Much Better!

Apparently a little daylight seeping in helped tremendously with getting the color to photograph correctly. Carole came over and we tested the surge strip. She was very brave and plugged in the fan. The whole surge strip is dead. It was a poor design and the plug slots are all spaced so that I may have plugged into two different sockets. I'll have to get a nice new modern one for over there.

~

The paint color is named "Sahara Sands." It has a slight peach tinge to it. Now I can't wait to get a new countertop and sinks. We are going to go to a granite place a week from this Saturday. I wanted to go this weekend but it's Father's Day weekend and I don't want to go out three days in a row. I've lived with that horrible countertop for 10 years so I think I can wait one more week to go looking. And now I think I shall go to sleep.

Holy Cow, What the Frik?

It's always something and if it isn't something, it's something else. My after pictures came out a horrible mustardy color and not even close to the real paint color, so I was going to color correct them in Photoshop. The other computer, the one with Photoshop, overheats and I use an external fan. I had used that fan in the bathroom to help the texture dry and when I just a few minutes ago went to plug it into the surge strip by that computer, crazy sparks flew out! I'm afraid of a bunch of things, but electrical sparks is certainly in my top ten. Why would it do that? I can't begin to explain how irritated I am about that. Anyway I'll just show the mustardy colored pictures, because that's all I have right now and will figure out later what the hell is with that fan.
~
So this was the before from the door:

After from the door:

This was the before from the window on the other end:

After from the window:

Here are some close-ups of the texture:

The paint is a different color in every picture which is really weird because this is not Oz and the walls are not walls of a different color. I will try to get better pictures. Maybe daylight will help and I want to figure out what made those crazy electrical sparks from the surge strip. It's a surge strip. Aren't they supposed to, you know, not have surges? I don't get that at all.

~

I really dislike being irritated. Being irritated makes me irritated, which is not good. I think I need to go to youtube and find soothing music to get myself back to my happy place. I'll be better next time.

No Pics Yet

I can't begin to explain how tough this last week was. I worked myself to the bone. The BONE. I was sore everywhere. And I was so dead set on having everything finished when My Sweetie got home, I ended up with less than four hours of sleep Thursday night. Or I guess I should say Friday morning. The plumber was supposed to be here at 8:00 am Friday morning to seat the new toilet and I was so tired and dead when I went to bed I didn't even set a clock. I decided I would just wake up when he called to say he was coming or rang the doorbell. I think I went to bed around 4:30.
~
I somehow randomly woke up naturally at 8:15 Friday morning and jumped up and ran around doing last minute stuff and finally at 8:45 I called the plumber. I had told them specifically that I needed to be in the shower at 9:30. Well he ended up getting here at 9:00 and left at 10:00 and I was all Mission: Impossible getting ready after that for Meals on Wheels. But I made it there and actually I wasn't the last person to get there for the food pick up.
~
I had an easy route and a nice lunch, ran to the grocery store and got home with two hours left before I had to pick up My Sweetie at the airport. I still had to do a lot of post work clean up as well as carefully removing all the tape. I also had to re-hang the window shade and shower curtain. It was 95° outside and felt like that inside as I was rushing around trying to finish. I did a sort of rush job decor wise, but had something nice to show My Sweetie when we got home. I have been making little changes since then. I am almost there and will take picures when I feel like I have finally finished. And I finally got some sleep. That was great.

Slow and Steady

Yesterday went pretty well. I had finished what I wanted to do by 3:00 am. Then I had to shower and ended up staying up until 6:00 am. I woke up at 12:30 ready to go. Today did not go perfectly. The texturing is very labor intensive. After I did that first tiny patch, pictured above, I had a cramp in my left arm and my left thumb was numb. I had some sort of death grip on my mud box.
~
Once I figured that out, it went better. I am slightly over halfway done with the texture and have pretty much run out, so when I go tomorrow to buy the toilet, I will get another bucket of texture. It doesn't put me behind schedule because I planned to paint on Wednesday.
~
My son-in-law came over and we took out the old toilet. He'll be back this evening to help me bring the new toilet in. My daughter just changed her work schedule to fit with her schooling, so I will be having dinner tonight with my son-in-law. That should be interesting.
~
So it's almost 6:00 am again and every single part of me is sore except for my eyeballs and earlobes. I bet I will sleep like a rock. I should go check that out.

Stuff That is Happening and Another Redo

I've been very very very good about keeping my reading glasses in my purse. I bought some specifically for that. They are in a little blue plastic hard case that almost looks like a toothbrush holder. Unfortunately, when I travel things get disorganized, and I never took them out of my backpack and put them back in my purse after the beach trip. So on Friday when I got to my lunch restaurant after Meals on Wheels, I pulled out my USA Today and discovered I had no reading glasses.
~
I was able to read the articles okay, but when it came time to do the crossword puzzle, I was having a hard time. I tried looking through the bottom of my beer glass but that didn't work. Then I got the great idea to use my camera, set it on macro and zoom in. Fortunately, as soon as I pulled out my camera, the battery died. Otherwise, the bartender probably would have cut me off.
~
I charged my camera battery when I got home and took my BEFORE pictures of the blue bathroom. This afternoon I will start on my redo. Here's a picture from the door:

And here's a picture from the other end:

This is a closer image of the sponge technique I did about 8 years ago:

When I first did it, I really thought it was the cat's meow. And maybe that's because the old wallpaper was seriously heinous, but now it seems really tired and dated. I'm actually going to do a texture before I paint and I hope to do something really cool, but I don't want to say what, in case it doesn't work out exactly. So this afternoon I will sand and prep. Monday I will apply the texture. After midnight that night (they work until then), my daughter and son-in-law will come by and we will remove the toilet. On Tuesday I will buy new mirrors and a new toilet and start painting. On Wednesday I will finish up painting and clean up and on Thursday, the plumber will install the new toilet. At least those are my plans.
~
I have all my materials and My Sweetie will be at E3 all week so I can work any hours that I want and play loud music and hopefully everything will go smoothly. I'm looking forward to a busy week of making new stuff. I will chart my progress each day. And I will have fun.

The Beach Trip of 2011 (May 20-27)

I took this picture of my daughter and her husband at the rental car place after we landed in Raleigh/Durham on Friday afternoon:

My daughter made me some French braids that Saturday:

On Sunday we went into Wilmington to go to The Riverwalk and had lunch at The George:

I love how the guys look so cool on The Riverwalk:

My son-in-law and I played a game of foosball at a very hot bar:

And no it wasn't "hot" as in "happening," it was freaking hot as hell in there.

This next picture shows some of our fancy chalkwork:

On Monday, we all went down to volley a ball around and I sucked so bad at it, I designated myself "photographer":

This is Loretta and me on Tuesday just before she left:

A ball and a beer. That's all you really need at the beach:

My daughter, brother and I had a little afternoon excursion on Wednesday and I got this great picture of my big brother:

On Thursday, my daughter interrupted my beer pong game so I could take this picture:

My brother and I were playing beer pong against his sons:

My nephew (the one above in the grey shirt) took this rather artsy shadowplay picture of me making one of my many futile attempts:

It was a great week. We had great food. We played team Trivial Pursuit (I won one game with my youngest nephew as partner). We frolicked, we sang, we picked up beach rocks, we looked at the stars, we looked at the moon. The moon rose deep red two nights just over the pier and it was awesome (in the true sense of the word). We saw sunrises and sunsets. We watched silly videos on youtube and laughed about them all day. And we all made plans to do it all over again next year. I can't wait!

End of the Trip

We are at my friend's house for the weekend. It's always sad to say goodbye to Topsail Island, but I'm looking forward to giving my husband a tour of Duke University. I hope this rain goes away.

Smart and Stupid

I feel really smart just being in this wonderful beach cottage, but I feel pretty stupid trying to use my daughter's laptop. Laptops? Not really my thing. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore outside? Yeah. That's my thing.

I AM READY

This will be the view from our deck and living room for the next week. I can't wait. The cab picks us up in 9 hours. Let the adventures begin!

Low Tide

I just went back and read my posts from the last two years that I had written just before my May beach trip. I did this because I have been a slug this week. Where is that normal excitement energy? The 2009 post said I was so excited I felt like my skull was going to crack open. Right now I feel like such a dullard, my skull would more likely implode into the vacuum of what should be my brain. Mom would say it was my biorhythms. My best guess is that the four flights in one week that I did for my 50th birthday gave me some sort of travel brain damage.
~
There is no place I would rather be than the beach cottage, so what's going on here? Is it the dread of hauling luggage through the airport, going through security, slow walking down the gangplank of stand and wait while people try to stuff their crap in the overhead bins, then wait 20 minutes for a beer while sitting in something less comfortable than a dentist's chair? I feel like Charlie Brown complaining about Christmas, which I never quite understood.
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I hope the old adage Mother knows best is true here and it's just my biorhythms. Maybe they are just at low tide or something. And maybe just like at the beach, the tide will change.

Timber!

With blogger down those few days, I was not able to post and it was annoying, so I have some catching up to do. 'Tis a rare beast that I have any computer time on a Sunday, but My Sweetie has gone to a Rangers baseball game with his sister. Speaking of rare beasts, (ha ha! No! I don't mean his sister!) take a look at this:
That is our neighborhood bobcat, who I have named "Timber." I figure Timber is a good name for either a boy or a girl and it also references the name of our neighborhood. Our neighbor two houses up the hill snapped this the other day.
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I think I was the first one to spot Timber. I caught a glimpse of Timber at dusk two weeks ago. I had just gone into the kitchen and saw movement outside and glanced out the window to see it trotting across our deck. I yelled, "What the f### is that?!!" and ran to the back door and then through the house, and through the garage to the side door, opened it and then asked myself, Hey! What the heck are you doing? And then I stepped back inside and quickly closed the door. All this time My Sweetie is chasing me around going, "What? What?!!" So then I described what I had seen and we went online and found several bobcat pictures that looked like what I saw.
~
A day or so later I told Carole about it. A week later when we returned from San Antonio, Carole asked if I had told any other neighbors and I had not. While we were gone, the neighbor that lives between Carole and me told Carole that a bobcat had been spotted in the neighborhood. She didn't hear it from me!
~
This past Thursday,Carole and her husband stepped out in the early evening and startled Timber just emerging from their downhill neighbor's bushes and it ran across their front yard and up the street toward the top of the hill and disappeared. I ran into them when I came back from the store. They were across the street telling another neighbor. He knew all about Timber and told them that the neighbor two houses up from me had gotten a quick blurry picture. I called him yesterday and got a copy. So now every night at dusk, we look for Timber, but I haven't seen him since two weeks ago. Apparently Timber and Barney have not bothered each other although there was a wild scream in our backyard one night about a week ago. Carole and her husband also heard it as they were returning from a walk. Hopefully Barney and Timber will keep any confrontations to just screaming matches. You know, I was wondering why I haven't seen any possums yet this year.

Really?

I see blogger is finally working again.

San Antonio Was Fun!

After I finished my Meals on Wheels deliveries on Friday, I came back home and finished packing and My Sweetie and I hit the road. We stopped right away for lunch and I had lobster bisque and a salad, which is a great way to start anything. The actual road trip part was pretty easy except for traffic jams in both Austin and San Antonio. It was fun playing with his satellite radio. The names of the stations are funny. One station is called "The Joint" and it plays reggae party music. And no, saying "reggae party" is not redundant because some reggae music is actually serious. Anyway, we had a pleasant surprise upon arrival to our hotel. I had booked a city view balcony room because that was the only option for a balcony room when I booked online, but we were offered a river view. That's my balcony there on the third floor:
We wandered around the Riverwalk Friday night and both totally lost our bearings. We never did know where we were. We finally found a place to eat dinner that wasn't a tourist chain and when we looked up from our table we realized our hotel was right across the river. That was funny, because we had no idea where we were.
~
I was surprised at all the changes to the Riverwalk since 1988. It was pretty much all tourist chain restaurants, but worse than that was across from the Alamo, where scores of men died fighting for Texas, was a wax museum and a world record or believe it or not museum of hokey stuff. I thought that was disgraceful. It was at least very tacky.
~
Anyway, we had fun on the Riverwalk. It was pretty crowded but not horribly so, although May is apparently The Time of Big Events. We saw idiotic bachelorette party girl groups at night wearing stupid hats and such and during the afternoon on Saturday, we saw several prom groups. There's a picture of one of those in the slideshow below. They were all very sweet and cute The picture of the five bells represents the original five Spanish missions of San Antonio, one of which was the Alamo.
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We had great food, enjoyed a great jazz band and had nice weather. I even got to hear street musicians sing Malagueña. The pretty girl on the left in the picture is singing it. I had never heard a woman sing it. She did a great job. It was a fun little vacation. Here are some pics:

San Antonio

(photo from Southern Living)

Friday afternoon My Sweetie and I are taking our first road trip together since March of 2003. We are not big road trippers (obviously!), but My Sweetie bought a new Prius this year and has been itching to take it out on the road. We are heading south to San Antonio. With a few stops along the way, it should be about a five hour trip. San Antonio is most famous for its Riverwalk. The Riverwalk is really pretty and goes on and on. There are bars and cafes along the riverwalk and there are river taxis that cruise the water. You can see a bit of a river taxi just under the bridge up there. And there are other little pedestrian bridges like that so you can change sides or just stand up there and look around.
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The first time I went to San Antonio was in April 1984. My first husband and I were having a sort of ersatz honeymoon. We had married in January on a Thursday and he started a new job the following Monday. I guess he had to work there 90 days to qualify for a few days off. We actually went to the beach. It was my first Texas beach trip and being from North Carolina, I was really disappointed, but this story is not about the slack Texas coast. What we did was stop on the way in San Antonio to spend the night with his aunt and uncle - people he had not seen in years. We woke up the next morning and had horrible scrambled eggs that his aunt made and since I was 5 months pregnant, I don't know how I was able to slurp them down - they were like soup - but I was trying to be polite. Although I was then in a hurry to get to the "beach," he insisted that we make a stop at the Riverwalk downtown. I had never heard of it and had no real interest, but it was my birthday and I was in a good mood. I was very impressed. And it was 100° which was my personal high temperature record for my birthday. Still is. So as pretty as it was, it was very hot and I was quite pregnant so we did not stay long.
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In 1988 when my second husband and I were planning our little November getaway wedding we decided on San Antonio. We found a lovely boutique hotel on the river and got a room that opened out onto a long balcony. I knew it would not be 100° in November, but also knew it would be nice out and we planned to be married on the balcony on a Friday afternoon. We got there early afternoon on Thursday and had to go downtown to get the marriage license and so did not get a long time to enjoy the Riverwalk that day although we did have time to take a short river taxi cruise. The next day was all about getting ready for the wedding and then our guests began arriving early: my parents, his parents and two of his siblings. Then the wedding on the balcony followed by all of us walking to a nearby restaurant for dinner and then stopping in for drinks at our fancy hotel bar. I was very stressed because I had not met his parents before, so obviously I had not really had time to relax and enjoy the locale. On Saturday we got up, got ready and left to come back to DFW for a reception party with friends. So again, I did not get a chance to really explore the whole Riverwalk. And that was the last time I was there.
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Although this will also be a relatively short trip, there will be no distractions and I will finally be able to just amble along the Riverwalk and enjoy everything. It's supposed to be 93° and partly cloudy, but I am guessing that all the shady trees and the river will make the Riverwalk feel a bit cooler. And I won't be pregnant. And I won't be meeting future in-laws for the first time. This should be nice.

(Still) Not Like Other People

That's the picture my best friend took when I parted ways with her and her friend that Thursday night in New York. I don't care for sweets. My friend posted that pic on her facebook and women wrote things like, "I want one of everything!" and "That's making me so hungry!
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Ewwww! Not only does nothing in that picture make me hungry in the least, but I find most of it repulsive. I studied the picture to see if I could find anything at all that I could eat and finally noticed the kiwi slices at the bottom. I could eat those. And I love strawberries, but upon close inspection the strawberries, as well as the other fruit all seem to be covered in some sort of sugary syrupy something. What a waste. But I could eat the kiwi slices.

More Crazy Temps

We had a low of 46° today. We have had our heat on since yesterday. This is unheard of. It is now 48° and dark and rainy and thundery. I think I will make a fire. (Now I don't feel bad for not having cleaned out the fireplace yet.) This weekend we will be in San Antonio and the temperature for Saturday there is is supposed to be 94°. This will be like my New York trip all over again, cold then hot in just a few days. My cat Barney thinks I control the weather and he is mad at me. I don't blame him.

Crazy Easter Eggs

Those were our crazy easter eggs. The green one with the gold stars and the runic eye just left of center was one of mine. I had these little star stickers like teachers used to put on your paper when you were a kid. Then after I had dyed the egg, I'd peel off the sticker. I also had an ugly one and then my very first one was this one:

I had it for breakfast the next day. It was yummy, but I hated peeling it and destroying my "art."

My 50th Birthday Trip

After my great Sunday evening (The 17th) in North Carolina, I woke up to a beautiful sunny day. Two of my high school buddies came over in the afternoon and they had not seen each other in quite a while also. We sat out on Loretta's patio in the sun all afternoon drinking beer and telling crazy stories and laughing. We also played some yard games like frisbee golf and a bean bag toss game. One of the guys had to get home and my other friend stayed to go out with us for dinner. It was fun.
~
On Tuesday we flew to New York, got settled into our room and explored the neighborhood. We had dinner at a local pub and went back to the room to make it an early night.
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On Wednesday morning I actually got out of bed around 5:45 or so. I took my time getting ready and we headed over to Rockefeller Plaza. We saw Ben Stiller through the window being interviewed and then made our way to the outside crowd:
People around us who saw my sign were all, "Happy Birthday!" This next picture was taken just outside of there after we left the crowd area on our hunt for breakfast. You can see the studio lights through the window just on the upper left:

We found some breakfast and wandered around for some photo ops and saw the Letterman studio and then found a place with a full glass wall to sit and drink beers and watch the New Yorkers walk by. We eventually made it all the way back to our hotel. I was proud of myself - it was a long walk.

~

After making some clothing adjustments for the air being colder on the water, we grabbed a cab to take us down to the pier for our boat ride. We stopped in for a beer at P.D. O'Hurley's after getting our boat tickets, then headed back to board the boat.

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The boat was not very crowded and I got a seat on top right on the rail. We loved looking at the views and then when I wanted a cigarette, we went looking for an unintrusive spot and found this nice spot on the back of the boat:

It was a large area and away from everyone so we stayed down there for the rest of the trip. The sun was coming a going and we caught the Statue of Liberty at a great moment when the sun came out and really loved all the great views of the city:

After the cruise, we had dinner in Ed's Chowder House and I had scallops and soup and everything was delicious and cost a million dollars, but I finished off my night at an Irish pub and drank all night for just $23. I think people were all buying my drinks because it was my birthday.

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On Thursday we took our time getting ready. We were a little tired from our very long Wednesday and decided to see Central Park the expensive lazy way:

Our driver was fun and informative and knew all sorts of histories about everything. The only walking we had to do was jump out for pictures like this one taken at the fountain used in the "Friends" opening montage:

And to get to The Boathouse for a beer:

Thursday night Loretta's friend from Yonkers came to our hotel. We visited for a bit then walked to Columbus Circle to catch the subway down to SoHo. We walked over to Little Italy to eat at a restaurant that the friend swore by. They served family style and everyone shaared all types of food, which was good, but the atmosphere and lighting were horrible. I would never have eaten there by choice. So then this friend wanted to go to a desert place and I was through with playing nice and gave Loretta some money for cab fare and gave her the address and I took a cab down to my favorite place from my 2007 trip, the Broome Street Bar. I was happy to be back at my place. I played all my favorite songs on the jukebox. They showed up some time later and we had more drinks and then took a cab back to the hotel and changed into fancy clothes. We wanted to try out the rooftop club, but as soon as we got in the door, I was deafened by the music and had to leave. I changed back into street clothes and hoofed it back down to my Irish pub. After a few beers I walked back and stopped for ice. (Our hotel did not have an ice machine and you had to order a bucket of ice and it was tiny!)

~

Good Friday was just get up, pack, airport, although we did hang out in the hotel lounge for just a little bit. We took it easy at Loretta's that night and did some laundry.

~

Saturday was so much fun! We went to a home improvement store and I got Loretta a neat little lamp and she bought a hand towel holder and toilet paper holder and I installed them in her half bath. We layed out the stuff for dyeing eggs, then my brother and his two sons came over. Except for Loretta, none of us knew what we were doing. We were doing all sorts of experiments with the eggs. I forgot to add the egg pictures and blogger won't let me insert pictures post facto, so I'll show those later. But we were all laughing. Then we all went out for Mexican food and Loretta took this great picture of my brother, my nephews and me:


It was a great ending to a wonderful week. When I got home on Sunday I was exhausted. I was still exhausted on Monday. On Tuesday I was finally able to resume being a productive human being. Maybe 50 is the cut off date for partying for a whole week. We'll see.

First Leg of the Trip

I've had a great evening with my Bestie. I've had North Carolina barbcued pork. I have so enjoyed seeing all the things she has done to her house since I was here last May. I watched the full moon rise in the east and listened to unfamiliar bird calls earlier in the evening. It was only my first day of my 50th birthday celebration week, and it was great. I hope every day this week is this good. Happy Birthday to me, indeed!

Getting Ready for the Birthday trip

It was weird seeing a week's worth of my vitamins and supplements all together. I was thinking, Man! That's a LOT of stuff! I don't really want to open a debate here about supplements. I don't take anything weird and every thing I take is for a particular purpose. I've gone a few days without before and I can feel a difference. My mom thinks the supplements and laughing all the time are what keep me alive and healthy, because I have very bad habits with all the beer and cigarettes and weird sleep schedules and whatnot.

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And besides, this post is not about which supplements I take, it's about getting ready for my trip. The reason I did the supplements already was to see if I needed to get any more while I am out later today. Ideally I want to do anything I need to do that requires leaving the house today because I want Saturday to be an IN day. I will have eight OUT days in a row and that's really pushing my limit. I imagine when I get back I won't leave the house until MOW day.

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I've made a nice quick reference guide of every place I want to go with addresses. And I wrote it on orange paper so it will be easy to find. I've already put a few things in my backpack like binoculars and camera battery charger. And made a list of everything that goes in the backpack. I still have a few little area maps to print, but I think I'm ready to pack on Saturday.

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I think I decided to do New York for my 50th birthday about two years ago. And now it's just days away. Time is funny like that. But after two years of waiting, I am ready to go.

Yuckymas, Ickymas

So there's a giant spider in there under a glass with two books on top, on our light colored carpet. We have not figured out the next step in this process.

Keeping My Fingers Crossed

I had to skip my Meals On Wheels delivery on Friday and spent all of Friday and Saturday sitting in a chair. I woke up Thursday with horrible knee pain and it got worse. On Sunday I was much better but I am babying my knee somewhat. I was really really worried it was some sort of permanent badness and my vacation might be ruined, but I think it's going to be okay. No more sitting all weird for me. From now on I will sit like a regular person and not with my knees all bent around funky. It was a yucky few days and I hope it is all behind me. I probably shouldn't keep my fingers crossed, though. I don't want that kind of pain in my fingers, too.

Just Under Two Weeks From Now...

I've been so busy planning my trip: looking at maps, studying the subway line, watching the weather, thinking about clothes and shoes and whatnot, that I sort of forgot that I will actually turn 50 in less than two weeks. It just hit me about 20 minutes ago. I feel like I should be somewhat dismayed about turning 50, but I'm not. As a matter of fact, after I started thinking about it, it just seemed funny as hell.

It just seems like I'm too silly to be 50. I guess I always thought of a 50 year old woman as a stately elegant being and I am certainly neither of those things. I feel like I should take a class or something to learn how to dress and behave like a 50 year old woman. "Age appropriate" has become a modern adjective for describing people and their clothes and I'm pretty sure I'm failing at those things.

I still like to wear jeans and tennis shoes and simple cotton tops and drink beer and play the jukebox and play pool and make goofy jokes and laugh out loud. Maybe when I'm 60 I'll start working on the stately and the elegant part. Or not. What's the rush?

All About Tuesday

A Birthday, A Milestone and A Win: It was My Sweetie's birthday. He came home from work early. He had decided that for his birthday he wanted to go the the Ranger's baseball game. As we were walking to the ballpark, I said, "Stand over there and turn around so I can take a picture for my blog."

When I started my blog in 2005, he said I was not to show his face. Well today, on his 44th birthday, almost 6 years since I started this blog, he didn't turn around. he said, "Go ahead and take the picture." We had really good seats. I thought our seats last year for the ALCS were good, but these were even better. This is the first pitch of the game:

On top of being at the ballpark and the pleasant weather, I happened to glance up and catch this really pretty little crescent moon:

Another semi-milestone is the picture below. I only wear my distance glasses at the movie theater and for baseball games. I forgot I had them on when I asked some guy to take our picture at the end of the game.:

It's weird to see myself with glasses. It was a great night, the Rangers won (and are currently undefeated) and I think My Sweetie had a great birthday. And now I don't have to hide him. Yay!

The Condensed Version (Maybe Not to You)

I mentioned that I took my truck in for repairs last Tuesday. I had planned to get it on Thursday because A) I didn't want to go out two days in a row and B) my daughter has Thursday off. Well, late Wednesday night I realized that I should just walk to the garage to pick up my truck because A) I was fast approaching my New York trip where I will be walking all over the place and B) I could really use the exercise. I am not kidding, but I had gotten maybe 5 blocks from my house and saw that the road started to go up as in UP, as in INCLINE and I thought, Okay, I'm going to call my daughter now to come and get me. And it was in the 80's and I was hot. And then I thought, Don't be such a wuss, give it a few more blocks. Let's make this little hill and see what happens.

I made it up the hill. I made a turn, I kept going. After I had made that turn and was keeping going, I realized I didn't even know if that road went through to the main road. I was hoping it did. I came upon some tall boy walking home from school and and asked "Does this road go through to Harwood?" He glanced away from me and I saw that he had earplugs from an ipod or something. So out loud for no reason, I said, "Okay, Thanks." And then I continued on. I saw that the road curved and at first I thought, Oh NO! Is this one of those circles? But then I saw a busy road and knew I was okay. A pair of high school kids passed across in front of me and I joined behind them and slowly increased the distance between us as their younger stronger legs pulled ahead. I kept chugging along and finally there it was: That tan building just up ahead was the place! I was so excited. I got there and crossed the parking lot and was ecstatic! "I made it," I cried! They all looked at me like I was insane. I explained that I had walked. They were all, "We would have picked you up." They didn't get it.

I pulled away expecting my truck to be all smooth and perfect, but it wasn't. It seemed to be doing the same thing - sputtering while at a stoplight. I needed to buy groceries, so I decided to do that and then call them the next day. Meanwhile I was all edorphinomized from my walk and stopped in at the bar next to the grocery store (yes! It reopened as something else!) and was all jubilant: Friday dawned, I woke up early thinking maybe I would get my truck inspected because the inspection sticker had expired while my truck was in the shop. I also called the garage and told them that my truck was still idling poorly and that I would have to bring it back when I had a chance. I ran a little behind for getting the inspection, but still got to Meals on Wheels early. They had changed my route a bit (not for the better) but still it all seemed okay because I had an early start. My 4th delivery was an apartment complex, so I turned off my truck. When I restarted it, the "Check Engine" light started flashing like crazy and then just stayed on. I was furious and called the garage. I yelled, "I took my truck in because the check engine light was on and and it was idling poorly and now it is doing both and yet I paid you guys $434!!" I was mad.

After I finished my MOW route, I went to lunch. I originally had great plans to have lunch at a place near the mall that has lobster bisque on Fridays and then I was going to hit the mall for some spring/summer shirts and birthday gifts for My Sweetie. But now that was all kaput. I ate lunch in the near vicinity and then took my truck back to the garage. I made them drive me home. They told me they had fired the guy that was supposed to have fixed my car. (I hope he doesn't have a family.)

When I was at lunch I had texted my daughter to see if she would take me shopping on Saturday for the shirts and birthday presents. (I didn't want to ask My Sweetie to drive me to buy his birthday presents.) She said "Sure!" Our plan was to start out at 3:30.

On Saturday, after lunch, I was going about my business of getting ready to go out when I got a text from my daughter saying she "didn't feel good" blah blah blah (hangover). So my plans were shot again. My Sweetie drove me to get my truck and when I told them I was going straight to get it inspected, they told me I had to drive it at least 10 miles since the battery had been disconnected. So I called the inspection place to ask about that and they said, "Ten? You need to drive it at least 50 miles to reset the codes before we can inspect it." I was all, FIFTY? Really? I don't drive 50 miles in two months and I can't drive around with an expired sticker. It was very annoying.

We finally decided on going to the mall and riding around. I got my shopping done and we put the 50 miles on the car. We did see some interesting stuff while we were on our mandatory ride. We saw a cowboy all dressed in white on a white horse on a busy road, some neat little country road areas and a Lamborghini:

And My Sweetie took my truck to get inspected Sunday morning. It passed of course. By the way, that "giant" walk I took to get my truck was 1.6 miles. That's pathetic. I mean I did walk it but it was tough. Time to get back on the treadmill. I don't even have two weeks left!

Gee Willikers

After my interesting Thursday, Friday went to hell and Saturday wasn't much better but I finally got my truck back and running right and they fired the mechanic who originally worked on it and I finally got my damn lobster bisque that I couldn't get on Friday because of having to take the truck back to the garage. Sunday has to be better.

too sleepy

I can't wait to post about my Thursday but I am very tired and I will need to downlaod some pics and whatnot. But I imagine you will find it amusing (laughing at me). I'll just say: Have a great Friday and a great weekend!