Friday, January 29, 2010

Face it Friday Week 5

Well, I only made two goals to keep track of. (Mostly because I wasn't sure I would remember them.) I haven't done very well on either one, sadly.

My first goal was to edit a chapter a week for Jennee's "Singles Anonymous".  This is week five, but I've only done one and one half chapters.  I blame my being behind on the fact that we've had "Chuck" marathons this month, and  I have been distracted by having my granddaughter to visit for a week.  And now I'll have another distraction, Betty (who you  may be familiar with through "Betty Files" from Jennee's blog). She will be staying with us for another two weeks, probably.  Her husband is on his way up from Florida, heading to Wisconsin to work.  But, then he got a call that the job was on a two-week delay.  So, he will be spending that time here, then they will both head on up to Wisconsin.  I won't mind having them here, but, I fear it will make finding time for editing a little more difficult. 

My other goal was in the losing weight department. I am down a pound, but I won't get too excited because it falls in my fluxuation range of five pounds, which means I have a ways to go before I can claim actual weight loss.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Sophie comes for a visit Part Two

So, after playing peek-a-boo with Sophie for about thirty minutes, she finally dozed off sometime after 10 p.m.  Or, maybe I dozed off first.  (I can't remember.)

I should also mention that Hubby and I rearranged our blankets so our heads would be at the foot of the bed.  We had an air mattress bed for her that we butted up to our bed so we could be head to head with her.  She laid in "her" bed for about five seconds, then said she wanted to sleep in our bed.  I have three pillows on the bed, and she immediately laid claim to the middle pillow saying that was her pillow, and it was just the right size for her.  And that is where she slept for the entire week.  Luckily we have a king-size bed, so there was plenty of room.

You might think that after such a big day for a little girl, she would sleep late into the morning. (And by late, I mean 8:00.) But, that was not the case.  Dark and early at 6:00 we awoke to the sweet sound of a tired little voice saying, "Grammy".  "Pappy".  We just groaned and said, "What time is it?"  Shortly after that, the tired voice was awake and ready for us to "get up".  We groaned a little more, then got up.

The past few times we have been with her, I have let her help me fix breakfast.  She remembered that, and immediately started pushing the chair from the table to the stove.  We make "yellow eggies" (scrambled eggs), and she throws in the cheese.  She also helps me make coffee by grinding up the coffee beans.  She also only helps to make the food, and rarely eats the food. (Unless we're making chocolate chips cookies, and then she wants to eat the dough. And who can blame her?)

Not only did she waste no time in claiming our bed, she also claimed Hubby's chair.  His kitchen chair is a former office chair, and to Sophie it looked like a dentist chair.  Apparently, she has good memories of dentist visits, so she always sat in the "dentist chair", and from time to time, we had to play dentist, using the (unused) attachments from out water pick..

After breakfast, it was non-stop movement till lunch.  But, of course, she "wasn't hungry", so I had a very short lunch break.  Just enough time to catch my breath until supper time. That was the routine of my week  We played whatever her 3 1/2 year old imagination could come up with.  We played "puppies", dress up, going on an adventure, which consisted of putting the car seat on the couch, buckling in her stuffed animals, "driving" for 10 seconds, unbuckling her animals, then it was time to "go home", which reversed the entire process. We ran and chased and tickled and tickled and belly danced. We also played "Monsters vs. Aliens", which just consisted in her re-naming us.  Sophie was Susan aka Ginormica, Hubby was Missing Link, and I was B.O.B.  All you really need to know about that is that B.O.B. has no brain! (But, it turns out you don't need one!)

Sophie speaks quite well, but she does have a few Sophie-isms.  She wanted to watch a "Disney Closet Movie"  aka Disney Classic Movie.  Ohio Steak aka Ohio State.  She does a very good job with the arm spelling of O - H - I - O. We're very proud of her!  And the best one is Uncle A-Lee aka ukelele.

All in all it was a very exhausting week, but we wouldn't have passed it up for anything!  When her other grandpa came to take her back home, she was just as happy to see him as she was to see us. We barely got good-bye kisses or hugs.  I'm glad she can make the transition so easily, but, if she would have shown us a teeny-tiny bit of sadness in leaving us, we would have been a little bit happier.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Unexpected Dry-Wall Hanger

Yes, that would be me.  I did not expect or plan to be hanging dry wall today, but that is exactly what I found myself doing.  Hubby and George have been working on a couple remodeling projects together.  The first job is, oh never mind, I don't want to bore you with unnecessary details.  Today was the day agreed upon by Hubby and George to hang the dry wall in a garage/shop.  Not WALL dry wall, but CEILING dry wall.  George gave, what he thought was a very good reason why he could not be there today (nor apparently tomorrow, for that matter), leaving Hubby to do the job alone.  He was more than willing to take me to the jobsite to help Hubby, however.

I am not inexperienced in hanging dry wall.  In fact, I would be willing to bet that I have hung far more than the average woman.  Approximately 12 years ago, we started what we thought would be a one-room remodeling job (kitchen) and over the course of four years ended up remodeling every single room in our house.  Let me tell you, that translates to a lot of dry wall. Dry wall is also called sheet rock by some people. And sheet rock is a good name, because it feels like you are hanging sheets of rock---it's heavy!

But, with the help of a nifty lift, the job today was not that bad. Hubby and I just had to lift the 12' long piece of dry wall up onto the lift, which was then cranked up to the ceiling. Of course there was a lot of measuring, cutting out holes for the lights, gluing, and climbing ladders. It turned out to be a rather fun day.  It's just that I  knew that there were a few thousand other things I would rather be doing.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Tuesday is Mommies Day Out

On almost any given Tuesday (except, ironically, today) my mom, my sister, and I will be together.  I don't remember exactly when we started doing this, but I feel safe to say that it has been at least a decade. At first we didn't have a name for it, but eventually it became "Mommies Day Out".  We changed it to "Grannies Day Out" after my sister and I both became grandmothers. When we first started this, we hadn't settled on a particular day, we just wanted to make it once a week.  We gave each day a trial run for a few years, and finally settled on Tuesdays.  We originally started meeting around 10:00, and that eventually turned into 10:00-10:30, and now we are pretty much settled in to 11-ish, which translates into anytime after 11, but before noon.

This is generally how the day goes:  Around 8:30 Tuesday morning, I call my sister, and say, "Hey, are we getting together today?"  To which she answers, " Yeah, what do you want to do today?"  I respond, "I don't know, I'll call Mom and ask her.  Who wants to drive?  11-ish?"  I then call my mom and say, "We're getting together, what do you want to do?"  She will say, "I don't care as long as I can be with my girls. What time will you be here?"  I say, "11-ish", and she always laughs, nervously.  I think she is afraid that 11-ish will turn into noon-ish. (So far, that hasn't happened.) 

So, at 11-ish, the designated driver will pick up the other, and we head over to Mom's.  We all live within five minutes of each other.  So, now, we're all in the car, getting ready to leave Mom's driveway.  "So, where are we going? Where do we want to eat?" asks the driver.  Everyone responds, "I don't care, where ever."  The driver says, "I need to know which way to turn out of the driveway!"  We all laugh, and either the driver decides, or we drive around aimlessly until a decision has been made. 

When we first started, we tried to have some kind of plan, kind of like going on a field trip.  But, as the years have worn on, we just fly by the seat of our pants. Sometimes we'll go to the Outlet Mall in Lodi, or the Strip Mall in Canton, or "Amish Country" in Charm, Berlin, or Walnut Creek. Usually, we just say in town, and end at JoAnn Fabrics, Kohl's, Wal-mart, or Pat Catans. You would be amazed at how much time we can spend in one store. We don't always buy a lot, but we're usually always laughing.  Occasionally, we have run into people we know, and they say, "We heard you laughing clear on the other side of the store".

We have had some memorable moments, but most of them would qualify as "you had to be there."  I quit telling Hubby a long time ago about our days.  I would start laughing and try to describe a moment, and he would just look at me and say, "What's so funny about that?"  So now I just tell him we had a nice day together. And he's happy about that.  There was one time that a waitress called us "The Three Stooges". All I know, is that she brought out a dessert sampler (dessert is required for our day), and I couldn't decide which one I wanted.  Is it my fault there was more than one chocolate dessert to choose from?

We only have two rules. #1 - Tuesday is Our Day (aka Holy Day).  That rule is only broken for babysitting grandbabies, sometimes work, and occasionally if the weather is bad (which is the case today) #2 - We always go to the County fair in September and "bet" on the horse races.  We don't actually bet money, and we pick horses by the colors of their silks. We've discovered it's good we don't bet money, because we aren't very good at picking winners!

But, all in all, we have a jolly good time together, and hope we can continue this tradition for many years.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The "S" word

Today I thought I would dig into the "archives" and pull out this little number. In case I haven't been clear enough on how I feel about the white stuff, this should answer any questions you may have.


The s### word may not be what you think it is.  In our family, we try not to 
say THAT word either, but when we say the "s" word, we are referring to...I don't even want to say it, so I'll whisper it....s....n....o....w.  We are not fans of the white stuff.  It's hard to say which family member detests it the most.  As a cute little girl, I didn't really think too much about how I felt about it.  I spent my share of winters playing out in it.  I used to pretend that someone was following me, and devise ways to trick "them" by going backwards in my own tracks.  This kept me entertained for awhile, until I noticed how eerily quite it was outside, then I would get so paranoid that I hurriedly ran inside to get away from "them" before "they" got me.  But, I digress.


After I met and married Hubby, I soon realized that I had never known anyone to hate winter as much as he did, and continues to do so.  Soon, I found myself wondering how anyone in the world could ever like snow.  That is not to say that looking outside at newly fallen snow is not beautiful.  But, our family only enjoys it from the inside looking out.  And s### only looks pretty on the first initial s###-fall, after that, it gets slushy, icy, gray, black, yellow.  And, depending on how much falls, we end up with mountains and mountains of it that don't melt until April. Yuck.


But, probably the things we hate more than the white stuff are the cold temperatures, freezing, blowing winds, and icy conditions that accompany it.  In short, we all hate (and I can't think of a stronger word) HHHHATE to be cold!  Someone said once that we just need to find a sport to enjoy.  Are you kidding?  S### sports?  Number one, that requires being OUT in the stuff, and most sports that I can think of require some kind of speed.  Okay, let me get this straight...outside, already freezing, and now I'm supposed to do something that requires speed, which to my way of thinking translates to being even colder.  No thank you.  I have a hard enough time staying warm INSIDE.  We have piles of blankets spread out on the couch, so that there is, at the very least, one blanket per person. I can usually be found with a scarf around my neck, sometimes wearing my robe over my clothes, to keep me warm,until a Hot Flash kicks in! By the time I get everything off, to cool off, I get cold, and have to start the dressing process all over again! Then I get hot.... oh boy, you get the picture. But, here I am digressing, again.


I don't really know who in our family wins the award for hating s### the most.  If each person was asked, they would all claim that no one hates s### more than they do.  I would give the honor to Hubby, just because he has hated it the longest.  Two (now, it's three) years ago, we sold our business and moved to North Carolina, intending to be finished with winter forever.  Ironically, we left Ohio in a snow s### storm, and for reasons unforeseeable at the time, moved back to Ohio a year later in another s### storm, effectively never missing an Ohio winter.  Oldest Son was smart.  He went to college in Tennessee, and never came back.  He loves to rub it in when he has sunshine and warm weather, and we are still bundled up.  Middle Son is in Ohio and tolerates the cold. Daughter (who also blogs: Cheap Therapy) has moved the most and the furthest, to get away from the frigid temperatures and white stuff.  She lived in Nashville for a year, discovered it wasn't warm enough there, then moved to Miami.  (But, now she's back in Ohio, freezing with us.) We're even teaching our Granddaughter to hate the stuff.  When she was only one, we showed her a picture of (s--n--o--w), and we would say, s###--YUCK.  Soon, she was saying it on her own. We're so proud of her!


So there is a little insight of how one family feels about winter. Too bad I have written it down, because this is something I would like to forget by tomorrow!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

That's so weird

A very strange thing has happened to me since I began thinking about writing a blog (three days ago) and then actually starting to write a blog.  My brain is now thinking in "blog-ese".  I laid awake last night for about two hours - give or take - and every thought I had was in blog form.  Is that normal?  Will I now be cursed by thinking that every thing is blog material...or will the reader(s) assuming I get more than one family member to read my blogs be cursed by my thinking that every thing is now blog material???  Oh dear.

Usually, there is not a lot going on "up there", and sleep will come a little easier...I count to 100 frontwards and backwards a few...hundred times, being annoyed by Hubby sleeping soundly and snoring softly, just to rub it in!

The other times my brain gets over-active at night is when rehearsals start up for the Community Choral Union that I sing in.  One phrase and only one phrase of the most energetic song gets stuck in my head, so much so that it's as if there are no other words to that song.  The most recent resident of my brain was "Ain't a that a good news, good news? O, ain't a that a good news, good news?", about 500 times. 

I don't know if this is blog worthy material or not, but since I only have one reader, I won't worry too much about it.  Maybe as time goes on, I will get the hang of it.  But, for now, I will just write this, because by tomorrow I will have forgotten it!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Saurkraut and Resolutions

First things first.  I am so impressed that I found my own blogging page without any help. Maybe saying this out loud would embarrass certain people, but since no one else is reading this, (except for maybe one person--you know who you are) I'll say it anyway. (I know you're impressed that I'm actually writing, aren't you?)

So, it's the first day of the new year. I'm the early bird, awake at 8:00. Hubby and daughter are still sleeping--lucky ducks.  I have a crock pot full of saurkraut, that will, hopefully, be ready for the noon meal. Since I have only recently become a fan of saurkraut, I don't really know how to fix it other than to just dump it in the crock pot.  This is not the tasteless, prepackaged version, but homemade by the local market, and already deemed fantastic by Hubby, so my philosophy is why mess with perfection?  (How crazy is it that I have just written an entire paragraph on saurkraut?  And, according to "spell check" is misspelled, but since I can't find the spell check button, it will have to remain misspelled, because I am too lazy to look it up the old fashioned way.)

On the age old question of resolutions--yes or no?  I say no.  Here are my reasons: 1) I used to go to a lot of trouble, every year, and really think it out, but I always ended up with the same ones:  Lose weight (not again!!), and read the Bible everyday.  (The rest I can't remember, but I always had at least 10! The other eight probably had to do with making my body into perfection. Yes, I am that shallow.) I still need to lose weight, and my body is far from perfect, but now, I don't care anymore. I still don't read the Bible everyday, but I'm doing much better than in the earlier years.  2) After tomorrow, I wouldn't remember what they were. Write them down, you say?  That's just one more piece of paper I'd have to look for.  3) See reason #2.

Well, this concludes my Very First Blog. Hubby is awake, daughter is still sleeping, and I need to check on my saurkraut.  Good thing I have written this down, because by tomorrow, I will have forgotten it!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...