people greeted each other like dogs do?
Discuss.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A sad day...
Heaven just got the sweetest angel today. I'm not sure how someone whom you've never met in person can touch your heart so greatly, but this lady did it for me. She is part of an on-line scrapbooking community that I belonged to for years...left for awhile...and just recently joined again.
Her name was Janice Neilson. Does this smile just speak volumes about her?
Seriously, her smile was infectious and her kind comments and encouragement were far reaching in that little online community. She was usually the first to welcome newcomers to the site and spent HOURS in the gallery, making sure to comment on each and every layout. She had 35,609 posts as her final count at Scrapjazz. And I wouldn't doubt if 34,276 of those were in the gallery. She loved to acknowledge the hard work each of us put in to our pages.
When I left scrapjazz for a little while, Janice was one of the individuals who I stalked via her blog. I lurked through her gallery for inspiration and ideas on my heritage photos. She was just one of those internet "friends" that was hard to step away from. Yes, she was *that* sweet.
See? Even she knew.
As sad as I am for the loss of this woman that I never got the chance to meet in person, I can only imagine the pain her family is feeling. She loved her family with all her heart and that came through in every layout she did. And as wonderful as she was in my world, I can imagine how wonderful she was to those who knew her personally.
Good-bye, Janice. You are forever part of our wonderful memories. May you and Jeannie scrap yourselves silly....
Her name was Janice Neilson. Does this smile just speak volumes about her?
Seriously, her smile was infectious and her kind comments and encouragement were far reaching in that little online community. She was usually the first to welcome newcomers to the site and spent HOURS in the gallery, making sure to comment on each and every layout. She had 35,609 posts as her final count at Scrapjazz. And I wouldn't doubt if 34,276 of those were in the gallery. She loved to acknowledge the hard work each of us put in to our pages.
When I left scrapjazz for a little while, Janice was one of the individuals who I stalked via her blog. I lurked through her gallery for inspiration and ideas on my heritage photos. She was just one of those internet "friends" that was hard to step away from. Yes, she was *that* sweet.
See? Even she knew.
As sad as I am for the loss of this woman that I never got the chance to meet in person, I can only imagine the pain her family is feeling. She loved her family with all her heart and that came through in every layout she did. And as wonderful as she was in my world, I can imagine how wonderful she was to those who knew her personally.
Good-bye, Janice. You are forever part of our wonderful memories. May you and Jeannie scrap yourselves silly....
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
So we've established what my son IS...
a motorhead. But I will tell you one thing I know for sure he is NOT.
A handyman.
Case in point: during a...hmmm..."spirited" discussion he was having with his brother one morning (Nathan and I are NOT morning people, but that's a whole different blog post), he got a little upset that Cody would not leave him alone and chucked his shoe at him. And by "chucked" I mean threw it with the force of a cannonball leaving the cannon and hitting the designated target 5 feet away.
So you can imagine the size of the hole in the wall? Okay? Moving on.
Nathan didn't want me to be upset about said hole (joining the other 7 holes throughout the house due to "spirited" discussions between various individuals while on the phone to girlfriends or talking with brothers). So he attempted to patch the hole. This was the result:
Now, the thing about this patch job is that Nathan was actually pretty proud of himself. He did it with no help and no instruction from his father (who used to finish sheetrock for a living). Really? All by yourself? Wow. No help? Amazing. Are you done? Yes? Hmmmm....so how is this going to look all painted up? Oh, it needs some sanding? Yeah. I think it does. You might also want to think about the fact the hole isn't completely closed.
I'm not sure the readers of this blog can really gain a true appreciation for this fine piece of handy work. I will tell you that normally a hole of that size would need a new piece of sheet rock cut and taped/textured/painted. But Nathan decided that he would just use this huge glob of wood putty and all would be good.
Wood putty. This is the look you get with wood putty....and your brother on the other side of the wall in the crawl space holding the detached piece of sheet rock while you try to bond the two back together:
And so when dad and sister moved back to town and dad started piddling around the house when he could, the holes were some of the first things to get fixed. This is a patch job that Troy did...complete with texturing but not yet painted:
It really is the correct way of doing things. You know, with some kind of product other than wood putty. It's a beautiful piece of work, the patch job.
But this lovely piece of work remains....
....waiting for the motorhead to clean his hands of the grease and filth so that his father may train him up correctly in the fine art of hole-patch 101. Because Lord knows we can't afford to keep buying all this wood putty.
A handyman.
Case in point: during a...hmmm..."spirited" discussion he was having with his brother one morning (Nathan and I are NOT morning people, but that's a whole different blog post), he got a little upset that Cody would not leave him alone and chucked his shoe at him. And by "chucked" I mean threw it with the force of a cannonball leaving the cannon and hitting the designated target 5 feet away.
So you can imagine the size of the hole in the wall? Okay? Moving on.
Nathan didn't want me to be upset about said hole (joining the other 7 holes throughout the house due to "spirited" discussions between various individuals while on the phone to girlfriends or talking with brothers). So he attempted to patch the hole. This was the result:
Now, the thing about this patch job is that Nathan was actually pretty proud of himself. He did it with no help and no instruction from his father (who used to finish sheetrock for a living). Really? All by yourself? Wow. No help? Amazing. Are you done? Yes? Hmmmm....so how is this going to look all painted up? Oh, it needs some sanding? Yeah. I think it does. You might also want to think about the fact the hole isn't completely closed.
I'm not sure the readers of this blog can really gain a true appreciation for this fine piece of handy work. I will tell you that normally a hole of that size would need a new piece of sheet rock cut and taped/textured/painted. But Nathan decided that he would just use this huge glob of wood putty and all would be good.
Wood putty. This is the look you get with wood putty....and your brother on the other side of the wall in the crawl space holding the detached piece of sheet rock while you try to bond the two back together:
And so when dad and sister moved back to town and dad started piddling around the house when he could, the holes were some of the first things to get fixed. This is a patch job that Troy did...complete with texturing but not yet painted:
It really is the correct way of doing things. You know, with some kind of product other than wood putty. It's a beautiful piece of work, the patch job.
But this lovely piece of work remains....
....waiting for the motorhead to clean his hands of the grease and filth so that his father may train him up correctly in the fine art of hole-patch 101. Because Lord knows we can't afford to keep buying all this wood putty.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Meet my son...the motor head
This child loves grease. And oil. And dirty, smelly engines and all the stuff related to dirty, smelly engines.
My earliest memory of Nathan and an engine was a weedeater when he was about 8. It ran before he started playing with it. Curiosity, boredom and a trip to the store to purchase another weedeater later....and Troy and I knew we had always better live in a house with a garage. Maybe even consider purchasing an extra bed for the garage. Because that is exactly where this child would live for the next 10 years.
We buy him things for his birthday and Christmas like wrenches, shop lights, engine hoists, air compressors and other unidentifiable-by-a-mom things. His stockings and Easter baskets were filled with de-greasing hand soap, sockets and car magazines. He has had a couple of jobs at local fast food/pizza joints, but he started making more money by being the neighborhood mechanic to all of his friends. It started with Go-Peds (motorized scooters) and transformed in to buying junked cars, fixing them and reselling them.
But it took some trial-and-error to get to where he is. For the longest time he couldn't even be bothered to get a haircut because he was so busy tinkering in the garage (little mom-dig there). The best story I have about the "learning process" of Nathan is when he wanted to turn his own scooter in to a Go-Ped....and proceeded to attach a weedeater engine (we've gone through a lot of weedeaters, people). The only problem with that idea was the weedeater was electric so he could only ride it as far as the cord would let him.
It's true. I don't tell lies here.
Then when he turned 16 we bought him his first car. It was a piece, let me tell you. A Baja Bug that we bought from Troy's brother. But he LOVES that car. Yes, at almost 19 he still has it. He spent hours and hours and days and months in the garage after he got it fixing all the wiring and putting in new carpet and making it "pretty". Well, as pretty as a dirty, greasy motorhead wants things.
He doesn't always fix things for his own benefit. He also fixed up a 3-wheeler that he bought from my mom to give Troy for Father's Day.
This is child is a mini-version of his father with the love of all things FAST....with the love for all things dirty and greasy of MY father. He comes by it naturally. So it was a no-brainer to send my son HERE. He is not quite 1/2 way through a 10 month course and LOVES this school. He gets to get his hands dirty and greasy and smelly.
Which is great. Because it gives my garage door a rest from all of that....because I don't have a sink in my garage and the de-greasing hand wash is in the bathroom.
But in all fairness, he IS my child, too.
Monday, January 12, 2009
An update....and a typical day for the Pryors
THE UPDATE:
This is Cloris....post surgery.
Doesn't she look happy?
Okay, not. But she's pretty cute, even with her pretty plastic surgical collar. This is what she looks like when she hasn't had surgery, looking too cute and cuddly. I'm sure she will be back to her normal self in 5-7 days.
And my TYPICAL DAY ?
Here's another not-so-happy face in the Pryor house
It started as this, as shown in a picture that was taken in the emergency room in Red Bluff at about 9:30 this morning on my cell phone:
I guess she just couldn't stand it anymore...all those men in the Pryor house landing in the emergency room with gashes, concussions, broken bones and burst appendix. She just had to have some of that glory for herself.
I thought she was going to puke when I looked at it, gushing blood (sorry, but that's what was happening, people) and told her it looked like she would need stitches. She went immediately pale and had to sit down, crying and sobbing that she didn't want stitches.
She has a fear of needles. An unusual, painful, ridiculously high fear of needles.
So you can imagine her relief that she only had to get glued back together....just like Humpty Dumpty, although she probably wouldn't appreciate that reference. But no stitches. No needles.
Oh? How did it HAPPEN? Well, Lindsay would like for me to tell you that some woman at the gas station was trying to jack her cool sunglasses from her and when she got in a scuffle trying to defend herself, the woman knifed her...and that Lindsay won and you should SEE the other woman. But the truth is she was putting her purse in the car and was turning to come back in my mom's house and didn't *quite* get out of the way of the corner of the car door. The very sharp corner. You know the one...it's similar to the corner of the trunk that many of you have probably whacked with the top of your head. Yeah. That one.
She likes the sunglasses reference better. Who could blame her?
And can you see that shiner under her eye starting to develop? Yeah. That injury is going to leave a mark. A nasty mark. A big, black/blue/purple mark on top of the lovely gash that is held together with steri strips right now. But the good news is that she probably won't have much of a scar. Barely noticeable.
I hope she gives up on this competition with the Pryor men. My blood pressure can't handle it.
This is Cloris....post surgery.
Doesn't she look happy?
Okay, not. But she's pretty cute, even with her pretty plastic surgical collar. This is what she looks like when she hasn't had surgery, looking too cute and cuddly. I'm sure she will be back to her normal self in 5-7 days.
And my TYPICAL DAY ?
Here's another not-so-happy face in the Pryor house
It started as this, as shown in a picture that was taken in the emergency room in Red Bluff at about 9:30 this morning on my cell phone:
I guess she just couldn't stand it anymore...all those men in the Pryor house landing in the emergency room with gashes, concussions, broken bones and burst appendix. She just had to have some of that glory for herself.
I thought she was going to puke when I looked at it, gushing blood (sorry, but that's what was happening, people) and told her it looked like she would need stitches. She went immediately pale and had to sit down, crying and sobbing that she didn't want stitches.
She has a fear of needles. An unusual, painful, ridiculously high fear of needles.
So you can imagine her relief that she only had to get glued back together....just like Humpty Dumpty, although she probably wouldn't appreciate that reference. But no stitches. No needles.
Oh? How did it HAPPEN? Well, Lindsay would like for me to tell you that some woman at the gas station was trying to jack her cool sunglasses from her and when she got in a scuffle trying to defend herself, the woman knifed her...and that Lindsay won and you should SEE the other woman. But the truth is she was putting her purse in the car and was turning to come back in my mom's house and didn't *quite* get out of the way of the corner of the car door. The very sharp corner. You know the one...it's similar to the corner of the trunk that many of you have probably whacked with the top of your head. Yeah. That one.
She likes the sunglasses reference better. Who could blame her?
And can you see that shiner under her eye starting to develop? Yeah. That injury is going to leave a mark. A nasty mark. A big, black/blue/purple mark on top of the lovely gash that is held together with steri strips right now. But the good news is that she probably won't have much of a scar. Barely noticeable.
I hope she gives up on this competition with the Pryor men. My blood pressure can't handle it.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A basic lesson in sex education
So we have two kitties. They are about 4-1/2 months old....time to get fixed. One is a pretty little Calico named Cloris and the other is a cute little orange striped tabby that we named Gertrude...Gertie for short.
Gertie LOVES Troy. I means LOVES him. She follows him around the house constantly just like a dog. He can whistle or snap his fingers and she runs to him. It's adorable. And she loves to sleep on him. And when I say "on him" I mean that literally.
On Wednesday Cloris and Gertie go in for the big "snip-snip". They have to stay overnight and get shots and the whole big deal. But YAY for no extra kitties in the future. I feel like I'm slighting them somehow by not letting them become mothers, but then I think about when those kitties become teenagers and I know in my heart I'm saving them from something that will turn them crazy and mean.
So two females kitties. Four 1/2 months old. Appointments to get spayed. Check.
Uncheck. Because yesterday Gertie was cleaning herself and Troy noticed something unusual....something not "female-like". Upon further investigation he discovered that Gertie has testicles and a weiner. How did we miss this?
It's going to be an embarrassing call to the vet on Monday.
"Hello? Vet? Yes, I'm calling because my husband and I apparently don't know the difference between girl parts and boy parts. I need to have my orange tabby neutered...NOT spayed."
"Ummm....okay."
"And vet? Gertie is now Gordie. Please do not make any surgical decisions to make the parts match the name. Thank you and we will see you Wednesday morning."
Click.
Can you just hear the laughter on the other end of the phone? Yeah. Me, too.
Gertie LOVES Troy. I means LOVES him. She follows him around the house constantly just like a dog. He can whistle or snap his fingers and she runs to him. It's adorable. And she loves to sleep on him. And when I say "on him" I mean that literally.
On Wednesday Cloris and Gertie go in for the big "snip-snip". They have to stay overnight and get shots and the whole big deal. But YAY for no extra kitties in the future. I feel like I'm slighting them somehow by not letting them become mothers, but then I think about when those kitties become teenagers and I know in my heart I'm saving them from something that will turn them crazy and mean.
So two females kitties. Four 1/2 months old. Appointments to get spayed. Check.
Uncheck. Because yesterday Gertie was cleaning herself and Troy noticed something unusual....something not "female-like". Upon further investigation he discovered that Gertie has testicles and a weiner. How did we miss this?
It's going to be an embarrassing call to the vet on Monday.
"Hello? Vet? Yes, I'm calling because my husband and I apparently don't know the difference between girl parts and boy parts. I need to have my orange tabby neutered...NOT spayed."
"Ummm....okay."
"And vet? Gertie is now Gordie. Please do not make any surgical decisions to make the parts match the name. Thank you and we will see you Wednesday morning."
Click.
Can you just hear the laughter on the other end of the phone? Yeah. Me, too.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Happy New Year!!
I hope your New Year's festivities were grand (I'm still trying to figure out what Troy was looking at with this open-eyed midnight kiss) and that all your resolutions are printed and hung on the refrigerator as a constant reminder that you promised yourself you were going to do something and that you better hop to it before you are completely disappointed in yourself.
I'm stressed already.
Seriously, do you make resolutions? I do....but I don't make them on New Year's Day. I make resolutions to myself all year long. You know, things like:
- I will make my bed at least once a week
- I will keep up with the laundry (or make sure Troy does)
- I will learn a new language (I did that this year with texting acronymns. It IS a second language. I don't care what you say.)
- I will not stay in bed past 11:00 on my days off
- I will walk the dogs every day
How's that for a life-changing list? Yeah. Not so much. And it isn't really my current list, although I will say I DID make my bed this morning. Which is big because there is usually someone IN my bed which makes it impossible to make everyday. I think my mood would be altered to an unflattering state if Troy tried to make the bed when I had worked a night shift. Get it? Good. Moving on....
I do have some things in my head that are on the list. Things that I have somehow faultered on the last year or two. They are important things. To me, anyway. I won't share them in detail, but let's just say that I strive at being as nice as I can be to people....but have somehow missed the boat with some family members. They know who they are. It was not very becoming of who I try to be and some of those relationships suffered because of it.
So in a nutshell, here are my resolutions in their very basic form:
- Pray more
- Forgive more
- Read more
- Exercise more
- Laugh more
- Worry less
- Judge less
- Spend less
- Work less
Those are not in any particular order....and most of them I have control over. Working less? I'll try, but that's not always up to me and is contingent on the health of my fellow coworkers. They need to stay healthy for the sake of my resolution, don't you agree? Maybe I'll give them all a box of Airborne. And some vitiman C. And some Echinacea.
So whether you are dancing out of 2008.....or crashing in to 2009....may this next year be full of wonderful experiences with family and friends. And may each of those experiences fulfill your life in unexpected ways.
Happy New Year!!
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