Month: March 2011

In a word, I did it. I blogged every day in March. That means I’ve now blogged every day on the shortest month of the year and every day on one of the longest months of the year. Whew! It *can* be done!

We’ll be cleaning up around here and putting a few things in order. I wish it were warmer, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards this weekend.

My dog and cat, being the social creatures that they are, like to eat when we do.  It’s kind of nice to have this communal mealtime, but something my dog Piper does is baffling to me.  Stranger still is that the dog I had before her, Butchie, used to do it as well, although his eating rituals were even more intense than Pipers.

In Butchie’s days – may I just interject here that Butchie was the best dog in the whole wide world- the wall in front of his dish had dark green wallpaper with red berries and swirls of lighter green vines on it. Butch would stand in front of his bowl and stare at the wall, almost as if he were giving thanks or conjuring some flavor other than kibble to savor. I used to say he was praying to the Berry Gods.

After this contemplation, he would take his first mouthful of food and carry it out to the living room where he would promptly deposit it on the carpet. It HAD to be on the carpet. He’d stand with that food in his mouth forever until you would move and let him get to the carpet.

Then he’d go back to his bowl, eat his fill and then return to the carpeted area for that last mouthful, or as I call it, dessert.

Piper doesn’t have Berry Gods to contend with, just bright and cheery yellow walls. She doesn’t contemplate anything, but she does carry her last mouthful of food to dump on the carpet and then enjoy eating it there.

What is up with that?

Bess takes a bite of food and moves backwards from her bowl to eat it over the place mat I have near her dish. Invariably, there are always little bits near her bowl that need to be cleaned up. She refuses to eat these inferior morsels. In fact, if her bowl gets too empty, she runs around meowing and chewing on plastic items to get my attention until either her food or water is topped off to her perfection.

She’s beautiful, so she gets away with making a few messes here and there.

I played hookie from work today…. kinda. It’s been wonderful. I gotta remember how refreshed I feel when I just walk away from it all now and then.

Since I had a bunch of chores to do, I went and engaged in some retail therapy. Little did I realize that I’d be buying more than I thought I would be.

My big ass-kicking barn burner of a computer quit on me yesterday. One minute I was enjoying music and working on a spreadsheet and the next, POOF! It was gone. I’m pretty sure it was a power supply, but I’ll know more later. In the meantime, I figured out how to get my work email on an older laptop and got the word program running so I could write my blog at least. Now the biggest choice is whether or not we go to have some sushi before we repair the big machine. I hooked up my phone to Pandora and bought an audio cable so I could run it to my stereo and have music. It’s glorious. It’s good to be a bit of a geeky girl.

It’s later, and it’s still good to be a geeky girl, but it wasn’t just my power supply. Grrr…

Seems there was a power spike through my phone/cable box that toasted my motherboard, CPU and power supply. I could smell something electric (boogie woogie woogie) when it went up, but I thought for sure it was just the power supply.  Seems like we’d only just put the thing back together again due to an operating system meltdown and now some hardware went kaput. S’ok.. just means it’s a trip to my local MikeRowe Center. (Yeah, I know it’s MicroCenter, but mmm mmm… Mike Rowe is much nicer to look at.)

When I was checking out from Tar-jay during my retail therapy, there was a little boy of about 3 in a cart. When the cashier rang up his father’s purchases, the dad gave the little boy his plastic and taught him how to swipe the card to make the payment. Somehow this didn’t seem to sit well with me, but maybe I’m being a bit silly about it.

I also used some gift cards I had at Borders. I know I always say it, but Borders gift cards are one of my most favorite gifts, although I might have to start asking for MikeRowe Center gift cards if my power full self keeps causing technology to have issues. I picked up a French Italian German Phrase book for my travels, (There have been hints that Paris could be in my future!) and I got a really good book to help me plot our course around Germany. It has some photos of the places I’ve wanted to go. The catch in my chest at the thought of being able to go and look at the Alps just tickles me pink and I get more and more excited as I watch the numbers decrease in my titles. # 4 and I spent a bit of time giggling on the couch this evening as we learned a few new naughty phrases. Who knew that Rick Steve’s travel phrases would include how to ask for a prostitute or let someone down gently by telling them you “have many diseases”?

Speaking of decreasing numbers, I didn’t measure up for Project 121, so I don’t really have a report for you on that front.

Tomorrow morning it’s back to work, but tonight I’m going to climb into bed and read my new travel books and dream of clinking steins with Hubby in a biergarten while gazing at the Alps.

Uh oh. My computer just turned itself off and refused to come back to life. I am thinking power supply, and hoping just that, but I will have to take a forced work break until I can be sure.

I guess its a good thing I got this phone when I did.

That’s my whole story right now. I’m living under a paper mountain.

Currently, I’m going through flight lists and passports to make sure 163 names match and they all have necessary paperwork turned in. Most of the day I dealt with budgets and putting together concert rosters.

Bess has been my constant companion, showing up on one level of the paper mountain or another.

I think she won’t feel happy until there is some kind of fluffy long kitty fur on every paper I have to deal with. The Bess seal of approval, as it were.

3 weeks ago  a copy of “American Baby” magazine came  in the mail. It was addressed to my Hubby.

2 weeks ago, a company peddling pictorial Newborn birth announcements sent some information in the mail. It was addressed to Hubby.

Hmmmmm…..

This week I got something from a Life Insurance company and above the line where it is addressed to Hubby it reads,

RE: New Birth Time Sensitive

Double hmm,  and now add-on a scrunched look of confusion.

Apparently, my hubby is either having or has just had a newborn baby. Funny, he didn’t look pregnant to me. He did eat a little more than usual these past few weeks, but I was sure that was due to our fairly hectic schedules at times. At this point, I’m wondering where he’s hiding the little bundle of joy.

After we got the magazine, I called him at work and asked him if he had something he wanted to tell me; something I might need to know? I told him about the magazine and he burst out laughing. He countered by questioning me if there was something I wanted to tell him, because unless I had news, there was nothing to tell.

After we got the birth announcement letter, I set it on the counter and told him he had some mail. He picked up the envelope and opened it without really examining the outside. When samples of birth announcements came tumbling out with pictures of adorable sleeping babies, he had the best belly laugh.

Today, when we got the insurance letter, he again found the whole thing hilarious. I am not as amused. I know my hubby wouldn’t lie to me and if he has…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I’m just saying it might not be very pretty.

 

 

I’ve decided to have a slumber party. Or, more accurately, an enjoy-your-adult-beverages- as-much-as-you’d-like-and-by-the-way-there-are-soft-surfaces-to-pass-out-on party.

I’ve invited 4 ladies over and instructed them to bring some kind of munchie they’d like to share, a vodka based beverage, some music so we can dance like we are 12 again, a karaoke machine, nail polish, their jammies and some movies. If we’re lucky, we’ll all forget our chronological ages and get in touch with our inner teen/young adult. I’m looking forward to silliness with the girls and Hubby even threatened to  find an old “Mystery Date” game for us.

Being the hostess, I wanted to see if I could come up with something a bit out of the ordinary for my guests. I originally thought that I’d whip up a batch of Chocolate Chip Cricket Cookies that I’d seen on Yahoo!, but the thought of wasting all that butter and sugar on crickets that no one would eat was just too much for me. I think I’ve settled, instead, on making some Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I found a pretty interesting recipe over at the pete bakes! blog that doesn’t require maple anything, which most of the other recipes called for, and am excited to try it out. Assuming I can get make the candied bacon first without devouring the entire batch, I’ll combine that with a favorite chocolate chip recipe I have. (the toll house recipe has never thrilled me much)

I also found a recipe for Velveeta Fudge that seems easy. Who knows, (shrug) I guess it’ll depend on my mood on that day.

 

T’was a long day. I’ve got meetings tomorrow and rehearsals this weekend.

I’m annoyed that I haven’t been to the gym this week and that I’ve only walked one day. Blech.. that’s not good. Especially since there are only 14 weeks left til Italy and Germany. I really want to try out the new routine #4 put together for me. Maybe I can fit it in tomorrow night. Gosh knows I should just get up early and go, but my life seems geared to the evening realm.

The other night I had a dream about my parents house. Anyone who’s read my blogs knows that bad dreams always happen at my parents house. My parents have passed on and the house we owned has been solved, but my creepiest dreams usually have some aspect of my old home in them.

As background, the foundation of my childhood home had a piece of runaway machinery bust through the wall and supposedly crushing a worker who died. Of course this was not revealed to my parents when they moved in, but years later, when my hubby was working at a temp service doing waterproofing on homes, he ended up meeting one of the crew that had worked on our house and saw the guy die.

Could be the reason we were ALL spooked at being downstairs by ourselves and why no one wanted to go into that house alone. Who knows.

Anyway, my most recent two whacked dreams were:

I had been in *the house* and went outside to sit with a group of people I knew by a riverside, waiting for an event that was supposed to be occurring on the river. Someone mentioned that there were snakes in the river and I felt one slithering up my leg. I was told not to move. Snakes continued to wind their way up both my bare legs until I had snakes wrapped around both legs up to the thighs and both arms. I felt them starting to slide down the back of my shirt on my neck. I was told to sit still or they might bite me. I was a little freaked out by this and then I felt one clamp onto my elbow and start sucking on me. A man walked up with a larger snake and said the only way to disengage and kill the snake that was biting me was to let the larger one fight it. He put the larger snake on my arm and the battle began. The larger snake did eat the smaller one, but that did nothing for the fact that they were still wrapped around my arms and legs.

The second dream I was sitting  in a car in front of *the house* with Hubby. I have a vision of being in the house as well, with my father wandering. He just kept showing up, like he wanted to talk with me. My mom is rare to show up in any dreams, but Dad usually says something to me. If he did this time, I missed it. (try again, dad!) Anyway, I was outside in the car with hubby and we were talking about something that was upsetting. I was getting so angry I just started swinging at him. The harder I pushed to punch, the wimpier my punches were. They were ineffectual and just plain laughable. That’s what Hubby was doing. Laughing at me over and over, which made me madder and madder.

I know they aren’t as crazy as some of my dreams have been, but since I’m the one who has them, that’s ok with me!

It’s my 26th wedding anniversary today, March 23, 2011.

Outside it is gray, overcast and rainy, very much like the day I was married. I’ve heard that rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck, but I have a sneaking suspicion that was made up by a bride who was trying to be optimistic about her rainy wedding day. Who wouldn’t? Whatever the case, it was raining the day I got married and it’s 26 years later. I’m not one to argue the validity of rain being lucky.

For my anniversary present, I told Hubby that I wanted to go to a restaurant called The Melting Pot. Hubby isn’t a fan of this chain because they charge a rather exorbitant amount of money for food you have to cook yourself. (it’s a fondue place) I view it as a leisurely meal that requires conversation with no smart-phone interference. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to withstand the lack of a technical communication device in his hands for longer than mere moments, but we’re going to try it and see if he can survive.

I’m betting he finds at least ONE thing his wants to tweet to the world. Bet you.

I called and put a reservation in for a quiet corner of the restaurant to celebrate. When the gentleman on the phone asked what the occasion was, and I told him, he was genuinely shocked. This is almost surreal to me in many ways. First, it certainly does NOT feel like I’ve been married for this long. 26 years sounds like a long time and seems to carry such weight when you say it, but the reality of the time with Hubby has been like a blip on our radar screen.  Sure we have lots of memories, 4 grown children and 4 grandchildren (so far), but again, to us it’s just …..right, I guess.

Last weekend, I was building some furniture I bought for the basement. It’s not the best quality, but the price was right and it’ll look good for staging the house for sale. Hubby had been doing other chores, but stopped when he found me working on a coffee table. He grabbed a screwdriver, held some pieces and tightened some bolts and then looked at me and said, “This makes me feel like I’m 19 again and we are just starting out.”  I thought about it for a minute and said, “But we are just starting out again. It’s just us this time.”  Such an odd concept, but not an unappealing one.