Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Infection & Breaking News

Well it happened, I knew you could get a virus from an email but I didn't think it was possible to get the croup.

My girlie woke up *bark bark* around midnight and loved the way she *bark bark* sounded. This only a few short hours after some email stuff to Jennifer about her son's croup. Coincidence?


And this just in..... Sophie's got a sweater!

Monday, November 29, 2004


The rain makes it's debut. But we had just the right mix of alcohol in the veins or something because this was a total blast. Granted we looked like hell. Camo is NOT my best color. I was kind of surprised at the number of 'hey I can only see your face the rest of you is invisible' jokes I got but I was so warm and totally dry so what the hell did I care?  Posted by Hello

Tom Brady and Matt Light.  Posted by Hello

The view from our NINTH ROW seats. I don't care if I can only afford to see a game every two or three years (who am I kidding? I am SO going next year) I will never sit in the top cliffhanger section. Please note, the apparent lack of rain. Thank YOU well wishers. It held off the major rain until half time. Posted by Hello

I'll give you a hint....I do not at all match the others. (and I am not the guy :) )  Posted by Hello

Here's one of those turkeys in a tree. He was probably about forty feet up or so. Posted by Hello

Saturday, November 27, 2004

I am ready for some football

And the huge predicted downpours.

Tomorrow I'm headed to the Patriots game. A game I've been waiting for all season, my first very expensive ticket to the Pats - in the ninth row even - and it's supposed to rain and not just drizzle...heavy downpours. Hurray.

The upside would be the tailgate party in the RV that we're going to have. Food, alcohol, food, alcohol, cards and well, food and booze. I'm going with my husband's cousin and aunt two HUGE Pats fans so even with the deluge it should be a good time.

Wish me luck and pray for cold and overcast! Thanks Lisa, for the new pic, I hope it worked!

Friday, November 26, 2004

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
How much money do you plan to spend this upcoming holiday season? Less than usual on gifts, we're doing over a very small room and making it a Game Cube room.

Soup
What was the last television show you watched, and was it good? Can't remember watching any TV this week but I did watch Bruce Almighty and it sucked!

Salad
If you had to paint the walls of your living room tomorrow, what color would you choose? Pillar for the walls and Potter's Clay for the trim, both by the lovely Ralph Lauren. Oh, wait, that's the color they are...well, I love it and would do it again tomorrow. :)

Main Course
Name something clever or practical you have thought of that should be invented, but hasn't yet. The laundry putterawayer. Don't ask me how they'd do it, but truly, it SHOULD be invented.

Dessert
List 3 things you would like to receive as gifts this holiday season. The Sims Urbz for my Gameboy, The Coleman Outrider Flashlite (never needs batteries) and 8X8 square cake pans, nice ones - no stinky baker's secret.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Turkeys and Crisps


Em, Here are the turkeys! Posted by Hello

Ever since I switched over to Firefox the pictures up there haven't been posting. Grrrr. But I guess they just don't show up for visitors because they show up on my screen so I have no idea who sees what.

*Idea* If you are visiting and don't mind leaving me a comment could you let me know if you can see the picture (not the one in this post) above the blog title? Much appreciated. :)

The cranberry crisp recipe:

Pour three cups of cranberries into a 10" pie plate. Cover with 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of nuts.

In a seperate bowl mix 1/2 cup of melted butter with 1 cup of sugar. Add 2 eggs and 1 cup of flour and (very important ingredient coming up) add 1 teaspoon of orange peel. Pour this batter over the top of the cranberry mix and bake at 325 degrees for one hour.

This is delicious served with whipped cream. Might be good warm with vanilla ice cream too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A shot of Wild Turkey(s)

I took that picture of the turkeys (That one, up there in the blog title) a few weeks ago. We were at the bus stop and I looked back toward the house and there were like twelve wild turkeys crossing the road.

I ran home, grabbed the camera and snuck up on them and took the pic. I took one more step and those friggin' birds took off in every direction. There were turkeys flying everywhere. And you know what...they landed in trees and high up in trees I might add. So I chased them again and scared a few of them enough so that they took off out of the trees. Limbs and leaves were falling and the girlie started to cry she was so scared. Oops. I did get a pic of this huge turkey in a tree though.
Phew. Two coats of paint on the bathroom walls. Done. Now all I have to paint is the trim but I HAVE to use painter's tape because I'm too impatient to take my time and try to go all nice and straight on the trim boards. So anyway, can't put the tape on until the paint cures and that will take a few days. This wouldn't be such a big project to most people but the husband has previously accused me of being a totally half assed painter so I'm trying to do a whole assed job.

Thanksgiving is just about here. One thing I'm thankful for *waiting for lightening bolt from the heavens to strike me down* is that my mom isn't cooking. The very definition of half assed in the dictionary has a picture of her Thanksgiving Dinner right next to it. She is queen of the 'good enough' dinner. Canned sweet potatoes and corn. Ew. And stuffing so soggy my stepsister and I once threw together a box of Stove Top as dinner was going on the table. We have been saved this year by an invite from my stepfather's brother and his wife.

A bunch of my inlaws are either working on Thursday (restaurant types) and so we're having dinner on Tuesday evening. Which by the way will all be totally delicious and all fresh and homemade. I'm making a cranberry crisp for both occasions. Very easy and yet so harvesty.


Friday, November 19, 2004

YAY! At least I'm not Beaker.

statler jpeg
You are Statler or Waldorf.
You have a high opinion of yourself, as do others.
But only because you are in the balcony seats.

ALSO KNOWN AS:
Those two old guys in the box.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Heckling, complaining, being cantankerous

QUOTE:
"Get off the stage, you bum!"

LAST BOOKS READ:
"The Art of Insult" and "How To
Insult Art"

NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT:
Their pacemakers.


What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
What do you think is the perfect age to get married? To have a first child? To retire? Ideally I'd say 25 to get married, 25-27 for the baby and I'd want to retire at 60, that is, if I had a real job.

Soup
If you could change occupations tomorrow, what would you want to do for a living? A movie critic. To watch movies all day and then throw my opinion out there and *kaching* a paycheck. Sounds heavenly.

Salad
What does the color green make you think of? Shit, I almost wrote salad before I realized that this was the 'salad' portion of the feast, subliminal suggestion I think. I have to clear my mind, which shouldn't take long, let me move on... Okay, back now, I'd have to say leaves, nature, the outdoors. I'm looking around my bedroom which is a shade of green that I absolutely love and I'm thinking it's a color that sort of relaxes and calms me.

Main Course
What is something that has happened to you over the last year that you didn't expect? Well, I didn't think I'd ever keep any sort of journal for longer than two days, so this blog thing is kind of a surprise. Not to mention the blogfriends I've met.

Dessert
How old were you when you had your first kiss? Well, first kiss or first real kiss? First kiss, First Grade. Mark L. was the kisser and I was the stunned Kissee. If I had known how absolutely gorgeous he would grow up to be...

Big Painting Update

Okay, a quick note again. ...

Watched Survivor last night and I cannot think of a more hellacious place on earth than being that last guy stuck on that island with all of those women. Ugh. And that one of them will win a million dollars is even sadder.

I know, painting this room is taking me forever. But the darling husband decided to joint coumpound all of the ceiling to wall edges, so I had to wait for it to dry. I'm doing the second coat for the walls tomorrow. Then I'll start the trim. I sure do know how to have some fun, eh?

I have a book club thing tonight. I blew off my regular one (they picked Toni Morrison and I kind of just refused based on the fact that I find her whole heartedly annoying) and am going to the one my mom just started. She chose a book that was my pick a few months ago and she asked me to come to help with the chat. It's all older women and kind of a conservative bunch. Should be a ball. :-P

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Quick Note

The girlie just told me as she climbed into bed that she felt

Like an icky flower with a head-rake.


Sunday, November 14, 2004

This kind of old house

We've been pretty much working on this house from the moment we moved in eight years ago and have finally replaced each and every window. Not that this was the only project we've undertaken but we are now on Bathroom Redux #2.

The first major project we did was the bathroom. It had a shag carpet, which I steadfastly refused to walk on, a half sized tub caulked with masking tape (surprise!) and plastic panel walls from the 80's. Plus it was small. Like smaller than small.

Well, a friend was having a Mary Kay party (*gag*), but being a friend I went. Halfway in I get a phone call "Don't buy a thing" the husband warned me. "We have no water left in the well."

The well ran dry? Literally? Yes and not only did it run dry, the pump pumped silty sand through our entire plumbing system. It was like the lottery, only what we won kind of sucked. Unlimited sand is never as fun as money.

The entire plumbing system was junk, we had no water and the bathroom needed fixin' and so SLAMMO with the sledgehammer a wall came down and the big bathroom was born, well, not born, sort of conceived because god knows these projects take forever to be done.

My husband spent many hours down 25 feet in the well (Baby Jessica, if you're reading this and have a flashback you have my apologies) with pumps trying to stave off the influx of silty sand and installing various well pieces which in fact bought us about 6 years of water, used conservatively. The sand he pumped out made the kiddos a helluva sandbox though.

So now, with the install of the final windows we needed to paint the bathroom and I thought "Perfect time for a change and dammit I want a purple room." The husband leaves the color choices to his lovely wife and here's what I ended up with Spokane Falls & Rhodedendron (sp?). This time he is also leaving the painting up to his lovely wife (by lovely wife I do mean ME you know) as I have, to his surprise last year, proven myself to be an okay painter. The first coat is done and I'll be doing the second coat and trim this week. The blogging might suffer but I will post pictures when I'm done and make it all worthwhile. :)



Saturday, November 13, 2004

And if you've no place to go....

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Well, the snow is here. Those pictures I've posted down below were taken at 7:20 a.m. because god forbid we don't just throw our snow pants on and get the hell outside to run around and make snow angels. :)

So nice that the first snow wasn't a wimpy dusting that just barely coats the roof and grass. And even better that the husband was home to take a shift outside with the kids. He generally plows and I get to wrassle with the snow clothes all by my lonesome.

The pictures I've been posting in the header are ones I've been taking of the pond we live on. I'm trying to keep with a seasonal theme, sort of, until they get really boring and plain, like say with no snow and no purdy leaves.



 Posted by Hello

Three happy snowy kids.  Posted by Hello

One happy, snowy boy.  Posted by Hello

Friday, November 12, 2004

Ripped From the Headlines

TWO TO FOUR INCHES ACROSS

NORTHERN RHODE ISLAND AND INTERIOR SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS
AND BLOCK ISLAND...AND THREE TO FIVE INCHES ACROSS SOUTHERN
RHODE ISLAND AND SOUTH COASTAL MASSACHUSETTS. SOME EXTRA TIME
AND CAUTION IS ADVISED AS THIS WILL BE THE FIRST ACCUMULATING
SNOW OF THE SEASON OVER MUCH OF THE FORECAST AREA.

I just got the kids their snow boots today!
Please let it be true, please, please, please.
The only bad thing is that they are still in my trunk, meaning I have to run out
into the sleet in my PJs to grab them.


Well, yesterday there was no broken glass. Today's casuality was one ceramic
pumpkin tealight holder thing.

Can't win 'em all.

I just got "Supersize Me" from Netflix and I'm going to bundle up on my couch with my Ghirardelli hot chocloate, which I highly recommend by the way, a fleece pillow and blanket and my new furry purple socks and I will wait for the *tink tink tink* of sleet to turn into the quiet of the first snow.

I'm not sure about this whole Firefox thing, the fonts and margins on this typing page are all screwed up along with the appearance (on my computer anyway) of the sidebar. I'll mess with it another time. I hear fleecy things acallin'.

Foxy Lady


Well, shove over Jennifer, I too am on the Firefox bandwagon. It's so fast. Like Lightening. What's up with that? Ah well, I can no longer see Lisa that well so I'll have to ask her about that.


Thursday, November 11, 2004

Why did the monkey and pickle cross the road?

To eat a basket.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Monkey.

Monkey who?

Monkey you.

Chris Rock, you better watch your back. HAH! For the love of god girlie, stop with the jokes. Sure they were amusing the first 78 times but it's time to freshen up the routine. :)

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on the Santa advise. I was leaning toward keeping on with the party line so it was nice to get some new phrases to throw in with my usual goop.

Well the holiday has begun, Veteran's Day. So a quasi-holiday. Not to belittle anyone's service to their country but y'know what I mean. The boy is having a friend from school over and I have to run interference for him with the girlie so I'm making cookies with her and whatever else will keep her out of their Yugioh, beyblade, playstation free for all.

I took the boy to The Incredibles last night. Has anyone else seen it?

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Thank God It's Wednesday!

Ah, the weekend is here. Not your weekend probably but mine has just arrived. Working only two days a week has its advantages. TGIW!

Yesterday the girlie goes into the bathroom and after doing what she needed to do she flushed. Well before flushing she plucked tissues out of the box one by one and made Mt. Kleenex in the toilet. After the flushing she comes running, I put a tissue in the toilet on accident she says to me.

A tissue, Singular and on accident i.e. accidentally.

Mt. Kleenex didn't flush, infact its peak was above the rim. I double checked the water (clean, the toilet had just flushed) handed the girlie the rubber gloves and a plastic bag and told her to dig in. She looked at me with a Mommy's gone off the deep end - me+rubber gloves+toilet?!?!?" kind of look and threw on the gloves and got to work.

Score one for Mommy. Now I'm only losing by 40,232.

Today I dropped the glass mayonnaise jar and it broke into forty batrillion pieces all over the kitchen floor. I'm barefoot, the kids shoes are in the shoe cubby thing which means walking over the shards of glass to get a pair of shoes and the dogs are tag teaming me with their dumbass attempts to grab and lick the bigger chunks of glass that were covered in mayo. Hey Dogs - It's Glass.

Naturally I had about five minutes before we had to leave for the bustop, preschool and work. And Fred, the scavenger Beagle, would have eaten that whole damned pile of glass if it meant ingesting 12 oz. of Helmanns or he would have licked the floor and cut his tounge with a shard of glass that I missed and would have bled all over the rug in the living room. So we missed the bus and I was late for work. Yesterday Fred the Beagle from Hell tore into the trash bag my husband left out in the cellar and spread it all over the floor for me. *love him* Really I do love him but grrrr... at least my husband has been kind enought to refrain from the "You're the one who wanted this dog speech." so I guess I'm thankful for that.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

What's next? The tooth fairy?

I have a question for all of you out there.....Santa. When to fess up?

Last year we were headed to my mother in laws for Christmas dinner and presents with them. My son (six at the time) while getting in the car, pipes up with

There's no such thing as Santa Claus.

I proceed to ask why he would think that and what does he believe (who fills the stockings, etc) about Santa, etc. Hoping that I'm keeping the panicked look in my eyes from showing through. He doesn't really say anything specific so I stomp that filthy lie right into the ground with a lot of

Honey, I believe in Santa. The stockings are filled, the cookies were eaten and it's Christmas, baby.

He didn't look convinced but he let it drop and never brought up the doubt again, in fact this year it has been nothing but Santa this and Santa that. Some of that was perpetuated by my stories of the Magical Good Behavior Snow Globe he can see them through and other explanations regarding the physics of flying reindeer.

I must say that I'm paralyzed with the fear of the second lie. Or do I bother? He's only seven and lord knows I don't want him to stop believing but do I keep on with the lie if he's really unconvinced?

Oh, the trials and tribulations of motherhood.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

The Grudge Report

First a disclaimer: I'm not a Star Wars geek. Not that it's a bad thing because it SO isn't. I just really love the movies. I only have one toy. It's a little R2-D2 that makes cute beeps when you press it's buttons.

Onto The Grudge. Eh. It has alot of those eye-squinting, cringing, what are they all going upstairs for? moments but not alot else. I don't regret going, my friend was so freaked out she said she only saw about half of it, she spent the other half with her eyes closed and her ears blocked, but the acting was pretty uninspired and the movie itself was really drab colorwise. All in all, a fun night out because it doesn't happen that often and we laughed alot at the whole anxiety thing.

Tonight was the big Shrek II premiere at my house. There was popcorn and fleece blankets and lots of kiddo giggling. The farting, they can't get enough of the farting.

Star Wars Geek Alert

Yep, I'm one of them. And it opens two days before my birthday. Mr. Lucas is so thoughtful.

Here's the trailer. Enjoy.

http://www.tribute.ca/player/enhancePlayerEngine.asp?types=WMLG&filePath=Trailers&fileName=starwarsep3

Friday, November 05, 2004

Negative Nelly

Wow, enough negative political crap from me. Blech. I can't stand reading it on other peoples blogs but found I couldn't resist throwing my two cents onto mine. Sorry.

My weekly highlights:

Buying Pokemon Ruby for my Game Boy.

Making my best homemade meatballs ever for dinner the other night.

Watching Rory get kicked the heck off the Island.

Tonight after hockey practice I'm headed out to dinner and a movie with a good friend of mine. We're seeing The Grudge, partly because everyone in Kate's comments thought it was wicked scary, partly because I have no idea what else is playing. My only concern is the stress factor. I actually walked out of Scream 2 for a few minutes to get my heart rate down and to wipe my sweaty palms.

*Bock, bock, bock* makes the pecking poultry neck move

I wish I could take a picture of the pines trees blowing around outside. I'm on the second floor of my house and these trees are like 85 feet tall and they're swaying all over the freakin' place. Time to skedaddle!

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Thursday

I guess the election hoop-la is over. Thank god for small favors and for the fact that the Daily Show will continue to be crack-me up hysterical for the next four years.

Although, seeing as American soldiers are paying the price with their lives over there in Iraq and stem-cell research will not be the status quo, it hardly seems worth a funny one-liner or two or seventy six. A shout out to my friend Julie whose mom died from ALS and to Josh, my husband's cousin serving over there in Afghanistan. Wish we could of done more to help.

*ouch* I just tripped stepping off my soap box.

On to sunnier thoughts and well wishes to all you NaNoWiMo people, *tick,tick,tick* it's already the 4th, you should have about (thank you Mr. Calculator) 6,667 words written (if you didn't delete any..eh-hem, Lisa:) )Which is so why I didn't do it. That and my creative side is totally lacking.


Tuesday, November 02, 2004

The Birthplace of America -Admission $15.00

I skipped work on Monday to chaperone the son's field trip to Plimoth Plantation. I had a group of four boys that were so well behaved, their mothers would be proud.

While I would never think of Plymouth as a vacation destination (one of those places we locals totally take for granted) this was actually fun. What boy doesn' t love meeting real indians (Native Americans to those politically correct people who also coined the term 'pretzel legs' for sitting indian style) who know how make and throw spears. And sitting on deer skin beds while they listen to the women talk about the work (Good God-The work!! I would've been one of those faint at heart women who stayed back in England, thankyouverymuch) while in a hut with fires burning inside and rabbit cooking in the pot.

Kind of steeped in history round here.

A view from the fortress. Posted by Hello

A leopard frog for Kate's science test. Posted by Hello

Butterfingers for Breakfast?

Halloween has come and gone, but the sugar high remains.

"oh, you ate all of your breakfast? Then okay, one piece of candy"

That'll last for about a week and then the forgetting about the candy starts, so one week out of fifty two, I figure that's not too bad.

Today is election day. Ho-freakin-hum. Explain the need for the electoral college one more time please? How is it that the popular vote counts for naught? Oh, yeah, DON'T. Two candidates, one I don't trust at all and one that I have absolutely no opinion about (and sadly enough he is MY senator). Hmmm. Lesser of two evils? Better the devil you know than the devil you don't?

I'm all for smaller taxes Mr. Bush, but seeing as we didn't get any break from this last hoo-haw you bestowed upon us, the poor beleaguered middle americans, and instead you can say, spend less on freakin' VETERANS who fought the fight and which group you are NOT a part of. You are willing to give fewer benefits to those fine men and women who will lay their lives on the line in a war we have no business being in. And speaking of Iraq...the mission is not accomplished. Families are buying walkie talkies and kevlar for their relatives over there while we pay Halliburton millions, if not billions, to rebuild. Oh Mr. Cheney, how much did you make on your stocks and dividends? And if Mr. Colin Powell states that genocide is taking place in Sudan and we do nothing, well then, that's just wrong too. No oil in Sudan you say? Ah, well, that explains it.

And Mr. Kerry...zzzzzzzz. Hmph. The debates. Clearly yours. Why can you not captivate a nation? Your wife is atrocious and really, what would you have done differently. Details please. I would have done things differently too I bet. But I don't have to offer an intelligent explanation because I AM NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. And then you are on TV and start to talk again and zzzzzzz.

Okay, that will probably be one of the last rants of the political nature for a long while. And yes, I'm voting. Scary isn't it?