HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Hope your day is totally spooktacular!! Yeah. I know it's lame. Work with me, people!

Tonight will be filled with trick or treating. I'll be spending the evening with Olivia and some other grownups. I've got a costume thrown together and am trying to convince my husband that he neeeeeeds to come with us and give our trick-or-treater candy to my daughter for the church festival. I may be able to tempt him with a Breve Latte from Starbucks. Yes, he's that easy, but we shall see!

And my costume? Oddly enough it has NOTHING to do with the likes of Dorothy, Kansas, Munchkinland, the Haunted Forest, the Witches Castle or the Emerald City. I know. Breathe. It's okay. I'm okay.

But it was free. Garages and closets have the most amazing costume treasures EVER!

Have a wonderful evening. May your candy buckets be full and your yards be toilet-paper free!!

A memory to warm my heart

and get me all geared up for Friday!

So, in case any of you don't already know I'm quite a Wizard of Oz fanatic. What? You've missed those posts? Oh. Well let's just recap them here:

The whole long story
A permanent reminder
Ruby Slippers
Toy Suprises

Wasn't that a lovely trip down memory lane? Ahhhh....

As much as I carry on about this fascination on my blog, imagine what my poor family, friends, and coworkers have to endure. Every tiny reference in a tv show, movie or commercial immediately heightens my senses and causes me to break out in song or line recital. It's sickening. It really is. I mean I *assume* it is. You would really have to ask those who see the LIVE Looney Bin stage show. There are daily performances. You should check on ticket prices.

ANYWAY the point is that this passion is not a secret. Anyone who has known me for at least one month knows this about me.

And these two people have known me much longer than a month.

Meet Ed and Suzanne Riley. Ed was my boss for a couple of years, and he and his wife are directly responsible for the job I have today. It's a very long story with many characters and different plots and surprise endings throughout. But that doesn't matter.

This picture does.



Halloween is hands down Ed and Suzanne's favorite holiday. (Well, it may be a toss up between Halloween and St. Paddy's Day. Their last name is Riley, remember? Get it?) They go all out, usually having parties and lots of fun for all ages and completely jump on the costume wagon. The first time I went to their house at Halloween, this INCREDIBLE SPECIMEN OF A WITCH was sitting in a chair by their front door. I had heard of her existence, but had not seen it until that night. I was speechless. She is just shy of life size, she talks, she looks just like the real thing and IT'S THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST, PEOPLE!!

As a side note, Ed is NOT dressed up in the picture as any of the following: Mr Clean, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Stewy from Family Man...OR my husband. He had already removed his costume before I got there....and Suzanne is the one without the green face.

ANYWAY....the picture was taken a few years ago on Halloween night. I was working a day shift when I got a call from Suzanne's daughter, Lori, who also happens to be a co-worker. Lori told me that Ed and Suzanne wanted me to stop by for a bit because they had something for me.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

When I got there the party was was pretty much over. I was there about 20 minutes and Ed looked at me with this sparkle in his eye and sheepish grin on his face. As the story goes, they were in the process of selling their large home and downsizing to a townhouse....and needed to downsize their belongings in the process.

And he handed her to me while they both agreed that they could think of no other person who would take better care of her.

I cannot put in to words the twitter of emotions and giddy, childlike squeal that came out of my mouth. And I shed a couple of tears as well.

She happily resides in my living room....well, most of the time and NOT just at Halloween, much to the dismay of my husband. She is currently sitting in my mom's living room because I haven't had room for her in my car during any of my moving trips.

*sigh*

I miss her.



But she will be returning home soon. She will gleefully take up residence in my living room again. Well, as gleeful as the Wicked Witch of the West can be. And she will be there for a constant reminder of these fabulous people I'm so happy to call my friends.

A graphic representation

to my previous post...




Even bar graphs know the cold hard truth of being over tired.

Levels of Fatigue

Tired.
Really Tired.
Over Tired.

Let's discuss.

I was tired yesterday. Actually, "tired" doesn't even begin to describe how tired I was. I was overtired. Have you ever seen a small child that is overtired, who is whining and crying and carrying on while throwing themselves on the ground but won't go to sleep? Yeah. That was me yesterday. Except I wasn't on the ground crying and carrying on. I wanted to. I did.



But I was whining. I even got tired of listening to myself at one point and decided to just sit at my desk and not talk. But that made me want to just go to sleep. So I started whining again. It was a vicious cycle. My co-workers were very happy when the day was over.

Why all this tiredness? Well, I was barely going on 10 hours of sleep over 3 days. It's just not enough, people! At some point your body is going to revolt.

It started on day one as just being tired. I had stayed up until 2:00 a.m. to transition for night shift. I didn't sleep well for my afternoon nap...okay, not at all...so I was tired at work all night.

I got home and told myself I could only sleep a few hours because I had worked my night shift, but then had to turn around and work a day shift the next day. It's a complicated ordeal, trying to "trick" your body and mind through that transition. I tricked my body quite well. But I could not shut my mind off no matter how hard a I tried. Apparently my mind thought it needed to stay up for another night shift.

I got 3 hours of sleep before my alarm went off to get up for work. Then I was really tired.

I went home from work that day just knowing I was going to keel over if I didn't get some sleep. I was sleepy anyway, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem once my head hit the pillow. I shouldn't think about things. I should just do them. Thinking makes my head spin...and makes my brain work...and makes it impossible to shut down the thought process when I NEED TO BE SLEEPING, PEOPLE! It starts out innocently enough, that thought process when you are trying to go to sleep.

"Okay, self. If you fall asleep now you'll get a solid 7 hours."
"If you will fall asleep now, it will be a good 5 hours."
"You better fall asleep because you have to get up in 4 hours."
"You are screwed. You are only going to get 3.5 hours of sleep...assuming you can fall asleep right now."

I got another 3 hours of sleep. Yippee. Then I was over tired.

Yesterday was a struggle at best. I stood in front of my closet not being able to process a single thought about what to wear. I sat down in front of my dresser drawer to grab some jeans and almost fell back to sleep. So my attire yesterday was.... ummm... interesting. Thank God for casual Fridays. Although yesterday it could have very easily been Frumpy Friday and I would have won the award.

I've mentioned before that I work 12 hour shifts. So 12 hours when you are over tired is a struggle for anyone. I don't care who you are. I drank 4 cups of coffee in my first 2 hours of work. My stomach revolted. My eyes crossed every time I had to look at my computer screen. They were revolting, too. Dry, sore, itchy and bloodshot. My poor eyes just wanted to close themselves and NOT open anymore. Every muscle ached. Every movement took effort. And every activity my brain was required to process was like trying to reason with a drunk. A tired drunk.

An annoying, whiny, over tired drunk. That was me yesterday. Fun stuff.

I made it home, zombied through a bowl of homemade soup for dinner, and went to my bedroom. I took 2 Tylenol PMs and turned on the TV. I found something interesting that was to start at 8:00. It was 7:50. I don't ever remember the show starting, nor do I recall my husband coming to check on me and turning the TV off.

I woke up to the alarm at 4:20. Time for work.

And today? I'm just a little tired.

Surfin' the Net

I spend a great deal of time on the computer. Between work and home I am probably on the computer more than I'm not. Hmmm...what does that say about me?

Several things.

First, you could assume my children are pretty much grown. They are no longer climbing my curtains, cutting each other's hair the day before Christmas pictures, playing in the toilet or shoving tiny tree frogs in their pants pockets. Yes, those are all *real* life experiences....even the tree frogs. The eyes in the back of my head have assumed their normal position and I use them to look at the computer screen now.

Secondly, you may think I have nothing else to do. This couldn't be further (or is that farther?) from the truth. I'm an excellent multi-tasker. I can do several loads of laundry in between stalking blogs.

Thirdly, you may think I have nothing else to do. This couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an excellent procrastinator.

Something else this *may* say about me is that I also use the internet to stalk scrapbooking galleries for ideas and inspiration. This is pretty accurate. Someday I'll actually step away from the computer and get to work on all these pictures.

But you might also think I'm ignoring my family and that my relationship with them is suffering. Which might be true if they weren't so loud and demanding of my attention and QUITE IMPOSSIBLE to ignore. Besides, they each have their own vices which give me extra time to myself: my daughter...the phone; my sons....their girlfriends; and my husband....TV and Blockbuster Video. And hubby is not computer saavy and so some of my computer time is interrupted with him wanting me to google things for him. The nerve.

And how did anyone live without google?

You would think after spending 12 hours sitting in front of 8 computer monitors at work that I wouldn't want to come home and sit on the computer. And I don't really. Most of my computer time at home are on days that I don't work. I have limits, people.

But if you *really* knew me, you would know that I pretty much exchanged one vice for another. My old one? Reading books. You may be saying to yourself, "Awww...she doesn't read anymore. How sad!" Not true. I'm just reading off a computer screen instead of a book. It's also not true because I didn't really exchange vices. I just added to the reading one. As strange as it sounds, my family is much happier that I split my time between the books and the computer...it's MUCH easier to get my attention when I'm on the computer.

All those life experiences I mentioned when my kids were little? Yeah. They most likely happened when I was reading a book.

More comparisons

I got slammed when I walked in to work the other day looking like this:



I got called Sarah, pitbull, and Maverick...and was then asked if I could see Russia from my house. I do not see the resemblance. At all. But we are talking about a bunch of men with no sense of style.

And not that I mind the comparison. She is pretty, after all. But jumping on the Sarah Palin Style-Train is just a bit...ummm...jr. high for me. I never had the Jennifer Aniston haircut, either. I don't want people to think I'm *trying* to look like Sarah Palin. I'm 43. I'm too old for that. Right?

Did I just call myself old?

Besides, I think this is a better comparison anyway:



Except for the fact that she isn't wearing glasses, I would say I'm a dead ringer.

3 generations

Certainly not typical generation pictures...all full of seriousness, coordinating outfits and well done hair and makeup. But it is 3 generations of us being, well, us. My daughter and I in our finest sleepwear. My mom with her finest 'do going on. My daughter with her finest makeup job. And me just lookin' fine.

But it is obvious how strong the idiot gene is on this side of the family tree. It is, after all, the branch with all the nuts.

Happy Birthday, Clare!!

My dear friend, Clare, turns some version of 40-something today.



5 years ago Clare and I walked a marathon. Yes, you read that right. We WALKED. *I* do not run or jog. But Karen wanted us to raise money for a wonderful cause, Teams in Training. Karen runs. Karen runs a lot. I do not. As luck would have it neither does Clare.

So we formed a little team of 2 and trained for 5 months.

While raising the money and helping out that wonderful cause was great and was our PRIMARY reason for joining, I think Clare would agree that the bonding experience became center stage. We laughed. A lot. We cried. We walked. We walked some more. And then we laughed some more.

Did I mention that we laughed? A lot?

That whole experience was just incredible. I don't remember the blisters or the shin splints or the sunburn or the fire in my muscles as much as I remember this stuff:

• the catered hot tub breakfast from my husband
• the Hello Kitty backpack focal point for Clare
• running from the cops who were trying to bus us the last mile
• getting caught making butt-squeeze gestures to a cyclist
• laughing so hard I farted
• laughing so hard we couldn't continue walking
• turning *slightly* psychotic to get Clare to finish that damn marathon
• apologizing to Clare for turning *slightly* psychotic
• laughing about turning *slightly* psychotic
  

and

finishing




Happy Birthday, Clare! I love you!

(wanna do it again?)

The Jr. Missy

This is me and Karen.
She is my friend.
See Karen.
See how cute Karen is.



This is Karen and her little family.
See Karen, Kjell (pronounced "shell") and Olivia.
See how cute they are.



This is Olivia.
See Olivia.
See how cute and adorable and fun and sweet and wonderful Olivia is.



This is Olivia and my daughter, Lindsay.
See Lindsay.
Her nickname since toddler age is Missy.
See Missy.
See Olivia.
Her nickname since birth is Missy.
But we can't have two Missy's.
So now she is Jr. Missy.
See Jr. Missy.
See how much attitude Jr. Missy has.
See Missy mimicking Jr. Missy.



This is me, Matt and Clare (Matt's sister...my friend) with Karen and her little family.
See us gathered together.
See us rallying around Karen and Kjell.
See us supporting them as their future with the nose-crinkling, forehead-wrinkling, Jr. Missy is filled with attitude of epic proportions.



See Jr. Missy.
See her reaching to pull my hair.
See us all smiling and posing while Jr. Missy reaches for my hair.
See us all trying to ignore Jr. Missy while she reaches for my hair.

*sigh*

Jr. Missy cannot be ignored forever.....

Agree or Disagree

with the political side of things....but who doesn't love a woman who wears ruby shoes?



Okay, maybe it's just me that loves them so much. You know, it's that whole Wizard of Oz thing again. But you know Stacey and Clinton from "What Not To Wear" would LOVE these babies as much as I do!!