Where I hang my hats...

Come join the fun over at my new place!

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

I hate change. I really, really do. Oh, I may say that I like change, but when it gets right down to it, I like things to stay the same.

Sadly, some things just need to change. My dear friend Blogger is driving me nuts. I’m not sure what I did, but it refuses to talk to me. The only way that I can get into my blog is through Microsoft Word. There is this nifty thing that Blogger showed me back when we were still buddies. It was posting from Word. I do that anytime I don’t have a picture to post. Well, I pretty much always run it through Word because my Blogger spell check doesn’t work and well…my spelling has gotten pretty awful.

So anyways, I’m searching for a new place to hang my hat. Currently I’ve moved over to here. http://susansmusings.wordpress.com/ (I’m hoping that the hyperlink will work) Eventually, Shaun will get me moved over to his (our?) website.

So, come visit me over there!

Mutant Mold Monster

This morning, I got busy messing with things and managed to run out of time for any breakfast other than my coffee.  So this afternoon when I came home from work, I was ravenous.  I quickly grabbed a couple slices of bread and slapped a glob of chicken salad from yesterday on it.  (We seem to be getting low on the PB&J that I always eat so I had to make do!)  I started eating my sandwich while going through the mail, not really paying attention to what I was eating.  I just happened to glance down and was startled to see something dark in my sandwich.  My brain dismissed it by telling me it was just a large piece of pickle, but on closer examination, I realized that one of my slices of bread was covered in bluish-grey mold!  

In horror I spat out the bite that was in my mouth and started to rinse and gargle.  Next I moved on to vigorously brushing my teeth.  My first thought was to call the schools and tell my children not to eat their sandwiches.  Then I realized that not only had they already eaten lunch, but I had been paying attention when I made their lunches and would have noticed anything growing on their bread.   Then I remembered that I had opened a fresh loaf for them.  I had accidentally used the old loaf that seemed to be partially coated with mold! Ewwww!

I tried to remember anything I had ever heard about eating mold.  They made penicillin out of it so it couldn’t be that bad, could it?  But why was my stomach getting nauseous and my throat starting to burn? Was I about to be seriously ill or worse yet, about to turn into some sort of mutant monster? What were my children going to come home to?  I had to find out!

My first thought was to call my mother, The Nurse.  But she just recently had surgery and I wasn’t sure she could handle the shock of finding out the gruesome details of what was happening to her only child.  (Well, except for my brother, but he doesn’t count!) So I couldn’t call her.  

My fingers hovered over 911, but somehow, I resisted and called my nurse friend.  Sadly, nobody answered. I wondered what I should do next.   I could tell that the mold was affecting my brain because I couldn’t recall where we kept the “Ask a Nurse” phone number.  I knew we had one even though I had never used it.  Then I spotted the magnetic business card to our doctor and decided to call them.  

I told the receptionist my sad tale and she responded by telling me all about her sister who once ate a moldy donut.  She didn’t seem to realize that I didn’t really care about her sister, but I wasn’t about to tell her that and offend someone who could possibly help rescue me from my own foolishness.  Besides it was a good thing to know that her sister managed to survive.  The receptionist finally told me that the triage nurse would call me back by the end of the day.  (Obviously she didn’t know how serious this was…either that, she knew my true feelings about her sister!)

In the mean time, I called a different nurse number given to me by a sympathetic friend.  This nurse asked me all sorts of probing questions after telling me about her mother-in-law’s adventures with mold.  (What is with all these people??).  She ended up telling me that as long as I wasn’t having any respiratory problems I would probably survive.  

Well, it’s good to know that I won’t be turning into a Mutant Mold Monster.  I’m so relieved.

Self Portrait Friday

I tried...I really tried to post and tell you about my pictures. Blogger and I seem to be on the outs today. Sigh...

I finally got my photos loaded and this is what I got:

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Closing tag has no matching opening tag:

I tried fixing it, but being the non-nerd that I am...well..

You've missed Neah Bay, my Juicy Fruit Yellow walls and Jack. Sorry.

(I'm not feeling sorry for myself...Honest!)

No dogfood for her!

Yesterday I went into our hall closet to get out the big bag of cat food that I keep in there.  I was going to refill the small tin I keep out as it was empty and my herd of cats thought they were starving to death.  Imagine my dismay when the big bag wasn’t in there.  I had completely forgotten that I had used the last of it the week before and hadn’t yet replaced it.  

Thinking quickly, I did the only logical thing possible. (Well, as I’m sure you are aware by now, logical for me isn’t always the same as logical for everyone else!) I ran downstairs, grabbed a handful of dog food and then nonchalantly placed some in the cats’ dish.  I held my breath as they sniffed at it for a moment then happily settled down to dine.  Catastrophe averted.

Well, not quite. (Like I really thought it would be that easy) Taigoo is our oldest cat.  We’ve had her even longer than we have had KT.  Because of this, she feels that she is Privileged.   She would not deign to eat dog food.  How disgusting.  So she set about following me around and meowing.  It started as a gentle, pitiful mew and gradually got louder and much more demanding.   I told her to just eat the dog food like everyone else and then, logically, turned the music up.  Sadly it didn’t help much.  

I finally gave in and went to the store to get her some cat food.  While I was out, I decided that I would run a few errands as well.  When I finally came home, it was to an outraged cat.  She hadn’t forgotten what I had left the house for and was not pleased that I had taken so long.   So I apologized to her and set about putting my groceries away to the tune of Taigoo’s yowling.  It seemed as though I just couldn’t move fast enough for her.  Then the worst imaginable thing happened.  I realized that I completely forgot to buy the one thing I had gone to the store for.  There was still no cat food.  I once again told Taigoo to just suck it up and eat dog food like everyone else.  Then, logically, I turned the music up even louder.  

Who knew that our small aging cat could be so vociferous?  Our prima donna wasn’t about to give up that easily.  I finally had to admit defeat and feed her something other than dog food.  As I wasn’t quite up to another trip to the store, (who know what I would come home with?) I had to find her something else. Taigoo was finally happy to find herself feasting on a tin of fancy white albacore.  It seemed to be the logical solution.  

SPF flowers for my mom!

Blogger finally let me upload these. They are my colorful (gaudy!) flowers that Mom wanted to see. Are you happy now? tee hee

Bad hair day

I knew when I walked out of the place yesterday that I wasn't thrilled with my new haircut.(I had "hair wings" for Pete's sake!) But I didn't think it was that bad. But I know it must be, because nobody...not ONE SINGLE PERSON said a thing about it.

sigh...

and NO, even if blogger would let me post a photo today, I wouldn't post one anyways!

SPF

It's Friday (just barely!) and Kristine has posted a brand new challenge. Gaudy stuff is right up my alley! Can you believe I actually admit that? Anyways, she asks us to post

1. Something ‘Sparkly’
2. Something ‘Dull’
3. Something ‘Colorful’


1. Something ‘Sparkly’

This is Mimi's phone. She decided it needed some "bling" so she set about fixing it up. Isn't amazing what a tube of Super Glue and some rhinestones can do? She loves this phone. Oh, the 2 missing calls? That would be me trying to figure out where I put her phone down at while I went to get the camera. I was worried for a bit that I had put it in the washing machine. Whew! Was I glad when I found it. Just imagine trying to explain that to her!

2. Something ‘Dull’

I asked Shaun what something dull would be and his response was that he hoped it wasn't him! That made me realize dull is beyond a color (or lack of or something like that!) Then as I was setting my coffee up so it would be waiting for me in the morning I realized I had it. My coffee pot has a dull gleam (possibly caused by all those finger prints) and I'm pretty dull before I've had my morning coffee.

3. Something ‘Colorful’

note: blogger won't let me upload this right now for some reason. I'll try again in the morning. :(

Another note: It's morning and I still can't load any photos even in a seperate post. I think you all are doing a great job "seeing" the flowers on you own anyways! Carry on folks!

This are the very colorful flowers that I bought to celebrate the first day of June. Aren't they colorful? Aren't they fun? Aren't they gaudy? They make me smile and that's all that matters. (I told you I like gaudy things! Shaun took one look at them, turned up his nose and informed me that he would never bring me flowers like that)

The Cook

The other morning I woke up and blearily made my way to the bathroom. I had just sat down when KT burst in filled with excitement.  (You’d think I could get some privacy by now!) She proudly announced that she was going to make breakfast for all of us. Um…Ok.  

So she went to work armed with wonderful recipes gleaned from the internet.  (How did we live without it?) I was just finishing up my first cup of coffee when she called us to the table.  She had whipped up some crepes with a savory cheese filling finished with a white sauce.  Thinking that was enough, she also made some really good scrambled eggs and banana oatmeal muffins. (The muffins were going to be apple, but she said that it was too hard to cut up the apple.  Huh?)

Then she sat down to bask in the rightly deserved praise that we all heaped upon her.  Well, that most of us heaped upon her.  Mimi, who has always been referred to as “the one who cooks” had a bit of a problem with all this new won fame her sister now had. One of our family jokes was that KT was always going to have to live near her sister so that she wouldn’t starve to death.  She could barely make herself toast or a pb&j.  Yep, it would be up to Mimi to keep her sister from starving to death.

Mimi just kept muttering that cooking was HER thing. KT couldn’t even make herself toast a month or two ago and now she was the cook?  It was just so unfair! Hmmm, maybe they start having cooking battles and I’ll never have to cook again!

I can’t wait to see what happens.  

Memorial Day

Ahhh…Memorial Day. Most people enjoy themselves with BBQ, picnics, camping and just hanging out with friends and family. It’s a fun non-work/school day to celebrate the beginning of Summer.

Yet, amazingly, Memorial Day is supposed to mean something a little bit more. Yesterday we passed our little bitty town graveyard and Mimi counted 8 flags and several more bouquets of flowers on the gravestones. I thought this would be a good time to make a small tribute to one of our family’s veterans.

I was going to highlight my dad as he is my favorite vet, then I realized that you are supposed to be remembering those that have passed on. (I’m trying to follow the rules here!) Mimi helpfully suggested that I doctor up her grandpa’s photo so that he would just look dead. (We just finally rented The Corpse Bride and all the dead people were very appealing to her) I nixed that idea explaining to her that I didn’t think her grandpa would appreciate that very much.

So, I switched over to Shaun’s family. I remembered this amazing photo of one of his grandfathers and asked if he would mind my posting it. Nobody knows why he is posing with Eleanor Roosevelt, but isn’t it great to have?

I don’t know a lot about Shaun’s grandfather, Andrew Ivory. But what I do know is very interesting. (Ivory family? Can you fill in a bit???)

He was born in 1900 in Bray County, Dublin, Ireland. He immigrated to the United States with his family as a very young boy.

When he was 16 he ran off to join the Navy. He had to lie about his age, but he was anxious to fight in the War to end all wars. After WWI ended, Andrew decided to remain in the Navy as a Pharmacist Mate or what is now known as a Corpsman.

During WWII he was stationed on the maiden voyage of the USS Liscome Bay. This escort carrier was torpedoed without warning and lost in combat. Andrew was one of 272 sailors that survived the attack.

Andrew retired from the Navy and was later made the Public Health Officer of New York City.