Insignificant Ramblings from the Looney Bin

It all started with a dinosaur

2011-08-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

And it has progressed from there.

I'm not sure what he was tryng to wrestle in the lower right hand picture. Or if he just needed me to hurry up with the picture of us in West Virgina so he could use the bathroom.

Before the earthquake adventure in Washington DC

2011-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

we went 160 miles out of our way to visit a place in Nebraska called Carhenge. Without looking at the link I'm sure you can imagine the likes of this tourist trap. Think STONEhenge. But not as mysterious.

I wonder if they sell tshirts, coffee mugs and postcards at Stonehenge?

Anyway, I stumbled across this place while searching around for "important things to see" across I-80. Honestly, I was giddy at the thought of seeing this. I'm all about stupid and silly. This kind of tops the list. However the idea of driving 80 miles north then turning right around to continue on our way was...well, not something I wanted to tell Troy.

So I didn't. Don't judge me.

I didn't tell him until we were 20 miles north and he asked how much longer it would be. When I replied about 50 miles there was silence. For about 5 seconds. Then he looked at me and asked what in the world I was thinking. "This better be worth it." Dang. It's not like it was Wizard of Oz related. I thought HE would enjoy it, too.

Yes, I was worried. But I was also in my "seeing the country" mode and refused to let his perpetual pessimism bring me down. We had a few good laughs on the 80 mile trip, but in the back of my mind I was REALLY hoping this wouldn't be a complete bust. Troy would never let me live it down and I would no doubt be paying it back for the rest of the trip by having to stop at every single WWII museum and exhibit known to man.

As we approached the general vicinity, Troy saw it off in the distance. We were both quiet with anticipation and as we got closer we both burst in to laughter.

We bought t shirts. And postcards. And left a donation. Then started the 80 mile trip back to I-80.

Carhenge was a hit.

But not nearly as big a hit as THIS:

We didn't get a t-shirt. Or even a book of matches. They were closed. But we've got the picture...and the memory of the locals looking at us as if we were crazy as I ran from the car while my camera's self-timer was counting down.

All in a day's work of making memories, people.

We interrupt any chronological order of vacation for this post

2011-08-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

Soooo….things just happen to us on vacation. I’ve mentioned this before. I’ve blogged about it before. We are cursed.

This vacation is no exception.

We survived the Virginia earthquake on Tuesday. At the time of the quake we were in Washington DC visiting the Holocaust Museum watching a video on Antisemitism, just a 1/2 hour in to the first floor. This California bred girl hit the floor as soon as the shaking started and was getting ready to grab my husband to get under the bench when it stopped. It lasted about 2 minutes but seemed like forever. I understand how some folk in this country aren't "earthquake trained"....I'm not "tornado trained"....but to think the quake was part of the film was interesting to me. It's not Disneyland, people. This is not an attraction with special effects. It's the Holocaust MUSEUM. TAKE COVER!!

This is the only picture we were “allowed” to take in the museum. Evacuation.

And this is us sitting outside amidst the chaos: sirens, helicopters, horns honking, whistles blowing, people yelling. We are calmly eating a hot dog trying to figure out our next move.

Our next move turned out to be arguing back and forth about what our next move was going to be. After taking exactly 4 more pictures, (2 of the Washington monument with dozens of people wandering in and out of our pictures and 2 of the Capitol with those same people wandering around in the background) the next move turned out to be cramming on to the DC Metro with everybody else who didn’t really have a next move after the museums closed for the day and Federal employees were sent home. Yes, Troy was THISCLOSETOME when taking the picture. 3 more people that I never met were also THISCLOSETOME. We exchanged phone numbers at the end of the line. (I'm joking, of course).

Just another day on vacation with the Pryors. We left before Hurricane Irene came so we can’t be blamed for that.

But vacation isn’t over yet.

2,547 miles in 5 days

2011-08-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

Whose idea was this cross-country road trip, anyway? Oh, yeah. Mine.

Here we are leaving Sacramento. Don't we look excited and happy to be on our way? We really had no idea how loooooong and lonely I-80 can actually be. Actually, *I* wasn't remembering from a previous road trip with my bff many years ago across PART of I-80. Troy had already done this exact road trip several years ago on his Harley. That could explain the look on his face vs. the look on my face.....

I have to say that Day 1 was by far the best day for me on this trip. I slept most of it away having just come off of night shift. But that meant my poor husband had to drive and keep himself entertained while I snored next to him. That's hard to do for 400 miles. Music helps. And of course there is no "Welcome to Nevada" picture to memorialize the event. Did I mention that I slept the first day?

But we did snap pics entering most of the other states. Well, Troy did while I was driving....and yelling at him that the photo op was coming up. Yelling. He was tense the entire trip. I can't understand why.

UTAH

The desert mountains in Utah were beautiful. And what a treat to see the Salt Flats for the first time! The quote of the day came from Troy: "I wonder if fish fart?" What goes through a mind that you would even wonder that? The tension for pictures was raised for Troy when a photo op was missed. But the fun really ended at the campground. WORST. SLEEP. EVER. We found out the inflatable mattress we bought had an ELECTRIC pump. What? What happened to the battery operated pump?? *sigh*. So we got to sleep on rocks. And it was cold. I didn't plan for cold weather. It IS August for Pete's sake! Just miserable.

WYOMING

Missed photo op of entering Wyoming. I think I'll let up on Troy a bit. I mean, at least he is staying awake in the passenger seat. I'm pretty sure we would miss ALL the signs if I was the passenger because I would be asleep.

There's not a whole lot to say about Wyoming. But this is the point of the trip where Troy started to become VERY troubled over the road work. LOTS of road work. So much road work. Question of the day came from me: "I wonder where they store all of these orange construction barrels?" There was seriously close to 1,000 of them across Wyoming. I'm imagining a HUGE warehouse for these things. I wonder how much those things cost....someone's rich. Just sayin'.

Troy wrestled a dinosaur in Wyoming. I guess wearing the cowboy hat in the gift shop made him feel like he needed to. The dinosaur didn't put up much of a fight. We did finally get a good night's sleep because we rented a cabin at KOA just outside of Cheyenne. Tornado warnings sent us inside instead of sleeping under the stars. Why do storms follow us on vacation? Remember this? Yeah. So I got to look at a pretty spectacular lightening storm that night....which would be great if I actually LIKED spectacular lightening storms. I don't. I like them about as much as I like the dark.

NEBRASKA/IOWA/ILLINOIS/INDIANA

Updates to come....let me just say we saw a lot of corn fields. We played the game "how many things can you think of that contain corn?" There's a lot.

And just one word to keep you hanging on to the edge of your seat until the next update: CARHENGE.

Holy smokes!

2011-08-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

It's just been far TOO long since I updated this stale old thing. But I've come back for a very good reason.

I'm going on vacation. A 7,000 mile road trip.

Driving cross-country with my husband is sure to provide fodder for this blog. For now I'll just leave you with this...but watch for updates all month long!

Some observations while driving in the rain

2011-05-19T00:27:00.000-07:00

The weather has taken a turn for winter (again) this past week. And while driving on the freeway I made note of a few things.

Some people drive entirely. too. fast. when it is pouring down rain.
Some people drive entirely. too. slow. when it is pouring down rain.
Why can't the rain fall consistently? Wipers full blast....wipers on slow intermittent....wipers on full blast....wipers on medium intermittent....all within the distance of 1/2 mile. I drove 120 miles that day. Sweet.
That much water makes me have to pee.
Semi trucks splash 4x the amount of actual rain falling from the air directly in to your windshield as you drive by them. I drove through 4 tidal waves. Have you ever tried to see through a tidal wave slamming across your windshield?
I am very thankful that I work indoors. Even bright orange reflective vests are hard to see in torential rain.
My car is very clean now. On the outside. Rain makes mud that clings to your shoes.
Talking about all this water makes me have to pee.
I thought all these showers were supposed to be in April. Where are the May flowers? I'll tell you where they are....washed away with ALL. THIS. RAIN.

I'm ready for summer.

So I have this new job....

2011-05-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

and without going in to too much detail, I have to say I am wondering what in the world I was thinking. On my first official nerve-filled-wanna-puke day (after I was released following 2 months of training) one of the directors told me, "You'll find out that this desk is the most satisfying one in the control room." I'll have to trust him on that. To say this job is challenging is probably the biggest understatement I have ever made on this blog. I am the queen of exaggeration (c'mon, people...we all know this) but this new position is seriously kicking. my. mental. butt. I am mental. Okay, *more* mental than normal. I mean, I'm not normal. Whatever normal is.

See? Rambling like a fool. That's what this job has reduced me to. Because we all know I speak only with an air of wisdom and maturity otherwise. Stop laughing.

I suppose I should give you a tidbit of information here. I don't want you to think I am a stressed out mess because I'm making coffee for caffeine-deprived people at 5:00 a.m. Although when you think about that I'm not sure I would want that job, either. I know how I am when I haven't had *my* coffee. It's not pretty.

I've worked for the same company for almost 14 years. Here's the website. It's public, so I'm okay with linking it here. My actual job is related to the California Energy Market so if I give you any more information than that I may have to self-destruct my blog. Plus I could land in prison. And I don't look good in stripes.

For the past 5-1/2 years I was a "Scheduler". My new title is "Generation Dispatcher" and it pretty much sounds exactly like what I do.....dispatch generation within the state of California. Easy enough, right? Yeah. Plus I get to do that within the confines of standards... tariffs... policies... procedures... guidelines... voltage... limits... contingencies... market rules... signing things in blood... giving away my first born... being tortured... etc.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I haven't signed anything in blood.

I was fortunate enough to be placed on the same crew when I moved to the generation desk. There are 6 crews and 3 gen(eration) dispatchers on each one of the crews. They are referred to as Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3. Gen 1 is the "driver" and dispatches generation to maintain 60 hz on the system. I promise that's as electrically geeky as I get in this post.

This past Friday was my first day "driving". I didn't sleep well. I wanted to throw up. I was nervous and upset. My fellow crew mates were very....ummmm....supportive and understanding and kind and helpful given my state-of-mind. So supportive and understanding and kind that they took this picture of me.

If you can't read the sign it says "CAUTION: Student Driver". Yes, my coworkers are THAT nice. Please don't mistake the look on my face for anything other than sheer terror.

You'll be happy to know I survived that first night. And the second one. Then I was off to Gen 2. I still have A. LOT. of things to learn and study. I figure I'll be done learning sometime in 2081. That's 70 years away. I'll be 115.

I'm really hoping to be retired before that.

The Wizard of Oz....A classic retold....Part 5

2011-04-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

In case you missed them....Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Entire cast of characters provided by my Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Collection.

*********************************

Oh, this road! It was soooooo long! And Dorothy was getting very cranky and tired from all the crying and carrying on from the Tinman and the idiotic questions from the Scarecrow. Toto was getting on her nerves, too. He was misbehaving from the lack of attention. He actually peed on the Tinman's leg. Which made the Tinman cry. Which made Dorothy have to oil him up after he rusted.

She just wanted to go home. What possible motive could that sparkly, pink witch have to make her walk all this way. Maybe she should have befriended the nasty cat-smelling witch instead. She possibly could have been home by now.

Dorothy's thoughts were immediately interrupted as she realized they had walked in to a scary forest. Dark and creepy. The tinman started crying because he was scared. Schweet. More oiling. More explaining to the Scarecrow what she was doing.

"ROOOOAARRRR!!!"

Holy cow! What in the world was THAT?

"RRROOAAARRRR!!" And out popped the cutest little lion Dorothy had ever seen. Oh, he was just adorable!!

Well, Toto wasn't having any of this. Nobody but nobody was cuter than he was. So what if he was having issues with his backside. Scooting wasn't at all adorable but he could still perk his ears up cuter than ever. What was Dorothy thinking?

Toto ran up to the Lion and started barking his head off. As loud as he could. Nobody was going to be cuter than him and take what little attention Dorothy had left for him away.

"Roar?"

The lion cowered away and started sulking behind a tree. Dorothy stopped dead in her tracks. This simply could not be happening.

"Not another one. I simply am not mature enough to handle another high maintenance companion. I'm a teenager, for crying out loud. I've got enough of my own issues! But whatever. I might as well drag him with me. He needs therapy, obviously. I can't give it to him."

So off the mixed up, emotional, needy group went. Skipping along the yellow brick road to find the wise and wonderful dude who was going to make them all better.

They had no idea they were being followed.

to be continued.....

An optical illusion

2011-04-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Either my husband is 2 feet tall....or this is the largest umbrella lawn chair in the world. You decide.

Some observations while having a bit of insomnia

2011-04-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

My dogs never have insomnia. And they don't care if I do. They sleep all night...and most of the day.
There doesn't seem to be anything off limits in the refrigerator.
I think I pee more in the middle of the night. How do I ever have uninterrupted sleep?
My cats never have insomnia. They like it when I do because they know if they keep meowing I will give them milk to shut them up.
There is some incredibly bad tv on at 2:00 a.m.
I never realized how much I love my dvr.
My husband never has insomnia. He doesn't care if I do as long as I leave the bedroom with it.
The only thing really going through my brain is that I need to sleep. And it makes me not sleep thinking about all the minutes ticking away as I keep trying to convince myself to sleep.
Do you even know how good a piece of meatloaf is rolled up in a tortilla? It's not. I've tried it. Please see #2.
Warm milk does NOT, in fact, make a person sleepy. Well, this person anyway. My cats take it warm or cold. They aren't picky.
My couch is seeing more of me than my bed. This is disturbing.
After months of this non-sleeping torture I've decided I know what the cure is....apparently I need to eat more dog food.

The Wizard of Oz....A classic retold....Part 4

2011-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

I know you've been on the edge of your seats waiting for this next installment. Or not. So I won't keep you waiting any longer!

In case you missed them....Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Entire cast of characters provided by my Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Collection.

*********************************

Oh, what a long way Dorothy had already walked! Toto had run off a couple of times chasing squirrels and she was getting very tired of the Scarecrow and all his mindless ramblings. It was very clear after just a few minutes how little brain he really did have.

Like, none.

"What is that animal you have with you?" He asked about 5 minutes in to their journey. "A dog."

*silence*

"Oh." was his reply.

*more silence*

"What is a dog?"

*sigh* Dorothy really hoped this Emerald City place wasn't far away so the wise and wonderful man could get her out. of. this. PLACE. Ugh! Besides, Toto was starting to scoot around on his rear. He needed his worm medicine. Or maybe he needed some fruit in his diet. Either way, none of that was to be found around the likes of this place.

But Dorothy had no sooner had the thought when she saw an apple laying on the ground. Fruit!! Food!! She was feeling a bit hungry, after all, and this would be a perfect snack. She doubted the Scarecrow was hungry. He probably didn't even know what an apple was.

"Toto! Stop lifting your leg on all those trees! Let's pick the apples from them, instead!"

"STOP PICKING MY APPLES!"

What in the heck?? Dorothy dropped the basket of picked apples all over the ground. She couldn't believe it! The tree was actually talking to her!

"That tree is talking to me!" she yelled at the Scarecrow.

"Oh." *silence* "What's a tree?"

Oh, mercy. This guy really was needing help from the wise and wonderful man just as soon as possible. Dorothy wasn't sure how much more of his nonsense she could take. She gathered up what apples she had dropped, grabbed Toto and yelled at the Scarecrow to run. Of course, she had to stop several times to pick him up. Then she spilled the apples all over the place again. Ugh! Maybe getting Toto to stop scooting all over the place wasn't worth the hassle of collecting some fruit.

As Dorothy picked up one of the last apples she came across a strange looking sculpture. It was certainly different than the sculpture that she had seen in the museum that Auntie Em and Uncle Henry had taken her to last year.

"oooommee."

"Did you hear that?" she asked the Scarecrow.

"oooommeeeeee!"

"There it is again! It sounds like it is coming from this sculpture."

"Oh." *silence* "What's a sculpture?"

Even Toto was getting sick of this dude. He needed those brains STAT. And now it looked like they were going to be joined by some strange metal looking man. No telling what issues HE was going to contribute to this journey. Oh, joy. But Toto couldn't spend any more time thinking about it. He had an itch he needed to take care of.

Dorothy finally figured out the sculpture was trying to get her to oil his tired old joints with the can conveniently sitting right next to him. After doing so he went in to some song and dance about having no heart or some silly something. Everybody was so in to singing and dancing around here. Why couldn't they just have a normal conversation? And WHY couldn't that prissy beauty queen-of-a-witch just have transported her in that flashy bubble? Dorothy's feet were killing her! As she sat down to give them a rub she remembered that she wasn't allowed to take the shoes off. Great. No relief anytime soon.

"Waaahhhh!!!!!!" the metal man started wailing. What the heck was wrong with him? He rusted his eyelids shut with tears so Dorothy got up and oiled him again. "Thank you! I have no heart so I am sad. And when I am sad I cry. And when I cry I rust."

Great. Another needy companion. *sigh* Well, what would it hurt to invite him along? Maybe the wise and wonderful man could give him some heart so he would stop bawling like a little girly girl. "Metal Man, do you want to get yourself all fixed up with a heart? We are going to see some dude who may help us so maybe he could help you, too."

"I am made of Tin. Not just any old metal....but do you think he help me, this wonderful man you speak of?"

Toto had just about had enough of this. How many of these needy idiots was Dorothy going to invite along? She was already completely preoccupied with helping the stumbling idiot along, now the crybaby.

It was proving to be a very long trip.

to be continued.....

Disneyland for men

2011-03-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

I had no idea what I was in store for when we headed here.

Of course, HAD I known I would have prepared myself with a camera other than my cell phone. I'm not sure you can see with clarity the giddyness (is that even a word?) on my husband's face as we approached the entrance. For those of you have not had the pleasure of visiting a Bass Pro Shop I will tell you it's huge. HUGE. The title of this blog post is not an exaggeration.

It is epic for the first-time shopper.

They have everything you can imagine for the outdoor enthusiast. But more importantly for a Bass fisherman like the giddy man pictured above. Hence, the giddyness (again...is it a word?)

This was him BEFORE we even got to the parking lot. It was just a distant vision. Okay, it was a big gigantic building in the middle of nowhere. We could see it from a far. A long-way-away far.

Just entering through the front door was amazing. It's HUGE, people. There was a pond with live fish. And a waterfall. Yes, I said waterfall. And I'm not talking about a waterfall the size of the one you can buy at home depot for your back yard. I'm talking Vegas Casino-sized waterfall.

My husband was so excited he just left me standing there looking at all the wonderfulness of this place. It took me 20 minutes to find him because I took 3 more pictures after this one:

This is where I found him:

They simply had everything. EVERY. LITTLE. THING. I have never seen so many fishing lures in one location in all of my life! Rows and rows and rows of fishing lures. Like, how does someone even invent a fishing lure that doesn't already exist? Seriously?

Isn't this one cute? And it was fairly big. Kind of scares me to think of what you would want to be catching with that....and that it may be living in a body of water I'm swimming in.

Fish net anyone? They have one in every size, color and weight you could want.

Reels? They had approximately 4,278 of them. This is a horrible picture, but also only one of THREE counters full of reels. My husband liked the one that was $749.00. We bought two. Kidding.

They even had things for women. Lots of things for women...lots of pink things and pretty things and clothes and STUFF for women. See the pink camo teddy? Yeah....we DIDN'T buy that.

And things for kids:

We didn't leave empty handed. I mean, we went there with PURPOSE. My husband joined a Bass Fishing club and had a tournament to prepare for. I think he over prepared. Do you see the length of that receipt? I made him collect aluminum cans for a month to help pay for it.

Oh, by the way....I don't fish. But we both love to camp. And they have an entire 2nd floor dedicated to hunting and camping.

We were there for over 2 hours. We never made it to the 2nd floor.

Did I mention this place was huge?

I have a story to tell...

2011-03-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

But I thought I would let you ponder this face for a couple of days first.

Some observations while cleaning house

2011-02-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

Other family members always seem to have something urgent and important they must do on the day I announce the house needs cleaned. Urgent and important does not include helping me clean the house.
I hate carpeted stairs on cleaning day.
The chance that my 3 dogs will drag crap in from outside through the dog door is much greater if I have just mopped the floor.
Newspaper cleans glass better than anything else. For this reason alone I hope on-line media never makes newspapers obsolete.
I think my dog door might have been dirtier than my toilet. How is that even possible? Mostly likely because I clean the toilets every week and the dog door gets neglected for months.
Emptying the vaccuum cleaner 5 times while cleaning just the living room and hallway tell me that my dogs and cats shed entirely too much. Or maybe I have too many animals. I think they shed too much.
I wonder if auto degreaser would be too harsh on my kitchen stove/backsplash. I've used 2 Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, 27 paper towels and Dawn dishsoap and very. hot. water. I'm still not perfectly happy but my kitchen is VERY clean!!
I want to go out to dinner. Not only because I'm tired from cleaning but because I don't want to mess up my kitchen.
I want to go out for breakfast tomorrow. I'm sure I will still be tired. And I don't want to mess up my kitchen.
I never want to cook in my kitchen again.

Variation on the 5 second rule

2011-02-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

You know the rule: if something falls on the floor you have 5 seconds to pick it up and eat it before it is considered poor taste. Or white trash. Or glutonous. Or something.

Anyway, I'm on a string of night shifts. I got up this "morning" (aka 1:30 p.m.) and made some coffee. I had exactly enough half and half to make ONE. CUP. OF. COFFEE. One cup of delicious, soul-awakening coffee.

After I mixed this blessed cup of goodness I noticed something floating on the top. Hmmm....what is this? A small gnat?

*pause*

Is it wrong that I actually considered removing the bug and still drinking my coffee? It was technically within the 5 second guidelines.

The big hair coloring debate

2011-01-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

I don't color my hair.

I used to. Heck, it was just about every color you can buy out of a box over a period of 7 years. I blogged about going gray here.

Almost 2 years later and I still don't regret it.

But recently a co-worker and I had this whole debate about me coloring my hair. He said it aged me and he thought overall I just looked better with my hair colored (refer to my blogger profile picture). I guess it's a good thing I'm married to the Mr. and not him, eh? Anyway, during this debate I was trying to find some examples of women who I think have pulled the gray off beautifully and gracefully.

Up first: Jamie Lee Curtis

There is no denying that this woman is gorgeous. She may want to rethink her bra choice when wearing black when she knows she is going to be photographed. But she even rocks THAT. Hmmm...I wonder if those have been lifted? That's an entirely different post.

Next: Emmy Lou Harris. This was the picture I used as an example of gray-haired beauty to my co-worker.

Photo from Dick Hall Productions, Inc.

His response? "Yuck." Seriously? Who would NOT want to look like that? Emmy Lou Harris totally rocks the gray. She has embraced her aging process since it began.

I wonder how many teenagers she raised?

The other part of this debate is about men going gray. Why is it that a man is considered distinguished when he goes gray? And why is it fair that a woman's gray is considered...well...aging? I mean that IS what we are all doing. Aging. Why can't we just be okay with that? Men or women. It is just a natural progression of life. Kind of like needing to be closer to a bathroom. Oh, come on. You know it's true.

I have some friends that color because of the way the gray is coming in. Spotty or in chunks around their temples. Well if you are going to color anyway, why not investigate coloring/highlighting to mock more of the gray so it all blends in while it comes in?

Apparently I'm pro-gray. I certainly don't begrudge a woman for coloring. I did for years, afterall. And coloring is kind of fun. I will probably debate this to death with my co-worker. Or not since I don't think either of us has a chance of swaying the other person to their side. We'll just agree to disagree...and I will continue to make tally points of the compliments I get on my gray. (And for you, Rick, since I know you might read this: I've had 3 since our conversation. I'll name names if you would like but I don't really see the point.)

Doggie Trauma (Warning! Graphic pics!)

2011-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

In the area of responsible pet ownership I will admit that I have missed the mark a few times. Not getting cats spayed in a timely fashion, forgetting to get flea medication, feeding my animals table scraps that later required me to put them on a diet and not exercising them as much as they need to top my list.

But when it comes to serious matters of the heart...and dealing with a pet that's injured or in pain...pretty much everything else in my life comes to an abrupt halt.

My life over the weekend came to an abrupt drive over a cliff.

I've blogged about Hamish many times over the course of the three years I've been here. But the "cone of shame" (name that movie) hasn't ever been part of my stories.

We had a little scuffle between pets last Friday. I think food could have been involved. It's just never a good idea to get between Hamish and his food. Or Hamish and your food. Or Hamish and anything that resembles food.

The dog likes to eat. Have I mentioned that?

One thing led to another and the next thing I know I am paying the price for a small, (very) used car to repair a dislocated hip. And although he is in some pain I think overall Hamish really, really, REALLY liked all the attention from the cute girls at the vet's office. He ate it up. (Did you catch that? "Ate it up"...because Hamish likes to eat? And that's how this started, remember? Okay, never mind. If I have to work that hard for the joke it's just not funny.)

But the poor little guy really is in some pain.

I'm pretty sure we are in for a long month. The instructions of "very little activity" shouldn't be a problem since he normally just took bathroom trips outside, ran to the food dish, ran to the other food dishes and then layed back down. He wasn't real active to begin with....unless he was playing with Buddy.

But he's been put on a diet.

Have mercy. How do you put a beagle on a diet with 2 other dogs in the house? HOW?

He looks like he already knows we will be withholding food.

And he ain't happy.

This child of mine

2011-01-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

has turned a corner in her life. She is just a couple months shy of being 19, working, going to college...and has become smitten with a dude. And apparently he is pretty smitten with her. I'll call this dude Nick (because that's his name). Nick has known my daughter for quite some time but couldn't convince her to go out with him until last year. It's pretty much been non-stop since then.

On New Year's Day while I was working, Nick approached my husband and asked if he could have a chat. The house was full of people so my husband jokingly said, "What? Do you want to marry my daughter or something?" The reply? "Well, since you brought it up." Troy looked around, looked at Nick and told him they would talk later.

He promptly took two pain pills and went to lay down.

He left that poor kid in limbo ALL. DAY. at the house. I'm sure it was agonizing but Troy was of the opinion that it is a right of passage for a guy when asking the dad permission to take his little girl away. He had to do it with MY dad so I guess he figured this was his moment for paybacks.

He called me when I was on my way home and told me to call when I was in front of the house. I asked why but he wouldn't tell me. This is NEVER a good thing in the history of things at the Pryor house. So of course I immediately threw up. Okay, I didn't really throw up. But I wanted to. It's the same thing. As I approach the house I can see my oldest son piling in a car with 4 other people. I see another car I'm not familiar with which means my other son is there. And my daughter's car is there. I call. Troy comes out and hops in the car. I look at him, waiting. Anticipating what is to come. I wanted to throw up in his lap. "What happened?" is my natural question when he says nothing for approximately 2 seconds. I think I waited long enough. Don't judge me. He looks at me all unconcerned about the state of my stomach and announces we are just going to dinner.

After we have ordered our food, Troy takes a deep breath and says, "Well, I guess Nick and Lindsay want to get married." It's funny how the unknown wanted to make me hurl but actually knowing rendered me speechless. This is a pretty difficult thing to do. Troy explained how the day had unfolded and that Nick was wanting to talk to him. I looked at him, confused. "You mean you still haven't had this talk?" He had not. That poor kid was still at our house waiting for the conversation. Nice. So I asked the next logical question. "Well, what are you going to tell him?"

"I'm going to tell him NO."

I laughed. It was my other natural response. So we had a long talk over dinner about how they could pretty much do whatever they wanted since they were both over 18 but wasn't it nice that he was doing the old-fashioned thing and asking permission.

We finally got home. The conversation took place. My husband lived.

There's no date. No solid plans....other than the fact they are looking 4 years out. Lindsay wants to finish school first. They are talking. Being responsible. Thoughtful.

I would love to lecture them both about how young they are, that life is full of challenges and that they need to prepare emotionally and financially for what they are about to embark on. But who am I to say a word? She's the same age I was when Troy proposed to me....but I didn't have a 4 year plan.

Mine was 6 months.

*sigh*

My Wizard of Oz saga

2011-01-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

will be continued shortly...but I have to tell you that I was sad I hadn't waited a few months before I started the story because I got this cute guy for Christmas:

In case you don't recognize him that's Professor Marvel. Since he makes his appearance in the beginning of the story it's really too late to include him. But I had to share.

I know. Riveting.

41 reasons I haven't updated my blog

2011-01-23T04:32:00.001-08:00

I figured since it has been 41 long days since I last updated, and the fact we are in a completely new year, I would give you 41 reasons for being such a slacker. I know you've all been sitting on the edge of your seats for an update anyway, right? Right?

I'm a slacker
I was working
Christmas shopping took too long
Christmas baking was intense
I had to wrap gifts
Then I was opening gifts
I went shoe shopping
My diet made me cranky and nobody wants a cranky blogger
It was raining so I went outside to sing
Blogger's block
Writer's block. This is completely different than blogger's block. I'm just not sure how. But it is.
I was watching the Wizard of Oz
I got a new coloring book for Christmas and it NEEDED to be used. Yes, I said a coloring book. Yes, I'm 45. Dude...it's a Wizard of Oz coloring book that's 3 ft. x 2 ft. It took me a looooong time to color in it.
I was celebrating New Years. In bed. Trying to sleep because I had to work at 5:30 the next morning. But how can you really get mad at people partying in the new year?
I was making tutus for two very special little girls
Some of my time was spent sleeping. Probably not enough.
I was napping. This is not the same as sleeping. I'm not sure how. But it is.
I was trying to sleep. This is not the same as actual sleeping or actual napping. I actually KNOW how this is different. It even has a different name....insomnia. It about killed me during the two weeks before Christmas.
I bought an ice scraper. AN ICE SCRAPER. I live in California, people. This one event alone probably set me back 7 days as the shock and horror of having to scrape my windshields before I went to work (or as I was leaving work after night shift) gave me hives.
I was using my ice scraper.
I had hives.
I packed up all the Christmas decorations.
I packed up all the Christmas decorations. No, I am not cheating by listing this item twice. I did it twice. Once for my mom and once at my own house. So there.
My message boards were looking for me. Okay, not really. But I didn't want to neglect my message boards.
I was scrapbooking. Yes, I actually did a wee-bit of scrapbooking.
In an effort to combat this gradual weight gain between the Mr. and I, I spent 2 hours meal planning.
I spent 2 hours shopping for all those planned meals.
Another 10 hours of cooking each meal.
Another 10 minutes of eating each meal. I'm trying to lose weight. The portions are a little small.
I was flossing my teeth. What? I just told you I had been eating.
I applied for a new job.
I threw up after I hit the "apply now" button.
I was brushing my teeth. What? I just told you....never mind.
I learned how to play the piano. Okay, this is just a lie. But I've always WANTED to play the piano. That counts.
Approximately 5 minutes of my life was spent watching a birthday video that my brother made me. I will never get that 5 minutes back.
My dogs needed to go for a walk. I have 4 of them.
My dogs needed to go for a walk.
My dogs needed to go for a walk.
My dogs needed to go for a walk. What? I HAVE 4 OF THEM!
We were buying new furniture.
I really just wasn't doing anything all that interesting.

Wow. I really have a lot of reasons I haven't been here. Okay, I have excuses. One of my goals this year is to be a better blogger. 2010 was filled with some....ummmmm...."challenges" and sometimes blogging just fell to the bottom of the priorities. But strangely enough blogging/writing is calming and therapeutic for me so I need to get here more often. Besides....nobody likes a stale bog.

Wait. Did I just compare blogging and writing as practically the same thing? Craaaap.

42. I was thinking about blogging.

I promise not to be gone so long.

As you can imagine

2010-12-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

This has made it to the tippy-top of my Wish List. I've already started making a list for supplies.

MUST.HAVE.THIS.

Someone REALLY should have asked a woman....

2010-12-12T00:34:00.000-08:00

My work location has recently changed. We upgraded to a huge, fancy new compound. Yes, compound. I chose that word on purpose. I mean, they don't make us drink Kool Aid or anything but it is heavily gated/guarded/watched 24/7/365.

One of the great things about our new digs is the fancy new control room where I work. It's very shiny and new and clean and wonderful. There are lots of buttons to push and graphic displays to ogle over and big screens to view the 27 different windows of data we have to look at.

But there are some weird things about it. Design flaws if you will.

Like the recent episode that took place when a light bulb needed to be changed.

Seriously, people. No INDOOR light bulb should EVER require a hydraulic hoist in order to be changed. If they would have just asked a woman for an opinion on the size/scale/design of this room she would have immediately asked the question, "It's nice and all, but who is going to change those light bulbs?"

We don't even do light bulbs that require a chair so I'm pretty sure this little detail would NOT have gone unnoticed during the design phase.

FAIL.

Sleeping Women....romantic movie version vs. real life

2010-11-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

I was listening to Garth Brooks on the way to the dentist the other day. Don't hate. I like country music. What about it?

ANYWAY this beautiful, romantic melody came on called "If Tomorrow Never Comes".

Let's not get caught up in the fact that this song COULD have been written to his daughter, or his mother, or his wife (who all appear in this video)...his wife, who he ended up cheating on with another Country Music star, Trisha Yearwood (whom he later married)...let's just focus on the words at the very beginning of this beautiful love song:

Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark

Every romantic movie I've ever seen where the leading lady is sleeping always has her looking like she just layed down after getting home from a day at the salon. Beautiful and angelic. Makeup perfect and not a hair out of place...unless it is perfectly tossled around the pillow. And couples will always wake up gazing at each other and immediately embrace in some long passionate kiss. Something to behold, for sure. And this song certainly brings that vision to one's mind wouldn't you say? I would. And that's all that matters since this is my blog.

However, reality is much more harsh. Not very romantic at all most of the time.

Drool, snoring, morning breath and bed head. That's reality.

Well, it's my reality.

Well, it's my husband's reality.

Irony in its rawest form

2010-11-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

My daughter and I were having a conversation last week about the state of our family. We discussed some history of things that have happened in the last 6-7 years. For me it was nice that it was a conversation about things that have come to pass. Our little family has had some...ummmm..."challenges" over those past 6-7 years.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You've heard that expression, yes? Yes. Me, too. I've actually lived that expression. Is that even possible? To "live" an expression?

I digress. Back to this conversation I was having with Lindsay...

We had talked through much of the previous years and had a brief moment of silence when suddenly she looked at me and said in all seriousness, "Well, Mom, we survived. And we are better and everyone is healthy."

I hesitated at this remark. I looked at her, looked around and laughed. And then she laughed. We laughed together for about 5 minutes at the irony of her statement because this was the setting at the time of our conversation:

Yes, that's a hospital bed.

The Wizard of Oz....A classic retold....Part 3

2010-11-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

In case you missed them....Part 1 and Part 2

Entire cast of characters provided by Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Collection.

*********************************

Dorothy was still trying to get used to all of this color blinding her poor sepia-trained eyes. Then trying to deal with that nasty green woman. Ugh! What's with all the threats and stuff? She was an innocent victim in all of this witch business. It was giving her a headache. She really needed an ibuprofen or some caffeine.

Or maybe she just needed to go home.

"I just want to go home. Back to the land of colorless people and flat, never-ending treeless land. Boring home. This is over-stimulating every sense I have and it's making me sick. How do I get HOOOOOME?!"

Toto was very tired of all this whining. He didn't want to go back to Kansas. He was liking all of this positive attention. Well, except for that green witch who reeked of cats.

Glenda sighed. Whatever. So the brat wants to go home. Let her. She was, after all, taking away some of the attention usually saved for herself and the colorful little people. She certainly could not stand for this lack of attention for any extended period of time.

"See those yellow bricks? Well, it's actually a long, long road that will take you to a wise and mysterious man who most certainly has the answer you need to get you home."

Dorothy looked over and saw a winding yellow brick road. A very long, winding, uneven, yellow brick road. She sighed. It was going to be a long day because not only did she have a marathon of a walk to accomplish, she had to do it in these horribly uncomfortable red sparkly shoes. Who walks that far in HEELS? Ugh! And why was this supposedly good witch wanting her to do something that would no doubt require a lifetime of visits to the podiatrist?? If she was really good she would just fly her around in that pink bubble of hers.

"So I just follow this yellow brick road? And that will get me home?"

It had no sooner come out of Dorothy's mouth when all the colorful little people started chanting "follow the yellow brick road" and then broke out in song. It was as if they had rehearsed this over and over and over just waiting for some fool to come crashing down in a house in to their little existence.

"I've gotta get out of here. I'm becoming delirious. Let's go, Toto!!"

Toto was more than happy to oblige. As much as he loved all of this attention he really needed to find a fire hydrant. Or some patch of grass. Or both. And he really hoped Dorothy had some small baggies to clean up after him.

It wasn't long after she got started that Dorothy came upon a fork in the yellow brick road. When pondering which way to go she heard a voice that didn't know any better which way to go than she did.

"But there isn't anybody around but this silly looking straw man."

But Toto knew exactly where the voice had come from. It WAS from the straw man. How dumb did this dude have to be not to know which way to go? Certainly he was familiar with his own neighborhood.

"Hey, girly. Can you get me down from here? I need to stretch...and I promise I'll show you the real way to go if you do."

Dorothy thought about it for exactly 2 seconds. Again, Toto was alarmed at this girl's lack of stranger-danger awareness. But as the dude fell on the ground and flounced around like an idiot he decided there really was no harm.

"Where are you headed?" he asked the dynamic duo.

"To find some wise and wonderful man that will tell me how to get home."

"Do you think I could come with you? I could really use some brains and if he is as wise as you say maybe he could hook a scarecrow up."

Scarecrow? Toto could not believe his flea-bitten ears. This guy wasn't scary at all. Maybe he COULD use some brains to figure out how to do his job better. What could be the harm?

"Sure! I could use the company!" replied Dorothy.

And off they skipped own the beaten yellow brick road. Dorothy was really hoping they didn't have much further to go. Especially since this scarecrow dude wasn't a very good walker. It was going to be a long journey if she had to constantly help him up.

Little did she know.

To be continued....

Dear Blog,

2010-11-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hi there. How are you? I hope you are doing well. What? You are lonely? I'm sorry. I suppose that is my own fault since I have, after all, been MIA for almost 3 months. What's that? Where in the world have I been? I've been home. And at work. Took a small vacation with my mom and oldest son. But you know what? Mostly I've just been focusing my energies on some things that needed to take a higher priority than the internet. I'm sorry it made you lonely. It kind of made me lonely, too, since I really enjoy coming here and rambling on and on about things that are completely insignificant. It's a good diversion from reality and a wonderful little stress release.

What? I must not have any stress since I don't need you for an outlet?

Yeah. We'll go with that.

It was good to chat with you again. Let's have lunch tomorrow. You seem hungry....and I have a story I need to finish.

Hugs & Kisses!!

The Wizard of Oz....A classic retold....Part 2

2010-08-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you missed Part 1, read it here.

Entire cast of characters provided by Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Collection.

*********************************

"It's a Twister!"

So there was, like, this HUGE storm. And it was very scary for Dorothy because Uncle Henry and Auntie Em locked her out of the storm cellar. They were still pretty peeved about her running away. So she ran in the house to try and get in the bathtub but hit her head. When she woke up she was dazed and confused.

"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Toto didn't care where he was. He was happy to be SOMEWHERE different. And over the rainbow seemed like a happy, colorful place to be. Away from that hormonal mean Miss Nasty-what's-her-face. He was just pretty intrigued by all these small, strangly-dressed people.

Just as Dorothy and Toto were admiring all this color, a floating sphere lands in the middle of everyone. A beautiful but obviously self-centered, attention-seeking blonde appears. She takes one look at Dorothy and knows she has nothing to worry about. I mean, who wears blue gingham without sparkles? And that mousey brown hair? Puh-leeeze!

"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" She asks Dorothy. But she already knows the answer. She is a bad witch. Good witches have a much better sense of style.

"I'm not a witch at all. Witches are mean and ugly...like this mean and ugly Menopausal woman back home. She is, like, sooooo nasty. I think she needs to take some natural vitamin supplements or something because her moods are...."

"Ummm...EXCUSE ME! I'm Glenda the Good Witch and I'm the most beautiful creature ever. And I sparkle more than any vampire you've ever seen. Besides my natural beauty I'm also beaming with personality and humility. Don't you think?"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Yes, you are quite beautiful!"

"I know, right?"

After all the admiration and forced complimenting came to an end, Glenda explained to Dorothy that she must be a bad witch because of her horrible fashion sense. Oh, and because her space-vehicle-house landed on a rotten witch.

"Yep, she's dead."

"I'm not a witch! I'm just plain old Dorothy Gale from Kansas. I don't mind my Aunt and Uncle very well and I cause lots of trouble for them by letting my dog chase cats." Despite her pleadings, Dorothy couldn't believe it when she looked down and those sparkly shoes had suddenly appeared on her own feet. Red? RED? I'm not red shoe material, she thought. I'm from the land of sepia tones. Toto was not impressed by any of this.

Just then a huge cloud of black smoke appeared. After it cleared a woman, who clearly had been exposed to copper for far too long, got all up in Dorothy's grill about killing her sister or something. Apparently she wanted those silly red shoes because they went better with black than blue gingham.

The shoes wouldn't come off. Apparently there was some magical spell attached to them. The nasty green lady was plenty pissed off about this and called Dorothy pretty, referenced Toto as a little dog, then disappeared in a huff. The mean greenie seemed familiar to Dorothy but she couldn't quite place where she knew her. And how would she know her, anyway?

But Toto knew. He could smell her cats....

To Be Continued....

Remember that OTHER blog I have?

2010-07-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I update that one, too. But unless you scrapbook, are nosey, or just plain bored of all the sillyness on THIS blog you probably haven't ventured over there much. But there is an event that I didn't want anyone to miss out on! Check it out!!

TEXAS SCRAPFEST

Woe is the Shift Worker

2010-07-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

That's right. Woe is me. Please proceed through this post with caution. Heavy whining ahead.

I'm a shift worker. I know. Big deal, right? I hear your voices. "We all have to pull our weight around here, Missy. Suck it up." Whatever.

I don't normally complain or try to gain sympathy over the fact I work 12 hour shifts, rotating between days and nights. I CHOSE this line of work after all. 6:00 to 6:00, people. Work 4 days. Have a day off. Work 3 nights. Have 3 days off. Which is really like 2-1/2 days off because I'm actually working midnight until 6:00 a.m. on my scheduled "day off" and then sleeping until the middle of the day. But I digress.

And did you actually follow that anyway? I've been a shift worker for over 7 years and my husband is just finally getting a handle on my 6 week rotation. I just gave you a preview of the first 2 weeks. I don't expect you to get it in one post.

One long-winded, whining post.

Shift workers have all kinds of tricks that they use to make sleeping during the day easier.

Blackout curtains of some kind are almost a necessity whether it be in the form of some expensive hotel-like blackout curtains or a sleeping bag nailed over the window. Whatever works. We aren't picky. My husband suggested lining the window with tin foil then putting up the blinds/curtains. I declined because I didn't want the neighbors thinking I'm running a crack lab here. I already come and go at strange hours of the day/night. Notneed to up the suspicion radar.
White noise: There are many options here. A fan, special radio-type devices that play different sounds, TV on low, etc. Just a note here....barking dogs, ringing doorbells and garbage trucks do not fit in the category of white noise. They fit in to the category of "somebody better stop that right now before they die" category. Remember this.
Sleep aids: The majority of the shift workers I know personally who take any sleep aid take a natural supplement called Melatonin. Sometimes when desperate to just get some extra shut-eye popping a Tylenol PM will do the trick.

"Riveting, Cheri. Who cares?" I told you all of that to tell you this. I've been on night shifts the last few days. Well, nights. Whatever. And my attempt at sleep was thwarted. The house next door is getting a new roof. Not just some new shingles. A whole. New. Roof.

Let me paint this picture a little better for you. My bedroom is on the second story. On the same side of the house as the neighbor getting a new roof. The roof of a single story home. It would be easy to invite the roofers through the window for a nice cold drink. Sweet.

Background TV noise. Check. Nice dark room. Check. Sleep? Can't quite check that off my list. Skill saws, nail guns, yelling. Putting on a new roof is noisy, people.

So after the first day (and approximately 3 hours of sleep before I worked my night shift) I decided I would go sleep in the bedroom on the other side of the house. I fell asleep quickly. Only to be awakened by a large DOG barking at the house on the OTHER side of us 2 hours later....non stop....and I could hear the skill saws, nail guns and yelling from the roofers, albeit slightly muffled from the previous day. But when you are just completely annoyed and sleep deprived you can hear water dripping in the kitchen sink downstairs. The sense of hearing becomes like a freakin' radar and NOTHING is missed. It's like my ear turned in to a Venus Fly Trap for noise. It makes me cranky, people. Very cranky. My co-workers love me when I haven't slept.

The roofers stopped working at 1:30. So I went back to my own bedroom and got a couple more hours of sleep. Before my night shift. Of 12 hours. At night.

I've got 2 days off now. Guess what I'll be...... zzzzzzzzzzzzz......... zzzzzzzzzzz........... zzzzzzzzzz

The Wizard of Oz....A classic retold....Part 1

2010-07-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

Entire cast of characters provided by Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Collection.

One time there was this chick named Dorothy Gale. She was pretty pale and had a bad dog named Toto. He liked to chase cats. One time he, like, chased the town bitty's cat for about the 1,000th time. Her name was Miss Gulch. She was totally mad! They ran home when she yelled.

"Auntie Em! Uncle Henry! OMG! Help me!" she cried.

Uncle Henry was tired of all this drama, drama, drama! Where was this girl's mother, anyway? Whatever. Let her dog be in trouble. He really just wanted to retire. Auntie Em was tired, too, from counting chickens. Do you even KNOW how hard it is to count all those silly little yellow chirping chickens? Sheesh! There was no time for stupid teenage drama. "Go play with the ranch hands and just stay out of trouble for, like, 2 seconds!"

Miss Gulch came to the farm to take Toto away. She was angry all the time because she had a big nose and was ugly and had too many cats. "Give me that dog or the cops are comin'!"

"No! You are mean and ugly! You suck!"

Uncle Henry rolled his eyes. He was just sooooo tired of all this drama. Why couldn't she just go sneak a sip from the copper still like all the other rebellious teenagers? "Dorothy, give her the mutt. She makes large campaign contributions so she has the law on her side. Besides, the dog chow is gettin' expensive."

Auntie Em was tired of counting chickens and just couldn't take it anymore. Plus she was menopausal. "Elmira Gulch! If this wasn't a rated PG movie I would tell you what a beeotch you are!"

Fade to music *Da da tada da da daaaa...da da tada da daaaa*

"I'm taking this dog to the pound. He will never chase my cat again. I will be able to conquer the prize as the crazy cat lady once and for all! Mwhahahaha!!!"

Toto had other ideas. "I'm outta here. And when I get back to the farm I'm totally bitin' that Henry dude in the shin."

"OMG! Toto! You've, like, totally come home! We better make like a banana and split this joint before that ugly broad comes back!"

So the brat ran away. Then she decided to go in to some complete strange man's magic wagon. What? Yep. No stranger-danger lessons for Dorothy. But he made her realize home ain't such a rough gig by tricking her in to thinking her Auntie Em was sick. He was kind of a jerk because there was a big storm coming and he just ran her off right in to it.

To be continued....

Nobody likes a stale blog....

2010-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm reposting a favorite from my archives. Enjoy!

***********************************

THESE ARE A FEW OF
MY FAVORITE THINGS
Originally posted on September 19, 2008

I'm big on nostalgia. Remember the whole Wizard of Oz thing? Yeah. *sigh* Anyway, I love to look around on the internet for remnants of childhood things from my past. It's always fun to run across that one special thing you remember so fondly from your younger years. And seeing them up for auction makes my heart pound and my brow sweat slightly. Because I want them. I really, really do! All the images you see in this post are from around the world wide web....and they are images of toys/games that I actually had growing up. *sigh*

I go back in time often to think about all kinds of things from my childhood:
Television shows
Commercials
Food
Music
Clothes

But my absolute favorite things to think about and search out on the internet are toys and games. Mostly because those are the specific things that make me feel young again, know what I mean? I loved my toys, people! And games....oh, the games my family had!! *sigh* Those are some wonderful memories.

I *sigh* a lot when I'm walking down memory lane.

And we all have our favorites. The ones we remember distinctly. The ones you can actually still smell if you close your eyes and think hard enough....or can at least recreate the smell by going to any toy department and smelling all the new toys. (Be careful nobody sees you doing that. You are bound to be questioned.)

And my favorites? Well.....barbie certainly topped my list. I had a ton of them...and she was well dressed and lived a life of luxury!

And before the "Kelly" barbie...there were Liddle Kiddles. I had tons of these things, but those pictured are the ones I distinctly remember. I still have the pink-haired one, but her pretty smelly hair has long since been replaced by the lovely smell of vintage...and one foot has been chewed off by someone or something. I'm not playing innocent here. I chewed on stuff. It totally could have been me.

And there were flatsy dolls....

And my other dolls (I liked dolls. What about it?) .....

And the games....lots and lots and lotsandlotsandlots of games....

But BY FAR my most coveted memory of all....is this:

Let me just explain Baby Go Bye-Bye for you. First...how cute is that little car she cruises around in?! Do you see the little butterfly on the hood? That's what you use to wind up the car. And this was no plain 'ol forward motion car. This little sucker swerved and circled all over the place and you never knew exactly where it was gonna go bye bye to. I LOVED THIS DOLL!! (Can you feel my excitement?) And the doll itself was too cute for words. But here's some words anyway. Her little head bobbled a little.....so as the car was zig-zagging all over the place, her little head just bobbed around with her cute little pigtails and rosey litte cheeks. I LOVED THIS DOLL!!

And I had my favorite childhood doll until I was 24...then someone stole a bunch of things from our garage and she was never to be seen again. Baby really did go bye-bye. *sigh*

I sigh a lot when I think of my Baby Go Bye-Bye.

This one is actually for sale on Ebay right now:

Box and all. It's mint. I'm very tempted to bid on it. I bid on one just like this a couple of years ago....and almost won. I would have, actually, if I would have been willing to up my max bid to TWO HUNDRED FREAKIN' DOLLARS!!! And this one is certain to go that high. Maybe I'll bid on one without the box. But it MUST be accompanied with the car. It's not the same without the car.

Childhood nostalgia shouldn't be priced so high. *sigh*

For now I suppose I'll just keep surfing the net and watching auctions. I know one day I'll have it. I must. My husband isn't opposed to it....as long as I bid and win on HIS favorite:

Must be a mid-life crisis. I'm sure we'll both get over it soon.

10 Random things from the last 10 days...

2010-06-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

1.
10 days ago we did this

I cried some. Okay, I cried more than that. Whatever. Don't judge me. Congratulations to my daughter and her best friends, Virginia and Rhea!

2.
After seeing some of the graduation pictures I have decided YET AGAIN to get back on track with weight loss. Just as soon as 4th of July weekend is over. Because how can you diet over 4th of July? Or probably after my birthday. Because how can you diet when you want to eat birthday cake? Or maybe after.....

3.
The AC has gone out in our house. With temperatures forecasted to be in the high 90's (or 100 on Sunday) we are under the gun to get this situation resolved. My husband normally keeps our thermostat set around 68. No, I'm not kidding. I usually wear a sweatshirt and slippers. Well, not JUST a sweatshirt and slippers but you get the picture. So I'm actually thawed out and happy and my husband is miserable and cranky. Last night it was a balmy 82 degrees in our house and ManPryor was none too happy as he sulked upstairs with a floor fan in his hand to go to bed.

4.
This is my mother. At the graduation bbq. This was meant for the bbq master ManPryor but it was too hot to wear it. It fits her perfectly, don't you agree? Maybe a little too perfect.

5.
My sister gave me some cute shirts last week. Really cute. I wore one to work yesterday. It is green with some gold sparkly running throughout it. One hour in to my work day my desk area looked like Tinkerbell had been running amuck. I shared my pixie dust with some of my crew members. I'm sure their wives will be thrilled as they try to explain, "I really WAS at work, honey!"

6.
Big Red has been returned. All fixed up and shined up and pretty. I'm sure he's happy to be back home. We are feeing very overprotective and will be getting an alarm system installed as soon as our home AC is fixed. Priorities, people. ManPryor needs to be happy before inadament object Big Red feels secure.

7.
This is me taking a picture of my brother taking a picture.

This is my brother taking a picture of me taking a picture.

We aren't normally so immature, taking pictures of such stupid things. Yeah. That's right. You heard me. We are pretty serious, mature people who take outstanding pictures of things really important that document a wonderful time so that we can remember them forever. And share them for generations to come. Well, except for these two. And the picture of my mother. And these....

8.
How many drivers out there really think the rule of "slower vehicles use right hand lane" really means "slower vehicles use the left hand lane for MILES even when there are many vehicles behind you that want to go the speed limit and you are not allowing that to happen." Based on my commutes to and from work this week I would say about 278 in the Sacramento area alone.

9.
This is a picture of my sister's mouth. Specifically her "bling". Can you see it? Don't be jealous. It's only temporary.

Is it weird that she has been listening to a lot of NWA, Eminem and Snoop Dogg? I think she is secretly enjoying it and I'm wondering if this is just the first step towards this:

10.
I'm traveling to Los Angeles for work this weekend. The last time I went to our southern office this happened. I will be taking every precaution I can to ensure no wardrobe malfunctions take place. I will also be traveling with a sweater. Just in case. My hope is that the trip will be completely uneventful.

You are probably hoping for something different. Like something more typical for me. I'm not even sure what typical for me is anymore. Either way, I'll update when I return.

Or sooner if necessary.

I'm hoping it's not necessary. But I've already covered that.

Later-

The signs....they're everywhere

2010-06-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

First I saw this when I came home from running a bunch of errands.

And this

Then I walked in the house and saw this laying on the fireplace

And this...which sent tears to my eyes.

I finally saw this on my couch. It's one of my daughter's best friends, Virginia, apparently exhausted from all the senior activities that have taken place over the last week. I'm not sure any of those activities have had anything to do with studying anything.

The food is ready to bbq. The cake is ordered. The decorations bought. The guests invited. I shall be up early getting the last minute details taken care of.

And I shall be wearing waterproof mascara.

And carrying tissue.

From the moment I wake up tomorrow.

Speaking of "boys" and their toys...

2010-06-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Remember Buddy?

I think we've been through 10 Buddys since that blog post first introducing him. We currently have 3 scattered throughout the yard/house. As I was taking pictures of the boy-toy on our back porch yesterday a scenario unfolded right in front of the camera.

This was one of them lurking in the background of my picture.

And this is what happened when Tilly wandered over to investigate Buddy. I really wish there was video but you'll have to just use your own imagination and insert some low growling noises. It is also important to note that I haven't seen Hamish move that fast since....since...well since getting fed this morning.

No female is going to touch the boy toy. Not that any of us female-types would want to touch that particular one. It's been outside in the rain. It's smelling pretty ripe.

Just the way the boy likes it....

Boys and their toys

2010-06-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

While catching up on all my blog reading this morning...because, you know, I don't have anything else I should be doing *cough-cough*....I read an update from Cassandra about a gift she bought her boyfriend. She closed it out with a little comment about boys and their toys.

Can I ever relate.

Despite the fact that my husband owns a perfectly good fishing boat, this is currently sitting on my back porch. It is the result of several shopping trips over the last 9 months.

It's been sitting on my porch for almost a week now. My husband has A LOT of extra time on his hands. In his excitement of the weather clearing up (and let's be honest, he was bored) he decided to get this toy down from the rafters of the garage and do some experimenting with it before his next big adventure with his uncle.

This little floater in the back is what he referred to as his "dingy". I thought dingys were much bigger. I'll make no additional comments on this.

This is where the experimenting came in to play. He has taken a crate and zip-tied it to the raft. He then zip-tied the fishing pole holder to the crate. And of course if you have a 3-pole holder you HAVE to have 3 poles. I can't even fathom what extra expense he will go to in filling the crate with fishing "essentials". And since I don't really fish I'll have to trust him that everything he buys really is "essential". Yeah. Right.

When I walked out there the other night I caught him gazing lovingly at this creation. This toy. This work of experimental art. He was actually sitting in the thing. I pondered over this for a bit and asked him a single question.

"You do realize this thing needs water, right?"

Don't you hate when people have contests and leave you hanging?

2010-06-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

Me, too.

What? I did that? On THIS blog? For shame.

I kept hoping I would get one of the members of my household to draw a name for me. But nobody was ever around when I remembered, "Oh, I have this contest I need to close out." So I decided today I better just plug in my numbers to random.org and pick a winner.

So I did. My first random winner was #7...which was MY response comment. Sweet. So I had to pay closer attention to how many actual entries I had. So after recounting (eliminating duplicate entries and my own) the winning number is:

So if you count through the comments, skipping any multiple comments and mine that makes the winner "jasonhaspeopleskills". He doesn't need to email me for his prize. I'm already well aware how to get in touch with him. In fact I'll probably see him for 12 hours tomorrow night while he sits at the desk right next to me at work.

Congrats, Jason! And thanks to everyone for commenting and visiting me. More ramblings shortly....

You goons can steal my truck...

2010-05-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

but you left an important top secret item in your haste.

That's right, you idiots. Take my rims. Take my tires. Rip my stereo system out. But you left this treasure because you obviously do not know the value of the secret recipe for my special coffee at our favorite drive-thru coffee place.

All is right in my world.

If you're interested in trying to win other stuff....

2010-05-27T13:18:00.001-07:00

Go here:

http://www.nannygoatsinpanties.com/rachael-ray-cookware-set-giveaway

for a chance to win some cool Rachael Ray cookware!! While you're there, read up on the Nanny Goat's posts. She's hilarious!

Tour of California....and my 200th post Giveaway!!

2010-05-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of cycling. I own a bike, but it is an Electra Cruiser (red...like ruby slippers...with a basket on the front. So what?) so I hardly think that qualifies as "cycling". Plus don't you have to actually get ON the bike to cycle? Yeah.

But when I heard that the first route of the Amgen Tour of California would be cruising by less than one mile from my house I was a little giddy. I was sure I would be catching a glimpse of Lance. That would be Lance Armstrong for those who don't know him personally *cough-cough* like I do. You've heard of him, right?

Anyway, I was in the middle of a string of night shifts but I had it all figured out. I could sleep 5 hours, get up and go sit on the curb and wait for Lance to wave at me, then go back home for an hour nap before work. Yay!

I drug my poor husband out for the fun, as well. Doesn't he look thrilled?

Whatever. He was having fun. I told him so. I also told him that this was a chance for me to have my 15 minutes of fame. "What if I jumped out in front of the herd of cyclists? And knocked someone over? I could be famous! The video would totally go viral on Youtube!" All he had to say about this plan was to make sure I knocked out Lance. If I was going for fame then I better go big.

I would never do that. I'm all talk. A "rule-follower" if you will. Just the idea of it all made me sweat like I had actually done something wrong. My 15 minutes of fame will not take place on this day.

We waited about 40 minutes and finally heard the helicopter overhead. It was the sign we had been waiting for! The helicopter was filming the entire event for Versus and we knew the riders were close. So I hopped up off the curb and got my camera ready. Here is the breakout bunch (sounds like a boy band):

And approximately one minute behind them came the rest of the riders:

Can you see Lance? Waving at me? Yeah. Me, neither. I guess he was just too busy and focused to see me as he went speeding by about 30 mph with the rest of the bunch.

And it was over. Just like that. 40 minutes of waiting to see 2 minutes of riders....and about 10 minutes of support vehicles. People...look at the amount of money strapped to the roofs of those cars!!

My plan worked perfectly. I was back home just in time for a 1 hour nap. And I got to witness a cycling event that is now the most popular in the United States right in my own backyard. Almost literally! It was pretty exciting. I think the jury is still out for my husband.

And speaking of exciting...THIS IS MY 200TH POST!! Who knew I could blab on and on about nothing for this long. Well, besides just about anyone who knows me personally? So in honor of this delightful occassion I'm giving away a $25.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com. All you have to do is leave a comment. Any comment. About anything. Well, anything that isn't R rated. Or above. That's really a lot of TMI that I don't want to know about.

Entries close on Friday, May 28th. Thanks for your support and interest in my blog about nothing in particular. And good luck!!

Hello? Month of May? You suck.

2010-05-17T04:40:00.000-07:00

I’m quitting the month of May. Yes, the entire month. Is that possible? Like, could I just take vacation for the whole month and have someone put me in a drug-induced coma and just skip it?

May is proving to be quite a challenging month for me. Year after year. Several large unhappy events have taken place in my life….the majority of them in May. My maternal grandmother died in May several years ago. On Mother’s Day. Even better. My oldest child got himself in some trouble that proved to be the beginning of a long downhill slide. 6 years ago this weekend my husband got in a motorcycle accident that pretty much changed our entire lives. Last year in May my mom fell and broke her femur. She is still recovering.

And this May? It’s not going to disappoint me. Well, it IS going to disappoint me. It already HAS disappointed me. My other grandmother passed away on…get this….Mother’s Day. (What are the odds of that? Both of my grandmothers passing away on Mother’s Day?) Although I wasn’t particularly close with my Grandma-in-Arkansas (how we always referred to her) I do have a few fond memories of her when she came to California to visit and when my husband and I spent some time with her during our first year of marriage when we were living in El Paso, TX. Sadly, she had never met any of my children. Far too many excuses, but we just never did make the trip to Arkansas with all 3 children in tow.

This May we also get to deal with theft. Big Red has been violated.

The only vehicle that Troy and I have ever bought brand new was stolen from in front of our house this past week. That thing has a Hemi. But don’t fret….it was found! Of course, it was found jacked up on one side while crushing an ice chest on the ground on the other side since the wheels and tires were stolen from it. And the entire stereo system ripped from it’s precious insides. And my personal space completely invaded and shattered. Fishing license, paperwork, lucky coin, keys to our travel trailer…gone. All gone.

Mean people just suck.

And so does the month of May. So let’s just skip it. Who’s with me?

I want to come back to life as one of my pets

2010-05-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

The Pryor zoo. It's a rough existance to be a member. All you have to do to qualify is have big sad eyes that you can gaze at your human with.

I can have big, sad eyes.

Then once you do the big, sad eye thing you can wander over to the kitchen screen door because no doubt your human will be responding to the big, sad eye trick with a treat.

I like treats. So does this furry monster.

But I don't think I will be able to do that particular trick for my treat. I think I'll stick with the big, sad eyes.

Then I'm going to do a little sun bathing.

Then I will probably get a little warm and wander over to sit in the shade. 2 feet from my human. Or maybe just 1 foot. Can't be too far away in case another treat comes my way.

Because let's be honest...with this pushover around you are gonna get some doggie treats. And steak bones. And dinner scraps. And you probably don't even need the big, sad eyes.

I've got reasons for being absent.

2010-05-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

I swear. I've been a little busy with several things in my life: My mom had minor follow-up surgery on her leg; I took a much needed short jaunt to the coast with my bff; My daughter had her last prom; I went to scrapbook camp for 5 days ("this one time, at scrap camp..."); and I managed to fit in a bit of work.

So I had a lot of pictures to download and edit and stuff to get ready for scrap camp. After I had downloaded them I came across this picture that made me tear up a little. That happens every once in a great while with me. You know, tearing up over a photo. Probably about twice a week. I'm a sentimental fool.

Don't judge me. Or do. Because frankly I don't care and it won't make me stop tearing up over everything from this week's episode of the Biggest Loser (c'mon...I LOVE Sam!) to the balance in my savings account.

I'm rambling. I do that every once in a great while, too. About twice a day.

The Senior Prom pictures were some of the ones I was specifically looking over to choose which ones I wanted to print. I open up my Picasa and start sifting through the pictures and get sidetracked by this one that popped up wanting me to assign face recognition to it. It recognized MY face....just not the other one.

And it's because that face looks like this now

She's graduating in a little over a month. I did okay with the Senior Prom. Until they all left and I was home alone to look through all the pictures I had just taken. Then the waterworks started. And Troy was NO help because he left the house and was gone all weekend. He kept walking by her prom dress hanging in the living room, sighing and walking away. He couldn't even handle being there to see her in the dress.

She informed me the other day that Troy and I really needed to stop thinking of her as a 10 year old because she was an adult. A grown up. Ha! She doesn't realize that she will always be our baby girl even when she is 47.

Then I saw that picture of us out to dinner on her 7th birthday. 11 years ago. Where did THAT time go?? And the water works started all over again. I was a mess. And I'm not even showing Troy the picture of her at 7.

Next month's graduation ceremony is certain to be interesting...please begin sending your condolences now.

When is a purse finally too big?

2010-04-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

I've recently started having some problems with my left elbow. It should be noted that I carry my purse with this arm....on my forearm, specifically, with my elbow bent at about 90 degrees.

(I'm totally hijacking this post to tell you I just spent the last 10 minutes trying to figure out how to type the symbol for "degree" and gave up. Carry on...)

Well, the elbow is getting worse. It gets particularly bad when I'm at work reaching all the time for the speed-dial pre-programmed numbers. Or when I'm talking to someone on the phone for an extended period of time (longer than 5 minutes) because I use my left ear when using the phone. It huuuuuurts when I extend it out to hang up the phone.

One night when it was particularly sore, I picked up my purse to leave work.

*insert angels singing for the epiphany*

Well maybe THAT'S why the elbow hurts so bad! So I started to think about what could possibly be in my purse that was weighing it down. I glanced through it real quick, laughed out loud, and decided it was blog worthy.

I'm that big of a dork.

So here is the culprit. The purse is really just too big for everyday use. I initially purchased it (well, my sweet husband did) for a trip to Canada last year. But it is cute, right?

Let's just take a little looksie inside, shall we?

This is pretty understandable, right? The basics...with some clever disguising for the purposes of posting it for the world to see. These items would most likely be in EVERY. SINGLE. WOMAN'S. PURSE. Including a business card or two. But these items alone do not require a purse the size of a small suitcase.

So let's continue on. We have a long way to go, people.Here are some miscellaneous health and beauty items.

Assorted writing implements. Not really sure why I need such a variety. A basic ball point/gel pen would be enough. One. One pen. (sorry for this horribly blurry picture...)

Gloves. Not weird....except for the fact that I can't even remember the last time I wore them. Notice the particles of purse droppings on them. Wonder what those are. Hmmm...

I'm all about fresh and fruity breath, people.

I know you ladies have a receipt. Or two. Or a pile? Yeah. This went immediately in to the trash after I took the picture. Please give homage to the very long receipt. I pushed that shopping cart by myself. When you finish bowing at my feet continue reading.

Coupons, anyone?

Leftovers from the soccer tournament.

More leftovers. There are no credits on any of those cards, by the way. "But Cheri? Why didn't you throw them away?" I'm a scrapbooker. I scrap all things related to any trip I took pictures of. Including lists of food requests from Carl's Jr. I'm that cool.

Tickets for a raffle to win an iPod. I cannot say no to Jr. High Girls trying to raise money for their sports team. And I guess their cute faces were the reason I hung on to these tickets 2 months after I bought them. I'm pretty sure the drawing was 3 days after I brought them home. I don't think I won. Or maybe they couldn't read my phone number. Do you ever wonder about that? Seriously? I am so very careful when I'm writing info on the back of raffle tickets. It's this paranoia I have that I will be picked and my writing will be so scribbly (is that word?) that they will draw another ticket. But I digress.

We are almost done, people. Hang in there with me.

This is my pocket calendar. It has my work schedule written in it. Which, if you know anything about my work schedule, is crazy enough that it neeeeeeeds to be written down for me so I can check it against every thing else that might possibly be scheduled.

It's a pretty important thing for me to have in my purse. I panic if I can't find it. The problem here is this is a 2008-2009 calendar. I've probably triplebooked something this year and don't realize it yet.

Here we have a cell phone charger that doesn't work, a cell phone charger that does work and a set of ear phones for my iPod....that isn't in my purse.

A pile of crap that I had to go through and sort/file/toss. Mostly toss. But I wanted to sound organized.

My wallet, on the left, which should have had some of the other items mentioned earlier in it. And my son's wallet, on the right, which he hasn't used since I brought him a new one from Fiji. In December. It's empty. Don't judge me.

And this? Well this, my friends, is the piece de resistance. The item I am sure was the largest contributor to my sickly elbow. And the number one sign that your purse is just too big....because I didn't even know it was in there until I started really digging around. DIGGING. You have to use that term when it comes to purses the size of small suitcases.

You just never know when a girl is gonna get hungry for some chili. Not sure how I planned on opening it, but that doesn't really matter, does it? It's a can of chili. In my purse. For how long? No clue. Long enough to do a number on my elbow apparently.

So to recap, here's the pile BEFORE I cleaned out the much-too-large-for-everyday purse:

Here is the pile AFTER I "filed" everything (I'm organized. Remember?)

And it all fits nicely in to this much smaller purse.

My elbow is already thanking me.

Calling each other inside the house

2010-03-19T04:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever picked up your cell phone and either dialed your home number or the cell number of another individual who was ALSO in your house? Is this ever acceptable? I know, some of you are shouting from the rooftops about the pure laziness of this concept. "Back when I was younger we didn't have cell phones and we walked upstairs to talk to people...both directions!" I can hear that flying out of some of your over-30 mouths. But I'm here to argue that there are some acceptable scenarios.

So.....

TOP 10 REASONS it is okay to call someone who is in your house while you are also in the house with them:

10. You are upstairs. They are downstairs. You have laryngitis.

9. You are downstairs. They are upstairs. You have laryngitis.

8. The satellite has gone haywire. The TV in one room is not synched to the satellite box in the other. Call someone in the other room so you can calmly discuss what is appearing on the TV screen. This will save you from shouting excessively and developing a case of laryngitis.

7. You are sitting watching TV. Specifically a show your significant other wants to watch but you don't. Call them. They will be distracted until they see it is you calling, but it will be just enough time to snatch the remote. Turn the channel to something you want to watch instead.

6. You are on the phone with someone that has gotten long-winded. You really want to get back to the last chapter of a really good book. Motion to the other person in the house to call whatever phone you are NOT talking on. When it rings, tell the person that you are getting another call and need to hang up.

5. Your daughter/son is sitting in the other room with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Things get quiet. Call.

4. You have asked your son 3 times to take the trash out. He keeps getting sidetracked on the computer with Facebook/MySpace. Call him to remind him to take the trash out even if he is sitting 5 feet away from you. This may require at least 4 calls.

3. You are upstairs and have just finished showering. Your laundry room is downstairs....with your pants that have just finished drying. You hear visitors. Call someone to bring you your britches.

2. You are upstairs sleeping. Someone walks through the front door and wakes you. You think it is one of your children. You hope it is one of your children. You pray it is one of your children. Call each child until you confirm that it is one of your children.

and the number 1 reason it is okay to call someone in the house when you are in the house WITH them:

1. You've just discovered the toilet paper roll is empty. And you have laryngitis.

The final Fiji post.....#6...and that storm

2010-03-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

One afternoon as we headed down to the visitor center, we chatted about how wonderful our tans were coming along. After logging in to my email to check in with my daughter, I wandered over to Facebook to check on things. What we all discovered as we were checking in with friends/family was that a storm was a brewing. In California. With freezing temperatures. Including snow in Red Bluff. In never snows in Red Bluff, people.

So of course I gave my heartfelt condolences and good thoughts as I let people know I had just come from the pool and was actually sweating. Little did I know how much this would backfire in my face.

Oh, did it ever backfire.

2 days later there was a category 2 cyclone warning. His name was Mick and he was even more angry and jealous than my drink.

The first sign that the locals were pretty serious about his storm was this:

How in the world were we going to continue tanning, people?! This was just not convenient for the single most important item on our agenda!

The weather started getting rough

Somewhere a tiny ship was probably tossed

And the fearless crew? Well, stupid is probably more like it. Linda was the smart one and stayed back to take pictures of us as we went to get video...about an hour before the worst of the storm arrived.

The aftermath was amazing. Respect mother nature. This is why.

All in all it was scary...and exciting...and scary...and boring being all couped up in the room until the storm blew over. Except for that 10 minutes we went out to video the storm. And promptly went back in before we got nailed in the head with a flying palm frond.

And then 2 days later we were back on schedule. 25 years. What a way to ring it in! Post Mick event, Troy and I decided to celebrate our anniversary Fijian style...on a moped. It was probably the best anniversary we have ever had. NOT because of our location, but because of the low key way we spent our day. Of course, being a blogger the trip included looking for a photo op with a goat for Margaret at NGIP. Yeah. I'm that dedicated to my fellow bloggers.

We survived Cyclone Mick and my husband driving the moped on the opposite side of the road. It was win-win....as was the spectacular buffet we ate that night. Look how happy we are BEFORE the buffet! Imagine if we had taken a picture afterwards. It was delightful!

Fiji. It was magical. It was an adventure. It was one of the most amazing vacations I have yet to have. My husband and I already talk of returning there and staying on one of the other islands that is a little more remote. But first we have to graduate our last child, pay taxes and save up some money again so we can sit in a seat that we don't have to lick our knees as we eat our tiny bag of peanuts.

I guess we'll be going back in 2027.

That angry jealous Fijian better not be there the next time around. Just sayin'.

A difficult day...

2010-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

as my baby turns 18. I know she reads my blog, so Happy Birthday, big Missy! This is for you....and pretty much sums up everything I have felt from the moment you were born. I love you. *sniff*

Before my final Fiji post...and that storm...

2010-03-01T20:58:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a few pictures of my weekend. At my daughter's soccer tournament. That's her. With the muppet 'do.

More muppet action...this time with that whole Beaker thing.

She's a beast of a player. All 5'1" of her.

It's all serious business during soccer.

Serious, people.

Seriousness. Nothing but.

Ummm. Okay, serious ON the field. Off the field? Hmmm...not so much.

Really, really not so serious off the soccer field.

I have no idea where this behavior comes from.

No idea whatsoever.

They won 2 of 3 games and didn't qualify for the next round. That's next weekend and we won't be advancing. I'm sure the California Youth Soccer Association will be sad we will not be there bringing our fun out.

Seriously.

Fiji....give me a high five!

2010-02-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things we were looking forward to at the resort was this

A lovely sight, indeed. And oh, so inviting on a tropical island with the sun beating down on us while cooling off in the wonderful pool. We spent a lot of time at the pool. A lot of time, people. It was a daily ritual. Our bar tab was, well, larger than the grocery store bill. But that's what vacation is for, right?

We had fruity drink after fruity drink from that swim up bar. These were our first ones. Look how excited we are!

We had fruity drinks with alcohol

And fruity drinks without alcohol

And fruity drinks that we made ourselves

The fruity drinks made us very happy.

And some of the fruity drinks made us want to be sychronized swimmers. Although I think you need more than one person to actually be sychronized. but that didn't stop me.

I had a fruity drink one day called the "Angry Jealous Fijian". I don't even remember what was in that drink. I had one. It was delightful so I had another one. Sun, swimming, lack of food for 3 hours and 2 "Angry Jealous Fijians".

Boy was that Fijian angry and jealous. I just had no idea HOW angry and jealous until I got out of that pool, walked to our very chilled air conditioned room and sat down to finally put food in my empty stomach.

It was so thoughtful and considerate of my husband and best friend to bring the rest of my drink to me. Then take a picture. Then laugh.

But that's what vacation is for, right?

Right?

I'm thinking that fruity drink without the alcohol was a MUCH smarter choice.

When good teachers go bad and try to go good again

2010-02-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of my coworkers forwarded me this email he and his wife received from their son's teacher. It was sent to 7 or 8 parents, indicating this problem was a classroom epidemic of mass proportions and not just a single individual. I found it intriguing to say the very least. I have to wonder what really happened that day to make this woman go completely insane. Or if she has a liquor cabinet. Or if it was just one too many tests without a name that put her over the edge.

*Please note the names have been changed to protect the innocent and possibly save someone from potential further embarassment.

Hello Parents;

Well, here I sit going through the giant unit 8 math tests at 5:30 in the evening and I’m sorry to say that your student forgot, yet again, to put their name on their test.

Here were my instructions…

Point your pencil in the air, put your pencil where it says name, write your name… do you have your name on your paper, put your name there now your name…, check again…, this is an important test!!! Ask them what I said and check. I will ask the class on Monday.

I can’t make it any easier than this and I am now taking out another chunk of my time that I don’t have to call and email parents about this problem.

This is a constant problem and I am now out of tricks to solve it. Look at your neighbor’s paper… did they put their name on their paper, put your finger on where you wrote your name, if it isn’t there, put it there now…, hold your paper up in the air, look at where you wrote your name… if it isn’t there, write it now?????????? $%&*#%$&*(%$%^&@#$#^&$%^&Y!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Find my safe warm island in my mind… ohmmm, ohmmm.)

These student are going into 5th grade soon and still can’t do a 1st grade function. Can I get a little help here? I am a bit upset right now and I apologize. This is 100 points worth of “0” in my grade book!!!!!! (After all that hard work they did!)

Should I slow the whole class down and let them take the test again?(and my recess & lunch time?) Should I just let it be a ‘0’ in my book? We are behind the other 4th grades and we need to move forward, but I need to know that my students ‘get’ this stuff.

I guess what I’m asking is, what would you like me to do about this problem?

Suggestions?

Sincerely,
[Teacher Gone Bad]

The highlighted text was actually part of the original format of the email. I didn't alter that. I'm baffled as to why she felt it necessary to highlight THOSE particular parts of the email. Was she hoping in doing so she really WOULD find her happy place? Or that the parents receiving this email might actually take it seriously (despite the intoxicated tone) once she asked "for a little help"? I think it goes without saying that the explicit symbols inserted for cursing is the perfect way to get your point across to the parents of 9 and 10 yr. olds. Don't you?

So my co-worker's wife responded with what I think was a completely resonable and calm tone. Even though she wanted to rant back, she kept it together while getting her own point across about what the teacher was expecting her to take away from all that blabbering. Did she actually WANT suggestions or help or was she merely having a meltdown via email?

I'm pretty sure I would have responded like this:

She included the words "apoligze if [coworker's spawn] left his name off...what is it you are wanting us to do" as well as "very unprofessional...not constructive....after you calmed down" in her response. Which is probably how I would have responded. You know, after I stopped laughing.

Then came the follow up email from the teacher. I think she may have fallen on her butt she was back peddling so fast. No doubt this reponse from the teacher was initiated from the words "very unprofessional".

Dear [Cheri's Coworker and his wife],

I am so sorry if I offended you in any way. I will try to be more professional in the future with Emails. I am a bit challenged when it comes to this technology and tried to save time instead of making several phone calls. It was a bad teacher move on my part and I sincerely apologize. I will go back to the phone method of which is more personal and promotes better communication.

[Coworker spawn] is such a good student and a good citizen in our class. He has gotten better about putting his name on his papers and staying organized. He is one of those kids I get attached to and love his ways of thinking. I wanted to make you aware of this mistake so that you knew and were in the loop.

I tend to care too much & get too attached to these kids and when something big like this happens, it breaks my heart.

You’re right… I shouldn’t take it personally and it is my job not to get emotional about these things, but it is hard. I usually can’t wait to grade tests like these so I can do the ‘teacher dance’ when I see personal & over all improvement. Most of the time I’m at home grading these and can only high five the cat of which she will have nothing to do with. It is hard to curve my feelings of excitement over big improvements.

I believe on Monday I will talk to the students about the problem and empower them to come up with a solution this time. Maybe if they decide on an idea or ideas, it won’t happen again. I just can’t drop this grade because, well they worked too hard on it. I see no point in them taking it again because we need to move on.

I also think it would be a good time to review their classroom rules and have them decide if we need to change a few of them. (I honestly think the kids are too hard on themselves.)

Again, I am sorry for my error. I guess I need to make sure my ‘Mom shoes’ aren’t around when I’m grading papers. These kids already have great parents and you truly are a good example for [Coworker's spawn].

I hope school is going well for you

Thank you for you response.

Sincerely,

[Teacher Gone Bad]
Cell – 8675-3-0h-Ni-ee-ine

I used to work for a wonderful program called BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) through a county office of education. It pairs 1st and 2nd year teachers with a mentor. You know, to give the new teachers confidence while they find their way in a career while 25+ youngsters hang on their every word.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this teacher might not be a candidate for a mentor. What do you think?

I have this hobby...

2010-02-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

that I'm sure many of you already know about. And guess what? I've been scrapping!! My scrap layout blog has been updated for your viewing pleasure.

Fiji....Part IV

2010-02-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

Besides being in Fiji on the actual day of our 25th anniversary, I would have to say this particular event ranked Numero Uno on my list of favorite things we did. Troy and Linda picked this little adventure out and it was MORE than worth the price we paid. By far. Even having to wake up by the alarm clock. On vacation. Why do alarm clocks even exist on vacation, people??

Apparently so you don't miss the bus for the Sigatoka River Safari.

Our adventure started at 7:00 a.m. We didn't actually begin the Excursion until around 9:00, but our adventure started as soon as we loaded in the transport vehicle. Have you ever followed behind a vehicle on a highway going about 60 mph with only 3 feet separating you? Yeah. It's adventurous. It's also scary. I've ridden in NY Taxi cabs. It's similar. But different. Mainly because you are on the opposite side of the road and the driver is sitting on the right side of the vehicle.

None of that is important.

But this is. It's a picture of the four of us as we are getting ready to load up in the jet boat. We had no idea how different this picture would be after our day was over.

Please note how tan Tiffiny's legs are at this point. My legs don't tan very well, especially around the shin area. I hate her.

There were about 25 people total going on this Safari. We must have been doing something right because they picked the 4 of us to go in a smaller jet boat by ourselves. It was like our own little personal Safari. It was awesome! The wind in our hair, the sun on our faces, a funny dude named Mike for our guide....fabulous!

The scenery was absolutely beautiful and the villagers that we saw along the way all waved and smiled as we went by. The Fijians are VERY friendly people....now that they don't eat each other.

It took about 25 minutes to reach our destination....the village of Nalebaleba. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Don't even ask.

We were greeted by smiling faces....holding knives. But we weren't worried. They don't eat each other anymore, remember? We faced a VERY steep hike up a VERY long path on a VERY humid day. I was worried about Troy to say the least. Because, you know, *I* am in stellar physical condition.

Once we reached the top and entered the village, we were greeted by our village hosts.

They led us through their village while explaining the culture, the history and the world they live in. I was touched as we walked around looking at their simplistic living conditions. It made me appreciate all that I have back home that I normally just take for granted and don't give a second thought to....like electricity. And indoor plumbing.

And even with all of that, the children were happy. Smiling, curious, loveable, laughing children. There is just no culture border when it comes to children, wouldn't you agree? They picked their noses just like mine did when they were little. They kicked at rocks just like mine. I loved that these children were interested in their guests and didn't have their noses buried in a computer game or busy texting their friends. It was simple. And wonderful. And overwhelming.

Once the tour of the village was over, we participated in a REAL Kava Ceremony. Not the dirty, sneaky, down-the-back-alley Kava Ceremony that Troy got us involved with. The villagers sang throughout the cermony, adorning us with beautiful leis and not-so-beautiful streaks of baby powder on our cheeks.

Then we ate some wonderfully yummy food. I'm pretty sure none of it was prepared in a microwave.

And then....we danced. And we danced. And then danced some more. Those Fijians like to dance, people!!

The dancing was tiring. And all he did was watch us.

Then it was time to say our goodbyes to the villagers and hike back down that long trail. But by this time it was raining a little. So it made that steep hike down a little tricky with my flip-flops on. So I removed them and hiked down barefoot. This is monumental for me because my feet do NOT like to be naked. But I was embracing the village culture and since they go barefoot a lot? Well "do as the villagers do". I won't be doing that again anytime soon. Just sayin'.

We headed back on the jet boat. Mike let us know that once we got a bit closer to the end of the journey he would be doing some 360's for our enjoyment. Or just one if we didn't enjoy it that much. Well, we did about six. Because we enjoyed it THAT much.

And THIS is how we looked at the end of our day.

We thought we were pretty wet. But then a storm came....

(to be continued)

A Blog Makeover Contest!!!

2010-01-29T19:01:00.000-08:00

I know that many of you who stalk me through this blog have blogs of your own. I know you also have other blogs you stalk. Well, one of my favorite blogs to stalk is kevinandamanda.com

I have to admit that I began stalking Amanda years ago when we were both very active members of Scrapjazz.com. I have always adored her personal style with everything from scrapbooking and decorating to clothing. And recently she inspired me for a completely different reason....weight loss!

And right now she is having a contest!! It's super easy with a nice, big prize at the end: a professional blog makeover!! IT'S TRUE!!

Go check her out. You will simply love her for more reasons than a giveaway. I promise!

Dogs and their dreams

2010-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

While in a deep sleep the other night, I was rudely awakened by Patches. She was whining and carrying on like something was wrong. As I looked down over the side of the bed I realized she was alseep.

Sound asleep. Like I had just been. *sigh*

So I spent the next hour and a half trying to go back to sleep. My brain would not turn off as I lay there thinking about what dogs possibly dream about that gets them that worked up physically. Patches had been whining mixed with a muffled bark while simultaneously trying to "run" with her front feet. Here's a list of possibilities I came up with before I finally fell asleep again:

Running to greet me as I get home from work
Fending off the other animals while trying to eat
Chasing squirrels
Chasing the post man
Chasing the cat
Chasing her tail
Chasing me up and down the stairs
Chasing cars

I'm thinking since Patches really doesn't chase ANYTHING that I am pretty safe assuming it is one of the first two. And considering I have a zoo living in my house I'm going to stick with number 2. It's the most logical.

And we all know I'm all about logic, people.

A different kind of Fiji Post.....number 3.5

2010-01-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

I need to start this post by explaining that I'm not the kind of person who minds having their picture taken. It doesn't bother me. I'm not always thrilled with the outcome, but I generally don't get too caught up in pictures of myself. They are meant to capture moments in time. If I happened to have a zit at that moment in time, so be it. I will admit that if it distracts from the rest of whatever is going on I will photoshop it out. Like if I crossed my eyes on purpose I don't want the zit to take away from that. But mostly I just don't care.

And if you are one of those people who just hates to be in front of the lens (*cough-cough-clare-cough-cough*) that's okay, too. My mom was like that for years. She got over it when I got my camera in elementary school and shoved it in her face 7,342 times a year. At least I think she got over it. I have about 7,127 "in the moment" pictures of her...and about 12 really good ones. So that proves something, right? Yes. That I'm annoying with my camera.

So I figure if I'm going to be taking pictures of everyone I better not mind having MY picture taken. And I really don't.

For the most part.

Here is a small sampling of various pictures that were taken of me in 2009.

They aren't too bad. There is most likely a little something in each one that I have picked apart. But for the most part they are okay. For me. I mean if we are honest we will all agree that I'm no model.

And then there are THESE pictures. A little more "capturing the moment" than the first set. Sometimes you just don't get any warning a picture is about to be taken. I could live if none of these pictures had ever been taken. I don't love them. There's no need to explain why I don't love them.

But every once in a while a picture is taken of me that I feel just needs to be burned. It doesn't happen often, even with the pictures in that last group. They all have meaning. Each one takes me back to the moment they happened and either make me sigh with happy memories or make me laugh hysterically. I love those emotions.

This pictures invokes none of those emotions in me. Except the emotion that would like to burn it.

My husband took this picture of me asleep on the plane ride home from Los Angeles to Sacramento at the end of our vacation. I was tired, people! Isn't he sweet. And funny.

Ha. Ha.

But my mom laughed and laughed when she saw this. No doubt because it was like a small payback for the 7,127 pictures I have taken of her that she wants to burn. And to see my mom laugh and laugh? Well, that made me sigh with happiness.

So I'll keep it. And share it. And you can laugh and laugh, too. At my expense.

You are welcome.

And the winner is.....

2010-01-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

(drumroll please)

CLARE!! Congratulations! Clare doesn't need to email me so that I can send her the Gift Certificate. I already know where to find her. =)

Fiji.....part tolu*

2010-01-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

*that's "three" in Fijian

I mentioned on my last post that we had many adventures while in Fiji. On one particular day we hired a taxi and did several things all in one day. Our driver's name was Chetty. This is Chetty and our taxi:

He was super nice and talked about Fijian history and culture for most of our trip. He pulled off the road when we so desired for fruits and vegetables (or pictures of goats...but that's another post)I warned him ahead of time that we would be taking A LOT of pictures of things that he may find inconsequential. Or stupid. He just smiled so we figured he would be cool to hang with for a day. And when he just smiled after we took this picture we knew we were in good hands.

Please notice how tan we all are. We worked hard to get that way.

Our first stop of the day was the Momi Guns. Months before we even left for Fiji my husband started researching interesting places to go and this topped his personal list of "must do" thiings while on our vacation. Troy is a bit of a WWII history freak. Think me and Wizard of Oz. Except his freakish obsession actually has substance. (Did I just say that???) So Chetty drove us down the highway, through many farm lands, across some valley and up some hills. It took approximately 1 hour to get there. And when we finally did arrive there was nobody there to greet us. Not one single soul to take our money so we could go in and have a look around.

I felt like the Griswolds and we had just arrived at Wally World. Troy was extremely disappointed, but we did at least get a few pictures before we continued on our way.

Our next stop was the Kula Eco Park. It was something that we had picked up a brochure for at the resort. It looked interesting and fun so why not? We are all about interesting and fun. When you first enter the park, the guides give a little history about the park and let you hold the snakes and iguanas. Why not? We are all about holding the snakes and iguanas.

the park itself was absolutely beautiful. It was just a wonderful little tropical rain forest with many birds, flowers and Fiji history all rolled in to one lovely little place. The birds were exquisite:

The tropical rainforest provided for some BEAUTIFUL flowers as well:

It really was just a beautiful place. And we are all about beautiful places...and taking pictures of us in beautiful places!

After we left the Eco park we were all in agreement that we needed food. We stopped and had some wonderful Curry dishes, treated Chetty to lunch, and used this restroom before we loaded back in the taxi:

I hovered. And that's all I have to say about THAT.

Our next stop on this trip was the Coral Coast. It was a quick stop where we played in the ocean and just took in the scenery. Of course we were accosted by a local wanting to know if we would like to take a horse ride on the beach. We politely declined. But remember how we are all about taking pictures of us in beautiful places?

Our last stop on this journey was a roadside fruit and vegetable stand where for some reason I could not pick green beans out of the pile of green vegetables piled all over the table. As my husband hollered at me over and over again "GREEN BEANS!" I just couldn't get it. Green beans look different in Fiji. Yeah. That's it. Just look at this look of "Wha....??" as my husband hollers at me. I was clueless. It is not the first time in my life this has happened.

The rest of the ride back to the resort was uneventful. It was a lovely day and we all agreed the Eco Park was the big hit. Well, Momi Guns would have been for Troy but we've already discussed that disappointment. As it turns out it was a VERY good thing we went on our little excursion when we did. We had tossed around the idea of doing it later in the week.

But a storm came.

(to be continued...)

Ummm...about that "contest"

2010-01-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

It's no longer a contest when YOUR DAUGHTER is the only one to answer all the questions correctly. Even though I commend Patti for lurking through my blog for over an hour, she did not get my favorite toy right. And there weren't really enough entries for me to feel right about giving it to Lindsay. I think it was a slow week because of the holiday. Yeah. That's it.

My daughter cannot win. It's just not right in the world of blog contests.

So anybody who responds to this post with ANYTHING...even just a "hello"....will be entered to win the $25 Amazon.com gift certificate at the end of the week. The real winner will draw a name from all the comments on Sunday and the winner will be announced on Monday.

But don't forget to sign your comment with a name. Otherwise I will have no way of knowing who "annonymous" is or how to contact them to redeem their prize. And my daughter will have no way of stalking you to let you know how sad she is that her mother is being mean and will not let her have the prize.

I'm kidding about that last part.

Sort of.

GOOD LUCK!!

Fiji....Part Deux

2010-01-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

We had many adventures while in Fiji, but my husband wins the award for providing us the most...ummm...."what-in-the-heck-are-we-doing" adventure.

On our first trip in to the town of Nadi (pronounced "Nan-dee") we were approached by some dude on a street corner. Okay, it wasn't the FIRST person to approach us. We were accosted by nearly every store front on the main drag. The Fijians like to push their goods on the tourists. Before we left on vacation, a co-worker actually warned me of this behavior in the bigger towns....and to NEVER mention your name because they will create some handicraft personalized and you are obligated to buy it at that point.

I said, "Go ahead and make them TRY to spell my name correctly." because, well, nobody ever gets it right the first time.

So we had been warned. I relayed this information to my husband. But Troy is a likes-to-talk-to-strangers kind of dude. He is overly friendly to the kind of people that I would pass and tightly hold my purse/personal belongings VERY close. Yeah. He's all kinds of interesting to travel with.Never a dull moment.

Stranger Danger is just not in his vocabulary.

And the strang(er) man dude approached Troy first. Because Troy is approachable....plus I'm sure Troy just started chatting it up with him FIRST. He convinced my husband that HE had the BEST handmade handicrafts EV.ER. And so Troy bit. He bit hard. And he waved for us to follow him and the strang(er) man dude.

So we did. With trepidation. Down THIS alley:

That's Tiffiny with the "Where-the-heck-is-he-taking-us" look. How was I supposed to know? I was in the back of the pack. Scared. Wanting to kill my husband who was far ahead of all of us, excited and anxious to get to wherever the strang(er) man dude was taking us.

Down the alley, up a flight of stairs on the back side of the building and in to this tiny gallery. That's where we landed. As I started looking around I didn't notice anything bigger or more special about this stuff than the 15 other places we had passed on the main drag. Except that it was small. And I felt like maybe we would not return to life as we had once known it.

I think they sensed this apprehension from all of us....so they came in for the kill.

"Have you been to a Kava Ceremony yet?"

Nope. Suddenly 3 other men appeared. And so it began. The final manipulation of my husband. He was deemed "chief" for the purposes of the ceremony and I knew right then we were all in trouble. His head was larger than life. So it went on....and we had our first official Kava ceremony (not our last) in a dirty back alley handicraft gallery.

Sweet.

See that dude carving that beautiful Kava bowl? Yeah. I caved. I bought that exact bowl that was carved in front of us during our Kava Ceremony.

I suppose Troy isn't the only sucker.

(to be continued.....)

Fiji....part Uno

2009-12-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

So many wonderful things to say about our trip. So many that it's just going to have to be broken in to a few posts. Otherwise I fear I might lose some of you rambling on and on and on. Not like that would be THAT different that my normal posts. But it could get picture heavy. And nobody likes a heavy blog.

So I'll start from the beginning. We were excited. So excited. I counted down this trip from about 180-something days out. That's a lot of days, people! And we were THAT excited!!! Look at us, happy and completely unaware of just how long 10-1/2 hours can actually be when you are on an airplane. Well, Linda wasn't unaware since she has flown internationally many times before. But Troy, Tiffiny and I were blissfully unaware.

That grueling, 10-1/2 hour flight was NOT something we were looking forward to. And typical of our vacationing luck our flight was delayed 2 hours at LAX. You know, because being there 4 hours ahead of time to begin with wasn't quite long enough.

It is very difficult for Troy to get comfortable in a good situation (i.e. in our CA King pillow-top mattress) so sitting around at LAX proved challenging. His back did not provide top-quality cooperation so he was nervous and fidgety. But he was up for it. Anything for vacation. This is him chillin'....before he took a sleeping pill to make the trip easier. It was anything BUT easier (for me) but we won't go in to that.

4 spilt cups of coffee, 3,237 instances of unzipping the backpack, 234 times turning on/off the reading light, 4 movies and 0 hours of sleep.....we landed 10-1/2 hours later. 7:00ish a.m. Fiji time. How gigantic is this plane???

Another 30 minutes going through the customs line, about an hour waiting for our luggage, a 20 minute taxi ride and we finally arrived here:

Room I-202. Our home for the next 16 days. It welcomed us from the humidity and sun, gave us a comfortable place to lay our heads at night, a clean place to shower, endless hours of the Three Stooges (they like their Stooges, people)....and shelter from a Category 2 Cyclone.
Yes, the Pryor vacation curse brought with it a Cyclone to the Fijan Islands.

To be continued.....

A very Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T03:37:00.000-08:00

to you and yours. Hope your day is filled with everything wonderful! For me....family, friends, the spirit of Christ and these:

I know. I know. The spirit of Christ and Wizard of Oz Nutcrackers. Life is so awesome!

What's that? Someone mentioned a prize?

2009-12-23T03:46:00.000-08:00

Oh, you caught that, eh? In this post I mentioned that you should hold on to your seats because there "may be a prize".

I can't believe nobody has called me out on this prize even though I've been back for almost an entire week. But while I am still working on pictures (and have to collect the rest of them from my travel partners) I thought I would fill in some time with a little contest....and give a prize....as eluded to. Hey, I didn't "promise" the prize. I merely hinted.

But first, look at us being all cute on our 25th Anniversary in Fiji

I told someone today what a tool I am. This is just another case in point but it certainly goes along with the whole "everyone cares about what I did during my vacation" self-absorbed attitude that also goes along with the "I'm so funny and important that I should write about my life" blogging brain I have developed.

And sometimes you have to swim through the sewage to get to the beautiful blue ocean, people.

The first person to correctly answer the following five questions wins a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate.

1) What is the actual date of our anniversary (including the year)?
2) What are the names of my 3 dogs?
3) What was my favorite childhood toy?
4) What was the reason I started this blog 2 years ago?
5) Who were the ladies I spent a long weekend with in Canada?

All answers can be found in my blog. Have fun! Winner will be announced this Sunday....but I'm pretty sure some other post will show up before then. Fiji update? Electronic Christmas greeting? Probably some of both.

Until then....good luck!

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

2009-12-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

25 years. The silver anniversary. I think they call it that because being married to the same person for 25 years gives you silver hair. At least being married to Troy it does.

And it all started with this:

That phone call from El Paso TX asking me out on a date. 8 months in advance. This picture really is me talking to Troy, but I don't believe it is me on THAT particular phone call. What I love most about this picture is the cool olive green phone with a cord attached. Remember those? How retro. I talked on this phone so much that my brother found it completely appropriate to take a picture of me yapping my brains out. Apparently Troy and I were not to the point of whispering sweet nothings to each other but I'm pretty sure I hadn't farted on him yet.

He surprised me in June on a weekend leave. What a whirlwind of a weekend! I broke a date with some other guy after Troy showed up on my doorstep. Well, Linda did it for me. I remember his name was Jim and Linda told him that I was sick. In a way I guess I was. Sick in Love! (Wow. That was cheesy.) Troy took me to dinner at his favorite local Chinese restaurant. Then the memorable fart happened. The next day we spent the day at his parent's house swimming and such. That night he proposed. Well, sort of. I said yes....had to face Jim with a ring on my finger after my whirlwind weekend...and 6 months later we got married.

Man, we were young! And skinny. And Troy had hair. I was 19 and Troy had just turned 21. My oldest son is currently 6 months older than Troy was back then and I think I would seriously throw up if he told me he was getting married. My middle child is currently the same age as I was and I think I would seriously throw up if he told me he was getting married. And Troy is never letting our daughter get married so I'm safe there.

Man, we were young! It was all just romantic and warm and fuzzy and new and exciting, though. Just right for young kids who knew everything. We thought. We learned a lot those first few years. We learned even more after child one...then two...then SURPRISE! child three.

3 children through the teen years, 11 jobs, 10 cars, 18 pets (that I can actually remember), 9 rented homes, 1 purchased home and one life-changing motorcycle accident later....

We've changed a bit. Both inside and out. And we are always growing and learning and finding new ways to tolerate each other. But one thing is certain. There is always love. There is always determination to see through the changes.

There is always us.

Imperfect.

Comfortable.

Realistic.

In love....and working towards the next 25 years.

I forgot to tell this story

2009-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

after I returned from Ice Fest. I was reading this post and it reminded me of another *fun and wonderful* thing that happened to me, this time on my flight to Niagara Falls. Stuff always happens to me. (Wonder what Fiji has in store....)

A little factoid for you before I tell this story: I'm a bit of a gassy person. I have been for about...hmmm...forever. I know this is probably way more information than some of you want to know, but you need to know. Trust me. Sitting for long periods of time without getting up and moving around make my situation worse. Some foods make it worse. Anxiety makes it worse.

Troy firmly believes breathing air makes it worse. He may have a point.

So imagine how uncomfortable things were getting after I boarded my connecting flight in Atlanta after sitting for 6 hours on the first leg of my trip. I was still in complete control of things, though. It was all good. I thought.

As I was listening to my iPod at a volume enabling me to drown out the coughing fit going on a couple of seats ahead of me, I sneezed. I tried with all my might to remain in control of all things, but sneezing really doesn't allow you to do that. And so came the exit of the gas.

I'm not entirely sure how loud it was since my iPod was blaring in my ears. The dude sitting directly in front of my turned his head slightly in my direction and I just decided it was because of the sound of the sneeze and not because of any other sounds exiting my body. Yeah. That was it. The sneeze.

When that plane landed I quickly exited without looking anybody in the eye. I was pretty sure I would never see any of them ever again so I'm not about to make chit-chat with someone who may bring up my intestinal issues.

And I told you that story so I could tell you this other story. Because while I am currently in Fiji these posts are supposed to be about Troy and I and our 25 years together.

After our first (and only) date, we took a drive and parked over looking our wonderful little town. We chatted, snuggled, steamed up the windows, chatted some more and then I dozed off a bit. It was sweet, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me.

I opened my eyes out of my slumber thinking, "Did that just happen?" As I looked up at Troy I knew in an instant that yes, indeed, "it" had happened. He just had this sheepish little grin on his face but he said nothing. He just kept smiling.

He still married me despite my obvious fault.

No wonder I kept him around for 25 years.

On us

2009-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

I borrowed this ("stole" is such an ugly word) from Kayla's blog. I thought it was a fun little way to give you just a snippet of our life together as an old married couple.

What are your middle names?
Ann and Allen

How long have you been together?
Since July 1984.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
We knew each other for four years before we started dating…if you can call it dating. It was ONE date.

Who asked whom out?
He asked me out over the phone. He was stationed in El Paso, TX in the Army and I was back home in Red Bluff, CA. The phone call was in April, the date was set for sometime in December during his next leave but he surprised me the first weekend of June. I actually had a date planned with some other dude the night after Troy showed up on my front door step. I made my best friend break the date. I’m chicken like that. But it all worked out because Troy and I were engaged by the end of the weekend. Explain THAT when the broken date dude sees your finger…..

How old are each of you?
44 and 46. I married an “older” man. Scandalous!

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Well I see MY siblings more than his and he sees HIS more than mine. Together as a couple it’s probably a toss up because that’s mostly holidays, special occasions or impromptu visits.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
We’ve been through some seriously difficult things in the last 25 years. I would love to tell you that we braved all the situations with grace and dignity but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. There were certainly some times where neither grace nor dignity existed in our household. It was usually when Troy would not admit I was right.

Did you go to the same school?
Yes. I first saw him in gym class and instantly fell in lust over the poor unsuspecting boy. I’m sure he was the 5th one that day. I could probably read up on it in my high school diary.

Are you from the same home town?
Yes.

Who is smarter?
It depends on what we are talking about. If you want to talk about any kind of war history, Troy’s the man. If you want to talk about the Wizard of Oz, hit me up.

Who is the most sensitive?
My husband is a big, burly manly man of a man who is probably as sensitive as I am….but I cry. He doesn’t. Mostly.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Chinese. And if we are out of town? Chinese. And if we get take-out? Chinese. My two favorite foods in the whole wide world are Spaghetti and Lasagna. They don’t have either of those at Chinese restaurants.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
We are doing it right now….

Who has the craziest exes?
We don’t really have any exes. I guess that makes us the crazy ones. Unless you count my ex-boyfriend from the third grade. I threw up on him at the movie theatre. He went a little crazy over that.

Who has the worst temper?
Absolutely, positively, without a doubt in the world…..Troy.

Who does the cooking?
Absolutely, positively, without a doubt in the world….Troy.

Who is the neat-freak?
If you are talking about the dishes as they come out of the dishwasher – Troy
If you are talking about the pillows on the couch – Me
If you are talking about anything else in our house - *insert hysterical laughter here*

Who is more stubborn?
Absolutely, positively, without a doubt in the world….Me. But it’s totally part of my charm.

Who hogs the bed?
Tilly

Who wakes up earlier?
When I work day shift – me
When I work night shift – him
When I have the day off – whoever has to pee first

Where was your first date?
At a Chinese restaurant. I really should have gotten a clue then.

Who is more jealous?
We would seriously have to flip a coin because neither of us has ever had jealousy issues….unless you count the time I got all butt hurt over him talking more passionately to his plants than me. No, I’m not kidding.

How long did it take to get serious?
We’re still waiting.

Who eats more?
*cough-cough* I’ll just back peddle right out of this question.

Who does the laundry?
Whoever runs out of underwear first. Okay, not really. Our daughter does most of it, he does the rest, I do about 2 loads a month.

Who's better with the computer?
Those of you in blog-reader land that know Troy personally are laughing your butts off right now. Those of you that don’t know Troy personally have just been told the answer.

Who drives when you are together?
Daytime: Troy
Nighttime: Me, mostly
Larger cities day or night: Absolutely me

In just 48 hours...

2009-11-30T00:26:00.000-08:00

My husband and I will be on a plane headed for Fiji to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

It's been a little surreal up to this point. It still is, actually. We (along with 2 friends) purchased our airline tickets clear back in June. We wanted to do our 25th Anniversary BIG. Really BIG! I think we've accomplished that. Initially we were headed for Maui and I was trying to talk Troy in to renewing vows....we were going to invite family and friends...etc, etc....but Troy was afraid I might not say, "I do." this time around.

Well, that's not entirely true. Not entirely.

He never really asked the actual question the first time he "proposed" so he was probably nervous that he would need to ask this time. And that I might just say, "No, thank you. I mean you're a nice guy and everything but I think I'll just wait until I'm older."

That's not really true, either.

So we just stopped talking about the vow renewal altogether because it made him sweat and fidget. That is entirely true. When I told my best friend, Linda (who was initially planning on coming to witness the vow renewal) that we weren't going to do that, she said she would still like to come to Maui anyway since she had never been there. She was going to stay a week, we would stay for 2 weeks.

So I popped on line to make reservations through our time-share resort membership thingy. I was on night-shift, a little bored (that's not really true...I was a lot bored) and started surfing around their website and discovered they had a resort location in Fiji! One thing led to another, one more person was invited to even out the numbers, we booked tickets, booked the room and here we are some 187 days later.

Fiji.

It goes without saying that I will most likely NOT be around a computer for 2 weeks. There will be no blog posts about Fiji as we experience it. There will be blog posts, just not about Fiji. Yet. But I've scheduled 3 posts to entertain and wow you. All 3 posts celebrate our 25 years together in some way and lead up to mine and Troy's anniversary on December 15, with an extra special post scheduled for that actual date.

So don't miss it!!

Because there may be a prize!

That may or may not be true.

Mr. Cuervo

2009-11-28T01:15:00.000-08:00

This is our little friend who showed up at the Ice Fest....Mr. Ceurvo. His first name is Jose. He is quite a party animal! His voice wasn't nearly as deep as you would imagine it to be and he was completely toothless. I guess that must be from sucking all those limes...

He made his first appearance the second night we were in Niagara Falls. It would have been nice if he hadn't shown up so soon because maybe, just maybe, that stupid slot machine would not have appeared quite so sparkly and bright and charming. And maybe, just maybe, I would have come home with a little more change in my purse.

Maybe.

But Jose showed up early. And he was larger than life.

About that Wizard of Oz Slot Machine...

2009-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

First things first.

If you are relatively new to this blog, you need to understand that I have an unusual love for the Wizard of Oz. I *heart* all things Oz. If you so desire to catch up with this phenomena you may do so by reading this...and this...or maybe this....and this....and let's not forget this.

There's more. Trust me. It's a sickness.

Now that we are all on board, let me get to the point of this post. Remember Patti? My Canadian, partying, gambling internet friend?

During my recent visit to Niagara Falls to visit her and a couple of other internet friends (see previous "internet safety" post before you lecture me...I understand the dangers...sort of) we hit the casino. At one point Patti started sashaying around the casino floor. She seemed aloof and giddy at the same time. Something was up, I could FEEL it. When she finally revealed where she was headed I lost my breath. She was VERY excited to show it to me. And I was VERY excited to see that lovely piece of metal. NOT so excited when that shiney-shoed girl from Kansas took my money. A lot of my money. But it just sucked me in like a tornado with it's sparkly images and extra fun bonus rounds and Bose surround sound built in to the seat.

Yes. Bose Surround Sound during a tornado. It was AWESOME!

There is no picture in existence of me playing said machine. Because we were not allowed to take pictures in the casino. And you know we followed the rules, right? RIGHT? *cough-cough* The truth is it is residing on a cell phone and I don't have it yet. HOWEVER....you gotta love google!!

Here is that lovely beauty in all her glory.

And if you are so inclined to view a little video and watch it in all its bonus round loveliness?

http://www.wms.com/gameroom/gi/oz/index.php

This machine did NOT show me the same kind of love that I so richly deserve. I've been a faithful follower practically my entire life. And there was just NO LOVE, PEOPLE! Those 3 free tequila drinks were the most expensive drinks I've ever had. But those images...those sounds...the action....those bright lights....it was almost too much for me to handle.

But not so much that I had to walk away.

Step away from the sparkly shoes, Cheri. Just step away.

Somehow tequila makes a girl hard of hearing.

18 days....

2009-11-13T01:55:00.000-08:00

until my husband and I leave for this place

to celebrate 25 years of annoying the crap out of each other.

What's a daddy to do....

2009-11-10T23:30:00.001-08:00

when he sees that his baby is almost grown up? He hi-tails it to the back yard because his eyes "need some fresh air". Yes, those were the exact words from my husband as I sat and edited my daughter's senior pictures taken in our hometown a couple of weekends ago.

25 years together and sometimes my husband still manages to surprise me with his reactions to things.

But I will give him the benefit of the doubt in this case. It is a little surreal that we are so close to having an empty nest. Well, as empty as a nest can ever be....do we really EVER get completely rid of them? Or want to? Hmmm....

Of our three children, this one has been particularly hard on Troy because they shared an entire year together living without the rest of us. Remember that? So while Lindsay challenged Troy in many ways and bugged the crap out of him with her multiude of teenage drama-queen issues, he is particularly close with her because it was just the two of them for so long.

So it's okay he got emotional. He earned it.

But I'm a little worried about graduation night.....

Internet Safety

2009-11-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

If you have children younger than 18 (especially teenagers) that surf the net, what safety measures do you discuss with them about who they might meet on the internet?

I ask because I have failed miserably in setting a good example.

During my absence from blog-update duties I jetted off to Niagara Falls to meet up with some internet friends. *gasp!* I KNOW!! Now in my defense I had already met 2 of these ladies in person on previous jet-set adventures. (I told you I have failed miserably) but the third gal was a first-time meet-and-greet experience.

And these ladies are crazy. But not that physcho crazy that you would need to be wary of. But how do you know ahead of time? Until you get there? Again, failing by example.

This is Patti. Well, this is ME and Patti. But you already know who I am.

She is the hostest with the mostest. And I mean that sincerely. This woman parties and gambles so much at the casino that she is a VIP. That sounds charming, doesn't it? My Canadian, gambling, partying internet friend. But she is wonderfully delightful in every sense and allowed the 3 of us to follow her around as VIP wannabes. To be quite frank she spoiled us rotten even after we invited ourselves to come visit her. Yeah. You read that right. We were not ASKED to come but just showed up anyway. Patti treated us like the royalty we pretend to be.

And speaking of pretending to be royal.....this is Gina.

Well, this is ME and Gina. I'm on the left. You probably knew that by now. This was my first time meeting Gina. She got us in to trouble constantly. In her defense I think we probably encouraged her behavior a bit but I think doing gymnastics moves in the VIP lounge was totally her.

And this person is responsible for my gambling losses at the roulette table.

This is Cassandra. That is NOT me on the left. I am still wondering why it was so important for that Moose to be anatomically correct. Especially with children running around everywhere....or with adults running around everywhere acting like children. What? Well yes I DO happen to have a picture of us together!

That's me on the left. Again. Must be some hidden compulsion I have.

Cassandra is from North Carolina and has a southern drawl to prove it. She's adorable, gracious and was kind enough to share snores with me. We laughed as we shared our nervousness that we WOULD be snoring (there was no doubt in either of our minds) so we made the perfect roommates. She loves Ice Wine. I mean really, REALLY loves her Ice Wine. So much so that she will beg random men in the hotel hallway to pop the very-stubborn-stuck cork in her Ice Wine bottle.

We do not know this man's name. Or where he was from. Or the name of his lady friend. But wasn't she nice to play along?

And what is a post about Niagara Falls without a picture of the Falls? Worthless, I say.

And Canada where Patti lives? I've never experienced Fall colors like this in my life.

We toured. We ate. We drank. We gambled. In fact, here is a picture of Cassandra and Patti with their winnings from the roulette table one night.

You will notice that I am not holding out my winnings for the picture. Because I didn't have any winnings. As a matter of fact, Patti was VERY excited to drag me over to a WIZARD OF OZ slot machine when we first got there. I'll talk about that in a separate post a little later. It IS worthy of its own post after all. It's WIZARD OF OZ, PEOPLE!

My trip was wonderful. It was a nice break from the normality of my feeble existence. I can't wait to meet up with these wonderful ladies again!

Oh how I love the Sweet Slumber

2009-10-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Look at me. Peaceful. Relaxed. Asleep. Then my dear husband decides he needs to snap this picture of me sleeping during the middle of the day. Not because I was being lazy but because I was in the middle of night shifts.

Oh, how I love to sleep when I'm on night shifts.

What's so special about this particular slumber that my husband decided was so important to capture for me on film? No doubt to be thrown in a scrapbook with some pretty papers and fancy doo-dads next to it?

Well, apparently I'm not the only one who enjoys the sweet slumber of a chilly fall afternoon.

And just so you know, there is one more animal UNDER the covers with me.

And just so you know, I sleep like this more often than not during the day. Because during the night I usually have a beast of the human proportions in there with me and he most certainly will not allow such behavior during HIS slumber.

Party pooper.

The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Da Feet

2009-10-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

I made it. Well, WE made it. I can’t take credit for completing the entire marathon since 3 other guys helped. I finished my leg of the marathon with a better-than-anticipated time of about 1 hr. 15 minutes. I say “about” because I didn’t wear a watch. On purpose. I figured it would make me too nervous and I would have been glancing at it all the time.

Here is our team in all our glory POST race (l to r: Felix Gonzales, me, Larry Bellnap and Chris Bossard)

Yes. These men tower over me. Hence our team name “3 men and a baby”. It really IS because of my compared size and NOT because I whined the whole time training for this. Yeah. Really.

Here I am immediately after my finish, before I sat down on the grass and lost all ability to make the muscles in my legs work:

And here is Larry crossing the finish line with our official Team time. Not too shabby for our first time out! (Did I say “first” time? It must be the post-race fatigue, delirium and pain in my muscles sucking all reason out of my brain)

And I have to brag a bit about my daughter. Her first entry in any marathon and she ran a half marathon (that’s 13.1 miles) in 2:35:and some seconds. She was pretty pumped before the start of the race, even if she did have to get up at 5:45 a.m.

Here we are just after she finished….about 5 minutes behind me.

And here with are with our craaaaa-zy friend Karen who was our inspiration for all this insanity. Oh, she was an official pacer for runners and finished the entire marathon in 4:05:and some seconds.

Our team actually had a pretty good time. I will speak for all of them mainly because this is my blog and my reality, not theirs. Okay, I ASKED them all if it was as bad as they thought it would be. Chris was the only one who answered “yes” but he also ran the second-best time of our team so I think I can talk him in to running the relay again next year. Assuming our crew isn’t on shift for the Sacramento Cowtown Marathon next year, we will be there to beat our first-ever time. Because I CAN’T WAIT to experience this wonderful pain in my leg muscles that I am currently experiencing. Have I mentioned that? Yeah. And have I mentioned how wonderful it is to walk up and down the stairs in my house right now? Yeah. I’m a prisoner to my bedroom because I refuse to walk up and down the stairs. I came up here. I went down them. ONCE. Then came back up the stairs determined I would NOT walk DOWN them again. Down hurts, people.

And when we run next year, surely I can beat my personal best of 1:15:and some seconds. Well, it is my ONLY time ever so I’m pretty sure I can beat it.

I do have an entire year to train for it after all.

Tomorrow I run

2009-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

I run not because I love it.

I run not because it is the only exercise I want to do.

I run not because I love to feel the wind in my hair. I mean, I would have to actually run fast enough for that to happen, right?

I run because I have this friend who is crazzzz-y (Karen...remember her? She's Olivia's mom). Karen ran a 100 mile endurance marathon over the summer and inspired me to run a 5k. A 5k...around 3 miles. Remember this number.

She found me the "perfect race" to start off with. The Sacramento Cowtown Marathon benefiting the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society. Great!! So I started training. Training with a calendar that had all kinds of workout requirements for each day. Some days were even indicated as "Rest Day." I loved those days. Karen actually created the training calendar for me and my daughter because the inspiration ran deep. My daughter is running a 1/2 marathon. That's a little over 13 miles. But she's 17 and in shape. I am not 17 nor am I in shape. I am middle-aged and hurting. And I don't run. I don't like it. I never have. Even when I was 17 and in shape. I sprinted around bases and up and down volleyball courts. I did not run up and down soccer fields or around tracks.

So I made the decision and walked in to work one night announcing that I was going to give this 5k thing a try. I looked at the website for the run and got a wild hair up you-know-where. "Hey, guys! They have relay teams that run, too. Which 3 of you are willing to step up and run a relay with me?" I quickly had 3 volunteers.

And my little 5k quickly turned in to 6.5 miles. More than double.

What is wrong with me?

So I've trained. I've crossed trained at the gym. I'm as ready as I'm going to be. It is, after all, tomorrow.

Send good thoughts. Light a candle. Pray for my right knee and left hip to behave and not crap out on me. (Funny I didn't have too many problems with those body parts until I started RUNNING.)

I'll post pictures and an update tomorrow night....assuming I'm not laying in an emergency room.

The glorious....the fabulous...the freakin' DMV

2009-10-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Is there a prerequiste to work at the DMV that you must have the distinct ability to care as little as possible about anything while balancing the skill to annoy and piss people off?

Tuesday morning I took my daughter to her SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT for her behind-the-wheel test. You know the test. The final step that you must take in order to gain the wonderful freedom of being a licensed driver. Well, as much freedom as a 17 yr. old newly licensed driver can have between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. while never having any underage passengers with her unless one of her parents is in the car with all of them.

Freedom. *Snicker*

But back to that SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT. It was at 9:30 a.m. We arrived at 9:15. This ended up being a mighty good call on my part because as it turned out her driving instructor neglected to give her the all-important "pink slip" indicating she had completed 6 hours of behind-the-wheel instruction. All we had was the form from her final lesson that stated "lesson 3 of 3." Not good enough. She panicked. I remained calm in the eye of the storm. It's what I do. It's why I am employed where I am. I don't panic. I quickly assessed the situation, asked them if they would take a fax if we called the company. "Yes." So within 10 minutes they had their fax....just in time for the SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT of 9:30.

Here we are waiting for them to call her for her test.

You can see the anticipation and nervousness in her eyes as well as the sheer boredom of the excellent posture I have going on.

Here we are still waiting....AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES after the SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT.

You can see how the anticipation and nervousness has been replaced with disgust and frustration as well as the attention I am now giving to every person walking up to that stupid counter wondering when in the world they are going to call my daughter up.

For anyone who has visited the CA DMV in the last two years you will automatically put the annoying voice to what we heard for over an hour:

"Now serving G42 at window number 6."
"Now serving A26 at window number 3."
"Now serving B4,237 at window number 8."

All I heard after 30 minutes was:

"STILL NOT SERVING ANYONE WITH A SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT."

As my daughter grew more and more frustrated, I told her this was actually part of the test. She glared at me as I continued. "They want to see how well you can get your wits about you and calm down before getting behnd the wheel of a car." She didn't buy it. Completely. But it did make her laugh.

I finally had to go up and question what the heck was going on. Or not going on in our case.

Now I have to back up just a little bit for a moment and tell you about the woman who was actually helping us at window number 2 when we initially came in to the DMB. (That is actually a typo that I decided to leave because it closely resembles the word DUMB and I find it relevant to the gov agency of which this post is dedicated.) I still haven't decided if the woman was new, not properly trained, or just missing a few links. Either way I discovered that it was her fault we sat there for so long. She neglected to let the woman giving tests that day know that the 9:30 SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT had arrived.

Hmmm. Guess she missed that lesson on day one of her new job.

So just 15 short minutes after inquiring as to why we were still sitting around, the lady called my daughter forward. And just 25 minutes later this picture was taken.

I'm sure you can come to your own conclusion about the outcome of her test.

Introducing....

2009-09-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Buddy!

Buddy is a staple in our house. He is an important factor in the life of Hamish. You see, Hamish is actually a bit of a loner. I'm not sure if it is a Beagle trait or if it is because Hamish is so lazy and doesn't really want to spend the energy interacting with the other animals/humans in the house. Don't get me wrong. Hamish is FRIENDLY. Very friendly. And lovable. But he does his own thing when and where he wants.

And the "where" never involves an automobile. But that's a story for another time....and a phenomenon with this dog that will never change regardless how much doggie-dramamine we give him.

But Hamish has his Buddy.

I should probably call this specific stuffed animal "Buddy the Fourteenth" or Buddy XIV....because he is really a 14th Generation Buddy. Or 15th. Or 22nd. I've lost count honestly. All of Buddy's kinfolk preceding him have suffered a terminal illness known as grossness-smelly-caca. Washing after washing would not rid them of this disease so they were delicately placed in to the trash. But only AFTER the next generation Buddy came to live with us.

Because Hamish would be lost without his Buddy.

Here is Hamish and Buddy shortly after retiring for the evening. He was snoring away when I snapped this picture (Hamish, not Buddy) and, yes, Hamish sleeps with his eyes partially open most of the time. I think it's because he wants to make sure nobody kidnaps buddy.

The flash woke him. I'm sure if he could talk he would be saying, "Whaddya dooooo-innn wakin' me up like that?" Yes, in my head Hamish talks like that of Hugo the Abominable Snowman from the Bugs Bunny Cartoon era.

On this particular day there was tragedy in Buddy's life.

This picture resulted in two things. 1) Buddy was released from the jaws of the Pet Door and 2) I cleaned the area in/around the Pet Door. Ew. Just Ew. I guess that's what happens when 3 dogs and 2 cats, who all shed and roll around God-knows-what, come in and out of a pet door 40 times a day. Why didn't I notice that sooner?

And here is Hamish sleeping again with Buddy. At the top of the stairs. Just yesterday.

Again with that one eye barely open...and the flash wakes him up.

"Whaddya doooo-iiinnnnn?"

"You cannot take my Buddy. I need to pet him and love him and maybe I should have called him George."

"I am going to take my Buddy away so you cannot hurt him."

And the thing about Hamish and his Buddy is that he really doesn't ever hurt him. He pets him and loves him (yep, really loves him) and squeezes him. He carries Buddy around everywhere but he NEVER chews on him or rips him apart. Buddy always remains completely intact until the day he is gently put in the trash.

And finding Buddy is just about the only exercise Hamish ever gets. Well, besides this. "Go get your Buddy!" This phrase both excites Hamish and gets him worked up to a point that he pants and drools all over looking for his little friend. And if he can't find Buddy?

Well, any old brown fuzzy thing will do....

Can we talk email?

2009-09-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

Talking. Email. I know the two contradict themselves but just hear me out.

A few weeks ago I sent an email at work to 4 people asking a question about a process that takes place during the course of my job. 4 people. People who are perfectly capable of answering the question.

The first few days the email progressed back and forth between the original 5 people involved in the conversation....the 4 people I asked the question to and myself. 5 people. 5 people who are perfectly capable of having this conversation and coming up with answers and/or suggestions to the question.

But then it was silent. Kind of like the silence right before you get a tornado warning. That eerie, dark, still silence that gives you goosebumps and makes you throw up a little in your mouth...especially if you live in the midwest. I don't. But my Grandma has practically her entire life. I've heard stories.

5 days ago I log in to all of my work applications, including my email. And I see it. A response! A possible answer? Or maybe a suggestion? But certainly some activity! The silence is over.

But remember that throw-up-a-little feeling? Yeah. I should have paid attention to that. The email now has 17 people on it. With no answers. Just more questions. Except the questions are now directed at me. ME.

What? Those 4 people I initially emailed? Oh, they are still in the email chain. They are the ones asking ME the questions.

Remember back in the olden days when you just walked in to someone's office, had a conversation, maybe followed it up with a meeting after you invited the other 3 people who needed to be in the conversation, then MADE A FREAKIN' DECISION? It was too much work to walk to 17 different offices, have the same conversation over and over and over again only to take those 17 different conversations back and forth to the original 4 people. Life was simpler back then. In 1982. Without cell phones or email or cell phones that could get emails.

Email has overcomplicated the decision making process. Just sayin'.

I'm getting ready to be off work for 2 weeks. And tomorrow is a holiday. So there will be no definitive answer for me before I leave because I am required to answer questions I do not know the answer to before they can answer the questions I asked originally. And there is no telling how many more people will be added to the email chain while I am gone and how many more questions there will be that I still cannot answer because I have other questions I still haven't answered in order for them to answer the questions I asked originally.

(this space left intentionally silent while you read that last paragraph 3 more times)

Excuse me while I go rinse my mouth....I just threw up a little.

How do I even title this post?

2009-08-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of a pair of my favorite pants. Well, they were my favorite until today.

I'm not sure how well you can see this picture taken with my phone and I'm sorry there can't be a better one. My cell phone was the only camera I had available and this picture HAD to be taken.

You see, I'm traveling this week for work. I got on a big plane at the Sacramento airport and flew to Los Angeles. I then proceeded to the car rental terminal with my boss. MY BOSS. We approached this sexy red Mustang and I smiled with delight at how wonderful the ride to the office would be in this lovely beast.

The smile quickly disappeared and was replaced by shock and horror as I sat down on that beautiful leather seat and heard the most distressing of all noises.

RRIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

"Holy Crap!! My pants just ripped out!" My boss laughed and continued to embark on our travel. I really don't think he appreciated just HOW ripped my pants were. But I could feel the leather on my skin. I knew it was bad. Titanic bad. And I began to wonder how in the hell I was going to get from the car in the parking lot to the building where we worked.

Because I had this problem....

My plan quickly came in to development in my mind and I informed my boss that he was going to need to get my suitcase out for me once we got to the campus where our building was. My plan was to get something....ANYTHING...out of the suitcase and drape it around my waist.

Once we arrived and parked, my boss exited the car and I really took a good look at my pants. I quickly realized that NOTHING in my suitcase was going to cover the grand canyon of rips in this pair of pants. The natural air conditioning was just lovely but it was doing nothing to cool the heat I felt in my face.

Help me.

So the plan changed quickly. Very quickly. As my boss brought the suitcase to the side of the car, he mumbled "Mmm...Hmmm.." Yeah. Exactly. I promptly announced that I would be changing in the car. He promised he wouldn't look, but didn't say anything about keeping any passer-by lookie-loos from the windows. Oh, well. I've been in worse situations.

Like when this EXACT thing happened a few years ago. With co-workers. In the bowling alley during league. And I still had 2 games left to bowl.

Yeah. That's how my life rolls.

I'm very thankful for 2 things today: That the good Lord didn't let this happen while I was ON THE PLANE and....and....and the other thing? That I didn't have on my thong underwear.

You know, like that night at the bowling alley.

One of my new favorite blogs...

2009-08-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

The Internet is just simply a wonderful thing. And a bad thing with how much it sucks me in to its vortex. But it's mostly a wonderful thing.

I've found long-lost high school friends, made brand new friends and reconnected with old co-workers. It's a delight to catch up with all these folks. It breaks up the monotony of my own life. Do not confuse "monotony" with "dull".

mo·not·o·nous (m-ntn-s)
adj.
1. Sounded or spoken in an unvarying tone.
2. Tediously repetitious or lacking in variety.

It perfectly describes my life. I'm always yelling at my children in the same, unvarying tone and they tediously and repeatedly lack in their variety to actually do what I ask them to do. It's not dull, but it's doesn't vary much. Hence, the monotony of my life.

I'm off track. I do that a lot here.

So after much arm pulling and begging and...oh, who am I kidding. I was just nosey and decided I needed to join Facebook one day. Strange little community, this Facebook. I found old classmates, old co-workers, old friends, and some people that I didn't really want to find at all. Hey, you take the good with the bad. What can I say?

But I ended up finding a particular person that I worked with many years ago. He was THE first person who welcomed me to this new job in Sacramento outside of my boss. I was just a scared little country girl and this guy acted like he had known me all his life. It was quite comforting and we ended up becoming wonderful lunch buddies. It was a big group of us, actually. It saddens me because I believe I am the sole survivor of that big lunch crew. *sigh* (Still trying to figure out a good date to have lunch again!) But imagine my delight when I saw him as a friend of a friend of one of my friends. (Yes, I'm a Facebook stalker).

So we got to chatting one day...and he ended up just calling me on the phone. I didn't even realize people still wanted to do that. But it was so good to hear his voice. We talked for awhile and the whole subject of blogging came up. I told him how much I loved to blog and he said, "Yeah. My wife has this *little* blog she writes on all the time."

Meet the *little* blog:

Okay, he didn't say little. Because it's not. But he was very excited for me to go read it. And read it I did....for about 4 hours on night shift one night! This woman's writing is incredibly funny and highly contagious. I read her entire post history that night and always look forward to my little notification that she has updated.

I stalk her.

Well, I do comment over there quite a lot, too. So that's not *really* stalking, is it?

So go visit Margaret at Nanny Goats In Panties. You will absolutely NOT be disappointed!! Start with this post. You will find yourself reading the whole stinkin' blog. Trust me.

A sneaky little hidden gold-mine

2009-08-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am addicted to the gas station auto car washes. I admit it. Now you can either call that laziness on my part or resourceful. I don't care. Either way my car gets washed and cleaned and prettied on the outside without me having to break a sweat dragging a hose out to the driveway, dipping the ginormously freaky oversized sponge in to the converted empty-kitty-litter-bucket and stretch all over the car to wash it. And I NEVER get the top center of the car clean. I'm physically challenged that way just like any 5'2" person would be.

And the inside? Well, I have to sweat for that. Or go to a "fancy" car wash place and pay $25 more dollars for it. And I'm kind of cheap.

So I choose to hit "yes" to the "would you like to buy a car wash" when filling up my gas tank. It saves me money. And sweat. And a few sore muscles. When I'm all done, I stare at the reciept depository anxiously awaiting that glorious little piece of paper with the magic number on it. My number to freedom. My number to a sparkly clean car. My car wash code. Then off to the machine I go.

I will say that I am somewhat choosey about WHICH gas stations I will purchase car washes from. I do NOT like the ones with the huge muppet-like monsters twirling around your precious automobile beating it to death with its rubber fur. Ugh! How can someone do that to their car? I like the "touchless" ones because who likes to actually be touched by a stranger at the car wash? Not me.

My favorite part of the whole process? When the machine gently layers a coat of fruity smelling waxes and soaps all over the car. Hmmmmmm. I just want to eat it.

Imagine how excited I was when I noticed I needed gas when I got off work yesterday. Even though I got off work semi-late because northern California is currently trying to burn to the ground, I'm positive there was a glimmer in my eye. I wish I would have looked in the mirror to see it. And how excited I was to hit that "yes" button. How giddy do you think I was to see that little golden-numbered ticked printing out? Apparently not excited enough because I got sidetracked thinking of my husband wondering why I was running late while dinner was getting cold....AND DROVE OFF WITHOUT MY TICKET.

The horrors!!!!

So I'm finally getting to the point of this post. How much money do you think is made by these gas stations by people who do the very thing I did yesterday? I'm not sure how to even approach the clerk at the gas station...or if there is anything they could do about it anyway. I paid for a car wash. I didn't get my car wash. They got my money and didn't have to spend a dime providing me with electricity, water or yummy smelling soap and wax stuff for my car.

Hmmpf!

But there is irony in this story. A couple of weeks ago I pressed "yes", got my golden-numbered ticket and proceeded to the car wash. The vehicle in front of me pulled in and sat for a moment...and another moment...then a few more moments....then pulled out without a car wash. As I pulled up to enter my number, imagine my suprise and delight when the screen said, "Please Pull Forward."

I got a free car wash that day. I gave the one I purchased to my daughter.

But it seems as though I ended up paying for it anyway.

God is funny like that. Keeping us all honest and stuff. And if you like this story I have a GREAT one about a Christmas tree tag-swapping trick that ended up costing me twice as much money.

Dilemma #1,974

2009-08-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Quick background: Potty break at work taken perilously close to having an accident. Run-walk to the closest bathroom which is inside a locker/shower area with ONE dedicated toilet.

Delimma: The previous user did not flush the toilet and the paper toilet seat cover remains with the unflushed contents.

What do you do?

And why does this crap always happen to me? (pun intended)

Woe is the Child of an Aging Parent

2009-08-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

So I just mentioned I fell off the face of the earth for awhile. I fell while pushing my mother in a wheelchair around Target. Somewhere between the Polygrip and the Depends was a black hole...invisible to the naked eye until that unsuspecting moment where you wheel through it to stay until you come to grips with the fact that you have now switched roles with your aging parent.

Before I continue, I must preface this entire post by telling you that I love my mom dearly. She is, after all, my mom. She would give up everything she had for any of her 3 children or 6 grandchildren. Her heart is huge. Her patience is unending. Her sense of humor with her grandchildren is immense. She sacrificed years of sanity by running me in 27 different directions playing 3 different sports while I juggled 4,731 friends. All of those things, by the way, came back to bite me in the butt seven-fold with my own three children. Yes, laugh if you must. My mother does all the time. I usually just crawl in to the corner and suck my thumb.

My mom is almost 73. She fell and broke her femur 3 months ago. Today was the 12 week appt. with the Orthopedic Surgeon….who, by the way, is completely hot. I think that is really why my sister and I BOTH want to attend the appointments so badly. But that’s another story. It’s a good story. A short story. He’s totally hot. End of story.

The actual story right now is that my mother has been recovering from this break for 3 months: the first 6 weeks in a convalescent/rehab hospital. Soooo not good for one’s mental state, know what I mean? My mom broke her leg, but she was of pretty sound mind. Well, once most of the surgery meds wore off. And we wanted to keep her that way so we needed a plan to get her out of there. So the rest of her recuperation has been at my house, 2 hours away from her home. There are a few reasons for this, but mainly because I was the one with a walk in shower off a bedroom that could easily be vacated once I gagged and bound my 17 year old daughter and drug her out kicking and screaming.

Okay, I didn’t really gag her.

And what does all this mean? It means that at 44 years old, there is a reason I don’t live with my mother. You can’t take the mothering out of a mother. Try it. You’ll see I’m right. I have nicknamed my mother “The Informant” because “Tattletale” seems so inappropriate for a 73 year old woman. I have been “informed” of thousands of things I care nothing about with regards to my husband/children/pets. So I have an aging, recouperating, mothering informant living in my zoo of 2 adults, 2 adult-like (read: never-leaving-home-pain-in-the-butt-can’t-help-but-love-them) boys, 1 high school girl, 3 dogs, 2 indoor cats, 1 outdoor cat, 1 stray cat that is currently pregnant….and my mother’s aging dog who is deaf AND blind and desperately needs doggie diapers.

Yes, I’ve just about gone completely mad.

During the early years...*cough-cough*...days of my mom’s stay here, I felt the need to entertain her…and get her comfortable for her recovery. We purchased several medical supplies to assist with that, took shower doors off and replaced them with a curtain, rearranged furniture, purchased a couple of small pieces of furniture, uprooted my daughter from her room and kicked one son to the couch. You know, small sacrifices. Entertainment came to be expected and sort of morphed in to waiting on mom. Oh, she would always give the obligatory response of, “I can do it!”, which was followed by a lot of sitting and staring and sighing and interesting attempts before we got the hint she didn’t really WANT to do it. In the past 6 weeks I have cut toenails, fetched water, purchased ointments/lotions/salves/creams, reprogrammed the remote control FOUR (yes, four) times, got rid of feather pillows and replaced them with fiberfill, raised/lowered wheelchair legs by fractions of an inch 7,893 times, short-sheeted the bed BY REQUEST, counted over 1 million pieces of stucco on my acoustic ceilings (aka “popcorn” ceiling) while waiting for mom to decide if the straps on her brace were tight enough or loose enough before she got dressed or crawled in to bed. The sound of Velcro will forever haunt my dreams….

Today was the day that the mother/child relationship crossed the threshold of child becoming mother when she decided it would be a “good idea” to get in the shower BY HERSELF without telling a single living soul in my house what she was planning. At 6:00 a.m…..downstairs and across the house from the bed where my husband and I lay sound asleep and would not have heard her if she slipped on the watery floor or fell getting back in her wheelchair….my mom shuffled her way in to the shower. When she told me what she had done, I think she was almost proud of herself until I glared at her and told her, “You WILL never do that again, right? What in the hell were you thinking??!!” She proceeded to tell me, “But it was no problem. I got in and washed my hair and got out. It wasn’t a big deal.” Ummmm….yes. It was. She relayed this story to my sister and one of her own friends at lunch. It resembled a toddler telling someone that his mommy got angry because he did a no-no….complete with pouty-face.

She seriously needs a time-out.

But how in the world do you scold and punish your own mother? I guess I can ground her. I could just hide her wheelchair and she would have to request it every time she needed to get to the bathroom. On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. Wait! I could put a bell on the shower curtain to alert me anytime she went in there. Yeah. Like a trap for a wild animal. Or I could just hope that my mother won’t be quite so stubborn next time she needs a shower.

At this point I’m sure half of you are laughing and half of you are thinking I’m going to hell for being mean talking this way. But I’ll be honest with you. If I don’t get this out of my head and find some humor in all of this it will consume me, depress me, anger me and cause me to stab 400 pins in my eyes. Okay, I probably won’t stab myself.

In all fairness to my mom, there have been good moments, too. We've had some fun shopping experiences....we can recognize a good handicap bathroom stall from a bad one RIGHT away; my husband has cooked up some pretty mean dinners; good conversation over coffee in the morning while she shivers because my husband is so extremely hot blooded and she is, well, not; laughing with the grandkids; laughing at my animals and their daily antics; watching the Andy Griffith Show and America's Funniest Videos...2 staples in my house; and some laughter while she tries unsuccessfully to figure stuff out in her state of cripple.

My sister told me a story today of a woman going through her line at the grocery store. She had several packages of Depends, other “aging” medicinal items and a bottle of wine. She requested they be rung separately. My sister assumed she was going through a similar predicament and asked who the bottle of wine was for. The woman responded, “for both of us…I’m going to drink it because if I don’t I may hit my mom over the head with it.” She was on a third broken bone (a hip) with her mother. When my sister let her in on our situation, she responded by saying, “Well I’ve got news for you. This is probably the first of many.”

Now where exactly IS that pincushion?

What happened here?

2009-08-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

I fell off the face of the earth for about a month. Yes, it's true. It happens. It's a treacherous place, off the face of the earth. Just sayin'. And while I was gone, trying hard to climb back on, people came to visit my blog. People I don't know. Strangers, you might call them.

Hmmm....and LOTS of traffic here.

Maybe I should fall off the face of the earth more often. I seem to be much more popular that way. Who knew so many people would be interested in listening to my dog sing me Happy Birthday....or feel pity at the lack of windows in my life...or pop in to my older posts and laugh at my awkward years. (Okay, everybody knows people will laugh at my awkward years. Whatever.)

So it was nice to climb back on the face of the planet and be welcomed by all these lovely comments. So whoever you all are....all these 33 followers that have popped up...thanks for visiting. Hope to see you again soon!

Borrowing this post...

2009-07-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

from Lin. I'm not feeling very creative or insightful to come up with my own topic. Could be my old age setting in. Or laziness. Either way, enjoy!

Outside my window... I currently do not have a window. I'm all holed up in this here cave, working a night shift. Do you *see* any windows? Yeah.
I am thinking... that I can't wait to get outside. It's been about 11 hours since I've seen the outside of this building because there are no windows.
I am thankful for... a good job, even if there are no windows in the room I have to sit in shift after shift, 12 hours at a time, with no way to gaze outside.
From the kitchen... there are also no windows. It is directly off the control room (the picture I posted above) and is the designated area for me to burn popcorn once a week.
I am wearing... a pretty heavy sweat jacket. Because it's summer. And it is freezing in the cave that I sit in which has no windows.
I am creating... a blog post about not having windows to look out while at work.
I am going... to go look at the blueprints for our company's new building that is currently under construction to see if there will be any windows.
I am reading... Fehrenheit 451. I have no clever window reference here. Damn.
I am hoping... I'm not even going to say it. You already know what I'm hoping for after I look at those blue prints.
I am hearing... well it certainly isn't birds or a breeze or the sprinklers that could be on right now because there are no windows for me to open to give the wonderful world of the outdoors a listen.
Around the house... there are windows. And when I get home I am going to covet every single one of them, water spots and all.
One of my favorite things... window seats. I love to curl up with a good book and read in a window seat. A seat that has a window. That you can look out of from time to freakin' time.
A few plans for the rest of the week... going out to celebrate my birthday in a restaurant that has windows. Will be getting there by car which also has windows. Then I'm going to a concert which will be held outdoors and I WON'T NEED ANY STINKIN' WINDOWS.

A Birthday Serenade

2009-07-07T11:55:00.001-07:00

by the invisible man (sometimes referred to as my husband) and our little musical prodigy. Happy Birthday to me!

Twitterer....Tweeter.....Twit

2009-07-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Are you one?

I LOVE technology and the world wide web and all that it has brought to my incredibly mundane life. But I don't get Twitter. I mean, I get Twitter. I know about it. I understand it. It doesn't seem incredibly difficult to learn. But I don't *get* it.

Does anybody really care what I'm doing every 3 or 4 hours? Or 30 minutes? Really? I would be pretty presumptuous to think ANYBODY would care about my tweets. Or twitters. Or twitterings. And how many different ways are there to say that? For the people I know that might actually care what I may be up to at any given moment of the day, they can just look over and see me. Yeah. My fan base is *that* big.

The hard part about not joining is that I feel like I'm missing out on something. Yes, I'm that nosey. I need to know what's going on in my friends' lives even though I don't think they would give 2 cents to know what is going on in my life.

Here is what I envision my tweets would look like (assuming the Twitter identity of cheripryor...how original):

cheripryor: Just waking up to the alarm. I don't even have to work today. I forgot to turn it off. 8 hours ago

cheripryor: Munching down on some toast and drinking my coffee. 7 hours ago

cheripryor: Picking up dog poop so hubby can mow the lawn. 6 hours 30 minutes ago

cheripryor: Not feeling so fresh. Off to shower! 6 hours ago

cheripryor: Lunch was fab! Leftover pizza. 4 hours ago

cheripryor: on my way to get some ice cream. yum! 3 hours 30 minutes ago

cheripryor: stupid jerk just cut me off going in the door to Baskin Robbins! 3 hours 25 minutes ago

cheripryor: omg! That jerk smells like HE needs a shower. Pee-eeewww! 3 hours 22 minutes ago

cheripryor: Pralines and Cream or Birthday Cake? 3 hours 20 minutes ago

cheripryor: I ended up getting 2 scoops of each made in to a large sundae! 3 hours 15 minutes ago

cheripryor: Ugh! Stomach is feeling so horrible! What did I eat? 3 hours ago

cheripryor: Just finished up in the bathroom. What a wreck. No more dairy! 2 hours 50 minutes ago

cheripryor: Had a nap....watching some law and order now. 55 minutes ago

cheripryor: just twittering away and keeping tabs on all my peeps. 35 minutes ago

cheripryor: Just updated my blog! 3 minutes ago

And that, my friends, is exactly how exciting my normal day is. Wow. I know, right? You can't WAIT for me to join so you can follow my every. single. move(ment).

I certainly do not begrudge any one of tweeting. Or twittering. Or becoming a twit. To each his own. I will say this: I said the same thing about Facebook. I wasn't going to join. I resisted joining for a long time....until all my chat board peeps went there and I couldn't find them anywhere else. Then I was hooked.

I also said the same thing about blogging.

And, well, you know that story.

And if I join Twitter it will no doubt lead to more time spent Flocking with my widgets so I can keep up with all my peeps on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Flickr, and Digg. And if you understand all of that, you spend entirely too much time on the computer. With me.

So let's just text each other, okay?

We lost something at our house yesterday....

2009-07-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

It was devastating. Well, at least to the individual who lost it. There was a frantic phone call, LOTS of tears and sup-sups (does anybody but me and my brother know what a sup-sup is? Ask me if you really want to know), more slightly-less frantic phone calls, apologies, a few calm phone calls with more tears and apologies.

But it is lost. For good. Forever. My daughter's perfect driving record of 3 months. Gone. Poof.

It was a wonderful thing before it got lost. Careful mirror checks, lots of blinker action, beautiful lane changes, stunning merge maneuvers and speed limit obedience. Beautiful, people. A wonderfully careful pile of driving perfection.

And in one split second it was gone. *poof!*

The good news in all of this is that nobody was injured, including the other driver's big, massive hunk of iron worthy of a small role in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. My daughter's car received slightly more damage purely due to size comparison with the iron mass. But it is all cosmetic. All the pieces are still there and the parts still function properly with no additional efforts needed.

And how do you think my daughter is feeling about her perfect little car now that it is in desperate need of cosmetic surgery? Remember the frantic phone call full of tears and sup sups? Yeah. She's 17, people. Her car just lost about 27-1/2 "cool-factor" points because it has a blemish. A scar. A reminder of what was lost yesterday.

The worst part of the whole situation is that she took the car without calling and asking permission. Why is that a big deal? Because she doesn't have her LICENSE yet. She is driving around with a permit. But she did have a licensed driver WITH her, so she won't be in trouble for that. It was that whole "not asking" thing. I didn't give her too much grief about it. She's suffering the consequences of it already. In the form of that huge blemish on the car.

Oh. Wait. Maybe that isn't the worst part. It was her fault.

Yeah. That would be it.

So if any of you happen to see my daughter's perfect driving record floating around the universe somewhere, with this happy face attached to it, could you please just pop that sucker in some time machine and send it back to July 3, 2009 at 1:00 p.m Pacific time? I think you could ask Napoleon Dynamite where his Uncle Rico purchased his fabulous piece of equipment and take care of it that way.

Or we could all just wear black next week and mourn her loss with her.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Hope your 4th of July was a happy one! I'm laying in bed as I type this post, with my alarm set for 4:15 a.m. (yes, a.m.) for work tomorrow, hoping all the fan fare will die down soon so I can get to sleep. Yeah. That's gonna happen. It's only been dark enough to shoot the fireworks for about 1/2 hour. And it's Saturday. And given the scary neighborhood across the highway from me has been setting off illegal bottle rockets since 6:30 p.m. I suspect it may be sometime closer to July 5th before I get to sleep.

I may need a quadruple venti coffee-something-or-other tomorrow. It's already screaming "long day".

I could have never been a 50's housewife

2009-06-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

Just one look at this advertisement picture (circa 1952) and I get all sweaty and nervous. There are soooo many things wrong with this:

1. Looks like her husband is actually washing her car for her.
2. Two-slice toaster? What? And it certainly doesn't look big enough for bagels.
3. Where's the dishwasher?
4. A dress to do the dishes. A dress, people. (work with me...I know it's an apron, but you KNOW it's a dress. It's the 50's. C'mon!)
5. Waaaay too much happiness involved with washing that pan.
6. Singing to the dishes.
7. I can't even identify WHAT the large pot is next to the percolator.
8. There is a percolator. And I highly doubt it is a self-measuring, bean-grinding, auto-shut off percolator.
9. Her husband is washing her car for her.
10. Her outfit is seriously clashing with the color scheme of her kitchen.
11. The color scheme of this kitchen. *hurl*
12. The stainless steel sink/countertop looks like something from the school cafeteria.
13. I see clean utensils on the countertop and not in the toolbox of the garage where most good utensils are kept at my house. (I've gone plastic...)
14. I don't think that pan has an appropriate no-stick surface.
15. Where is the iPod/iPhone/MacBook?
16. Her husband is washing her car for her, but seems to be way more invested in watching his wife oogle over her reflection in the stainless steel pan. Okay, that part seems more real.

One can make many other assumptions about this picture. It had to be a weekend since the husband is actually doing something other than sitting on his butt reading the paper after work while his wife slaves away in the kitchen cleaning up from the dinner that was on the table when he walked in the door. Because isn't that what husbands did in the 50's?

I don't slave in the kitchen.

Ask my family. They will confirm this if you have doubts.

We can also assume that she is not allowed out of the house since she has no wedding ring on and we all know how shameful that whole living situation would have been in the 1950's and no doubt was the subject of gossip at many ladies' bridge club meetings. The shame of it! *GASP!*

I'm guessing they don't have children yet, either. Mainly because I don't see them clinging off her apron strings and there aren't any visible grease marks on the cupboards/oven/sink. Okay, maybe that only happens at my house. But still....

Is it wrong that I actually know what a percolator is?

And I have to assume that this is after dinner. Nobody is that damn perky in the morning. Well, not me anyway. And certainly not my father. Or my mother. I already explained that here. Kelly Ripa might be....but I doubt she has to do her own dishes, regardless of those commercials she's in.

Kelly Ripa would have been a great 50's housewife.

So how are those New Year's Resolutions going?

2009-06-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah. Ummm. Hmmm. Well....this is what I started out with:

Pray more
Forgive more
Read more
Exercise more
Laugh more
Worry less
Judge less
Spend less
Work less

And this is what I've managed to accomplish thus far....at the half-way point:
Pray more
Forgive more
Read more
Exercise more
Laugh more
Worry less
Judge less
Spend less
Work less

I haven't read more because I didn't work less. I'm trying to worry less by taking a vacation in December that I already booked so I guess I failed at spending less.

What?

And that whole judging less? I think I really have gotten better. So I guess I *have* judged less....but I've got some work to do.

Don't judge me.

The funniest joke EVER

2009-06-13T02:25:00.000-07:00

Okay...so I need to update with SOMETHING so I'm going to tell you my favorite joke of all time. If you know me well, you already know which joke it is. If you don't know me well enough, it will explain a lot about me after you read it.

And yes, I'm serious....it's my favorite joke of all time.

So this horse walks in to a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?"

Get it?

A wonderful new adventure...for a wonderful friend.

2009-05-29T02:46:00.000-07:00

I believe I have posted about Karen before and her daughter, Olivia. I know I have shared about 82 of the 4,183 pictures I have of Olivia and my own daughter, Lindsay.

Here's another one for good measure, taken just before Olivia's 2nd birthday this month.

Lindsay and Olivia, May 2009

Olivia's story is special. And Karen's life was changed forever, just like any mom is when they have a child....but not in the way you might think.

Olivia Clare Eva Framnes arrived on May 25, 2007. I watched her come in to this world with her daddy, Kjell, and Clare and a room full of hospital staff. She was a petite 4 lbs. 15 oz. when she was born full-term, but otherwise very healthy.

10 short minutes after arriving. Welcome, Olivia!

Shortly thereafter she spiked a fever, was hospitalized, and Karen and Kjell were faced with the horrible news that it was bacterial meningitis. Over the next year this poor little baby faced a myriad of ailments that were relentless on these two new parents. I will say that they braved through with complete grace and thankfulness, but if Karen reads this she will call me a liar. They both struggled with the normal emotions of bitterness, sadness, and anger all wrapped up with love, compassion, concern and sleep deprivation. It was a long journey of sleepless nights, lost jobs, no medical answers, first smiles, dainty clothes, giggles, and ruffled bottoms.

Halloween with daddy, 2008

Olivia was diagnosed with a mild form of cerebral palsy recently and is also displaying characteristics of autism, the result of the meningitis. Although it was good to finally have some kind of name attached to the delays happening with her, it was heart wrenching for Karen and Kjell to hear the words.

Olivia and my own daughter share a very special bond that is hard to explain….Olivia responds to Lindsay unlike her response to some of her therapists and I truly believe this relationship has changed my daughter in ways that I cannot explain. Lindsay loves that little girl with more compassion and depth than I have seen with any of her other relationships. She cries with each milestone Olivia makes and celebrates the days she gets to see her. It warms my heart immensely!

Just 2 months old...the attachment begins.

15 years apart in age, so much alike - July 2008

A special kind of bond - Spring 2008

The last 2 years have also changed Karen and Kjell in ways that I'm sure even they do not realize. When you are put in to these life-changing situations you just deal with it. It becomes your life and you can't remember it being any different. I can honestly say that God knew exactly what He was doing when he chose Karen to be Olivia's mother. Her heart is pure and full of love and compassion for those struggling with personal challenges, either physical or emotional. She has donated much of her time and money to worthy causes in the 11 years that I have known her.

Karen has recently decided to start a venture that will accommodate her financial needs, Olivia's therapy schedule, and her strong desire to give back to a community that has done so much for her the past 2 years. Please read the following message from Karen to her friends and family:

Dear Family and Friends:

As you are aware, my life has changed DRAMATICALLY over the last couple of years. Olivia has been an incredible miracle baby since day 1. All of her illnesses and physical challenges have been a big eye opener. Being the mom of a special needs child has educated me as well as given me a whole new perspective on life. So, where am I going with all of this and why am I writing???

Many of you know that I have been unemployed most of the last 2 years. I have tried to find a part-time job that would help with the finances and allow me to take Olivia to her 4 - 7 appointments per week. Unfortunately, I have not found an employer who can accommodate such a schedule and pay enough to cover the part-time daycare expenses. With that, I have decided to start my own business.

Along Olivia's journey, we have met EXTRAORDINARY families through the special needs organizations in which Olivia receives therapy treatments. So many of these families are struggling financially, emotionally, etc. My objective is to help them through my business....

Basically, I want to start my own baby/toddler/children's' non-profit store of used clothing/shoes and toys with a caveat....For every article of clothing or toy that is sold, I will donate an article (or 2) of clothing/toys to a special needs family. I saved Olivia's clothes and toys for this purpose. This is where I need your help....

I am looking for old or even new clothes/shoes/toys for kids newborn to 10 years old. If you, a family member, friend, neighbor has clothes/toys that they want to donate, I will pick them up. I plan on starting next week. Any clothes/toys that you or a friend/family member can donate will be greatly appreciated.

I am partnering with Alta Regional to donate the clothes to the special families. Alta Regional has played a huge role in Olivia's life. They provide the physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and several other services for her. We would be in a real bind without them. They love the idea of the donations and will maintain the privacy of the families.

Thank you in advance for assisting us with our new venture. Your kind words, support, and prayers over the last 2 years has been much appreciated. Please feel free to forward this message to family, friends, neighbors, etc. In terms of collections and times, please send me a mail message or call me on my cell phone at (contact me via email for Karen's phone number).

OH...in terms of a business name...still racking the brain. I have to get an "O" in there somewhere. If you have any suggetions, let me know.

Thank you,
Karen & Olivia

She has since decided on the name "Love, Olivia". It's more personal, less business-like, and exactly what she wants the feeling to be for her venture.

I know that the world of the internet is far reaching. If you are somewhat local to me (or in the vicinity of my hometown of Red Bluff) and can forward my blog link to anyone that may be able to help Karen in this new adventure, please do so. And if you are not local? If you would like to help, contact me via email at cheri_pryor@yahoo.com. I will make some financial arrangements for shipping donated items if you are willing to box them up. Please put "Love, Olivia" in the subject.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!

Karen and Cheri, Summer 2008

We interrupt this blog

2009-05-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

because life is happening. We will return you to your regularly scheduled blog as soon as life resumes it's normal boring state.

(You may never see her again....there is no such thing as boring for Cheri.)

Overcoming the needle

2009-05-06T21:31:00.000-07:00

My daughter is petrified of needles. Scared. It's not an act, people. Lindsay fell apart in the middle of the mall getting 2nd and 3rd holes in her ears. A major meltdown as the lady came at her with the piercing gun. Lots of crying and sobbing and snot.

She was 15.

So when she told me she wanted to get her belly pierced I was uneasy for 2 reasons:

1) It was her belly button. Something that, until it became pierced, would remain unseen by the general public unless she was swimming. I wanted to keep what modesty she still has in tact.
2) It would require a needle.

She begged. She even had a friend that wanted to pay for it for her birthday. She was DETERMINED to overcome the needle fear that grips her. But that didn't address #1 which was truly my bigger issue. She's 17. She needs a parent's permission. It wasn't going to happen with either me OR her father.

So I compromised.

I told her she could pierce her nose as long as the jewelry was small and tasteful. No bull rings. She really could not understand why I would give permission to pierce her nose and not her belly button. It was simple in my mind....everyone already sees her nose.

I also told her she would be paying for it herself. She thought about it...mulled it over...really took some time to contemplate her decision....and 1.3 seconds later asked me where she could get it done.

I asked a friend from work who I knew had some piercings and tattoos if she knew of a reputable CLEAN place I could take Lindsay. She promptly responded and before I knew it we were driving downtown to put a hole in my daughter's nose. Well, an extra hole. She already had 2.

She was fairly calm...until the guy that was to do the piercing looked at her and said she looked a little nervous and anxious. She lost it. Oy! We hadn't even got to the room yet! This man needs a medal because he gently put down his pen and the paperwork....then took about 25 minutes and just talked through the whole "fear" of needles that Lindsay had. He was calm and reassuring. And she soaked up every word he had to say like a little sponge. Yes, he was *that* good!

So she grabbed up all her new-found bravery and marched right in and hopped up on the table. I know the picture doesn't really show it, but she was all kinds of calm.

And I would love to show you the actual piercing, but I promised I wouldn't post it for public consumption lest some idiot teenager saw it and decided it looked like a piece of cake and pierced themselves. She was brave, I tell ya...because I was sweating and I wasn't getting a needle shoved through my nose.

It was pretty sore and a bit swollen for a few days. But she was very happy with the overall experience and decided that everything the store owner told her made sense for anything she had a fear of.

I wonder if he would be available to talk to her before her next final exam?

Pardon me...

2009-05-05T04:17:00.000-07:00

while my blog undergoes cosmetic surgery. After a year and a half and over 10,000 hits on my blog I thought it needed an update. Isn't it cool how my groovy necklace ---->>>
totally matches the new colors. You might think it was accidental. Go ahead and think that.

I'm not an html pro. I'm actually an html flunkie so I'll be trying to figure out why my header is overflowing in to the border's personal space. And I don't know about you but I HATE when someone ignores my personal space.

I hope my header doesn't have bad breath. That would make it even worse.

Thank you for your continued patience and understanding. I promise I'll figure it out soon! I'll also have to figure out who some folks are on my traffic feed (viewable only by me). SPAMMERS I assume. Stupid spammers. Do you think it's a coincidence they showed up right after I mentioned my dad's tighty whities? Thank God for word verification or there is no telling WHAT I would have in my comments section.

I am....my father

2009-05-03T03:17:00.001-07:00

And, unfortunately, I've noticed recently that it is not things I remember FONDLY about him. Well, I remember them while laughing NOW, but these particular things made me want to wet my pants when I was growing up out of fear and trepidation that I would be beat.

Okay, not "beat". But in a decent amount of trouble if I laughed, spoke out of turn or looked the other way. Or took a breath. Or continued to exist.

My father worked as a mechanic for a living. He got up early in the morning and my mom got up and fixed him breakfast EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. (I know, right?!) But in the 25+ years that she did this they never spoke to one another. We are not known as "morning friendly", people. It's just the way it is. It's part of our charm. Trust me. Considering I was manufactured from both sets of these "non-morning" genes, it would factor in that I, myself, am NOT a morning person.

After close to 25 years with Troy, he still does not quite get this. I know y'all are shocked that my stunning, warm, funny personality is not a 24/7/365 event. Get over it.

But over the years my mom has grown out of this shell almost entirely. She is quite perky and talkative in the mornings now. It could be because she wakes up, much to her chagrin, at around 4:30 in the morning and by the time I get up she's been up half the day. Or it could be that my dad isn't around to be Mr. Grumpy Gills (name that movie) that she has to deal with.

Now she has me when I'm there to visit. I love my mom dearly. But I simply get freakin' annoyed with people when they want to be all chatty in the morning and expect ME to be, too. I'm a good listener in the morning. I'm a GREAT listener in the morning. I just suck at the talking part. So don't make me. It is particularly annoying when I get up at my mom's house, grab a cup of coffee and head to the living room where she is watching TV....and SHE TURNS THE TV OFF. This is the first sign she wants to have some rousing conversation about something and all I want to do is zone at the TV.

But this lack of morning social skills is not the only thing I've noticed about myself getting worse and more like my father as I get older.

Because he got up so early to leave for work (he had a 40 minute drive one way) he also went to bed early. And once my dad went to bed it was QUIET TIME!! Ooops....I mean it was QUIET TIME. If Linda (my bff) hops on here to read this, I'm sure she can confirm the "rules" of no phone calls, no visitors, using quiet voices when over at my house past 8:00 p.m. Yes, 8:00 p.m. Once my dad was asleep, you better fear for your life if you woke the sleeping giant. Lord have mercy. It was nothing compared to the morning grumpiness. Oy!! There were a myriad of reasons my father woke up:

TV too loud
Phone ringing
Dogs barking
Doors shutting
Cupboard doors shutting
Refrigerator doors shutting
Laughter from the living room
Dust settling

I'm guessing my dad was a light sleeper....and I'm telling you that I lived in the house when each item on that list caused my dad to throw open his bedroom door, storm down to the end of the hall and yell at us in his tighty-whities. And it was very difficult for us to take my dad serious in his tighty-whities....and if "laughter" was the cause of his awakening then we were really in trouble once he stormed back to his room.

But much to my dismay I have become this person.

I've never been an overly heavy sleeper or an overly light sleeper. I can fall asleep very quickly....but it is hard for me to go back to sleep if I get woke up. And now that sleep comes at a premium for this shift-working, sleep-deprived, peri-menopausal woman? It's ugly if I get woke up...and the previous list is the same list of things that will cause me to throw open my bedroom door, flail (yes, flail...it's not pretty, people) down my stairs and proceed to YELL at whoever is causing the ruckus. Including the dogs. And those dogs can be NOISEY with their toenails "click-click-clicking" on the floors downstairs and their licenses/tags jingling around. UGH!!

I'm hyperventilating just thinking about it.

So I'm sure my children see this as funny once I stomp back up the stairs, slam my door shut and crawl back in bed. After all, they are *my* children. But I usually don't have to yell twice.

I wonder if it makes them want to pee their pants, too?

When good internet friends go bad...

2009-05-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

and stalk your blog making threats against you if you don't post an update.

Not mentioning any names here Patti but I guess I've been slightly neglectful on my blog. I have LOTS of posts started. Many of them completely written except for downloading pictures from my camera....or TAKING pictures that relate to the post. Some of them don't mean as much without the pictures so they are sitting there drafted, looking lonely and sad that they have not made their way to that final post.

And no, some of my drafted posts have nothing to do with me needing a picture of myself in a bikini showing off all my weight loss progress. Just sayin'. There has been weight loss progress, just not enough to put myself in a bikini and post a picture. There may never be enough weight loss for that.

So what does one ramble on and on about when there is no picture to post with the ramblings? I can't figure it out because I really like to tell stories with pictures. So I thought I would just give a pictorial update on some previous posts.

Ready?

Her breath is still VERY bad

This little cutie will be TWO this month!

I still don't think this is a good idea

The scar is barely noticeable

I'm still not getting her out on that course with me

What? You are still hungry?

There are still no pictures in this (shut up)

He's still escaping...but hasn't had to go to jail again

I have about 7 months before this ritual begins again

She is still less needy than any human living in our house

She's STILL trying

and last, but certainly not least, I'm still married to this goofball

As a matter of fact, I'll be celebrating 25 years with that goofball in December. And guess what? We are celebrating BIG TIME. More on that later. You know, when I have pictures to share.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day for those who have even the slightest clue what that is...and for everyone else I hope your weekend is wonderful!

Now leave me alone, Patti.