put the food away! oh, speaking of him, he, my sis, s.daughter, and her boyfriend all went out the other night. sis and s.son ended up kissing at some point during the night. know the first thing outa her mouth? woohoo i just kissed my nephew! lol she's weird like that and loves to go for the shock factor. then they both informed me that if they happened to get married (no, they have no plans of even dating much less getting married), my sis would then be my DIL. as the local news guy says, "that's messed up!" hehe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

speaking of that night, that reminded me of my sis's bad luck. i told her to drive over here, that way they could all go in one car. so, she parked her car at my house, under a tree. we had a bunch of strong winds that night. can you guess where i'm going with this? yep. tree branch fell and smashed her windshield. that night out cost her $275 bucks because

a)she has no car insurance
b) we have no house insurance.

now if she had parked it in the barn, and the barn had collapsed on it, she'd have been covered. that's right. we have insurance on hubby's shop and tobacco barn, but not on our house! back when we could actuall afford house insurance, they wouldn't insure it because we have a flat roof (like almost all commercial bldgs have). heaven forbid they insure a house with a flat roof here in TN. i mean those 1-2" snows that we might get ONCE a winter could cave the roof in, dontcha know? give me a break! now they will insure it, but we don't have the money to buy it. c'est la vie!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

well my fragments look a little long, but i guess y'all should be used to my long windedness by now :)

*tired of typing step-son/daughter will now be typed s.son/daughter - hey i'll be the first to admit i'm lazy. it's been really hard not to resort to texting language on here!

think it will work? thursday

2009-01-01T21:51:00.005-06:00

i assume* this is a southern thing since i'm sure hog jowl** is not a standard staple up north. but anyway, down here in the south it is traditional to eat hog jowl and black eye peas on new year's day for good luck.

now, if you have read my previous posts, you realise that i have a hate/hate relationship with vegetables, so i usually just swallow one black eye pea whole for my year's worth of good luck. i figured that since sometime this year i will be finding out whether or not i will be receiving my social security disability, i need all the luck i can get.

look closely and you will see, not one but TWO black eyed peas. yep. i doubled my luck. at least, i hope that's how it works. of course, me being me, i didn't actually chew the peas, but swallowed them whole and washed them down with my coffee. hey, nobody said how i had to eat them.

~~~copying micro copying literalDan section~~~

* yes i know what they say about assume. it makes an ass out of u and me
**hog jowl is pronounced hog jaw down here and it's kinda like bacon and i'm sure it's not good for you because it tastes too good to be healthy. if you are really curious about it you can go here for more info, and if you aren't totally grossed out by that, then here is how to cook it.

wake up!! wednesday

2008-12-31T22:48:00.012-06:00

so this is my hubby trying to stay up til the ball drops.

he made it til, ohh, maybe 10pm

ha! i guess that's what i get for marrying an old fart hehe (i love him anywayS)

oh, wait...he's waking up...

nope. false alarm. he was just getting more comfy:

i know. i have no shame. glad he has no interest in reading my blog :)

Happy New Year!!!!!

too short tuesday

2008-12-30T21:00:00.007-06:00

this is just a quickie, cuz i'm still catching up on reading all my blogs i missed (i thought i told y'all to save those posts till i was back in commission!) so i'm doing the 4th folder 4th pic meme:

all you chicagoans will recognize this, but for all the rest of y'all this is called "cloud gate" because you can see the reflection of the clouds in it or something like that, but everybody just calls it "the bean". i guess it's supposed to be some big deal because however the dude made it, it doesn't have any seams showing. anyways* there it is, and it is pretty cool to see the skyline's reflection in it at night. you can go here if you would like a real description of this sculpture.

p.s. i must confess. i haven't been injured the whole time. i have been slacking and playing with my new IPOD NANO that i got from my grand-baby daddy** (don't ask me why but he bought me and hubby both one. hell yeah!

i have about 700 pics and a whole bunch of songs on it and it's not even half full!

p.p.s. - this is turning into a not so short post, but can somebody PLEASE explain to me what the heck a podcast is?? i don't know if i was just too brain dead when i googled it or what, but nothing made sense.

~~~copy micro copying literalDan section~~~
*my lil sis says 'anyways' isn't a word, i say, pshaw***!
**notice the hip, non-possessive use of baby daddy
*** she'll prob say 'pshaw' ain't*** a word either
****ain't is in the dictionary, look it up (i know, my teachers didn't like that line either)

show and tell sunday

2008-12-28T00:04:00.005-06:00

since i'm such a slacker and didn't decorate or bake or anything else that all of you super moms did, i figured i would just show you my mom's beautiful decorations (well a little of them, this would be a novel if i showed all of them)

some wonderful yummies:

and the piece d'resistance:

i LOVED the ornaments hung from the ceiling over the fireplace. it was simply gorgeous! and yes, those are stockings for her children the youngest is 26 y/o. i love that we still get to "see what santa brought us" lol

i tried to place on limit on the number of presents (10) my mom was allowed to buy for us, but it didn't work too well. i think we all ended up with at least 15-20 each. here is the aftermath:

a couple of funny t-shirts:

i think this one won the funniest and most dead-on award:

gotta keep this short so my leg doesn't start hurting again. more later...

friday...

2008-12-26T14:04:00.003-06:00

ok, so i just couldn't come up with a title that started with an f that would work. sue me. i will be taking an undetermined length of absence from the puter. i've got a sciatic nerve that is screaming all the way down my left leg and sitting at the puter is NOT helping matters. i will eventually post about our christmas and read everybody else's when i can figure out how to make the pain stop.

i know. you're distraught and heartbroken and won't know what to do without me. just don't do anything drastic.

you could go thru my blog roll and check out all the fantastic peeps i follow, or use this time to catch up on my older posts if you just joined me.

i know. it's ok. don't cry. i'll be back soon i'm sure. really stop that crying. you're getting tears and snot all over your keyboard!

until next time, c-ya!

(oh, and to all of my followees: you could just save all those posts your thinking of writing until i come back. i'd hate to get behind or *gasp* miss something!)

too flippin' early thursday!!!!!!

2008-12-25T06:39:00.005-06:00

i loved my step-son jonathan.

i really did.

i didn't want to kill him.

i was so happy he got to come home on leave.

i think i went temporarily insane.

how can anybody be expected to be sane

at SIX F'N FIFTEEN in the MORNING!

do you think i'll be acquitted?

i'm sure it falls under "a crime of passion"

i'm verrrry passionate about my sleep.

damn his deep, loud, booming, voice.

in the words of Frickin' A,

the tree. the gifts. the mistletoe kiss.
shoot. me now. i'm sick of all my relatives.
have merry merry merry frickin' christmas!

weird wednesday

2008-12-24T15:36:00.004-06:00

i'm not sure if i'm the weirdo or Mrs. 4444 is, but her rules for receiving an award are that the giver has to photo/film themselves doing stupid human tricks. lol that'll be the last time i give her an award! i only have one stupid trick in my repertoire, so without further ado, here it is:

that's it folks! off to the mountain for christmas with mom.

tweaked tuesday

2008-12-23T19:51:00.006-06:00

this is gonna be a quickie, no not that kind, get your mind out of the gutter!

just a pic i tweaked a little to increase hubby and mine's natural endowments:
(oh and i guess we are aliens too)

i know. i know. childish and immature. but ya gotta admit, it's freaking funny! lol

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, AND WHATEVER OTHER P.C. THING YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO SAY :)

men, men, yummy men, monday

2008-12-22T16:35:00.010-06:00

here it is...the CHIPPENDALE post. woohoooo! *applause, wild cheering*

as some of you know, this was my first experience with a strip show and i must say it was very, um, entertaining and enlightening, to say the least. i enjoyed watching the men (duh) but even more entertaining, was watching the women going crazy.

i spent awhile trying to figure out why busyDad was hosting the show, when i know he is so busy right now, that i know there is no way he could take a trip to tennessee. i finally realised that it just couldn't possibly be him, but i had to try to get a pic of him to show y'all.*

ok, i know, it doesn't even look like him and this guy was actually hawaiian, but it was fun imaging busyDad as a chippendale anyways.

on with the show...

i paid $20 bucks for my step-daughter jamie to get a lap dance, and all she got was happy birthday sung to her. i was not happy about this at all! all these other chicks that paid money for lap dances had at LEAST 2 sometimes as many as 5 almost naked guys dancing and rubbing on them. there was even an 86 year old woman that went up there that got more of a lap dance than jamie did. i spoke to the owner later and he "made it up to us" with a deck of chippendales playing cards and a discount on a t-shirt for jamie. i still wasn't happy, but c'est la vie. here is her "lap dance":

now, i know, y'all are saying "screw this, show me some skin!" so here it is:

and some more :)

yes, we were that close! we could reach out and touch them if we so desired (and of course we did). we got to have our pictures taken with all of the chippers after the show was over...for a small fee of course:

and i even got daring and had my boobie signed by one of the hotties:

after the show, the guys mingled with everybody until closing. it was pretty cool to just stand around talking with these guys. every now and then i would think "holy crap! i'm talking to A CHIPPENDALE!" and then i would snap out of my star struck thoughts and re-join the conversation. being happily married, i was not on the hunt, but one of them told me that he thought i was cute and he would be happy to (adult content) until i couldn't walk! they all seemed to like jamie (especially her hat, gotta get me one of those!) and she had one guy in particular that seemed to be interested in her** and he followed us around all night.

the only thing, other than the flimsy excuse for a lap dance, that disappointed me was the fact that even though i was the designated driver and therefore did not drink, i was the one throwing up later! totally unfair! we stayed till last call and got home about 4 am. i was so keyed up that i couldn't sleep and then when i tried to sleep, the vomiting began. yuck! but i am fine today after about 12 hours of sleep, so it's all good.

all in all we had a fun time, laughed quite a bit, screamed and yelled quite a bit, and got to touch and smell (they smelled sooo yummy) a lot of hard bodies. if you haven't gone to see a show like this, i recommend it, at least once, just to see what all the fuss is about :)

~~~~~~copying microBLOGologist copying literal dan section~~~~~~
*picture taking was not allowed and although i didn't let it stop me, it was very hard to get good photos on the down low
**yes, we both realise that they are probably "interested" in anyone that they think they have a possibility of getting some from, before they move on to the next show.

me, charming? monday

2008-12-22T14:35:00.005-06:00

ok, i know that i cheated on my title a little, but like morethananelectrician says my list. my rules. i know some of y'all are expecting this to be my chippendale post, but first i have to tell you about an AWARD that I WON. (wooohoo!) my buddy the microblogologist (got it right, that time!) has chosen lowly little me for this award:

Mrs. 4444
Nature Lovin' Super Momma
Heinous
Seashore Subjects (i know, she just started, but my list. my rules.)
terri
Micki
Unmarried Housewife
Michelle W

now all of you lucky recipients, follow the instructions and share the love (award) with 8 deserving folks

sexy sick sunday

2008-12-21T20:36:00.004-06:00

well i was going to post about my adventures with the chippendales last night, but instead i've been sick all day. so, y'all will have to wait for the 411 on the hard bodies (and pics too, of course)

i just wanted to tell everybody about my bff, megan, who just started her own blog. she used to live upstairs from weaselMomma but she has since relocated to sunny florida. she's a smart (obviously from her choices in friends), funny, mom, wife, school teacher, and the best friend you could ever ask for :)

slip-n-slide saturday, redneck style

2008-12-20T13:01:00.009-06:00

this is one of the things we do in the summer time:

(sorry bout crappy quality-my choices were good vision-no sound
or bad vision w/sound)

he absolutely loved it! when i wasn't filming him, i would start beside him, then when he slowed down, i would grab his ankle and pull him on down with me. we all had a blast sliding down our little hill.

i eventually got a real slip-n-slide with the little pool at the end. after we got done sliding, i was reading the warning lable on the slip-n-slide. we managed to break every rule.
1. no one over 12 - smashed
2. no hills - how do they expect you to go fast like that??
3. no more than 1 person at a time - don't they know you can't do a train slide w/only 1 person??
4. no one over ___lbs - i don't remember the weight limit, but we i exceeded it quite a bit.

i'm sure there were more rules, but i don't remember them now. i do know why the age limit is there. do you remember how much fun it is to slide on those things?? well, it's not so much fun the next day when you're grown. jamie & i had bruises all up and down our bods.

i will have to seriously weigh the future pain against current fun and see which one wins out next time.

fragmented friday

2008-12-19T10:07:00.006-06:00

yeah, i know, not very original. blame it on the g-kid. my brain is not functioning and will take forever to recover from the 7:30 wake up call today. i'm such a crabby ass. poor g-kid he totally understands me too. after an hour or so he asks me if i'm feeling happy yet.

no. not yet. wanna go see granny and grampa? (in-laws across the road-thank god!) yes? cool let's call.

no answer. damn. more coffee.

yeah! they are home, lets go!

peace. ahhh maybe he'll stay till lunch time and then it will be nap time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this seems strange to me. the g-kid has known and understood the concept of counting for a long time (he's 3) i mean like for over a year he has been looking at something and saying there's 3 doggies or whatever, but has never been able to tell me which number was which using flashcards or plastic numbers. i tried just last week and he didn't know any of his numbers. this morning he picks up his plastic number two and says here's a 2! it's like somebody in his little brain just flipped a switch and said "ok, you know this now" he proceded to find all the numbers 1-9. instant knowledge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
me & g-kid made some jello no bake peanut butter & chocolate something. i don't know what it was called but it had oreo cookies crust, peanut butter filling, and chocolate topping. YUM. g-kid and nonna heaven!

sorry bout the crappy cell phone pic (oh, and pretend the counters are completely empty of any dirty dishes)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i'm going to sis's office's xmas party tomorrow night at a nice restaurant (score! free food!) and then after that me & jamie (step-daughter) are going to the CHIPPENDALE'S SHOW in cookeville.

we have tickets for the up-close, in your face, smack some booty seats. i gotta get me a bunch of dollar bills. can't wait. this will be a first for me, i've never seen a strip show before. mmmmm

things we used to do thursday

2008-12-18T16:53:00.004-06:00

i'm sure y'all have all read the email about how we did stuff when we were younger that wouldn't be prudent now-a-days. such as ridin' around in the back of a pick up, riding bikes with no helmets, etc...

well, here is something that i think my great-grandparents would probably have been arrested for if it had been done now instead of some 80 odd years ago:

no, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is actually a baby tied up in a tree. the funny thing is, she liked it! although, she must have been a little bit upset about her baby falling out to the ground. maybe they should have tied the doll to a branch above my granny. i know! they could have tied a bottle to another branch and a pacifier (did they even have those back then?) to another branch, and then they wouldn't have to do anything for the kid.

well, at least not until a strong wind came along...

weary wednesday

2008-12-17T23:01:00.005-06:00

weary - Pronunciation: \ˈwir-ē\ Function: adjective
1 : exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor, or freshness
2 : expressing or characteristic of weariness
3 : having one's patience, tolerance, or pleasure exhausted —used with of (as in i'm getting weary of ~~our~~ his kids)

not that i would ever say that ;)

but yep, that about sums up my feelings for today.

here are a couple of pics for you to peruse. i must give credit where credit is due, my step-dad took the original river scene pic. i just turned it into a painting :)

tttthat's all folks!

trippy tuesday

2008-12-16T10:35:00.007-06:00

not that i've ever had a trippy any day, but it sounded good. here is a photoshopped pic i took of some Queen Anne's Lace (otherwise known as a freaking weed, but we like them)

and here it is in the unadulterated version:

and here is a shot of the top of one, so you can see what they look like to most normal people (that being the people who don't look at the underneath and have micro mania)

that's it folks. i might come up with something later tonight. my creative juices have been dried up by having to get up too early today. 8am phone call woke me up. i'm thinking about getting rid of all phones in the house. of course, then people might actually come over instead of just calling. nah, i'll keep the phone. at least i can screen ppl that way and pretend i'm not home. kindof hard to do that if they show up on my doorstep.

me lead, you follow monday

2008-12-15T14:19:00.004-06:00

i have decided that, after reading all the new posts and after leaving my long-winded comments, i have done enough posting for today. and i also think some of those comments were kindof funny. at least a little. to me...

so your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow me through my readings and comments today. now, if i was really organized i would be able to tell you in what order i did all of these, but i'm not, so they aren't either. organized that is. i did try though. did that make sense? oh, well...moving on.

first stop: half-past kissin' time where i left these words of wisdom:

cooking tip-don't assume that all oven eyes(is that how those are spelled??)are off.

also don't assume that it's ok to set a ginormous glass casserole dish of dressing on that eye that is assumed to be off.

and finally, don't feed the dressing and the cream corn (that was on the stove next to the eye you assumed was off) to the dogs after the dressing dish explodes all over both.

unless, they are the neighbor dogs that attack and kill your dogs. then it might be ok.

then i linked from Mrs. 4444 over to her sis at second chances and tried to cheer her up after her surgery:

i had my galbladder taken out through my belly button. i thought it was cool, but then i realised they changed the shape of it.

i guess i was attached to it the was it was. i was not happy with a new design. i think my surgeon needed sewing lessons :)

hope you feel better soon :)

next up: whiskey in my sippy cup where i said this:

Not that i didn’t enjoy your storytelling to the fullest, but i just can keep repeating (in my head of course-i don’t talk out loud to myself…much) what sci fi dad said.

“And just like that, your son is no longer welcome around my daughter.”

lol, that is hilarious and i think typical of most fathers regarding their daughters (at least the first go round)

and this...

uggh! why can’t we edit our comments after we write them?!? i too hate typos that you can’t fix
see above - i just can keep = i just CAN’T keep FROM (i just added this correction)
uggh

then off to literal Dan for some smart alek-ism:

and this is why i am glad the hubby doesn't seem the least bit interested in what i am reading or writing all day long.this also makes me regret teaching him how to surf the net, just in case he does get interested in what i am doing.

then i try to read the next episode of Rude Awakening at terri terri's and find out i need a password cuz she's gonna have some racy stuff coming up...woohoo! so i ask, ever so nicely for my password here:

haha, i just realised that is a great way to make the lurkers come out of the woodwork! lol

i also realized how many braindam…. er… craz… um… sick f…. no that’s not it either….freaking weirdos - yeah that’s it! - everybody from morethananelectrician and up are all a bunch of weirdos to be up that dang early in the morning begging for a password.

now….can i have mine please?

are y'all tired yet? i am. but this next one will wake you right up. now we are off to heinous' place to check out the lastest on the psycho neighbors. here is my take on this great post:

so much to comment on! i LOVE your dick & jane episodes. that is now the highlight of my reading, so keep them coming!we had a bad neighbor when i was a kid. she was this mean german woman who must have waited by her window that was less than 10' from where we kept our garbage cans.

we called her "the nazi". every time we would take out the garbage to the cans or take the cans in and out from the road, she would scream at us saying, "i see what you're doing! you're doing that on purpose! stop making all that noise!".

and even though we were terrified of her, it never failed to make us slam and rattle those cans as loud as possible. hey, if you're gonna get blamed for it anyways....

oh! when is the field trip? can y'all take a bus up from texas and swing by tennessee? i'll bring some jack - straight from the brewery...

finally, the last stop is over at being michael's daddy where i manage to compliment, nag, and insult all in one breathe:

purdy lights :) my cat does that too. i built her a great little condo out in the 'baccy(that's tobacco for you yanks) barn. nice and warm and cozy...nope she'd rather sit in the wind and cold and stare inside at us.

we wave :)

and stop complaining - at least you have snow to play in!

oh, and haha it's supposed to be 56 or so today here :p~~~

now, i just realised i need to go check out sciFi dad's page. he has left some funny comments around "town". dang. my blogroll is like a pyramid scheme or something. i will never have time to read, comment, and write at this rate. i'm gonna have to set up a points system and start voting ppl off the island or something :)

sad sack sunday

2008-12-14T21:50:00.004-06:00

well i had this great idea for a blog today.

then i had to go play darts.

then i got beat.

then my creativeness got beat.

i will have to regroup.

'sides, can't spoil you with a real post everday

sunrise saturday

2008-12-13T19:20:00.006-06:00

this was christmas morning last year. and no, i didn't get up early enough to catch a sunrise, but i did stay up late enough to see one :)

heck that is 'bout the only way i will ever see a sunrise, unless, there is something like horseback riding or playing in the snow for added incentive. then i might consider getting up that early.

more likely, i would be scheming to see how we could do the activity later in the day

beat this one bad momma :)

2008-12-12T17:29:00.004-06:00

just wanted to top bad momma on the low gas price pic :-)

see i told y'all i was competitive

oh, this is at the kroger's in cookeville, tn but you have to swipe your kroger card for this price. regularly 1.42 without card

...that still counts doesn't it??

frosty friday (aka: do we ever grow up? aka: thoughtless thursday)

2008-12-12T00:33:00.000-06:00

oops! i was waiting for midnight to get here so i could post friday's on friday, but i guess i forgot about thursday. thus the addition to the, getting to be rather long, title. oh well, i'll get over it. how about you? if not, you have worse issues than my title. or my memory for that matter :)

so we got the first actual accumulation of a very wet snow :) tonight.

the bad news...

1) no g-kid. the prisoner exchange* was early, so he can't come out 'n play in it with me :-(

2) it's supposed to be 40 degrees tomorrow & more than likely, i won't be up before it's all melted

3) it's nighttime now which means of course that it's dark...

and cold...

and wet...

and windy out...

4) that takes a lot of prep work to get ready to go play in the snow..and then there's the wet clothes to deal with afterward

so this is where the, ahem, ~~37 y/o~~ (sshhh) adult (who me?) should kick in and say, "stay inside and stay warm"..right?? right?

nope

the good news...

1) i even took some proof**:

and don't be laughing at my hat thingy***. it's what i store all my gloves in during the summer so it's stretched out and all marge simpson looking.

2) i was warm, so there :p~~~

3) if it doesn't melt before i drag my butt out of bed tomorrow, i'll try to rig up a video of me going down a hill, but don't hold your breathe...that's a big but(t).

4) so, i guess, at least in my case, "No, i don't think i'll ever grow up".

~~copying micro copying Ldan(old 1-I)~~

*hubby's name for the g-kid's parental unit swap

**see i'm fair. i will use my own horrible pic to get a laugh. i'm a slave, what can i say :)

***i just remembered, it's a toboggan

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where i'd like to be...wednesday

2008-12-10T17:09:00.007-06:00

either here:

or here:

how can one person have such totally opposite desires? i think i must be bi-polar... get it? i want to go towards the north pole and the south pole :) i know, its lame and you shouldn't have to explain your joke if it's a good one..

oh, and i am def blonde today (and not just my hair color). i was getting ready to go pick up the g-kid from school and my sis called.

i was right on time, getting close to running late so i was in that kindof panic-y (yeah i made up that word) rushing mode, ya know? so, i tell her to call me on my cell so i can leave. she does, we talk. i get to the end of the road i am on and just start cussing myself. she's all like, "what's wrong??".

"oh, nothing. this idiot (that would be ME) just decided to drive to my old job (my 3 years old, in the past, job) instead of going to the school! such a space cadet!", so i bust a u-y (made that one up too) and head on my way back to where i started from.

sheesh, now i really am late!

two cuties tuesday

2008-12-09T11:36:00.005-06:00

my neice and nephew had a photo shoot for the company that my little brother worked for. yes, i said worked, guess nobody wants to spend money on embroidered shirts and such when the economy is down the tubes. so anyways, they used them to model some clothes for their catalog or whatever. they are sooo cute, you just want to eat 'em up! so instead of going all hannibal lecter on you, i thought i would just share the pics:

oh! and i now have more friends than family followers! woohooo. that's gotta be a good thing don't you think??

new (to me) blogger to check out

2008-12-08T13:21:00.004-06:00

i left a very ~~true~~ embarassing comment on mr. lady's blog the other day and micki voted for me to win mr. lady's perfume contest. so of course i had to go check out this smart, wise, wonderful person who knows i ~~am the best~~ should win the contest. she is having her own contest promoting an artist, Marie Natale so i thought i would let my ~~numerous~~ four followers know about it. so go check out her blog and the artist's website, and maybe you ~~had better not~~ will win.

morphed out monday

2008-12-08T11:43:00.005-06:00

first, i'm actually gonna post something funny that happened to me recently. i just got my hair highlighted and trimmed the other day. hubby of course didn't notice until i pointed it out to him. a little while later we were standing outside freezing our butts off, smoking cigarettes, and he tells me i really like that color. you look like Lassie. in case you are wondering, this was actually supposed to be a compliment. i asked him (very indignantly) what the heck is that supposed to mean?!? bless his heart, he said, i just meant that it is multi-colored, you know like lassie's coat. i LIKE it, really. i just sighed and thought to myself, well, at least he tried.

ok, now for some morphing magical fun. this is a pic of my lil sis that i took several years ago named joker norene:

it's creepy, isn't it?

screwed up sunday

2008-12-07T16:06:00.003-06:00

my step-daughter will FREAK if she ever sees this, but i couldn't resist. this is what happens when you take hair-coloring into your own hands. needless to say, her mom took her the next day for an emergency hair color correction.

sad face saturday

2008-12-06T00:23:00.005-06:00

ok, i have soooo many pics that i totally can't wait until next friday. so i have decided to just post one for every day of the week : )

the story behind this pic is that me and my lil sis love to try to make my mom cry by giving her a mushy card or a really special present. all of my mom's kids (5) are grown and she is experiencing a major case of empty nest syndrome. so for mother's day i decided to photoshop a pic of all 5 kids together since she wouldn't actually be able to see us all. at that time 2 were living in florida, 1 was in alabama, 1 was in colorado, and 1 was in tennessee (that would be me). this was her reaction to seeing the photo, which of course she didn't quite understand. she wanted to know how i got everybody together so i had to explain that it was "doctored" just for her. here is the pic that she is holding:

there you go MOM. there is a pic of YOU on my blog! (she doesn't get that my family is my hubby and kids now and that ppl don't usually blog about their parents most of the time)

funny face friday

2008-12-05T00:25:00.003-06:00

i am hoping to make this a regular weekly thing. of course, that depends on whether or not i remember to do it and more importantly if i can remember what day it is. i would say getting old is tough, but i don't really even have that excuse (37 isn't old, is it?). maybe it's the fibromyalgia or maybe i have just killed too many brain cells, but the memory department is definitely out to lunch :-)

is it plagiarism to steal somebody else's blog ideas?

2008-12-01T14:00:00.007-06:00

taking a page from literalDan's blog here is a typical conversation with james, my 3 y/o grandson:

james: nonna i gotta go potty tuz* my peepee is hurting (of course in the middle of lunch)

me: ok, let's go potty.

james: (sitting on the pot for like 3 seconds) i'm done nonna.

me: ok, get some toilet paper and wipe off (he has given up shaking off for wiping).

james: i dink i need to go poopy.

me: ok (do i really need to give him permission for act 2??)

james: (in an injured voice) nonna doze poopies don't want to tome out! out poopy out! (speaking to the poopies, not me)

me: uh oh, well just keep trying (am i gonna make the kid have hemorrhoids??)

james: i'm done nonna. doze poopies still won't tome out!

me: that's ok, i'm sure they will later

intermission for 1st snow of the season:

james catching snow flakes on his tongue. they're there really. see above pic :)

so after our 2 minutes of snow fall we go back inside for his nap. as i am talking on the phone to my sis he comes out of his room and informs me that he has to go poopy. now. again.

james: (very excited and proud voice) doze poopies are coming out now! one of dem just did!

me: yeah (in an appropriately excited voice).

so he sits on the toilet for awhile talking to himself (i thought) when i catch him saying something to me about running and his nap.

me: were you running in your sleep?

james: nooo, there was doggies running, and ....(mumbling so i can't hear) and dat's what made a noise and it was my poopies wanting to tome out!

me: (distracted by reading literalDan posts)mmm hmmm, that's good. are they all out yet? (meaning hurry up so i can wipe your butt, put you back to bed, and go post this thrilling conversation before i forget it all)

james: no not yet. (in a kindof strained voice) dere.. is... some more... poopies. my belly is hurting.

me: is it from those poopies that are still in there?

james: no. i dink its tuz i'm hungry (yes, i fed him lunch, and he ate it all, and a chocolate oatmeal cookie)

me: well, if you're tummy is still hungry after your nap you can get something else to eat.

silence (obviously not happy with me for not bringing him more food while he is pooping)

james: i'm all done now nonna. i dot all doze poopies out of me! and my peepee doesn't hurt anymore!

now what correlation poopy and a painfull peepee have, i'm not sure, since i don't have that equipment. maybe one of you Domestic Engineering Dads could help me out with that one :)

*james speak translations: tuz=beacause, doze=those, tome=come, dem=them, dink=think, dot=got

wacky wednesday wanderings

2008-11-26T14:13:00.007-06:00

just a few funny things the g-kid has been up to:

sitting in the drive thru at hardees yesterday morning (yes, i said morning. I was up at 6:30 AM to pick up the munchkin.) i look in the rearview mirror and see james swatting and grabbing at..well.. nothing. of course the 1st thought is oh, no. he's seeing stuff that isn't there. i casually ask:

me: whatcha doin' james?

james: what are dese fuzzy dings, nonna?

me: are they really small and kind of floating around?

james: yeah, what are day? i trying to tatch dem but i tant. (the hard c sound has yet to be mastered)

me: they are just little specks of dust floating around. keeping trying to catch one. (figure that should occupy him for at least a min. or until the food is ready)

james: i dont like dem. i tant tatch dem. (furiously waving now, trying to get them away from him)

me: its ok. they are just dust. it wont hurt you.

james: mommy's tar don't have dese.

*great, guilt trip from the 3 y/o because my car isn't clean enough for his standards*

me: yes it does. everybody's does. you just can't see them unless the sun is shining really bright inside the car.

we pulled up some so now we were out of the sun.

me: see they are gone now.

james: yep, day are

that seemed to satisfy him :)

today it is beautiful outside so we went out to play in the leaves. i have been waiting for all of the elements to come together in harmony for this moment for the last few weeks. i had to wait for the leaves to fall (obviously). then they had to not be wet from recent rain. and finally, it had to be warmer that a ~~witch's t..~~ um... ~~well digger's a..~~ um.. let's just say it had to be warm.

so we swept up some leaves in a pile and he jumped in...

and then, of course, my adorable little ocd neat freak had to brush all of the leaves off. even going so far as to take his hat off just in case one sneaked in there :)

one final cute g-kid moment. he saw a lady bug on me and thought it was hilarious. then said ladybug flew off of me towards him. his reaction? yep, duck and run. yes, my boy g-kid is terrified of most all bugs. he tries to pretend for me that he isnt petrified when i try to introduce him to the "nice" bugs and "nighttime butterflies" (moths), but he isn't fooling anybody. so the aforementioned ladybug landed nearby and my ~~chicken~~ corageous james decides he will scare it away with his mcD toy that sings "i like to move it, move it". he squats beside the bug and shakes the toy at it (causing it to sing) for a good 2-3 min. i asked him if that was scaring the ladybug away. his response was confident and assured.

james: yep. see her's twalling away...

anniversary excursion....finally...part two

2008-11-24T12:40:00.017-06:00

just to reassure you, my hubby actually had a good time on this trip. he doesnt always look like he is having fun, but as he says "how can you tell if i'm smiling or not? the 'stache covers it up." so i tell him of course you can tell the difference, now smile for this one! this is what i get:

i mean really! in what language or culture does smile=raise your eyebrows and open your eyes wide so you look like a deer caught in the head lights?! couldnt resist making fun of hubby. now on with the show!

after the lost river cave tour and nature walk that we took, we decided to go try and find this historical italianate house. after much driving around we finally found it ( i didnt think hubby would really be interested in seeing this house so i didnt bring directions to it). unfortunately, we got there right at 4pm and that was closing time, but it was a beautiful house and i hope to go back and see inside of it someday. here is a plaque describing the house and a picture of the front of the house:

since we had driven all around the old part of town, we (meaning me, hubby drives i navigate), decided to try to find our way back to the motel a different route. we probably couldnt come back the way we came if we tried anyways. we had found the house by following those handy little brown signs directing you to state parks or historical points of interest. well, i think they ~~sucked~~ forgot a couple of signs, so we actually passed it and then wandered around until we happened upon it. SO back to our trip thru the older downtown area... it wasnt very interesting. (our downtown is way more attractive now that they have "restored" it. actually McMinnville, TN is one of google's 3D towns.) we came to an intersection and i looked down the end of a road and saw this:

so of course i directed hubby to turn down this road so we could see what this huge building was. well it turns out to be Western Kentucky University's building (i have no clue what its called. some kind of SomebodyImportantLastName Hall) it was a cool building with a statue out front and a copper dome on top:

well when we reached this building we turned to the right and followed the road down the hill. all of a sudden hubby and i looked at each other.

me: um, i think we are actually ON the campus now, somehow

hubby: how did that happen?

me: i dont know. you would think they would warn you somehow. we need to get out of here.

hubby: how? where?

me: look! over there they are lining up floats for some kind of election parade. uh, oh. i think we are heading that way. (me scanning around, there has a to be a way out of here!) look, over there! i see the stadium. we went past that on the way in, but on the other side. the main hwy has to be that way. turn here.

hubby: i hope you can get us back to the hotel. i'm hungry.

me: (full of false bravado) of course i can.

and i actually did! now most of you are probably thinking, what's the big deal? so you went on campus? for some reason me & hubby don't have much luck when we get inside of a park, campus, anything like that. poor hubby had to drive around ft. benning with his ex for HOURS trying to find their way back out. hehe it was pretty funny too. stuck with "the b" for all that time, with nobody else to ease the tension. lol and i was back at the hotel waiting in comfort.

we made it back to the hotel just in time for me to snap this great sunset shot:

the tree in front is a little cherry tree that actually had fruit on it. i spent a lot of time by it on my smoke breaks. we both smoke, but not inside so we get non-smoking rooms and suffer the weather.

next morning is monday, my birthday! :) and also checkout day :( but we are heading up to mammoth cave to go on a short little tour before heading back home so i dont get too bummed about checking out. hubby wanted to be back home before it was dark. he really isnt much of a traveler and would rather be @ home playing in his shop than exploring, but he loves me so he lets me drag him around every now and then.

we got to the cave a little early so i hit the souvenir store and bought a bunch of little things for mementos. then we were off on a short little trip to the frozen niagra formation. as we were listening to the tour guide before we left, i realized we i had picked the wrong tour. hubby wanted short so we wouldnt be here too late, but i had forgotten that i noticed that some tours had age limits, which meant no little rug rats running around. sorry moms, i'm a grandma myself, but i'm not too fond of unruly brats on tours w/us. raise them w/some manners and i wont try to avoid the little heathens :) this tour was not one of those child free tours. so now we had to use some strategy. we got on the bus right behind the driver cuz we heard one of the ~~demons~~ bleacher creatures hollering about riding in the back. then when we got ready to go thru the cave we positioned ourselves right behind the tour guide. (lost river tour we never got to hear the guide due to poor positioning strategy and jabbering little ~~monsters~~ rug rats) we learn fast. we had a much better tour experience this time. we saw the frozen niagra formation:

and many more formations. this one i really liked and named myself because the guide never mentioned it. i call it the hand formation (woohoo how original and witty...NOT):

sadly, that marks the end of this ~~novel~~ saga. we went home by the interstate and shortest route, instead of finding back roads. hubby was in shop withdrawal by this time, so i didnt push my luck :) i wont bore yall any more with all of the pics that i took, but you might see random vacation shots in my future posts. we had a great time on our little weekend adventure. hopefully, i didnt torture yall too bad with my ~~home movies~~ posts.

fun filled friday

2008-11-20T22:15:00.011-06:00

YEAHHH!!! we have finally firmed up plans and me, mom, aunt, & cousin are all going to see Twilight tomorrow afternoon! woohooo!!! can ya tell i'm a little excited?? if you like to read fiction, you HAVE to read this series by stephanie meyers. (it is about vampires and such so if you dont like that stuff, it might not be your cup of tea). BUT it is a totally different viewpoint of vampires and werewolves and such. and although it is a young adult book, it is very well written and will keep you ~~up all night for 14 hours straight reading~~ on the edge of your seat. it is hard to explain the strong attraction? feelings? addiction? that this series has had on me. i dont know, maybe i just really enjoy an escape from reality, but these books are as good or better than the harry potter books IMHO.

i feel like a little kid with a big exciting day tomorrow :) i dont like to go out to the movies much. well to be honest cuz i'm a tight wad and more comfortable watching at home where i have a pause and rewind button for when i miss something. also, the theater in my po-dunk town is naaaasty. we are going to go 45 min away just to go to a new theater instead of ours in town cuz it's so gross. it even has holes in the screen. i mean come on, its a movie theater. how can you have screens with holes in them??

well this was just gonna be a short "haha look what i get to do tomorrow while the rest of the world slaves away" post, but i kinda got a little worked up thinkin bout the local theater,

oh, and i have some great plans for a visit from FWM if i can talk her into coming here ;) ...i wonder if she's seen Deliverance or Wrong Turn ...muhahahaha

woeful wednesday

2008-11-19T22:34:00.004-06:00

you know your wednesday is not gonna go good when you start the day at 6:30am worshipping the porcelain god. no i didnt pull a cough syrup bender. i wish. i have no idea what made me sick. i think that it might have been something i ate last nite.
maybe is was the coconut pie (just one slice), or the german chocolate cookie (just one i swear!), or it could have been the oatmeal creme pie (the small size), or possibly the egg nog (virgin-the eggnog, that is). i dont know, but i should have known wednesday was not looking good for me.

i took the grandkid to the library. they didnt have the next book in one series i'm reading. i'm 4th on the list for janet evanovich's fearless fourteen. they don't have stephanie meyer's the host (which my mother has but never seems to remember to give to me)

i got home from babysitting, stirred and tasted my chili that i was cooking for darts tonight. blah! it was so not like my normal good chili. so i worked on that in between showering and dressing for darts. then i remembered that a fellow darter and my step-son were expected at the house soon. i thought maybe i should actually do the dressing part before the cooking so i wouldn't blind anybody that showed up early (don't they always when you dont want them to??)

and then the night ended with a thorough trouncing in darts. against a team we beat earlier in the season. it was not fun. well, that's a lie. it was fun, but winning is much more fun :)

at least we were good hosts. i brought the "souped up" chili and everybody liked it. some ppl even had 3-4 bowls of it! guess instead of all of this whining i should just be happy that my chili was a success.

naaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

weaselMomma's one word meme

2008-11-18T11:38:00.002-06:00

here it is...

Where is your cell phone? here

Where is your significant other? work

Your hair color? blondish

Your mother? loving

Your father? dead

Your favorite thing? reading

Your dream last night? wierd

Your dream/goal? happiness

The room you’re in? living

Your hobby? scrapbooking

Your fear? cockroaches

Where do you want to be in 6 years? painless

Where were you last night? home

What you’re not? liar

One of your wish-list items? cd Player -ok so i cheated thats 2 words but heck i dont want a cd and if i just put player who knows what yall would think :)

Where you grew up? sarasota

Last thing you did? this

What are you wearing? pajamas

Your TV? off

Your pet? outside

Your computer? ok

Your mood? awake

Missing someone? megan

Your car? minivan

Something you’re not wearing? bra

Favorite store? book

Your summer? fun!

Love someone? yep

Your favorite color? fuscia

When is the last time you laughed? yesterday

Last time you cried? yesterday ( no hubby didn't beat on me, i finished a stupid book & the main character died. lol i am turning into the person that cries at tv, books, just about anything lately)

anniversary excursion....finally...part one

2008-11-15T12:24:00.021-06:00

the long awaited, much anticipated (yeah right) anniversary excursion to Bowling Green, KY and Mammoth Cave....

with the whole plurisy thing happening we didnt actually get to start out until saturday morning. we had to make a detour before we started on the "official" trip. our friend and fellow cruiser had passed away a couple of months ago, and his wife was having a yard sale of all of his shop tools, car parts, and asst. junk that men like to collect in their shops. well ole jim had 3 shops. needless to say by the time we stopped buying we had spent 300 bucks and the back of the mini van was packed full of clangy, rattling, metal parts.

(pretend i was smart enough to take a pic of the loaded van and imagine it right here)

so we looked at each other and said, well should we just go on with all of this stuff in the van or go back home, unload, and then start our trip over. i looked at rickEy to see what he was wanting to do, then i thought an hour back home, unload, an hour to get back here....forget that lets go! so our adventure began. (map of route) we enjoy taking back roads more than the interstate so you can see the cool farms, houses, trees, and fields instead of boring billboards and other cars and of course the hubby has to look for old trucks in barns or the woods. so we had a gorgeous drive to bowling green. kentucky got more rain than we did in TN so the trees were much more colorful there.

we checked in sat. afternoon and just kindof chilled and went to eat dinner. sunday we headed out for our first adventure to The Lost River Cave & Valley. It's about a 15 min. walk thru the woods and by some gorgeous blue holes:

the blue color comes from limestone particles in the water reflecting from the sunlight. after a short walk we come to the entrance of the cave. There are signs posted telling that jesse james hid out in the cave in 1868 and also both sides of the civil war used the area as encampments. In the 1930's there was an "underground nite club" and they held balls and weddings in the wide covered entrance area.

so now we actually get to get into a flat bottom boat that has seats down each side. there is a metal railing down the middle of the boat that we all have to lean down and duck our heads to avoid a concussion (woohoo potential danger...gotta get a pic of this!)

that was a pretty cool little trip. we got to see some cave crickets, well barely. it was a very short little boat trip and very dim around the few lights they had placed. this river is still undergoing major efforts to clean and repair damage from ignorant ppl who thought "hey, here is a sink hole. lets dump all our trash in it, and it will magically disappear!" morons. all that garbage eventually ends up in the underground streams and rivers that we drink from because of the karst topography.

now we are back out of the boat and i want to walk the trails that they have around there. it really is a gorgeous little bit of woods in the middle of a city. we walk by old powder houses and head for the butterfly habitat.

hubby: it's fall, i think it's too cold for butterflies..

me: what? oh, i know it's fall but maybe they have a nice little heated home for the butterflies

hubby: (looks at me to see if i look like i am gonna give up on this little side trip) ok, lets go

me: reading the signs about double checking yourself in the mirror to see if you have any hitchhiker butterflies on you, invisioning walking thru a garden with hundreds of butterflies, typical daydreaming thoughts as i am waiting to enter the habitat.
this is what i find:

the only butterfly in the place...

...notice the determined photographer (me) goes so far as to stage the DEAD butterfly by one of the only blooms left in the habitat.

me: i wanted pics of butterflies! i dont care if it's dead. you wont be able to tell in the pic unless you look real close. now, go look for more dead ones. maybe we can get a whole ~~flock~~ ~~herd~~ bunch of 'em.

that's all for now, folks. i will continue our adventure in the next installment unless there are too many pleas for mercy : ) hey i just realized something. this is like home movies for the masses. hahaha. now i dont have to clean the house and lure you to the living room where the projector is all set up. of course i wont know if you decide to leave during the middle of the show this way either...hmmm...nope still better this way. anything that means i dont have to clean 4 company wins in my book.

to be consistant or not to be

2008-11-14T10:34:00.004-06:00

yes, i am here, no i didnt quit, and i did warn yall from the beginning that i had no idea whether i could do this regularly. now the reasons i have been so slow to post are numerous, but i'm gonna make you read them all anyway.

1. i am like a raccoon, i am easily distracted by bright shiny things. i sit down at my dashboard trying to decide what to write, and then i see some new post from somebody that i am following. what do i do? i go off and read blogs for like an hour (or till my hind-end starts to fall asleep) so by then i'm tired of blogs.
2. i need to post about my anniversary excursion to bowling green, ky BUT that means i have to go thru my pics and crop, adjust, etc. and i am feeling too ~~lazy~~ busy to do all of that right now.
3. (this is a really good excuse, but only for the last few days) my aunt (mom's identical twin sis)has been in the hospital since tuesday so i have been either there or watching my grandson all week and i'm tired! and finally...
4. probably the biggest reason is that i keep reading all of these great, funny, witty, smart blogs and i am having blog anxiety(not envy..well maybe a little envy) that there is no way i could write something as smart or as funny.

so is that enough to convince yall that it really isnt my fault that i am not writing more? actually now that i think about it ... it is all of yall's fault that i am not. so stop being so funny...please?

my weirdness and...meme

2008-11-04T11:56:00.007-06:00

i have been commanded to bore yall with my ~~weirdness~~ idiosyncrasies. weaselMomma said i had to do this meme (which i had to look up cuz i have never heard the term b4. here is the deff:

In the context of web logs / 'blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites it's some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on. I generally consider these to be actual questions and not some multiple choice quizzes that determine some result at the end (what color you are most like, what cartoon character are you, what 80s movie are you).

sounds impressive but i think its just a fancy word for another kind of survey. so here it is, My 7 ways of weirdness:

1. i hate mornings! always have, always will. nothing will change that fact. even the Army couldnt drum that out of me, and let me tell you, they are very good at changing ppl. just not as good as me and my own internal clock that screams SLEEEPP at least until 10 or 11 or so :)

2. i, like weaselMomma, am a very cheap wife to keep around. i like to save money **gasp**, i hate shopping 4 clothes and pretty much shopping in general, unless i have a lot of spare money (haha), and i am shopping for someone else.

3. my husband now has the final say on all matters pertaining to fashion. he saved me from looking like the ugly duckling at his son's wedding, so i now bow to his wisdom.

4. also like wM, my feet are cold all of the time, but i CANT wear socks to keep them warm. i only wear socks when i have shoes on, otherwise they make me smother. dont ask. just believe. i breathe thru my feet, ok??

5. i dont eat vegetables. at all. well, 'cept for fried okra. i just discovered that one last year. its the first cooked green vege i have ate voluntarily since childhood. (dont force ur kids to eat stuff, it really messes with their heads for a long time!)

6. i am extremely competative. i can turn anything into a contest. i even liked taking tests in school just so i could see how much better i did (hopefully) than everybody else. i had a really good idea for the microbiologist's contamination fairy contest, but unfortunately i cannot put my vision down on paper near as well as i can see it.

7. you cant tell by my pics, but i actually hate to eat. i would be thrilled to death if i could get one of those tubes in my stomach so i could just squeeze all the healthy stuff that my body needs straight in there. do not pass mouth, do not collect any fat, calories, or cholesterol. just think how nice it would be to never have to this conversation ever again:
"what do you want for dinner tonight, darling?"
"i dont know, what do you want?"
"i dont care, whatever you want to get." (meaning i'm not hungry, dont want to cook, and dont want to feel guilty for not wanting to cook you something for dinner, lol)
"you decide, youre the picky eater."
ugh! i really hate going thru that everytime we decide to go out to eat somewhere.

short and not so flippin' sweet :-(

2008-10-30T17:17:00.005-05:00

2 words 4 ya.

pleurisy sucks!

ok it is now 5pm on thurs.

i've been hurting since mon @ noon.

2morrow is my anniversary.

i cant breathe w/out bein' in pain.

if i cant breathe, i cant, um, have fun on my anniversary :-(

it kindof sucks. but if i'm not miraculously cured by mid-day 2morrow i think we're gonna have 2 postpone.

send healthy vibes my way!

-disappointed nonna

anniversary plans

2008-10-24T15:20:00.004-05:00

i have been racking my brains and searching online for weeks now, trying to decide on what to do for our anniversary. we had decided on only giving presents to each other every 5 years, because neither of us are big shoppers and let's face it, we are broke people. so, this halloween will be our 5th anniversary (he was scared to death to get married again so i figured halloween would fit nicely as a wedding day, plus it makes it much easier to remember!) i want to go out of town and spend the night somewhere quiet and secluded, but i don't want to spend hundreds of dollars doing it. it would be nice if it was romantic, but not required as neither of us is a very mushy type of person.

sooo to make a long story a little shorter....help!! does anybody have any ideas for a great little weekend trip that is easy on the wallet? of course we are down here in middle tennessee so we would prefer suggestions that are within a few hours drive or if you have someplace or something that you have done in the past that might be duplicated down here in the south let me know.

my missing links family

2008-10-22T14:51:00.006-05:00

ok, so i have been informed by "the woman who pushed for nearly 24 hours to bring me into this world" that my family list was lacking...well...my family :-). i guess i could plead temporary amnesia or point out that it was like after midnight when i created my blog, but somehow i dont think either of those reasons will fly, so i am on here again today to remedy this situation.

i have a ~~critical~~ wonderful mother named kaye, a step-father named tom, and i also have 3 brothers and a sister. here is a photo of all of the kids:

from left to right you have philip, me, chuck, norene, and mike. let's see if i can get all the ages right: chuck=39, me=36, mike=34, phil=28, and norene=26. let's see, oh yes phil is married to holly and mike is married to anna. hmm..who else? i have a great-grandmother who is 101 and i also have a granny who/whom (never did remember which to use) norene is named after. oh can't forget the in-laws, formerly known as ma & pa, but they have been renamed as granny and grandpa by james (when we actually remember to call them that!) ok..so i think that is it, and if i left anybody out, i'm sorry but this is supposed to be a blog not a novel after all! lol

my very first blog...and who knows, maybe my last :-)

2008-10-22T00:06:00.002-05:00

i don't know what happened. all i wanted to do was be included as one of weaselMomma's followers and now all of a sudden i am a blogger! i'm not sure if this is a good thing or not (at least from y'alls point of view) but is has happened. the blogging world might never be the same again...or then again i might just be one more grain of sand in the beach of bloggers out there. of course i will probably be the sand that refuses to wash off your feet, catches a ride in your floor mat, and is a constant reminder that you still haven't vacuumed your car since last summer. if you have ever been to siesta key in sarasota, fl where the sand is finer than sugar, you will understand what i mean. if you haven't had the pleasure of visiting there, you should (unless you are OCD and don't want to spend hours trying to get the sand out of your car).

i guess i should tell you a little about myself to start with. i am 36 y/o, married to a great guy, rickEy, and i have 3 step-kids and 2 grandsons. i know, you are thinking "dang she must have started young!" lol but no, my hubby is quite a bit older than i am. he graduated high school the year i was born (you do the math) so i am acutally closer in age to his kids than to him. we have 3 kids aged 28, 26, & 24my oldest grandson, james, just turned 3 and the newest, reagen, joined the fam june 11th.

i have an AAS in information technology, but i am currently unemployed while awaiting a decision from the ~~governmental jerks~~ powers that be regarding social security disability. i spend my days watching james, reading, and playing steel tip darts. i guess now i will also be ~~boring you to tears~~ blogging about my life. i think that is probably enough for my first post...more to come ~~maybe~~ soon. it's not like i have much else to do with all of my spare time anyways :-)