Thursday, November 29, 2007

5:10 am - Why Am I Up?

Because yesterday himself told my mom he was never going to speak to her (or her husband) again, and L is never ever welcome in his(our) house, and mom only when himself isn't around.

Great.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

* Surprise!!! *

The people that came to my 40th surprise party... some I've not seen in two years, some in a few months, and some I've not seen OR talked to in over 13 years (since after college)!!!

It was so cool to walk into the room and see my best friend, roomie and Quilters castmate J (from Texas) ~ and another excellent friend, college roomie and Quilters castmate, S (from Idaho), along with another Quilters castmate and excellent friend (from Mesa... not as impressive but I've still not seen her in two years...), R. Plus relatives I've not seen in Eons... it was way fun!!

Thanks mom and himself... who rocks, because *I got an ipod* for my birthday... yay me!!! Can't wait to start loading it up!!!! :D :D

Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone has had a blessed few days with loved ones.

And Rascal was an outstanding dog up here at mom and step-dad's. Just outstanding. We're so proud ;-).

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

New Doors


<--- Before: Big Gaping Hole in the back of our new house... but isn't it a nice, neat hole?










<- After: oooooohhhh.... ahhhh..... it's a beauty, eh?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Better....

Monday night I was feeling really awful... Tuesday morning I just felt sort of rotten.

On Monday himself said I shouldn't go into work, but stay home and continue on the road to recovery. I have to admit the thought of it sounded good, but I went in for a few hours to put some things in order.

My house still needs to be put in order... figure out where the dishes should go in the kitchen... how to arrange my craft room... not to mention how to get the bathroom stuff figured out... how do we get so much stuff that is supposed to be in the bathroom? Good Grief. Baskets and baskets.... powder, lotion, sunblock, scrubbies, pumice stones, combs & brushes, hair gel, makeup, the girly stuff, himself's low-maintenance but still taking up valuable space shaving kit (not that he shaves, he's got a full beard) full of beard trimming stuff. The bathrooms have no towel racks, so I have over the door hooks for the towels, but they're woefully short on any kind of storage space.

My tooth is still tender, and I'm not feeling great, but at least I can breathe through my nose at night, therefore not waking up as if someone exchanged sandpaper for the insides of my throat.

I'll be driving up to my mom's and step-dad's for Thanksgiving today - himself will drive up with Rascal tomorrow. There's been a lot of drama between Rascal, my mom, my mom coming down to help me clean and paint and prepare the new house to move into after himself and dad worked for a week putting the door in, and step-dad L. Add to this my mom's sadness and emotions regarding me (and himself) not being in a position to buy her house. Maybe we are missing out, but the bottom line is that with L in the picture, there wouldn't be any peace. Mom wouldn't make us pay back the "Gift" of $50,000 equity that she and L proposed to help us get a loan for the other house... but L would be there pushing and commenting and questioning... and it would be miserable.

At least it will only be 7 or 8 for Thanksgiving... *whew*

oh yeah. And I turn 40 (only 4 more shopping days, 'cuz the internet will still be open *wink wink*) on Sunday. But that is another post.

I'm so thankful for so many things ~ himself, my mom, my dad, my family and good friends, my health, the abundance of blessings that we have. My thoughts go to so many good things, and I just thank God for all of us and all of it.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Moving... Root Canal... Doggie Drama.... Sick with a Cold

That about sums up my week.

*sigh*

Never had family drama with Thanksgiving before, don't recommend it.

Mom's here to help - yay!

Here comes the year of the dentist. joy oh joy.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Thursday Thirteen - Favorite TV Theme songs

Since I haven't done a Thursday Thirteen in I don't know how long, I figured no one would care that it is Sunday morning.

Blatantly Copied from Chelle

Thirteen Favorite TV Theme Songs (in no particular order):


The Adams Family

The Love Boat

The Courtship Of Eddie's Father

I Dream Of Jeannie // Family Affair (these two always end up sounding like the same thing when I hum them...)

One Day At A Time

The Facts Of Life

M*A*S*H*

Mork & Mindy

The Office

Friends

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

King of the Hill

Cheers


Bonus:

The Rockford Files

Welcome Back Kotter

Batman

Jeopardy

Mission Impossible

All In The Family

Green Acres

Hogan's Heroes


you can go here to listen to some of the above...

Thursday Thirteen

Wow... it's been so long!

Thirteen Places I have been (I really need to read some other Thirteens to get inspired...)

1. Scotland. well duh.

2. England. again, duh.

3. Ireland. The Republic of, not Northern.

4. Mexico - Nogales & Rocky Point

5. Turkey

6. Malta

7. New York City

8. Key West

9. Boston

10. Crescent City, Oregon

11. Oklahoma City

12. Houston

13. Chicago - the airport

Liked how I tried to get the extremes of the continental usa?

Monday, November 05, 2007

Monday Monday

I didn't have to work today. Today was one of the first Monday's I really and truly took *off*! Of course, I did go in for 3 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday. But the quality of 6 hours on the weekend versus the Monday hectic chaos is so different ;-).

My dad is here from Oklahoma - helping himself with the house. I'll post pictures of the window/wall they demo'd - and the beauteous french doors that are now installed. Dad came over today by himself to varnish/seal the back fence, paint the iron screen, and do some work on the bit of wall that will be the new home for the fridge in the kitchen.

Himself hooked up the 'net at the new house, so I've been able to pay my car loan, and look up the closits system I want to put at the end of the craft room. It isn't as cheap as I was hoping, but it is under $1,000... and it gives me a chance to catch up on blogging.


Rascal is sooo much better. He's still skittish around dad, but after a bark or two is calm and overall so much happier when people come into the house. New friend Coffeegal came over the other day and Rascal woofed and did his thing, but then was quiet and calm, and it is just such a change!! Walking in the morning has been a change too -- now that he has some guidelines and parameters.

Dogs 101 is the guy we used, Al Rossomando is the trainer/owner and he was terrific. I highly reccommend him!!

Things have been so busy... Had my work evaluation on Thursday... and no surprises there, which is exactly how you want that kind of thing to go. It only took them 3 months to realize that I am time-management challenged and have a confidence problem. The confidence isn't all the time, nor is it in all things. But there are so many new challenges with the TGC that I want to be sure I'm on the right track with decisions I make. Because, I will make the simplest task as complicated as humanly possible. Which will slow things down. And it will keep things disorganized because who can bother finding the folder in the file in the cabinet in the red section that is for the Ladybugs A to M?

One of the rules of simplicity is - duh - being simple. Keeping categories of organization to a minimum. You know what 2 by 4 hit me with that knowledge today? The Ikea website. Yep. As I'm surfing for cheaper craft organization ideas, I know that Ikea is the super-est place to go for that... and some little cartoon doo-ma-bob plays and now I will remember that in order to keep things simple one must keep it simple. It sounds so redundant when I say it like that.

The reason I'm even blogging about this issue is because I spent 2 hours this morning being overwhelmed by organizing my rubber stamps. And, for those that know, over half of my craft goodies are in Scotland... so I don't even HAVE all my stamps and inks and paper and books and and and.... *sigh* Anyhoo ~ Between Scrapping and Stamping there are lots of categories... do I want to have "flowers" or "Garden & Floral" ? Do Butterflies have their own category or do they belong in "Garden & Floral"? When I want to see what Butterfly stamps I have, will I look under "B" for Butterfly or "Garden & Floral?" See what I mean?

[side note: I'm using himself's laptop at the new house, because the other house has been disconnected... and it is a British Laptop, and the @ key is where the " (quotes) are on the US keyboard. It's driving me a little nuts. AND the ~ ~ sign, which I prefer over the regular 'ol dash- isn't anywhere close to where it lives on the American keyboard. So I keep typing I@m instead of I'm and it is getting a little frustrating. Know my pain. Thanks for reading]

Do I want Autumn to include Halloween and Thanksgiving, or do I want a separate category for each holiday? And really, since no banks are closed on Halloween, is it really a Holiday? Will I remember that the two stamps I have with the 'little old ladies' (2 ladies on one, 3 ladies on the other) are filed under "Little Old Ladies"? Does it matter? It isn't likely that I'll buy duplicates of the little old lady stamps... which is why the whole organization thing is key, so you don't buy doubles. I have 'sets' and 'backgrounds' and 'swirls & flourishes' -- and if I don't do all the stamps at one time I forget what category I decided the Single Stroke paint stamp goes in... borders? backgrounds? Can you see why sometimes I struggle with keeping things simple?

So, instead of figuring out what card the craft class will do in two weeks... I messed around with trying to organize stamps. And I did very little. I'm not happy with what I have done, and want to start again.. but Hello! Isn't that defeating the purpose of getting organized in the first place? I think so. argh. And also... we're moving. If you come into my house, you'd never know we were moving... *sigh* I'm sure himself is more than frustrated at some of the lack of moving that isn't really happening.

So ~~ in other fun news... coffeegal and sang at Splendido at Rancho Vistoso on Friday at their "First Friday" event... explained to me as a casual entertainment late afternoon event that the residents can come to before they go in to dinner. Coffeegal gives an entertaining description of the place on her blog. The smallest retirement apartment there is only 200 square feet smaller than my new house. There were probably a dozen people in the room, and coffeegal got to see me at my panicked worst... missing the turn on the way there because the road had one name for the street if you're going north, and another name for the street if you're going south... I had all the electrics plugged into the wall but not into my actual sound system so I exclaimed "there's no power!" -- then realize after trying new plugs etc... that the problem was me, the user, not the outlet. Then I panicked because the CD player wasn't working. Coffeegal was the voice of reason and calm and very sweetly said that the player was on "radio" and not "CD". Duh. I think she had a great time, lots of laughing going on there!!

The Activities Director was fabulous -- I'm sure she thought I was a loon, but that's okay.

Saturday was dad and himself at the house... finishing up the door/wall... some good conversation and bonding. Sunday was a late start but a nice breakfast at one of our favorite local breakfast/lunch places (which used to be the DMV and is where I went to get my driver's license), and then Sunday evening was a church singing thing, which started out as a favor and turned into a huge blessing for me. My feelings about my performance basically amounted to: it sounded perfect for God.

Tucson is such a small town -- or, the largest small town you'll ever live in. It is just amazing how people I know come back to me through other people or situations. Make sense of that! One of these gals is the friend who is the connection to the lady who organized the singing thing at this church Sunday night. This gal and I attend the same church. There are lots of things happening within the 'denomination' (I hesitate to use the term but it is the one people understand) that I've been raised in, and I've been feeling unsettled for a long long time. She is feeling unsettled too, probably for different reasons.

And isn't it ultimately between myself and God? And between her and God? But that, I'm afraid, is another post.