Not welcome here

About a month or so ago outside the kitchen window of sister 54's home.

She said it was eating her bushes. I would have chased it away. I didn't use to feel this way about deer. Anymore I am like "Get out of here! Go away! You are not welcome here!"

Maybe I'll return to a person who loves to watch them and is in awe of them, but for now - no thanks.

I have some company in the house last night and today. I've taken the morning off from work. I have a nephew moving in with me for a while. Problems at home. That is okay. It will be nice to have a big strong guy around for a while.

I felt a bit sorry for him at first though. The dogs are relentless. Even my big black cat Casper was trying to get into his lap.

The horns sounded

The trumpets blared and I Peruby, after more than a year- walked into a walletmart today.

My intent? To purchase one item and one item only. A DVD of "State of Play" for the measly price of less than $14. My video store would have charged me $30 because my boxer chewed the movie up. That is not a photo of it up there. In fact, that is a CD he chewed a couple of days ago. I was sick. Not because of the CD. Hell, I don't even know what was on it. It might have been blank for all I know. There was nothing written on it. I was sick because what would happen to my dog? I checked his tongue and gums for bleeding. Nothing. He seems to be having no major issues with what he chewed.

As for the movie, it wasn't actually chewed up. There were a couple of teeth puncture marks on it and we tried to play it, it stopped in the middle and that was all she wrote, folks. The case was chewed beyond repair.

The case stated that it retailed for $29.99. That is how much my video store would have charged me, I believe. So off to walletmart I went and bought one for half the price. I returned the damaged case to the video store, and they said "No problem."

And, a little extra. When I purchased the DVD it had a movie attached. Two for one price. It was "The Good Shepherd." I think this is one I missed watching, so I'll watch it someday.

I'll also have to re-rent "State of Play" because we watched part of it and it was pretty good and now we want to know how it ends and who killed the girl. More than likely when I re-rent the movie, it will be the one I purchased. How funny is that?

And, hey. Don't think I can't live without walletmart. If I had a Target within 10 miles of me, I would have purchased the movie there. They had it advertised for only $13.00 instead of $13.96. I may not have received the extra movie, but big deal. If only Meijer would get with it and build a store in my area! They probably aren't any better than walletmart. But, I would shop there.

No idea

Not sure why this tyke opened wide when I snapped this photo.

Too much food

You have to understand. I get out and about. Quite a lot, actually. I like to eat at restaurants. I don't have to cook and clean up and usually the restaurants fix better food than I can. I am not a shy person. I used to be. But, not anymore.

I think this may have been my third or fourth trip to the Golden C (in my life). I went last year. I don't go often enough to remember how it is set up. The photo above is off the Internet, not my photo. I downed two iced teas (sweetened) by the time we went to get food. It MUST have been a sugar rush.

I was like "Look at that chicken!" "Look at all this fish!" "Look at the desserts!"

There were 12 of us. I was jacked up. My head was spinning as I tried to talk to everybody.

My poor daughter. During one trip, I looked around the corner and blurted out "Ice Cream!" and trotted back to the table.

A lady turned and asked my daughter "Has she been here before?" My daughter said "Yes." The lady then asked, "Is she on medication?"

My family got a good laugh out of that one when my daughter relayed the story.

That about matched an earlier incident. I told sister '49 - "Look, WHOLE chickens!" A nice looking gentlemen to my right laughed and said "Want to split one?" I laughed. I get this a lot.

My daughter thought the cook at the steak counter was really enchanted with me. He kept telling me story after story while I was getting some food on my plate. I laughed and chatted back to him. I do this all the time.

Hey, life's too short, man. I just have a good time. I get jacked up, I crash. I am not bi-polar. Honest.

On a more serious and solemn note, my niece who just had the baby was admitted to the hospital this evening with pre-eclampsia. Her blood pressure diastolic reading (bottom number) was over 100. They are working on getting her blood pressure down and relieving the headaches.

They almost sent her back home because she did not have an unusually high amount of protein in her urine, but they decided she did have the pre-eclampsia after all.

This didn't stop my nephew from bringing the baby to the buffet. The (full head of hair) baby slept through the entire meal. My nephew then bundled him up and he and the 12-year-old went off back to the hospital. He said his wife was just sleeping anyway. She wasn't up for much of a visit. The four-year-old went back to Grandma's house where he has been staying the past couple of days.

When we left the restaurant it was snowing. What?! Arrgghh! Enough, already!

Pink Lemonade

Very watered down pink lemonade at that.

Sister '54 called this evening. They just got back from Sin City. Six days out there in the desert. She was ready to come back. First time flying for both she and her husband. He was very nervous, she did okay.

Sister '49 is very sick. She lost her voice and is coughing a lot. I go to a birthday dinner tomorrow evening out of town. Golden Corral. (Not my pick - birthday boy's pick). Humph.

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Another toy from the shower used as a table center piece.

I watched "The Blind Side". I really wanted to see this one and I really liked it. It was very touching and very poignant in places. Of course (most of you know) that I have been waiting for S Bullock to break out of her cookie-cutter preppy, cheer leader-type role that she plays in each and every movie. Gag.

In this movie? At least she changed her hair color. I think she looks great as a blond and with bangs. It softens her looks a lot. Kudos to her. I liked Bullock in the role. I thought the husband character was a bit of a pushover. Then again, a lot of people are.

I have liked McGraw in "The Kingdom" and he was okay in this one. J Head was annoying as I am sure he was supposed to be.

Nothing of this post has to do with the Title. Which pertains to work and I am not going to elaborate on this situation. Well, of course I am! I talked with a co-worker over my lunch hour. Many, many ugly things she had to say. It just makes me very glad that I work in a branch office miles away from the central office. Whew.

Rainy days and Mondays

It is raining buckets outside. The pups and Sable didn't seem to mind but the boxer pranced around like "What? Are you kidding?" After walking down the alley and patiently waiting while they did nothing, and as soon as I gave the signal the boxer was off for the back porch like being shot out of a cannon. Baby.

The above photo was from a centerpiece on the table at the baby shower we had about a month ago. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.

Spring is here and my back hurts from bending over and cleaning up flower beds and raking oak leaves out of the corners of my yard. We have so many oak trees in the neighborhood that keep their leaves all winter long. UGH! Super UGH! They blow around and make a mess in the spring. I have one full garbage can of old, yucky, brown oak leaves.

I read this about why they don't lose their leaves in the fall:

  In young oak trees, however, for reasons that are
 unclear, abscission cells form but do not complete
 their work. Therefore, oak leaves often stay
 connected to the twig until pushed off by new leaf
 and twig growth in the spring.

Yeah well, whatever.

Tryin' to keep it all together

Met up with family last evening for some good food and good talkin'. This morning I thought I would break a couple of eggs open and fry them up with toast. Hmmm. I can usually expect one double-yolk in a dozen, but will each one be like this? I always buy the "jumbo" size. Maybe I need to back off to the "extra large" size.

Anyway, the family get together brought me out of my funk for a couple of hours. I laughed and pushed my problems to the back of my mind. But, as expected they came roaring back as the evening closed and they were there to greet me with the rising sun. Uh, the problems - not my family. Good grief!

Bursts of cleaning mixed with little walking trips (dogs) outside today. All the while the painful reminder of time ticking away until I resign and re-sign. What? That is weird. Resign and re-sign. The English language. Huh.

Things are getting ugly

Not like this beautiful photo of some honeysuckle I found in May of 2006 near my house. I talked with some co-workers yesterday and today that I don't see very often because they are located in the home office. There are some angry people. Very, very angry people. Stories came out that I had never heard before.

Headed for disaster? Oh, I think so. Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

As for the presentation. I didn't give one. I got the company that sells the product to send an engineer. Big mistake. Nobody liked him. (Not even my coworkers). Yikes. They complained and wanted what I did last year. Okay. I hear you. I'll make it up to them with some training sessions over the next few months. No problem. I had no idea he was going to be so difficult to follow. He didn't seem to know the material. I at least figured he would call me and brainstorm with me. Not so. I had sent him my presentation from last year and the password to our system so he could look inside and see what our techs were doing. I looked at the logs. He never logged in once. Lesson learned.

I learned a few things, though. :D

I wonder

This was from a YMCA outing six years ago. My sister worked with inner-city children and brought them to the park near my house back in 2004. I wonder where these kids are now.

The bright orange shirts were for the more difficult children. They all loved getting their pictures taken. I tried to be fair and take pictures of all of them, which meant aiming for the shyer ones that kept getting pushed aside by the bolder and more aggressive ones.

I have a presentation today. I am just not in the mood for it. I am in day five of the realization that I am going to lose my tenure at my job. After 15 years. I have another 15 years (give or take) to go. That will be on a year to year contract.

Curious

Chong wonders what the future holds and so do I.

2 flies

There is a fly on the seat and possibly one on the handle. Not doing much today. Don't feel well. Not a migraine for once. I am working hard on not saying anything about work. Changes are coming. My organization is going to lose our continuing contracts. Ugh.

It really stunk that I happened to watch "Up in the Air" after getting news like that at work. It was an "okay" movie. Not a big Clooney fan. I was very, very disappointed in "2012". The special effects were so hokey it was laughable. No problem with J Cusak and A Peet. Have always liked the two of them.

The baby is here

My second grand nephew, (I have one grand niece). I have to ask my brother if he is certain that these are "grand" nephews and nieces. Since my sisters are the "grand" mothers, that makes them my grand nephews and nieces he said. Sigh. Just sounds weird to me.

I almost ripped my cable television box out of the entertainment center and sent it sailing across the room this evening. Then I couldn't stand the noise my computer was making so I got the bright idea to take it all apart again and clean it out (fans and all). I barely got it put back together (I really should take pictures before I go and remove fans and pieces and parts) and had a heck of a time getting it back up and running (blue screen of death and all). That battery must really be going bad.

I almost put my foot through it. It is still making a god-awful noise. I removed each hard drive one at a time and then started the PC without any hard drives and it still made the same scratchy noise. Must be one of the 6 fans in the sucker.

Grrrrr.

Anyway, ain't that some head of hair? The mama had a harder time with this one. This is her third boy and this is the last one. She has one 12 (from another relationship) and one four (with my nephew) and this one (with my nephew). I may go visit on Friday if they are up for company. I think she will still be in the hospital, I don't know.

Books: "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz. Finished the other one I mentioned the other day.

I know why I am probably in such a sour mood. With all the snow melting I have one really bad spot on my sidewalk where the water lays. I literally dug a huge ditch in front of my patio (where my flower bed usually is). I could care less about the hosta plants - they are all getting out of hand anyway and the moonflowers I can replant. The hydrangeas are too far away and I stopped when I got to them.

I've been digging a ditch. It is about four feet wide and about a foot deep. It is full of muddy water. I am angry that I can't do better. Grrrr.

This was too creepy and funny. I came home at lunch yesterday to take the dogs out. I stepped out of the car and dropped my cell phone onto my cement driveway. The back flew off. Oh no, I sighed. I put it back together and it looked okay. I got a text message as soon as I walked into the house. It was from my carrier. "Do you need a new phone?" the text began.

Absolutely true story.

For the shower we used baby toys and items as table centerpieces. This little lamb was too cute.

I didn't fully realize until this week-end how particular I am about the creamer in my coffee. I was too lazy to go to the store (because creamer was the ONLY thing I was out of) and used milk in my coffee. I HATE milk in my coffee. I was even too lazy to poke around my cupboards for canned milk. That MAY have made the coffee drinkable.

After two days of drinking gray, murky coffee, I called my daughter Sunday afternoon and told her to go to the store - get me some creamer and come home to take care of these dogs for a few hours and give me a BREAK! I was in the throse of a monumental migraine.

She came right over. She brought creamer for my coffee (that I am enjoying as I type this). She took care of everything for me. It was great! She took care of the dogs, even taking them out at 1:30 a.m. so there were no accidents for me this morning to attend to. She even told me I should have called her sooner. Stupid migraines! I hate them.

It was probably my own fault. I had cleaned a little too much Sunday morning and sprayed too much air freshener. I knew it was a mistake almost as soon as I did it. I harnessed up the dogs and we took a walk and sat outside for a spell, while I left fans running in the house.

I've been reading a lot. I borrowed "His Oldest Friend" from the library. Written by Sonny Kleinfield. It is about a young boy who visits and befriends an elderly woman in a retirement home. You know how I love biographies.

More babies

This tyke above (photo taken four years ago) has a little brother due any day. Maybe as I am typing? And, AND - another sister has just informed me that she will be a grandmother. Her son and his girlfriend are expecting. Babies, babies everywhere!

And here I am, stuck with all these hounds. I won't be getting any babies from them. They are all fixed. Every cat is fixed. No babies here. My daughter better wait to have babies. She still can barely fix toast, let alone care for a child. She hates fixing food and she hates the kitchen.

Wait. The fish had babies. Or, so I was told. I don't look at them. Sometimes I feed them, but I don't look at them. I think it is because of my headaches. People with migraines do not like to look at that blurry, distorted image of an aquarium.

I had extra pinwheel stuff left over from the shower so I took the batches (pictures I posted Thursday) into work and people loved them. They all wanted the recipe. The all agreed. You can't eat just one. Once you pop one into your mouth, you can try to walk away, but eventually you will walk back to that tray. Just one more. Pop! Into the mouth it goes.

In the movie arena, I am sorry, but I really, really dislike "West Side Story." I have tried to watch it a couple of times over the years. I have looked up reviews on the accent from N Wood. Most say she hit it spot on, but it is so painful for me to listen to, I cannot watch the movie.

Come to think of it, I have not seen one N Wood movie. As an adult. I have seen "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" and "Miracle on 34th Street." Maybe I should watch a few more N Wood movies to get a better idea as to what kind of actress she was.

I stumbled upon a couple of episodes of the first season of "Bewitched" the other day. I always admired E Montgomery. I think it was her looks, since I don't know her personality at all. I loved this show. I think mostly because I always wanted to be able to twitch my nose and the house would be clean. Nothing else she did with the magic impressed me. Just the house cleaning. And I certainly did not care for her bumbling husband (regardless of which character he was played by). The one episode I saw had Adam West in it. I don't even want to mention the 2005 movie of the same name. Whoops, just did. UGH!

Pepperoni Pinwheels

I start out with the two ingredients that I use to make my ever popular cheese ball. I let them come to room temperature. Well, the cream cheese, that is. The jarred cheese was never refrigerated.

I picked these flour tortillas because they were huge.

I mix the two cheeses together in a bowl.

Yes, I have broken spatulas mixing them together. I think this is also part of the reason I am developing tendinitis in my forearm. Computer work, fixing my hair, putting on make-up, writing, drawing, and much, much more causes pain in my right forearm.

I pick up mild banana peppers.

I let them dry a little bit on a paper towel.

I spread the cheese mixture onto the flour tortilla.

I add sandwich-sized pepperoni. I really loaded this one up.

I break the peppers into a line so that it will roll up more uniformly.

Then, I roll the flour tortilla up.

I refrigerate for an hour or two (at least) so that it slices easier.

Pretty in Pink

My Grand Niece at the baby shower on Sunday.

Sugar overdose

My niece brought the above cupcakes to the baby shower. I vacillated between the vanilla cream cheese with raspberry and the chocolate with caramel filling. The caramel filling won. It was like eating pure sugar.

In this circumstance. You CAN eat just one.

I should have brought a few home to sample today. I was so overdosed on the sugar though, I couldn't even fathom eating another one any time soon.

She said she bought them in Hartville, Ohio.