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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I.Am.The.Cool.Mom !!!

Angel came home from school yesterday & told me that all of her friends think I'm the coolest Mom!   I'm not exactly sure what it is that I've done to warrant this title, but I'll take it!

Apparently because I've learned to choose my fights wisely, that makes me awesome.  If the school says its OK if she wears flip-flops, then wear them.  (However, if someone stomps on your toes - no sympathy!!)  If the school is OK with the length of that skirt (as long as she wears shorts or leggings under it), then OK with me.  I not only let her wear makeup to school, I let her borrow mine occasionally.  I not only let her put green streaks in her hair, I did it for her.   Stuff like that. 

Yay me!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Happy day-after Easter !!

I took the day off work before I realized that Angel didn’t get today off school. Ooops. That’s OK – getting a bit done, necessary errands anyway. I took Jack to PetSmart to get his nails done and got some hip & joint supplements for him. He’s been limping off and on a lot lately. This afternoon, he’s getting his ears checked out – the groomer thought he might have an ear infection and I agree, since he’s been doing a lot of shaking his head, and his ear is really red and has a lot of potatoes in it. He acted off all weekend at Laurie’s house. Normally he’s running around & playing with Morgan and he didn’t want to this time. He was actually hiding from her!  Hopefully its just his ears and nothing terribly serious.
 
So lots of drama – thankfully none of it has been at the Love Shaque !!! First, last week nephew Jamie’s girlfriend’s Dad apparently flipped out. He shot her brother while he was sleeping, picked her mom up from work for lunch, shot her in the car & then shot himself while driving, so the car crashed. Luckily into a tree & not someone’s house!! Nikki said he’d been depressed. I guess because I’d never suffered with depression, I just don’t understand why someone would kill themselves & take some family members with them! It’s not like it’s a hush-hush taboo thing – there’s help available out there!! I just don’t get it (shaking head sadly).

Drama #2 has been on-going. Laurie’s work finally got to her & she spent the night in the hospital for anxiety Wednesday. Luckily it looks like she’s got a new job lined up already – whew! Her commute going to be cut easily in half and she won’t have to deal with the infamous Geoffrey Fieger anymore. From what she says, he’s losing lot of his attorneys! 8 have given notice in the past 6 weeks or so.

Mom called up to make sure that we were all OK. Yes, we’re fine!

We still at Easter at Laurie’s house. We made sure she didn’t overdo it. She did have to help the vet when he came out to do some dental work on the horses Saturday afternoon. That was actually pretty interesting! He was almost done with Princess when I went out there, but I stayed to watch Kisses & help with Captain. He fought a bit. It was pitiful, but funny at the same time. Captain is the only one I took pics of. The vet tranquilized him and we backed him into the corner of the stall. Once he was loopy, the vet put this metal thing between his front teeth & could jack it open so he could see & work in Captain’s mouth (he did this with all of them). Then he put this stand in the stall to rest the horse’s head on and hold it up so he could see in. Captain wasn’t too happy and it took both Laurie & I to hold his head still while the vet worked. But afterward, when he took the mouth jack thing out, Captain stood there with his head on the stand and his lip just hung. LOL!!  We had to open his mouth for him & tuck his tongue back in because we were afraid he was going to bite it.

Poor loopy Captain!

Saturday evening, they probably shouldn’t have, but niece Lisa & Angel went for a ride. Angel had her Princess & Lisa had her Captain & I chose to lead Kisses. We went for a nice walk up & down the road. Laurie felt bad that I didn’t ride, but no – it was win/win. I got a nice long brisk walk in & Kisses, who hadn’t been ridden since last fall, also got out to stretch her legs & could look around without worrying about a rider. Sunday, I did ride and she was perfect. I can’t believe I took pictures ~from~ horseback but not any of us ~on~ horseback! What a dork I am !!!!

Linda, Dave, Catie & Catie’s latest boyfriend came out Saturday to color eggs & have dinner. It’s amazing that manages to find the guys who have never done a fun Easter before. This is the second guy she’d brought that’s never colored eggs or looked for them!! WTF?!! Anyway, they chose not to stay or come back Sunday because they “wanted to spend the holiday with family”. ?????? Who are we, then??? Whatever. We had a good time anyway. We only hid eggs twice and didn’t lose any! It was nice to get home. It seemed like we were gone a lot longer than just overnight.

Randy & I both made geek eggs.

The annual bunny cake

So anyway, I should probably wrap this up and get a few things picked up & put away before taking Jack to the vet.  Later!

Sunset Saturday night.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

SWEEP !!!

2011 NHL Playoff Quarterfinals

Game 1 - Red Wings 4  - Coyotes 2
Game 2 - Red Wings 4 -  Coyotes 3
Game 3 - Red Wings 2  - Coyotes 2
Game 4 - Red Wings 6 -  Coyotes 2

Monday, April 18, 2011

Dance Costumes - part II !

She got her other 3 costumes tonight!

Hip hop - will be worn with Converse All-Star high tops    O_o

Company Tap - minus the derby hat that is being rhinestoned .

Company jazz - this is the one she likes the most!

I guess at class on Sunday, they're learning yet another dance.  It was the first time I've heard her sound even remotely concerned.  "Mom - this will be 8 dances I have to know!!"  She'll have her 6 classes, the finale & a company production.  Well, she's the one who wanted to do all this!  

**had to edit the company jazz pic - replacing the crabby faced one with one where she's posing & smiling.**


Thursday, April 14, 2011

Dance Costumes !!

SQUEEEE!  This is my favorite time of year!  Angel brought home 3 of her 6 costumes tonight & tried them on for me. 

ballet - they're dancing to Stars & Stripes.  And yes - the tutu is wider than the door !!

non-competition jazz

lyrical

Those are her Thursday night classes, so I imagine she'll get the Monday class costumes on Monday!  I know she'll be excited about that, since they'll be competition jazz, competition tap & hip hop.   She totally adores the comp jazz costume. 

She'll also get her shoes on Monday - I know that for sure.

Whew.  I'm going to need a bigger wall for all her pics!  I always get an 8x10 of one of the outfits, usually her favorite & 5x7s of the rest.  It's fun to get new pics, since I keep the old ones in the frame behind the current one.  So her first recital pic is still handy.  So cute!

That's it for tonight!
LOL - this is one of the title pages for a hidden object game I just downloaded - it's called the 13th skull! 


Monday, April 11, 2011

What a beautiful weekend!!!

Last weekend was like Heaven!!

OK so Saturday only got up to 49 degrees, so that wasn’t too wonderful, but Sunday was BLISS !! It started out cool & foggy, but then it warmed up to almost 80 !!!! All the windows in the house were open & it was just – wow!  They're open right now, too.  Until it starts dropping to the 36 they're calling for tonight.....then they'll be slammed & locked shut!

So I got up Saturday morning & my knee was killing me. I was just hobbling all over as I searched for that darn brace. I finally found it!! It was in a bag of all my WW stuff that I’d taken out to Laurie’s house for GNO. Anyway, I was able to survive grocery shopping & other piddly stuff around the house. What really ticks me off is that Sunday it was great! Didn’t bother me in the slightest! WTF ?!?!?!?

My Easter decorations are up outside!  I don't have anywhere near as much out as the crazy people who just moved in 2 doors down.  They've had obnoxious pink bunnies hanging from the gutter since before St. Patrick's Day!  Along with huge plastic eggs all over the yard & even their mailbox is infested with plastic eggs!   I admit to being curious as to what they do at Halloween.   Hmmmmmmm.

LOL, he asked me that morning if I’d seriously been asking the cats for permission to get out of bed. What he didn’t know was that Maggie had been lying on my chest, Chester was up against my arm & Skeeter was stretched out down my thigh. And I had to pee! It’s not like I could just get up, ya know! Maggie’s purring in my face is what woke me up.

So Sunday I was up fairly early, but Randy was still snoozing. I don’t think he slept well, so I didn’t wake him up to go to church. I think he appreciated that. Angel had to dance at 2, so after dropping her off, we put on our hiking boots & took Jack for a walk at Holland Ponds! There were a lot of cars in the parking lot, but we didn’t really see that many people on the trails, which is perfectly OK! Back in the woods, it was warmer so I’d taken Jack over by one of the ponds so he could get a drink & darn if he didn’t just walk out into the pond as far as the leash would let him!! He was deep enough that his front feet were swimming! This is the same dog that will barely get his feet wet in the pond at the Farm! He did this a couple different times! I wasn’t too happy about a wet smelly dog getting in my car, but he had fun. And I had my old hoodie in the back seat, so I dried him off somewhat with that.









 Mean tree face!

SLIME !!!!


Randy brought the grill out to play again. We did some boneless beef ribs Saturday, along with some boneless / skinless chicken thighs that I’d thawed earlier. Sunday we had steak. I don’t know what it is about food cooked outside just tastes SO GooooooooD !!!! I nommed that chicken. Absolutely nothing special – cooked on the gas grill with no seasonings or BBQ sauce or anything. Ambrosia.

After dinner, I was sitting outside enjoying the evening & decided to rake the back yard. The area that was dug up for the septic field is still mostly dirt, but there were a lot of dead fall leaves & a thick carpet of needles under the pine trees. I filled up the yard waste container & there are still 3 piles of needles & stuff out there. But it looks so much nicer (even if it is dirt & weeds!)

I was sitting at work today (bored) so I was reading some of the blogs that I follow & I realize that having actual titles on the blogs is a lot more interesting that just the date like I was doing. So I went back thru 2011 & did some editing. Heck, the date is already on there anyway. I think I’m too wordy anyway. Oh well – that’s just the way I am!! In one of the blogs I was reading, she had a list of 100 things about her. That sounds like a plan!

That will have to be for another day. I have to wrap this up & take Pnut to dance. She was just complaining that her legs hurt from yesterdays class & then thought I was nuts when I suggested getting dressed for class early and do some stretches. I know that helps when I’m stiff!

Let’s see – plan for the evening……folding clothes. Ironing some stuff. Changing out the curtains in my bedroom because I hate the ones that are up. Filling out cards to my Adopt-A-Platoon guys. Eh, who knows?

Ciao!

Done up for Easter.  My stacked bunny blowmold is on the front step.

He's truly an Owens dog! 

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Spring Break

Ahhh – peace & quiet! Randy is at the county meeting tonight and will most likely be there til all hours (like usual) and the girl just went to bed. I should have gone to the meeting tonight, but SOMEONE didn’t tell me it was a “dinner” meeting and so I didn’t pre-register. Butthead. Oh well – the training was on some weather radar software, so I’m OK with missing that anyway.


So I’m trying to get back into exercising. I’m trying to alternate doing Wii yoga with my Walk At Home DVDs. And of course my knee is trying to act up again and of course I have no idea where my knee brace is. So I’m trying to baby it to prevent massive pain. My knee is weird anyway. It’s not steady pain; it’ll just shoot thru at random. I could be taking a step or standing up and ZAP !!  Sometimes It’ll hurt in waves all day, other times it’ll just be for a few minutes where I can’t put any weight on it. Then it’s fine. And I never know when it’ll act up. What it’s been doing lately is when I step, I can feel the tendon down the back / inside of my leg pop like a guitar string. Doesn’t hurt, but is attention getting. I have a referral to an orthopedic specialist, but obviously haven’t gone.

Last week at work was insane. Geri is NOT allowed to go on vacation anymore. Just kidding – but WOW – I worked my butt off. I must have run back & forth across the room 25 times a day! Got my exercise in!! I was paranoid that I screwed up, because Tuesday morning I got 6 different emails about freight not being picked up. But it was a dispatch issue & not me. Whew! But I guess I did a good job, since one of the regular suppliers emailed her today & told her that I was a joy to work with & did a fine job, etc, etc. She yelled it across the room to me and Rodney & Paul were right there… both of them looked up & said “realllly?” at the same time. So I should either be scared that they may have ‘plans’ for me in the near future, or be offended that they just realized after almost 11 years that I was competent. I don’t know. Rich just put in his 2 weeks’ notice, so I honestly hope they don’t expect me to fill in for Geri while she does his stuff. Scheduling almost doubled my work load – so they would have to give me a hefty raise & realize that I am not working any later than 3:30. And then my own work suffered, too. Guess I’ll just have to wait & see what goes down.

It’s Spring Break! Not that it matters to me, tho. I took Angel to the Boys & Girls Club Monday & I swear I have not been that mad since the last time I dealt with the Donor! OMG, I saw red. She didn’t want to go, so first she threw a hissy in the car as we’re approaching. Then she refused to get out of the car. She did finally get out of the car, but then she stood next to it & wouldn’t go in. I really wished it would have started raining on her. I argued with her for 30 minutes!! She finally went in. I called around 10:30 to see how she was. The girl told me she sat there & pouted for a couple hours, but then got up & was talking to some other girls and started playing a game with them. So when I picked her up – all was good. GRRRR! I knew darn well she’d be fine, since she makes friends so easily!! So tonight Mom called & asked if she wanted to come over her house tomorrow & maybe spend the night. I told Brat Girl it was up to her if she spent the night or not & she decided not to, because she wants to go to the Club on Friday!!!! “Unfinished Business” she said. OMG.

I had to laugh at Randy the other night. His friend Bob who lives on the West side of the state, emailed him & told him that Southern Culture on the Skids was going to be there in concert in June. Randy asked if he could go & even said Pretty Please!! LOL, he makes it sound like I’m a jailor or something! What a goofball. He made sure to tell me that he was only going to take Tuesday afternoon & Wednesday morning off work. OK, dude, I trust you! I really do! And I bet before he goes, he’ll be sure to remind me to watch him on the APRS tracker!

It looks like that extra snow & ice we got didn’t hurt my flowers any! And I have some more crocuses (croci??) peeking out from the lawn. And I think the cuttings I got from Terry’s silver Dollar plant were trying to sprout, too!  I don’t know if they made it thru the cold, tho. Wait & See!

I had a dork moment! I did the online one-hour photo thing at WalMart on Monday afternoon with the intention of picking them up after taking Angel to dance. Forgot them. So yesterday, Angel & I stopped in to get them & found out that somehow I had them sent to the SuperCenter across town, instead of to the one right by the house. Damn it!! So I guess I’ll be going there grocery shopping this weekend. On the plus side – they have the really good boneless beef ribs there! It’s supposed to be like 60 this Saturday, so I think the grill will be coming out of the garage!!!

I just got a text that Randy is on the way home, so I’m going to wrap this up for tonight. If I remember anything I missed, I can always post again!


I found this stuff at the grocery store - ChocoVine - chocolate wine !!!! 
aka Adult YooHoo! 
OMG, it is SOOOO GOOOOOOD!  And with 14% alcohol, it's got a kick! 
 
Oh - and a good shot of my really ugly counter top!