Happy St. Patricks Day

Where have I been ???

Playing farmville

Finally gave in and started a facebook (so I could play farmville) .. and I have to say .. its alot of fun. Don't really do the facebook part .. just the farmville part.

It's Christmas in March around here ...

It truly is the "little things" that really matter. Had the plumber out this morning .. and fixed all the broken stuff in the house. (well almost, have 1 left to go) lol
But, omg ... it's like living in Buckingham palace. All the sinks work .. and don't leak, the toilets are all fixed, and as a bonus .. he pumped the water pressure by like .. double.

This is the good life.

A surprise for Me ????

When I looked out the front door this morning, this is what I saw.

A beautiful new camaro. Hmmm, a surprise gift from Mark ... I would have to say .. yesssss. (of course I'm worth it)
Seems kind of strange, that a gorgeous new car is parked across the street, with no one around. Well, I'm gonna just go out on a limb and say that yeah, must be from Mark. Now I probably wouldn't of gone with the yellow ... but I think this is just a payback for the yellow car I bought him a few years back. (yellow vw bug - on ebay) long story ... lol
I would confirm this "gift" ... but he's not home right now. (must of had it delivered, and then "went to work out") ... for the sake of the story. He said he needed to go to the gym early today, because he left his book there yesterday. But I figured out the real reason now ...
It was to work out all the logistics for this awesome surprise gift.

Thanks hon ... I love it

My favorite day of the year ...

Is girl scout cookie day !!!


This just made my day.

Girl Scout cookies are just being unloaded in the St. Louis area.

Usually I don't read the news, but this was front page local yahoo. (guess not alot happens around here)
So as excited as I was the day we were ordering ... even more, now that I know they will be here in a day or so.
I've been loving girl scout cookies since I sold them, and we all know how long ago that would be.
The day the little girl scouts started taking orders, the mean children in the house, spent their morning playing tricks on me. They would ring the doorbell and hide, (trying to get a Pavlov dog response .. which they did .. every time)

But all of that doesn't matter anymore, since I will have cases and cases of girl scout cookies at the house soon. (you really have to stock up- since they only sell these once a year)

For those of you who didn't plan ahead ...
http://cookielocator.littlebrownie.com/
Enjoy !

It's a banner day around here ...

As everyone who knows me knows ... don't let anything sit around for too long, or it will end up gone.

My theory on the whole subject is ... if you leave something just sitting around for weeks and weeks .. obviously, you don't really need it. So in order to reduce clutter, ( and to make it easier to move - on a moments notice- lol ) ... you need to purge all the garbage every so often.

Now over the weekend, Kayla actually gave these up ... voluntarily I might add. I did wait until she was back at school to toss them, just in case she changed her mind.
I do think this "quality" skips a generation. I know, I get rid of stuff all the time. My parents ... well if you look around the basement at dad's house .. that pretty much answers that question. And the girls ... they're really not on that -throw away- band wagon either. Actually, they have given me for my birthday and mothers day in the past ... a bag of trash from their rooms. Pretty much the most perfect gift ever.

Other people want fancy gifts, but give me a bag of "freshly cleaned out trash from your room" and I'm good. (an occasional box of Godiva chocolate never hurts though also)

Saw this ...

and just had to post it.

This one is for you sweetie.

Happy Birthday Dad

Hope you have a great birthday.
Love you

Last night we went to see Buddy Guy, and BB King. I got these tickets for Mark for Christmas. (Buddy Guy is one of his favorites)
We met out in St. Charles for dinner, Lewis and Clarks ... very nice. We will definitely have to go back.
I saw Buddy Guy once in Chicago when Mark used to go there for the trade show in January, but it had been a really long time.
The concert was really good, but these guys are getting old. Buddy had to be in his 70's, and BB King is 84. Guess this is how you know your getting old, when the concerts you go to .. the guys in the band are really old. Well, I think I should make a list from oldest to youngest of the bands I want to see ... so I'm not seeing them when they're in their 70's. (I better do this pretty quick, since I know Fleetwood Mac is older than me ... how much .. not sure)

Not quite like I thought it would be ...

Well, as you know ... piddulz has alot of food allergies. Now that I think about it, he's kinda like Kayla. One drop of whatever food she wasn't allowed to have, would make her incredibly sick. Piddulz has the same sort of issues. So after taking Piddulz to the vet yesterday, and not hearing anything positive. Mark decided we should really go to extremes with the cat feeding issues. (more on that later) Make sure absolutely, no one gets food they are not allowed to have. So this is the result.

I pulled all the regular food in the house, and I feed them all different wet food... twice a day. Now I assume the "normal" cats will get used to this .. in time.
It's going to take a couple of weeks to see if this new plan is going to work. Until then, I'll be taking out the trash and washing the floors twice a day now. Who's great idea was this again ... ohhhh yeah I remember.

Danny's going to state ...

As quoted in Danny's favorite movie - "2nd place ... hell yeah !!"
Danny won 2nd today in the DECA competition in sports marketing. So from here, he goes to the state competition at the lake over spring break.



Congrats Danny and good luck at state !!

When you get up early ...

It's amazing what you see. lol

Got up early this morning, and caught Danny as he was leaving for school. What, a suit and tie ...

Since I'm not usually up when he leaves, (a benefit of kids over 16 w/cars) I always assumed he wore ripped up jeans and polo's. Huh ...




Actually he usually does wear ripped jeans and polo's. This was a special business type day. They would spend the day doing grown-up business people stuff, break for the mall for a couple of hours, and then back to business.
Actually I think thats pretty accurate. lol

Happy Valentine's Day

President Obama ... I want my snow back ...

I guess this is the next part of the "Obama redistribution". All the snow that normally would fall on the midwest ... is being redistributed to everyone in the rest of the country that doesn't normally get snow. (or get that much snow)

The east coast has 5+ feet, I just saw on the news that Dallas got a foot of snow yesterday, and the south is getting pounded today ... what the heck ??

This is a picture of the patio ... hardly enough snow to even mention. It's like someone, (who shall remain nameless).. came down and took all the snow that should be here, and gave it to those less fortunate people, who live in places where it doesn't normally snow.

Is it a "coincidence" that Washington DC has all the snow?? (kind of a metaphor if you think about it)
Here I am on main-street america in the middle of the country, and I have nothing. I used to have snow... lots of it.
This is why I live in the midwest and not the south ... I LOVE SNOW.
But enough of this whining .. let's fix the problem.
Now I've done some calculations .. and based on the weather from last week .. had Obama not intervened ... we would have about 4 1/2 feet of snow.

So, let's forget about all this redistribution of wealth/snow and get things back to normal. I think the east coast has to give back about 3 1/2 feet from this last storm.
And Texas .. you owe me about 10 inches. (I'll give you 2 .. so the kids can have a fun snow day off school) Actually, 2 inches in Texas might just shut schools down for a couple of days. So were good.

This was an easy one ...

Mark and I went out for chinese food tonight, and this was my fortune.

Well I think Ashley & Doug are the cultured ones, and Kayla is artsy ... and they'll all be here by dinner tomarrow.
I love fortune cookies.

Earthquake ???

Well, I got up this morning to news there was a tiny earthquake in Chicago. Pretty far from here .. I'll give you that. From what they say .. it happened around 4 am. Just so happens, I was up at 4 am, still not feeling it.

But ... this morning I went into the closet and this is what I found ...


I know what your thinking ... omg forget the earthquake .. it looks like a bomb went off in there. True .. but forget that part. In the middle of the closet floor, is the cover for the light above .. hmmm coincidence ??? maybe
But then there was this ...

A bunch of towels laying on the floor ... correct
But they had been stacked on the top of that suitcase for at least 2 weeks. And then they mysteriously tumbled over .. last night ??

I'm going with the earthquake.

And I think I'm going with the earthquake for the rest of the closet too.

Over the weekend ...

I drove down to visit Ashley & Doug. I left Friday night trying to avoid all the snow that was heading our way. But, that didn't work out too well, and I just spent the evening driving through a blizzard. Tacked on a few hours to the drive time, but made it safe and sound.
I found my new favorite place to stay there, a local bed & breakfast. The thought of it is a little weird, like your staying at some old peoples house you don't know .. but it was fine .. food was excellent and the room was much nicer than a hotel.

Ashley and Doug walked over every morning for breakfast. Turns out the B & B is really close to where they live. Saturday we spent the morning going to a couple of flea markets, I even found some old spools I had trying to find. On Saturday night we went out to dinner and to see "The tooth fairy" movie. Pretty good, but I do prefer the earlier version "Toothless" which stars my favorite, Kirstie Alley.
After another delicious breakfast on Sunday, I packed up and headed home. I started thinking how much fun a bed and breakfast would be to run. Huh, maybe ...

We have a winner ...

Well the superbowl isn't over yet, but the winner commercial has already played.

Green Police Audi Super Bowl Ad - For more of the funniest videos, click here

Fluffy kitties & a penny ...

It was a long time coming. Minky hadn't been to the groomer since the "accident". That's when he accidently got nicked by Carol (Minky's groomer). I have put off taking him back, since the stitches had to heal, and he was really uneasy about the whole thing. Normally, he would go get his hair done about every 2-3 weeks. It's been about 7+ weeks, and he was looking pretty bad. As you can see from the picture below .. he is as beautiful as ever.

Now on to the penny...
I was doing Danny's laundry last night, and in cleaning out his pockets .. found a bunch of stuff. So wrote him a note ...

Hey Danny,
Thanks for the tip
with your laundry.
It's nice to be appreciated.

Then I piled up all the stuff I found ...
$25.
pack of gum
tube of chapstick
and a penny.

When I got home today, the pile was gone ... but the penny was clipped into the note.
The penny is going into the china cabinet, with all my other treasures. So when you find this jar years from now and inside there are .. 2 quarters, 1 dime, 1 nickel and a penny ... this is the penny's story ... the others ?????

Look what came in the mail today ...

And .. it looks so official, with a raised seal and everything.
I'm going to visit Ashley and Doug this weekend, so I'll bring it along. Ashley is one of those "few and far betweens" in my family ... the ones who graduated from college. I never went, so I believe the list would be ... my dad, Deb, Kenny (my cousin), and I think that's it. So that would be 4 out of 20ish. We are looking to raise the percentages a little with 2 more in college now (I assume they'll graduate .. lol) and Danny. (who's still in high school)

Since Ashley's post ...

I've been thinking about making this alot. I haven't made Sherry Chicken in forever.
omg I just love, love, love this, and I haven't made this for probably at least a year.
First of all, with all the kid's gone .. we eat out alot. And secondly, it's not really "diet" food. I know what your thinking .. omg your on a diet ?? Well no, but Mark is ... so when I do cook (which is not really all that often), I try and make something that is, at least by appearances ... healthy.

This would not be one of those "healthy" dinners. But I have to tell you, it is to die for. And, since I don't eat chicken ... I just have mashed potato's and bread ... with gravy ... lots of gravy.

I'm kind of a "carb girl" ... can you tell

A laptop in the sink is kinda strange ...

I'll give you that one. Mark finally decided he can part with 1 of his broken computers. (He has 3 at least .. broken ones I mean)
So since Kayla's not here (she usually handles the disassembly of electronic items), and I really don't feel like tearing it apart ... I figured the next best thing would be to just fry the insides.
So I turned it on, got a bottle of pop and just started pouring it inside the computer ... kinda sizzled, little bit of smoke .. and I believe it is useless now. That was quick .. perfect.

Finished reorganizing the scrapbooking closet.

Now maybe I can find the things I'm looking for.

Got the dryer fixed. OMG ... k it used to take ... seriously, 3 hours to dry a load of clothes. I assumed it was the washer I bought was a cheap one, and it just didn't spin out really good so the clothes were alot wetter going into the dryer .. therefore, it would take alot longer to dry them. Made perfect sense to me.
But after we had the fire smell which triggered the repairman call, which then made me call the vent guy ... it's all fixed. And now, I can dry a load of clothes in a half hour. So doing the math here ...
Before spending 12 hours doing laundry ... I would only get 4 loads done, now .. I could get 24 loads done. (not that I have 24 loads sitting around .. but on the rare occassions when all the kids bring their laundry down at one time .. it will help)

On to more news ... yesterday I took Lily to the vet. The poor kitty has been sick for 2 months. Had here there a number of times, and they could never quite fix her. Well, we finally got the right combo of meds .... and she is doing fine. Give her another couple of days, and she will be good as new.

And Brad called yesterday about his news.
He got a puppy. He's a black (were guessing border collie). He's 7 weeks old, and he named him Bo. Brad is very excited about it, and I'll put up pictures as soon as I get one. Not sure where Brad's going to keep the dog when he comes home on break ... as this is a dog-free zone. Guess there's always Beth's. Hope she likes dogs.

What kind of a house ...

Doesn't have candy??

Omg I can't imagine. So I go into the kitchen to get some candy .. and there is none. Hmmmm, try the other spot I keep candy ... empty. Hmmmm, try spot number 3 ... nothing. Go to my super secret stash spot ... gone.
Are you serious ... sure the kids could of found the normal 2 places, maybe even the 3rd. But my super secret stash spot ... (guess it wasn't too super secret after all)
So now, the only chocolate in the entire house ... are mini-chocolate chips. Not that I'm picky ... and those aren't good enough, but there a little messy.
Great, I just dropped one into the keyboard and it's not coming out. (wonder what that's going to do to it) Luckily, if the chocolate does fry the keyboard, Mark has like 5 of them on the floor of his den ... I'll just go steal one of his. How many keyboard's does one person need anyway.

I always start with a plan ...

Tonight, I went to dinner with Carolyn. We went to Uno's, little pricey .. but Carolyn always has a coupon ... so $10 bucks .. not bad for dinner. After dinner I came home, and as soon as I walked in the door ....
hmmmmm smells like smoke.
That's pretty strange since no one was home, so burnt food .. not an option. So I walk around the whole house .. looking for something -on fire-, can't find anything ... anywhere.
So I figure ... well, I know I smelled smoke when I came in, but since nothing is obviously on fire ... guess it's fine. Start the dryer (since the clothes take like .. omg forever to dry) and figure I would reorganize my scrapbooking stuff.

So as you can see .. things have gotten a little out of place since the last time I cleaned it out.
The first step is, empty everything onto the kitchen counters, and start going through it all. I get all that done, and before I really start going through it .. I'll just go outside really quick for a smoke.

As I come back in ... the smoke smell just hits you at the door. I'm like .. omg .. nothing is on fire .. so why do I smell smoke? Start walking around ... again ... and figure out it's the dryer. Now the dryer isn't on-fire, it just smells like it is. Open the door to see if the inside's are on fire, nope .. still a little wet, but no flames. So that's the extent of my dryer knowledge, and I figure well ... no fire, and the clothes are still wet. So what I'm going to do is .. still use it, but I'll "watch" it. That way, if it does start a fire ... I'll be fine.

I go back to organizing, and take a minute to figure out where all the cats are (just in case). I assume, I can grab all the cats, throw them into my car if the house just spontaneously .. burst into flames.
By now I'm getting used to the smoke smell, and then Mark calls. I'm telling him about my little issue and the first thing he says is .. wow I bet the dryer hose is plugged with lint and stuff. Hmmmm, that's not good, and I run in and shut off the dryer, expecting the entire laundry room to be in flames, just like when my dear brother set one of our old houses on fire doing laundry. (washed his jeans in gasoline ... I hear gas takes paint out of clothes .. hmmm who would of thought it could blow your washer up and set the house on fire) huh ... that's a shocker.
Now everything is falling into place. The hose is plugged, which is why the clothes take 3 hours to dry, and the burning is probably all the lint in the hose catching fire.
But ... everything is fine, well I can't use the dryer ... but other than that .. everything's fine. The house is still intact (a tad messy, since I've gotten a little bored with going through all this stuff)

So for now .. the kitchen will look like this...

Tomarrow ...

Is the first day of winter break ...

I know what your thinking ... winter break ??
Wasn't that what all the kid's just had when they were home from college ??
Yes .. that would be correct.
But, tomarrow ....
I start my "winter break" That's when all the kid's are back at college and it's just me and Mark again. lol

I've been tearing the house up since I dropped Katie back at college this afternoon. I did take a little break to watch my -favorite- Peyton Manning win, and my -least favorite- Brett Favre lose. So it's been a good day all around.

Not quite wedding pics ...

But this is all I have. Took this picture of Ashley and Doug yesterday before they left to go back to Springfield. I checked my camera this morning .. knowing I didn't take any pictures at the wedding, but hoping someone else grabbed my camera and took a few shots ... no such luck.
So, wedding pictures will follow when she gets them back from the photographer, or if Kayla has some.
It's been busy, busy, busy around here for the last few weeks. With Christmas and the wedding, and everyone in from up north, all the kids in from college, with guests ... .
But, it's all starting to wind down now. Ashley and Doug left yesterday, Brad's back at school, Kayla's back in school, but still at the house because Paulo and Pipe are still here for another week. Danny's back on the week on/off program and he'll be back on Monday.

So calm, quiet and normal ... are not too far away.

Well that was fun ...

Last night we -finally- got some snow. We really haven't had much for the year so far, so the potential of 6 inches was pretty nice.
Turns out ... we ended up with maybe 2 .. but, it's better than nothing.
So last night, around midnight I went and drug our little house guests ( I affectionately refer to them as "the Colombian boys", Paulo and Pipe to look at the snow. (they weren't sleeping .. as everyone around here knows ... the days now run from about 2 pm till 4 or 5 am. (little different .. lol) Anyway ...
They have never seen snow. Maybe pictures on TV or online .. but never in person. So what's the next logical thing to do with snow ...

Take the car out and have some fun with it.

I figured since they had never really dealt with snow before .. they certainly had never spent the evening doing "donuts" in a parking lot.
So I drove up to the closest big parking lot (Target) and they spent the next half hour, sliding and spinning out in the lot. (Don't worry, we were careful not to hit anything, and everyone had their seatbelts on .. just in case we did. lol

I have never seen anyone as excited about anything as they were about the snow. They were just in awe of everything that a snowfall brings.
The cold,the white, the beauty that you really can't describe
and
The absolute silence and calm of snow

In 4 days ...

Ashley will be getting married. I took this forever ago when I got rid of my wedding dress. She looks as adorable in her dress as she does mine ... just a little more grown-up.