Author: Sharon

The other day, my eldest son stopped by the house and brought me flowers.
No special reason, just because. It was such a sweet thing to do and it
touched me deeply.

Yesterday, that same son told me we were going to the range to try out his brand new .45
He said he wanted to see what I could do with it. What a dichotomy.

I’ve only been to the range one other time, with a friend, when he first got
his handgun… I wish I could remember what it was…(I just seem to
remember it was big) and we fired it a few times about 13 years ago.
Since then the only other shooting I’ve done was with my son at the
rifle range.

I shot  my first set of rounds at 25 feet. (I think he loaded 5-7) I don’t think I did so bad. I mean, if I had to, I could hit the broad side of a barn! Mind you, the target isn’t that big. It’s one of four on a page. I’m sure I’d be chastised if I didn’t show you my son’s results, although it bears mentioning that he shot more rounds than I did at this target. I didn’t seem to do so well on the upper target as I did on the lower.

In my original blog, there was a photo here that showed you my shots. I’m trying to find it now, so please bear with me. Grrr.

His gun was pretty nice. It didn’t have quite the kick I thought it would. I could hold the thing and shoot it single action without breaking my wrist or making the mistake of having it recoil into my face! I did have a lovely warm cartridge ding me in the forehead, but that really wasn’t a problem at all.

I did better when I shot it with double action. Since the trigger pull was harder, you’d think I did worse, but I think it gave me some time to settle my sights and fix my aim.

Although I was nervous to begin with, after a while I loosened up a bit. I think
one of the things I liked the most was the sound repercussion that I could feel with each shot. Something about that kind of power of sound to make the air move is just an awesome feeling.

There are times, not too many mind you, when I think it would be nice to have a boss breathing down my neck to get stuff done. Sometimes I tend to dawdle… but I do so love to read all my friends blogs. I think I should see if there is a future as a professional blog reader!

I had a fun weekend, but like most weekends, mine seemed to have flown by so quickly that by Sunday I was complaining that my weekend was gone already! (pout)

Hubby, Jenny and I went out to celebrate her birthday. A bit late, but who cares, it was Jennypalooza!  Now, I wish I could tell you some incredibly creative story about chimpanzees, traveling to an exotic locale and dancing on the bar, but none of us were that adventurous. Instead, I’ll tell the truth! We went to a bar, we drank and chatted, we went bowling (where I lost miserably!!) and then we went to the late night bastion of all things greasy, Denny’s. Even though it’s not quite as exotic as it could be, it was a lot of fun. Jenny and I don’t get to hang out as much as I’d like, but I always have a good time when we do. I’ll have to see if I can convince her to come out on a Friday more often.

Saturday was gorgeous here, so Hubby and I took Pip, our dog, out for a drag. I say this because to walk her around the block wears her out so of course we took her on a 5 mile walk through the woods. The dog hasn’t recovered yet and she’s currently snoozing in a puddle of sunshine in my office as I write this… snoring loudly!!

Sunday we washed the cars and ran some errands, the best being that we went to the library. I have to be very thankful for the fact that I live where I do and that I have one of the best library systems in the country. You gotta LOVE a library that carries the most recent series of Doctor Who!! I put the next disc in the series on hold and it should be there today. TAKE THAT, NETFLIX!!! Seriously, I’m canceling Netflix. I poked around in the DVD department of the library and found that I can save my money. Just about anything I would have wanted to rent, I can get for FREE, and I’m all about FREE these days. Isn’t everyone?

Today, I have a TON of work that I ignored last week (and apparently have ignored all morning!!) that I need to get to…. but maybe one more blog and a walk, eh? Lol

Not me personally. Thankfully, I’ve been blessedly spared that problem!

But I peeked in here to see how my blog was doing and found that all my colors are gone!! Yikes!

Yes, I’m a hit whore. I love to see how many of you lovely people read my blog. I’m happy to say I’ve been getting some decent hits since I decided to write over here. (I have another blog I regularly write on as well.) Seems as though I can’t get ENOUGH of this addictive thing called blogging. And hopefully, I don’t bore you people too much! Lol.

I guess I better figure out what went haywire here. Any suggestions for a new color scheme? Tropical? Subdued? (me?… subdued? pishaw!!) Neon? Or should I leave it Gray?

If Teacher was right, and angels get their wings every time a bell rings, then every time I have sex, the angels are in line, jumping up and down and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”

Not only do I have to worry about performance anxiety because the cat insists she has to be in close proximity to all intimate encounters, but I also have to try to ignore the sound of whatever device happens to go off during crucial moments.

I kid you not. I don’t care if I have sex in the early morning, middle of the day, evening, late at night or wee hours of pre-dawn, SOME kind of bell will start to sound.

It’s been telemarketers, not one, nor two, but three of the children calling in rapid succession, text message alerts, nextel beeps, the smoke alarm deciding that it’s battery needs to be changed, you name it.. if it can ring, blip, beep or chirp I’ve had it go off.

And it’s not like hubby and I are sex fiends who go at it night and day (DARN). We have busy lives and are comfy with our intimacy and we have no problems engaging at any of the aforementioned hours. But, no matter what, or when, or where… there will be a bell.

I guess I shouldn’t really complain, because it is rather heavenly and if I’m doing my part to help the heavenly host induct new members then all I can say is… honey.. let’s go make some angels!

“Giving out wings since 1982”

Yesterday, I was all warm and zoney after a great workout at the gym. You know how you feel like you are kind of liquid and calm after a work out? Almost like you could just curl up for a nice nap…. you are that relaxed? No? Ok, fine! That’s how I feel. It’s almost the same feeling I get after having great sex. I feel like I’ve been turned into a puddle.

Enough about that! (ahem.. ‘s’cuse me!) Anyway, I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car with this nice warm and fuzzy feeling, waiting for the traffic to clear so we could make a right turn onto the road to go home. It was rush hour, so we sat there for a good long while. It had been warm out, near to 50 degrees and a cold front was starting to blow through. While I was listening to an astronomer talk about the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet, I was zoning unfocused, but intently on the fluttering foil-looking decorations that were strung in 4 rows between two poles at the used car lot across the road. They were blowing towards me and were furiously flapping in the stiff breeze.

I thought, “Gee, they are just foil, and in the weather constantly, I wonder what it would actually take for one of those to start coming off.”  I watched a few more seconds, staring at the same point and then.. omg… that part peeled away from the wire!!!  FREEAKY!!  I watched a bit longer, thinking maybe it had already been off and I hadn’t realized it, but then it just kept coming off, more and more until about a 5 foot piece of it was flapping around, the weight pulling more and more off the wire.

I said to hubby, “I was just thinking what it would take to get one of those banners to start to come apart!”

He said, “Yeah, I was just watching that one and it started peeling off the wire.”

I was glad I wasn’t the only one to see it, because it validated that we saw it happen, not that it had already been peeling and then we noticed it.

So which one was it? Was it premonition? Was it simple coincidence? Or was is quantum manifesting?

Did I know it was going to come off just before it did? (premonition)
Did I factor in the logic of how the thing could deteriorate and then figure a stiff breeze would pull it off and just happen to be there when it did? (coincidence)
Did I think about the piece pulling away from the wire with that focused thought process and make my own reality occur? (quantum manifesting)

I like this example because there aren’t very many complex variables to it.

Hubby says there has been research into how we actually see things. He says there is science to support the thought that we actually are conscious of  things with our mind before we actually see them with our eyes. Since the time between our seeing an image and the time it takes for our minds to make sense of what we are seeing is brief, but there, we naturally fill in the missing time with what we EXPECT to see and thus we are always looking a tiny bit into the future.

Dunno. Anyone have any ideas?

Let’s get this straight right away.

I don’t like football.

Sorry, people, but I don’t. At least not American football. I prefer soccer and even then I have a limited attention span. To me, sports on TV are a fine time to engage in a nap. Hubby loves to watch Nascar, Sharon will take that time to snooze.

With that said, I’m going to a Superbowl party tonight. The Big Game is a social event for me. A time where I get to hang out, and bother, my friends. I mean, really, is there ever a better time to throw bits of food at your friends and blame it on others? (Hey.. the host requested that I and another guest take aim on one particular person, can I help it if I feel the need to honor her request?)

I have prime launching seating too. Another non-football-caring friend and I take this time to work on our knitting and crochet. Everyone likes to see what new project we are working on in the Stitch and Bitch corner.
Sadly, this year, I don’t have anything NEW, which only means I haven’t completed what I had worked on last year. I have my choice of working on a scarf, …..or working on a scarf. (Great choices, eh?)  I think I may take the Dr. Who scarf tonight instead of the usurper scarf that I was working on. The Dr. Who scarf uses much larger needles and so progress goes just a tad faster.

Not that I haven’t been prepping for the Big Game all week. I started off on Monday, baking some cookies, which I felt were terrible. So, what do you do with cookies that you feel suck? You send them to work with the hubby, where the downtrodden employees snarf them up faster than you can blink and demand that you make more of those “wonderful” cookies. Honestly, you’d think these people had only ever eaten the Keebler box and thought it was a cookie!!

Then I made some 3BM chili. Stop laughing… it just means that i used 3 different beans and meats in my chili.

I never know how much chili to make, and I ALWAYS make too much. This time I ended up filling a pot and a crock pot, so I’ll be having 3BM for a while, since I’m sure there is no way they will eat it all.

I did finally make a cookie I liked. A referee cookie. Shortbread with white glaze and chocolate stripes. (Because the refs need some lovin’ too, even if the mob does pay them well to throw the game…)

I also will be taking some veggies and hummus (for those of us who like to pretend we will eat something healthy during the game) and finally, I still have to finish up something called a Cake Ball.

Cake balls are  like truffles, but you bake a cake and immediately smash it up ( that was liberating) and you mix in some coordinating frosting. Then you make little balls out of the “dough” and you melt some kind of  coating and dip the balls into that. All in all it’s a diabetic nightmare of a treat. I chose Dark Chocolate cake, with cream cheese frosting covered in Dark Chocolate. (I’m FEMALE, of course I’m picking CHOCOLATE) and I also did Carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting and a Cinnamon coating, just for kicks. Because, remember, I can never make a small batch of anything!!

I saved the dipping and coating for today, knowing they’d never last through the week here if I hadn’t. Of course, all this dipping and coating would be oh-so-easy if last night, MY MICROWAVE hadn’t bit the dust. I LITERALLY got the little card in the mail about a week ago asking me to renew my warranty on the silly thing. I think they monitor the scrap of paper and if they find it in your recycling bin, they activate the chip in your microwave that blows up the main element that makes the blasted thing work. Now I’m back to the old fashioned and difficult task of using the cook top to melt the candy…. blech… which I better get to or I’ll be nothing but a raving lunatic because my plans.. MY PLANS… were not realized in a timely manner and we know what hell there is to pay if that happens.

Hell hath no whining, grumpy, fury like a woman who’s plans went awry!

Tomorrow, I have my first annual review. I had to rate myself – of course I put OUTSTANDING in every box because I *AM* so wonderful – and now I have to go and see if either my boss agrees with me or just how far outside the mark I actually am!!

Personally, I think that reviews are the secret tool the management pulls on you to keep you on your toes and make you think you’d better toe the line and be sure to keep productive. In my case it’s the necessity of the paycheck that makes that a “no-brainer” for me.

Still and all, I think I’ve done a pretty good job, but you just never know how someone else will view it and I tend to take criticism almost too personally, coloring everything in my world by one ugly comment, real or imagined. Gotta stop that… That’s not to say that I haven’t had to deal with REAL ugliness because I certainly have, but it does mean that I don’t have to feel like everything isn’t good because something isn’t PERFECT!!

Perfectionist, thy name is Sharon.  lol

Funny how I’m always being told and people are trying to convince me that I should stop trying to be perfect, which for me equates to stop trying my hardest to make sure it’s a right as I can get it? I’m encouraged to be a slacker!!

I’ll remember that tomorrow at my review. Should there be a negative thing said, I’ll just know that I have achieved a success because I obviously wasn’t perfect and thus, I wasn’t trying my hardest.

Like Grandaddy always said, “Only give them 90%. that way there is something left to give when they want more from you.”

For anyone interested, I survived my review. There were 12 points of review and 5 levels of accomplishment for each point, ranging from You totally suck, you kinda suck, you’re ok, you’re great to YOU ROCK!!

I got
* two you’re ok (I was told that’s what EVERYONE gets)
* five you’re great, and
* five YOU ROCK!!

I also got complimented more than I can handle and when I got out of my review, I was so razzed, all I wanted was a beer and some fish. Which I did get,and they were certainly yummy!
Whew! Done with that for a year!

I feel like writing a blog; giving birth to a snippet of myself and placing it out there for the world to see, but sometimes blog babies don’t want to be born. And you know what they say about forcing mother nature.. that’s a no no.

So I sat in my office chair and rocked back and forth, back and forth while I listened to my music on my profile page. (Gotta make sure all those links work, right?) Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…considering rocking chairs tend to freak me out, I was surprised I rocked for so long!

When I was a little girl, about 5, I was in my grandparents basement rocking in a chair. My grandfather was sitting on the couch watching me. I remember rocking so hard that I flipped the chair backwards and slammed my head up against the wall, my dress all around my ears, tulle skirt everywhere. My grandfather just started laughing. It seemed like an eternity before anyone came to help me disengage myself from the rocker, or to acknowledge my distress at having whacked my head, or the immodesty of having my dress around my ears and my legs, encased in my white tights and black Mary Janes waving madly above my head.. oh no…just my grandfather laughing!!

That’s the ONLY memory I have of that grandfather, because not long after that he died of a heart attack, face down in his bowl of ice cream. I always wondered if his sense of humor would have allowed me to laugh at that, or if he would have considered it poor taste.

Wocka wocka wocka….

I was in the car the other day and I thought of this song.. when I listened to it, it seemed to fit so well. Especially the part where he talks about feeling like “his old bony self again”.
Since there are no extra things this spring, this winter I have had more time to just hang out with friends and family than I have in quite a while and I must say. I feel frisky, and happy and… well… like my old self again. And I do mean quite a while ago.. like in my twenties. I used to sing and laugh and write and I felt bouncy and joyous and mischievous and wow, that’s how I’m feeling now! I’m not sure what lifted off of me, or if it’s just that my thyroid meds are right for a change, but I sure do feel like a million bucks nowadays. Lol  I like being sunshine again!

Last Friday, I went out with some friends to a bar they frequent every Friday and during football season, every Sunday. Needless to say, they are regulars and spend enough money there to be recognized as such. Hubby and I happen to be drop-ins now and then.

On this evening there were 8 of us at two tables that one of us had reserved in advance. When taking a reservation, they ask you what time you will be there, but they don’t ask you when you’ll be leaving… I mean, why would they? You’d think they’d want you to stay and eat and drink and spend as much money as you want. This group typically stays from 5-9 or so, but we’ve been known to hang out and change configuration (gain a few or lose a few people) longer than that in the past

Hubby and I had been there about an hour when the owner starts flitting about looking antsy. He came to our tables and surveyed our situation.. food and drink were still flowing, so it’s not like we were being squatters. He told the couple next to our table that for sure he’d have all the seating they required. I looked over and only saw two people…so that wasn’t  much of a stretch! I happened to be sitting at the end of the table closest to this couple. The owner, let’s call him Mr. Rude Man, came up to my chair, put his hand on the back and started moving it a bit while interrupting my conversation with the person next to me and said, “I need you to move.”

“Excuse me?” I wasn’t sure if he meant I needed to scoot in since the place is packed with tables and you do have to maneuver to get around in there. God forbid anyone ever fall.. they’d be skewered for sure, or walked on as just an extra lumpy part of the carpet!

“I need you to move so I can put this table at the end of yours.”

Um, ok, but it was only the 8 of us and we were all fitting perfectly around the two tables we have. I gave him a very confused look, as did the other 7 in my group.

” I have a birthday party coming in and I need to set up the tables now.”

Ok, how rude can you be??!! I’m a paying freaking customer at a reserved table and you want me to move so an EMPTY table that has a reserved sign on it can be moved to where I am sitting, thus shoving me into my neighbor and leaving the new table to dig into my side?? It’s EMPTY… it’s not for our group and it’s reserved….. FOR AN HOUR LATER!! WTF?

Are you for real, Mr. Rude Man??  I mean talk about anal retentive. I too like to have everything set up for a party, but I certainly don’t ask a current guest to move so I can set up their table for someone else. The effect was that I felt completely “in the way” and like he was ready for us to move along, even though some of us were still eating dinner!!!

I did move, grumbling the whole way and as soon as he left, I pushed the table that he’d shoved into my ribcage back a bit. (These are high round tables) The SOB pushed it back into my ribcage and I turned and gave him the most shriveling you-should-die-and-if-you-don’t-back-off-you-will look I could muster. Ask anyone who knows me.. it’s kinda scary the evil that rolls off of me when I’m that mad. Needless to say, he backed off and slide the table back a bit.. only to go around the table and shove a chair into my leg, which of course I shoved back out of the way.

WHAT A JERK!!!

But UN-Happy hour didn’t end there. After coming over and looking at our table with the evil eye a few more times, I saw him talking to some new patrons. He pointed at us and told them they could SIT AT THE TABLE NEXT TO ME… effectively join a group of strangers, until we all left and the birthday party they had booked into that corner had the entire section!! Remember, earlier I mentioned that one of our group had RESERVED THIS TABLE in advance, so it’s not our fault he’s double-booked the space.

Now a good owner/manager would have apologized, found us another table, offered some kind of comp for us to leave early or for the inconvenience of having to move… not him. He comes over when two of our party decided they’d had enough and were leaving to ARGUE with the girl who reserved the table, trying to make this whole issue HER fault. OMG… He flits off again.. and then comes back and tells us we just HAVE to move. And he’s so Mr. RUDE MAN about it that I wanted to swat him. Now we lose another one of our group and we move to a table near where the band is setting up.

The girl next to our table is talking furiously with the waitress, who comes to our table with a free pitcher of beer.. on HER, not the house, because Mr. Rude Man had gone and told her that WE were mad and her and since most of the group are regulars and tip very VERY well, she’s afraid we won’t continue to support her and feels the need to buy us a round. At least she’s got some sense of customer service, but how dare he put his screw up on her head and make her feel bad. Now I KNOW he’s a suckey manager if he makes his employees feel like trash. Now, some of our group feel annoyed by his behavior but think it’s kinda fun to mess with him because he is a hovering micromanager. (And I’m REALLY glad my daughter no longer dates his son!!) So the girl at the table next to us tells us that we have taken over one of her tables for a birthday party that she is having, but that she’s going to mess with Mr. Rude Man and have a fit. She’s not really in need of the table right that second, but she will need it soon and since we told her we weren’t there much longer it was all good. Isn’t it sad when customers have to work out deals amongst one another because the management was so messed up? This girl has been going to this bar for 11 years, so it’s not like she’s not a regular too.

She goes to Mr. Rude Man and tells him she’s annoyed about the table situation and you can see the man practically pulling his hair out. He doesn’t say anything to us, but assures her that he’ll move the table into her grouping as soon as we leave. I’m not sure, but I think the round of shots that came next, to both our table and hers were from the waitress, again, in celebration of the birthday party. Without her, the evening would have really tanked, to be sure.

Now I know my friends go here every Friday, (only because Rocky Run in our area closed down) but if I could find a more welcoming place to hang, I certainly would, because Sonoma’s in Columbia really made my stay there an UN-Happy Hour.