2010: What Happened Was.....

When I started out to post my year in review, I was originally going to do a "The Good and The Bad." Ha ha! I hear you all laughing. I know I have a strange genetic defect that does not allow me to see things as bad. Well, in January we lost Rita.
I loved her dearly but she was very old and had terrible pain in her hands. She could barely hold a fork. Our last day together was wonderful. And she died in her sleep. That's really ideal. Death happens and it doesn't bother me at all when an old person dies. It's inevitable. I miss her quirky humor though.
~
Another thing that happened was I got my new Meals on Wheels route at the beginning of the year. It was a little irksome at first with the wanky apartment complexes, but the rest of it was golden. So close to my house, so quick, so easy. We also had winter storm tree damage, but thankfully, no damage to our house. And the video I made of that always makes me laugh.
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Our next big event was our annual beach trip.

Everything about the beach trip was wonderful and I had so much fun. I'll never forget the Trivial Pursuit and all the laughs with friends and family. And great food!
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I got some great home improvement projects done like painting both hallways:

And I knocked out those stupid posts that were in the opening between the dining area and the living room. I really hated those things. There may have been some other little things that I forgot.
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In the summer, when I got that photo text from my daughter of a wedding chapel, I realized she was really getting married. They had been engaged for maybe two years, so I guess I wasn't really taking it seriously. I remember that day that my daughter, her fiance and myself went to the country club to check it out as a possible reception venue. That's the day I realized it was really going to happen. And so on another day, my daughter, her maid of honor and I went shopping and I found this:

Yes! There is actually a uniform for The Mother Of The Bride. And I found a comfortable one. My brain kicked into high gear then. Oh MY! There really is going to be a wedding. We need to make plans! Where will all my people stay? And how can I have people stay at my house when the spa has become tiresome and unsightly? So I hired people to take that thing out:

That was quite a process and left a deep hole and broken deck and so I hired someone else to fill the hole and finish the deck. Then I converted the library into temporary sleeping quarters and came up with ideas of how to entertain guests for several days.

~

I realize I left some things out, like the fantastic sports year we had with our basketball team (DUKE!!) winning the national championship and our baseball team (Go Rangers!!) winning the ALCS and making their first trip to the world series. But really, I would have to say that Kate's wedding was the big event of 2010.

I had so much fun with my friends and family all here at the same time. And the reality is Duke could win the national championship again next year. An old beloved person could very well die next year, there will be things done to the house, we'll have another great week at the beach cottage, but my one and only child getting married and having Mom, my brother and my best friend all here? That will never happen again. I loved it. I loved 2010. I'm looking forward to 2011.

(I have plans, you know. )

Christmas Wrap

I can't believe Christmas is over! We had a fun weekend, but it seems like it went by too fast. That deep fried cajun turkey was excellent and I'm very impressed that the restaurant had lost my order and managed to come up with a turkey at the last minute. I called Thursday night to get my pick up time for Friday. I imagined it was 3:00 but couldn't remember for sure. We had ordered it way back on November 21st. The girl was all flustered and said she would call me back that she had to "look it up." She called back about 10 minutes later and asked if maybe my order was under a different name. Whoa! Alarm bells went off in my head. She even said they were out of turkeys. She told me she would call her general manager and call me right back. She did. She adamantly told me that I would get my turkey. The GM called me the next day to verify my exact order and everything was fine. I was very pleased.

~

Our last minute Christmas eve shopping was almost anti-climatic. We ran into Target for some gift cards and didn't even have to stand in line. Then we stopped in a restaurant for a gift card and had a beer and we were done. We stopped by the grocery store for some last minute things and came home. Of course, like we do every other year, we forgot to get Christmas day lunch food. We always forget that everything is closed on Christmas. So our Christmas lunch was convenience store hot dog and taquitos. And by lunch, I mean breakfast. Because I only eat lunch and dinner. And lunch is my first meal, just an hour or so after I wake up, so I guess it is breakfast. But I always call it lunch because it is 1:00 pm. And it's not breakfast food. I am not a fan of breakfast food.

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My daughter and her husband (I am still trying to get used to saying that) came over Saturday evening. We had a fun time.

~

Oh wait! I forgot something. On Thursday, My Sweetie set up the x box kinect. It's the newest technology where you just use your body. There is no controller. On Friday night we did the dance contest and played a few sports games. You control the game with your arm in the air like Tom Cruise does in Minority Report. It's really funky. The thing is you have to stand a certain distance from it and our living room set up didn't work for that, so late Thursday night, we rearranged the whole living room and on Friday we had to move the Christmas tree. It was all a little crazy.

~

Anyway we all played the dance game Saturday night and my daughter's husband was hilarious. Very deer in headlights, and gave up pretty quickly. My daughter was the master and won hands down. We had a great meal and they probably were here longer than they ever stayed before (not counting that crazy night where they came over after 2:00 am and stayed til almost 6:00 am.)

~

Sunday we went to my MIL's house. My Sweetie and I are usually overwhelmed by the kids and the tight quarters but we made the best of it and my FIL was up the whole time which is very unusual. We had a good time and shared lots of laughs. Everyone was in high spirits and the kids were all fun and happy.

~

I got lots of great meaningful gifts. I'm looking forward to using the two great restaurant gift cards we got. I'll be wearing all my Duke wear for years to come and will have a big smile every year when I pull out my sweet Christmas decoration that Lo made for me. I love all my gifts and I had a great long Christmas weekend, that started on Thursday when Carole came by for our gift exchange and visit. Now in just a few more days we will have our shrimp and crab leg boil, do our noisy poppers, drink champagne and ring in another year of adventures and fun.

Christmas Eve 2010

The decorations are nestled all snug in their place.

The delivery boxes are taking up space.

Our food that was ordered: the order misplaced!

The restaurant responded, they had to save face.

~

The last minute shopping, we'll both do today.

With bar stops for beers along our way.

I wish you a wonderful holiday.

And now, I guess, I've had my say.

(Merry Christmas everyone! These are some of my Santas.)

I'm Stupid (and injured because of it)

I woke up this morning and my mouth was totally dried out and my tongue was stuck to the bottom of my mouth and when I was able to detach it, it actually pulled skin from the bottom of my mouth and it hurt. And all the while, that humidifier was sitting in a box on the kitchen floor.
Lesson learned.
~
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Unrelated Addendum 12:51 a.m. (CST) 12/21/10: Because the moon is straight overhead, I am able to watch the lunar eclipse through my living room skylight. How cool is that?

Call Me Old-Fashioned, But....

I don't know why, but "trending" as a verb really irks me. I have a nice Oxford Dictionary made out of actual paper and in it "trend" is only

a noun. I guess it shouldn't bother me. I almost feel like a hypocrite.

I make up words all the time. I even have my own gerund-speak. For instance, if I want my husband to grab something that I am handing to him, I say, "Taking." Or if we get on an elevator and he is distracted I would say, "Pushing." Actually, gerund-speak has a slight hint of a question mark behind it. As in, "Are you going to push the elevator button?" But I would never, ever, under any circumstances, show him something that is cool and happening and say, "Trending."

Christmas Card Chaos

Is it just me or does everyone make this much of a mess when they do their Christmas cards? It doesn't seem like there should be that much stuff.

Not Going To....

That picture is unrelated to this post, but I thought it was fun and goofy. We've had spotty at best internet service for over 10 days and I'm tired and I'm not going to take it anymore. I bet I've spent an entire workday's worth of hours on the phone with our stupid cable internet provider. It's almost embarassing that it took me this long to realize two things: 1) They obviously do not give a frick about my business and 2) I don't need this crap.
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After wasting another almost hour on the phone today, when she put me on hold for the 5th time, I hung up. I ate my lunch. I called another internet provider and ordered service. It will be installed on Monday. I absolutely CAN'T WAIT to call and cancel my current "service" next Monday. Unfortunately since I have to wait until Monday, I will continue my daily calls going through the whole frikking rigamarole to get to a person to loudly and flatly state: You need to credit my account for today. I refuse to pay for something I am not getting. I'm tired of doing it, but I will do it every day until I cancel. Because I'm not paying. I hate them. I don't need this crap.

Poor Fella!

It's bad enough that people dress up their pets,

but dressing up wild animals is just rude.

Man, people are stupid.

Monday night on Jay Leno's "Headlines" segment, he showed a newspaper photo and the caption was something like First Graders Build Replica of France's Leaning Tower of Pisa With Toothpicks and Marshmallows. There was barely a titter of laughter from the audience. Jay looked disgusted and didn't even bother to explain it and moved on to the next one. I guess the audience thought the marshmallow and toothpick picture wasn't that funny. I guess the audience didn't realize that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is not in France. It was sad. Good on Jay for not explaining it. If they don't know by now, well, sucks to be them.

Someone posted a rant on Facebook the other day about using "Xmas" for "Christmas." Her problem with the whole thing, according to her was "There would be no Christmas without Christ!" Well, yeah there would be. It would just be called something else. There have been winter solstice celebrations since ancient times. National geographic has a great article about it. The picture above is the magalithic tomb of Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland. It is older than Stonehenge and lines up perfectly with the winter solstice to send a beam of line well inside to light up a decorative floor. Seriously, the winter solstice is something to celebrate. I do.

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I did a paper in college years ago on the history of the Christmas carol and that's where I learned that Christians co-opted nearly every pagan festival, as well as pagan songs (they changed the lyrics, but kept the tunes). That's where the Christmas tree as well as the bunnies and eggs of Easter come from.

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Yeah, people are stupid. I should be used to it by now. And by the way, I do not like "Xmas" either. I even spell it all the way out in phone texts with my lazy fingers. I just think it's stupid. I also wouldn't type "I'm doing The New York Times Xword puzzle." And Steve Martin didn't say, "Well, Xcuuuuuuuse me!"

This Sucks!

My internet's been down all week.
I really want to rant.
My internet's been down all week.
So, therefore, I can't.
~
(Posted remotely via Carole my neighbor)

Hey! Pass Me A Joint!

Joint pain is like the weather: Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. I don't want to sound like an old geezer. Pain is not just for old geezers anyway. I remember coming home from ballet

class so sore that I would soak in the bathtub until my feet and hands pruned up. And I was in elementary school. I also remember the first (and only) time I tried to water ski. I was in 8th grade and I was so sore I didn't go to school that Monday. I didn't even get out of bed that Monday. I remember Mom coming in to ask me why I hadn't gotten up.

I said, "I can't move."

~

I've talked about the osteoarthritis in my thumb alot, but that was my right thumb. Now my left thumb is doing the same thing. It's in agony. Or maybe I am in agony. Can a thumb be in agony? It occurred to me that if they can do hip and knee replacements, they should be able to do thumb replacements. I want some new thumbs. I happen to think thumbs are pretty important. I probably use my thumbs more than I use my hips and knees.

~

And it's not just the joint pain that's so annoying, it's that sometimes it feels like I'm actually coming apart. My elbows feel like that sometimes too. And that probably is an old geezer thing because even when that rope tried to rip my arms right off of my body when I tried to water ski, I didn't feel like I was coming apart. I just couldn't move the next day.

~

Oh well, like joint pain and the weather, aging is another thing everybody talks about and doesn't do anything about. I'll just drink another beer. That's always good.

Our Anniversary

I made and posted that picture 3 years ago and forgot all about it until tonight. I was actually looking for something else and ran across it. That really is cute.
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So today is our 10th anniversary. The timing was pretty good. It was a good year. Our basketball team won the national championship. It was an Olympic year, which we both love. And our baseball team won the American League Championship and we got to go to most of those games.
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Our long week at the beach cottage in May was wonderful and then we had that fun weekend at The Worthington for Fourth of July. We had crazy weather but we not only made it through that, but had that dangerous tree taken down just in the nick of time. No crushed roof for us.
~

Rita died, but we got to celebrate her life and have that time with all of My Sweetie's Michigan family. And we had had a good year with Rita before that. She was ready to go and although we'll miss her, it

was her time, and it was okay. She would smile about this post and make a joke.

~

We were troopers through all the wedding planning for my daughter, the wedding, all the company, the reception. We survived intact and in good humor.

~

We adapted to the random schedules of My Sweetie's schooling with late dinners and missed events, but we celebrated each "A" scored on his tests.
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We had random good money luck, like deciding to remove the spa and then realizing how it had been draining our pockets. Our electricity bill dropped like a lead weight. (And something else which I can't post about.)
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I'd have to say that 2010 was a good year and a good year to celebrate our 10th anniversary. 10 is a good number. And maybe 11 will be better.

Dangle Crazy

Thursday night, knowing I didn't have to get up early for MOW, I stayed up very late. Friday morning, my body, apparently used to getting up early on Fridays, woke me up at 8:10 a.m. I think I had about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Since there was nothing to be done about it, I got up.
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I called Lo a little before 10:00 to tell her about my Thanksgiving day. Then I started to fade. Right at 10:30 a.m., I interrupted whatever she was saying to loudly, too loudly I thought, proclaim: Hey! I'm sorry but I have to take a nap RIGHT NOW.
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I clicked the "off" button on the phone and flopped over on the couch. The TV was on HGTV. I woke up a little after 1:00 and HGTV was running a special on Christmas decorations. As I was slowly waking up, they showed something like "Cool idea #5" or something and BAM! I was all, Oooooh, I LOVE that! It was something about dangling things on a very long string. I was half asleep but, man, I fell in love. Then I went a little crazy this past weekend.
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I hung these red things from the chandelier in the living room:
Then I hung some of My Sweetie's vintage Snoopy and Charlie Brown ornaments:

And if that weren't enough, I took it outside and hung these ornaments around the front porch:

I guess there really is something to being suggestible when you first wake up. Now I want to find more places to dangle ornaments. I bought some more today.

On The Homefront

I am loving the crazy bright colors of that Crape Myrtle in my backyard

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I haven't really been posting much about stuff just happening at home, so I'm going to do a roundup here of as much as I can think of before I forget everything.
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We started noticing sometime in October that our new dryer (we bought it in July) was having a hard time drying jeans and towels. Of course we were too busy in October to do anything about it anyway. A couple of weeks ago I called Best Buy and told them that we were having to run the dryer on the highest setting 3 times to get jeans and towels dry. They hooked me up with the repair people and the first thing the girl said was, "That's usually a clogged vent." For some reasom which I can't begin to fathom, that put me on the defensive and I was all, "Oh no! We have great vents!" Which was really stupid. Because after she made an appointment and the guy came out, he said my vent was clogged. Our dryer vents to the roof. I don't go on the roof. I called José, the guy that had dismantled and hauled away the old spa tub. He came out a day or so later and got up there and cleaned it out and reattached everything the Best Buy guy had taken apart in the laundry room. Now the dryer works like a charm and I've had to learn to use lighter heat settings.
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I've made a conscious decision to stop dreading Thanksgiving at my MIL's house. The truth is, there will most likely not be many more there. My FIL will not be around much longer and when he dies, my MIL will have to sell the house. So I've decided to make the most of the time left and be a good sport about the whole thing. It still amazes me that so many people love a holiday based around feasting and football. I'm just not one of those people.
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Christmas - that's MY favorite holiday. For years I've wanted to try the Razzoo's cajun fried turkey, so this year we ordered a fun cajun meal and we are having the newlyweds for Christmas dinner. It will be the first Christmas with a son-in-law and a married daughter. I'm also going to order an apple spice cake from the grocery store for dessert. That's going all crazy, because I am not a desert person, but it's not always about me. After dinner I plan to force the kids to play Cranium with us. I think it will be fun.
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My mother has a tumor in her bladder and is having it removed on Tuesday. They will send it to a lab to see exactly what it is. I've been tense all month about this. I feel like I will not quite be myself until I know what we're dealing with. If it is something bad and requires chemo or something, I will go to North Carolina to help her out. My brother is driving down on Monday to spend the night and go with her, so he will keep me informed about everything. I just keep praying that it's something benign.
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My new Meals on Wheels route is the gift that keeps giving. And by "new" I mean the local one I started early this year. I will have this Friday off and also the Christmas eve Friday. I rarely had any days off when I delivered on Wednesdays. I think I only had 4th of July and Christmas day if they happened to fall on a Wednesday. Thanksgiving Wednesdays were always extra work because we had to deliver the holiday turkey meal as well as the regular meal. Of course next year I will not have a Christmas holiday but I will always have the Thanksgiving Friday off. It's fun to have a day off.
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The weather here has been unseasonably warm - in the 80's - but that is all supposed to end on Thanksgiving. Of course, because this is Texas and the weather is totally unpredictable, they have changed the forecast all week. Originally they said it would drop to 29° Wednesday night and now that has changed all the way to 49°. That's 20 degrees! Apparently this cold front is slower than they thought. Now they are saying it will drop from 49° during the day on Thursday. This may be the longest we've gone without having to drag out the humidifiers. Also the longest for having to bring the plants into the garage. But I really would like to have a fire in the fireplace.
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I think that's about it on the homefront. My basketball team is kicking ass, the weather is nice, I get Friday off, and my favorite holiday is just around the corner. If Mom is okay, life is just peachy.

Question Asked, Question Answered

I never really thought about the word "ponder" much, which is strange, because I spend most of my time pondering things. I pretty much wake up every morning with questions in my head and now that I think about it, I go to sleep every night with questions in my head. I'm glad I'm not a cat or I surely would be long dead from curiosity.
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I love astronomy and I end my day every day by looking at the APOD - the Astronomy Picture of the Day. I've woken up half dead on the couch in the wee hours of the morning and dragged myself in here to look at the APOD. When I go on vacation, the first thing I do when I get home is look at all the APODs I missed. I love my APOD.
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The other day, I was pondering the whole "universe is expanding" concept and thought about all the gallaxy collision photos I have seen - like the one above. My brain could not reconcile expansion and collision. I thought: If everything is moving outward, how can things run into each other? My next thought was: I wish I could ask an astrophysicist. On a whim, I typed "ask an astrophysicist" into google. Guess what?
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Yes! There is a website for that! I sent this question: If the universe is expanding, why do galaxies collide? If everything is moving outward like a perfect spiderweb or pond ripple, how can things run into each other? It seems to be counter intuitive. And I got an answer!
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A NASA astrophysicist, James Ira Thorpe, sent me this response:

Excellent question! When we speak about the expansion of the universe, we are referring to the largest length scales of the universe.
On those scales, it is true that all objects are moving away from one another. However on smaller scales (where small can include galaxy clusters that are tens of thousands of times larger than our galaxy) the strength of gravity can still overcome this universal expansion and lead to galactic collisions. However, the recent discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating means that the scale over which gravity wins over expansion is shrinking. Eventually galaxy clusters, galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, people, and all matter will be driven apart! Fortunately we have a long way to go before that happens, if ever.
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I think it's really cool that I can ponder something and get an answer on the internet. I think it would be really awesome if every single question we had could be answered just by typing it into the internet. Maybe it will happen. That's something to ponder.

Strange Workings of the Mind

I had never really looked at the Rorschach ink blots before, so I looked them up today and as soon as I saw this one:
I thought of this guy:

I thought: That's the Keep on Truckin' dude dressed up in a fringey leather biker suit coming at me on a motorcycle.

~

I looked up the info on the card and it is considered a masculine card, so I got that right, but it's also called the "Father Card" so I was way off on that.
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I'm really not sure what my impression of that blot says about me. Any ideas?

Ellen Craft

I've mentioned before that our normal Friday night is spent watching the week's worth of "Jeopardy!" that we have recorded. There was a category called "Lady Antebellum" on one of the episodes. The category was about famous women before the U.S. civil war. Ellen Craft was one of the subjects of the category and they said that she was a slave woman who posed as a white man to escape the south. I was all, What!!??
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I had My Sweetie rewind so I could hear the name again and I wrote it down. I couldn't believe that in 49 1/2 years I had never heard of this woman. Very late Friday night I looked her up. Not only did she disguise herself as a white man in 1848, but she took along her husband posing as "his" slave. And not only that, but her husband later wrote a book about it. The book is Running 1000 Miles For Freedom and the whole thing can be read online on a University of Virginia site RIGHT HERE.
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I sat right here in the early hours of Saturday and read the whole thing - it's not too long - and was spellbound. I've been thinking about it all weekend. It's really an amazing story and I find it incredibly hard to believe that it has never been made into a movie or a miniseries. It's historical, it's a thriller and the suspense is crazy.
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Some of you may already know the story of Ellen Craft, but I had never heard it. If you had never heard of Ellen Craft until just now, please take time to read the book on the link I provided. It's free, it's amazing, it's nerve-wracking and it's actually true.

Unexpected Things

Unexpected Thing #1: My Sweetie actually said I could post this picture of him!
Unexpected Thing #2: The annoying "tune" that my cell phone plays when I have a voice mail woke me up Tuesday morning. When I got up and went to another room to check it, I had 4 calls from a number including the hang up voice mail. The number looked vaguely familiar so I called and got a voice mail from one of my Meals on Wheels client ladies. I waited about 15 minutes longer and tried again and it went to voice mail again. I had called her two Fridays ago because she wasn't home so I knew my number was stored on her inbox. I was afraid something was wrong and called the MOW office to tell them to call her family contact. About an hour later the client lady called me to ask why I had called her. Apparently, her 4 calls to me were what I call "pocket calls." Yeah, it was an annoying way to wake up, but I'm glad she was okay.
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Unexpected Thing #3: We updated something on this computer and now everything that was convenient is gone. My Sweetie thinks he can put back the things I want. I hope so. Also I can't copy and paste here on blogger and now the message box that I used to click "yes" on, I now have to click "no." Of course, I keep clicking "yes" and have to start over. Why would they change the wording? Dicks.
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Unexpected Thing #4: I had to turn the air conditioner back on today. November 10th. Air conditioner. And it's stilll on. That's just weird. And quite unexpected.

Some pics and things

I finally found a solution for my other computer that was overheating:
It has worked so far. That last baseball game on Halloween, we had true nosebleed seats. I took a picture looking straight out from my seat so you could see just how high up we were:

This next picture was taken in the smoking area of the upper deck where we were. Our seats were actually UP from there. That's Six Flags in the background:

And this last picture, well, I was taking a picture of the flag but after I got home and looked at the picture, it seemed more of a picture of people taking pictures. I think nearly every person down there is taking a picture.:

I think I'm caught up with my pictures now. I surely enjoyed my weekend of doing nothing for the first time in maybe 6 weeks. Also I invented a texting code for my daughter. She has a habit of asking me questions that require answers too long for a text. I have come a long way from my early texting days and am pretty good at it especially considering I don't have one of the newer keyboard phones, but some things just can't be said in a few sentences. So I told her that from now on if the answer is long, I'll just type: TM2T. That means "Too much to text." If she wants to know the answer she can call me.

The Flying Drumstick

Is it just me or does Comet Hartley look like a giant fried chicken leg?

The Time of No Thinking

(I forgot to mention in my last post that the main reason I included the picture of the wedding party was because my daughter was holding the bouquet I made. It really was as easy as the youtube video I had posted a while back. I wonder how much money I saved.)
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I have really enjoyed these last few days. I call it "My Time of No Thinking." September and October were so full of thinking. I'm not used to thinking so much. I was thinking, thinking, thinking and then suddenly it was like someone flipped a switch. I was done thinking.
I really didn't want to think of another single thing.
I am on a thinking break.
~
I have a project coming up but I don't want to think about it right now. I have to buy groceries later today, but I have no list and no idea what to buy. I believe the weather is a little weird but I don't really want to look it up or think about it. I hope nothing important comes up in the next few days, because I would be hard pressed to make a decision. And really I just don't want to think about it.

Wedding Pics!

Baseball season is finally over. The Rangers lost and it sucked and we didn't even go to the final game because we were exhausted. I kept hearing Danny Glover's voice from the Lethal Weapon movies saying, "I'm getting too old for this shit." Except I've been hearing that in my head all month. What a long and busy month. All the wedding stuff and then all the baseball stuff. Now I have 12 more days before college basketball starts and in my dream world I would spend it lying on the couch.
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This was the wedding party:
And since you guys always make fun of my random attempts to blur out My Sweetie (because I'm not allowed to show him here) I decided to replace his head with an image of Cary Grant. Why not? So this is me and "Cary Grant" and the newlyweds:

This next one is my brother, "Cary," my daughter, me, Mom and Lo:

I think of that picture as "My Family." The one below is "My Family" and my daughter's dad's family. I think his wife looks like Katherine Heigl. I had never seen her with blonde hair before, but then again I haven't seen her since 2002.:

I think we lined up better than they did. This last picture is my favorite. I loved my daughter's facebook caption for it -The women that helped put me together that day :)

I hope I get rested up soon from October. I slept 9 hours Sunday night and then spent all of Monday yawning. Maybe I'll go to sleep now for 9 more hours and then take a nice long nap this afternoon. That sounds good.

Halloween 2010

Happy Halloween! So this is the second year in a row where I will not be decorating my yard and porch. Because we're going to the World Series!
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I've talked about how far away we have to park, so yesterday I took a picture from the parking lot:

And this is when we are almost there!:

The game was great - we won! The weather was great. Everything was GREAT.

Now today we do it all over again, but in Halloween costumes. Pictures from that will be forthcoming. Until then.....

Wonder Where That Restaurant Was

Just before the doorbell woke me up this morning I dreamed I was in a restaurant and smelled marijuana. I asked my companion, "Do you smell that?" And he said, "It's legal as long as it's on the menu."

The Latest Hapnins

I'm hoping to find out later today something about the wedding photos. I can't wait to see them. That photographer was all over the place. I think I'm looking forward more to the candid shots than the posed ones. For some reason we did that last at the reception and we were all pretty buzzed, so I can't imagine they will look very formal. Hopefully there will be some good ones.
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We are definitely going to the World Series home games! I'm very excited and am contemplating wearing my Wizard of Oz Dorothy costume to Sunday's game. I imagine many people will dress up since it will be Halloween. I won't wear the ruby slippers though because I am not a masochist and there is major walking involved in going to these baseball games.
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That's all that's going on right now and I will post wedding pics as soon as I get them.

Texas Rangers Fans Gone Wild!

Be Careful Where You Stand

Last night I dreamed I worked in a Home Depot in California and according to my dream you do NOT want to be inside a Home Depot during an earthquake.

Halloween Jib Jab

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

That's me showing off my tickets to Saturday's American League Championship Series game: Texas Rangers vs. New York Yankees. The whole metroplex has baseball fever. The Rangers have never in their history made it this far. It has been very exciting. We did have to park 10 billion miles away, but I can always use the exercise.

Above is our view from just behind third base. We had great seats. That's our team's dugout over there and with my binoculars I could see individual faces clearly. Plus the location was great for beer, food, bathrooms, even smoking. Everything was close by and I never even had to wait in line at the bathroom. And that was with a packed stadium.

I loved how everywhere you looked in the stands it was a sea of red, white and blue. It was very pretty, like it had been done on purpose. The guys to our right and in front of us were a group and we thought they were going to be an annoying bunch of drunk frat boy types, but they were just happy fans like us. One of them insisted on high fiving us after every good play and even hugged us after we won. Yes, we won! It was one giant crazy celebration.

In the picture above, the game is over and the two teams are doing the handshake thing. That sign the girl is holding says, "Yankee Go Home!" The guy just behind her caught a foul ball earlier. That was the only thing about our great seats - you really had to pay attention to foul balls possibly raining down on your head. Oh and once when I was smoking I noticed these three guys walk by. They stood out and didn't look like your typical Texas Rangers fans. They were very hip in all black and had a bit of swagger. Just after they passed, I recognized one of them and called out, "Bon Jovi!" and the one that looked like Bon Jovi turned and gave me a nice wave. I hear he's a huge Yankees fan. Well his team lost, but he got to see me.

The Wedding: What a Week!!!!

I somehow managed to survive a very long week full of many things. I thought I would be all rested up by now, but I am not.
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Last Wednesday I picked up my best friend and her boyfriend in the big fat minivan that I had rented Tuesday afternoon. We went to lunch at a sports bar not realizing that a Rangers play off game was going on. It was packed but once I found the bartender that knew me we were fine and as a matter of fact we seemed to suddenly go from zero to three waitresses. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting them settled into their hotel and then just hanging out at my house.
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Thursday afternoon, my daughter joined us to pick up Mom and my brother from the airport. We found my brother but Mom had somehow disappeared. She finally turned up and all was well. The eight of us had dinner at my house in a casual manner. It was lasagne and ceasar salad. I didn't even know my daughter and her almost husband were staying for dinner, but we managed and it was fun. It's been a LONG time since there were eight people here at the same time. Oh yeah, Carole and her husband stopped in to give us some of their famous sugared/brandied walnuts, so there were ten people here. (And my brain didn't explode! Yay!)
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Friday morning I rode with my brother to pick up breakfast from Mom and him and then got ready fro Meals on Wheels. Lo's boyfriend brought her over and we made the rounds. I gave her a last minute out because of her neck surgery last month but she really wanted to go. She has gone with me every time she has visited. (She actually took a picture of me at a door with the food but I forgot to download it for this post. I'm sure I'll use it later as I have no photos of myself delivering for MOW.) We had lunch and brought food back for Mom and my brother and then spent the afternoon visiting.
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My Sweetie came home from work early and we headed over to the wedding chapel for the rehearsal. It was weird to see my first husband because I had not seen him since 2002. The rehearsal went very well and it was my first time to meet the minister. He was a cool, fun, large bald man. Very casual and relaxed. I liked him. Aftwards, we headed to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. Here's a pic of Kate and me:

On Saturday I woke up very relaxed because it was an open day. My brother, Lo and me went to Lowe's to get glass and things to replace a window pane. My brother does home repair and construction and I wanted him to show me how to do it. One of my cats broke a pane years ago and I never bothered to fix it because it was in an unimportant room. Also I wanted to do it myself but didn't know how. While we were there, I suddenly realized that it was October 9th. That was the day of Dad's retirement party twelve years ago. The retirement party where he died. And the three of us had not only been there but had ridden there together in the same car.
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So there we were standing in an aisle in a home improvement store waiting for a man to cut our glass when I mentioned to them the date and how odd that the three of us were there together. It was a great moment.
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My brother and I replaced the pane and Lo helped from inside the house. Then Lo and I took off for some last minute shopping and to pick up the flowers. When we got back, Lo's boyfriend came over and the six of us piled into the minivan for dinner out at Razzoo's - a cajun place. After that My Sweetie manned the computer to take requests for youtube songs while Lo and I did all the flower stuff in here. That was fun.:

The next day, Sunday the 10th, was wedding day. Lo's boyfriend brought her over and the five of us loaded the van and headed to the country club to decorate for the reception. I had allowed a lot of time and we finished early so we headed to the bar. It was nice to feel relaxed and not rushed. Then we headed to the wedding chapel.
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The bride room getting ready stuff was a trip! The steaming of the dress funked up my hairstyle a bit and the maid of honor was not as knowledgable as Lo on a lot of stuff, so Lo ended up sort of doing most of the work. I felt really bad but thanked her a million times afterwards. She really is the best best friend in the world. Don't get me wrong, I really love my daughter's best friend, but she seemed sort of lost on the whole thing and it shows in this picture:

And here is my bestie:

The wedding went very well. We ran a little late, but I walked in and we started. The cool minister introduced My Sweetie and he did the two short readings and then the cool minister did his thing. And then they were married. People filed out. I thought we were going to do pictures, but my daughter had the guy take maybe two or three pics and then announced: We're doing all the rest of the pictures at the reception!! She was ready to go.

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The reception was fun and it was great to see people I had not seen since the 80's as well as my second husband who I had not seen since around 1997. It was like a surreal reunion of sorts. I can't wait to see the professional pictures. Kate's dad was not happy when she called her two stepdads to be in a picture with her and him. I thought it was hilarious. And I can't wait to see it.

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And here's the pic Lo took of my brother, Mom and me in the country club bar when we had that free time after decorating:

There's more stuff, but I have run out of steam. Everyone stayed until Tuesday. I should be back into my regular routine shortly. I missed you guys!