Small, Medium, or Large (again)

After spending a significant amount of time shopping online and returning most of the purchases, I decided to take advantage of the Labor Day sales and labor over the sales, lol. As usual, I was totally frustrated with the inconsistencies in sizes. I tried on a size 6 skirt and it was loose. I tried on size 10 pants and they were tight. I tried on a medium top and it fit nicely, but was too low cut and I tried on a small in a similar style and it was falling off of my shoulders.

I bought the skirt anyways since it was so cute and I'm at my skinniest in a year so I need room to grow (or for the skirt to shrink). I finally used my Kohls giftcard from two? three? Christmases ago. Can you tell I don't like Kohls? I wouldn't have bought the skirt except it was free to me.

I know men don't have it this bad when trying on clothes. Forget all this making a woman feel good about the clothes she's buying by relabling a size 12 into a size 6. You're not fooling anyone. Basically, you're making people like me--normal, everyday people--frustrated and we're gonna shop less, not more. It isn't like I work in a business where I need to impress people; otherwise I'd feel even more pressure. Ah well, my coworkers better get used to seeing me in the same thing they've been seeing the past couple years because my wardrobe isn't getting updated any time soon.

Four eyes...

Yep, I wear glasses, more correctly, I wear contact lenses. Went to a new doctor at the practice I've been going to for years and he recommended switching to a different brand of contacts. They would be better for my eyes. Okay, but now, the problem was and is my prescription keeps changing. Oh yeah, and I had bifocal contacts and have hated them for the past year, but the doctor thought he could fix my prescription so they would work for me.

The first pair, while technically the correct prescription were waaay overpowered. I couldn't focus on anything less than 3-4 feet away. Had to wear reading glasses to cook, otherwise I might miss and chop a finger off. The next pair, couldn't see distance that well. Better than with the "original" contacts, but still not well enough for my liking. (And yes, still correct enough that I was legal and not a menace on the road.) After two tries with the bifocal lens, we've gone back to single vision lens. But again, I'm having trouble focusing close up and also mid distances. I'm back to reading glasses, though I can function without them. He's saying I might not ever be able to get back to what my vision was two years ago due to my age. Great, A says the same thing. Getting older sucks!

To add another twist to the mix, I wasn't supposed to use my current lens solution, which I've been using for years--like 15 or 20 years--with these new contacts. Did I mention I don't like change? On top of that, the lens solution he recommended was impossible to find. I went to every drug store in the area and called a bunch of others. I searched online and couldn't find it either. A few reviewer sites said it was difficult to find. No shit! Finally, I decided to buy some from the company website (I thought was very odd for them to sell directly to customers). Turns out, I waited too long because the company has decided to stop manufacturing it due to low sales of RGP lens (Rigid Gas Permeable lens). Guess everyone is going to soft lens. So last week when I picked up my latest lens, I told the optometrist that and he gave me all the rest of the bottles of the solution so I don't have to mess with yet another solution while we're figuring out the contact lens.

So this has been a torturous month and a half. Did I mention that I spend most of my work day reading? It has been hell. And the doctor thinks it could take a couple of months before my eyes settle down. I am not a happy camper. But if all this puts me in a lower powered prescription and also helps my eyes get healthier, I guess it is worth it.

It is so d@mn hot!

The powers that be are happy that is a holiday weekend, since that means a lot of people will be out of town or outside and therefore put less strain on the power grid. Since we don't have air conditioning, I guess we're already doing our part to help, lol.

Haven't been sleeping well due to the heat. Then there's the stress of work. Oh, and A is out of town and that always makes me nervous; I hate being by myself (though I'm more efficient when I'm by myself). I'll be so thankful when he's back home.

The good, the bad, the ugly

Let's start with the ugly. I stubbed my toe and now I have a blood blister. Ouch! The bad, I had a really tiring day at work. Struggled with a bunch of files. Sent e-mails to people who didn't read them. Still working on a "simple" update. Won't be done with it until next week. In the meantime, my other work is suffering.

The good, my carpooler cheered me up on the way home so I wasn't a b*tch when I got home. The bad, we didn't leave the office early enough to catch the free drawing at the farmers market. The funny, the farmers market moved and we didn't know it. The bad, the farmers market moved a few miles away instead of literally on our way home so we won't be going any more.

The good, my $600 worth of sandals from Zappos arrived. The bad, none the sandald fit that well so I'll be returning all of them. The good, free returns at Zappos, yahoo

The bad, I got an offer for some contract work but I had to turn it down.

The good, I got a package with my sister. Yahoo! Whew, glad I did this. I feel better.

Has anyone seen my blue flip flops?

How does one lose a pair of shoes? I did misplace them last year when I left them in an outer pocket of my duffle bag; I hardly ever use those pockets so I forgot I packed them there. And I did bury them under a pile of laundry for a couple of days. But this time, it has been a few weeks. I really miss my flip flops. These aren't your run-of-the-mill cheapie flip-flops. These have arch support and a toe guard and have nice cloth straps. Oh where oh where could they be?

Update
I found 'em. In the duffle bag. Like last time. Can I blame A? He's the one who put the duffle bag away without checking the pockets (maybe he was tired of seeing the bag in the hallway?). Lest you think I'm the only one to do this stuff, I was digging through all our luggage and found two of his tee shirts and a belt in another suitcase. Somehow, I think this means we have too much stuff.

Odd (and sad) dream

Last night, I had the oddest dream. I can't remember where I was, but I was with my family, mostly the older generation (it reminded me of the family reunion I went to this summer). Uncle T was there, and he was dead, but he didn't know he was dead. So we all had to be careful what we said to him because we didn't want him to know he was dead.

I hardly ever dream about people and even more rarely about those who have passed. And never so soon after they've left. I'm a little weirded out by the dream, but I'm mostly sad.

Busy day

We did our usual Saturday morning errands (bank, credit union, 7-11 to buy a newspaper, post office), plus an added stop for me to pick my new contacts (still not happy with them, did I tell you the story about 'em? can't remember).

Then we got a bit of culture. Went to the local musuem since an exhibit I wanted to see is closing this week. Nothing like cutting it close, lol. But it turns out, the gem and mummy exhibits were soooo much more interesting. Loved seeing all the beautiful gems, outlandlish jewelry, and beautiful scultures. Found the mummy exhibit to be very interesting, but cut that visit short because all the dead talk started giving me the heebee jeebees. Stuff like that usually doesn't affect me. Maybe I'm getting more sensitive in my old age.

We ended up buying a membership to the museum. Basically, if we see one more special exhibit, we'll break even. Go twice more and we're ahead. So it looks like we'll be getting more culture in the next year, lol.

Later, I'm gonna help with the kids while the guys go out and bond or something like that.

Sara

If you're interesting in learning a little more about Sara, my sister's sil, here's a link about her and her cancer fight: Sara.

This is so sad, so shocking. Less than a week after being diagnosed, she's in the hospital getting chemotherapy. I'm so thankful she has a strong support system. Poor Jake and Gracie (her little ones) must be so confused.

I'm so tired

My manager was gone for just over a week and every day, there was a new "emergency" to deal with. I had someone e-mailing me or calling me or standing at my desk at least once a day, if not three or four times a day. Such fun. Not! Then we had someone leave so I had to take over half her job. Thank goodness, there was someone else in the office to take over the other half. Obviously, I didn't have time to do any of my regular work.

He's been back a couple of days, but I'm still cleaning up the "emergencies" and trying to catch up. He's still trying to catch up his e-mails. Hopefully, we'll have a replacement soon for the person who left. Hopefully, I'll have time next week to edit the three hundred plus pages sitting on my desk. And update the five manuals I volunteered for since we're short staffed (by two people). And finish up the emergencies (can't forget those). Sigh.

Scrapbook GDA

I need to tell you about my latest scrapping deals. We were at a shopping center that happened to have Micheals. A was patient and didn't mind me taking a bit of time to shop. They had a bunch of stuff at 90% off the marked price so that's where I spent all my time. I got a scrapbook DVD and a Cuttlebug die cut for about a dollar (total) and gave them to my cousin who's interested in scrapbooking/cardmaking (she has a Cuttlebug). I also picked up a few other scrapbook goodies for myself.

Then yesterday, I was at Big Lots and they had a quite a bit of KI stuff. I love KI! Score! But I was good and just picked up a few things. Yep, will power at work, lol.

Update
We went back to Big Lots today to return one item, but went to a different Big Lots. Yep, I ended up buying a few more things. So much for will power, lol. I bought a stack of paper for $2. I guess A does know how much scrapbook paper costs because he asked how many sheets were in the pack. I told him 25. He said wow, that's really cheap per sheet. I told him he should be glad I bought just one pack since there were other papers I liked. But that if I were to use just one or two sheets, the cost per sheet was too high. Of course, I'd share my extras, but really, 23 extra sheets of paper is overkill. I learned that from all the paper I bought at the Lil Davis clearance sale a couple years ago. I'm still clearing some of that stuff out.

If you are the praying type...

please pray for Sara. She is my sister's SIL and was just diagnosed with lymphoma. While I have never met Sara in person, I feel like I know her from all the wonderful tales from my sister. In fact, one year when I was cleaning out part of my Tupperware collection, I told my sister to take anything she thought Sara might want. That's how hightly I thought of her. (Maybe you have to know me and my Tupperware obsession to understand.)

Sara has been a great source of support for my sister, who is far from the rest of her family. Sara and her DH have two children; one is an infant, less than two months old. When I hear terrible news like this, I want to shake my fist at God and cry why?!!? But since I believe in the power of prayer, I instead ask for your help. Please keep Sara and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

I need organizational help

I try and I try and I try and I just can't seem to get organized. I can't believe I'm admitting this in public. Guess I should delete this post before I send out my resume, just in case a potential employeer finds this blog and decides this is a bad trait, lo. But until then, you get to read all about it.

It's not like I forget to do important things. I never miss deadlines at work (or home). But my papers aren't filed, I've got piles of scrapbooking stuff all over the house, stacks unread or half-read magazines threaten to fall over, the stack of ironing keeps getting higher. I've got piles to coupons to mail to friends (I may need to stop doing this since it stresses me out). I forgot to deposit a couple of checks (but I don't need the money right away so I'm okay). Maybe my problem isn't lack of organization, but too much clutter? Anyone want to help me with that?

And toddler and babies make five

Today A and I had a little adventure in babysitting. We went to visit the twins (and the rest of the family, lol), then A went to do some shopping. While he was gone, I volunteered us to babysit since M & C had some errands to run. Thank goodness he got back before they left. It started off well; G was watching a video and the girls were quiet. After a while, the girls started fussing, so I'd pick up one, play with her a bit until the other started crying. Then they'd trade places. They got tired of that quickly so somehow I managed to pick both of them up and we went outside to watch A and G play ball. That was a lot fun. A always surprises me with his patience with kids.

The girls in the meantime, were trying my patience since they both wanted to be held, but not at the same time. A little fussing, a little crying, put one down, pick the other one up, repeat, repeat, repeat, lol. If M & C were going to be gone for more than an hour, I would have let the girls cry a bit, but I didn't want M & C to be coming home to crying babies.

Anyway, I've decided I'm not cut out to watch three kids at once, or if I'm going to, I need to work up to it, lol.

Crop circles

Or maybe I should say six degrees of separation. The other day, I was thinking about all the friends I've met through scrapbooking. I met S at 2peas, I think because of a swap. Then we swapped over at LM. And finally, we met in person for lunch. Through S, I met M, M, H, W, L, and so many more wonderful people. And because of LM, I've probably met 50 or more people at crops and many more online.

Last year, I met A and T at SupperThyme. I signed up for some meals and when I gave her my e-mail address, she figured I was a scrapbooker and we got to chatting. It turns out L knows A's DH through work and hence knows A. Then last week M came down to visit her SIL. It turns out her SIL knows A too and we all ended up scrapping together. So no matter who I know in the scrapbook world, we probably have another mutual friend. Good thing we're a friendly bunch, lol.

Stressed, who me?

I've got a lot going on right now, planning for a trip (more on that in a future post), changes in management at work, trying to get layouts done for scrapfest. I had to drive downtown today and if you know me, you know how much fun it was for me. Thank goodness we have a car with GPS. The drive took waaaay longer than I planned, the wait to take care of my business was waaaaaaay longer than I planned. A HUGE thank you to the lady who gave me her number. It probably cut off an hour or two off my wait. So I gave my number to someone else. It probably saved him three hours.

I'm overplanning, overthinking, worried about things out of my control. And the bad thing is, I'm not stressed enough to be losing weight. Just stressed enough to be stressed.

Received my first Carribean scam call

I assume it was a scam. I got a call from a local area code; didn't recognize the phone number, but answered anyway. No one was on the other end. Immediately after I hung up, I got another call. Again, I didn't recognize the phone number and area code. I guess I shouldn't have answered it, but I did. FYI, 869 and 876 are area codes for the Carribean.

Garlic breath

Yep, that's what I've got. Just finished up the last of the baba ganoush (eggplant) and tzatziki (yoghurt, cucumber, dill) that I got from the farmer's market. Yum! Just thought I'd share that with all of you, lol. A certainly doesn't appreciate it.

Progress and frustration

Last week, I had yet another idea on how to organize my scrapbook supplies. But to get it to work, I needed to move or get rid of a huge stack of magazines. I asked A to help this weekend because he's put a couple of boxes of stuff in the corner of our "library" where I wanted to reorganize. I thought we'd work on this today so passed up a day of scrapping with my buds. Instead, he worked on this yesterday so I did too. I got rid of a couple shopping bags worth of magazines and started to reorganize a bookcase. Then he moved a couple boxes of stuff in front of the bookcase "to sort through later" and now I can't get to the bookcase.

I thought we'd continue on today, but A's been working on the car all day. And I'm stuck here since he's working in the driveway and my car is parked in the garage. Well, I'm not really stuck since I could drive the other car (yes, we're a 3-vehicle family), but I don't want to. And I thought A was going to cook since he's the one who suggested BBQing the pork we bought this morning. But it looks like that isn't going to happen either.

But, trying to keep a positive outlook, I've moved on to cleaning another area of the house. Unfortunately, after filling the recyling can half full of paper/magzines/newspaper, the house doesn't look any different. Actually, I think it looks more disorganized now.

9:45

It looks like 9:45 pm is the new time for cranky old relatives to call me. With no thought as to whether or not my heart might stop when the phone rings at that hour. With no consideration that I might have to get to bed so I can get up the next morning to go to work. Grrrrr.

Yahoo! I broke 10,000!

10k of what, you ask? Yesterday, I finally reduced my e-mails to fewer than 10,000. Of course, that lasted less than 24 hours. But by the end of today, I brought it back down again. Monday will probably be okay because our parent company is on vacation. I expect the count to go back up on Tuesday. And by the end of the month when we get busy again? I hope, hope, hope, I can keep under 11,000.

Why so many you ask? Since I'm a project lead, I get cc'd on almost every e-mail for every project in the department. Plus I get pseudo-management e-mails. Yes, I know how to keep only the last of a mail thread. Yes, I know how to delete e-mails after a question is answered. But we have 11 pages of active projects and that's a lot of e-mails.

The scrapbook store didn't want my money

Yesterday, I stopped by my least favorite store to buy some rub-ons to finish a layout from the crop weekend. I had something I could use, but it wasn't exactly right. I was all set to pay the outrageous prices at this store, but alas, they didn't have anything close to what I wanted. Come on, who doesn't stock white rub-on letters? I can think of at least three brands/fonts that would work for me. They had only one brand in stock and it wasn't the right color. Since I had some time, I wandered around the store and was pleasantly surprised that the store wasn't as outrageously priced as I thought. Some things were a dollar more than other places, but then some things were a dollar or two less than other places. This is one reason I like shopping online. Most online scrapbook stores charge MSRP or a little less. Brick and Mortar stores sometimes charge more than MSRP. I did end up buying one small item, so they got $4.30 out of me. Now I have to decide if I should go to another LSS or just use what I have.

My scrapping weekend

I recently got back from a 4-day crop with my scrapping buddies. I got way more done than I normally do. I attribute that to several factors. One, I planned better and packed more efficiently. Two, I did mostly one photo layouts with very little journaling. Soooo much easier and faster. Three, I was (am) feeling a lot better about my pages. It is inevitable that I compare my pages to everyone else's, but I finally think that my pages can hold their own. I used a lot more embellishments than I normally do, but still, it was a lot less than what most people use.

Another thing I was happy about was that I was able to share my supplies with everyone there. Since I flew to this crop, I wasn't able to bring everything I own, though I did bring a lot, lol. Usually, it is ribbon I share, but this time, it was flowers. I'm always borrowing paper and stuff from everyone else, so sometimes I feel guilty. I know everyone is happy to share, but still....

We made a couple of shopping trips, one to a new store and one to the usual place. The new store, oh my! Great selection, good prices. The store looked very modern/industrial/art store-like, which I liked. The bad part was it was about half an hour from the B&B (did I mention we were staying at a B&B?), too far to make multiple trips (like any of us needed to buy more).

There is one downside to getting lots of pages done. I need to figure out how to organize my pages. Should I file them chronologically? By subject? Themed albums? Some combination of these? What do you do? I need to buy some more pages too. Does anyone have a good supplier for K&Co pages? Right now, they are my favorite, but Michaels doesn't carry them anymore. They are a little expensive so it was great when I could use my 40% off coupon on them.

Happy Independence Day!

Truly, I feel fortunate to live here in America. We're not a perfect country, but we have the power to change, to improve, to speak our minds. I've done some traveling overseas and really, we do have it better here.

As we were driving around today, I noticed a dearth of flags. There were only two homes with flags in the neighborhood. Both families are immigrants. What does that say about the rest of us? Are we taking today for granted? Are we too busy shopping or BBQing?

I remember my dad would put up our flag every holiday. I loved helping him take down the flag at the end of the day. I used to know the proper way to fold a flag, but unfortunately, I don't remember anymore.

Thank you America!

Packing for a crop

You'd think that since I usually crop away from home, and have flown to crops several times, I'd have the packing down to a science. Science experiment is more like it. I have one huge crop tote, but I can't fill it full of paper and metal embellishments because it will be too heavy. My other suitcases are too big or too small or soft-sided or too heavy or something else doesn't quite fit my needs. Of course, I'm too cheap to buy a new suitcase (have you priced suitcases recently?).

What I really need to do is get rid of stuff so I don't feel the need to bring everything, just in case. You know, because I might need something in the six boxes of ribbon, the two boxes of flowers (it was just one a few weeks ago and should be three now), the two cases of brads and eyelets and if I left any of that home, heaven forbid I'm forced to improvise or borrow. On the plus side, I'm not bringing my stamps (well, just two, no three, no four if I can find the set I'm looking for, lol).

Thus far, I have the above mentioned tote filled, a "small" carry on almost filled, and a largish suitcase half filled with clothes and a lamp (yes, I need the lamp and until Ott comes out with the lamp they announced in January, this lamp will have to to). The rest of the suitcase will be filled with more scrap stuff. I'm not looking forward to unpacking when I get home.

How much do you spend on a meal?

I just got back from the grocery store and spent a whopping $25 (big mistake shopping today since everyone is shopping for 4th of July). I say "whopping" because that's for one meal (including sides). Granted, I'm making more than usual because I want to take some over to my SIL's so she doesn't have to cook tomorrow, plus we'll have leftovers for us. But still. It was only two small bags of groceries. On the other hand, I spent $25 yesterday, just on dinner and dessert for myself for Girls Night Out. Let's say I get six meals out of this. That's about $4/meal. I guess that's not too bad, though I like to keep meals under $2.50 each when cooking at home.

Update on yesterday's post

I managed to fill two grocery bags with craft stuff in addition to the previously mentioned box. All went to the local Boys and Girls Club. I also filled another grocery bag with miscellaneous paper to be tossed. Of course, the house doesn't look any neater, sigh.

Why can't I toss things?

I been working at it for a couple hours and all I've managed to purge is one (small) box of scrapbook stuff. It is about the size of an LM order/priority mail box so that says a lot about how little I can part with. That's a couple hundred sheets of patterned paper, bunch of yarn from my fiber obession days, and a few miscellaneous items I'm RAKing on LM. Must be pretty crappy stuff since no one has taken them off my hands, lol. Back to work. Hopefully, I'll have more to donate and more to RAK soon.

It's that time of the year again

When all the sneak peeks for Summer CHA. CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association; they have a huge trade show twice a year; the last show was in January. Over the past couple of years, it has become more and more of a scrapbook show, much to the chagrin of other hobby exhibitors.

All of the scrapbook message boards and stores are posting sneak peeks. So far, it looks like flowers are still in. I'm also noticing an Asian trend, yah! Unfortunately, the messy ink/distressed look is still in. Doesn't anyone believe in clean lines anymore? The same design at the edge and middle of the page? I used to never like the look. I wouldn't say I like it now. But I don't really have a choice if I like the rest of design; Basic Grey comes to mind.

Anyway, I'm really getting tired of all the new stuff. Too many trends have come and gone. So I look, but I really don't need anything new (so far, lol).

Another LSS bites the dust

I was so excited to find a new LSS a couple years ago. It turns out, the owner has a monthly club that she ran out of her garage, but decided to expand into a real storefront. The store was small, but she always had the latest and greatest. She did so well, she expanded into the space next door. Unfortunately, the store was way too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. So she found another space and moved there a couple months ago. I didn't go there much because it was even more out of my way.

It seems that it was all too much work so she's closing her store. She'll still have her online community/store and monthly club, but I'm not involved with either of those. I'll miss it. I did benefit from the 40% off sale, but tried to refrain from buying too much. It's always sad to see a small, successful business close. The ironic thing is she's still got her Grand Opening sign up.

Confession time

So what was the real reason I took last Thursday off? Because A was out of town and I wanted one day of not coming home to an empty house. Actually, sometimes I do come home to an empty house, but then, I know A will be home shortly afterwards, KWIM?

Now that A's home (a day early, hurray!!!), I can confess, lol. I couldn't say anything earlier and ask for support because of my weird privacy thing where I don't want anyone to know when I'm home alone.

I'm usually the one running off to visit friends and family. I tried to count the number of times he's gone without me and I don't think it's even ten times, whereas I'm gone 2 to 5 times a year. If A hadn't planned on doing car stuff with his brother the entire time, I would have invited myself along. (I did that the last time he had a car thing, but I think he wasn't too happy about it, lol.)

Hopefully, I'll get a good night's sleep since when I'm home alone, I usually wake up early and can't get back to sleep.

That bill almost gave me a heart attack!

I usually let A open the bills (since he writes the checks), but for some unknown reason, I decided to open our credit card bill. First page looks fine. Just quickly glanced at the second page. Then I looked at the top of the first page where the balance due box is. Gasp! It was two and a half times higher than our usual bill. Gasp!

Hmmm, this required a line by line check. lots of gasoline charges. Oh yeah, I haven't been carpooling as much. Okay. A plane ticket, but that was less than $200. The usual Target and grocery store charges. I found the culprit on page 2--house insurance. A had told me he charged it, but I forgot. Guess we'll be raiding the savings account to pay this month's bill.

Which leads me to my mini-rant. A knew this huge bill was coming so he was depositing all of our checks into the checking account. My logic is, deposit it into the savings account and just write a check from that. At least we'd be earning interest on it. There isn't enough in the checking account to cover the bill so we have to dip into short-term savings anyway. That's why we have that account. To cover big bills or unexpected bills. Sigh, obviously we have different money styles.

Celebrating the first day of summer

I took today off, just for the heck of it. Didn't know it was the first day of summer when I chose today. Just figured we weren't very busy at work, plus I'm maxing out on vacation days so it was a good time to take a day just for me.

I had high hopes of getting a lot done, but as usual, I've piddled the day away, which is okay for a vacation day, right? I did get my haircut. I thought my hairdresser wouldn't be as busy since it was a weekday, but I had to wait a bit for her and her next appointment had to wait a bit for her to finish with me. That's usual for her, but since she takes only 15 minutes to cut my hair, I'm usually in and out in less than a half hour so I don't mind waiting. Plus she's got a pretty good magazine selection, lol.

Let's see, haircut, check. Water the yard, check. Make deposit, opps. Transfer $, check. Post office, opps. Scrapbook, check...sort of. Update finances, check. Not bad for a lazy day.

Hope you had a wonderful first day of summer and the rest of summer is full of fun for you.

More garbage vents

A and I are pretty much with the paper recycling program, but still not doing anything about the cans and jars. The latter are still going into the regular trash, though I think on the weekends, we will be better about taking them out to the recycle can. That's when I empty the compost jar.

The new cans are so huge and noisy; I can hear the cans being taken out all night the night before garbage pickup. As much as I'd like to be a SAHW, I think I'd have to find something to do on garbage day. I took a vacation day today so was home. Since a different truck picks up the different cans, I heard the garbage trucks come by three times. The first was before 8:00 am, the last around 1:00. And now, I get to hear the various neighbors dragging the cans back in.

Parking is a bear on garbage day too. Though much of that can be blamed on people having too much junk or too many cars so they can't use their garage.

Inhibited

That's how I would describe my scrapbooking. Always afraid my page won't turn out like I envisioned. Worried that my pages aren't "good enough." Not wanting to use up the last bit of that patterned paper/doo dad/ribbon because I might need it for something else. Never mind that I have enough supplies to create about a thousand pages. Maybe I should say overwhelmed instead. Too many supplies. Too many ideas. Too many photos. Too many thoughts. Were it not for the wonderful friends I've made through this hobby, I think I'd stop scrapbooking.

Ouch!

Was out in the yard for a bit on Saturday and got a little sunburn. Didn't think I was out there long enough to burn, plus it wasn't during prime burning hours (mid day). Let this be a lesson to you: Always wear sunscreen or at least a hat and shirt (I was wearing a tank top).

102

I took one of those online quizes to check your life expectancy and it said I should live to be 102. Guess that's why I'm so obsessive about savings. Its gotta last a long time.

I went to a family reunion a few weeks ago and saw several aunts and uncles, all in their 70s and 80s and 90s, all still going strong. Most of them are moving a little (okay, a lot) slower than I remember. Most of them needed me to repeat whatever I said, but all in all, they're in good health. Guess that means I'm blessed with good genes, even if I don't think I want to live till 102.

Sometimes it just hits you

We were shopping for a Father's Day card last night (yes, I know, bad scrapper not to make the card, plus nothing like waiting till the last minute), when it hit me. I wasn't buying a card for Uncle T like I usually do. :(

Garbage cans

A few weeks ago, we got our new garbage cans from the company our city contracted with. I thought I wouldn't like them and I'm right. First of all, they are HUGE! 95 gallons! And we've got three of them, one for trash, one for green waste, and one for recycling. All good right? Except a few years ago, our garbage fees increased to build a new processing center to recycle at the dump. Now our garbage fees have increased to pay for this new system, and we're the ones doing the sorting.

I consider us better than average reduce/reuse/recyclers. If you use number of garbage cans as an indicator (the 32 gallon size), we're doing way better than our neighbors. We average less than two garbage cans a week, including yard waste. Much of our yard waste and all of our kitchen scraps are composted. Bottles, newspaper, and cardboard are recycled. Still usable items are donated. Even the dreaded Styrofoam peanuts get reused (FYI, many mailbox/shipping places will take your clean Styrofoam peanuts off your hands).

But now, I have to work even harder at sorting. I have to remember to throw my paper into the paper recycling bag (and not toss something like a food wrapper or plastic wrapper from a magazine on top of it). Cans and non-CRV bottles? Forget it! There is no way I'm going to take the time and energy to rinse them out and take them out to the recycle bin. Easy you say? First of all, I don't have a lot of counter space and I'd rather use that space for food prep or storage. But, let's say I get with the program. Now I have wet cans. I can either dry them (a waste) or let them dry on the counter since I don't want to carry wet cans through the house and out to the yard (plus, nothing wet is supposed to go in the recycle bin). Oh, but I can store the cans in a plastic bag you say? Oh no I can't. Plastic shopping bags go in the trash, not the recycle bin. I don't want to store wet items in a paper bag for obvious reason. See why I'm not with the program yet? But let's say I can get beyond this. Since I don't want empty cans taking up space in the kitchen, I've got to take them out to the recycle bin. Which is on the side of the house since the three huge cans won't fit in the garage. So I either have to go out the front door and through the side gate or out the sliding glass door (which involves opening the shades and unlocking the double locks and reversing the process when I come in). Am I lazy? Maybe.

But on to more venting. Heaven help you if you put toss the wrong item into the wrong bin (like I did this afternoon). I had swept the porch and accidently tossed the bucket into the recycle bin, instead of the trash bin. I did reach in and pull out some leaves and such, but the dirt and everything that fell to the bottom is gonna stay there. With the bin being about four feet high, I had a hard time reaching in. Truth be told, I'm kinda scared of the bins since they're so huge. I keep telling A, you could stuff a body in them and no one would know (I've obviously been watching too much crime TV).

Anyway, yes, recycling is a good thing. I just wish it wasn't since a hassle around the house.

Addicted to

salty snacks. Dare I admit I just ate half a can of Pringles? (that's about 500 calories for those of you who count 'em.) Or should I even be admitting that I buy Pringles? I know I could finish off the rest of the can without any (immediate) problem, though I admit, all this salt is making my mouth sting a little.

I should know better than to have salty snacks in the house during this time of the month. Sigh, some people think it is all in my head, but what else explains the incredible salt cravings I get once a month? Good thing I'm too cheap to buy too many snacks, lol. Although I still have a Pringles coupon in my stash.

Another reason I'm so slow at scrapping

Over at Lifetime Moments, they've started Summer ScrapFest, a three month motivational scrapping frenzy. This time around, there is a new format, with one challenge a day. Today is day 3 and I've already got ideas for today and day 1. We didn't have any plans for the afternoon, so while A took a nap, I thought I'd scrap. I spent some time looking through the LM gallery to get some ideas, wrote out my journaling, and then did a draft of the layout on the computer. I even spent some time playing with Photoshop Elements, but decided I really am a traditional scrapper and am not ready to venture into the digital realm.

Okay, I'm ready pick out papers and scrap! Went to get my photo and discovered that was in portrait orientation, not landscape like I thought I remembered. Grrrr, back to the drawing board.

Five days from now...

I'm supposed to do something with the seedlings my neighbor gave me. Only, I don't know what. She came by as A and I were working out in the yard. She had some seedlings in a pot and thought I might like them. Only I have no idea what they are (flowers? veggies?). My neighbor only speaks Mandarin and I only speak English so communication was a bit of a problem. I did figure out that she was coming back from visiting her neighbor who gave her the seedlings (I think).

Then she wanted to know if I wanted some other seedlings. Some sort of melon (I think), from Taiwan (I think). She went out to her backyard and brought it out some more seedlings. I'm supposed to plant them against the fence (or maybe that's where she planted them?). And in five days, I'm supposed to do something (what???) and not worry if (what???). And during the day (what???) and during the evening, when I get home from work, I should (what???). And in five days, if I haven't killed off the plants, I'll try to figure out the next step.

Tasty Tuesdays

Hey all you cooks! My friend A is having a recipe contest; check out her blog: Many Little Blessings. And here's a link to my recipe, Pork in Mushroom Gravy. (Just trying to pimp my other blog...)

Memorial Day

It doesn't seem right to say "Happy Memorial Day," since there is nothing happy about remembering a departed loved one. Rather, my condolences to you who've lost a loved one and my thanks to you who are serving or have a loved one serving.

I have a cousin serving right now. He's been to Iraq and Afganistan and I suspect he'll be going back. And I have a coworker in the reserves who expects to be called up again. It is a constant hoping for the best, but worrying about the worse for both of them.

Soooo frustrated and tired

I've been working very long, intense days for the past couple weeks and next week should be no better. Lots of things to be updated at the last minute, lots of coordinating, lots of deadlines. It isn't the long hours so much as trying to keep track of everything.

One tiny change will have a snowball effect and affect so many other things. One of my responsibilities is to make sure everyone in the department is aware of and makes these changes. So I send out e-mails, I make announcements in staff meetings, I mark the change on their work. And still, I get the blank looks of "what are you talking about?".

Sometimes I think my job title should be changed to chief nag. Why do I have remind people of their deadlines? Because if I don't, the projects don't get done on time. And then everyone in the department is scrambling to finish the project at the last minute. It may take a village to raise a child, but it shouldn't take a village to finish a project. I'm ready to beat my head against the wall. Better than beating my coworkers, right?

In the meantime, my own projects are falling by the wayside. Hence, I'm working today and tomorrow, sigh.

It was an LM day

I wore my pink Lifetime Moments tee shirt to work today. It is a custom tee shirt from a non-official crop, which makes it even more special. I've been so busy at work (these 10, 12 hour days are killing me), that I forgot my LM order was arriving today. Usually I track it every day online, and anxiously await the day's mail delivery. I got back from our staff meeting to the pleasant surprise of my order. There wasn't that much to show for how much I spent; paper is expensive, lol. Thought I did splurge on a QK tote. I was afraid they would discountinue their current tote since they came out with a new (ugly) one. Since it was on sale, I "had" to buy it. How's that for logic?

Friends

Last night, I saw a dear friend that I hadn't seen in quite a while (she moved out of state). I think I've seen her twice in the past three years, but last night was the first time I saw her, just the two of us. No kids, no other friends.

She decided to fly into town at the last minute and was busy trying to fit in visits with family and friends. Having done the same thing myself, I was flattered to be on her "to see" list.

We tried to find a halfway point to meet and picked a restaurant that we had both heard of and could see from the freeway. It turned out to be quite the happening place and not quite what we had in mind. So we drove around for a bit and ended up on a quaint little street full of restaurants and cute shops. We happened upon a wine bar and it was the perfect place for us--quiet, friendly, reasonably priced. She had a flight and I had my usual cranberry juice, lol. It was wonderful to just sit, relax, and enjoy each other's company. So my advice to you? Spend time with your friends. Something we don't do enough.

12 of 12

Thanks to S, I had two days notice to plan my 12 of 12 photos (credit to Chad Darnell for the concept). Plus the 12th came on a weekend this month so theoretically, I had lots of time to do this. It would have been helpful if I brought the camera with us when we ran our errands, but alas, you'll just have to settle for photos around the house.

Since I had to take photos, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and take a photo of the clothes I'm donating to Goodwill. Then there's the tool A borrowed and needs to return, some tea I've been drinking to get rid of my cough, the stuff I bought at the scrapbook store, and my mail today.



























I usually don't drink soda, but today it was quite warm so I indulged.

This is the "Mexican lasagna" I made for dinner. It is layers of tortillas, refried beans, cheese, and salsa/tomato sauce instead of pasta, beef, cheese, and marinara sauce.

Hopefully, this little seedling will grow up to be a healthy, hardy Armenian cucumber plant.









An empty rabbit hutch. :(


I can't remember if this is a cherry tomato or Roma tomato plant












This is perfectly normal food, dried bamboo shoots.








Here's a stack of A's jeans that he doesn't fit any more.

NSD, Cinco de Mayo, and more

That's National Scrapbook Day for you non-scrappers. Yep, May 5th was a pretty busy day this year. It was National Scrapbook Day, Cinco de Mayo, and National Law Day. I only celebrated the first two, though it would have been cool to get some free law advice.

LM had an awesome celebration weekend (and I think it is still going on if you want to get in on the prizes). Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood for scrapping. I wasn't even in the mood for shopping. I did play a few games and am still working on one of them and made a card for Mom. All the local scrapbook stores were having crops and sales, none of which I checked out because the crops were all day events and I had plans for the evening. I almost went to one store since they were having a sale on the Bind-it-All, 25% off, which is the best price I've seen on them. But I resisted. I finally decided to place an order last night at LM. I almost missed the sale, because I keep forgetting that the deals end on Eastern time, not Pacific time (LM used to be on the west coast, but moved to Michigan). Anyway, I put a huge amount in my basket and used five different discount codes. It is so cool that Jackie (owner of LM) allows us to stack the discount codes. So yes, I spent a fortune on stuff I really don't need, but want anyway, lol.

Saturday night, I had bunco, hence no all day crops. It was a good thing I didn't cancel bunco for cropping since it was my lucky night. First, M was hostessing and she brought an awesome dinner with a Mexican theme in honor of Chinco de Mayo, all homemade: enchiladas and guacamole. Plus two kinds of dessert! She didn't want to bring any leftovers home so I got enchiladas for another dinner. Plus she sent home some strawberry tart and brownies. I think A was more excited about the food than he was about my winnings, lol!

Off schedules

I hate it when A has to leave early for work. It wouldn't be so bad if that corresponded with him getting home early, but usually, it just means a long day for him. So that means he went to bed early last night and left before I got up this morning. No good morning kiss for me today. :(

Not a low-cal dinner

It's a miracle! I cooked! LOL! Actually, I was tired of the freezer dinners and wanted something fresh so I've got three dinners planned for this week, thanks to Foster Farms chicken being on sale for 50% off. Last night, I made Buttermilk Baked Chicken (see my other blog), mashed potatoes, and carrots. Actually the carrots were leftover, but there were still enough for last night's dinner. But the potatoes is what I really want to talk about. Dang they were good. No gravy needed. And the way I make my mashed potatoes? Easy peasy! Just chop, boil till cooked, pour out most of the water (but save in case you need to add liquid back in), lightly mash (I like my potatoes lumpy), add a bit of salt and pepper. Add a few tablespoons of cream cheese (to 8 small potatoes). I had softened cream cheese that I had been putting on my toast so used that. It melted right into the potatoes and made them so rich and smooth. Yum!

ISO SB Supplies

I know, you're saying you've got to be kidding, right? I'm looking for a paperkins-type girl in a Tai Kwan Do uniform with a black belt. Hopefully, the girl has black hair. I need to do a special scrapbook page for a special person. I know paperkins aren't in, but they're cute. If you have other ideas, let me know.

What would make my life better

Getting home earlier. Yesterday, I got home early from work. Traffic was lighter, which was nice. I had time to play on the computer, which was nice. I made dinner, which was nice. I watched the evening news, which was nice (well, the news wasn't nice, but being able to watch was).

Today, I got home around 7:00. Traffic was terrible. I was too tired to cook so thank goodness A got home earlier and made a salad. I missed the news. By the time I finished cleaning up the kitchen, I felt like I should be getting ready for bed (not really, but you know what I mean). What a difference two hour and a half hours make.

So why don't I leave work earlier? I often get called into meetings at 3:00 or 4:00. I used to have video conferences with our overseas counterparts at 5:00. So there was no use in me coming in early if all I was going to have to do was stay late. Also, it seems like no matter how early I go in, face time in the afternoon is important (no matter that I get in before most of my coworkers and bosses). In fact, people in other departments are in the habit of just walking over to my desk in the morning since they know I'll be there (and be able to help them). I sure do miss the days when I had a 30+ mile commute, but was in a vanpool so I had to leave at a certain time.

Not-so-tackle-it Tuesday

Some of my blogging friends have been participating in Tackle-It-Tuesday. I'm not exactly sure what this is, but based on the title and their posts, I gather that you're supposed to tackle an area to clean/organize every Tuesday.

I did do an amazing amount of cleaning on Sunday including 20 minutes just on the shower grout. Unfortunately, for all my scrubbing and inhaling (toxic) cleaning fumes, the shower doesn't look any better. Kinda discouraging.

As for today, I made dinner (stir-fry veggies with ramen), which I consider a major accomplishment, lol.

It doesn't pay to recycle

The day started off right with a trip to the grocery store. They were selling these cool bags with the store logo for reuse. I like the size of the new bags, plus they have a piece of plastic on the bottom for reinforcement. I already would take my paper bags back to the store for reuse, but these hold a bit more. I'm hoping that the baggers will be more amenable to using these bags and I won't get the annoyed looks I usually get when I bring back the paper bags.

Later on, A decided we should take in all the bottles that have been piling up in the house and garage, probably three months worth. We drove to three different recycling places and at all of them, the machines were out of order. We finally went to one place that was staffed, but it was closed for lunch. Thankfully, we only had to wait few minutes. So, for all that effort, we got back $3.55. Big whoop. Not that we were doing this for the money, but doing something good shouldn't take so much effort.

Scrapbooking funny

Yesterday, I went to a friend's house to scrapbook. The guests all brought dinner, which brings me to an aside. My contribution was lasagna from the frozen food section. It was pretty darn tasty (though a little salty). I told A, for the price, that's what we should be buying for an easy dinner. It was way cheaper than those make-your-own-dinner places I talked about earlier, and also way cheaper than going out or fast food. So, if I have the time (they take about an hour to bake), I have a new standby. By the way, I bought the lasagna from Smart and Final. They had a much larger selection than the grocery store.

Back to scrapbooking...my friend has a million supplies and is very generous, letting us borrow ink, use ribbon, buttons, or whatever else she has. I didn't bring my QuicKutz with me because I knew she had way more fonts than me. I was browsing through her collection and brought out two fonts to finish my project. I told her, wow, you have all my favorite fonts and went on extolling the beauty of "Maddie Anne." The rest of the conversation went something like this:
A: I just love Maddie Anne.
Y: I don't have Maddie Anne.
A: Yes you do, it's right here.
Y: Are you sure that's Maddie Anne? I was thinking about buying it. I'm pretty sure I don't have Maddie Anne.
A: This is Maddie Anne.
Y: Really? That's Maddie Anne?
LOL, one of the other scrappers was able to verify that indeed, she did have Maddie Anne. Though we all agreed that maybe I shouldn't have told Y so that after she bought a duplicate, she could sell me her extra at a discount. ;)

I'm sure buying duplicate scrapping supplies has never happened to any of you, lol.

I've been tagged

by Becca to list 10 weird things about myself. (Only 10, lol?) In no particular order or importance, here are the first 10 things that came to mind.

1. I love to sample other people's food, but I can only sample from the untouched side with a clean fork.

2. I hate getting my hands dirty, but I have a compost heap and a worm bin.

3. I never, ever talk about my age.

4. I prefer to eat my pizza with a knife and fork.

5. I prefer savory breakfasts rather than sweet breakfasts.

6. I don't like soda.

7. I like to drink hot water.

8. I have tons of cookbooks, but hardly ever follow a recipe exactly.

9. I can put together a good meal with whatever I've got in the cupboard/fridge/freezer.

10. I don't like these tagging things because I'm usually the last to get tagged so there's no one left to tag (shades of elemenary school) or the questions are too personal. But this was fun. Thanks Becca!

New scrapping buddies

L invited me to a new scrap group last week and it was so much fun. What was most exciting to me was there were Asian scrappers there. Woo hoo! Everyone was so nice (and talented). I don't exactly feel out of place being a multiple minority scrapper, but it does get tiring being the only one like me at crops. Unfortunately, I'm going to miss their next get-together, but I hope to be invited to the one after that.

$3.33

Yep, eight cents in four days. Wonder if the company will ever promote telecommuting.
Lest you think I'm obsessed with gas prices, I'm not. I'm obsessed with saving $ and rising gas prices aren't helping with that, lol.

Dinner report

I was going to give a report on the freezer dinners last night, but was too tired. Guess I better do it now since you asked. ;)

The first place we went to (in December) was Supper Thyme. I think I just didn't pick the right things. Most of the food was casserole type and the "sauce" was most often cream of mushroom soup. Now, I don't have anything against cream of mushroom soup. In fact, it is a staple in my cupboard. I checked their menu for April and May and it seems like there is a larger variety than when I went.

This time, we tried Dinner My Way. They are significantly more expensive, probably $1 to $1.50 more per serving. They have different pricing structures so that's just an estimate. It seemed like they had more things on their menu that we liked and also, a slightly larger variety. It was also helpful to have the meal prep directions on the menu, which helped in the decision making. I also liked that rice, pasta, or mashed potatoes (instant) were included with all the entree. It was a nice extra touch.

I thought the ingredients was of higher quality at Dinner My Way and the recipes a little more complex (in a good way). Saturday, we had Dijon Steak. It was supposed to serve six, but A went back for seconds and thirds so I'd say we got three servings out of it, lol. Sunday, we had Wild Rice Chicken (chicken topped with wild rice/cornbread stuffing, wrapped in pastry). Well, anything wrapped in pastry is a plus in my book. Unfortunately, this dish was overly salty (especially the sauce) and rather tasteless. (I still liked the pastry though.) Then we had Apple Dumplings for dessert. I liked it, but A thought it was too sweet. Tonight, we had Beef Burgundy Roast. I was surprised that A liked it since the recipe included dried fruit. It was a bit sweet, but not overly sweet, so I'd say this was another winner.

We purchased 12 meals, which is more than what I normally would purchase, but like I said earlier, they had a special. I had emptied two shelves in the freezer, but it wasn't enough room to fit everything. Good thing we were giving some away and planned on eating some right away.

Thus far, the pros are dinner planning is a lot easier (especially for A) and I'm trying recipes that are out of my comfort zone. The cons are the cost, not liking some of the entrees, and space in my freezer. Another con, though this doesn't seem to bother most people, is these meals are stored in the freezer. My issue with that is I want to eat as soon as I get home. Neither one of us gets home early enough to put a casserole in the oven to bake for an hour. So during the week, crockpot meals are better for us. I do think if I made these meals myself, the food would be of higher quality (and include more vegetables), but all in all, I think we'll continue to give these places our business a few times a year. After all, there are three more of them in the area that I need to review, lol.

$3.25

Yep, that's the price at the station where I usually fill up. And I'm excited at the price since that's two cents less than it was last week. Hope the price keeps going in that direction, though all the news reports are talking about prices going up.

Make and Take (and Freeze) Dinners

Today, A and I went to one of those assembly meal places and prepared enough food to fill half our freezer and a shelf on the fridge. That's a slight exaggeration, but not much. We made one dessert and 11 entrees (one to give away to the mom of twins). Each item serves 4 to 6, so that's a lot of food. We tried another place a few months ago and found that most entrees ended up more on the 4 side, rather than the 6 side. I suspect that will be the same with what we made today.

The last place we tried was just okay (too many casserole type meals). But I guess that A liked it well enough since he was open to helping me again. I'm a little skeptical of the cost since we paid $199 and that's more than our entire grocery budget for the month. I know I could make the meals myself for much less, but somehow, I think it helps A to have the nice labels all printed up and everything packaged just so. That $199 was a special deal and was about a 30% discount. Otherwise, I would have opted for fewer meals, though, this month there were several dishes that I liked. As we were finishing up, they offered us the $199 special for May, but I knew that there's no way we'd finish all these meals in time to empty the freezer for the next batch (plus there weren't 12 items that sounded interesting).

A was telling a friend about this and he said his wife does this all the time, but selects the pickup option. I think I like making the meals myself better, though it did take the two of us almost the entire two hours to make the meals. I think we were getting in each other's way. It probably would have been more efficient for each of us to make six items, rather than helping each other make each entree. At least when we make the meals ourselves, we can control the spices (less pepper and rosemary, more garlic and cilantro).

If you're interesting in finding one of these places near you, here's a list. It turns out there are six of these places within just a few minutes drive from us. That's a lot of competition. It will be interesting to see who lasts and who doesn't.

Tax day has come and gone

Hopefully, we're be getting our refund soon. Somehow, our tax guy miscalculated and we waaaaaay overpaid last year. Usually, we're pretty close. But with A changing jobs and some other changes in our lives, withholdings didn't get calculated correctly. Every time A paid his estimated quarterly taxes, I'd try not to freak out at the amount. No wonder money was so tight last year.

The funny thing was, I had been thinking, if we had an extra $XXXX, life would be so much easier. And it turns out our overpayment was just about that much. Hmmmmm, and A doesn't think I know how much we spend/earn/save.

I just changed my withholdings and it didn't make a whole lot of difference in my paycheck, but multiply the diffence over the rest of the year and we're giving Uncle Sam a lot less this year. Don't tell A, but I opened another savings account and am socking that money away for a rainy day (which have been coming along more and more often).

Just call me Rudolph

Yep, I've got the red nose going, though today isn't as bad. I ended up staying home a couple days last week since my cold came back with a vengeance. Unfortunately, my Puffs (tissue with lotion) was at the office and by Wednesday, I had rubbed my nose raw. I guess that's one way to exfoliate, lol.

Today I ended up taking a nap so I'm pretty sure I'm not healthy yet. When I was home sick, I had a low fever. Now, I can't even hit 98 degrees. No wonder I'm cold! Being sick sure is getting old.

Who's who

We spent Easter Sunday at A's SIL's parents'. (got that?) We had yummy Honey Baked ham, sour cream potatoes, baked beans, jello, rolls, and a side dish that I made up. I wish I could have taken home the ham bone to make split pea soup. Little G wasn't really interested in lunch. All he wanted was dessert and the egg hunt.

He was sooooo excited when he finally got to search for the eggs. I wanted to hide all the eggs again, just to prolong his fun.

The twins were darling in their matching green gingham dresses. C put different socks on them so we could tell them apart, but we still kept getting them mixed up. Is that E you're holding? No, I've got C. No, you've got E, lol. Good thing their Mom and Dad can tell them apart. Everyone else wants to get them tattooed, lol. Just kidding about the tattoos, but they really would help. Obviously the twins are identical.

They're growing quite a bit. C says they're almost out of premie diapers and will soon be using regular infant diapers. They seem so "big" to me now.

Reminising

So on Tuesday, we both had the day off to recover from the funeral. I was actually hoping for a relaxing day, but it turned out to be a rather difficult day for me. We had some errands to run and everywhere I turned, I thought of Uncle T. Stuff like, I should write and tell him a little something. Or I should make him an Easter card. Or was reminded of something he told me.

It was worse at the grocery store. I thought of all the foods he liked. And then I really lost it in the produce section, I thought of all the trimmings that Rascal used to eat. I never used to worry about having leftover veggies because I knew that Rascal would eat them. The only veggies he didn't like were asparagus and jicama. I used to put small pieces of celery or broccoli or carrots in empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes and then fold down the ends. He'd dig and dig and dig at them till he could get to his treats (which only took a minute).

It's a good thing I went back to work on Wednesday. Back to a "normal" schedule. I'm feeling a little better. Thanks to everyone for your condolences. It means a lot to me.

It has been a long weekend

We're home, finally. The viewing was on Friday and the funeral on Saturday. Did family stuff Sunday and this morning before the long drive home. Came home to find that Rascal had escaped somehow and died. We have no idea how he could have escaped since the cage was latched. There was no evidence that anyone came into our backyard (A had put stops up against the gates so if someone had come in, it would have been obvious).

A took pity on me and buried him tonight instead of waiting until the morning. Maybe it is a good thing, to have another reason to cry instead of holding everything in.

Tribute to Uncle T

For an even better tribute, read this post.

He's gone

My beloved Uncle T passed away this morning. He had been ill and was ready, more than ready to go. Poor Mom had to give me the sad news. I have a huge hole in my heart that may never heal.

He was a generous, loving man that gave so much to his family and community. He volunteered his time, well into his eighties (and of course, we worried about him overdoing it). His marriage to Auntie L showed us what true love could be, what a good husband was, how a marriage was a partnership. He was the patriarch of his family. We all looked up to him. He was the wise elder. He was one of the last of his generation. A World War II vet. I miss him more than words can describe.

Blogging

It looks like I've picked up a new reader or two. I'm not sure how, but I'm happy about it. I finally finished updating Google Reader with all the blogs I follow regularly, along with some I don't follow so regularly. Hopefully, this way I'll spend less time checking up on people.;) But I admit I'm disappointed when there aren't any updates. Come on people, talk to your fans!

3.05

Yup, that's what I paid to fill up the car. But I should be feeling lucky since I've seend $3.11 and $3.17 since then.

Generosity

Does a generous nature come naturally or is it something that is taught? Unfortunately, generosity isn't something I'm known for. And when I do give, it is a forced effort. I wish it weren't.

Take today for instance. I wanted to buy a little gift for a former coworker who just had a baby. If she were still at the office, someone would volunteer (or get nominated) to buy a group gift or gift card or both. Everyone would contribute whatever they wanted and it would all be anonymous since it is usually our admin who collects the funds and you won't find anymore more discrete than her. Back to the baby gift. See, we didn't socialize outside of the offce. I didn't even get an (e-mail) announcement. But I do want to congratulate her on this big change in her life. So how much do I spend? Is a card enough? Should I buy a gift equal to what I would have contributed to a group gift? If I buy just a token gift, am I cheap? Do I overthink these things?

J and I talked about this a few times and we agree that we weren't brought up to be generous. Maybe that it was because we didn't have a lot of extras growing up so there wasn't anything to give. And on the receiving side, when we were given something, we always wondered what strings were attached to it. How grateful you were supposed to be to receive it. What you were supposed to do in return. So "gifts" were looked upon with suspicion.

I am fortunate to have friends with big hearts that I try to emulate. But even so, I am still having trouble being generous.

Cough! cough!

Yep, I've still got it. It has been a week. I do think I'm getting better, but now the biggest problem is I cough all night and keep both myself and A up. I don't think I've gotten more than a couple hours of sleep for the past couple of night. A wants to dose me with Nyquil tonight so he can get some sleep.

St. Patrick's Day, not!

So much for celebrating. We went to McDonald's on Saturday to try the new Angus burgers (had a BOGO coupon) and get a shamrock shake. I haven't had one of those in years and I used to love getting them. I loved the flavor, but not the texture. Unfortunately, they were out. Maybe I'll have better luck next year.

I didn't get around to buying corned beef and cabbage earlier in the week so I thought I'd try today when I did my usual grocery shopping. The grocery store had 8 heads of cabbage and no corned beef. Guess I'm not being very Irish this year, lol. Although I did manage to make and send off two shamrock cards.

My splurge of the day

On the way home from work, my carpooler and I decided to stop at the local farmers market. This is a pretty small market, only a dozen or so vendors. Sometimes there's a few more, but it varies. She bought a bunch of produce and some BBQ. I bought some pita bread, tzazhiki, and humus. Now I reek of garlic. Good thing I don't plan on kissing anyone tonight, lol.

Anyway, I call this my splurge of the day, but it should probably be called my splurge of the week or month...how often do I buy a grocery treat without a coupon and it being on sale?

Starve a cold, feed a fever?

Or whatever that saying is, lol. I'm home again today because I don't want a repeat of yesterday (going into the office, then coming home with a fever). A and I have different philosophies on how to treat a fever. I figure my body is running a fever to fight off an infection so I should let it run its course and not take anything. A says to take something to bring down the fever. Maybe he just wants me to take something so I stop complaining.

Two people in the office are sick. One went home sick on Friday and the other was sick Saturday, came in yesterday, but went home early. It sure sounds like something is going around the office, especially since we've got some of the same symptoms. I wonder if I can blame them for getting me sick. And I wonder if I would be sicker if I hadn't had the flu shot this year. It was my first time getting the shot.

I wish I could fall back asleep and take a long nap. But I have trouble napping unless I'm super sick. Guess that means I'll be well enough to go into work tomorrow.

No wonder I don't feel well

I've got a low grade fever and I don't know why. But it explains why I've been feeling achy for the past two days and why I was having trouble staying cool during the day and warm and night. Add in a bit of a sore throat and I think I'm sick. How much do you want to bet that I'll be all better tomorrow, just in time to go back to work.

A new blog

I decided to start another blog, just for recipes. I have such a hard time keeping track of my favorite recipes, I thought, why not keep them online? And on top of that, I can share them with everyone. There's only one post at the moment (and it is mostly a repeat of soup from below, but it's a start. I have a link on the sidebar or you can just click here.

20+ labels

I decided I like this label option on Blogger. I thought it would help me organize and find previous posts. I've tried very hard to not create too many labels or overlap label topics. But in the short time I've been adding labels, I find I already have 22 or is it 23 labels. I can't believe I've posted about that many different topics. Or maybe my life is more interesting than I think it is? I doubt that, lol. The indexer in me is appalled at the rapid increase in the number of labels. Especially since most labels are only used once.

An amazing dining experience

You would not believe our dining experience last night. It was amazing! We actually sat down at our dining room table to eat, lol! We had to clean it off this weekend since our tax guy was coming over. Needed room to spread out all the papers and such.

Mind you, the whole table isn't cleaned off, but just the fact that we've got enough clear space for the two of us to eat is a miracle. No more dining in front of the TV (unless I want to catch the news ;)).

I guess this means I've now outed myself regarding what a bad housekeeper I am, lol.

Soup, soup, and more soup

We're on a soup kick here. A couple weeks ago, I made a beef barley soup. Then A took some leftover yellow peas and broccoli and turned that into a yummy soup (though the cilantro he added was an odd touch). Yesterday I made Peruvian chicken cilantro soup. It was a mix of this recipe and this
one. I love this soup. My version wasn't quite as good as what I've had in restaurants, but all I had on hand was chicken breasts and I was too cheap to pay five dollars a pound for organic chicken at Trader Joes. Besides, theirs was boneless and I wanted bones. Makes a better broth, you know. I did have some homemade stock on hand to add flavor. Next time, I'm going to use chicken quarters for better flavor. If you do follow the above recipes, the only thing I'd suggest is upping the vegetables and decreasing the salt. It calls for one tablespoon and I used almost two teaspoons and I thought the soup was too salty. On the other hand, we hardly salt our food so your tastebuds might like more salt. I am definitely going to make this again.

Rest in Peace Suzy

It was with great sadness that I read of the passing of Suzy. She lost her fight with cancer this morning. You can read a little about her on her blog and this blog continued by her husband. And words from her Lifetime Moments family here and here. Isn't it amazing the auctions her friends put together for her? Such an outpouring of support.

I always scoffed at those who said someone they never met touched their lives. But now I know it is true. Suzy really did touch my life. I never met her in person, but the few times we corresponded by PMs (private messages), her warmth and zest for life were evident. When she posted online, there was never an unkind word from her. She was optimistic and upbeat thoughout her entire fight. I will miss her.

2.73

Ouch! That's how much gas is at the local station. I guess I should be happy at that price since it is 10 cents more per gallon at the gas station closest to the office. Good thing I'm driving a compact car.

Small, Medium, or Large?

I don't know why I bothered. Well, actually, I do know. It was the lure of the sale. An additional 30% off sale prices. The ease of trying things on at home in my leisure instead of some crappy dressing room where the door doesn't even lock. Even the thought of paying for shipping didn't deter me.

But I need to have more will power. Everything looked so cute in the catalog and on the models. Maybe that's part of the problem. I don't have a model's figure. I'm in between petite and regular. And I don't know if I should order a small, medium, or large. I have clothes in all three sizes in my closet. I probably even have an extra small and and extra large buried somewhere. The size charts don't matter. I ended up ordering small and medium in as many items as I could (things were selling out as before I could add them to my cart). Eleven items and $125+ later, I was done.

My package arrived yesterday and once again I was disappointed. When the clothes from Eddie Bauer fit me, they fit really well. Maybe my body has changed or their sizing has changed, but in any case, I'm keeping three things (and one of those is a gift) and the rest are going back. Bummer.

I need a rabbit cam

The rabbit hutch is just outside the living room door. We have our computer in here, plus we watch TV in here. We keep hearing all kinds of banging noises from the rabbit's corner. We haven't been able to catch him doing anything. As soon as we peek outside, he's as still and quiet as a mouse. So we have no idea what he's doing. But we're darn curious!

And here's a little hay update. I've given away two large bags of hay and will give away another next week. But I haven't touched the two garbage cans yet (we filled two clean 42 gallon cans with hay). I'm still working on what I put into the small box. For a while, it seemed like it would never empty. As I pulled more hay out, what was left would uncompress to fill the space. It's been a month and I can finally close the lid.

I'm not as sad now

Just got an update from my mom. Uncle T was admitted to the hospital and she has been visiting him. Today he was awake and actually ate a bit! I have mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, this is good news. On the other hand, he's talked repeatedly about wanting to go. Wondering why he's been stuck on this earth for so long. Wondering why he's still here, but his wife, his friends are gone. Wondering how much more his body is going to deteriorate. I understand why he's tired. But I'm happy I don't have a funeral to go to this week.

Sorry if I was a little dramatic in my previous post. It's difficult to think about losing a loved one.

What I've learned about flying

Here's what I've learned over the past few flights I've taken:

If you fly on the Sunday before a holiday around dinner time, the airport will pretty empty and the security lines extra short (it took me less than 15 minutes to check my bags and get through security, amazing!).

My watch does not set off the metal detector (I forgot to take it off).

Even if you tie a red ribbon on your black suitcase, it will still be difficult to identify it. A took someone else's bag and was checking the luggage tag (he always double-checks), but I immediately knew it wasn't my bag.

You can carry Clementines (tangerines) and bananas through security without any problems. Though if you're flying in California, I don't recommend the citrus because of the medfly problem.

If you forget to turn your cell phone off on the plane, no one will notice.

There are nice TSA agents! Everyone I encountered on this last trip was smiling, cheerful, even cracking jokes. What a pleasant change.

I'm sad

Rambling thoughts, lots going on. I just got back from a visit home. In many ways, it is so stressful. I have three households to visit and that always takes some coordination. I don't want to slight anyone and of course, some people are more understanding of time than others.

It was a whirlwind visit. Had lunch with my dad which is always a long ordeal. He moves slower than molassas and is just as messy. We had Thai food, for something different. W chose the restaurant out of the phone book. Not his typical MO, but it worked out.

After that, we went home to help Mom cook dinner for New Year's. Unfortunately, I had missed some of the verbal cues and didn't realize that Uncle T would not be coming for dinner. I think that made Mom and W realize that all of their stupid ambiguous descriptions were doing more harm than good. Don't talk about Uncle T lying in bed all day and then how much better he's doing with his caretaker. Don't talk about how sharp his mind is, but then confused he is. Just come right out and say it. He's dying and there's nothing that can be done about it. There, I said it. And it brings back all the sad, mixed up feelings I had when Auntie L was dying. You'd think with time and hopefully maturity, I could weather this sad time better, but I doubt it.

So since dinner was only going to be the three of us, I told them I wanted to visit Uncle T before dinner, not after dinner and off I went. Something in me said that I needed to see him NOW.

Yes, his mind is still sharp. He recognized me and was happy to see me as soon as I went in. He was alone, no one had come to feed him, as far as I could tell. He wasn't doing very well and needed his diaper changed so I rang the staff for help. Good thing this wasn't an emergency since no one came for quite a while. I stayed for about an hour, then left.

Mom and I went back in the morning, but he was worn out from getting bathed and moved in the morning and we left after a couple of hours since I was meeting a friend and Mom wanted to go to church.

When we went back later, he wasn't there. They had taken him to the hospital so we went straight there. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and dehydration. We knew the latter was a strong possibility, but the first was a surprise. I felt a small amount of guilt that we didn't know he was that bad, but on the other hand, his two nephews and hired caretaker had been there in the morning. I assume they know more about his condition than me. He didn't wake up the entire time we were at the hospital, but then I had to leave to catch my flight.

Even though this was a three day weekend, I thought I'd just fly up for a short visit. Make life easy on myself. Give myself a day to relax. I was even considering cancelling my trip, but obviously decided not too. Good thing I didn't. I didn't realize that A would be working today. Normally, I'd be happy to have a day to myself. But in my current state, I really need the company. I have to take my car in to the body shop, deal with insurance, worry about the family. All I want to do in crawl back into bed and sleep for long, long time.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Or Gong xi fa tsai for those of you who speak Mandarin. Happy New Year! (a little early). It is the year of the Pig. From Reuters:

Sunday marks the start of the Chinese New Year and it's a lucky one for those starting out in life. But the rest of us are in for a rough ride. Expect epidemics, disasters and violence in much of the world. "The Year of the Pig will not be very peaceful," said Hong Kong feng shui master Raymond Lo. Pig years can be turbulent because they are dominated by fire and water, conflicting elements that tend to cause havoc, Lo said. "Fire sitting on water is a symbol of conflict and skirmish," he said. "We'll also see more fire disasters and bombings." Most soothsayers said the world economy will continue to boom, though they advise people to be cautious about their investments.

That's too bad because after frankly, I've had enough turbulence in my life lately and could use a little calm.

I made a batch of jai yesterday to bring home. Didn't have all the ingredients I needed, but I was pleasantly surprised to find I had more than I remembered (probably from the last time I made it, lol). If you can believe it, I didn't have any black mushrooms, or least not the right kind. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and spend the money. Or maybe I can bum some from Mom. I think she's a little more discriminating in her tastes.

20 tiny fingers, 20 tiny toes

I'm still trying to get the hang of this blogging/HTML coding, lol. I'd like to start sharing my photos and layouts since not all of you hang out at LM.

Here's my latest layout. I was so happy to have another visit with my nieces. Unfortunately, G couldn't come since he had a little cold, so no brother sister pics. The girls are doing better. E is off her feeding tube, woo hoo! Anyway, it is difficult to see in the photo above, but there is a white paper border and white grograin ribbon above and below the photos and color bar. The paper is a couple years old, but I think it worked perfectly for my pics. Good thing I'm a hoarder, lol!

Sweet!

Happy Valentine's Day to you! As is my tradition, I left a card on the dining room table for A to find in the morning. He surprised me with breakfast in bed: coffee fixed just the way I like it and heart-healthy oatmeal. It was topped with bananas cut into heart shapes and honey. How sweet! He's a keeper!

We're excavating

We spent a couple of hours this afternoon organizing one of our bookshelves. We got rid of a box of old software and computer books (all for Windows 98 and earlier, even though we still have a Windows 98 machine) and another box of miscellaneous junk. The sad thing is, the bookshelf doesn't really look any emptier or more organized. There is still a small pile next the bookshelf that we need to find places for. The reality is, it will probably just get thrown back onto a shelf to sit for another five years.

Note that "box" is one of my standard units of measure. In this case, box equals a box of copier paper (Xerox paper box if you're into abusing trademarks, lol). My other standard unit of measure is a shopping bag; you know, the brown ones from the grocery store, preferably the ones with handles. Though the Trader Joe bags and the Ralphs bags are slightly different sizes. But I digress.

We've been trying to tackle the computer desk too, but we both have tons of paper junk piled on it. It is amazing what we found at the bottom of some of these piles. I don't think we need to save the losing Lotto tickets from 2005 or old Mapquest printouts for places we've been. Sad, sad, sad how many "important" pieces of paper aren't important any more.

Maybe we need toss boxes. Like if you don't put this away, it gets tossed. Experts recommend that with kids and their toys. Maybe it works for adults too? I dunno. We definitely need to find a better system.

More savings

In response to the latte factor post below, I decided to open another savings account and have a small amount put there every month. I need to see how little we can live on. We're already living pretty lean, but if we don't "miss" the money I sock away, I'm going to keep upping the amount bit by bit until we hit my magic number (hopefully).

I forgot to mention it before, but we've been tracking every penny that goes out for the past couple months. After this month, I think we'll stop. Three months should give us a good idea of what we spend. And December is probably the most expensive month of the year with gifts and travel and taxes. A has been a lot better than me about inputting daily expenses. I tend to save up the receipts and enter them all at once.

We tracked our expenses a few years ago. It will be interesting to compare the differences. I know that even with my scrapbooking expenses, I spend less on myself now. We don't spend that much more on food, even though I'm cooking less.

I know we can live on less, a lot less. But only if I stop putting money into savings, which I'm not willing to do.

I need to work faster

I have sooo many creative ideas in my head, I just need to get them down on paper, or better yet, just do them! A scrapbook company is sponsoring a contest for those of us who attended a crop and I bought the stuff before Christmas for my entry (actually one of my entries). I just haven't gotten around to putting it together, plus they extended the contest deadline. Me, who is so deadline driven, decided to procrastinate in honor of the new due date, lol. Now I see all kinds of ideas similar to mine floating around the web. There was even a make-and-take at CHA was similar to mine. Grrrrrr. I sure hope the judges don't think I'm a copycat. Come on girl, get going!

The latte factor

I've been looking for ways to increase my savings without having to take a second job. Why? Several things. Like A changed jobs last year and his income decreased, plus we had some added expenses. And a couple of years ago, I had to help my family out and that took a chunk of change; thank goodness we had the money saved. I want to make sure we are set if another emergency comes up again. I want to retire early. Enough reasons?

I've been doing some reading online and discussing this with some friends. But as you know, money is a touchy topic and there are only so many people you can discuss money with honestly and without judgement. Most of the online reading is for people who are worse off than we are. I don't need to learn how to decrease my credit card debt since I don't have any. I'm pretty sure we spend less eating out than most middle class couples. I know that we spend as much in a month on dining out, as a friend spends in a week. Though both amounts are probably extremes rather than the norm.

A friend loaned me a book by David Bach, Smart Couples Finish Rich. He and Dave Ramsey and other financial gurus talk about the "latte factor." Basically, if you take the money you "waste" on lattes (or eating out or buying things full price, etc.), you could save hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year. My "problem" is I don't spend money on things like that. I buy maybe 10 fancy coffees a year. I usually have leftovers for lunch. Hardly ever buy books, music, clothes. Our biggest splurge is our cars. Not that they are fancy or anything, just that we like to buy them new. Since my car is twelve years old and A's car is three (but we'll keep it until it's in the double digits), we're willing to take the depreciation.

I feel like I'm already making sacrifices for my future and not enjoying my life now. Do you have any advice for me?

I saw her!

And hold her! Who you ask? My new niece C. My SIL gave birth to twins, early, and they're in the neonatal unit. We couldn't visit without the parents, but yesterday, we were at their place to drop off a little baby gift (little outfits for the girls). They were going back to the hospital and invited us along. They were in a hurry since my SIL wanted to get there in time to feed the babies. So we didn't have a chance to get the camera from home, unfortunately.

The nurse was wonderful. It didn't phase her that there were extra visitors, including one rambucous little boy. No issues with me holding sweet little C. I never asked, but I think BIL knew I wanted to so he offered. Thank you!

There were so many sweet picture opportunities. G kissing his sisters. The babies in their parents' arms. G gently stroking his sister's hair. The nurse handing C to my BIL (that really showed how tiny she is). My SIL cradling E in her arms. I wanted the pictures not just for myself, but for them. Their digital camera is broken and he's been taking pictures with his cell phone. But you know they aren't the best quality. I hope we get another opportunity to visit, with or without the camera. Until then, I can only hold their images in my heart.

Sometimes you just need to talk

I spent some time today chatting with my friend S. We talked about scrapbooking (of course), mutual friends, and general chit chat. I think I'm too stressed about the car (I hate dealing with insurance companies) and there isn't any resolution in sight. So it felt so good to be talking about us and fun things. I felt so good after we got off the phone, I went to tackle a project that I've been avoiding. Thanks S!

Moments vs. events layouts

Just a little vent about all the scrapbook pages in magazines and product examples. Why oh why do the designers and editors continue to only give us one photo examples? Those types of pages are easier to create (at least for me), and show off the paper better, but the reality is, most scrappers are event scrappers with tons of photos to scrap.

One of my most difficult tasks is narrowing down the photos I'm going to scrap. I've got 93 photos from my last visit home, not including what J might send me. That's three events to scrapbook, so let's do some estimating. 93 divided by 3 equals 31; say half of the photos are usable, so we're down to 15. It's pretty difficult to fit 15 photos on a 2 page layout.

The last crop I went to, almost everyone was scrapping events. Come on people, we need more examples to inspire us!