This is an offiicial public notice that YOU, the driver of the vehicle with license plate 951 UMZ are a true asshole.  Yes, you who would give the 1-finger wave to a woman who is in the 300-mile leg of her roundtrip journey for the day -- with 2 sleeping children because she refuses to break the law by going over the maximum speed limit of 65 on Nevada's highways.  Oh I'm sorry I didn't shift to the right just so YOU could break the law but I didn't want to drive 50 mph either.  And last I knew there wasn't a law in any state that says that I *have* to break the law so that you can.  My boss agreed with me but pointed out that anal types (including him) are still gonna flip me off for being in the way. 

Public outcries, what a pleasure they are.  Plus I know how Reno 911 is here, you go even 2 mph over the speed limit and they will nail you.  And I'm sure they'll nail you and I can just see ya writing that $270 check.

And don't think that they won't because they will.  You can see it right there where we were together on the freeway leaving the California border into Nevada.  Drive 90s on the Calif side, you're safe.  Cross that line to come here and you're toast.  So I'm looking forward to seeing you pulled over getting a ticket probably there by Robb Drive where you exited .  Yes I saw that you zigged in and out and then left the freeway 2 exits from where you passed me.  I've never met a bigger ass.

The little guy is 6 1/2 months old now and lost a puppy tooth today AND got his right hind leg or foot sat on.  Well he was under the dining table and someone adjusted their chair and he somehow ended up with part of the chair on him.  It's not broken or tender to the touch but he is favoring it a little when walking (especially when he just wakes up) so it's obviously sore.

I got to sleep in Saturday so my weekend was lovely.  I woke up to the sound of the men cleaning the house (if you can imagine that).  With the new house setup, the family room is picked up and done in about 5 minutes including vacuuming.  Did some banking and got some chicken to grill.  The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy. 

Sunday was just as relaxing.  Church in the morning, followed by more patio time, a long nap and then taking daughter to help teach at VBS.  The teenager went on a Friday movie date with his "not my girlfriend" and again to the carnival portion of the Reno rodeo Sunday.  So I was mama-taxi a bit, but nothing too stressing.

Hmm, have I said that I'm really loving my life lately?   This summer has started peacefully and I'm gonna pray that it continues like this.  (The boys have split football practices but so far it hasn't interfered with my work schedule much.)

Hmmm, I've been quite remiss about updating my blog, haven't I?  I must apologize for neglecting it but we are in the throes of spring cleaning and hating every minute of it, but it's necessary.  Not only did we have the carpets cleaned but we reversed 2 rooms so that the old living room is now the library/study and the prior study is now a family room with TV, surround sound and 3 couches.  Quite cozy cuz it's in a smaller area.  The only disadvantage is no fireplace while we're watching movies in the winter.  But hopefully we'll get more reading done and there's nothing like reading a book, snuggled in front of a fire.

Oh, and, of course, causing chaos in the house also extends to the office and garage, cuz where do you put the excess stuff?  So time to start giving away the excess.  1 bag of clothes overfilled and 2 boxes of books, the tech stuff goes by the end of the month.  The only bad thing is nowhere to put any toys in our new layout.  Their bedroom is small but maybe underbed storage will have to do.  I guess I'll have to measure the height to see what type of boxes can slide under.  I'd really like to get rid of the girl's separate beds anyway and just have 1 fullsize bed for them to share.  It would fit sooo much better and some little person won't stay in the crib that converted to toddler bed anyway.  The crib can go into the shed for when the nieces start their families (cuz their mama gave it to us).

We finally used our heads and used our money smartly.  Buying food for a family of 6 gets very very expensive.  It's not unusual to spend $400/week.  So we bought a freezer and half of a cow to stock it.  This way we only need to buy staples on a weekly basis.  It was a large outlay of funds but in the long haul it will have saved a ton of money -- $2.19/lb for the whole shebang versus $6/lb or more at the store.  Okay gr beef isn't $6/lb We got a lot of meat, all varieties from gr beef to steaks to stew meats to roasts to ribs.  Even a box of bones that we baked for the doggies

I think that does it.

Hmm, haven't we gone thru this before?  The last time a Moxi box died, we tried a different cable box (Motorola maybe).  But it didn't seem to hold as much in its memory, so we asked to replace it with a Moxi.  Last weekend we started getting messages about it overheating.  So we just rented movies and didn't watch anything (cuz it got aggravating to have to select "close" and "enter' every 30 seconds or so).  So we get home from church today and this Moxi is dead.  AND it's the holiday weekend, so no one is at the cable company.  Their customer service line is automated, their online chat as well.  So I guess we get to watch TV the old-fashioned way until later in the week since I doubt that I can reach a live person before Tuesday.

We sure have been spoiled by our DVR.

Just so you know, Lowe's advertises free next-day delivery and setup but it's not truly "free".  They charge you and you can mail in for a prepaid Visa equal to the shipping charge.  We've had our eye on a new freezer for about 2 or 3 months, it was at its rock-bottom price but I didn't want to pay for delivery.  So I spent 37 minutes going to the physical store to find out that their price was higher until they take off the 10% discount and then it becomes the same.    There was one guy trying to help 5 people in major appliances so instead of waiting to get the same deal I could get online, I left.  The online shipping said 4-7 days and I did the transaction around 7:30 p.m.  However, a knock came to the door at 8:00 a.m. this morning and the truck with my freezer was here!  So it was very quick service.  But I don't consider "free" something that I have to pay up front and then do additional work for the refund/rebate afterwards.  The 10% sales discount was about the same as the delivery fee so at least I didn't have to pay the delivery fee on top of their highest price -- at this point it's a wash.  If I do the rebate work, it won't be free, but will be okay.  My time is money, too, ya know!!!

As I have stated more than once, I hesitated to begin a blog as I don't often have much to say.  I have never gone over my cellphone plan minutes cuz I just don't have the gift of gab.  But it's been a while since I posted.  I do have some photos to share.

Once upon a time there was a tree.  The tree met a storm with 100 mph gusts whilst there were 47 earthquakes happening that day 12 miles away.  The tree was shook to its roots:

And threatened to fall onto the office, metal storage shed & the house:

So it had to go -- someone called it a willow, another tree service called it a giant ash.  I do know that it would occasionally weep sap but its leaves were not that of the weeping willows we used to have in Missouri.  It took less than 3 hours for them to cut it down and under an hour to grind away the stump (and pipes for the sprinkler system which were somehow under the roots but we quit using it due to a leak in the system before it reached the tree so it needs replaced anyway).  And this is how the tree looked afterwards:

And so they got paid to cut the tree and get to sell the firewood cuz our fireplace is gas.  My little treehugger was broken-hearted and crying over the loss of her favorite tree, it was her best tree and she'll never get to see it again.  That astounded me, didn't even know she was a treehugger.  But look at all that open space now, perfect for a pool and hot tub!  It does look odd to look across the backyard from the patio and see straight to the street.

So I admit it, the guy is easy on the eyes and I just can't resist a man with a possum-eating-shit grin either.  But this is not one of those 'crush' type of things where you watch any and everything and memorize personal details and collect memorabilia.  It's not an infatuation, just me liking his films.  Lucky for me, he has so many movies that all I have to do is check a couple of channels to catch one.  But seems that there have been more of them on lately, which makes me wonder if they are pushing KC for some reason -- maybe a new movie about to be released.  Not that I'm complaining because I really do enjoy getting lost in his movies.  I also happened to read an interview with him in a magazine whilst at the hospital last weekend -- and I think it was something I normally wouldn't read like AARP.  The guy is just likeable.  What I feel when I watch his movies is that he is one of those people that just eats life and gets whatever he can from it.  That's the legacy I hope to leave to my kids -- teaching them how to squeeze every drop of joy out of life that they can and to be content with what life throws their way, to bend and go with the flow. 

Then I read that he used to work at Disney as one of the Jungle Cruise guys before he began acting.  So I wonder if maybe we crossed paths.  My sister flew me out to California in 1978 and we spent a week staying in Anaheim and taking bus trips around LA hitting up a bunch of tourist places from LA to San Diego.  We spent 3 days at Disneyland, just 2 young sisters hanging out and having fun.  We always have a great time at Disneyland and this was before D'land was packed.  We've gone back with her kids twice and I've taken my crew there 3 times -- we'll have to take Sara in a couple years.  I know we have tons of photos from 1978 but I doubt if we took a photo of the guy driving the boat.  But I remember that we really enjoyed the jokes and repeated the ride a few times.  Our guide was almost believable, the last few times it was like they were just following the script and not really "into" it.  I can hardly stand to go to Disney anymore because of the crowds, it was even worse at Christmas than during the summertime.  So I'm not really looking forward to our next trip there.

 And of course my real life influences my dreams and we watched part of The Guardian the other night and then I dreamt that my kids & I were staying in some cabin resorts and my #2 son was on some competitive team and bunking with Kevin Costner.  I took him to his cabin and as I was leaving to go to my own, I could hear them talking and all I remember was he asked J if he ever felt like he was 8 1/2 feet tall.  Some dreams are just stupid like that... LOL

So my internet was out this weekend -- the DSL modem just up and died.  But it's been in service since 09/17/04 so I guess that was about its expected life expectancy.  I shocked the AT&T guy at Best Buy when I told him the # of computers we had running off of it.  He said that was a record!   I belong to about 5 yahoo groups related to my crafts, 3 of them to the digital cutter I just invested in and need to know how to use.  So I fire up my computers on Monday and I had 800+ emails to go thru.  I have been more than generous with my delete key and tried to just go thru and see what was there first and then go back to delete later.

Phew!  At least they aren't personal emails from people expecting responses

Hmmm, so maybe I never posted a photo or blog entry about the pup.  I have been super duper busy lately.  Anyhow --- here he is (a little teddy bear of a thing).  He's a pomapoo:

I cut all these images in about 20 minutes.  Yes, I got myself one of them newfangled digital cutters.  The 20 minutes includes the time to select and layout the designs on 8 1/2 x 11 black cardstock, doing a test cut (the teeny oval near top) and then letting it do its thang.  I love this machine.  Opens up sooo many possibilities.  Or it will once I figure out how what all it can do and how to get my ideas done.  It cuts up to 12 x 12 paper and you can use designs already created or design your own.  Import photos and let it vectorize them -- stuff like that.  So I've been busy playing with that and with the new puppy, of course.

So I've always been enthralled by voices.  Not sure if it's because I grew up in a musical family or what it is.  And like a typical teenager, I had 2 walls plastered with posters from my monthly Tiger Beat subscription.  Filled from the top to the bottom, somewhere I got polaroid snapshots of those walls.  The voice back then for me was Lance Kerwin.  I'd watch TV just to listen to him, I used my cassette recorder to tape his appearances on shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin.  My dad even set me up with a small black and white TV in my room so I could watch his show and also watch Welcome Back Kotter because I'd watch anything with John Travolta.  Even when Lance wasn't acting as much, I picked his voice right out doing voice-overs on radio. (Hey and I even got an autograph from Gabe Kaplan for my dad when he was in ICU.  I could hardly contain myself for the whole ride from San Diego to Sacramento and didn't approach him until he was heading out of the Sacramento airport.  I am such an introvert it was extremely difficult for me.  And here's more irony, 2 years later he became one of our clients.)

I am still a huge John Travolta fan but until he became cool from his re-emergence on Pulp Fiction, I was watching his stuff alone.  Now everyone watches his movies, too.  But when JT wasn't doing stuff, it was Charlie Sheen's voice and movies I craved.  Yeah so maybe he is an alcoholic/substance-abusing lustful hooker-lover who doesn't always pay for limos or boats he uses, but I was ga-ga over him nonetheless.  I just enjoy people who seems to be eeking all they can out of life and have those shit-eating grins 24/7.  Even went to hang out at Anthony's Restaurant on the Pacific Coast Highway when I was separated from my husband in 1990, on Charlie's birthday weekend no less, because he frequents the place.  Which is when his family chose to do an intervention to send him to rehab.  Just my luck!  Oh well, the closest I got was hanging out in Marina Del Rey and staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton.  I just didn't have the nerve (or sexy clothes) to go hang out alone in the restaurant although I did find where it was.  Not like he would've looked my way anyway since I'm as square and boring a person as you'd ever meet.  My friend and I went to see Men At Work (the movie he did with Emilio) which we found hilarious, but then we were sitting there with a fart whistle and both having men troubles.  And his character's name was Carl Taylor -- my hubby who I was separated from and my friend's last name.  Odd.  I don't remember what happened to the fart whistle, my boys would love something like that. Hubby & I had a deal that he could leave me for Emma Samms and I could leave him for Charlie Sheen.  (We had to watch Dynasty for Emma Samms but I couldn't always watch everything Charlie or I would have to watch it alone.)

I have jumped ship for Viggo Mortensen -- and he not only acts and looks gorgeous onscreen but also writes, paints, sings, does photography -- an artist that I can wholly relate to.  Plus since he's always got action in his movies, I get no flack about wanting to watch him.  I prefer him up as dark-haired dirty, grungy Strider/Aragorn over his cleaned-up characters like King Aragorn.  But what strikes me most, again, is that silken voice.  I am such a sucker for singing men, in my growing-up years, a guy friend in my neighborhood used to serenade me.    Of course, he was trying to bed me and that didn't work out for him, but he could still come sing to me anytime he wants.  I loved it!  We would spend New Year's Eve together each year because he had to babysit his little sister and I had nothing to do and we'd drink beer and makeout all night.

Finally -- to the whole point of this ironic post, my boys and husband can hardly wait to finish dinner and leave the table to go watch Two and a Half Men.  I could never watch when Charlie was on Spin City but each night now we sit and watch an hour (2 episodes per night) of Two and A Half Men.  If it had been on 10 years ago, I would have just missed it.  But now I HAVE to watch Charlie each night -- get to watch him without even asking.  That is irony.  And what's truly ironic is that I miss the boyish charm from his early movies and never even asked to watch it when the series started so am not even watching of my own desire/volition. But Chuck Lorre's writing is funny so it's all good.  Yes, we only have 1 TV hooked to cable, we're sooooo behind the times.  But this probably means that they will now also watch other movies that have Charlie Sheen.  (Well truthfully hubby will watch him in Wall Street and Platoon so we bought those ones but not necessarily his later movies.  I liked him best in Three for the Road.)