I'm just sayin'...

taptaptap... is this thing on?!

2010-04-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

dang, it's been a long time since I've been here. lots of changes have taken place around rancho mcbirdie in the past year -some of them difficult, some of them fun... all of them deliciously liberating. I've been busy looking for the good in things and inching my way back to the 'me' I had fun being way back in the day... let's just say 'work in progress' describes a lot of what's going on with and around me these days -good stuff. not really ready to get into it too much yet, but just wanted to poke my head in and say hey to the dedicated handful of peeps to stop by to check in on me and tell you all that I appreciate the encouragement you've offered and the smiles you've sent my way. I'ma lucky chick. <3

a smart guy said this

2009-09-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

"If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be."

-John Heywood

another day in paradise... or in my case, Loleta

2009-09-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

kids are back in school, soccer season is in full swing, the weather is turning to fall... life is pretty good. I'm looking forward to hanging out with friends tonight and playing bunco... (or is it bunko?). can't beat an evening of dinner, drinks and throwing dice with a bunch of rowdy chicks, and all for a $10 buy-in! woo-hooo! :D

still here

2009-08-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

it's been a fun summer filled with visits to the river, reconnecting with family and old friends, learning lots about myself and figuring out what my expectations are and the direction I want to take my life. lots of changes are taking place around here and while some are difficult, the outcome, so far, has been mostly positive for me.... but more on that some other time.

the girl and I just got home from a trip down south to see some friends and do some back to school shopping. other than that we're busy wrapping up summer, kicking off soccer season ...pun intended :) and getting ready to head back to school... just two kidlets going back to school this year -still weirds me out that I'm old enough to have a kid who's graduated. the big kid is busy working odd jobs around the ranches, cutting firewood and enjoying a bit of 'freedom' before (hopefully) taking some college classes next spring. (xx fingers crossed xx)

guess that's enough of an update for now, duty calls... the theme around here this week is post-summer spruce up... today, the girl and I are cleaning out and re-organizing her room and closet in preparation for an even bigger 'makeover' in the, hopefully, not too distant future. wish me luck... -leaf mcbirdie... OUT!

Important Margarita Health Issue

2009-05-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

this info has recently been brought to my attention (just in time for Cinco de Mayo -thanks Deb!) ...thought a few of you might also benefit from this. I understand that you can get this treatment at several local places -without a prescription, if you know who to ask.
-Leaf ;)

Important women's health issue: Do you have feelings of inadequacy? Do you suffer from shyness? Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive? If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist (or bartender?!) about Margaritas. Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions. Margaritas can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell the world that you're ready and willing to do just about anything. You will notice the benefits of Margaritas almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want to live. Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will discover many talents you never knew you had. Stop hiding and start living, with Margaritas.
Margaritas may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use Margaritas. However, women who wouldn't mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it. Side effects may include: dizziness, nausea, vomiting, incarceration, erotic lustfulness, loss of motor control, loss of clothing, loss of money, loss of virginity, attraction to the same sex, table dancing, headache, dehydration, dry mouth, and a desire to sing Karaoke.

WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends; over and over again that you love them.

WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.

WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.

Be sure to check out MissCharming.com your ultimate one-stop bar & cocktail source! for tons of Margarita/Tequila tips & facts. CHEERS!

cruel?

2009-05-01T10:12:00.001-07:00

maybe, but it's cheap entertainment. Since I filled all the feeders out back, Tom & Chester spend hours staring out at all the birds -I think they're wearing a path between the window and the doors! They both do this crazy chattering-meow thing when the birds get close or perch near the windows... it's kinda funny. The birds must think it's funny too, they seem to have figured out that there's some sort of invisible safety zone; they can get as close as they want and these dumb cats don't ever chase them -hahahaaaa... or maybe the birds think I just have lazy cats??

Tom is especially interested, but Chester... eh, not so much -I think he knows that to catch a bird it would require stealth and speed, neither of which he possesses, bless his lardy little soul.

This is Tom's "keep teasing me like this and one day I'm gonna eat your face off while you're sleeping" look.

I'm sure the day is coming that someone's gonna leave a door open and those birds are gonna get one helluva surprise when thier safety zone is breached by a puddy-tat who's been jonsin for a taste of some tweety bird.

...ain't it the truth?!

2009-04-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

Foundation for a Better Life -daily quote April 13, 2009:

“Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”
—Joshua J. Marine

...although, right at this moment, I think I could go for a little less 'interesting' and a lot more 'meaningful'. I'm just sayin'.

in a nut shell...

2009-04-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

wow -this is exactly it ...my philosophy about life these days!

“Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”
—Anthony Robbins (b. 1960); self-help writer, speaker

...another goodie from The Foundation for a Better Life -I LOVE finding these little nuggets of wisdom in my in box each day! :)

advice from my sister

2009-04-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

my sister sent me this gem in an e-mail today... (she say's she thinks she's already reached that status! heh heh heh... LOOK OUT!)

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"

Real Simple Daily Thought Wednesday | April 8, 2009

2009-04-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

from the Real Simple website:

To be happy, it first takes being comfortable in your own shoes. The rest can work up from there.
―Sophia Bush

whoa... pretty much dead on

2009-03-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

my horoscope for today:

March 22, 2009
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
Today is a good day to evaluate some recent developments in your life -- your mind is clear and your attitude is positive. More than ever before, you are ready to learn from past mistakes! So take stock of the wins and the losses you've had and get perspective on where you really are in life -- you are a lot further along than you had thought. You can sense the momentum building, can't you? Some exciting transformations are going to start happening soon.

kinda freaks me out how these things can parallel with what's going on in "real" life ...just a fluke??

yeah, THAT just happened

2009-03-21T16:16:00.001-07:00

so, last night, I'm out and about, running errands, and decide to swing into the grocery store to grab a few things before rushing home to feed my family a delicious meal prepared by the good folks over at Taco-hell... it's not my fave grocery store but wth, I'm just cruising thru for a few necessities... milk, fruit, beer, margarine, beer...

I get up to the checkouts and there's only one lane open... no biggie, it's pretty quiet in there, only one custie in front of me in line. I unload my goods and step up to swipe my debit card when a dentally challenged custie, holding a bud vase with 3 red roses, cruises up and quietly asks the pimply, pubescent clerk a question:

custie: hey, are you the only one working?
clerk: what do you need?
custie: I'm looking for something but I can't find anyone to ask, are you the only one working?
clerk: no problem, I'll have someone come up and assist you.
(clerk uses intercom to ask for custie assistance at checkstand 1)
(unseen clerk uses intercom to ask clerk 1 to repeat the page)
in the meantime...
clerk: (rolls his eyes) ...so, what are you looking for?
custie: (quietly) where do you guys keep the condoms?
*me: (to myself) omg... did he just say what I thought he said?!
clerk: (apparently echoing my thoughts) I'm sorry, ....what?
custie: (voice rising) CONDOMS... where do you keep the C-O-N-D-O-M-S?
*me: (cringing and thinking:) yeah, THAT just happened
clerk: (blushing) oh, uh... they're up here (indicates a locked case in the lobby).
previously unseen clerk strolls up and asks who needs help... clerk 1 shakes his head and tells him to nevermind (his eyes throwing daggers at the dickweed who waits till now to show up). by now, the line behind me, includes at least 3 other custies...
*me: throwing my shit in my cart, ready to haul ass and trying not to bust into nervous laughter*
clerk: (not making eye contact, hands me my reciept) thank you, come again... uh, have a nice evening.
*me: (smiling and thinking to myself:) oh, hell yes, I will...

omg ...totally made my night. I'm just hoping all the trouble that whack-job custie went thru to get his condoms, paid off for him. giggity-giggity-gig-iiiiiii-ty

just a sampling

2009-03-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

...of some of the great quotes I've come across this week. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to visit VALUES.COM -the foundation for a better life -it's loaded with good stuff.

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them”every day begin the task anew.”
—Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Roman Catholic saint

“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.”
—Barbara DeAngelis

“I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see. And pursuing that vision.”
—Howard Schultz

“Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.”
—Joseph Addison (1672-1719), essayist, dramatist

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
—Dolly Parton (b. 1946), country music singer, author, actor

friday five

2009-03-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

five notable things from my week:

1. getting up early (5:30am) and starting my days without mayhem & chaos: it gives me the opportunity to spend time with my hubs and I'm blown away by how much more I accomplish with that extra 90 minutes added to each day.

2. keeping up with my excersize regime: woo-hoo -it's paying off!

3. dedicating time out of each day specifically for myself: sticking with my morning workouts and ending the day with a soak in the tub just before bedtime have been awesome.

4. finally getting things done that I've been putting off forEVER: weeding crap out, cleaning/organizing -even making long overdue dr. appointments; it's good to be back on top of my game!

5. working on improving relationships and renewing friendships: working on being happy and ending my self-imposed exile from all the good things life has to offer.

catharsis

2009-03-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

it's amazing how having your life thrown into a tailspin will make you stop and take inventory of what really matters. priorities come into sharp focus and trivial things that once seemed like such a big deal suddenly disappear from the radar. my mind has been working nonstop the past week or so, thinking about why I am the way I am and why I do the things I do.

I started a blog a couple of years ago, with the idea that it might be someplace to share the real me; my quirky, often immature, SOH, my true opinions on things -something "in real life" I often hold in check because I fear not being liked if my perspective doesn't jive with the popular kids. I wanted a place to bitch about things that annoy me, a place to share seemingly mundane things that, for whatever reason, make me stop and take notice - a place to post trivial accomplishments. I wanted my cyber-friends to nod at their screen saying "omg... ME TOO!". in hindsight I guess I was reaching out for the friendships and support I crave but lack the ability to manifest "in real life". actually, if I'm to be completely honest, I've never had a single relationship in my life, that's been 100% no holds barred -not that they couldn't have been that way, but I've never been willing or able to let go and open myself up to that -so, I started a blog.

nothing sinister in any of that except that once again, I stopped short at sharing the real me. I began posting right around the time my mom died. I was able to pour out my emotions -which was great but, soon after all of that, I retreated back behind my mask of worry and self doubt. the realization that the annonymity of the 'net is really a farce brought to the forefront my sense of obligation to always be nice, not rock the boat and always, above all else, avoid conflict and confrontation -because what if something I said was misinterpreted or hurt someone's feelings?! what if someone didn't like me? I was back at square one; I'd pour my thoughts out: typetypetype. read, then almost always: backspacebackspacebackspace. rewrite. think about my 'nice' factor and then either post or delete entirely. I have become a master at filtering. how the heck is it that, even with the relative annonymity of the 'net, I still can't be comfortable being me?

Good day...

2009-02-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

As I young child, maybe around 6 years old, I met a man with a warm disposition and the sweetest grandfatherly voice. My mom and I enjoyed him very much and made it a point to get together with him at about the same time every morning. Together we'd listen as he'd share anecdotes and interesting little bits of this and that, usually relating to current events or special people he'd learned about. His sparkling wit was always a high point in our mornings.

Through the years my visits with him became somewhat sporadic but I would check in with him every so often and just like a time machine his voice would take me back to early mornings spent with my mom, each of us watching the time, waiting for him to arrive and then each of us shushing the other so we wouldn't miss the news he was about to share with us. And then, as he was leaving, the three of us, in unison, would wish each other "Good day" ...mom and I giggling at our goofy morning ritual.

Eventually my friend and I lost touch and several years went by before I ran into him again. I had missed his familiar voice and matter of fact chatter so much, I once again made it a part of my routine to hook up with him each morning and occasionally we even got together in the afternoons. It was during those afternoon visits I learned about some fascinating people and events. Some people had risen from bleak beginnings others came from privileged backgrounds -some events were cataclysmic and others more everyday moments but each of them had their own interesting story and in some way were part of our culture and/or history.

I was so sad today to learn that my friend has died. At 90 years old, I think it's safe to assume that he lived a rich life and had many friends all over the world. Although we never actually met, I call him my friend because after hearing his distinctive voice for so many years and all the fond memories I have associated with it, that's just how I think of him. I will miss his familiar greeting of "Hello Americans" and his upbeat delivery of the not so main-stream news and I'll miss our afternoons together with him telling me "the rest of the story". That said, I think most of all, I'll miss his trademark sign-off, wishing me "Good day!"

Goodbye, Paul Harvey.

a few things...

2009-02-26T17:09:00.000-08:00

jeez, talk about a klepto! I found all NINE of these in my purse today when I cleaned it out. seriously wouldn't surprise me if these businesses start frisking me at the door!

cuties (and I'm not talking about Dermot Mulroney... although he's definitely a hottie) are my addiction right now ...they're super sweet, easy to peel and no seeds! quite possibly the perfect food!

my fuzzy Woolrich jackets have become my adult equivalent of a security blanket. they're so soft and warm -so, so, soooo cozy...I'm almost always wearing either my red or my black one. I need more!

my name is Leafa McBirdie and I'm a Wii-tard. we don't have many games yet but I'm totally diggin on the bowling (my high score is 242... so far.) tennis, golf... omg, I can't believe what a workout these *virtual* sports are... my body aches in places you don't even want to know about.

my entire adult life, I've resisted naps. napping left me cranky rather than refreshed so it wasn't worth the trade off -tired is better than cranky any day! recently though, I've been hitting a wall in the afternoons, can't focus on what I'm doing ...I'm just a zombie. one day last week I decided I'd just lay down and rest... not nap... rest. well, I fell asleep and the coolest thing happened... I didn't wake up in a pissy mood! naturally, the next day, I had to test it out and I was fine, so the day after that I figured I should try it again, you know, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke ...you see where this is going, right? I've discovered that it wasn't the nap that was the problem it was the length of time I was sleeping... heaven help me, I have become a napper!

tru dat

2009-02-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

I came across a quote today that really hit home:

"Your future happiness may well depend on your ability to leave the past behind." -unknown

...if only it were that easy to dump our baggage and move on.

one little word: MANAGE

2009-01-16T14:44:00.000-08:00

With the arrival of another new year, inevitably, comes a rush of resolutions; ideas involving things I want to accomplish/change/aspire to within my life... and so, in my quest for change and instant gratification I (also inevitably) end up setting unrealistic goals for myself, biting off more than I can chew and, before I know it, those resoloutions are nothing but a teeeny tiny dot in the rear view of my daily grind. That said, I've decided that all that resolution crap is for the birds. I've adopted a new approach to making changes in my life and it's all based on a shockingly simple concept by uber creative scrapbooker Ali Edwards.

Within her *One Little Word* project AE explains how, by examining and identifying what we really want, we can enrich many aspects of our lives; about simplifying the thought process and finding a single word that sums up our ultimate goal, and then using that word to reflect upon and use as a guide to help us tackle our challenges.

My word for 2009 is: Manage.

I want to learn how to manage all the different aspects of my life so that I don't always feel so overwhelmed and scattered.

I want to manage my family life better and make a concentrated effort for each of them to know how important they are to me and how much I value my time with them. I hope to encourage stronger bonds between them and nurture their sense of family.

I want to manage my finances better so I can get rid of the stress of wondering if there's enough in my checking account to cover our expenses on a month to month basis. I don't want to pay overdraft charges or late fees any more.

I want to manage my home better so that my family feels proud of what they come home to and we can welcome friends graciously and without trepidation.

I want to manage my time better so that I don't always feel like I'm playing catch up. I need to learn how to pace myself and plan accordingly. With better time management, I'm hoping to be able to dedicate some of the *bonus* time I'm left with, to doing things to enrich myself.

My ultimate goal at this point is to manage from day to day with a sense of accomplishment and to look forward to the future without feeling like I'm lacking in so many areas of my life. Granted, we're only a couple of weeks into the new year but I can definitely say that the changes I've made so far have made a big difference and I feel a much better sense of balance... I'm managing. :)

...so, what's your one little word??

funny kid quote

2009-01-15T10:06:00.000-08:00

"If I had a house made out of cheddar cheese, I'd be homeless -especially if I had a shed made out of crackers." ~Matt McBride

...is it any wonder I love this kid?!

booklist: 2008

2009-01-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

I didn't fall into love with reading until I was in my late teens but, since then, it's been a genuine love affair. Settling in with a good book relaxes me and helps me unwind; lets me get away from the demands of reality -there's nothing like escaping into a good story. Somewhere, over the course of the past several years I got away from my reading habit -3 kiddos and family life can do that to ya I guess -lol... Anywho, I missed my books so during 2008 I decided to really give my library card a workout. I finally got back on the reading bandwagon and, once I got started, it was just like old times, one book right after another...

~The Story of Edgar Sawtelle -David Wroblewski
~The Front -Patricia Cornwell
~No Time for Goodbye -Linwood Barclay
~Sundays at Tiffany's -James Patterson
~Marley & Me -John Grogan
~Memoirs of a Geisha -Arthur Golden
~love walked in -Marisa De Los Santos
~ Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea -Chelsea Handler
~Shoot the Moon -Billie Letts
~hello, darkness -Sandra Brown
~The Secret Life of Bees -Sue Monk Kidd
~Before the Storm - Diane Chamberlain
~The Faraday Girls -Monica McInerney
~The Last Coyote -Michael Connelly
~The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes -Diane Chamberlain
~Driving Sideways -Jess Riley
~Strip Tease -Carl Hiaasen
~Savannah Breeze -Mary Kay Andrews
~Good in Bed -Jennifer Weiner
~You've Been Warned -James Patterson & Howard Roughan
~Lifeguard -James Patterson & Andrew Gross
~The Friday Night Knitting Club -Kate Jacobs
~Bitter Is the New Black -Jen Lancaster
~the bright side of disaster -Katherine Center
~The Last Lecture -Randy Pausch, Professor, Carnegie Mellon w/Jeffrey Zaslow
~The Next Thing on My List -Jill Smolinski
~The Sweet Potato Queens' 1st Big-Ass Novel -Jill Conner Browne w/Karin Gillespie
~there's a (slight) chance i might be going to hell -Laurie Notaro
~Book of the Dead -Patricia Cornwell
~Beach Road -James Patterson/Richard DeJonge
~Double Cross -James Patterson

frosty's faux pas

2008-12-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

The Doghouse

2008-12-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

thanks to my pal Leslie over at ScrapFreak for sharing this today ...absolute greatness! LOL!

The Doghouse

my girl's gonna be a brace face

2008-11-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

my girl has been counting down the days till she finally gets braces -literally counting the days... yeah, she's THAT big of a goober! now, I don't want her to be completely disillusioned because 1) I've BTDT b) she's got a fair amount of work to be done, and 3) the word HEADGEAR has been mentioned -so I tried telling her, it might *seem* like fun but, they're really kind of a pain (pun intended)... not just because of the sore teeth after an adjustment or the raw spots from the brackets rubbing, etc... but because of all the stuff you can't (well, aren't supposed to) eat, and constantly having to worry that you have icky stuff smooshed in the brackets. *sigh* she just won't hear it - it's gonna be "so cool" and she "can't wait to pick out the rubber band colors"... whatever -just don't say I never warned ya, mmm-kay?

so, I took Kendall to the orthodontist yesterday for her preliminary visit; lots of pics, x-rays, all kinds of molds and casts of her teef -holy moses, I don't remember having to do more than bite down and grind my teef on a piece of carbon paper when I got braces -course that was 100 years ago and I've done my best to block out most of those awful memories. the staff at this office is really awesome, they do ortho work on adults but they're totally geared for working with kids and I gotta say, whoever does the hiring must do one heckuva screening job because the folks have such great temperments and bedside (chairside?) manners. they explain EVERYTHING in such a way that the kids, and even dorks like me, can clearly understand.

in between procedures, we were checking things out (ie: snooping) and found a little ring with different colored rubber strips -which, we surmised, must be the different colors for the rubber bands. Kendall's eyes lit up and she started telling me how she's already got it all figured out what her first colors are going to be (blue and pink or maybe blue and purple) and that she's definitely going to stay away from the white rubber bands because they turn yellow and then black (looovely). I asked how she knows that and she says that so and so told her... she's got a few friends who already have braces and apparently, they're her go to people. ugh, anyway, I got the royal eyeroll when I suggested that perhaps those were the bands that the doc puts on to see who actually brushes their teef and who is into growing science experiments in their moufs. *shrug* I'm just sayin... that would be a kick ass idea.

after all the fun and shenanigans, a gal from the office popped in and handed me a booklet with FAQ's, smiled warmly and said, "oh and there's a form tucked inside with the financial breakdown for PHASE I." and then beat a hasty retreat. holy crap! it's a good thing I was sitting down. I actually looked over at K and had a brief moment where I thought, 'you know, she's cute enough that a few crooked teef aren't going to matter ...much'. lol -kidding, kidding... but, thank goodness for the payment plan.

my girl was more than a little disappointed to be walking out of the office yesterday minus a mouthful of metal... I told her it wouldn't happen that fast, but eh, she's a little hardheaded -and really, what do I know (insert my own royal eye roll here)?! her next appointment will be Dec. 16, from there on out, all we'll need is a good metal detector to keep tabs on her. :D

d'oh!

2008-11-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

When you're feeling smug because, even though you know this afternoon and evening you'll be doing the sports mom hustle; picking kids up, cracking the whip to get homework done and then taxiing to and from basketball practice, -you're still going to rock your family's world with one of their favorite dinners WITHOUT having to break a sweat when you get home! -all because you had the foresight to bust out the crock pot and git-r-done early (pats self on back)...

*ahem*

yeeeahh, uhm... note to self:

It's usually a good idea to make sure that you have actually plugged in the freakin crock pot! *GAAAH!* sadly, this is a classic leafa mcbirdie move. ppfffftt... what a dork.

takin the day off

2008-11-11T12:30:00.001-08:00

No school today, so the boys are out hunting (goose and duck), and the girl and I are veggin' out here at home. It's cold, wet and gray outside and we've both been fighting colds the past few days so we decided to take it easy (I know, nothing new for me, right?) and lay low -in fact, we're still in our jams -I love days like this! Kendall baked a dozen lemon/blueberry muffins earlier today and she's been having a blast playing Webkinz with her bff, Carson -it's so funny, Kendall has him on speaker-phone and they're hootin' and hollerin' at each other -pretty much the same as when they're together in person -little goobers! They're pretty dang cute! Poor Jack had to work. No rest for the weary -even if it is a federal holiday.

many thanks for our veterans

2008-11-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Seeing as it's Veteran's Day, I want to send out a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the brave men and women who fight or have fought for our feedom and safety. I admit there are times I'm guilty of taking for granted the security I have from day to day, but I do know, if not for our veterans, we would have an entirely different existence -so I say it today, but I hold it in my heart always, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do on behalf of our country.

The flower of rememberance in honor of those who have given thier lives for the nation's freedom.

On a separate, but not entirely unrelated, note; last night my oldest son Andrew, who turned 17 a couple of weeks ago, casually informed me that he and a friend had gone to see a Marine recruiter yesterday afternoon. When he told me, I'm not gonna lie, my first reaction was complete and utter fear -the idea that my boy might ever be in harms way leaves me nauseous, with deep, sharp pains in my heart. Next, I was shocked and then pretty bent that he would do this without talking to his dad and I first. He went on to explain that he had only gone along for the ride with his best friend (who turns 18 tomorrow) to see the recruiter who had been "bugging him" to come in. Since he was there, the recruiter asked Andrew to take some sort of placement test, which apparently he scored well on, and then, as Andrew tells it, the guy says he can pretty much do anything he wants. *sigh* My boy is all about doing whatever he wants, so that must have been music to his ears.

I must say that, while I was irritated to hear about this "appointment" after the fact and that my mommy radar kept screaming that my kid was being taken advantage of, today, I realized that ultimately, when the time comes, the choice will be Andrew's. I love him beyond measure and have a profound pride that this tall gangly kid, who's smart as a whip (maybe too smart for his own good) is growing into an amazing young man. Yes, he's given his dad and I a pretty good run for our money these past few years and continues to present us with challenges as parents but he is a good boy and I am just going to pray that he makes well informed choices and keep the faith that God will be watching over him.

get out and VOTE!! -or shut your cake hole.

2008-11-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

Pile your dishes in the sink, walk past that mountain of dirty laundry, wedge a hat down over your bushy old bed-head and GO VOTE!! Okay, so that's just my plan but cereally, people, if you don't get out and do the voting thang, I do NOT wanna hear ya bitchin when you aren't happy with what's going on -you vote, you can bitch all ya want. I am absolutely floored when I hear peeps say things like 'my vote doesn't matter', 'I haven't really been following things, I don't know what's what'. It grates on me, what a lackadaisical 'take care of me' society we've become, that people can't even be bothered to put out the effort to educate themselves on the issues that shape our future. It's not rocket science -crap, even my 14 and 17 year old boys know what's going on in the political arena {and yes, I'm disgustingly proud!}... it's not that hard, people!

Folks are expressing concern about having to {gasp} stand in long lines "just to vote" -yet (*irony alert*) those bellyachers are probably the same peeps who are willing to get up at 3am to {gasp} stand in mile-long lines, in the cold and dark, smashed against other crazies waiting to throw down over a good deal on the the latest greatest wii game. *gaah* I know lines are probably going to be long today (which actually, is a good thing, meaning that people are doing their part & having their say), so don't tell Clinton and Stacy, lest I end up on an episode of What Not to Wear, but I'm wearing my sweats and sporting my comfy tennies... yes, out. in. pub-lic. I'm gonna take a snack, because mama can't concentrate when her tummy is growling, a drink -let's hope this isn't the year they start making us take a breathalyzer before we vote! (kidding people, kid-ding!) and a book, which I probably won't even open because this will be a primo people watching opportunity! Yeah, I'm good to go.

Leafa McBirdie -out gettin me vote on! yeeee-ooow!

{UPDATE}

2008-10-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

so much for our big storm. nothing more than a few sprinkles so far tonight so Kendall got to go trick or treating. for my troubles, I earned a 'fun size' butterfinger and a 'fun size' almond joy... pfffft. fun size??! puh-leeze! there's nothing 'fun' about having to open 16 dozen leeetle tiiiiny candy bars just so I can get my sugar grove on. gaaah, my laziness is probably the only thing saving me from slipping into a diabetic coma! lol dangit, I just realized I didn't bring the camera upstairs -I'll post a pic of K in her witch get-up, tomorry.

*update on my update*

okay, it's not exactly tomorry, but here's my dot, witched out for h'ween. after starting the eye make-up she decided she didn't want to be an "ugly witch" and put the kibosh on the creepy, full face make-up. *gaaah* impatient little party pooper! lol

hoppy hollow weiners

2008-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

hmmmph -woke up this morning with a bad case of the uglies and the mood to match. good news is I don't have to come up with a costume because nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, would be any scarier than what was looking back at me from my mirror this morning -yikes. bad news? I have to live in my skin all day and try to keep from doing or saying anything that makes peeps want to slip me arsenic laced candy bars. ggrrrr

go figger... we've had gorgeous fall weather here the past couple of weeks and last night, a storm rolls in. not a good, snuggle up inside by the fire, kick ass rain storm -no. it's a freakin windy, drizzly pain in the ass. I already told Kendall, in the event that it's pouring outside, mama's not hauling her bewitched booty from door to door -even if it means no overflowing candy bucket for me to raid. I know, bah humbug and all that crap. however, to make it up to my grill, I've agreed to endure torture worse than any ghosts or goblins could dish out... we're going to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua. *sigh* glutton for punishment? yeah, that would be me. obviously, my love knows no bounds.

**also, just want to pass on a quick little PSA that a friend of mine shared recently:

Sherwood's Milk Chocolate Pirate's Gold Coins
The little foil-covered chocolate coins are not safe for kids to eat this Halloween. They are made in China and contain the Melamine that children's deaths were related to recently!!!!! With Halloween coming soon, pass this on to your family and friends. It is true, Read the full story at the following link from Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/coins.asp

rockin and a'rollin

2008-10-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

whoa nelly! we've been having earthquakes since really early this morning. Pop called me at about 9:00am to see if I'd felt the one at around 2:30am -I didn't feel anything and usually earthquakes in the middle of the night wake me up, so I figured it must have just been Heidi (Pop's Rottweiler) moving around in the trailer- she's a big girl.

I got on the USGS site and sure enough we had a shaker at 2:27am and it was a 4.9, centered about 41 miles SW of Eureka -I can't believe I didn't feel that! Poor Pop musta been kinda freaked because he just kept saying that it was the biggest one he's felt since he's been here, how it just kept shaking, it must have lasted over a minute and on and on... lol. I feel bad because he's living in a trailer and even though we've anchored it down tight, with big chains and all, he's worried it's going to pull loose and go careening down the hillside and land in our pond. I tell him not to worry, in the event he did go over the hillside (which isn't gonna happen) he'd have to turn a couple of pretty sharp turns in order to make it into either of the ponds... somehow that didn't have the comforting effect that I'd hoped -lol!

we just had another quake a few minutes ago. this one was a 3.5 but was centered 27 miles N of Eureka. looks like that's about the 5th one in our area since early this morning. it'll be interesting to see what happens throughout the day.

trading places

2008-10-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

it's a bit ironic how roles change between parent and child as years roll by. Jack and I moved my Pop up here to live with us 2 & 1/2 years ago -and when I say live WITH us, I mean, we have him out in our front yard in a 38ft trailer. yes, it's true, I've turned my 73 year old father into trailer trash, and we couldn't be happier. :)

it's a win/win for all of us. the hubs and I don't have to worry about Pop not being able to get out and get his meds or groceries. Pop doesn't have to worry about being alone or having to take care of the upkeep on his big old house and yard -and probably the most important thing is that my kids get to hang out and really know their Papa.

I feel very fortunate that a) my hubs is cool with having my Pop around and that they get along. 2) we have the space and resources to make this happen, and c) that I'm able to share a friendship with my Pop that has enriched our father/daughter relationship.

Not having to worry about Pop being alone or being able to get out and about for his meds and/or groceries has been a big relief -a little background; Pop is diabetic and had a pacemaker put in a few years ago, he takes a multitude of meds for his blood pressure, cholesterol, blah blah blah and consequently due to the diabetes, he's got neuropathy which affects the nerves in his feet, in turn affecting his balance -he uses a cane to help keep him steady. like anyone with multiple medical issues, Pop has his good days, weeks, months as well as his more challenging times. before we moved him up here he was going through a rough spell which made it hard for him to do much of anything without easily exhausting himself. he had a hard time just going to the market for a half gallon of milk much less making the rounds for all of his groceries and there were spells when we weren't sure he was getting out to pick up his meds, and if he did get out we were worried about him driving. I do have a brother, that lived fairly close to Pop but he has his own set of issues and well, ...that's a whole 'nuther post. suffice to say, Pop was on his own and it was time that he needed help, he's a proud man so it took some finagling, but here he is.

my job as a 'stay at home' mom has now evolved to include 'caregiver' to Pop. honestly, I never in a million years would have seen this scenario playing out this way. my Pop has always been a big strong man who worked like an ox so, in my mind, I never thought he'd need looking after. it's funny how life has a way of throwing us curve balls.

since Pop's been here, I've learned so many things about myself and what I'm capable of doing. shortly after he got settled into his new digs, he had a situation come up that required debriding and cleansing his feet and changing bandages. it was awful -but not because it was gross (which it was) but because I was afraid I was hurting him, which just killed me... it was very much like taking care of my kids when they've hurt themselves, knowing that it just had to be done. I think that's when it hit me how much our roles have changed from me being a little kid, sitting on the bathroom counter while he cleaned out my ears, to me now, helping him trim his fingernails or put on his shoes. trading places hasn't been exactly easy but it's all good, and so worth it.

all is right with the world again

2008-10-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

*sigh* I'm just so friggin happy right now, I'm almost afraid to jinx myself by sharing the news, but...

MY INTERNET IS *finally* GOOD AGAIN!!

{wOOt!}

my sooper-dooper hubs did a little research and found a new i-net company for us so we can finally dump HUGES (good for nothing) NETWORK -or as I've not so affectionately re-named them: HUGE NUT WART. admittedly, I know nothing about the intricacies that make the world wide web work but I do know that when I pay for something it had better freakin GO... HN had trouble with that concept and well, bottom line? -they had really shitty customer service, plain and simple.

Our new provider is called 101 NETLINK and it's broadband wireless internet -so it's way faster and uh did I mention CHEAPER ?! -yeah, by about $15 a month! These guys came out tonight, after normal business hours, and got us all hooked up and yeehaw!, I'm good to go again! oh yes... I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. *sigh*

still here

2008-10-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

been having freaking internet problems. hopefully things should be fixed soon (fingers crossed) -that, or I may end up doing 25 to life in the big house... technical difficulties make me a leeetle cRaZy!!

his name is

2008-09-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!!

Kid Rock that is. Jack and I went down to Lakeport to see him in concert last weekend and we had a total blast! the really good news? it wasn't too loud -so I guess that proves we aren't too old, right?! {whOOp-whOOp!} as a matter of fact, I was kinda surprised by how diverse the audience was -there were kids, about 12 years old (parent of the year awards going out, there) right up to oldsters in their 70's.

I gotta admit, I like me some KR, but I wasn't sure what to expect at one of his concerts... headbangers? ghetto rappers? he's been known to hang with Hank Jr. so, maybe some good ol' boys...?? I dunno, but I was excited because this was a weekend away, without kids (cereally... can't remember the last time we've gone away w/o kids) and we walked on the wild side.

starting out, our friend tells us he'll leave our tix at the golf course, we can pick them up in the pro shop. cool... we decide since we're there, we'll just eat dinner at the golf course restaurant and head on over to the concert. we have a little bit of trouble tracking down the tickets but finally get them in hand and decide we'll just sit in the bar to eat, hoping it'll be faster than being seated in the dining room. the hostess is great and realizes that we're kinda in a time crunch so she gets our orders right in and gets us started with our salads.

meanwhile, there are a handful of peeps bellied up to the bar, among them, these 4 older gals. they're playing liar's dice and apparently, one of the gals is a newbie to the game, so there's lots of coaching going on and they're having a good time. I think it's safe to assume they've probably been there for a good part of the afternoon. dice are flying and it's getting wild.

over at our table, Jack and I are cracking up, listening to these gals shouting their bids and slamming their dice on the bar as we scarf down our salads. we exchange a few quiet little comments about how cute it is that, at their age, these gals are out, partying down. and then, you know how you hear someone say something, and it sounds like it's coming your direction but you don't know anyone else there, and what they're saying doesn't seem to apply to you so you assume they're talking to someone else?? yeah, but then... there it is again: "hey -you like tequilla??" so we both crane our necks around and sure enough old bird #1 is turned around on her barstool asking US if we like tequilla LOL! not wanting to seem lame beyond our years (I mean, c'mon... we're going to a freaking Kid Rock concert!) we both nod (probably not very convincingly) yes ...oh, us, yeah... hells yeah! and before we know it we have a couple of overflowing shot glasses along with some wedges of lime and a giant salt shaker plunked in front of us as we, (okay me) get that deer in the headlights look...

okay, at this point, I feel it's important to share the fact that, as much as I joke about needing to get my drink on, I actually very rarely drink, and when I do, it's usually nothing stronger than a margarita or a Smirnoff Ice, which is on par with a wine cooler -NEVER straight up liquor. NEVER. well, at least not since my bachelorette party, nov. 1989 -when, after way too many Kamikazi's, I filled up the map pocket on the inside of my friend Terri's passenger door with the contents of my stomach ...it wasn't pretty, and I haven't forgotten.

I was afraid to make eye contact with Jack because I have a bad habit of laughing hysterically when I get nervous ...so, I grabbed my glass, Jack and I did a quick cheers and tossed 'em back. -and I'm happy to report that I didn't puke or even fall out of my chair.

at that point old bird #3 turns to old bird #1 and says "c'mon, leave 'em alonnnne, they're trying to eat their dinnnennenner". then, old bird #2 starts yelling "who'sh turn ish it, anywaysh?"... and so it went. as we were getting ready to pay our bill, old bird #3 comes over to the table and invites us over to her house to hang out and bbq with all of them and their husbands, not that she normally just invites people over, she says, but it might be fun to have some new people... then she goes on to tell us they got there (to the bar) by boat so she's got to give us instructions to get there by car (at this point we'd already told them about 6 times that we were going to the concert) so we just smiled and thanked them and then ran like hell...

got over to the concert, which was at an outdoor venue, stood in line (forever) to show our ID's (as if my gray hair and wrinkles aren't proof enough) for wristbands so we could get drinks. then stood in line to get in. while we were in line we actually ran into a couple of friends from out of the area so we hung out with them for awhile while the opening band (Rehab) played, and we stood in line (forfrickenEVER)to get drinks. funny thing ...while we were standing there I actually had a guy grab me and pull me out of the way because his very LARGE and tall and big and sweaty-and very drunk friend, was about to fall on me. LOL ...I'm telling you, it was crazy.

we finally went to find our seats, and omg... we had such awesome seats -8th row baybee. honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to be any closer because, even with all the security, the crowd has a way of surging forward and it becomes more like a mosh pit and when it's 90 degrees, I don't want to be squished up against a bunch of sweaty strangers... ick ... I'm just sayin'.

so, the stage goes dark and where u at Rock, where you at? starts playing and the crowd goes wild. Kid comes out, dressed all in white, with his trademark aviators and he's looking just like the bad-ass dude you see on tv or CD covers... and by the end of the night he's in black jeans, no shirt (yyyeeeeaaooow!) and he's just this amazingly talented guy who puts on a helluva show. I was really surprised at how down to earth he was -the show wasn't full of chest thumping and macho posturing, which honestly, coming from him woulda been kinda haaawt... but he does show what a diverse performer he is when he jams on the electric guitar, then jumps in and plays the drums... he even hops up and does some old school scratching on the turn tables.... Rev Run (from Run-DMC and Runs House on MTV) comes out and he and Kid rock some of the old Run-DMC hits.

there were some mellow moments during the show, no doubt strategically timed so that old folks like me could catch their breath and maybe puff on their asthma inhalers before they keel over... like when Kid sings Picture, (the duet he did with Sheryl Crow) with one of his backup singers (who, ironically, looks like Sheryl Crow) and then when he sings Amen while a slide show of patriotic pictures shows on the big screen behind him... that was really cool. I also really appreciated that he got out there and did his thing without spouting off one way or the other about his political views... I saw an interview recently, where he said something to the effect that, that's not what he's there for... he's knows singing and song writing, not political science, he's here to entertain and just because he's a public figure it doesn't make him qualified to tell people who they should vote for, that's up to them to decide.

something else that really impressed me, because of how great he sounded, was the fact that there is no backing track... all the stuff we heard was live. I'm usually not a crazy about live shows because often times performers have so much engineering done on their studio stuff, when you hear them live they really sound like crap... but that definitely wasn't the case for this show.

*technically* no cameras are allowed at the show... but once it starts there's no way security can keep up with everyone who's whipping out their cell phones or point & shoots... so, that said, I'll leave you with a few of the pics I managed to get. ah, goooood times!

and finally... a pic of us old (sweaty) folks.

the conclusion of WEDDING WEEK

2008-08-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

it always amazes me how much work and money goes into weddings - an elaborate dress, flowers, cake, photos, reception hall, caterers, booze, -oh yeah baybee its all about the open bar! bottom line, it's a butt load of money and effort and all for just a few hours of "showtime".

Jack and I had a typical wedding with all the trappings and when I stop and think about how much money we could have saved and put towards a house, or maybe even towards that honeymoon we never took (because we were so po' after that big stinkin wedding), it makes me almost ill. seriously, when the big day is over and the guests have all gone home (or passed out in the parking lot) what do you have to show for all that money that was spent?? well, I can tell you what I have; a giant album that I flip thru every 5 or 10 years -usually when I need to prove to my kids that I did, in fact, used to be thin and Jack did, in fact, used to have hair. oh, I also have a luuuurvely gown, complete with reeeeally big poofy sleeves, that has been carefully heirloom packaged and is waiting in the attic for me to offer up to my dot when the time comes. pffft! I can just see her now -begging not to have to wear it! aaaaaaahahaha... poor kid!

anyway... the wedding we went to last weekend was a really refreshing change. the bride's mom made the wedding dress, the groom's mom made all the bridesmaid's dresses, there was no church, no reception hall, no superficial BS... our niece Katie & her fiancee Graydon (aka: Grady -Katie & Grady... isn't that cute?!) were married at my in-law's ranch out in Bear River, way up on a hillside overlooking the Bear River Valley with the Pacific Ocean for a backdrop. aside from the hellacious wind that threatened to carry us right off of that hillside, the ceremony was absolute greatness. not only was it very brief and pretty freaking hysterical but it was very personal and so THEM.

K & G were married by Rick, a close friend of the family, and who, for this occassion had the esteemed title of "Reverend Rick". I don't know all the nitty-gritty details but rumor has it Rick sent away and became ordained via some kind of mail order deal and now he's legit to do something like 3 weddings, 1 funeral and 5 baptisms... if I'm lyin, I'm dyin! LOL!

the reception was back at the ranch, where friends tackled the chores of setting up tables, cooking and serving a wonderful meal of spaghetti, meatballs, hot wings, bread, salad,... I don't even remember what else, but it was great food -none of that crappy, dried out chicken cordon bleu like you get at most weddings. the cakes were from Costco, delicious, and GONE by the end of the night... the music was played over speakers that were hooked up to a computer with a pre-programed i-tunes playlist. there was even one of those giant bounce-house things with a slide for the kidlets -as well as a few of the more erm, ...adventurous (read: drunk) adults!
after it got dark and things were getting mellow, we all gathered around the firepit, listened to one of Katie's bridesmaids, Jen, play the guitar and sing -wow! what an incredible voice that chick had- and then as the guitar was passed on and my FIL busted out his ukelele (yes, a ukelele!) we busted out the marshmallows, and got busy making s'mores!

the kicker here is that K & G live in Utah, and yet they managed to do a heckuva job planning this thing all the way out here in CA. they had friends and family who traveled great distances to be at the wedding, coming from Utah, Las Vegas, Iowa, North Carolina... all over the freakin place, many of them camped out at the ranch, either in tents, RV's, out in the bus barn that was turned into the "womens dormitory" and a few peeps even stayed in a horse trailer! some of the older folks stayed at the quaint little B & B's in town... but the point is, they came all that way just so they could be here for K & G's wedding week -and what a week it was!

The bride and her daddy:

The wedding party:

"Reverend Rick" performing the ceremony:

exchanging the rings:

smoooches!

Kendall with Chicago (groomsman) & Daisie (bridesmaid)

the bouncy house (this thing was worth it's weight in gold!):

where the hell have I been?

2008-08-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

I mean, seriously.

Last Friday, I met up with my niece Katie -and about 15 other crazy chicks- for a "spa day". Now, honestly, I'm not really a 'spend the day at the spa' kinda girl but we'd all been invited to spend the afternoon together as part of Katie's pre-wedding festivities (in lieu of a bridal shower/bachelorette party), so how could I refuse? Having never gone to a spa (oh yeah, I was a spa virgin), I didn't really know what to expect... in fact, about 5 months ago, when we were given a list of different services we could try, I more or less closed my eyes and pointed to one -I mean, I don't know a Vichy Shower from a Seaweed Pack so, what the hell... eenie-meeny-miney-mo... I ended up getting a shoulder/back/neck massage along with a spa pedicure. oookay, fine, sounds safe enough, doesnt' it?

not so much.

please talk amongst yourselves whilst I make a valium cocktail with a chaser of prozac.

I gotta tell you that, while I love being hugged by my peeps and love snuggling with my kids, I'm not a thuper-dooper touchy feely person by nature and the idea of peeps I don't know touching me, weirds me out -I mean, it's not like I freak if I happen to bump into someone, but I'm just very concious of the whole 'personal space' concept that we learned way back in preschool, so, when I realized a perfect stranger was going to: a.) be touching me in a more intimate manner than oh, lets say, a handshake and 2.) I'd be nekkid from the waist up while they were doing that, not to mention c.) someone else would later be touching my FEET -eeeew, feeeet! I was a tad put off so, needless to say, I spent the next four and a half months trying to catch a cold, pneumonia, malaria ...anything, so I could gracefully skip out on spa-day. sigh... no dice.

fast forward to "spa day". I seriously consider taking a couple of beers... possibly an entire 6 pack, with me to shotgun in the parking lot before I join the girls, but I worry that stumbling in, slurring at 10am, I might draw even more attention to myself than I will with my sweaty palms and the huge sweat stains that are showing up under my pits.

I arrive (un-inebriated, damn it) and we all go thru the introductions, hugs and niceties and suddenly, I'm thinking to myself, hey, there are so many people in here, maybe I can just hang out and chat and no one will notice if I don't actually get anything done, I can just plaster the same mellowed-out smile on my face that all the other girls seem to have, and no one will be the wiser, right? -okay, good plan. a few minutes later, I was completely caught off guard when my name was called out by a gal, who apparently takes her fashion cues from the late, great Johnny Cash, because she's dressed in black from her head to her toes... hmmm, I don't remember meeting her -and then my eyes drift down to the little design just above her left breast where I see the words: The Spa at Personal Choice. DAMN IT, again -I'd forgotten all about that friggen sign up sheet, and my number was up!

Head hung low, I follow Johnny Cash, Jr. thru the catacombs where we finally arrive at a candle-lit room with soft Celtic music playing, there's even a little waterfall to add to the ambiance -I mean, they really go all out to create a calm, relaxing atmosphere. I kid you not, I had to choke back a nervous laugh because my first thought was, dayum, I hope Jr's not gonna put the moves on me back here -which I realize was completely random but eh, that's pretty much how I roll ...and as I'm kinda cracking myself up, it dawns on me that the Celtic music reminds me an awful lot of the pan flute CD that I used to tease my homegrill about after finding it in her collection. Zamfir, anyone. ...anyone? ah, but I digress... I'm on the verge of nervous hysteria when Jr tells me to take my shirt and bra off and get comfortable up on the table (SEE?! I knew she was gonna put the moves on me -I KNEW it!) -then, as if sensing that I was a spa newb, she added, "face-down". pfffft. yeah, ok, I knew that -and then she excused herself so I could disrobe.

I got myself undressed, carefully hiding my boulder holder in the folds of my discarded shirt -don't ask me why, but I've always folded my clothes, being sure to tuck my underoos out of sight anytime I have to undress (I'm talkin like undressing at the dr's office etc... NOT whilst in the throws of passion... wait, passion? pfffft... nevermind.). I turned to get on the table but it was too high to just back up and sit down on, so I looked around, but there was no stepstool. So, I start to panic that Jr is gonna walk back in any second now, and not only see me standing there half nekkid but witness me trying to hike my fat ass up on the table that is too high... ugh, I finally make it up there and as I'm trying to get myself turned around and flipped onto my belly, I reach out and grab something, which turns out to be the face stirrup thing, for a little leverage and the freakin thing completely falls off! O. M. G.! so, now I'm on my belly, trying to hold my head up so I can see what I'm doing, while keeping my bewbs plastered down on the table, as I try and reattach the face thing without getting up off the table... I sure hope the spa doesn't have any hidden cameras in those rooms, because I'm tellin you, if they do, I'm sure you'll be seeing me and my boingly-doinglies on one of those shows where you send in video clips for cash. I was seriously thankful I hadn't forgotten my deodorant because I was starting to work up a sweat -and that's the moment Jr chose to come back in. now, completely mortified, I tell her that I've broken the face stirrup (what the hell do you call that thing anyway?) and she calmly tells me "oh, ...don't worry, it's not broken, it. just. has to. go in liiike... uhm..." and then she procedes to fight with the stoopit thing for what seems like several minutes, until, thankfully, it *finally* clicks back into place. by this time, I'm so busy concentrating on not spontaniously combusting, I just bury my face in the newly repaired face holder and pray I don't do anything else embarassing... like fart.

heeere we go... Jr splashes some oil on my back but before she actually begins the massage, I hear her take a series of what sounds like deep cleansing breaths like they teach in Lamaze class -I'm guessing that was to fortify her for the work ahead because once she got started she really worked my muscles, to the point of it being almost painful. I kept hearing her taking these deep breaths in and slow breaths out and I wondered if maybe she was doing that to cue me to breathe that way in order to relax... meanwhile, I was busy praying I wouldn't become so relaxed that I'd let one fly -gaah, talk about the coup de grâce, eh? by the time it was over, I felt like a lump of clay after it's been smooshed and kneeded until it's smooth and pliable -I was completely relaxed, and I realized as I was getting dressed, that I had survived, and so had Jr., who's name it turns out, was Alisha... and I had in fact really, really enjoyed my first massage.

fully relaxed, I floated out to the pedicure bench to sit with my feet in water that was so warm, I instantly regretted not having relieved my bladder beforehand -especially in my newly relaxed state. after a nice soak, I had my feet scrubbed, and then got exfoliated all the way up to my knees (thank goodness I had thought to shave that morning... I would have been mortified if she'd seen the Yeti legs I had been sporting!), feet and legs lotioned, nails and cuticles trimmed... and then had my toenails painted Stilleto red... and finished off with a spritz of yummy smelling almond oil -B.E.A.-youuu-tiful! I was so distracted by talking with all the girls durring this process, I didn't even have time to think about how weirded out I am by people touching my feet... long (boring) story there, but it has to do with some surgeries I had 20+ years ago.

so now, that I've experienced (and survived) "spa-day" I'm thinking I may indeed be a "spa-day" type of girl after all... and Jack may have to work some extra hours, do some side jobs, maybe even sell a kidney to keep me in the style to which I'm quickly becoming accustomed.

ahhh... life's good.

Happy Monday

2008-08-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

whoa! did this weekend fly by or what?! we went to our annual family reunion out in Bear River, soaked up the sunshine, ate waaaay too much good food... ahhh, good times!

I managed to read another book, too; The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I bought it over a year ago and just couldn't get into it so I set it aside and went on to other things, but I came across it again while I was prowling around looking for something to read this weekend, so I decided to give it another shot. I can't for the life of me imagine why I had trouble with it before, or why it took me so long to pick it up again, but I devoured it this time-SMK is a great story teller!

other than that, not much going on around Rancho McBirdie... I'm still slooooowwly working on my office/scraproom... finally got enough crap moved and got one wall painted (whoop-dee-fricken do, right?! LOL!) just need to get some shelves taken down now, so I can tackle the next wall... it's a slow process but I'm diggin the fact that I'm doing it all myself, and so far, I haven't screwed anything up -d'oh!, hope I didn't just jinx myself!

today's blog post is brought to you by...

2008-08-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

the letter B.

B is for BFF. My homegrill Shayna Lou and her stud-muffin Doyle brought their motley crew up to visit us earlier this week. It's always great to see them and I love love love that our kids are BUDS and have no problemo picking up where they left off the last time they got together.

B is also for BEACH. We went to a couple of local beaches while the crew was here and the kids had a blast playing in the freezing-ass surf. I'm pretty sure they each smuggled enough sand home in their pockets (not to mention their nether regions -helleeeew??...chaffing anyone?!) to create their own personal little beaches here at home! Good times. :)

We've had absolutely BEAUTIFUL weather the past few days. I got raccoon eyes from getting BURNT at the beach while I was wearing my big ol' glasses and then yesterday, I managed to flambée myself to a complete friggin' crisp whilst I was finishing up yet another BOOK out on the front patio. *gaaah* I seem to have knack for looking like a complete dork whenever we go out in public and last night was no exception, I was practically glowing neon red when we went out to dinner to celebrate Jack's BIRTHDAY. We celebrated with some of our family who are in town early for our niece's wedding next week. Jack opened all kinds of fun gifts and cards, but the kids and I gave him his big prezzie a couple of weeks ago. We got him a new stainless BBQ -and I think we've used it almost every night since then -it's a real step up from what we had, lemme tell ya!

B is for BIRDS -the kids and I have started keeping a list of the ones we see around here. We saw BROWN Pelicans at the beach the other day so we've added them to the list and then the day before yesterday, we saw some Quail in the backyard -ordinarilly that wouldn't really be that big of a deal except that they had a whole bunch of BABIES with them -they were so stinkin cute running all over the place!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to this awesome little BIRDING shop down in Old Town Eureka and bought some new hummingbird feeders. We've had lots of different kinds but these are by far the best yet because they're so easy to clean. I'm so excited that the hummers have started to visit them pretty regularly. I got a couple of decent pics of a Rufous Hummingbird at the feeder in the BACKYARD but I really wish I could manage to take a pic of the little hummers that I've been catching in my garage window lately. For some reason they come into the garage when the big door is up and they fly to the back window and hover there trying to get out. Eventually, they exhaust themselves enough that all I have to do is go put my hand underneath them and they'll land on my fingers and I can scoop them up. The funny thing, (funny -duh! not funny haha!) is that not only is there a full size roll-up garage door wide open behind them, but there's also a regular door about 3 feet away, that's wide open too! Derrr!

And finally, B is for BLABBERMOUTH... 'nuff said.

Urban Dictionary definition o' the day

2008-07-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not really sure which came first, the books or the website (my personal fave), but the Urban Dictionary is a filarious collection of slang words and phrases and their off the chain meanings. Granted some of the references are kinda wack but considering the fact that anyone and their dog can submit entries, they're usually good for a laughgasm or two. I get the Word of the Day sent to me so's I can stay hip with the jive lingo -I know ya'll probably thought I was just naturally fly... so now, my cover is blown but today's missive cracked me up so I figured I'd edjumacate y'all.

July 24: critical ass
adj. The stage in fat accumulation when fabric can no longer contain the enormity of one's buttocks.
Jesus, I can't zip up these jeans anymore - I've reached critical ass!
comment on this definition
Check out the new Mo' Urban Dictionary, shipping today from Amazon. The book includes:
multislacking: doing multiple slackeresque things concurrently
workahol: what workaholics are addicted to
foreploy: misrepresenting yourself on a date in hopes of getting lucky

ten years ago?? ...I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast!

2008-07-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the tag, Shayna Lou. Really. Thanks. ...loads.
;) Love you. ...mean it.

Ten years ago:

10 years ago I had a 6 1/2 yo, 4 1/2 yo and a one month old baby.
10 years ago I had reeeally really short hair.
10 years ago I became a scrapbooker.
10 years ago we were opening up and building our upstairs.
10 years ago we had our nephew living with us.
10 years ago I wasn't sure I'd still be married 10 years later.

Five things on today's to-do list:

1. take Heidi to the vet
2. take Pop to the chiropractor
c. clean off the back patio
4. clean out the car
5. think of clever ways to torture Shayna for tagging me. ;)

A snack I enjoy:

fresh fruit- especially watermelon, grapes and strawberries ...mmmmm-mm!

Things I would do if I were a millionaire:

invest
do lots of traveling with the family
finish/remodel our house

Places I have lived:

W.Sacramento, CA
Elk Grove, CA
Sacramento, CA
Eureka, CA
Cutten, CA
Loleta, CA

Peeps I am tagging:

Slush
Caffee

nothing too exciting

2008-07-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd let ya'll know, I'm still going strong with my little projects. I'm in the process of attacking my office and some other little things upstairs. Other than that we've been having a great summer so far, even if the weather hasn't been so great. We've had lots of dreary gray days lately, but I guess that's par for the course up here on the north coast, *sigh* -I suppose it just serves to make us more grateful for the nice days we do get.
I've been doing lots of reading lately, as you can see by my growing book list over on the left. I really need to get back into my routine of going to the library because I've been spending a small fortune, but I've been loving the bookmarked books at Target -seriously, some good stuff there! I'm reading The Faraday Girls right now and after a bit of a slow start, I'm finding myself picking it up every chance I get. It's been years since I've been such a voracious reader and I gotta say it's a nice change from having me arse planted in front of my 'puter for hours on end.
Oh well, duty calls... I'm off to town with Pop for an exciting afternoon of grocery shopping and probably a stop at the Mexican restraunt for lunch. :)

the cat, the visit and some much needed down time

2008-07-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

In addition to all the hustle and bustle that was already going on around here, we had a bit of trauma last Monday night with Pop's cat, Tom. First, a little background info: In a nut shell (so to speak), Tom is... 'special' -the last vet we took him to told us he thought Tom was psychotic (after said vet was forced to don elbow length leather gloves and a long handled net in order to capture Tom, who was in hyper freak-out mode, darting around an exam room that was roughly the size of a bedroom closet, hissing, growling and ready to eat the face off of anyone who got too close) anyhow, he's always been a bit neurotic, constantly licking and scratching himself (fleas and flea allergies have been ruled out) but Monday night we noticed that his scratching had gotten so severe, his head and shoulders were virtually one giant scab, he also had open sores that were bleeding -the poor dude was a mess.
Obviously Tom needed to go to the vet but considering that the last vet had said it "might be more humane to euthanize Tom than put him thru another visit to the vet", I was worried about trying to take him back there. I decided to stop by the vet's office the next morning and explain the situation and asked if they'd see him, the receptionist remembered Tom from the last visit (I'm telling you, it was AWFUL!) but said they had an extra doc on duty and they could see him that afternoon. The receptionist mentioned that they might need to tranquilize him and would that be okay?! Uhm... yes, by all means, and while you're at it how about a little sumpin'-sumpin' for me too?! Ugh, great -my aunt and uncle were coming that afternoon... and I need to pick Matt up from summer school... oh well, we'd make it work.
Came home to get ready to load up the psycho cat but could only find 1/2 of the cat carrier... wth!? I'm already a nervous wreck and now I have to figure out how I'm going to get our feline Cujo from point A to point B without being confined?! ...I don't think so. After a few frantic calls to my hubs, where I may have threatened to set his boat on fire, the rest of the carrier was found and Andrew was able to drop Tom into the carrier. Okay, the mere fact that Tom was able to be dropped into the carrier rather than stuffed, crammed or otherwise violently inserted was proof that he wasn't feeling well.
Arriving at the vet's office, I learned that the doc we'd be seeing was new there... in fact, it was her first day. I couldn't help thinking that after this experience, it might very well be her last day as well... I sincerely hoped that she wouldn't be traumatized forever. When she came into the exam room, I nervously explained Tom's history of going ape-shit once being released and I warned her that once the genie was out of the bottle, so to speak, it might not be so easy to put him back (without the help of a tranqilizer dart).
I have to hand it to this chick, she might have been a little leery at first but she was always in control. She opened that carrier and calmly grabbed Tom and then with the help of a tech she was able to take his temprature (which earned her some well deserved growls and hisses) then she looked at his teef and examined his owies... and then gave him a couple of shots -a steroid to stop the itching and an antibiotic to stop any infections and she applied a topical treatment for parasites. Amazingly, when it was all said and done, there was no bloodshed and she still had all ten fingers! Hmmm... can you guess who we're going to ask for should the need arise for another visit to the vet?! Doc Renner is my hero! :)

Whew! Tom was all fixed up and loaded back into the car, I remembered to gather up Matt from summer school and just as we were racing home, Andrew called to let me know that Aunt Ruby and Uncle Bob had arrived... the day hadn't gone as I'd planned but in the end it all worked out just fine, although I'm not sure Tom would agree.

I thoroughly enjoyed the time with my aunt and uncle -they were here Tuesday thru Friday and we had a nice, relaxing visit. We did some sightseeing in Ferndale and around old town Eureka and of course, lots of chatting and catching up. I hadn't seen them since my mom died last year... hard to believe it was a year July 5th... *sigh* Anyway, it was great to see them and I'm already looking forward to them coming back next summer -they're good peeps.

Jack took the kids up to the lake on Thursday for the long holiday weekend, and I was going to drive up late Friday or early Saturday but I was exhausted. I ended up staying home which gave me a couple of days to regroup and get things back to 'normal' around here. The peace and quiet was just what I needed. I read an awesome book (Driving Sideways by Jess Riley... omg, I laughed out loud so many times... LOVE her style!) and *insert happy dance here* I got to sleep in for the first time in a loooong time... and it was grrrreat! Pop and I went out to lunch on Saturday and spent part of the afternoon playing with his new power chair -now he's literally 'hell on wheels'! :) Today I dragged him with me to Costco just to get him out of the house for a bit -I'm so glad to have him here, we really do have fun together.

The family got home late this evening and it sounds like they had a great time too. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone for some of us -back to work for Jack, summer school for Matt, which means I'll be draggin me arse out of bed early too... but it's all good! :) I'm happy to report that Tom is doing 100% better which has done wonders for his disposition -he really is a great kitty... as long as you don't piss him off!

Been a busy bee these past few weeks...

2008-06-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

Nothing like finding out company is on their way, to get me offa my ass and kicked into high gear -lol! I found out my aunt and uncle are making the long trek from East Tennessee, driving all the way out here to Cali to attend a wedding, visiting friends and family along the way, and they're going to be in my neck o' the woods early next week. I'm completely stoked but when I realized they'd be staying with us for a few days, I freaked a little (okay, a lot) because we've never really had house guests -well, aside from my mom or Shayna and her brood -but that doesn't really count because they already knew we were slobs and chose to come anyway, my aunt and uncle on the other hand, don't really know what they're getting into...

Anyway, I've had several projects in the works over the past few months, many of which were close to completion but not quite to the point where I could cross them off my to-do list... my tendancy to get distracted and move on to other things has been out of control lately... SO, I've been rushing around like a crazy chick (don't be alarmed, I've had plenty of practice with this) dotting my t's and crossing my i's... tending to odds and ends and trying to make the house look like a family lives here instead of a pack of transient college kids. I've been a whirling dervish, RE-re-painting my front door (the red just wasn't workin for me, so it's back to green!), finishing up my interior painting, re-arranging and re-hanging pictures and artwork, doing a mini make over in my downstairs bathroom -installing one of those curved shower curtain rods and hanging my new shower curtain (it's WAY cute!), cleaning out kitchen cupboards to accomodate my new dishes (loooove them!), re-organizing kitchen drawers so I can convert 3 drawers into one slide out cabinet that will contain my trash and recycle bins so I can finally (after 13 years) get rid of the trash can that's been parked in front of my kitchen sink.... oh, and I've been doing LOTS of gardening.

Like I said ...a whirling dervish, but I have to say, that as busy and tired as I've been lately, I'm SO pleased with the changes around here. So many things I've said I'd get to "someday" have finally been done. I can't believe how rewarding it is at the end of the day, to fall into a heap on the couch and look around at all the changes taking place and realize that our house has fianlly gone from homely to homey. LOL!

I love you ba-ay-beeee...

2008-06-26T21:21:00.003-07:00

I know it's been around awhile but o.m.g. -I swear I laugh me arse off each time this commercial comes on tv -the family even yells "HURRY! HURRY!! -your commercial's on!!" so I won't miss it! The 30 second version is pretty stinkin funny but I found the extended version on YouTube -it's got to be one of my all time faves! Oh, and bonus... this little ditty is practically guaranteed to be tattooed on your brain so, go ahead, give in and sing along... you know you wanna!

go speed racer! go speed racer! go speed racer, go-o-o-o-o-o-o!

2008-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

...to traffic violaters school. *sigh*

cripes, I've always sorta toyed with the idea of going back to school to further my edjumacayshun but I never thought I'd be going so I could keep a stinkin speeding ticket off my otherwise spotless driving record. GAAAAH! Well, that's not really true, way back at the end of February, I actually had a premonition that something like this might happen. Sure enough, about a month later, I got pulled over on a curvy, mountainous road when Smokey clocked me going 72 mph in a, uhm, ...55 mph zone. {what can I say, the car has a mind of it's own, lol!}.

Anyway, the po-po was pretty cool (aside from the fact that he actually issued me the freaking ticket) -he only wrote me up for doing 65 mph so I'd be eligible for traffic school and could keep the ticket off my record and, most importantly, it won't jack up my insurance.

...so bright and early (8 o'stinkin clock) tomorrow morning I will be sitting in traffic violator's class, listening to the instructor expound the virtues of being a safe, courteous, law abiding driver, and counting the minutes untill the bell rings and I am free once again to hit the open road -paying close attention to the speed limit, of course.

someone needs to

2008-05-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

confiscate this chick's bedazzler -and while they're at it maybe they can let her in on the whole 'less is more' concept when it comes to the green eye shadow. dayuum!

Guinness World Record holder for the 'Most Pierced Woman', Elaine Davidson, poses for a photograph in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland showing some of her five thousand nine hundred and twenty piercings on May 16, 2008.
REUTERS/David Moir (BRITAIN)

lol! seriously, I can barely pull a sweater over my head without getting it snagged on an earring -I can't even begin to imagine what kind of damage this gal could do, ay-yi-yi. since I came across this picture my mind has been reeling with questions, like for instance:

* is she insane? because, if I was judging by that picture, I'd have to say 'hell yeah!'.

* how did she get started with the whole piercing thing? I mean, did she go in one day to get her belly pierced and think 'hey, that looks hawt! I'm gonna get my nipples done next!' and then the whole thing just spiraled out of control from there??

* I wonder what she looked like before she became a human pin cushion...

* I would NOT want to be stuck in line behind her going through airport security.

* can you imagine the poor chump who wakes up and sees that face on the pillow next to him each morning? it's like a nightmare that starts AFTER you wake up! -pffftt!

* I wonder if it's possible for her to sneak up on people -or do you think she jingle-jangle-jingles too much?

* I wonder what would happen if she got too close to one of those giant magnets like they have at a junkyard to pick up cars.

* they say she's got 5,920 piercings... I gotta admit I'm just a leeeetle bit curious about where they all are.

* she seems like she'd be the perfect poster girl for chronic infection.

* I know some people take their jewelry off before they go to bed -I'm guessing she's not one of them.

* I wonder how much all that stuff weighs (and does she wish she could take it all off before she goes to the dr. and has to step up on the scale?!)

* is she going to keep piercing until there's not a square inch of skin w/o a hole in it?

* why has no one done an intervention for her?

* I wonder how long it will be until the center of her tongue falls out -with all those holes in there it's got to be just a matter of time.

pretty feet are happy feet...

2008-05-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Please, please, please ladies if you're going to wear sandals or flip-flops out in public do us all a favor: treat yourself to a pedi or invest in some decent foot care products and take care of that bidniz at home... there's almost (notice I say almost) nothing nastier than looking at someones dried out crackly feet or nasty unkempt toenails.

I'm completely grossed out by yucky feet, and I'm hyper-conscious about showing my feet in public, so while shopping for goodies to keep my feet in tip top shape, I caved and bought one of those PedEgg gizmo's that are being advertised like crazy -you've probably seen the infomercials (look how it works on this orange yet won't pop this balloon ...yaddayaddayadda). I usually refuse to buy anything that's featured in an infomercial just on principal, because they're annoying as hell. But, my need for pretty, callous-free feet got the better of me and I am now the owner of a 'professional' PedEgg.

My first thought when I looked at this thing was "dayum, this baby looks like a cheese grater" (and really, who would want to drag one of those across their tootsies?!) so I started out cautiously (I actually even read the instructions for fear of ending up with bloody stumps where my feet used to be -lol) but it's really user friendly and I got great results -plus, I got the job done much faster than when I've used a pumice stone. I'm tellin you, the PedEgg's awesome -well, except when you have to dump out the shavings {gag} -that kinda grossed me out.

but wait there's more (you knew that was coming right?)...

-it also comes with emery pads you can attach to the bottom of the egg to smooth out any little rough spots that are left over. All this for just $9.99 (don't get me started about how pissed I was when I realized that if I had ordered it off of the stinkin infomercial I could have got not one, but TWO PedEggs AND a tube of Miracle Foot Repair all for the low, low price of only $10 *gaaah* -that'll teach me!).
Serially, it's a great little gadget that lives up to the late night spiel.

But back to me and my pretty feet... whilst strolling the aisles of the Walgreen's (and tossing things willy-nilly into my cart) I also got some of the new Sally Hansen JUST FEET Spa Foot Cream... ooooh ahhh, this stuff is heaven, it feels great and has a luuuurvely lavender scent -my favorite! Now, I don't expect that peeps are going to be trying to smell my feet, but if they did, they would be in for a treat! I also bought some sassy new nail polish- which I painted on my dot's toes last night and she deemed the color to be 'stunning'- so I guess we're set for sandal season here -how about you?

1-2-3...smile!

2008-05-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

hey, no dumb faces. oops! your eyes were closed. okay, thats it -I'm gonna beat the next person who does 'bunny ears'! GAAAH! I must have repeated these things about 40 times while trying to take prom pics tonight -lol! but I think I finally got some good ones of Andrew with his giiiiirlfriend Casey and his buddy Kevin with his date Bree.

and one of my favorites of the night (bwwwahahaha! I totally dig this girl!)

lactose intolerance and gastric bloating are not a laughing matter

2008-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

...unless, of course, you're immature like me. ppffffftt! ;)

Miss you Mom...

2008-05-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

I've been feelin a little blue these past few days, thinking ahead to tomorrow -it will be my first Mother's Day without my mom. It's been 10 months since she died and almost daily I catch myself wishing I could call her to give her the scoop about Andrew's first 'real' girlfriend, or to ask about a recipe or just for advice on how to keep the nasty old earwigs out of my planters... our daily chats are definitely one of the things I miss the most. But it's not all sad stuff, I crack up when I catch myself using one of her silly sayings and think what a kick she'd get out of it and I smile each time I look out my kitchen window and see the new leaves on her memorial tree -knowing how impressed she would be with the beautiful deep burgundy of the new growth that is now gradually turning to a bright spring green as the leaves continue to grow and fill in the still small canopy. We have an abundance of birds that come to eat from the many feeders we have stationed around the yard, they love the tree and I can hardly wait untill it's branches are sturdy enough to support a feeder for them -mom would love that too.

I've finally framed the last photo I got of her -it's from last Christmas and she's sporting a festive red sweater and a great big smile. It sits on my desk, right next to my computer monitor -I get a kick out of seeing her there smiling back at me everyday. She's never far from my thoughts.

Today when I went down the road to get the mail, there was a small package waiting for me. My first thought was that it must be something for Jack or maybe it was from one of my scrapbooking buddies... but then I saw that the return address was from my Aunt June and Aunt Ruby in Tennessee. Some of you might remember that my mom lived with them the last few years of her life. I have always thought the world of each of them but I will never be able to describe how much love, respect and gratitude I have for their compassion and all the tender loving care they gave my mom -they were completely dedicated to her. They were, literally, the answer to so many prayers. After Mom died, Aunt June and Aunt Ruby took me aside and made it a point to tell me that they knew they could never take her place but they would be there for me on her behalf. {sniff}

So, fast forward to today, when I open the package and find a card and a small white box tied with a gold bow and shimmery stars.

The card read:

Dear Lisa,

The string of pearls in rememberance of the Mother gone, but not forgotten.

Love from Ruby and June.

it's not easy being green

2008-05-01T16:22:00.001-07:00

It might be more accurate to say, 'it's not easy finding green'. Who knew finding the right shade of paint could be so dang hard?! GAAH! It's no secret that green is my favorite color; it's the color of springtime, renewal... money! heh heh heh ...that said, I decided green would be the color for my craft room/studio/office -or as it's come to be known lately, the place I plant my fat ass and surf the web. It's true, I haven't been feeling all that crafty lately, thus the reason for the room makeover. I figure, maybe, with a fresh, clean, spunky room, inspiration will strike ~or~ at the very least, I'll have a spiffy new room to bunk in once my hubs gets fed up with my 'projects'. LOL

My search for the perfect green started out at the local paint store where I spent a good long time gathering paint chips and with my hands full of every color from 'tropical grass' to 'zippidy doo dah' (yeah thats really a color!) I flashed a smile at the paint gal and headed out the door with a promise to be back soon.

After coming home and taping several paint chips up on the wall, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what I wanted; something fresh, maybe even a little bit unexpected but not too over the top. I want the ho-hum blah ...ness to be replaced by a shot of enthusiasm, but I don't want to have to bust out the shades to enjoy it. Should be easy enough, yes? Uhm... No.

I'm no stranger to color. I've taken art classes, I know how the color wheel works -that blue and yellow make green... but this paint business -whew- it's so much more complex. There are blue-greens, yellow-greens, minty greens, pine greens, grass greens, soft greens, and the ever poplular, puke {or baby poop} greens... there are more, but I'm sure you get the picture. The first color I chose to sample was called 'Sunny Glade', a nice enough color but after a couple of days of looking at it on the wall, it looked too minty. Hmmmph. I really thought it was the one.

Meanwhile, while visiting my friend Wendall's blog (visiting/stalking, whatever! -you say potato, I say spud...) I got a look at her studio and BAM it hit me -THAT'S the green! I LOVE IT -it's perfect. So, I email and nag her and beg for all the paint details and being the soooper schweetie that she is {or maybe she was askeered that her freaky blog stalker had contacted her??} she climbed around under the stairs in her garage and came up with all the nitty gritty info for me. Happy-happy-joy-joy! She got it at Lowe's, it's made by Valspar, it's called Jalapeno Jelly ...etc. etc. etc. Well, we don't have a Lowe's within 100 miles of us but my local paint store carries Valspar so woo-hoo, I'm off to see the wizard!! No dice. Even with all the particulars, my paint gal doesn't have the right stuff to make the mix. We concluded that Lowe's probably has some exclusive colors from Valspar and, barring a 200 mile round trip, I was shit out of luck. *sigh* Back to the drawing board... I should mention also that I went to the Valspar website in hopes that I could eyeball the color on line and try to match it locally but the color they showed is NOTHING like what Wendall has -in fact she commented that if I got a can of that paint I shouldn't freak out until I saw it on the wall but what's on the website is definitely not a good representation of her paint. UGH! I'm tellin ya... paint is weird.

At some point in our "chatting" Wendall said she loves the color in her studio so much, sometimes she goes in there and wants to lick the walls -{who's the freak now?" LOL!} It doesn't surprise me though, because they're the exact same color as a granny smith apple -I'd probably be tempted to take a taste myself! ;) Soooo... with that in mind, bright and early the next morning I stopped by the grocery store and bought the yummiest granny apple I could find and headed for the paint store. The gals all got a kick out of me standing there matching paint chips up to my apple -lol! but hey, a gals got to do what a gals got to do, right?

I came home with 2 different quarts of paint -both of which are perfect matches to my granny apple. The first one, unfortunately named 'Asparagus', is a deeper green, like you see when you look down by the apple's stem, the second color, called 'Olive Garden', is a bit lighter like you'd see on the sides of the apple. I have both colors up on the wall now and it's a toss up, I like them both. The lighter color is nice, kinda mellow but fun. The darker color, is bold and fun and it's definitely different than anything I would have chosen without benefit of seeing something similar in Wendall's studio. I admit, when I saw first saw it up on my wall, my first thought was how much it looked like baby poop -you know, like when they first start eating green beans? *gag* but after a couple of coats and a couple of days of curing, it's definitely the front runner -pffftt- no pun intended!
LOL! I just realized you can see my 'inspiration' apple on my shelf!

funfunfun mail!

2008-04-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

WOOO-HOOO! I got some fun mail this afternoon from my pal Bethany! :) She surprised me with this awesome little {note}worthy spiral notebook from Making Memories that I've been drooling over for weeks!

I've already got an idea of what I want to do with it and get this -I'm actually excited about doing something crafty! (yay me!) THANK YOU SO MUCH BEFFY!! you da bomb, baybee! *muuuah*

ADD, OCD ...call it what you will, I am the queen of distractions

2008-04-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

So, a few weeks ago I finally decided to jump in and tackle the mess that has taken over my scraproom. I've been organizing and doing some hardcore purging, finally getting rid of tons of the 'really cool' stuff I just HAD to have over the years, but strangely, have never been compelled to actually use. There was a time it would have killed me to get rid of this stuff, but now, I'm sick of looking at it and trying to work around it -and I just want it gone. In a weird way, it's kind of exciting, even a little liberating, to be able to simplify and reclaim this room.

While changes are gradually taking place, and it *is* looking better in here, it's definitely been a sllllooooow process and my ADD keeps kicking into overdrive. I find myself slacking on the cleaning and skipping ahead to what I want to do next, which is ...PAINT! (pffftt! nevermind the fact that I still have a few odds and ends to finish up from my last painting project -but that's a whole 'nuther story...) I've been collecting paint chips and taping them up on the walls so I can get a look at the colors in the different light throughout the day. A few days ago I actually bought a quart of what I thought was going to be THE color and painted a patch of wall behind the door, just to test it out. Then, last night as I was putting on the second coat, I was kinda diggin it so I decided to paint a little more, ...and then a little more, so I could really get a feel for it... I ended up painting all around the door and a good portion of the wall... meanwhile, as that was drying, I was looking at all the paint chips again and found another color that I might like better, so I'll be getting a quart of that tomorrow -you know, just to make sure I end up with exactly the right color. *gaah* as if ADD weren't enough, now my OCD tendencies are starting to surface. Soon I'll be obsessing about being distracted ...all while I should be cleaning and organizing -it's a vicious cycle, I tell ya! *note to self: call pharmacy and refill meds.

(here's a little preview of color #1 -it's actually darker IRL)

I cereally drive myself crazy when I get hung up on stuff like this. Thank goodness Jack has pretty much learned to take my chaotic tendencies in stride -which is just one of the many reasons I keep him around. ;) He occasionally peeks in to check on my progress (or lack thereof) and usually aknowledges any changes with a quick smile and a nod and then he's gone -he's smart that way.

Hopefully, once the room is done, I'll find my mojo. It's been so long since I've done anything artsy-fartsy, I'm beginning to wonder if I even *gasp* want a scraproom anymore.

20 years

2008-04-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

I met my friend Andrea, what seems like a lifetime ago, when she moved to my hometown, to live with her mom and her younger brother. We actually met thru work, -we'd both just started working for Longs Drugs Store. Aside from being the 'newbies' at work together, we found we had lots in common and quickly became friends, hanging out, partying, doing all the stooopid stuff 19 year old girls do. We made tons of roadtrips back to her hometown, where I met her friends and before long, I felt just like one of the gang. Over the next couple years, she and I were more or less joined at the hip. We supported eachother thru breakups with boyfriends, family drama -everything.
It wasn't too long after she moved back to her hometown, and I was just getting over some major boyfriend drama, -feeling depressed and wanting to shake my life up a bit, -that she convinced me that I should up and move too. She told me about one of her old friends who needed a room mate... and so it went.

Just two days after my 21st birthday, I packed up my Pop's suburban, piled stuff in a trailer, filled up my little honda and hit the road. 300 miles and about 6 hours later I was here. I stepped inside the shabby old house I'd be sharing with my new room mate, Tim (whom I'd already met and loved like a brother ...still do, in fact!) and he introduced me to his friend Jack.... A year and a half later Jack and I got married and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here we are, 20 years to the day from when I moved here and Jack and I first met... -we've been married now for 18 and a half years, have 3 beautiful kidlets, and amazingly, even with all the ups and downs we've gone through, we've managed to keep it together pretty well. I can't wait to see what the next 20 years brings -I just hope they don't go by so fast!

Andrea and I have long since fallen out of touch. She moved back to my hometown, got married and I haven't heard from her in years. ...it's strange how things work out sometimes.

some things never change

2008-04-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

I can't count the multitude of times I've shopped for *the* perfect birthday or Christmas gift, usually spending way too much money in an effort to please -and then, as if that weren't bad enough, my OCD kicks into overdrive as I start the process of coordinating the giftwrap, ribbons and bows, and I wind up spending nearly as much on that stuff as I did on the gift -lol.

Picture me, camera poised, hardly able to contain my excitement as my kid is overcome with joy and moved beyond words when he sees what's inside the magnificent package. Then hellloooo... flash back to reality as said kid rips into the magnificent package, and with nary a blink at my efforts to impress, chucks the 'perfect' gift aside and then adds insult to injury as he goes on to spend hours, maybe even days, playing with the freakin' cardboard box it came in! What is it about kids and boxes??!

I guess some things never change...

A couple of weeks ago, Jack went out and bought a GIANT new tv -the kids had been jonsin for us to bring it home and get it all set up so late that night we dragged this ginormous box into the livingroom, carefully unpack the tv, and as Jack and I are muttering under our breath about the trials and tribulations that come along with trying to decipher which cords get plugged into what component and WHY is there an extra cord leftover, etc... we suddenly realize that the box has come alive and is making it's way across the hardwood floor -LOL! Matt has crawled inside and is using the box as a quasi shell. Bedtime finally rolls around and as I step into the boys' room, I notice the box has ended up in there and it is now stuffed to overflowing with Matt and all his bedding -the big goof slept in the box!
Oh well, I guess as long as it's not a fridge box under a bridge, we're doing ok.

Seriously... it's ridiculous.

2008-04-04T22:10:00.001-07:00

As of today, prices up here on the northcoast are $3.66 a gallon for reg. unleaded at Costco and a whopping $3.79 a gallon for reg. unleaded at the 76 station... GAAH! talk about depressing.

pffftt! who needs daytona beach??

2008-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

Things are finally winding down and getting back to "normal" here at Rancho McBirdie. We had a kick ass spring break -totally different than any of our other 'vacations', because the family went in different directions (which may be the secret of our success!? lol), but we were busy and it was fun.

Jack had to work (work, Jack, work) and Andrew was busy building fence with his cousin Nate out at the ranch so Matt, Kendall and I left Friday after they got out of school and made the trek down to the clov-i to hang with Shayna and her gang. It's always SO good to see her and I love how the kids seem to pick up right where they left off ... it didn't take them long to figure out that they were on their own as far as entertaining themselves. They swam, played video games, and did a pretty good job of staying under the radar, freeing up the adults to drink margi's, tip back some beeyahs, and play a few cut-throat rounds of dominos (because, according to Bennett, that's what old peeps do), oh yeah... we're wild like that.

Saturday the kids colored eggs and the Easter bunny, along with her trusty sidekick, did a smashing (literally) job of hiding them. The next morning, the little grills pranced around the yard, hunting down the mangled eggs that the dogs hadn't already managed to liberate. After a delicious Easter dinner, we all hastened on down to the local bowling alley where a) we were entirely too high maintenance when it comes to renting shoes 2) were a little challenged by the automatic scoring machine, and c) Shayna kicked me arse in a bowling throwdown. I must say though, I was one proud mama when my girl managed to loft her ball onto the lane NEXT to us and then later, had an apparent 'early release' and sort of erm, threw the ball behind her... can't even imagine what might have happened if we hadn't been using bumpers! No doubt the PBA scouts would have our phone ringing off the hook ...if only our number weren't unlisted. *sigh*

As usual, I hated to leave so we stuck around for an extra day and got to see some other friends who came to visit (pffftt! go figure -they live within 10 minutes of me but I travel 8 freaking hours and see them!). I'm wondering if Shayna's fully recovered yet... at one point there were 5 adults and 9 kids bunking in her house. Crazy as it sounds, the kids were great and it was loads of fun! I laughed me arse off with Shayna over our retarded inside jokes, Doyle's goofy faces, Renee and her velcro pajamas and omg her 'my mom only has one eye' story will be a classic I'm sure. ...gooood times.

After a long drive home Tuesday night, I saw Andrew for about 20 min. before he headed over to Nate's house for the night, so they could get an early start over to Redding/Mt. Shasta to snowboard and stay with our friend Michelle (my kids' godmother). Thursday night Jack hooked up the boat and he, Matt and Kendall headed over to Shasta Lake to fish ...and to stay with Michelle. I had a few things to do so I stayed home and ran some errands with Pop, and then drove over on Friday night. We haven't seen these guys since last July/August so we had lots of catching up to do and we stayed up way too late.

Durring the days some of the guys went fishing and some went snowboarding, the girls just hung out and in the evenings all the kids played video games. Michelle and Jim took me around to show me some of the houses they've been looking at -kinda cool to see what's out there, totally can't believe how much the Redding area has grown.

Saturday night we took everyone out to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner to celebrate Tatum's 11th birthday. I'd never been there but it had a fun atomsphere and what's not to love about a place where you can throw peanut shells on the floor?! On a personal note, I learned it's not wise to start a peanut fight while wearing a low cut blouse -the upside here, is that with all that I brought home in my bra, I will be set once winter rolls back around.

M(&)M goooood

2008-03-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

Found these babies whilst strolling the aisles of my local Walgreen's the other day. Being the adventurous chick that I am, I tried 'em out because, you know, I like to walk on the wild side every now and then...

They're pretty yummy -taste like a chocolate covered cherry -only without that cloying overly sweet/rich taste and without all the gooey gunk inside. I gotta say though, I think the peanut butter M&M's are still my fave!

DMV -the great motivator??

2008-03-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

hmmpf -who knew??

Last week I got a notice in the mail that it's time to renew my driver's license. Great, no problem, how much do I owe and where do I send the check? Uh... no. This time around, the department of motor vehicles requests my presence so that I may 1.) give them a thumbprint (no problem) B.) take a vision test (erm... sure, I guess) and 3.) update any information on my driver's license that is either invalid or incorrect.

Whoa there, back the truck up... now see, here is where I cringe because, other than filling out a form to change my name when I got married, I haven't been asked to update any of this info since I got my license at the tender age of 16... and uhm, let's just say, that was a long time and manymanymany pounds ago. UGH! Seriously, there is no freakin way I'm gonna put down my current weight -which, if you ask me, would be even more laughable than the (obviously incorrect) 120 lbs. that's listed on there right now! I guess the good news is, my hair is still (sorta) blonde and I'm still 5'-6" tall, my eyes are still blue... well, maybe a little more green than blue... but I can live with that.

*sigh*

I've never been good at 'dieting' but since I opened that letter last week, I've been on a mission to lose as much weight as I can before April 23rd! I've never thought of myself as a particularly vain individual but you had better believe that the next time I get carded ...well okay that never happens anymore, but the next time I have to whip my ID out to prove I'm me, the number that's on that little card will be a lot lower than the one that was on my scale last week!

it's official

2008-02-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

...I'm old. Got this little gem from my sis, today:

Jesus take the whee-eeeel...

2008-02-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

'cuz if I'm driving, I just know I'm gonna get a ticket! Wooo-dawgies!! -this baby is soooo much fun to drive!

For the past few months we've been toying with the idea of getting a car that's easier for Pop to get in and out of than having to climb up into the Tahoe, we were also hoping to find something that would get better gas mileage since I do so much driving with taking the kids back and forth to school and running Pop to all his appointments. This week we finally started searching. Monday we looked at Malibu's but they were a little too small. We found a decent Impala but the salesman was a pud... we went to another car lot and met a really great salesman but they didn't have anything on the lot that we liked. *sigh* So last night Pop finds an add in the paper for an '08 Impala SS -fully loaded, with a 'too good to be true' price. Just for kicks I called the lot this morning and the car was still there so we took a drive up to see it. We hopped in and took it for a test drive and about an hour later we were signing papers and driving it off the lot!

I was a little bit late to pick the kids up from school, but the look on their faces when I pulled up was priceless! We had to sit in the parking lot for a good 10 minutes while they played with the XM radio and opened and closed the sunroof -lol! LOVE LOVE LOVE the new car smell! The little monsters are already begging me to take them to school in the new car tomorrow morning ...my poor Tahoe is gonna think I don't love it anymore!

How's this for irony?

2008-02-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna go buy this book so I can learn how to get rid of stuff! LOL!

I know I've mentioned several times over the past few months how I've been trying to purge mountains of stuff that has taken over our house. Crap that we've moved with us from house to house as well as all the stuff that we're bogged down with since we sold my folks' house and moved my Pop up here with us.

Last year, I read an article Peter Walsh wrote in Woman's Day magazine, titled Mind Over Matter (July 10, 2007) and it hit home for me like no other 'get organized' article I've ever read. He talked about the 'stuff epidemic' and how "we live in a culture that tells us, 'You are what you own'." "As soon as those items become more important than living a fulfilling life, we no longer own our possessions. They own us."

After I read this article I was so motivated I could hardly wait to get started on cleaning and organizing. Something that really resonated with me were these three questions to ask myself when I'm trying to declutter/purge:
*What do I want from this room?
*What feeling do I want when I walk into this space?
*What kind of life do I want to live in this house?
these questions have helped me see beyond the emotional stuff and focus on what I want my end result to be.

There is so much good stuff in this article I actually saved it so I could refer back to it because it just makes so much sense. There are tips on downsizing, an outline for a 'plan of action' as well as some eye opening philosophies on why we hang onto things as well as reasons to let the stuff go. Seriously, a great article.

More organizational tips from Woman's Day

Pssst! Does this clutter make my butt look fat? LOL! Gotta love the title of his latest book, don't ya? I never really thought about it until I saw this book but there are definitely some interesting parallels between overindulging/overeating and hoarding/collecting clutter. Not sure I'm ready to delve into this one just yet, but I find the psychology behind all of this fascinating.

'cuz my horror-scope says so...

2008-02-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2008
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
Why not put yourself first, every once in a while? (pffft! yea, why not?!) Your happiness should be your first priority, today. (heh heh heh, today and everyday!) After all, if you aren't happy in your life, how can you be a good sibling, friend, partner, or employee? (...that, my friends, is the $64,000,000 question.) You shouldn't get lazy about fulfilling the obligations you have to other people, but you should feel free to cut yourself some slack. ( for the record, I have no problem with cutting myself some slack... some might even say I'm *quite* the slacker!) This is a good day to spend on 'you.' (...it really *is* all about me!) Do what you need to do as early as you can and spend the rest of your day exploring things that interest you. (:sigh: somedays it's just so hard being me -lol! )

and then there were none...

2008-02-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sickness has taken over my house. I started the ball rolling more than a month ago with a cough/cold that seemed to drag on forever -the cough, although not nearly as bad as it was, is still hanging on. Since then, all three of the kids have come down with some variation of cough/fever/headache/earache. I swear I've bought so much cough/cold medicine these past few weeks, the feds are probably watching to be sure we're not running a meth lab.

As if that weren't enough, Jack came home from work last night, hacking and complaining about having the chills... he stoked up the fireplace until it got so hot I thought the house would melt.

We've all had spells where we've felt better and then just as quickly we're laid out again. It makes me wonder if we have more than one strain of bug and are just passing them around like some big cootie swapmeet. *sigh* Lysol is my friend.

I have this image in my mind from the movie ET, where all the vans come screeching up to the house and men with masks and white bio-hazard suits jump out and seal up the house-only this time they're at my house and they're packin a big ol' QUARANTINE sign to slap on our door.

It can only get better, right?! :)

Purging

2008-02-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

I spent part of today going through the garage, condensing boxes and boxes ...and BOXES of books, and other misc junk that's been hanging around for way to long. Most of it is stuff that we brought when we sold Pop's house and moved him up here... a YEAR AND A HALF ago. *sigh*

Today I got a wild hair and asked Jack to park the garbage trailer in front of the garage and I started hucking anything that Pop (or us) hasn't needed in the past 21 months. Odds are we'll never need it again, right? Holy cow, it was so liberating!

I've always suffered from the 'oh this is perfectly good, let me just set it aside because I KNOW someone can use it' mentality, but in the past year I've been learning to simplify and cut out stuff that isn't essential. I love that I'm finally okay with letting stuff go. The problem I've run into is that these days the local Salvation Army stores are so dang picky, it ends up being more trouble than it's worth to box stuff up and take it in. I don't live in an area where I can have a yard sale, so that's not an option -I just don't know what to do with this stuff and I admit I feel guilty just pitching it -but OMG it's gonna feel so good to get rid of it and have my garage back (well, part of it anyway).

One of the best parts about reclaiming my garage is that I'll finally have enough room to refinish my mom and dad's oak table. I'm not looking forward to the actual refinishing process but I can't wait till we can use it -it totally reminds me of the holidays, with everyone sitting elbow to elbow so we'd all fit around it and it reminds me of playing card games with my mom -she loved that. ...it just reminds me of home. Good stuff!

Highlights from yesterday...

2008-01-28T10:09:00.000-08:00

*eta -not sure what's up with the formatting here... maybe I'll fix it later. But then again...
Yesterday was Matt's birthday -the big one-four...

He opened presents early, then spent the better part of the morning dorking around with his new moving target system -this thing is pretty cool. When the rain started back up, he headed down to the shop with his new motorcycle stand/lift -it'll come in handy while he's tinkering on the BIG new Yamaha his Uncle Joseph handed down to him earlier this month -gaaah, he's a lucky (spoiled) kid!

Here's the birthday card we got him -anyone who knows him understands just how perfect it is:

inside it says:

There's one in every crowd...and you're ours!

Pffftt! perfect, I tell ya!

Mid-afternoon Jack and I took the boys to see Meet the Spartans (Matt's choice) -a spoof of the movie 300 - I like some pretty off beat movies but this was *so* incredibly lame... It'd be a safe bet that this one won't be showing up in my Blockbuster queue anytime soon. Surprisingly, I heard that it beat out Rambo for the top box office spot this weekend... crazy.

We had some of the weirdest weather yesterday -at least for those of us at, or near, sea level it's weird ...but SO MUCH fun...

yep -it SNOWED! We had lots of the white stuff coming down but it didn't really stick here at our house so we hopped in the family truckster to take a look around. About 5 miles up the road, when I stopped to snap a couple of pics of the scenery, the boys bailed out and had a blast bombing eachother in an impromptu snowball fight. There was lots of talk about 'yellow snow' but I think it was so darned cold, neither one of them was willing to, erm... brave the elements.

When we stopped to pick up Kendall at our friends' house, we all decided to head out for some chow at the Oriental Buffet -and seein' as how it was a special occasion and all... we decided to splurge! I tell you, nothing is too good for my family -lol! We ate and we ate and we ate till we couldn't pack away another egg roll, then waddled out to load up for the ride back over the mountain and home... Halfway back, we couldn't resist one last stop for a few more snowballs and a couple more pics of the white stuff before it melted.

I think the sweetest part of the whole day -for me at least, was when I tucked Matt in and we had our ritual evening chat, he kept going on and on about how fun the snow was... I gave him a smooch and wished him happy birthday again. Then, as I turned out the light he said "Mom, I had a really good day". Gotta luv him!

happy faces

2008-01-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

Last night I finally got around to pulling the 300+ pics off my camera that I've taken since Christmas. Granted, many of them aren't worth keeping due to maniac kids who became nothing but blurs, racing from package to package or taunting me with smooshed up faces and inappropriate poses. *sigh* Just when I thought my Christmas photo cache was going to be all but empty, imagine my surprise when I found this little gem in the mix.

My kids and their little cousins on Christmas Day. :) Andrew, 16; Matt ,14 this month; nephew Nico, 2 next month; Kendall, 9 1/2; and niece Siena, 5 1/2. This was such an impromptu shot, I can't believe how well they're lined up, smiling and BONUS: they all have their eyes open! :D

retail therapy

2008-01-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

Jeez Louise... can you believe it's STILL raining here? We haven't had more than a couple of hours w/o rain in like, ...forever. Don't get me wrong, I love me some rain -and we've had plenty, along with some blustery wind- but I think I'm just about over it. I'm afraid we're gonna start growing mold if we don't get a chance to dry out. Just a couple of days of sunshine... is that too much to ask? *gaah*

On a less dreary note: I GOT SOME FUN MAIL TODAY! I spent a little time strolling thru the SCRAPFREAK store a few days ago. Lord knows I don't *need* anything, but some things just happened to find their way into my cart, and well, ...you know how that goes. lol! Anyway, it was a great pick-me-up to find a ScrapFreak package in the mailbox today.

Woot! I got some grungeboard! I have to say, I didn't really get all the hype about this stuff until Monica, the Mama Freak herself, hooked me up with this awesome little demo video - this stuff seems to have endless possibilities! It's been ages since I've had any scrappin mojo, but I'm excited to try this stuff out. I also got a couple of different sets of Scenic Route arrows and box of Rhonna Farrer chipboard journaling panels... Ah, nothing like a little retail therapy to chase away the winter blues. :)

Taking care

2008-01-04T22:27:00.000-08:00

Being sick sucks. I rarely get so much as the sniffles, so this cold, or whatever it was, really knocked me for a loop. It started Christmas Eve and has been hanging on for what seems like forever. A couple of days ago, I finally called and made an appointment to see the doc, which was not easy since my (former) doc has up and left her practice and left me high and dry w/o a provider. Anyhow, I asked around and got a recomendation and called for an appointment. Wouldn't you know, the day I called, I started to feel better (figures doesn't it?!), and by the time I went in today, all that was left is a little bit of a tickly cough. *SIGH* Nothing much she could do really, but she did give me some freebies of some antihistamine -YAY for freebies!!- and away I went. She prolly thinks I'm a weenie-hypochondriac coming in for some wimpy little cough -but it had been a bad cough, I swear! lol! All in all, I'm glad I went in. I've been needing a new doc and this gal was great -totally felt comfortable with her and helloooo... she gave me FREE stuff!! :D I also got back on track with my other meds, which is such a relief, maybe now I won't feel like crying at every Hallmark commercial.

I also went to see my chiropractor today -I threw my back/hip out a couple of days ago and was just going to try and deal on my own but after all my back problems last year I decided that the sooner I deal with it, the better off I'd be. It's hard to shell out that money -especially right after the holidays when $$ is already tight, but it was so worth it. I'm a little sore tonight but I've been using my ice pack and I know tomorrow will be better. :)

After my crazy day of running around, I'm feeling so good about what I accomplished today. I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions but I did decide I'm going to be better to myself this year and today was the first step. Tomorrow, maybe I'll think about getting on the treadmill. PFFFT! ...and then the day after that, maybe I'll actually do it! lol I have about 30-35 pounds draggin me down. I know it's gonna take some time... which is hard for me because I'm such an instant gratification kinda girl, but even if I gotta take baby steps, at least I'm moving in the right direction!

Rain, Rain...

2008-01-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Lots and lots of rain and wind hitting us here in northern California this week -little bit of localized flooding but so far, nothing major. We lost power this morning, but only for a few minutes... just long enough to have to re-set all the clocks! We haven't had to use it yet, but thank goodness we finally have a backup generator -a Christmas gift from Pop :) in case power goes out for long periods of time. I can't imagine what it would cost if we had to replace everything in our fridges and freezer!

CHEERS!

2008-01-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

To friends old and new, I hope 2008 finds you all happy, healthy and surrounded by those you love!
-leaf

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne ?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup! And surely I’ll buy mine! And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the hills, and picked the daisies fine; But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine (dinner time); But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine! And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

no matter

2007-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

how many times I check my calendar, it still says that Christmas is only a week away! AAAACK! I'm nowhere near ready!

ready or not... here it comes!

does Victoria's Secret make a 38 long??

2007-11-13T19:43:00.000-08:00

LOL! another gem in my in-box this weekend -this one forwarded to me by my hubs...

I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE, THIS IS FUNNY! DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE A KID AND YOUR PARENTS LINED YOU UP AGAINST A DOOR FRAME TO MARK HOW TALL YOU WERE AND DATED THE MARK? WELL, THIS CARTOON BRINGS A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE TO THAT EXERCISE!

You might be a redneck...

2007-10-29T11:05:00.001-07:00

...if your underpants also double as your undershirt. lol!

Pfffft! What do you wanna bet that s/he's clutching a bottle of Jack Daniel's?!

...totally cracks me up that someone, a.) made a tank top from their (hopefully clean) under-showts 2.) actually put them on, and c.) was SEEN IN PUBLIC!

I'm FREAKing out, here!

2007-09-17T10:55:00.001-07:00

The freaks over at ScrapFreak named me the FREAKoftheWeek!

...and that, my friends, is pretty freakin' cool! :)

only the best invention EVER!

2007-08-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

First off, let me say that I love our cats -they're pretty stinkin' cool (the emphasis here, being on 'stinkin'). They've each got their own distinct personalities;

Thomas, who we acquired from my Pop when he moved up here, is a grumpy, old curmudgeon who will hiss at his own shadow but loves to be loved on if you just take the time to let him get to know you. And then there's

Chester, who we adopted as a teeny little kitten, and is now a big, squishy, love bug who will tolerate just about anything we dish out.

I love to snuggle and love them up -they're awesome furballs. Well, they're mostly awesome -with the exception of one, not so little thing. They REEK -and I'm talkin paint peeling, noxious, REEKAGE. Frankly, I'm surprised the EPA hasn't come knocking on my door, inquiring about the death cloud that hangs over my house in the shape of a skull and cross bones. -and yes, ...it's THAT bad.

Of course, when it comes to cleaning the kitty crapper, it seems no one loves these vermin. There are eyerolls and then the whole 'I didn't want a cat, did YOU want a cat?!' thing starts. Unfortunately, our house is configured in such a way that the kitty loo is located in a public area of the house, so it has to be kept clean, but it's getting more and more difficult to get the kids to keep up with this chore.

*SO*

After months of trying to justify kicking down the dough, I finally bit the bullet and bought this:

It's a self cleaning litterbox -which is actually a bit of a misnomer, since technically, I still have to dump out the poop bin a couple of times a week -but I won't haggle over this minor detail because I'm so happy that my house isn't filled with the stench of cat bombs anymore. We've also added the 'kitty cabana' which is a glorified privacy tent, to keep this marvel of technology out of view.

So, here's how it works: the cats hop in, do their thang, a sensor 'sees' when the cat jumps out and several minutes later, after the clumping kitty litter has time to uhm,...clump (gag), the 'magic rake' revs up (it sounds like a remote control car), and makes it's way across the box, carting the "deposits" into the "vault".

The bonus here? It's not only functional, but fun, too! When Ches hears the rake start up, he runs like a crazy beast to go watch it -lol! Tom on the other hand is not impressed and has been having a hard time adjusting to the magic crap remover. He's so jumpy that, just knowing the thing is going to move in, oh... 10 minutes, he's afraid to get in. *sigh* nothing's ever really easy, is it?!

How creative am I?

2007-07-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

76% -hmmph who knew? ...and all this time I thought my mojo had gone missing!

You Are 76% Creative

You are beyond creative. You are a true artist - even if it's not in the conventional sense of the word.

You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times.

How Creative Are You?

Rockin' Girl Blogger

2007-07-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

Today I was tagged a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" by my new FREAKY friend, Suzy. Thanks girlie :)

So it is my duty to pass it onto five people.
1. Shayna Lou
2. Tone
3. James
4. Dawn
5. Bethany

You're all rockin' bloggers so enjoy your awards, ladies. Put them on your blog, wear them proudly, and pass them on down!

5 things

2007-07-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

Fun little blog challenge that was posted over at ScrapFreak-

Name 5 favorite television shows:

1. The Sopranos (started watching this on A&E -omg LOVE it but hate waiting a week between episodes so I may have to start renting the DVD's)
2. Greys -still havent seen the last season -waiting for it to come out on DVD.
3. Forensic Files, First 48, CSI -any of the who dunnit kinds of shows. Love learning about all the ways they track people down and solve murders/crimes. TOTALLY makes me wish I'd gone into the field of criminalistics.
4. Desperate Housewives was always fun -haven't watched last season yet and haven't heard much buzz so I'm worried it's gonna suck.
5. Will and Grace -love to catch the reruns on late night tv except I usually laugh so much, it's hard for me to get to sleep.

Name 4 favorite memories:

1. Without a doubt, the pregnancy and birth of each of my kids. Absolutely loved being pregnant and would do it again and again if I could.
2. Family vacations -love getting away and experiencing a few carefree days together.
3. Christmas '94 when my hubs surprised me with my Abby dog. She was wearing a big plaid bow and ran to meet me as I came down the stairs Christmas morning. I was so surprised -it was love at first site.
4. The last two trips I took back to see my mom. We talked and laughed and cried... kind of bittersweet still, but so precious.

Name 3 things you want to do before you die:

1. See my kids grow up to be happy and successful. Hopefully see them married and having babies of their own -that I get to snuggle, squeeze and spoil rotten.
2. Visit Europe -a long visit so I can soak everything in, see TONS of stuff and take a zillion pics.
3. Own my own (extremely successful) business.

Give 2 names that you would use NOW if you were going to have a new addition to the family:

1. Restif Cleaning Co.
2. City Ambulance
Suffice to say, if I were to announce that we were expecting a 'new addition', my hubs would either shit or have a heart attack!

Name the one thing that you're working on now to improve your life:

1. Concentrating on 'the big picture' and what I want from life -working toward that goal even if it's just baby steps -not waiting for it to come to me.

Good times ...gooood times.

2007-07-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

I spent the last few days with my bestest pal Shayna Lou, chatting about everything -and about nothing at all, just chillin and laughing at the stoooopidest stuff -there's just nothing like hangin with a good friend ...good times. Honestly, any chick who would brave 9 hours in the car, with 2 of her offspring, to come visit me and my hooligans, ...erm -family, in the fog and gloom, is pretty freakin cool, don'tcha think?!

We had lots of fun just layin low, not doing much of anything -which is one of the things I totally dig about her -we don't have to *do* anything but we still manage to have fun. We're just cool like that. :) One afternoon we managed to sneak into town (kid free! oo-weee, ooo-weee!) and browse the aisles of the local scrap store. Notice how I say we 'browsed'? Yeah, well, that's because I refuse to admit that I purchased even so much as a really cool set of giant paperclips to alter... nope, not gonna admit to anything. See, it was brought to my attention (more than once -lol!) that I am currently the weiner in the unoffical scrap-crap hoarding competition that we always seem to be having -lol! WHATEVER -I still think it's a pretty close race. Yeah, my name is Leafa and I'm in denial.

On the plus side of things, I was inspired (or was it pressured -lol!) to alter a picture frame, whilst Shayna knocked out the key-utest little altered box the other day. It's a plus because I haven't touched my scrap stuff in MONTHS! -just haven't had the creative mojo workin lately... felt good to get in and create a little bit and the ideas definitely started flowing the more I picked through my scrap stuff. My frame isn't completely done yet -just a few little touches to add... might be able to get in and finish it up tomorrow. I'm actually looking forward to creating again. :) I'll miss having my partner in crime to chat with while I play though.

Candy from Strangers

2007-07-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

pfffft! -anyone got a quarter?!

Tempting as it may seem...

2007-07-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

just say 'No' to crack!

a bit of closure

2007-07-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

Mom's funeral was simple but beautiful. My Aunt Phyllis played the organ while she and my Uncle Darrel sang a duet. Uncle Darrel also sang a solo that was incredible. It's hard to believe he's 80 years old -he's definitely still got it goin on -lol! Mom didn't want flowers -just a single rose upon her casket. I got her a beautiful orange-ish rose with a bit of greenery -it even smelled pretty!

After the service we drove in procession behind the hearse to the cemetery. I was touched to see the respect that folks in the south still show by pulling off to the side of the road -even the on-coming traffic pulled to the shoulder and stopped. One man on the opposite side of the road even took his hat off -now that's class! :)

We weren't at the cemetery all that long. The pastor read a few passages and a poem, said a prayer and it was time to go. At that point, my Uncle Darrel handed me the rose from on top of my mother's casket and said 'for peace' -it was a gesture of kindness I'll remember forever.

From the cemetery, we all headed back to the house -which is probably no more than a mile away. Our friends Mindy and Anne had gone ahead after the service to get everything set up for lunch. They were such a help -really, really good people! When we got back to the house, Aunt Ruby put Mom's rose in a pretty little vase to show it off. There was tons of food and of course, sweet tea. As we ate, we looked at pictures and swapped stories about what a great gal my mom was. It was a nice afternoon.

That evening, my Uncle Bob's family came into town and stopped by for dinner. They were on their way back home to upstate New York, after spending a week at their place in Florida (must be nice, eh? lol!). We had a huge dinner of BBQ chicken and leftovers from earlier in the day and of course, we did some more reminiscing about my mom. One thing I've noticed about folks in the south... when someone dies, everyone starts cooking, food gets delivered to the family and then then they eat and eat and eat and EAT -lol! Seriously, I've never seen anything like it!

After dinner when it was a bit cooler out, I took a walk up the road to see Mom one last time before my early morning flight back to California. I think that was almost more difficult than her funeral. Needing to let go of some of my grief, I sat down in the grass and had a good cry. Finally, in the twilight, I stood up, brushed myself off, laid the rose at her grave and said goodbye.

It's been a good day :)

2007-07-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

Went to church this morning and then to Sunday school with my Aunt. When my mom was well she used to attend the same class so, many of ladies knew her and offered their condolences -so sweet. Throughout the morning, many other people flagged us down and expressed their sympathies, as well -my mom would have been touched to know how many people cared about her.
Aunt June and I went shopping this afternoon and bought the plates and napkins for the get together they're having here after Mom's funeral tomorrow. I know my mom wouldn't want everyone to be mourning -at least not in the typical sense -so we bought pretty, floral plates and bright orange napkins (orange was her favorite color). We also found some mints -like the kind you get after a meal in a restaurant- in bright yellow packages with a smiley face on them. Now, you might think that's sort of tacky but my Mom would have laughed -she would love the idea that we're celebrating her life and the fact that she's no longer held back from all the things she loved to do. Kind of the 'Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happended." philosophy, I guess. We're also going to put out a bunch of pictures and snapshots for people to look at. I wish I'd thought to bring some of the pictures I have, from home. But then again, it isn't really one of those things you think about when you're packing at a moments notice, y'know what I mean? *sigh* Oh, well.
While we were out, we bought a bunch of thank you notes, too. I'm sure I'll have permanent writers cramp by the time I'm done thanking everyone for everything. Anyway, this paper shop has cards you can buy individually, in bulk. Such a cool way to do it. I got a ton of cards -I hope I can find enough room for them in my already over-stuffed luggage -lol!
Okay... enough slacking. I'm off to help clean up for tomorrow.

a debt of gratitude

2007-07-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

Thank God for my family.
Making the arrangements for Mom's funeral has been a whirlwind experience. I've only been to a handful of funerals so I would have no idea where to even begin if it weren't for my Aunt June. She's handled just about everything and been a great help to me in the few tasks I've had to tackle. The funeral is on Monday morning at 10:30 followed by the burial and then everyone will come to the house. The cemetery is just down the road about a mile or so -easily within walking distance, so I'm sure my Aunts will visit her often. It might seem kinda weird but it makes me feel better knowing that she'll still be close by her family. From the cemetery I can see the trees at the bottom of my Aunts' driveway.
Today has been more normal... well maybe not "normal" but more calm I guess. Lots of phone calls and making lists of thank you cards to send. Making notes of who's who because I know I'll never be able to remember once I'm back home. One thing's for sure... there are lots of good people back here in TN.

I'm looking forward to getting back home. The kids have been having waaaay too much fun at the lake without me -hhmmmph! The temperature has been in the 100+ degree range -I'm NOT sorry I'm missing out on that! They tell me they've been riding dirt bikes early in the morning before it gets too hot, then heading down to the lake to wake board, ski and swim the rest of the day. I'm sure they'll all be little brown nuts by the time I see them next.

July 5th became her Independence Day

2007-07-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

Hey all -just a quick check in to let you know that my mom quietly passed away thursday morning. Her condition began to rapidly deteriorate last friday which was when I got the call that she wasn't doing well. I had a hard time getting a flight out of our little podunk town till monday morning.

After about 13 hours of traveling, I got into Tennessee at about 11pm monday night and got to see her at about 11:30 or so. My Aunt June told me that she kept telling Mom to hang on till I could get here but, things were getting bad so fast, she wasn't sure she'd be able to -but Mom was a fighter and she held on for me. When I got to her bedside she was awake and her big smile told me that she recognized me :) she was able to hug me and sort of whisper that she was so glad to see me. I'll cherish that always.

Tuesday and wednesday she was mostly unresponsive with the exception of a couple of times she was able to let us know she wanted water, which we gave her through a modified syringe. Her system began shutting down and by thursday her breathing was so shallow it was almost imperceptible -the machine that was supplying her with oxygen was the only thing keeping her alive. At that point I made the most difficult decision of my life and decided it was time to let her go. With my Uncle Darrel, his wife Phyllis, my Aunt June, Aunt Ruby and her husband Bob and I, gathered around Mom's bed, we held her hands and said goodbye. About 30 minutes later she was finally at peace.

As difficult as these last few days have been I feel an almost strange sense of peace, myself. Aside from knowing Mom's in a better place, free from all the machines and treatments she endured multiple times a day, I'm so grateful my prayers were answered and she didn't struggle or linger on and I'm especially honored that I was with her.

Yesterday and today we've had so many visits and phone calls from people expressing their sympathy. It warms my heart to know how loved she was by so many people and I'm deeply proud to have been her daughter.

summertime and the livin is easy... and really, really busy!

2007-07-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

Holy moly! Can't believe it's been almost 3 mos since I updated this thing. Lot's of things happening around Rancho McBirdie as of late... After a rough patch with some kid issues, we *seem* to have things under control again (knock on wood!) and we're cautiously optimistic that we're getting everything back on track -time will tell. Thank goodness for my meds and margi's... that's all I'm sayin'!

Summers up here on the north coast are anything but typical compared to what I grew up with in the Sacramento Valley. We get a real mixed bag when it comes to weather and it changes at a moments notice. The most obvious difference to me is the mild temperatures -high 50's to mid 60's, usually. We get lots of clouds, fog, wind... rarely does everything align and leave us with a 'typical' summer day of sunshine and warm temps. That said... we've had some awesome weather lately, we pretty much stay outside from early morning till it's too dark to see -lol!

We've been keeping busy the past couple of weeks, tearing out our front walkway, big ol' rock bordered planters and some of our lawn. Finally got our new walkway/patio poured yesterday. We had the slab stamped with a slight texture pattern. We're getting ready to go out and pressure wash all the dye powder off, so I'm kind of excited to see how it came out. Either way, it'll be nice not to have to walk through re-bar and gravel to get to the front door! :)

When we started the front yard project, Jack borrowed a backhoe from a neighbor to do all the heavy demo work. While he's had it, he's also been working on the kids' track down in the lower field. The kids have been on their dirt bikes non-stop -even the neighbor kids are hauling their bikes over to ride -it's not huge, but it's pretty cool and the kids love it!

A couple of months ago, Jack and the kids planted a beautiful vegetable garden -it's huge! With the exception of a few things, it's really filling in nicely. The bell peppers and carrots were duds this time 'round, but I think there may still be time to get some started. Yesterday, Jack and Matt got the garden weeded -no small chore! I can't wrap my head around how the weeds manage to grow *so* much faster than the stuff they've carefully tended and given all the TLC to -it's crazy I tell ya!

While the guys were busy bonding over concrete and garden chores yesterday, I spent my day running through the mall scrounging for summer wear. Granted, even on a good day, I have trouble finding clothes that I like (ie: that fit), but factor in that it's July and the stores are already getting in sweaters and clothes for fall... I was doomed before I even started. I did manage to find a couple of tops and some mediocre capri's but I swear, I must have tried on hundreds of different things. Ahhh, for the days of my youth, when I had to actually decide between items because they ALL fit! *sigh* (note to self: must start exercise regime immediately!)

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to TN for a week or so to be with my Mom and the rest of my TN fam. I'm dreading the long flights but I spent some time wandering through Borders yesterday and bought tons of books to keep me occupied. I understand my Mom is almost constantly sleeping now so I'm sure the extra reading material will come in handy.

Tuesday, Jack is taking the kids up to Trinity Lake to spend several days with friends, boating and riding dirt bikes. I'm disappointed to miss out on that time with them but wouldn't miss this chance to see my mom for anything.

I really need to get busy, I've got lots of stuff to get done today. I've got lists to make, laundry to do, packing... yuck, the fish tank needs a good scrub,... and the fridge needs to be cleaned out... ugh... maybe I should nap first.
Okay... my update has turned into a novella and now It's past noon... oops! there goes my nap!

Oh shit... I'm 'it'

2007-04-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was tagged a couple of weeks ago by my pal La-dee-fricken-da to share 7 random facts/habits about myself (gee, thanks La -lol!).
This was a great exercise of proving just how boring I am -lol! Extra points to anyone who doesn't fall asleep before #7 ;)

1. I love animals -just about anything but spideys and snakes. Elephants are prolly my favorite.
2. I'm fascinated with forensic science -I want to be Kay Scarpetta -lol!
3. Gardening is one of my favorite pastimes. I gravitate towards plants that are scented (I love Lavender and Pineapple Sage) and I like to plant things that will attract birds and butterflies to my yard -which happens to have several bird feeders stationed around it -I'm getting good at identifying the birds that visit.
4. I enjoy scrapbooking but somewhere along the line I became more obsessed with shopping for supplies than actually using them. Lets just say I could be driving a luxury car, were it not for my scrap fetish -lol.
5. I have a giant sweet tooth -love me all kinds of candy but I only chew sugarless gum.
6. Heights scare the bejeebers out of me.
7. I'm a dictionary geek. I love to flip thru the dictionary and learn new words and what they mean.

alive and kicking...

2007-04-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd better update here before my picture shows up on the side of a milk carton -lol! Things are good... it's been a busy month.

We had a great Easter. Colored eggs, chocolate bunnies, gorgeous weather and lots of kidlets running amok ...good times!

Last week we had a visit from my niece and her hubby. They're newlyweds and this was the first time we had met the groom. Turns out he's a pretty nice guy and he held up pretty well while we razzed him a little and grilled him about his life history... we think we'll let her keep him -lol! It was lots of fun having them here.

The weather has been pretty nice so I've been doing a little bit of light gardening. Mostly just the window boxes and the containers on the front porch and out on the patio. I love having the yard full of flowers... now if I can just remember to water them. :D Jack and the kids have been busy getting the big garden ready to plant, hauling in manure (as if there wasn't plenty of THAT around here already! -lol!) and loads of top soil. It's looking pretty impressive so far... Matt and Kendall can hardly wait to go buy seeds and plants.

Other than the regular kid stuff, and dr. appointments, I think that's pretty much the gist of what's been going on in our neck of the woods. Having to slow down was a total pain (literally -lol!) at first but in reality it's been a good thing. I've finally caught up with things around here and I'm even starting to feel (a little bit) creative again -nothing major but definitely some sparks. I just need to remember to take baby steps and not get overwhelmed because that's when I make myself crazy... and not in a good way ;)

If you've made it this far, thanks for checking in :) With any kind of luck I'll do better at keeping this updated... don't hold your breath though ;)

sunshine on my shoulders...

2007-03-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today was just what I needed to shake off my winter funk- a warm, sunny, quiet ...gorgeous day. It felt so good to open up the doors and let the fresh air and sunshine fill up the house. The best part about it was that we were expecting "partly cloudy skies" -which up here, almost always translates to gray, cloudy and cold. This is one time I don't mind that the weather man was wrong!
Having been out of commission with my back problems for the past couple of weeks, chores were piling up around here. I managed to get caught up on a few things today -getting back on track, little by little. My mountain of laundry is now just a little mole hill, the porch lights are in working order again, the clocks are all re-set for daylight savings time, the houseplants have been fed and my kitchen isn't quite as scary as it had been. Still lots to be done, but all in all a good day.
I don't have anything on my calendar for tomorrow (yet!)so I'm planning on spending some time in my scraproom. I have some projects to finish-up and then I need to go through and finish culling things out. There's so much in there that I never even touch -it's gotten to the stage where it's too overwhelming to even attempt to be creative. Spring cleaning starts tomorrow!
It's just after 6pm -well into the cocktail hour :D We're out the door to a b-b-q with some friends -gonna soak up all the goodness this day can hold! :)
Peace out!

life could be a dream

2007-03-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

sh-boom sh-boom...Ya-da-da Da-da-da Da-da-da Da

So... the weirdest thing happened to me today -it was a deja vu thing and it immediately made me think back to a time just after I'd had my first child, and I was learning to cope with the fact that I was now responsible for another human being. I remember having these crazy dreams where I was running around the house, in a hurry to go somewhere (because I am ALWAYS in a hurry) and in my rush, I'd hop in the car and speed off, only to realize I'd left the baby at home. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, my heart racing, tripping over myself to get to the nursery so I could be sure that it was indeed, just a bad dream and that my precious bundle was safely snuggled in his crib. One time I dreamt that I'd driven off and left the infant seat up on top of the car, with the baby in it -like it was just another one of those forehead thumping, 'gee, I know I'm forgetting something' moments.
As the months rolled by and I got more comfortable in my role as a mom, those 'oops I forgot my baby' dreams became less frequent and I went back to run of the mill dreams like the ones where I showed up at school and then realized I wasn't wearing pants...
So getting back to the point of this story, and yes, there *is* a point here somewhere... The AM routine around Rancho McBirdie can be a leeetle hectic -which is actually a gross understatement when you stop to consider that I have never been a morning person. I finally manage to drag me arse out of bed at about 7am -after no less than 3 warnings from the snooze alarm. I stumble downstairs to check that everyone's had breakfast, brushed their teef, packed a lunch, ...and put on pants. When we're ready to roll, Andrew is the first one out the door. He starts the car and warms it up for the rest of us. Kendall is next out the door and runs -knees and elbows flying every which way- to be sure she gets to the car before Matt, so she doesn't have to walk ALL THE WAY AROUND the car and sit on the {gasp} *OTHER* side. Matt schleps around to the other side with me. I hop in, get the i-pod tuned in, buckle up and once I hear Matt's door close, I proceed to turn the car around and head down the driveway. Ah... we're on our way, we're on time, life is good.

And then...

my phone rings.

Oh, yeah, uh-huh...it's Matt-man -the one who's right behind me in the backseat. He's always clowning around like that. I'm just about ready to ream him for wasting cell phone minutes - I mean c'mon! ...we're sitting in the same car, for pete's sake! But, something seems strange -I hear his voice on the phone, what I don't hear... is any sound coming from his spot in the backseat of the car...

GOODLAAAWD!

I slam on the brakes, sending the car into a pretty impressive skid down our dirt road and scream into the phone "OH. MY. GAWD! MATT?!! WHERE...ARE...YOU?!!" -at the same time, craning my head around to be sure he's not laughing his ass off at me for falling for another one of his pranks. By now the other two kids are looking around trying to figure out what the hell is going on -and: Hey! WHERE is Matt?!!

Ugh ...have I mentioned I'm not a morning person??

Headed downhill on a gravel road, it's nearly impossible to back up so Matt has to run down to the car. When he gets in, he's talking a mile a minute about being freaked that I would just drive off... We finally figure out exactly what happend and we all start to laugh. It seems that when Matt came around the car with me, rather than get in, he threw his stuff in, shut the door and ran off to feed his chickens -just took off, without saying a word. Kendall and Andrew were playing with their i-Pods (read: completely oblivious) and I just assumed, when I heard the door shut, that Matt had climbed inside. NONE of us realized he wasn't in the car until my phone rang!
AAAACK! I'll never get that Mother of the Year award at this rate!

I'm hoping my next deja vu has something to do with those dreams I have of winning the lottery! :D

it's good to be home

2007-02-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm sure it'll take a few days to get back to normal... whatever that is, but it's good to be home ...piles of laundry, bickering kids, wicked weather and all -it just feels good to be back.
My flight out of Charlotte, NC yesterday ended up being delayed by just over an hour, which put me into San Fran literally, MINUTES too late to board my flight home... the stinkin plane was still sitting at the gate but a few of us were bumped to a later flight because the doors had already been closed. It all worked out and I was able to get onto the next flight out. It was beautiful flying beneath the blue sky and above the thick white clouds. Just a few bumps on the descent, we landed just after the sun had set. It was pouring rain and just after we touched down a rip of lightning lit up the sky! My girl was waiting out in the rain for me as I came off the plane... hubs was a bit less enthusiastic and waited alongside the terminal just under cover of the roof...wimp. (kidding... I would have done the same!)
We drove home thru an incredible rain and hail storm -kind of exciting, actually. I guess there's been no shortage of rain while I've been gone. There's lots of water standing in the fields at the wildlife refuge across the road and the forecast calls for rain thru the end of the week... maybe we should get started on an Ark?
Got home and checked in on Pop. He's funny, he didn't do much all week but had lots to chat about. I think he might of missed me just a little bit, lol!
The boys were home, waiting for me. I got to hear about all their comings and goings this week -which included a double date for one of them -aaack! lol! Even though I talked to the kids a few times while I was gone, I missed all them *SO* much. I swear they look different -even after just 8 days.
After being on the go for about 20 hours yesterday, I tell ya, when my head hit the pillow last night, it was an almost instant lights out. I woke up at about 4:20am to an earthquake -which ended up being centered about 32 miles west of here. I called Pop to check on him and he actually thought someone might have crashed into his trailer! He's just not used to our earthshakes up here on the coast, yet -lol! Thank goodness we had no damage around here. I looked on the USGS website this morning and it's listed as a magnitude 5.4 -we had another, smaller quake just after 8am -I was driving, so didn't feel it, but it was listed as a 2.9.
Rain, hail, earthquakes... it's still good to be home. ;)

morning came waaaay too early...

2007-02-25T05:01:00.000-08:00

Got up at 4am to catch my 6am flight from TN to NC ...I feel like a zombie. I never did really get set to east coast time during this trip since mom and I stayed up late each night talking, laughing, crying. Last night was no exception, we didn't say our goodnight's until close to 1am and I couldn't quiet my mind for some time after that. The alarm was set for 4am but I was awake a good 10 minutes before -I guess I was afraid I'd be so zonked I'd sleep thru it. lol!
The visit was bittersweet... wonderful to see her and spend time together and at the same time, difficult to deal with the idea that it might be our last chance to hold each other and say those things we so often hold back. We squeezed a lot in these past few days and for now, I'm planning another trip this spring...
Right now I'm in rainy Charlotte, North Carolina. Local time is just past 9am. My flight to San Francisco was sched. for 9:20am but as of now has been bumped to 9:40am due to a delay out of Boston. Last night there were tornado warnings for Arkansas, Missouri, and northwest Tennessee (I was in northeast TN). I only saw a bit of news but it looks like a couple of tornadoes have ripped thru parts of Arkansas... skeeery stuff for this westcoast girl. I really feel for those people... can't imagine experiencing that kind of chaos and devastation. That said... hopefully the wild weather won't cause a problem with my travel plans... I'm beyond ready to see my babies.
This is a pretty big airport... the people watching is good. Think I'll go stretch my legs a bit before I'm stuck on the plane for 6+ hours.

Before I sign off, I want to send out a huge thank you to all of you who have posted and e-mailed me over the course of the past several days. Your kindness and support means so much to me. Love you guys! xoxo

enough with the drama already...

2007-02-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning with puffy eyes and a headache -something of an emotional hangover, I guess. Thank goodness the emotions are in check again -for now anyway. I don't know why it is that I fight to hold back tears, even when I'm alone. I just hate to give in but sometimes it's good to just let go and get it over with.

Today was spent at home with mom and Aunt June. Mom and I watched a lot of tv and played several hands of Skip-Bo, her favorite card game. Tonight it's more tv... maybe a little ice cream after her last breathing treatment of the day.
Aunt June was a busy bee... as usual, today. This morning she made muffins from scratch and this afternoon she made some homemade Tomato soup for tomorrow's lunch. A couple of gals who have kind of adopted my mom and her sisters are coming for a visit and lunch. I've already scored a couple of recipies to take home. I'm always amazed at the way my aunt's cook and yet their kitchen is always clean. They make it look so effortless. Each time I step into the kitchen I leave a path of destruction in my wake. I should definitely be taking notes.
Aunt June is taking ice cream orders... chocolate cherry cordial for me and black walnut for mom...

purging

2007-02-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Today flew by... I can hardly believe I've been in TN 2 days already -the time is speeding by way too fast and there's so much left to do, left to say.
I'm visiting my mom and my Aunt June this week. Not a visit I wanted to make but a necessary one. My mom is sick -she's been sick for several years now, but just recently her illness has advanced to the point that time is a precious commodity. My mom lives here with both of her sisters, and her brother in law. They brought her back here to TN so that they could care for her as her illness has progressed. My Aunt June was an RN in San Francisco for many years and now she and my Aunt Ruby are mom's primary care givers. They get her up in the morning, prepare her meals, bathe her, give her her meds and breathing treatments -Aunt June even draws her blood here at the house because she isn't able to go anywhere unless it's by ambulance. Beyond all of that, they love her -sincerely and without judgement.
My mom was a smoker most of her life. Even when she was diagnosed with emphazima, she continued to smoke. She tried several times to quit smoking but she's always been a nervous person, going without made her anxious, she lacked the will power. I think she had the "it'll never happen to me" attitude. I mean, it wasn't like it was cancer or anything...right? She got sick pretty often -always ended up with a deep cough that would rattle her body -she broke ribs every so often because of the violent coughing spells. She'd get pneumonia and ended up in the hospital several times. I don't think she ever associated it with her smoking. Denial is a powerful thing.
Finally her dr suggested that she use supplemental oxygen. She didn't have to use it all the time, just when she was doing something strenuous and felt out of breath. Her dr. told her that the smoking had to stop -and it did, for awhile. Pretty soon she was sneaking out for a quick smoke -just half a cig, no big deal... then back in, for a few minutes of oxygen. This went on for a couple of years until she had to use the oxygen anytime she went out, grocery store, dr. visits, hair dresser... she had to haul the CO2 tank.
We all tried to talk to her about the smoking and offer support if she would just quit... but she was defensive and felt as if we were attacking her each time we brought it up. The subject was taboo.
One year, she came up to spend the Christmas holidays with me and my family. While she was with us she got sick. I took her into the ER and she was admitted. She was in the hospital with pneumonia again... She was in there for several days this time. Long enough to scare her and get her over that hump (with the aid of an anxiety reliever) to quit smoking. She was so proud of herself (and believe me, so was I!) when she realized that this time it was working... she still had the urge to smoke, but it was manageable. Of course now she was to the point that she was on oxygen full time. She had to get an oxygen machine because the tanks weren't enough anymore.
As her health declined, we talked about her coming up to live with me and my family so I could care for her. At that time she was still mobile and taking care of herself but she was tethered to that machine and even with a portable CO2 tank, it was too difficult for her to leave home to do errands, grocery shopping etc.
One thing lead to another and I got a call one day from my aunts. They had been talking for quite awhile about mom's need for more advanced care and they wanted my blessing to bring her out to TN. My first reaction was NO WAY. My mom and I lived 6 hours apart but we were very close, talking on the phone at least once a day. I'd take the kids down to visit her and my dad just about every time the kids had a break from school... I wanted her to come to me. The more we talked the more I began to see all the thought that had gone into their plans. My Aunt June had the medical background that would be necessary to keep mom at home for as long as possible and Aunt Ruby would be able to help out in other ways -together they would be able to offer her a peaceful, healthy, and loving home. I could offer her an abundance of love but with 3 kids and a busy household, the peace would be rare and with all the germs kids bring home, the healthy thing was not likely. So, with a heavy heart, I went to help her pack. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Bob drove out to CA and picked her up and as I watched them drive away, I knew that life was never going to be the same.
The arrangement has been a blessing. As much as I miss having mom close by, the trade off of knowing that she has round the clock care, by these wonderful people that love her has been my saving grace.
Since she's been here, Mom has made many new friends -people who stop by to visit and let her know she's in their prayers. She's even fortunate enough to have a dr. who lives down the road and is gracious enough to make house calls, just to check up on her. There's definitely something to be said for small town living.
I've brought the kids out here to visit Grammy and their great aunts and uncle a couple of times durring summer vacations, and I've been out a couple of times by myself. Each time we've been warmly welcomed and made to feel at home.
Anyway... the point of this rambling is that I got a call a couple of weeks ago suggesting that I might want to make a visit, soon. I've known the time was coming, that preparations need to be made and things put in order... but expecting it, doesn't make it any easier. I see her and she looks much like the last time I saw her. But when I sit with her and we chat or play cards, I can hear that her breathing is more labored. She's completely lucid, but her meds make her sleep more -which she hates... doesn't like the idea of missing too much time from her day. Time goes too quickly.
Aunt June and I were talking today about what the future holds and how there is no way to know how much time is left. She mentioned that mom's dr. is amazed that she's hung on this long. As much as I dread the idea of losing my mom, I dread even more, the idea that she will linger or be in pain. I worry about what her final days will be like and if I'll have enough time to get to her. I don't want her to worry about me -which I know she does... I want her to be at peace and let go when the time comes. Aunt June told me today how much my mom looks forward to my phone calls, hearing what we've been up to and news of the kids. She said "you are her lifeline". It's a wonderful thing to know you're loved that much... I can only hope she knows how much I love her, too.
I'm purging all of this here, because I need to let go of the grief I feel, even if just a little bit. I don't want my mom to know how scared I am. How afraid I am that the one person I *KNOW* loves me without question, and that I matter to more than anything, is going to be leaving. I feel selfish and mad. It doesn't seem fair. I keep reminding myself that people deal with loss everyday -life will go on, eventually it will hurt less. I feel all this and yet, I'm lucky enough to still have her here, to get the chance to make sure she knows how much she means to me -a chance that so many people don't get. I should feel lucky, but right now I'm just sad...

OMG!

2007-02-13T22:09:00.000-08:00

Four Catholic ladies are having coffee together, discussing how
important their children are.
The first one tells her friends, "My son is a priest. When he walks
into a room, everyone calls him "Father."
The second Catholic woman chirps, "Well, my son is a bishop. Whenever
he walks into a room, people say, 'Your Grace.'"
The third Catholic woman says smugly, "Well, not to put you down, but
my son is a cardinal. Whenever he walks into a room, people say 'Your
Eminence.'"
The fourth Catholic woman sips her coffee in silence. The first three
women give her this subtle "Well...?"
She replies, "My son is a gorgeous, 6'2," hard bodied, well hung, Male
stripper. Whenever he walks into a room, women say, "My God!"

If gas prices don't go down soon...

2007-02-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

my kids are going to have to start hitch-hiking to school! {just a joke... sorta... lol!}
Are gas prices going up everywhere again??! I only wonder because it seems like no matter how low the prices dip across the country, the prices here on the northcoast of California seem to stay high -DISGUSTINGLY high! Sometimes as much as $1 higher per gallon than the nat'l average.
A short time ago, our prices had dropped to about $2.59 and believe it or not, I was actually good with that... But, in the past couple of weeks they have inched back up -$2.67, $2.69, $2.79 and then yesterday -$2.89! WTH?! We live along a major highway for pete's sake- I can't believe it cost's SO much more to deliver fuel to us than it does to other places...
It really hits my family when prices get high because we live in a rural area, and outside the school district our kids are enrolled in. I drive the kids to school and pick them up -as well as any other extra curricular activities they can weasle their way into... It's really not so bad -I mean, I'm glad that they're active and involved but -jeeezelouise!! Add in the trips to town for groceries, dr, appointments etc... Ima go broke here if something doesn't change!
Granted I drive a gas hog 4 wheel drive and there *are* more fuel efficient vehicles out there but I have 3 growing kiddos who are in the habit of hauling a buncha crap with them -football & soccer gear, hunting/fishing gear, small animals and the like... a VW isn't going to cut it for us.
I know there isn't much we can do besides planning our errands and outings so that we can limit our trips but GAAAAH! I absoluetly dread going to the gas station these days.

I'm convinced that no one knows....

2007-02-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

how to waste time better than I do. I get sucked into things way too easilly... especially when it comes to goofin around on the 'puter. Like today... IM'ing with my partner in crime, we were taking these dang quizzes and laughing. Goofing with blogs, then another quiz ...more laughter... and poof! before I know it, the better part of a day is gone.
...but dangitall if I can resist finding out the answers to such burning questions as: WHAT GAY CHILDHOOD ICON ARE YOU?! Am I going to find the meaning of life in these quizzes? Doubtful. But some of them are funny as hell and I found myself wishing I could be the goof that gets to sit around making this crap up!
Ah, but I digress. Back to that childhood icon thing...
SUUURVEY SAYS:

You Are the Very Gay Peppermint Patty!

Softball is the huge tipoff here...
As well as a "best friend" who loves to call her "sir"

What Gay Childhood Icon Are You?

So, like I said, I got the chance to spend the better part of the morning dorkin around with my homegirl -a chick who has a SOH just as warped and twisted as mine and who makes make me laff until it literally hurts. With her I can be myself with out censure. She gets me ...and that my friends is a rare and beautiful thing.
Of course taking these quizzes with a friend is way more fun so you can compare notes on who's got the best 80's theme song (mine: Beat It hers: Venus), what your last words will be (mine: "Nice doggy." hers: "So, you're a cannibal." ) and my personal favorite, what song should you strip to? (mine: I'm Too Sexy {pffffft!} hers: Dude Looks Like a Lady {now,unless you know how gorgeous my PIC is, there is no way you could know how f'ing funny that is!}.)Ahhh, good times... gooood times.

All in all not a bad way to spend a morning -definitely better than doing laundry and dishes.

If my car had a bumper sticker...

2007-02-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

this would definitely be the one!

Your Bumper Sticker Should Be

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things

What Bumper Sticker Should Be On Your Car?

I'm just sayin'...

*tap*tap*tap*... is this thing on?!

a smart guy said this

another day in paradise... or in my case, Loleta

still here

Important Margarita Health Issue

cruel?

...ain't it the truth?!

in a nut shell...

advice from my sister

Real Simple Daily Thought Wednesday | April 8, 2009

whoa... pretty much dead on

yeah, THAT just happened

just a sampling

friday five

catharsis

Good day...

a few things...

tru dat

one little word: MANAGE

funny kid quote

booklist: 2008

frosty's faux pas

The Doghouse

my girl's gonna be a brace face

d'oh!

takin the day off

many thanks for our veterans

get out and VOTE!! -or shut your cake hole.

{UPDATE}

hoppy hollow weiners

rockin and a'rollin

trading places

all is right with the world again

still here

his name is

the conclusion of WEDDING WEEK

where the hell have I been?

Happy Monday

today's blog post is brought to you by...

Urban Dictionary definition o' the day

ten years ago?? ...I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast!

nothing too exciting

the cat, the visit and some much needed down time

Been a busy bee these past few weeks...

I love you ba-ay-beeee...

go speed racer! go speed racer! go speed racer, go-o-o-o-o-o-o!

someone needs to

pretty feet are happy feet...

1-2-3...smile!

lactose intolerance and gastric bloating are not a laughing matter

Miss you Mom...

it's not easy being green

funfunfun mail!

ADD, OCD ...call it what you will, I am the queen of distractions

20 years

some things never change

Seriously... it's ridiculous.

pffftt! who needs daytona beach??

M(&)M goooood

DMV -the great motivator??

it's official

Jesus take the whee-eeeel...

How's this for irony?

'cuz my horror-scope says so...

and then there were none...

Purging

Highlights from yesterday...

happy faces

retail therapy

Taking care

Rain, Rain...

CHEERS!

no matter

does Victoria's Secret make a 38 long??

You might be a redneck...

I'm FREAKing out, here!

only the best invention EVER!

How creative am I?

Rockin' Girl Blogger

taptaptap... is this thing on?!