Weekly Injection of Chuckles

It's Been A Long Time

2011-05-20T15:49:00.001-05:00

It's been a very, very long time since I've been in, but I'm here for the moment. Nothing to chuckle about right now though. I'll come around and see if any of you are still around!

Cheers

Teachers, Schools and Disappointment

2010-04-17T07:51:00.004-05:00

I was just over at Poppy's Dream Fields and she was talking about how the school has to be open on a Saturday due to the fact that it was closed on a regular school day. The teachers actually have to teach so many hours of the year in most of Europe! There is a set amount of hours that the school's actually have to be in service so if there is bad weather and the school has to be closed, they actually have to make up for it with either longer hours or on a Saturday!

Wow I wish that were the case here! As it is there are more day's off during the school year now than I can remember from when I went to school. One day a month the school gets closed for "Professional Development", every two months the school is closed for teachers conferences, the last Wednesday of every month is early dismissal and the list goes on. It's sad really, the amount of time that could be spent on teaching the kids that is just flitted away with whatever excuse can be thought of! The less teaching the teachers have to do, the happier they are!

That's all bad enough in and of itself, but what I find to be much worse is the grading of the students. Or should I say, lack thereof!?! Now-a-days you can't even get failed up to and including grade 7 for failing to meet grade standards! You can't read, who cares, the teachers next year can deal with that problem. That's the attitude, or so it seems to me. Kids are graduating from school now barely literate and it really is a shame.

The Kid brought home her report card not that long ago and had received an 80% on one of her subjects, not bad I thought. Then the following week, she comes home with an updated report card with that grade bumped up to 85%. Not because the teacher had mis-graded her, but because one of the students parents was ticked off at his low grade. So in order to please that parent and keep the grade spread somewhat accurate all the students grades were bumped up by 5%. Have to keep that grading curve accurate you know! Really, what is wrong with marking students according to the work they actually do?

In Social Studies she failed on a test of the map of Canada. Well in order to not give her a failing grade, the teacher had her rewrite the test until she got it correct. If memory serves, she labeled that map (which is all the test was) 3 times before she got more that 75% of it correct, and that's when she was graded on it.

Speaking of marking grades, in Math class, The Kid got a mark of 90% on a particular part of the course. Wow I thought, she really has a good concept of percentages! So I asked her, what's 10% of 100? She looked at me with a really dumb expression and proceeded to ask me "How on earth am I supposed to know that?" That's when I found out that the schools idea of teaching percentages to grade 6 students is to give them a paper with circles and squares on it and they are to color in things like 50% of the circle, or 75% of the square or whatever it happens to be.

You know, punctuation, spelling, grammar and neatness used to count towards your marks as well. Now, not so much. It seems I have to take out a deciphering code in order to read that which The Kid writes. wordsarewritten like this with no capitalization or spacing. Paragraphs, what are those? Writing repetitively, who cares you're getting your point across, sort of! Long sentences that don't make sense, ah well, you're just a kid, you'll figure it out eventually!

If this is the attitude of the teaching profession, and this is the way the kids are graded and taught, what is the point of them going to school? It's become nothing more than a daycare!

Don't get me started on discipline, because when I went to school there actually was some in the classroom! It wasn't really needed due to the fact that us kids knew there were consequences for bad behavior. Now there is no real discipline but rather "if you be good, we'll give you a treat" reward system. Trust me, it doesn't work! The Kid is always coming home from school complaining about how disruptive some of the students are!

So what do you think? Time to pull her from the school system and start teaching her at home full time? I'm unofficially teaching her here anyway, may as well do it properly and permanently, don't you think? Not only would she actually learn something constructive, but she'd even have more time to help out around the yard and in the house, thereby learning how food is grown, preserved and eventually cooked. Not to mention how to properly care for a home. To me it's a win-win situation, constant learning!

Raptor's

2010-04-05T08:45:00.004-05:00

(Ok, I've been trying to put in a new post for better than a week now and the updated editor version I had been using just didn't work. So, now I've gone back to the old version and voila, I'm able to post again! Hip Hip Hurray! Onto my post that should have come up March 29th, I will post it as I wrote it then and not correct all the day's and such.)

Consider the title. When you read or hear that word, honestly, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For me it is birds. Eagles, Falcons, Buzzard's and Hawks of all description, to be more precise :)

Today the world's largest Raptor migration started with Golden Eagle's right over my front yard. I stopped a 1/4 of a mile from home in order to watch around 12 of them fly over the house in a west-north-westerly direction. Oh my god what a sight to see, and lucky me it is just starting! Too bad I have to spend so much time at work, I would so love to be able to spend every day of the next few weeks laying out on the lawn watching these birds fly towards their summer homes! Man how I envy The Kid, she's got a whole week here to watch them while she's on Spring Break!

Don't get me wrong, those 12 that I had stopped to watch were just the start. Over the next 2 hours I watched 115 more birds fly past. That's a total of 127 Golden Eagle's in the span of 120 minutes! I hadn't been watching the whole time and therefore I must have missed a few, but even still that's a lot of birds at one time! Silv says this is just the beginning, that the next few day's will bring a whole lot more! He also told me the order in which they'll all come back, you know what I mean, Golden's now then the Bald's followed by Turkey Buzzards and so on. But I'm kind of glad that I've forgotten what he said about that. I'm looking forward to "discovering" the order on my own.

The best part is, that with my memory the way it is, next year at this time it will all be new again...hehehe!

Well the migration is just about done, there are just the stragglers left now, but I sure don't mind what I can still watch. The buzzards haven't come in yet, but they will be soon, between the 1st and 5th of May. Now that will be lovely to watch, I can't wait till they get here! There are 7 which stay in this area and can be observed on a very regular basis. Silv call them his Crypt Keepers and they sure are beautiful to watch soaring and riding the thermals! These 7 have been banded by him and their names are Boris, Herman, Eddie, Uncle Festus and then Edgar, Allan and Poe, The Crypt Keepers!

Me so DUMB!!! Second Edition

2010-03-15T14:55:00.000-05:00

First off I'm going to remind you about my Me so DUMB!!! post. If you haven't read it yet, let me suggest you read it now. It's not that long of a post so I hope you do read it before continuing on here.

Back already? You must be a speed reader :D

Ok ok, I'll get on to why I'm so DUMB this time! Sheesh, give a gall some time to get there would ya? You're so impatient!

Well, you see, this winter as I've made mention before, we've had a lot of snow here! I love tobogganing and so would go down the slopes occasionally with The Kid. Yeah I usually end up a bit stiff and sore the next day, but we always would go (weather permitting) on days when I had the following 2 days off work. The weather lately has been quite nice aside from the ridiculous amounts of fog so the snow is seriously melting. Jeez, wouldn't you know it, yesterday I suggested to The Kid that we go for one more run down the slopes before we can't anymore.

Big Mistake, BIG BIG MISTAKE!!!

She goes down on the inner-tube and it looks like great fun! Uh huh, sure it does! Up the hill she came and handed me the tube so that I could take my turn at it! Yep, that's what happened all right! Every time we've gone down before it's been without anything but our butts to sit on or we lay on our backs, now that was FUN! Ok, so admit, I watched her and thought it would be a Good Idea to try this. After all, the snow was pretty soft and wet and tacky, great for snowballs, not so good for sliding.

So saying, I took the tube and proceeded to have fun going down.

What I didn't know, and which The Kid decided not to inform me of, is that she made a jump at the bottom! When she went down while I was watching, she deftly avoided said jump! I however did not! I went over the jump and landed. Guess what!?! Inner-tubes are made of rubber, people are not! The tube decided to stay where we landed, I did not! I bounced right off that infernal thing and proceeded to land on my neck.

Next thing I knew, there was this loud noise rushing in my ears but naught else. After the noise subsided I took inventory. Could I move my fingers? Check. Could I move my toes? Check again. Ok, so far so good. Sure I hurt all over, but I could move bits of this old body. I opened my eyes, there was The Kid standing over me. She asked if I was ok, I told her I'd live but she could help me get into a standing position.

The afternoon wasn't a total waste, The Kid continued to slide down the hill for a bit with some snowball fighting in between runs. That was fun, while she was sliding I got to watch Luke jump into the snow and absolutely disappear at times. Watching him dig his way out of those holes was fun as well!

But the most fun was part of a walk I went on. I tried to get The Kid to come with me, but she didn't like the idea of crab-walking along the side of the hill towards those rolls of snow that Silv has pictures of. I thought it was a great idea and so I went! I got to the first one and realized that I could climb into it. Once inside I realized it wasn't quite big enough for me to stand in, but sitting there was at least another foot of room over my head. I sat there and just looked around at the inside of this formation for awhile letting the snow melt down onto me when I started to hear a low rumble coming from above me. Well I got out of there pretty quickly! The last thing I wanted was all that snow coming down on my head in an avalanche taking me with it into the trees below!

There really had been nothing to worry about as when I went back there today, the roll of snow was still there as was the cave. It is always better to be safe than sorry though, and it's not something I plan on doing again, well not this winter anyway!

Life In The Fast Lane

2010-03-07T20:19:00.001-06:00

I just can't believe some people! It's been ridiculously busy at work lately mainly because of hockey tournaments every weekend. Trouble is the management (henceforth to be known as "Manager") of the place couldn't be bothered to tell the kitchen staff let alone the Chef that all the teams had booked differing times for meals and all wanted buffet's! So now, this last weekend we've had 2 lunch buffet's for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 4 breakfast buffet's each day as well, along with full suppers for these teams. Do you have any clue how hard it is to set up and rip down that many buffet's, not to mention prepare the food for all of them while cooking for the coffee shop, restaurant and bar? No, I didn't think so, but let me tell you it's not easy and makes for a lot of work and hot tempers for everyone involved! And lucky us, this will be going on every weekend for the rest of the month!

The good part is that Chef and Manager gave me some blog fodder today!

I don't know about you, but I find it much easier to cut meat and veggies with a sharp knife as opposed to one no sharper than a butter knife. So saying, I get Silv to sharpen my knife on a regular basis and to just give it a touch up every night. It makes work much quicker and easier and my arms and hands don't get anywhere near so tired as they did when I used dull useless knives.

Now to get to my point. Today I was doing prep work and was busy cutting up a pail of green onions when Chef came into the prep area needing to cut some stuff up. Seeing he didn't have a knife handy and I was just finished with the onions, I offered him the use of my knife. He said "no thanks, I'll use one of S's instead!" and proceeds to take one of her knives out of it's little hiding place behind me. I couldn't believe it! He'd rather use a knife that is disgustingly dull instead of a sharp one! Anyway, I just shrugged my shoulder's and said "Ok". Really, it was no skin of my nose if he wanted to work harder, not smarter.

A few minutes later another one of the cooks came into the back and explained to me exactly why Chef didn't want to use my knife. It also made clear why he wasn't having Silv sharpen his knives anymore. I didn't laugh or say anything about it at the time, but I sure did when I told Silv about it!

What had happened was that Chef was used to using dull knives. Used to being able to take a knife and a raw potato and cut said potato in his hand. This is not something you can do after Silv has gotten a hold of your knife! His knives are sharp enough to shave with and that's how he sharpens knives for everyone who asks him to sharpen theirs. I warned Chef that his knife was scary sharp when I returned it to him, I guess he didn't believe me. Remember how I said he likes to cut things? Well he did that with his knife after Silv got it nice and sharp. NOT a good idea at ALL! He had cut his palm quite badly and almost blacked out from the pain and the site of blood apparently. Of course I don't know that for fact, but that's the story anyway. Now really, who, once warned, takes said warning and throws it out the window and does exactly what he was told not to!?! Someone without two braincells firing, that's who! I don't feel even remotely sorry for him, he knew what my knives were like, it's why he had me get his sharpened, so he knew not to do that which he did.

Now for Manager. Not only is he pathetic at passing on information and keeping doors of communication open so that everyone knows what's going on with good warning, but he doesn't think either!

When you want ice on your sidewalk broken up and removed, what do you do? Do you sprinkle salt and/or sand on it making it easier to walk and help break it up for quicker clean-up? Most people would!

Or would you take 5 gallon buckets of hot water and pour it on the ice in order to melt it? Keep in mind that the sidewalk in question is full of holes, dips and cracks, and that it's the low part of the yard and so has no place for water to flow away from it. Now, is that what you would do? I thought not!

I couldn't believe it when Manager came into the kitchen and to the area where I was working and proceeded to do just exactly that! I started to ask him if he thought that may not be such a good idea, when I decided I should just keep my mouth shut. So, now in an area where we've been fighting to retain our footing all winter long, where the ice was finally starting to break up due to beautiful temperatures, we can rest assured that the ice is there to stay for a while longer! Did Manager honestly think that melting the ice during the heat of the day would be a good idea? Did he not think that once the sun goes down and temperatures go back down to -10 Celsius for night that the water would not re-freeze? I'd wager to guess that he had not, I'd also wager that he won't be too happy when he has to skate his way to the door tomorrow morning. Probably would be even more pissed when I ask him if he enjoyed the slipping and sliding that his ice-melting project created. Somehow I don't think that will go over very well, but I will wager one more thing, and that is that I won't be able to go without saying something!

Sometimes Shopping Can Be Fun!

2010-02-21T07:37:00.000-06:00

I went shopping at The Real Canadian Superstore yesterday, something I don't normally enjoy doing. To be honest, I hate shopping at any time in any place. Too many people, too much noise, too many salespeople asking if they can help you ~~because they want the commission~~, just too much of everything really. But, so saying, food needs to be bought so I went.

While there, I ran into an old acquaintance of mine whom I haven't seen in almost a year. She was handing out samples of a kind of cookie/treat and had a big display depicting the cookie/treat. We started to talk and we got onto the subject of pets. I was telling her about Luke when a guy comes up to the display table, grabs a couple of the cookies and wanders off munching them. Had this guy paid any attention to the conversation or the pictures on the display, he would have noticed that they were "Natural Defense Healthy Snacks for Adult Dogs"! The particular ones she was giving samples of are for the dogs digestive system. (I'd post a picture of the boxes and bags of the dog food, but I can't seem to find any. Perhaps later, I can get Silv to scan a copy of the coupon she gave me and I can post that!)

Oh we laughed! We kept laughing till we were almost ready to cry! Between fits of giggles, she told me how many people actually do that and how many others were slightly smarter and caught on just as they were going for the cookies! That just made us laugh harder and tears were indeed flowing down our faces.

Apparently not paying attention to what is being handed out at the "free sample" tables, is a common problem. These people who just "grab and eat" are the highlight of her day, and there are 2 or 3 of them each day! The good thing is that there is nothing in the dog food/treats that will harm a person and watching someone eating this stuff when they don't know it alleviates what would otherwise be a rather boring day.

Let's Take A Walk!

2010-02-16T08:14:00.000-06:00

Well, I got nothin to write about at the moment, so I'm just going to send you on a walk to see more of winter in my new home. Over at The Swallow's Nest, Silv, my other better half has posted some pics. I hope you all enjoy them!

Cell Phones, a Love to Hate Relationship!

2010-02-12T08:33:00.000-06:00

Quite some time ago I had to go into Winnipeg for a doctor's appointment. The appointment itself was scheduled for 1 pm so I had left home at 10 am. You see, Winnipeg is an hour and a half drive from my place and then there is always the half hour of city driving to get to the heart of the city where this doctor's office is. So I leave extra early in order to be able to take time for lunch once I get there. I used to go quite frequently and I've always hated it. I hate the city, I'm a country girl through and through! I also hate getting poked, prodded and pilled, no fun in that what-so-ever!

On this particular occasion I had decided to stop at a Tim Horton's (coffee and donut shop for those that don't know about it) and have a bowl of chili, a roll, coffee and a donut for my lunch. There was a long line as per the norm, and in the line was a woman on a cell phone. Now normally that wouldn't bother me and at first it hadn't. I even thought it was pretty decent of her to tell whoever her caller was to hang on a second as it was her turn to order. That's when I started to get annoyed!

You see, she hadn't yet decided what she wanted so she started reading the board above the counter to see what there was available. After about 2 minutes of reading, she got back on her phone and asked the person she had been in conversation with, what she should have. Her convo turned to other topics and just kept going. She should have left the line but she didn't! She just kept talking and talking holding everyone else up with her b.s. Other people in line were starting to make comments about her need to hurry up as they needed to get back to work. The cashier at the till was drumming her fingers and pointing at her watch to get this woman to make a decision. FINALLY she orders, and with that she's back on her cell ignoring the cashier who is trying to tell her how much her order will cost.

This had taken about 20 minutes already and everyone in line was getting pissed. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Literally! There were about 6 people in line ahead of me, but I didn't care. I walked up to the woman, took her cell out of her hands and told the person on the other end that she'd call back as soon as she was done paying for her food so that all the other customers could place their orders and pay up. With that, I hung up the cell and kept it until the woman was completely done and then handed it to her saying "The world does not revolve around you, other people have things to do and places to be. Next time have the common courtesy to get off the phone when you're at a spot where you need to pay attention to others!"

You should have heard the applause throughout the whole place! Even the staff were cheering! The woman in question grabbed her food and coffee and left looking very red and embarrassed, but she did not offer an apology unfortunately. The good part about this whole thing was that the people who had been ahead of me in line let me order first and not only that, but the cashier was told by the manager (who had witnessed the whole thing) that she wasn't to charge me for my order! And even with the half hour delay caused by this woman, I still managed to get to the doctor's office in time for my appointment.

Thanks Deb, You Reminded Me Of This!

2010-02-10T07:55:00.000-06:00

Deb reminded me of something (the link will take you to her post that triggered my memory) that happened at work this past fall that I had totally forgotten to blog about! So I'll tell you all about it now!

In case you don't know, or can't tell from my photo, I keep my head shaved down to a 1/8 to 1/4 inch length. It suits me best and is most comfortable. Besides, this way, I never get bed-head or hat-head or any other kind of bad hair day :D

Anyway, on this particular day at work I was cooking breakfast when there was a complaint. Yeah I was just as shocked as you. How much is there to complain about with eggs and hashbrowns? Not much, I agree. I told the waitress to bring me the plate and let me see what the problem was. Low and behold there's a hair on the plate, a 2 inch long black hair at that. So I told the waitress to do the ST. O. P. (STandard Operating Procedure) thing and to give her her breakfast at half-price. Customer was happy, I was annoyed, waitress was confused as to where the hair came from. I told her not to worry about it that these things sometimes happen and so we continued on with our day without further incidents.

Just 2 days later the same customer comes back for breakfast again and gets the same waitress and orders the same breakfast. Yes, you guessed, she had the same complaint as well! The blond waitress comes back with the black hair on the plate and asks me if she should go with the ST. O. P. thing again. I asked her what she meant by "again" as I hadn't realized that it was the same customer as 2 days ago.

So she reminds me of the previous time this happened and I just looked at her and said "No, this time I'll go out and talk to her!" I asked the waitress to point out the customer which she did, and then I took the plate to her table and asked her what the problem was. The Ditz says the cook must have shed a hair in the plate and pointed it out to me. I looked at her, her companion looked at me and then at her and had the brains to be embarrassed. Not only were these people cheap enough to try and get there food half price, but they also shared that one breakfast between them. Still looking at The Ditz I asked her just exactly where that hair came from at which time she reiterated that it must have come from the cook as the waitress was blond. Continuing to look at her and told her "look at me, I'm the cook, now tell me where that hair came from!"

Again, she said that it must have shed from my head! Oh the audacity! A 2 inch long hair fall from a head of hair that is no longer than a 1/4 inch? I don't think so! I was being nice, polite and speaking in a rather quiet voice so as to not let other tables overhear this. She however was being rather loud ensuring others hearing. So saying other customers were starting to giggle and laugh in various levels of amusement.

Finally her friend found her voice and said "I don't think that the hair came from the cook, you better just admit that you put the hair there, because she's not buying your theory!"

The Ditz responded by saying "I would never do such a thing!" and finally actually looked at me and noticed that there is no way that hair could have possibly come from my head! Considering the fact that the only people who handled that plate of food was myself, the waitress and the customer, and she had already stated that it couldn't have come from the waitress, she was at a total loss as to whom to blame next for the hair on her plate. By this time the whole place was in an uproar and I heard one man say "Breakfast and a show, I never expected that this morning!" Which sent everyone into more gales of laughter.

The Ditz was incredibly embarrassed by this time and I was having a very hard time maintaining my straight face. "Ma-am," I said, "perhaps you should just remove your hair from your plate, finish eating and pay-up. I have to get back to work now!" and with that, left the floor to return to the kitchen where I immediately started to laugh. It must have taken me 5 minutes to get myself under some semblance of control in order to continue cooking. To my knowledge The Ditz never walked into the restaurant again, and somehow, I'm quite sure, hasn't pulled that stunt somewhere else without making sure that the cook actually has hair!

I Won, I Won!

2010-02-08T13:29:00.000-06:00

I went to visit Me-Me King at The Screaming Me-Me and she had a "Caption This" Contest going on. The very first time I enter a caption, I won The Golden Phallus! I'm so surprised, shocked, awed and happy! I've only every managed to get an Honorable Mention at NoNameDufus' blog as well as at Etta Rose's so yes, I was quite surprised to find out that out of 50 entries, I was chosen the winner! Thank you Me-Me! I may not be Hangin' With The Dufus yet, but I sure plan to eventually :D

And without further rambling and nonsense I give you The Golden Phallus!

Anyway, in Me-Me's post announcing me as the winner, she inadvertently referred to me as male which brought back quite a number of memories of being mistaken thus. I don't know what it is about me that makes people think I'm a guy, but the earliest I can remember that mistake happening, I was 5. Mom, us 4 kids and my Grandmother were taking a walk from Grandma's house to the park and this woman I didn't know stopped us and talked to mom and Grandma for a while. Eventually she came around to saying to mom "Are these your kids? I thought you had 3 girls and only the one boy!" She pointed at me with a questioning look on her face. I, being the smartass I've always been, piped up with "I am a girl, I just have to wear HIS hand-me-downs!" while jerking my thumb at my older brother. I still don't know who that woman was, but you should have seen her embarrassment when I said that. She apologized profusely to mom who in turn scolded me for speaking so rudely to an elder, especially one whom I did not know. I just pouted and muttered "Well I am a girl!"

But that wasn't the memory that was evoked by the post, the one that came to mind happened just last week. I don't know why I hadn't thought to post this before, but for some reason it never crossed my mind that it would be blog fodder. Where was my head at, of course it's excellent blogging material!?!

At any rate, this happened last Tuesday (I believe). I had been at work for a few hours, and, well, you know what happens when you've been drinking coffee all morning! Suffice it to say that I needed to go to the washroom. Well, in case you haven't seen my profile pic, I keep my head shaved pretty short, 1/8 - 1/4 inch in length to be precise, any longer than that is just a nuisance as far as I'm concerned. Add that to the fact that I'm normally wearing jeans and mens jean style work shirts and you get the picture. Oh yeah, can't forget to add the fact that people tease me a lot in regards to the fact that I have a figure like a 12 year old boy, to put it more bluntly, they don't make bra's small enough to fit me short of a pre-teen's training bra...lol!

Now that we're all up to speed on the way I look, I shall return to the story and try to make it short as I've already made it long enough. Tuesday morning I had already had my share of coffee, as I've already mentioned, and therefore took a minute to relieve some pressure. As I was just finishing drying my hands and getting ready to walk out the door, this elderly lady opened it to come into the washroom. She took one look at me and a look of horror came across her face. She took a step back, looked back at the sign saying it was the lady's room and looked like she was about to faint.

Before she had a chance to faint though, I winked at her and said "Sorry Ma-am, I didn't mean to give you a fright, but I am indeed female!" I have to admit, that I was a bit nasty in saying that, as I used my best (and I do mean best) Eeyore voice, making me even sound male. She looked at me even more horrified and hurried off into the bar, presumably to use the washroom there. I managed to keep a straight face till I got back into the kitchen when I started to split a gut. My boss asked me what the matter was and so I told him, including using my voice the way I had with the lady. He looked at me laughing and said "Skye, don't you realize that people who don't know you don't automatically assume you're a woman, not only that, but when you imitate male voices, your face takes on a masculine personality!?!"

Needless to say I hadn't realized that, but I sure will be putting the knowledge to good use! ;)
~~I'm just a little devil, ain't I?~~

Winter Pictures

2010-02-06T14:13:00.000-06:00

Well, this is my attempt at getting pictures of the hoar frost a couple of weeks ago. They hadn't turned out as nice as I had hoped they would, and yet I am quite satisfied with them. So, without further ado, I give you my way of looking at winter :)

Lucifer figures that he needs to follow the Moose tracks pictured above. Can't you just see in his face that he's telling me to stop making so much noise because I'll scare his prey away? Somehow I think he'd be the first to run if he were to actually see the Moose that left those tracks!

This pic (above) is of the pond and in my profile picture is, in fact, the pond that I am looking at.

(Below) Can you tell that Luke is getting antsy to get home? You can't really see how steep the hill is here, but Luke sure want's me to pic up the pace and get cracking he just doesn't understand that it's easier to climb hills with 4 legs as opposed to 2! He also seems to think that because the bus will be back with The Kid soon we are supposed to be at the house, don't know why he thinks that, maybe because he likes her as a chew toy :)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. Till next time :)

You Know Your Brain Is On Overload When...

2010-02-01T07:35:00.000-06:00

...you do stupid things like I did yesterday!

The day started out normal enough, I got up early and wanted some toast and coffee. I went into the kitchen and low and behold I had to move some electric appliances that were used for supper in order to be able to use the toaster. I figured I'd get coffee started first and then I'd do the clean-up, smart idea right!?! Well, not if you're me in the brain addled mode I was yesterday, let me tell you! I ground up the beans and put that in the machine as is supposed to be done, then I added the water like a person is supposed to do and turn on the coffee maker. So far so good, coffee is brewing. What happens next is where the dumb stuff starts!

Instead of unplugging the food processor and putting it away in it's little cubby space or moving one of the bread machines, I unplugged the coffee-maker in order to haul out the toaster and plug it in. Yes you heard me correctly, the coffee that WAS brewing was canceled by my unplugging it! While my bread was toasting I came here to the land of blogs to do some catching up. I forgot about my toast, forgot about coffee, basically forgot about the world for about half an hour when my stomach started to talk to me. So off into the kitchen I go and there's my toast all nice and cold sticking up out of the toaster, well I can live with cold toast I suppose so I spread some peanut butter and honey on it and went to pour myself some coffee.

WHAT, no coffee!!! Now how on earth did that happen? Hmmmm, did I put in the grounds? Yep! Did I put in water? Check on that as well! How about turn it on? Yep, another check. So why didn't it brew? I stood there munching on my cold toast when it finally hit me! So, in my best Homer Simpson impersonation I slapped my forehead, said "DOH!", plugged in the coffee maker and came back to blogville.

I should have known better then to start any other things or to do anything else that required thinking. I should have known, honest I should have, but I didn't! I thought perhaps it was an isolated idiot moment. I was wrong!

I didn't really feel like doing much of anything yesterday, so that's what I did. Aside from visiting friends in here I basically bummed around, played chess with my kid and got thoroughly beat by her. She doesn't understand the game all that well and never manages to beat me. Yep, she beat me, check-mated me 3 times! Man was she happy about that! I don't know what I kept doing wrong, but she kept managing to capture my Queen and every other piece on the board. The one time I did finally beat her was by getting a pawn across and getting my Queen back. Oh happy day, I had a Rook, 2 more pawns and my Queen and I got her in check-mate.

After a few more games, we decided to go for a walk out in the bush. Brutally cold out but a nice walk with our snowshoes anyway. With the snow as deep as it was, Lucifer was getting sick of sinking and so decided that walking on the backs of my snowshoes would be a good way for him to keep from getting completely buried in the snow. I kept telling him to walk on his own feet and stay off of mine but it didn't help. I kept landing on my knees because I couldn't move my feet with his weight added to mine. The Kid just kept laughing and saying she wished she could video tape the walk because this was too funny.

Before we had gone out for our walk, I had started some laundry. I had washed my work jacket along with Silv's winter jacket and The Kid's school jacket and had already put them in the dryer. When we got back in they were in a laundry hamper sitting by my chair ready to be hung up in their corner. How nice I thought, Silv was helping with the laundry! I grabbed the jackets and realized they weren't fully dry yet and that was the start of my last folly for the day.

The Kid's jacket was indeed dry so she hung it up, in the meantime I brought Silv's and mine back downstairs to put back into the dryer. With jackets in hand I walked up to the wood furnace and was about to open the door when it hit me. You don't dry clothes in a furnace, you dry them in the dryer! "DOH" another Homer moment! Man would we ever have been screwed if my brain hadn't taken hold of itself in time to stop me from burning our jackets! Ever so sheepishly I walked back to the laundry room and placed the jackets on top of the dryer to await the next load's finishing so I could finish drying said jackets.

And that folks is how you know your brain is on overload and that you need a true break from work, housework and anything else involving thinking!

A Bit Of A Rant With A Twist

2010-01-26T09:43:00.000-06:00

In mid December I had been at the local phone center in order to pay my phone and internet bills. I patiently waited for my turn to come as there were 3 people in there before me and only one cashier. So, while waiting and because I had just gotten off of a long hard day of work, I sat in one of the chairs provided for just such situations. Finally my turn came up and I gave the cashier my bills and was starting to pull out the amount of cash I needed in order to pay them.

In walks a man, I recognized him immediately. Even if I hadn't turned to look, I would have known who it was by the sound of his steps and his loud booming voice saying "This new cell phone gave me problems as soon as I got across the border!"

You see, this man was my father. He saw me, walked past me, without touching me managed to get me to back up a few steps so he could do his complaining and get his phone re-set up so that it would work the way it was supposed to when he traveled into the United States for work. I nonchalantly walked around him and leaned onto the counter turning to look at him. He looked over at me with an expression of "I know this person, but not who she is or why I should", you all know the look.

He continued on with his business which took about 20 perhaps 25 minutes while I stood there watching him waiting to be acknowledged. Not once did he apologize for butting in and cutting off my transaction, nor during all that time did he recognize me.

When he was finally done and walked out, I said "By dad" which he apparently did not hear as he just walked out the door without a further word. The cashier had stepped into a back room at that time and hadn't heard me either, but when he came back out, he was full of apologies for the rudeness of some customers. I looked at him and just said "What can you expect from a trucker? They're always the most important people around."

"How did you know he's a trucker?" The cashier asked me.

"Because he's my father and it's kind of hard not knowing what he does for work." I replied.

"He's your father and he didn't know you?" he asked me, completely incredulous.

"Yep!" I snorted, finished paying up and left.

Two weeks later I went to my parents house for their Christmas gathering. Dad came up to me right away, gave me a hug and welcomed me into his home. I kept my mouth shut at that point, I was waiting for everyone to show up and for just the right moment before I asked him how he recognized me when I walked in his door but he couldn't in a business.

Over the next little while everyone showed up that was coming and we all sat down to eat. While we ate dad brought up the subject of his phone and the fact that he had to get his cell service changed once again. He was relating the story in the shop, but not 100% accurately. I let him continue to tell his story and then I corrected him on a point he was trying to make. He looked at me all confused and asked me how I knew that. I just looked at him and asked him if he remembered the woman in a fleece lined jean jacket and gray toque standing beside him watching him for about 20 minutes. He said that yes, she had made him feel very uncomfortable. I asked if he had the feeling that he should have known her and again he answered in the affirmative still not realizing that I was describing myself. Mom looked at him and I could tell that she knew where I was going with this, everyone else at the table had very confused expressions.

Finally dad asked again how I already knew all of this. Again, without answering, hoping he'd catch on but also hoping that he wouldn't, I asked him a few more questions which he answered still totally ignorant as to how I would know anything about this transaction of his.

After about half an hour of leaving him hanging I noticed more expressions changing from confusion to dawning understanding and decided to let him off the hook. So I said simply "The reason I know all this is because I was the woman standing beside you who you didn't recognize and whom you still couldn't figure out even with all the info I've been feeding you."

My mother looked horrified and all my siblings and in-laws laughed their fool heads off when they finally understood how the joke was on dad. And still dad didn't quite catch on so I got up from the table, put on my jacket and toque and asked him if he could still recognize me for who I am or if my disguise was too good. I was even wearing black pants like I had been on that day. A look of mortification and understanding came upon his face and he actually said sorry for not having realized that it had been me standing there that whole time. Needless to say he didn't apologize for cutting off my business by insisting that he was dealt with first, but that's part of his religious nature, men always come first and always will, all else are of no consequence.

I am still laughing at his stupidity in not realizing what had been going on with that conversation, and quite frankly, I don't think I'll ever let him forget it!

Bad Weather Means Blogging Time!

2010-01-25T06:19:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm supposed to be at work right now, trouble is it's a 20 mile drive and visibility is down to near zero and at absolute zero when the wind gusts. I may be nuts, I may be crazy, but I'm not insane. At least not enough to go driving in this! Ok fine, I tried, I got half a mile, turned around and came home, that one total mile took me a whole 15 minutes and that doesn't even count the amount of time it took me to turn around! Can you imagine how long 20 miles would take at that rate!?! YIKES NOT worth it I tell ya!

The last couple of days there has been a nice Colorado Low moving through, yesterday the weather wasn't too bad and Silv convinced me that the valley would be real beautiful. So I took these pictures with the digital camera for your viewing pleasure.

This past Monday there was some beautiful Hoarfrost and I had the day off so I took a walk down into the valley then as well and took a bunch of pictures, but that was with the regular camera and so I have to wait for the pictures to be developed before I can share them with you. I hope they turned out as nice as these seem to have :)

Well, so much for that!

2010-01-17T07:07:00.000-06:00

Well, I had wanted to be around more, in fact I've tried on several occasions. Sometimes Blogger would allow me in, but most of the time not. Most of the problem is with Silv though, he tends to ~~hog the computer~~ be on the computer so much that I just can't seem to get access to it. To be fair I haven't even tried to get on-line more than once a week, probably not even that often as most of the time I'm just too tired after work.

Here I thought he was sleeping, wouldn't get up for a couple of hours yet, but I was wrong. The poor man needs his computer and so my time on it is once again limited to a very short period. ~~I think he's addicted to this damnable machine!~~ As it is, I no sooner get logged in and he's right there waiting, oh well, what's a girl to do when there is only one computer in the house? The worst part is that The Kid sleeps in the loft over-looking the living-room and so I can't turn on any lights to read or draw or do anything else my little heart desires to do. I can't wait till we get a chance to actually build her bedroom in the basement. Then at least the loft will once again look like something decent! More specifically a library/sitting-room/artists space, yep, it will be nice to have that space without her in it again! No, I'm not the artist, Silv is, but I like to pretend sometimes...lol.

Another reason I haven't been around much is because I went out and bought myself a present. A pair of cross-country ski's, poles, and shoes, and now I have to teach myself how to use them. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be let me tell you! Oh yeah, guess how much I paid for all that!?! Chances are you'll be wrong, but I won't tell you for a little while yet.

Anyway, I'll be off for now, gotta see some other peoples blogs. Hopefully I won't be so long in returning here. Cheers all, and I hope your New Year went well :)

I'm Gettin' Nothing for Christmas

2009-12-15T15:43:00.000-06:00

IIIIII'MMMM BAAAAA-AAAACK!

2009-12-14T15:54:00.000-06:00

Well ok, not on a very regular basis, but I'll try to keep up with everyone. How's that sound? Yeah yeah yeah, I hear you muttering "She'll try she says, sheesh, like what's that supposed to mean?" Well I'll tell you what that means, it means that I'm on dial-up which means very slow access to the internet. It also means that I'm busy with work especially considering the season and it means I'll be doing my best to come around and visit everybody on a regular basis. I hope that satisfies you nay sayers.

*sticks out tongue, laughs and does a happy dance singing, "I'm back, whoohooo, I'm back, yay me*

Please Bare With Me

2009-11-14T06:04:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry to tell you that between work and packing to move I only get about an hour or so before work on the computer if I get up early enough. After that, once the move is complete I'll have dial-up internet access but hopefully more time.

Today is going to be an interesting day I'll tell you! I start work this morning at 8 and yet here I woke up at 5 for absolutely no good reason, I'll probably be working till shortly after lunch but will be back to work for 5 this evening working till 8. I've never worked an evening shift in the restaurant before and so don't know how to make any of the dinner antrees. Oh well, gotta learn something new every day, right!?! Trouble is I specialize in breakfast, more specifically omelettes and quiche, that's where I shine, funnily enough, I don't like either!

Anyway, while I'm away at work today, the kid is going to puppy-sit Lucifer while he baby-sits her and Silv will be moving a bunch of the big stuff up to his place, (lawn mower, BBQ, that kind of stuff). Yep folks, I'm taking the plunge and moving in with Silv. Up till now we've had our own homes which suited us just fine. We are always together either at our country home (Silv's place) or at our town-house (my place), but we are both sick of the travelling between homes and town life so we're giving that up for a more relaxed country life. Yeah right, like country living will be more relaxed! Bigger yard to take care of, wood to collect all summer and fall for winter heat, snow to try to clean up all winter, no neighbors driving us nuts, (YAY!!!), no sounds of traffic all night and day, a BIG yard for this BIG dog to run around in, fresh air, nearest neighbor is a half mile away as the crow flies, space for a garden to be able to have fresh herbs and vegetables, and so it goes. Ok ok so it will be more relaxing, just a little more work!

So saying, I'm really looking forward to this move even if it does mean a 20 mile drive to work every day as opposed to 4 blocks, but the pro's definitely out-weigh the cons!

This Years Pumpkins

2009-11-01T15:49:00.000-06:00

Ok so, the kid is getting to be as good as I am at carving. Yep, she carved all of those up above. Didn't take her long either! I however only did two and they are as follows. Take a wild guess at which one took me ten hours from start to finish!?!

The witch you say? Well for that I'll laugh at you, just as you're laughing that I would waste 10 valuable hours on one pumpkin. Yes, The Green Man is the one that took me 10 whole bloody hours! I had some other templates I had wanted to do, but damn having spent so much time on one carving took all my interest in doing detailing out of me for the year. To be fair the 3 I showed you from last years carvings each took me longer, but that's because I designed the templates and I count that into the time spent as well. These I just took some templates from the net that I had found and went with them. So the time spent includes everything from hollowing out of the pumpkin all the way through the transfering of the pattern to the peeling and then the deep cutting. No, not one of my carvings (or Becca's) are all the way through the gourd, they are all just peeling areas and cutting different depths for brightness.

To preserve our pumpkins so they last a little longer than normal, after carving we wash them with a bleach solution to kill off bacteria. Even our scalpels and knives are sterilized before we start. Then, once washed and patted dry, we coat them inside and out with vaseline so they don't dry out and end up "peeling" back in the carved areas, enlarging cuts that shouldn't be enlarged any further. Another tip for future carving success is to never open the pumpkin at the top. If you look at the witch with the cauldron, you'll see a glow at the bottom of it. That's where I opened them up and hollowed them out from. The reason for this is simple, when you light up a pumpkin you heat it, that heat causes moisture to evaporate out of the pumpkin. What happens when water evaporates you ask, well it goes up into the atmosphere. If there are no cuts through the pumpkin at the top, the moisture has no place to go other than to run back down the inside getting reaborbed into the meat of the pumpkin, thereby helping it to last longer and not dry out so quickly.

Now that you know my carving secrets I hope to see you put them to use next year and show me your carvings!

Cheers, and I hope you all had a safe and wonderful night!

Coming Soon To A Blog Near You

2009-11-01T05:36:00.000-06:00

Well now that Halloweens over I'm not spending all my time carving pumpkins and decorating for Halloween. I still have to take some pictures of the pumpkins that Becca and I carved, but they will be posted up here soon. I hope you all had a safe and fun night!

Pumpkins, Templates and Photos

2009-10-03T11:04:00.000-05:00

Well, those are the pumpkins of my kids that I carved last year, I suppose all that you need now is to see the pictures that I used to create the templates and if I can find them, the templates themselves. That however, could be quite difficult as they're on my computer which isn't working at the moment ergh! The pictures will be easy to find and add here, I have them saved to disk, it's just the templates that are a problem. If I'm lucky I may just find them in an e-mail that I had sent off to Kat shortly after carving the pumpkins originally! Keep your fingers crossed Ladies and Germs, the game is now afoot! ;)

Well unfortunately I can't find the templates, like I said, I know where they are on my computer, but that doesn't do me any good here. BUT I do have the actual pictures that I used, without further adu, I present the original school photos of my kidlets!

Now I suppose, all you need to do is look from the carved pumpkin and back to the pic and decide for yourselves what kind of a job I did. I must admit, pumpkin carving is one of my favorite obsessions...lol.

Just Another Award! :D Updated!!!!

2009-10-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

Well well well, it seems that the Cat Lady from How to Become A Cat Lady...Without The Cats has deemed it appropriate to pass on an award to me. Guess that means that I'll have to go by the rules and find 5 more people to pass it on to from here. Not only that, but I need to find 5 things that I am obsessive about apparently! That's going to be tough, but hey, I'm always up for a challenge ;)

Thankfully those are the only conditions to this award so here I sit at the library trying to come up with 5 things that I obsess over. Like I said, not easy to do, but I'll try!

I suppose that first off I obsess over books, I love to read and spend a good deal of time doing so. For that matter you should see my spare bedroom! I've turned it into a library and must have close to 5oo books in there (if you count all the Condensed Reader's Digest novels). Aside from the books written in German and some of the history books along with the set of Encyclopedia's I think I've read them all. Seeing as I can't read nor understand any language other than English, chances are pretty good I'll never read the German books!

If reading is my first obsession, then playing Sudoku and Jigoku have to be my second. I don't know if you've heard of those puzzles (probably have), but I find them a great deal of fun. In fact, I enjoy Sudoku so much that I've bought the board game and play against my kid on a regular basis! For those not in the know, Jigoku is much like Sudoku and is played the same way only you don't get any numbers to start off with. All you get are greater and less than symbols and it can be a great challenge!

Hmmm, I guess by going by my own blog, my third obsession has to be gardening! If you don't believe me on that one, just go through my blog and look at all my posts about my flower beds...lol.

Fourthly, I'll choose my kids as one of my obsessions. Yeah I spoil the one that lives with me horribly and the other two, well lets just say that they lack for nothing! I do love the "little" darling's to death, even when I could gladly strangle them for their pms-ing and fighting, but I think that's every mother's perogitive, isn't it?

Oh boy, now for my fifth obsession, what on earth could that one be!?! Oh, I know, how about being creative? Either here in my blog, in comments to others or when drawing, playing with clay or carving pumpkins! Yep, that's a good obsession to admit to! In all of these options for this particular obsession blogging and pumpkin carving have got to be at the top of the list. I do believe that I will do a post showing you pictures of both my kids and the pumpkinds that I turned them into last year. I think that will best explain and give example to my obsession. I find it incredibly satisfying to find a picture that I like and first turn it into a template and then go further and turn that template into a pumpkin carving. When it works, it sure is Wonderful!!!!

Now for my 5 recipients of this award, who shall they be, who shall they be? Well, this is something I'll have to think about, but for now I'm almost out of time here at the library! So I will give this post an update the next time I manage to get around here! I'm only allowed 1 hour/day and the library is closed on Sunday's and Monday's, not only that but it will be a few more days before I get another day off work so you may just need to wait a week before I have a chance to update this post! My most humble of appologies on that!

Ok, it's now Thursday morning and I do believe that I've got my updates ready! Yay me...lol! Sorry for the long wait, but today is my day off and I've comandeered Silv's computer while he sleeps :D

Now the much anticipated 5 recipients, in no particular order:

Nanodance from Callithump Thunderblog!

And then there's Probablydontlikeyou from I Probably Don't Like You, but don't take it seriously.

We can't forget about Mango Girl now can we? Nope, not even a little bit, so here's the link to her of at Ramblings from Mango Girl!

Poppy from Poppy's Dream Fields always has something of interest to read as well. Between her and her mom Minka over at Stirring My Thoughts, I'm actually learning a bit about Europe :)

Congratulations all of you, I can't wait to find out what your obsessions are!

At Long Last!

2009-10-01T12:03:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since I've visited most of you, ok fine, any of you, but I'll be around sometime today or Saturday!

Anyway, on to the reason of this post :)

I had promised that today is the day that you will all learn the winner of my contest to name my homemade granola. Well, I couldn't come up with just one winner, so one person gets the honor of naming the granola and the other has named the trail mix version! Yep, you heard correctly, I've chosen to give this award to two people!

Reforming Geek from Confessions of a Reforming Geek has won the award for naming my granola "Blue Skye's Harvest Granola. Thank you Reffie for your entries and patience in recieving your award!

Etta Rose from Sanity on Edge is the winner for her entry "Skye Crunch" for the trail mix!

Thank you all for your participation and suggestions! There were a lot of good ones to choose from, and some that were just fun to read. I have to admit, it was a really tough choice, thanks again :)

Here's your award to grab Ladies!

You Have This Week Only, Get Your Name In Now!

2009-09-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

So far we have a few contestants for naming my homemade Granola! If you click on this link you can still put in a name for the granola yourself and win not only a lovely award made by Swallow, but also a sample of my granola. So hurry up and get your suggestions in because you only have till the 19th. Winner will be posted on October 1st!

Oh yes, I had better give you that link there is also a link with the pic on the right hand of this page it's the award you'll win), it's here at A Contest? Oh yes, a contest!

What Starts With "F" And Ends With "K"?

2009-09-12T06:29:00.000-05:00

A first-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, "Harry, what's your problem?"

Harry answered, "I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!"

Ms. Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office.

While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed.

Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"
Harry: "9".

Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"
Harry: "36".

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should know.

The principal looks at Ms. Brooks and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the 3rd grade."

Ms. Brooks says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions."

The principal and Harry both agreed.

Ms. Brooks asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"
Harry, after a moment: "Legs."

Ms. Brooks: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"
The principal wondered, why would she ask such a question!
Harry replied: "Pockets."

Ms. Brooks: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"
Harry: "Pants"

Ms. Brooks: What's starts with a C, ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin, whitish liquid?
Harry: "Coconut."

The principal sat forward with his mouth hanging open.

Ms. Brooks: "What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?"

The principal's eyes opened really wide and before he could stop the answer.

Harry: "Bubble gum"

Ms. Brooks: "What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down
and a dog does on three legs?"
Harry: "Shake hands."

The principal was trembling.
Ms. Brooks: "What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of heat and excitement?"
Harry: "Firetruck"

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last seven questions wrong......"

Two Pairs Make 4 Pears? Or Is It 2 Pears Makes 4?

2009-09-08T15:13:00.000-05:00

Silv and I were cruising through some recipe's and found one we would really like to try. Unfortunately I can't find it at the moment! Doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post considering that I am not writing about the recipe but rather about the ensuing conversation.

You see the main ingredients were Brie cheese (one of my fav's) and the ever so lovely fruit, the Pear!

Now Silv seems to have a problem with the name of this fruit as it's not a pair of anything. When you have just the one it's a 'single' (or so he claims). He also asked me, "Skye, if you have 2 Pears does that really mean you have 4? Really, "says he,"everyone knows that when you have 2 pairs of anything you have 4 of any 1 thing! And therefore 2 Pears should be 4 singles!"

And on he went about how Pears were so thoroughly mis-named. You truly haven't heard someone talk about a topic of any sort until you've heard Silv or someone much like him, go into a long disertation on the topic. That is exactly what he did here. I really wish that I had recorded him so that I could transcribe it for you now, but as it is, I've forgotten 90% of what he had said.

A Pear?

Or is that 2 Pears?

A Contest? Oh Yes, A Contest!

2009-09-04T19:35:00.000-05:00

Oh my, here I am sitting with a nice glass of wine eating a fresh french baguette and writing a post. Somehow there is something wrong with this picture, but oh my my my this tastes delicious!

Any-who’s-it on with the post! I have a need, a great need, that I hope you, my readers, can fulfill. Well ok, at least one of you at any rate :D

My need you ask? It’s simple, I need a name for my granola. My plan is to start making granola next year and sell it at the local farmer’s market along with at a few others perhaps. BUT I need a name for it and I can’t come up with one. That’s where you, my readers, come in. You see, I’m going to hold a bit of a contest. The person who comes up with the best name for my granola gets this award along with the prestige of knowing that they came up with the best name. Maybe if I feel so generous I’ll even throw in a present of some of said granola.

Oh yes, how remiss of me! I overheard someone whispering “How are we supposed to come up with a name if we don’t know the ingredients?” Don’t deny it, I know I heard someone say it, I just can’t place the voice! heheheee

The ingredients tend to vary depending on what I can get a hold of in regards to dried fruits, but generally this is what I toss in:

Old fashioned rolled oats
Coconut
Almonds
Walnuts
Hazelnuts
Honey
Oil
Raisins
Cranberries

These are the dried fruits I add extra when I can find them at a reasonable price:

Banana Chips
Pineapple
Papaya
Mango
Peaches
Apricots
Dates
Apples

And these nuts get tossed in when I want something a little different (either some or all, depends):

Sunflower seeds
Peanuts
Cashews
Pecans
Brazil nuts
Oh hell, anything I can find that looks tasty really…lol.

Now sometimes I take a part of the first part of the recipe and make a granola bar type of thing which I then proceed to break up into small bite size chunks. From there, I take just the nuts and dried fruits in a large abundance and add some M&M’s to make a nice salty but a still sweet trail mix kind of a snack food. I’m thinking of making that for selling as well. All in all, this granola recipe makes about a one month supply of breakfast cereal for the kid and me and costs roughly around $30 (Canadian) to make, not bad when you think about the health food benefits compared to the crap you buy in the store. The closest I can compare it to health and ingredient wise would be Quaker Harvest Crunch Cereal, but this has oh so much more in it and tastes much better besides!

So, the more help I can get the better! Thanks to all who try to help me out with this, I’ll be leaving the competition open for at least 2 weeks and then I’ll probably end up taking as long to decide on which name I like the best, hopefully not that long though!

Ok, I just looked at the calendar, the competition itself will be kept open till September 19th and the winning entry will be posted on October 1st. I will do my utmost best to keep to that schedule, but chances are that if I find a name that I really love upon first sight, I’ll stick to that one but can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to hold my tongue for that week and a half, I've never been that good at keeping my own secrets. Other's secrets, yes, my own, not so much…lol.

I Love The English Language...

2009-09-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

...truly I do, which is why I've studied it so faithfully. Now you may be asking, what is this all about? Well, I'll tell you. English has to be one of the most confusing languages, there are so many different things about the language such as same spellings with different pronunciations and meanings, and same pronunciations with different spellings and meanings, not to mention same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning. See what I mean, if not why don't you try this on for size?

He brought his bow to the bow of the ship and proceeded to bow to the captain. That was when he noticed the pine bough being swung at his head!

Then there is always the rule about "I" before "E" except after "C" and in words such as neighbor and weigh. What about words such as Rottweiler, or weird? There's no "c" in either of those words, nor is there the "gh" that is in neighbor and weigh.

Speaking of the "gh" causes another bit of confusion with it sometimes being silent and sometimes sounding like an "f". For example we've got words like enough, sounds like an "f”, BUT then there are words like neighbor and weigh (to use the same examples as before). Confusing, don't you think?

And if that's not confusing enough for you, here are a few more confusing examples:

Through
Though
Trough

All start with "t" all end in "ough" but not once is that combination pronounced the same.

What else is there about the English Language that we can find to be confusing?

How about this? There was a tear in my eye when I saw the tear in my dress!

Or this? I read a book that I was told was a really good read about the different shades of red.

Then there's this: Where did you wear that?

Or this: I hear there is a good restaurant around here.

This one is from Munchkin: He was vain about his veins popping out when he was working out, and also vain about what he thought of as his most superior looking weather vane.

Want some more confusion? I will not try to untie that knot going 100 naught’s!

Then there are the "f" sounds with the "ph" spelling such as photograph. Are you getting confused yet?

Here's a post that goes beyond spelling things phonetically, I hope you can all read it by the end. I have a question though, why isn't the word phonics and all it's compatriots spelled phonetically? If they were, they'd be spelled with the "f" instead of "ph" don't ya think?

And if you truly want to be confused by correctly spelled but improperly used words, check out this post Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer.

Here is some more phonetic fun for you to enjoy! Yes a couple of these posts are rather old, one is from my blog of the alter ego and another fairly recent. I just hope that you enjoy them all :D

That's all I have for today, but just so you know, I had all this nonsense running through my head and just had to share it will all of you. Hope I didn't confuse you too much.

Scribble's Everywhere!

2009-08-29T15:13:00.000-05:00

It seems that all my scribbling has paid off yet again! The Fantabulous Quirkyloon has seen fit to give me another award to add to my collection on the right side of this page. Apparently though, this award has a few rules and regulations one of them being that I have to now find 5 more recipients and pass it on to them. Now who should I pick? Hmmmmmm, that's a tough one, I guess I'll be cruising through my list of bloggers I follow and see just whom I have yet to pass an award to. Then again, I may just decide to give a person or two this award even if I've given them one before already. After all, I've given out a few and don't really know to whom I've all passed on awards and meme's. Oh well, them's the breaks I suppose :D

Without further ado I shall now let you in on all the rules and reg's. The thing is though, that I'm going to cheat to do this, I'm just doing a quick copy & paste from Quirky's blog. Why should I go to all the work of typing it all out when she's already done such a great job of it!?! So I'm lazy, who cares! I've had a long day at work and don't feel like doing a lot of typing ok!?! Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it :D

*Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

*Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

*Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this Post, Mr. Linky which explains The Award.

*Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

Now to find my list of 5, who shall it be, who shall it be?

Oh, I know, yep yep yep I do I do, and in no particular order, here be the newest recipients of this most prestigious award!

Kathcom, over at Magick Sandwich

Jenn Thorson from Of Cabbages and Kings

Otin, The Wizard

ThinkinFYou is another one of my choosing.

And last, but certainly not least, I give you Dizzblnd over at Soggy-Doggy-Bloggy

I hope you all enjoy this little award!

Eye halve a spelling chequer

2009-08-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.

-- Sauce Unknown

2009-08-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

Ok, so it's been a real long time since I've posted anything new. Well today I'm posting a bunch of pictures that I've taken over the last couple of years. I got the inspiration from Flydragon with her pic of her favorite spot to sit. These pictures are of my favorite views from Silv's place.

You can't tell very well from this pic, but that is a log cabin! Perhaps I'll be able to find some better pictures to put up in another post, but for now this shot of Silv's home will have to do. With any amount of luck, this will be my home as well before the snow flies, not just my second home. First though, we have to dig up some space for all my flowers to be transfered to. That will be a bit of a chore seeing as Silv has a lot of flower beds already, but I'm so looking forward to it!

Here I'm overlooking the pond that's in the next picture. I'm sitting at the west end of the pond, and as you can see from the next view, I've taken that pic from half way down the pond looking west. In that pic, you can't see the tree that I was sitting in because I've aleady walked about half a mile trying to find the end of the pond. One of these day's I'll actually walk the whole length just to see exactly how big it is, but not today.

In case you're wondering, this pond is about a quarter mile down in the valley below Silv's house. At the bottom of the valley is the Pembina River which flows right through Silv's southern most part of property and is just a few meter's north of the U.S. border.

See these butterfly's? I took that pic on the front steps of Silv's house. Yes, he built the steps from stones and did an absolutely marvelous job of it! I know I didn't do the butterfly's any justice with this pic, but hey, I'm no photographer...lol. Those butterfly's are called Painted Lady's and are really much more beautiful in real life, not to mention when shot in focus as opposed to being so blurry like this! They're just a small sampling of the wildlife out at Silv's. I keep trying to get a shot of the Woodchuck's that live in his wood pile, but they're clever little buggers and disappear at the first sign of a camera. I swear they believe I'll steal their souls by taking their picture's!

These last 4 pics are of almost the same place looking out over Silv's front yard. Somewhere down there is that pond that I showed you up above. The first 2 are with the river fog and it sure makes you feel like you can just walk out onto the fog and keep going straight out all the way across the valley and into the states. Some day's it feels so majical that you can almost see dragons swooping and soaring in and out of the fog :)

By the way, it really doesn't make much sense to me, but the magority of these pics were taken with black and white film and yet have some color to them. If you can explain to me the reason for color on black and white, it'll be much appreciated!

How Do You Feel About Dogs?

2009-08-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

The other day, Silv and I went for a walk with Lucifer. In case you don’t know, Lucifer is an oversized Doberman. He weighs in at roughly 145 lbs. and is 30 some inches at the shoulder. A normal Doberman measures in at about 28 inches, so you can see that he is somewhat big for his breed!

Anyway, we decided to go to the vendor. I had Silv wait outside with Luke while I went in and picked up some beer. Standing there waiting my turn, I couldn’t help but overhear one side of a conversation the guy in front of me was having on his cell.

“You f*&^’n whore, you’ll be ready when I get there!”

“No, you’re going to get your ass off the couch, get dressed and be ready!”

“What did I just say? You will be ready when I get there, I want to leave a.s.a.p.!”

“I’m telling you Bitch, you will be ready. I’ll be there in 10 minutes!”

“You g damned f’n slut, you’ll be ready or I’ll leave you behind!”

Anyway, you get the drift of his side of the convo. I have to admit I totally wanted to deck this guy! Unfortunately before I could get a chance to, he left and it was my turn to order and pay up.

I was going to tell Silv about what I overheard, but he was laughing too hard. Apparently when this guy left the vendor he saw Luke. What Silv heard of the guys phone convo went like this.

“Big dog, ve-ve-ve-very big dog, big Big BIG dog. Oh, very big dog. Oh my, very big Dog!” and so it went till he got in his truck and overhearing conversation was no longer possible.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I told Silv how he was talking to whom I can only assume is his girlfriend. Here he is giving her shit and grief only to become tongue-tied over a dog that is just standing there. Luke hadn’t growled, barked or even risen his hackles. He had just been standing there with his typical stupid-assed grin and this guy lost it. The girl on the other end of the convo must have been seriously wondering what this tough guy was so scared of. First to be yelled at the way she was and then to just hear stuttering and stammering like that, yep, I’d wonder too!

These first 5 pictures were taken 2 years ago when Silv first adopted Luke, the following 2 were taken just an hour or so ago. Now keep in mind that I'm 5' 4" tall.

Take this following picture for example. Here he is standing on the normal level on the ground as opposed to standing on the compost heap as he is in the pic above as well as in the pic 2 down from this one.

Remember how high he was standing at the fence just a pic or two ago? Same fence, same ground level, obviously he's not standing to his full potential here!

Unfortunately with these last 2 pics that Silv just took, Luke wouldn't co-operate and stand up. He decided that the only way his pic was going to be taken was if he was lying down!

Life Imitating Cartoons, hmmm shouldn't that be the other way around!?!

2009-08-01T07:04:00.000-05:00

Thursday at work I had been doing the prep work for the kitchen. You see some days I do prep and some I do the cooking, well Thursday just happened to be a prep day for me. My whole prep area is roughly 14' x 30' with a stainless steel table taking up most of the space in the center, it's 4' x 10', a closet that runs the length of the table on one side and the doors to the walk-in fridge and freezers on the other side of the table. Oh yeah, both sides also have shelving along the walls where there isn't closet or cooler doors! At the end of the table are two prep sinks that were being worked on with a 3 foot space and then another counter running perpendicular to where I work for all the dirty pots and pans and such and this has another 3 large sinks plus a garbarator which is where I do all the large dishes that the dishwasher doesn't do over at his end of the kitchen. (The dishwasher only washes the busbins and the restaurant dishes, none of the stuff that the cooks dirty, that's the prep's job). At the end of this set of sinks is the delivery door where everyone keeps throwing their empty boxes and bags of garbage! Anyway one of the taps for my prep sinks was leaking so our maintanance guy was back there working on it while I was busy cutting veggies and stuff.

Now this tap has been leaking as long as I've worked there. Oh the maintanance guy (MG) has "fixed" it before, but the leak has never truly been stopped. So here's MG busily working away on the sink constantly in my way, oh well, that's life in a busy kitchen, everyone is always in everyone elses way. While MG was busy working on the sink, the dishwasher (DW) was busy cleaning up empty boxes from in front of the delivery door. There was a huge stack that he had to break down and take to the dumpters, along with garbage that the waitresses have thrown there and that DW has collected from all the different areas of the kitchen. MG and DW were chatting up a storm about absolutely nothing (well ok, it was DW doing all the talking) and across the table from me one of the waitresses was busy portioning out salad dressings so that it would be quick and easy for them to just grab a dressing and a dinner salad and serve it without having to wait forever! So, in my small working space I have MG, DW and a waitress along with myself, pretty crowded, but workable. Especially considering that all but MG are 5'4 or smaller and none of us 3 weigh in at more than 125 lbs with DW being the smallest of the 3. Yep, he's 4 years older than I am and built like a jockey with the brain of a 6 or 7 year old. He is one strange duck I must tell you!

Now to fully appreciate where I'm going with all this info about work you also need to know approximately what MG looks like. He's close to 6 feet tall and has to be around 180 to190 lbs and fairly fit, he's not exactly jockey material like DW is!

Back to the story. Here's DW busily talking up a storm and breaking up boxes when he gets to one that is ever so slightly stubborn and doesn't want to come apart. He's pulling and tearing at the box and getting rather frustrated as he has a tendancy of doing. Finally DW just gets right mad and punches into the center of the box ripping a whole in the cardboard. Looking over at MG, he says "MG, it sure pays to have a lot of muscle like us, huh!?!"

I look at MG, look back at DW, back to MG, back again to DW and the waitress walks away saying, "Skye, don't say it, just don't go there!" and she closes herself up in the pantry and you can hear her laughing up a storm! I wasn't trying to be funny nor a smartass, I was just looking at MG and DW and seeing the old Bugs Bunny cartoon of the bulldog Spike and his little yappy sidekick Chester, where they see a cat. Spike figures he'll take care of this cat, but it's a panther and it scares him, the yappy sidekick only sees Sylvester and well, you know the story. It's not the taking care of the cat part that I'm thinking of here, it's the beginning of the skit where Chester gets slapped to the side and told to shut-up because he's bothering Spike, only to keep coming back for more.

You can see where I'm going here, right!?! The difference in size between MG and DW is much the same as the difference between Spike and his loyal yappy sidekick, attitudes/behaviour pretty much match up as well! When DW said "...it sure pays to have musles like us..." I kept a straight face with pretty much nothing for expression, all I did was bounce my eyes back and forth between the two. MG was looking at me with a smirk on his face when the waitress started to laugh so loudly, he got what I was thinking! But DW, not so much, when he was done with the boxes and had everything organized, he actually asked me what that was all about! He seriously did not understand why the waitress had to leave without finishing what she was doing, in order to break up laughing like that!

Trouble is, when you have to explain a joke, it's just not funny anymore. And really, I had no interest in explaining a joke to someone who throws temper tantrums at the drop of a hat, especially considering he himself was the joke!

Every Win Something?

2009-07-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

Normally when you win something it comes to you free, right? Ok, so play along with me here for a moment and all will come clear.

You see, I keep getting these calls from automated telemarketers for everything from paying too much interest on my credit cards to the warranty on my car running out. Yesterday the automated call was ever so slightly different. I've had this call before so I knew what was coming so I decided to have fun with it. This time I wasn't being told how I could save money, I was told I won a trip for 4, all expenses paid to Barbados! Yes, an all expenses paid vacation! Wow, lucky me!

Uh huh, not so much, you see, I've listened to the rest of this spiel before! Someone who shops at Macy's, Eaton's, Sears or some other such store entered my name for this competition. Yep, sure they did, first I don't know anyone who shops at any of these types of stores, second none of these stores exist in this little hick town I live in, so I know that wasn't true! As this automated telemarketer was saying her thing, I started making comments and I asked a question and that's when it happened!

Before I get into the question that I asked, let me ask you how rude does a person need to be in order to get an automated telemarketer to hang up on you? Let me remind you, this telemarketer is AUTOMATED, that means that it's a recording! You didn't think you could be rude enough to have a recording hang up on YOU did you? Well, it's possible, and this is how it's done. See, you have to listen to their nonsense at least once to fully know what it is they are trying to get from you, then the next time you call, you play!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know it's automated what's the point in playing? Well guess what!?! Even automated calls have real live operators listening in just waiting to pounce as soon as you press the right number! Oh yes they do, don't tell me I'm full of it! How do you think that an automation can hang up on you if there weren't someone listening in, hmmmmmmm?

Anyway, I'm rambling so back to my point. Yesterday I got this call that I had won a trip to Barbados, all expenses paid no less! The thing of it is though, what I learned having previously listened to this rabble was that this trip I supposedly won was going to cost me $99.99 per person, plus I'd have to drive down to New York City in order to claim my prize. Nice free trip, huh!?!

So my question to this automation was "Yep, a FREE trip to Barbados and all it was going to cost me was a 2 day drive, the hotel bill for staying the night on the way there, $99.99 per person and then whatever costs were incurred while in New York before I can even claim my prize, right?" Well, that's what I WAS going to ask, but the line went dead when I got to the "and all it's going to cost me part". Apparently the person listening in wasn't too happy that I was aware that in order to collect this "prize" I had to pay a small fortune! I hadn't even mentioned that I'd have to get a passport for myself along with whoever I was going to take along!

So, do you think I was rude? I don't think so, I think I was just having fun. It's my right as a citizen to be able to have fun even at the expense of an automation :D I do so enjoy seeing just how long one of these automated calls takes before it hangs up on me. I have to admit sometimes I can't be rude enough, sometimes, just sometimes, I'm the one who ends up doing the hanging up as the person listening in must be enjoying the joke more than me!

Cream Soup and Char

2009-07-20T15:19:00.000-05:00

Quirky challenged me to write a re-do of Green Eggs and Ham, and well, I accepted her challenge! She's already posted hers earlier today and did a wonderful job of it, I suggest you go and check out what she's writ! Unfortunately mine doesn't rhyme anywhere near so nicely as hers does, but in my defense, it's incredibly hard to incorporate the food items on our menu with a Dr. Seuss rhyme...lol. By the way, tell Quirky I sent you if you haven't been there yet :D

Green Eggs and Ham, changed to Cream Soup and Char

By Dr. Seuss and transposed to work for work by Skye :D

I are Skye
I are Skye
Skye I are

That Skye-I-are!
That Skye-I-are!
I do not like
that Skye-I-are!

Do you like
Cream soup and Char?

I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.
I do not like
Cream soup and Char.

Baked Onion Soup,
Sirloin Steak?

Teriyaki Chicken
Caesar?
Jambalaya,
Quesadilla?
I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.

Would you like them
in a house?
Would you like them
with a mouse?

I do not like them
in a house.
I do not like them
with a mouse.
I do not like Cream soup and Char.
I do not like them, Skye-I-are.

Would you, could you
In a car?
Eat them! Eat them!
Here they are.

You may like them.
You will see.
You may like them
in a tree!

I would not, could not in a tree.
Not in a car! You let me be.

A Wrap! A Wrap!
A Wrap! A Wrap!
Could you, would you,
Eat a Wrap?

Won’t eat that crap! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! Skye! Let me be!

Say!
In the dark?
We keep it dark!
Would you, could you, in the dark?

I would not, could not,
in the dark.

Would you, could you, in the rain?

I would not, could not,
in the rain.
You do not like
Cream soup and Char?

I do not
like them,
Skye-I-are.

I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!

I do not like
Cream soup
and Char!

I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

Skye!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.

Say!
I like Cream soups and Char!
I do! I like them, Skye-I-are!
Perhaps I’d like Baked Onion Soup,
Sirloin Steak, Teriyaki Chicken Caesar,
Jambalaya, Quesadilla!

And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good, so good, you see!

And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!

I do so like
Cream soups and Char!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Skye-I-are!

Wakey Wakey Silv!

2009-07-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, so today is my b-day and Silv was absolutely clueless! Hmmm, perhaps I should tell you the story from the beginning.

The first thing I do on a morning that I’m not working, is check my e-mail. Silv had been up for a while already and I had gotten my coffee and first cigarette of the day when I logged on to check the mail. First message of the day came from Quirky, not a b-day message as she didn’t know, but just a note about her challenge to me in regards to Dr. Seuss posts. I’ll be putting that one up later today. The other message was a “Happy Birthday from MSWorld!”

So I say’s to Silv, I say’s “Aww, ain’t that sweet, MSWorld sent me a birthday message.”

And he says, “Isn’t that nice.”

Nothin’ else, no Happy Birthday Skye, no nothin’ nada, zip, zilch, no acknowledgement on it at all! Now that really doesn’t bother me, I couldn’t care less about birthdays, but I waited for the light to come on anyway. Well, it didn’t!

Almost 2 hours later, Becca comes in (she and I had been sleeping under the stars last night by the fire), and she asked me when I came in. I told her that it had been at midnight last night because the ground was hurting these old bones of mine.

Then she asked me, get this “Are you ready for your presents?”

And Silv says, “Presents? Is it your birthday? Oh, it is your birthday! Happy Birthday!”

And I say’s, “It only took you 2 hours to clue in Silv, you’re such a Maroon! Why do you think that MSWorld sent me a Happy Birthday Wish?” I was laughing the whole time I said this of course :D

And he say’s, “It just totally went over my head, just whooooosh, right over. It never dawned on me that you’d get a birthday wish because it’s your birthday!”

And so Becca gave me a card that she made out of foamy art supply stuff, some beads, specifically leaves, a rose, a butterfly and a ladybug, and topped it off with a heart sticker. No words, just a nice scene of flowers, bushes and trees. She also made me a bookmark using a large star bead tied to a friendship bracelet with heart beads tied in at the bottom. She made this in all my favorite colors! Last but not least, she made me a Morocco Drum, so I used it right away and played the “Happy Birthday to me” song. It really was sweet of her, she always makes me my gifts and cards.

And still we laughed at Silv for not remembering my birthday. Granted, the only birthday we ever really celebrate is Becca’s, but she’s been talking about mine non-stop for the last week now, and Silv just never clued in.

To be honest, this has got to be the funniest birthday morning I have ever enjoyed!

How Much Water Do You Drink?

2009-07-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

I don’t remember how the topic came up, but quite some time ago I was chatting with a co-worker about drinking water. I told her that I generally drink 4 to 6 cups a day, and these aren’t small cups either, they’re big-ass beer mugs! She asked me how I could drink so much water, and I’m thinkin’ it’s not really all that much when it comes right down to it. I drink coffee in the mornings and then drink water the rest of the day. Unless of course Silv and I buy some beer, scotch or wine, then I drink that along with the water.

Anyway, she’s telling me that her doctor wants her to start drinking more water as well. She was having some kind of problem and having more fluids would help relieve that problem. She told me though that she just couldn’t bring herself to drink that much water.

I’m wondering what the heck was her problem? I had already seen her drink 3 cups of water just that morning while I had only put back 2 cups of coffee! She asked me how I managed to drink so much water in any given day and if that didn’t make me sit on the pot all day long, because it sure made her do so!

4 to 6 cups of water made her sit on the pot all day? Why? I didn’t get it, I just didn’t understand why she couldn’t drink that amount of water. She told me that she even had her alarm set to wake her during the night so she could drink more water. I’m like WHAT, that’s just insane!

Finally I got down to the crux of the matter and damn did I laugh! When I got myself under some semblance of control I explained during bursts of laughter and giggles, that she wasn’t supposed to drink fourTEE-six glasses of water but four TO six. She didn’t quite see the humor as I did, but she did give me a sheepish look and fessed up to having been drinking 23 glasses a day. Jesus I laughed till I cried and then I laughed some more. She wasn’t very happy with me laughing so much, but I just couldn’t help it.

She quit work and moved to Alberta shortly after that, I don’t know if it was because of how embarrassed she was or if it really was because she met some guy on the internet, either way, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Probably better that way as I’d never let her live this down :D

2009-07-12T18:34:00.000-05:00

Well everything but the Lily's in the North Garden are done blooming now, and they've only just got buds on them! So saying there will be a pic of them when they open up :) Just so you know, all my pics should be clickable for enlarging should you be interested!

The rest of these are more pics of the flowers in the south beds as well as my mint patch which I hadn't taken pictures of up till now. The patch doesn't look so pretty at the moment, after taking the pic Silv when and cut them all down. Whoohoo, now I have fresh mint leaves for tea, yay, I do love fresh mint tea!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I have gnomes running around my gardens. Trouble is, as soon as they realize you're looking at them, they freeze. I've never been able to get an actual action shot of them, oh well, perhaps next time *shrugs shoulders*

Last year I only had one bloom on my peonies bush, lucky me, this year I have two! Sorry for the blurry photos though guys, don't know what's wrong with me to take such icky pic's :(

Ah Poppies, lovely flowers. Not a perennial, true, but they sure do reseed themselves from year to year! This one just decided to come up in this bed on it's own this year. Up till now I've only had them along my fence line further south than this particular bed is. Soon I'll have some pics of the actual Poppy Bed which also has some Virginia Creeper in it.

Yep, that's my rain barrel peeking out from behind the Lily's alright! As for the Lily's, well, I know, I took the pic after the first blooms were already done. But no worries, I still have 2 or 3 other kinds of Lily's that need to bloom, they're all budding now, so it shouldn't take much longer for them!

Ah yes, the Day Lily's, a new bloom every day. Sadly they only last a day, but at least there's always at least one fresh bloom all summer long! Yep, another little Gnome, kinda cute though, don't ya think?

Have you ever seen Geraniums like this? I never have prior to my mom's having given them to me. They bloom all summer and are really quite pretty. Trouble is, these things don't quit, I mean, once they start blooming, they take over the whole yard! I have 2 that I want to keep, they lie on either side of the Poppy Bed, this one is to the left and to the left of it is the mint patch. To the right of the other one, is the corner bed where there are a bunch of Day Lily's that have bloomed today for the first time as well as the Peonies and some Irises that haven't bloomed yet. Oh yes, I can't forget all the Pansies aka Johnny Jump-Up's that are in that corner bed along with being in the bed up against the south wall of my house!

It's Time!

2009-07-07T07:04:00.000-05:00

Not only have I finally decided who I want to give this award to, but I've also figured out exactly why it's to be given. I follow a fair number of blogs and a lot of those same people follow me, but that's not why I'm giving them this award. I'm giving it because of their honesty and candidness for their comments here, in other peoples blogs as well as in their own posts and comments to those who respond to their posts. Does any of that make sense? I hope so!

Anyway, I'm giving this award with the same rules that Etta Rose posted when she gave this to me. And that is, you can give it to whomever you want, but you don't have to give it to anyone if you don't want to! All I ask is that you accept the award in the spirit it is given, and that is the spirit of friendship and respect!

Here is my list of recipients:

Tracy over at Rambling Thoughts of the Neverending Mind

Brit over at Blunt Delivery

Minka at Stirring My Thoughts

Quirkyloon at Musings of a Quirkyloon

Bee from Bee's Musings

Poppy over there at Poppy's Dream Fields

and once again Debbie from Debbie Does Drivel (Warped)

And there you have it ladies and germs, boy's and girls of all ages, an award you can either keep to yourself or pass on and share with others! I hope all these links work, if not I'll be fixing them as soon as I get back home :)

Sorry It Took Longer Than Expected Tracy! My Eight Things

2009-07-02T19:25:00.000-05:00

Eight Things I Am Looking Forward To:

1. Seeing what a Hen-‘n’-Chick plant looks like in full bloom.
2. Every day that I have off from work.
3. Every trip to the beach.
4. Getting a new car.
5. Weeding in my garden.
6. Lilac’s being done with blooming! (I hate flower allergies!)
7. Geddingk ober dis code ind by dose! (translation, getting over this cold in my nose)
8. Becca letting me do stuff without constant interruption! (somehow I think that will be a very long time coming!)

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Walked to work at 5 am.
2. Made Cream of Broccoli Soup at work, YUCK!!!
3. Enjoyed Canada Day.
4. Walked to the beach after work.
5. Bought Nacho’s with hot cheese sauce for the first time in years to snack on while at the beach.
6. Stayed up till 10 pm! Now that’s a feat for me since starting work!
7. Visited with my sister-in-law while at the beach, haven’t seen her nor talked to her since before Christmas last year.
8. Made friends with a Pit Bull named Max!

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Speak a second language and a third to be honest, Becca is learning French in school, but around here German would be an asset!
2. Buy a car.
3. Focus on actually practicing my drawing.
4. Go camping!
5. Earn more money.
6. Roller Blade!
7. Mold clay and have it do what I want it to, there again, practice makes perfect. I just need to actually do it!
8. Win the lottery so that I can afford the things I need and want in life!

Eight Shows I Watch On TV:

1. House
2. Wipe Out
3. CSI
4. Mental
5. Law and Order
6. Bones
7. Criminal Minds
8. NCIS

These are the eight people I "Tag"...

1. Quirky from Musings of a Quirky Loon.

2. Flydragon over at A Little of This, A Little of That

3. Donna down on Carnwaths Corner

4. Debbie with all her Drivel

5. Sue from Farvel Cargo

6. Jenn Thorson over at Of Cabbages and Kings

7. EttaRose at Sanity on Edge

8. Brazen from This Brazen Teacher

...and this is your assignment should you wish to take it:

Write up your list of "Eight Things" and post them in your blog at your earliest convienience.

Well folks, I’ve finally done it! I’ve finally fulfilled my *Eight Things* list that I received from Tracy over at Rambling Thoughts of the Neverending Mind. She gave me this mission to fill way way back on April 16th. About time I finished the mission, don’t ya think!?!

Trouble is, I still have to go and figure out who I want to go giving that Sage Award from Etta to, I’ll think about that one a wee bit longer, but hopefully it won’t take as long as this has!

I'm So Lucky!

2009-06-30T16:53:00.000-05:00

Look what was given to me by Quirkyloon and Etta Rose, they're such sweet girls to think of me! :)

And guess what, this one from Quirky has no strings attatched, I don't pass it on, Yayyyyyy! Only the Zombie-rific Quirky who designed the award gets to hand it out to people she finds to be Zombie worthy, and I'm one of them, I feel so special now :D

Oh yeah, you're probably wondering what this ever so lovely award looks like, aren't you!?! Well here it is, feast your eyes on this puppy!

Etta thought I deserved this Sage Award for being a good follower of her blog, now how sweet is that!?!

Her rules? I can give it out to however many followers I want to! Now that makes picking hard as an award isn't too special if you give it to all your followers, but who do you leave out? Hmmmm this is a conundrum, I think I'll have to take some time thinking about this! After all, all my followers are special, they all add a little something whenever they comment!

How Hard Can It Be?

2009-06-26T14:21:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I had bought a 2 kg box of Ready-Cut Macaroni. At some point I opened the box up to cook up a batch of homemade mac and cheese. Fine, no problem there. A couple of days later, Silv decides that he's hungry for some mac and cheese, so he goes to get out the box of macaroni. Well heaven forbid that the guy would actually open the box from the opened end! He had to flip the box upside down and open up the sealed end! Surpringly there wasn't a mess from it, but rest assured there sure as hell was the next time I went to cook up some macaroni! Jezis F'n H Christ, macaroni everywhere! Thats when I found out that Silv had opened the box after I had, oh the insanity of it.

So, I went upstairs and got my glue gun and re-glued the box's bottom end back together. Problem solved, right!?! Wrong! 2 days later, he thinks I must have gone and gotten a new box or something because he opens it from the freshly sealed bottom end again! I told him, and told him, and done did tell him again that he was to pour the macaroni from the top of the box! But could he listen? Nooooo, of course he couldn't. This time though, I came home to a mess of raw macaroni all over my counter. The bloody bum couldn't even be bothered to clean up his mess!

No, I was not dumb enough to re-glue the box for a second time. I just decided then and there to take a plastic container and put the macaroni into it. I'm just glad he was able to understand that the lid on that container had an easy opening pouring spout, because god forbid what would happen if he were to cut it open!

At some point during this whole macaroni fiasco, he had needed some saran wrap to put something away. I had a new box, bad mistake! Instead of opening it the way it's supposed to be opened, he opened the small end and slid the whole roll out! Then he had the gall to ask me where the cutter on the box was hiding and how the hell was he supposed to be able to use it!?! Oh the shame of having a genius in the house who can't open a box correctly to save his life!

Anyway, what got me remembering that, was yesterday I bought a new box of aluminum foil. Silv needed some for the supper he was making, but because the box was still sealed shut, he brought it to me! Yes, he must have learned something from the above episodes, because instead of opening the box the wrong way, he actually brought it to me to open. What a relief! So once again, I gave him a lesson in the proper ettiquette of box opening. Perhaps he learned something, perhaps not, but at least he's learned that if he can't figure it out, he better bring it to the Woman Who Knows ;)

More Flowers

2009-06-21T07:17:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you're all getting sick of my pictures of my flower beds, but too bad, I love my flowers and I'm going to share them with you in the only way I can :P. Just kidding, I really hope you enjoy these as much as I do. I just have one question, have any of you ever seen a Hen-'n'-Chick that grows tall like this? I never have, these have never done this before and I'm curious to find out why this one's doing it now. I have quite a few of them lining the front of this particular garden, and it's just the one with the one young that's growing in this manner, really interesting I must say!

I call this a Brocolli plant because that's what it reminds me of, but I really don't know it's proper name. Around the first frost in fall, the little green buds on the top of each branch will turn a lovely crimson. It's name is something like Autumn Sunset or some such, but my memory doesn't serve me too well unfortunately!

Thank You Minka!

2009-06-13T08:32:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago Minka from Stirring My Thoughts ran a competition to see if we could guess where the grade 9 class was going for it's final school outing. I won it! Hurray, I hardly ever win anything! *doing a happy dance now*

The prize for this competition was none other than a postcard from the very place they went! It finally arrived yesterday, and I got not one, but two lovely cards! The first card has "Many greetings from a very nice trip" written on the back, and let me tell you, she has very neat handwriting! The second card has "After that nice e-mail and all that learning, I figure you deserve two postcards. Sending you sunshine from over here :)"

Thank you Minka, they are really lovely! And guess what!?! It's been raining here all spring, and with the arrival of the postcards came some nice sunshine! So you really did send me some sun too, that was a very special extra prize for guessing where you were going! Thank you so much Minka, these cards mean a lot to me :)

Yep, they went to Venice or Venezia Italy, just a few short hours from home! I'm so jealous because they got to watch actual glass blowing! She's got some great pics in her blog about the trip, so go and check them out!

Tell Me Your Most Romantic Moment!

2009-06-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

A couple of years back the local radio station was doing a show on Valentines Day about “People’s Most Romantic Moments”. The listening audience was invited to call in with what they considered to be romantic experiences they’ve had. The show was going as expected with the usual romantic dinners, getting flowers, etc., and one man even called in to tell how he had planned a weekend getaway for him and his wife on their anniversary.

And then Tina phoned in! I don’t know if I’ll be able to do her accent justice, but I will do my best. Just read the following conversation phonetically and with a nasal twang type sound and all should be well. I must say though, that it will be incredibly hard for me to intentionally spell things so incorrectly!

“Oowh Naythan, my name is Teena, and I have to tell you abowt my most romantic day! Last week mi boyfrand, well mi fiancé nyow, did thee most vonderful thang!” *Giggle* “Youh see I help him ouwt in thee piggy bern sometimes, tayking care of the wee piglyets, don’t ya know, and, and, and, suddenlee I hear-d him call fowr me to come help him with the sow’s he was washing down. So, so, so I went to whayre he waz and, and, and asked what he needed help with.” *Giggle*

“Go on Tina, what was it that your fiancé needed help with?” asked Nathan.

“Wyall Naythan, whan I got to the sow wash ayreah he opened the dowar, and you woodn’t believe whyat I saw!” *giggle*

“What was it you saw, Tina?”

“Oowh Naythan, I saw fieve piggy’s and written on theyar backs was ‘Teena, will you mayrry me?’ Oowh Naythan, it was so spyeacial! I looked over at my boyfrand, and that’s whan he gawt down on one knee and, and, and he hyeld owt a ring!” *giggle*

“Wow Tina, you mean to say that he knelt down, right there in all the pig manure and everything and proposed to you?"

“Yeahs Naythan, he did! Iy’m so happy, Iy’m going to gyet myarried! Iysn’t it romantic?”

“Yes Tina, that’s very romantic, I’m really happy for you!”

Throughout this whole conversation, you could hear Nathan in the background trying very hard not to laugh! I know had I been the D.J. I wouldn’t have been able to do it! It may have been rude, but I would have busted a gut with the way this woman was gushing over being proposed to in a pig barn of all places! I can just imagine the honeymoon now, imagine it along with me, would you?

Here’s Tina and Hubby out on a stroll down towards Trash Creek where they’re camping for the weekend. He has a beer in one hand and his fishing pole in the other. Meanwhile Tina is walking along slightly behind him and off to one side carrying a cooler with more beer and the fishing bait. That’s when they get to the fishing hole and meet up with all of Hubby’s friends and their wives and/or girlfriends. Ahhh the perfect honeymoon getaway!

Do you think they had this pic or one like it for their wedding invite? I wonder too if they had the 5 sow's at their wedding, after all, they did play an important roll at the engagement :D

Manitoba vs Maine

2009-06-04T06:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, Deb from Debbie Does Drivel loves Maine and proves it by posting why she does every week. This week it's because of Maine's desert. Well, do I have news for you, not only does she mention that they've got a desert, we here in Manitoba do as well, but she also mentions the lakes and islands. I'm pretty sure Manitoba, being bigger than Maine, has more lakes and islands though. She also points out that Maine has a coast, well guess what, so does Manitoba!

To be honest, Manitoba has a coulple of deserts, one which isn't open to the public due to the fact that it's full of live artillery from the army base in Shiloh and is used for the bases target practice area. The other is the Spirit Sands desert by Carberry and is located in Spruce Woods Provincial Park. This desert is complete with sand dunes and measures in at 4 square kilometers, roughly 1500 acres, give or take a few. What's Maine's, 47 acres?

I can guarantee you that our coast has something that Maine doesn't as well. And that is bragging rights to having the largest Polar Bear population in the world! Yes, Deb, we do get tons of tourists all over the province, thankfully not in this town too often, but in a lot of other areas :D

How about views like this? Have you ever seen anything so beautiful over the water in your neck of the woods?

What else was there Deb loved so well in her most recent post on Maine? Oh yes, lakes and islands, let's see how Manitoba's compare, shall we? :D Manitoba is known as "The Land of the 100 000 Lakes" with Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipegosis, and Lake Winnipeg being the largest. Did you know, that if you take the island of Britain and deposit it into Lake Winnipeg, it would still be an island? Bet ya didn't did ya, unless of course you've already been to Deb's blog and seen my comment there!?! ;) In total, our lakes cover 101 593 square kilometers of land surface. Hm, interesting, googling lakes in Maine, I found that there are 2 200 lakes there, not much of a dint in Manitoba's lakes, and I'm fairly sure that means they don't cover as much of an area either!

To Quote Deb, "You thought Maine was dull and boring? Pffft! We have mountains, forests, potatoes, blueberries, lobsters, the coast, hundreds of lighthouses, thousands of moose, a bazillion islands and even our own stinkin' desert. So there."

Mountains, does Riding Mountain National Park count, if so, then check!

Forests, oh yeah, check, check and check that again (my pro pic was taken in one of the forests which also happens to be Silv's yard)!

Potatoes, um, we even have an event here called Manitoba Potato Days, yep, that's a check all right!

Blueberries, yep got those too, and even better, their cousin the Saskatoon, so check that!

Lobster, last time I looked, there were some live lobster available at the local grocery, so check that as well!

Coast, check that, already explained that one!

Lighthouses, yep got those as well, granted they've been replaced by skeletal structures, but I like the one I found a pic of best!

Thousands of Moose, probably closer to hundreds of thousands, so yep check that one as well!

But are Maine Moose trained to haul logs? Now there's a question!

A bazillion islands, well 2 200 lakes probably doesn't have as many as Manitoba's 100 000 lakes do, so yep, check that!

And a desert, beat Maine out on that as well with not one, but at least 2 deserts!

So Deb, what's Maine got that Manitoba doesn't? Bet you don't have the Manitoba Maple tree there!

*Note, none of these pics were taken by me, all are compliments of google search! Oh yes, and thanks for the blogging fodder Deb :D*

Got Patients?

2009-06-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

Ok, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen a doctor. Quite a long time for me in fact, but that’s by the by and has no real bearing on this post. This particular post is in fact about looking for a new doctor.

I called the clinic here in town and asked about getting a new doc. I also asked who, if any, were taking on new patients. I was told 3 are currently taking on new patients, 2 of which are female, 1 a male. The receptionist then asked me if I preferred male or female, and I said female. So far so good, and perfectly normal.

The receptionist then asked me if I had any patients. Hmmm, I’m thinkin’ I need a new doc, that would make me a patient, doctor’s have patients, patients don’t have patients. Instead of smartassing her about that though, I decided to ask what exactly she meant by my having patients. Her reply, “You need to have patients for this one doctor that’s available, but not so much for the other one.” No clarification on why I need patients yet, but I remained polite and asked why I would need patients in order to see the one doctor? Finally clarification, it seems that this particular doctor is very thorough and not prone to paying attention to the clock, therefore, I would need patience, not patients, pronunciation is so important :D. Well, that’s nothing new for me, I’m used to doctor’s thinking that a patients time is meaningless where as theirs is incredibly valuable. So, I made an appointment with her. Yep, I chose to take an appointment with a doctor who’s almost guaranteed to make me wait anywhere from half an hour to 2 hours after my actual allotted time scheduled.

You may be right, I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
Turn out the light, don't try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know, but you may be right

Sorry, I got a little carried away! As I was saying, you may be right, I may be crazy, but damn-it, I want a doc who will be thorough and not rush me through an appointment with less than half the info needed to make an informed decision in regards to my health care. That to me is very important, granted, not wasting my time is as well, I just hope she is all she’s cracked up to be, but only time will tell!

And yes, I know you've all been sitting there and practicing the difference between the sounds of patients and patience!

Time to "Cry" a Little

2009-05-31T13:16:00.000-05:00

I'm getting so frustrated with this computer of mine! Some day's it will allow me to go to all my favorite blogs, and then the next day, well ok 90% of the time, it will freeze up when I go to look at a few of them. Namely those are Sanity on Edge, Penny for your Thoughts and This Brazen Teacher. I'm sorry Etta, Penny and Brazen, I wish it would allow me to read all your posts!

So now, I'm writing a post to ask anyone else who goes to any of these blogs could pass on a message for me. Could someone please tell these women that I haven't forgotten them, but that I'm having computer problems? I'd really appreciate it! Granted, they've probably all long forgotten about my visiting them, but even just writing this out makes me feel better about not going to their blogs more frequently.

A huge thank you to whomever decides to pass on my message, and if you don't, well don't worry, it's not really an issue :)

Spring Has Finally Sprung!

2009-05-29T19:26:00.000-05:00

Quite a while back I had said to a few people that I would put in a post about my flower beds. Finally I have some pics of new flowers that I can indeed post! These flowers are just a few of what will be in bloom in the next few months, but are all that are or have bloomed so far this spring in my flower bed close to my house. I have a couple other beds that are showing signs of growth, but no blooms yet, I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival of flowers over my whole yard!

Without any further delay's, I give you the few flowers that I have!

First are the Tulips, they're all done now, but being the first harbingers of spring flowers, they're always a welcome sight!

Once the Tulips are all said and done, the smaller of the Irises start. This batch is planted in my basement window box right beside the Tulips and are always the first of the Irises to bloom, soon will come some burgandy colored ones and then later in summer I'll have some white and perhaps yellow Irises to show you!

Then there are the Bleeding Hearts. I love the way these look! Theoretically they should have blooms well into summer, I'm not sure if they will or not, I just planted this bush last year. Here's hoping for a lot of lovely heart shaped flowers!

Last but certainly not least, the Colombine. No they haven't bloomed yet, and I'm not sure how long it will take for them to open, but they have some nice buds on them! These too I only acquired last year, so I'm not even sure what color they are, doesn't really matter, I'm sure they'll be quite pretty :)

I've never claimed to be any good at photography, and well, you can tell by these pictures, can't ya!?! In my defense, it was such a nice sunny day when I took these pics that I couldn't see the display on the camera, so I had no idea what it was that I was taking pictures of. All I knew for sure was that the flowers I wanted is where I had the camera pointed...lol

Ok ok ok, I cheated, I posted this already in my blog Shades of Grey, but I just barely did, and some of the people who read me there don't come here and vice versa, so it's totally justified as people from both sides have been waiting for this post, so pfft ;)

Catholics Have All The Fun!

2009-05-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

I was chatting with my friend Cogi this morning in MSN chat and she had a really funny story to relate to me. She had gone to a funeral last week, but she didn’t tell me the details, such as who’s funeral it was. So saying, I have no idea as to why she felt the need to go. As it is though, this funeral was Catholic based, for reasons unbeknownst to me, she chose to sit in the back row, aisle seat. You know the spot, quick getaway if and when needed. There was this woman sitting next to her who is apparently a real ditz, this information will come in handy for you later.

Anyway, I digress. As the service started with the choir singing robustly, Cogi noticed something pressing up against her backside. Reaching around, she felt a cold metal object protruding out from under her. “Hmm” she thinks to herself, “I’m wearing slacks, I’ll just spread my legs and pull it out from under me, no one should notice!”, and so she does. Well you can imagine her surprise when she realized that it’s the aspergillum (holy water sprinkler thingy for us non-Catholics)! Can’t you just see it, a woman sitting there in church pulling a silver phallus out from between her thighs? As she’s telling me this, all I can think is “NOT good!”

So there she was, just sitting there with the phallus slowly coming out from between her thighs, when the ditz beside her says “Cogi, what are you DOING? What is that thing?” Well, what’s a girl to do but tell her? “It’s the holy water sprinkle thingy”, Cogi replies. “Well why did you have it between your legs?” asks the ditz. “Because the Priest asked me to keep it safe of course!” The look on the woman’s face must have been priceless! Here I am, trying not to wake my kid, and pissing myself with laughter at the same time. I literally had to go and grab a pillow to muffle the noise I was making. How do you not laugh when someone is telling you about pulling a metal object from between her legs in a church? You can’t, it’s impossible!

There I go getting off topic again, sorry about that! Now, where was I? Oh yes, Cogi was pulling a shiny metal object out from between her thighs in Church. Good thing the choir was singing so loudly! She was laughing so hard about the whole thing that she still can’t quit laughing over it. Anyway, here’s Cogi with the holy water sprinkle thingy coming out from between her thighs with a woman staring at her all bug eyed and mouth gaping open when what should Cogi notice? None other than the ushers staring at her with mouths agape as well! By this time, she’s got the thing out from under her and she’s holding it in her hands, right!?! Well, ditz goes “Cogi, you’ve got to get rid of that thing!” “What to do, what to do”, she thinks to herself. Luckily the seat in front of her was vacant so she decided to gently and quietly put it down there. Turning to look at ditz, she calmly asked with a wink and a smile, “Do you think the ushers will send it to the Pope later to have it blessed and re-sanctified? After all, it is an article for religious worship and it was cosied up between a my thigh’s!"

Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest!

2009-05-15T15:32:00.000-05:00

I've got a real job now as a cook/prep cook at the local hotel. It's a good job, I'm supposed to be a part-time employee, but some pay periods I get 9 shifts. So saying, I have this one co-worker who constantly gripes, bitches and complains about anything and everything. Well today she was grumpier than usual, she's the full-time morning prep cook and I do her job on her day's off, Friday's I'm always the 3'd person on and am there to help the cook and the prep cook get their work done before noon, which is when my Friday shift ends. I walked in this morning, say g'mornin' to everyone, and she looked at me and said "Yeah, whatever" in her grumpiest voice to date. So I'm thinkin' tomorrow when I'm playing the part of the cook, and she comes in an hour after I start I'll have this sign written up on the chalkboard.

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, silly, what? Somehow though, I doubt that she'll get the joke. After all, there is not a thing I could do the other day to convince her that to unthaw food you have to put it into the freezer. We had a nice 1/2 hour arguement about it to be honest with you. Yep, you read that correctly, for a full 30 minutes I tried to explain how putting the prefix "un" in front of a word makes it mean the opposite of the word alone. I know you all know what I mean, but I'll try to put in most of the conversation anyway. Even if it doesn't help explain anything, it may give you as much of a headache as it did me, or it just may make you chuckle.

"Hey, S"

"Yeah, Skye?"

"Can you get some quiche out of the freezer to thaw for me please?"

"No, but I can unthaw it for you."

"It's already unthawed S, I need it thawed out as there is an order to go for 12 o'clock and they want quiche!"

"Skye, it's not unthawed until it's been out of the freezer and has had a chance to warm up to room temp. How many did you say you need out?"

"S, when you put on your runners, do you tie them up or untie them?"

"I tie them up of course Skye, why, what's this got to do with the quiche?"

"Ok, so you tie them up, good. When you go to take them off, do you untie your laces?"

"Of course I do. Where are you going with this?"

"Just play along with me here, S, just a few more questions. Do tie and untie mean the same thing?"

"Don't be dumb Skye, they are opposite of each other!"

"Good, I'm glad you said that! Now when food goes into the freezer, you freeze it, right?"

"Yes" said with a real quizzical look on her face.

"And you could say that to take it out of the freezer you're unfreezing it, right!?!"

"Ok, that sounds dumb, but yes, unfreeze would be the opposite of freeze, so it works."

"What does thaw mean?"

"I don't understand the question. To get back on topic, you want me to unthaw some quiche so it's ready for you for that lunch order, right?"

And so it went, on and on ad nauseum! If I hadn't been so startled by the stupidity of the whole thing, I would have been able to look at it as if it were the "Who's on first" skit of Abbot and Costello, it made about as much sense.

Anyway, back to today's episode!

Today she was complaining she was tired and could do with some time off. Without taking time to stop and breathe, she goes on to say that she's broke and needs more hours so she can afford to pay her bills. We just got paid yesterday, how can she be broke already? Hmmm, how does one help with that? Play along with me here, you're the Chef and in charge of making up the schedule. In one hand you have the "I want time off", in the other hand you have the "I want more hours" that one employee is saying to you. What do you do? Do you give said employee more days off, or more hours meaning more shifts? Can't make her happy either way, can you? I tried to help her with this problem of hers, but to no avail, oh well, I tried :D

Part of the job of being prep cook is making sure that the sauces we make from scratch are available for the cooks as needed. We also need to make sure there are enough sandwich meats cut along with all the lettuce and other vegetables for salads and so forth. I worked prep on Wednesday as she had the day off, the sauces were all good, there was lots of each, so I didn't make any. Yesterday she did prep, didn't need to make up anymore of the sauces. Today she notices that she needs to make a few sauces. Big deal, it takes only a few minutes for each one, none of them are cooked. What does she do though? She complains, "I have to make Honey Dill sauce, Tartar Sauce and Coleslaw dressing! All I ever do is cut meat and make sauces! This is rediculous!" It's all part of being in charge of morning prep. It's Friday, so I'm there just to help her and the cook with extra stuff and put away the stock that gets delivered on Friday's. It's standard operating proceedure, she knows this, I know this. Ok, so I've helped the cook, she has none of the side things left to do besides cook up orders as they come in. Good, that's all out of the way with. So, I go to help S get through her prep list. I ask her "S, is there anything I can do to help you out? Any jobs you really don't want to do?"

"No, Skye, nothing I can think of, as it is I'm going to be out of here by 1:30 there's so little prep to do today, I need to ask Chef for more hours!", and in her next breath "Dammit Skye, why do you get 2 weekends off in a row? I need time off!"

"I get 2 weekends off because we're closed Sunday and Monday due to renovations, you have those day's off as well!"

"It's still not fair Skye, you just had a 3 day weekend and now you get another one, J get's 3 days off this weekend. I better make sure that Chef knows that it's my turn next weekend."

"I'm part-time S, you and J are full-time, I get Tuesday off after the days we're closed so that you and J get your full-time hours. Chef is doing the best he can to keep it fair for the 2 of you to get your hours and still maintain a few hours for me. I only have 3 days of work both this week and next because you asked for more hours!"

And back we go into who's on first, so what do I do? Why I call on Apu from the Quicky Mart in Springfield of course!

"Oh what a cunundrum! I am owner of the Quickie Mart, I'm craving chocolate, but I have no money. I could just take a bar off the shelf and eat it but that would be stealing, and that's against my religion. But, the Quikie Mart belongs to me, therefore everything in here belongs to me, but if I take the chocolate, I can't sell it and then I don't have money to buy chocolate later, oh this is a horrible conundrum, what to do, what to do?"

Then suddenly he's gone and the Swedish Chef starts to sing "Hm chebork de hmm chebork de boo, trow de shicken in de pot!", followed closely by Eeyore "Oh bother, I dropped my knife!"

While I was finishing up my clean-up and was getting ready to leave, who should come by? Well none other than Ernie of course, singing "Rubber Ducky, you're the one, you make my bathtime, lot's of fun..."

By this time S is laughing so hard she's got tears in her eyes. Ah, I think to myself, my work here is finally done!

Sometimes having such famous friends can be a bonus :D

If My Body Were A Car

2009-05-06T07:48:00.000-05:00

If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model. I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull ....

But that's not the worst of it. My headlights are out of focus and it's especially hard to see things up close.

My traction is not as graceful as it once was. I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather.

My whitewalls are stained with varicose veins. It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed. My fuel rate burns inefficiently.

But here's the worst of it --
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Almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter..... either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!

I got this from an e-mail some time ago, and unfortunately I deleted it without saving the pics :( Now I can't seem to find them to include them here. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did :D

Someone's trying to tell me something!

2009-05-02T17:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I had that fall on Thursday, but really, does that give blogger the right to give me this as my confirm word at not one, not two, but THREE different blogs I've commented in since then? (Yes, the third time around I decided to save the pic and do a post just about it!)

Alright, alright, I'll be honest! After slicing my thumb at work this morning, perhaps it is somewhat appropo, but still! I'm not a Dunce, clutz perhaps, but Dunce!?! Isn't that what teachers used to have written on a hat and make kids stand in a corner of the classroom wearing when they were dirupting the class? Or perhaps they'd wear it when they made really stupid mistakes in their homework? I think being called a Dunce these last 2 days is just a tad overdone, don't you?

I'm still laughing, I think it's absolutely hilarious that I'd catch that particular word for varification 3 times in 24 hours. Perhaps I should do more commenting at others blogs, I may just catch it a few more times today...lol.

Me so DUMB!!!!!

2009-05-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know if any of you know about a kids game called "Grounders", so I'll sort of explain it. One person is "it", and the rest all try not to get caught, so far, basically tag, right!?! Here's the catch, it's played on a jungle gym or other play structure and the person who is "it" has to keep their eyes closed while on the structure, only being allowed to open them when he/she goes to the ground in order to catch someone. Unlike with tag, there is no "safe" place to stand and catch your breath, you're moving constantly, but want to be as quiet as you can so whoever's "it" doesn't have a clue as to where you are. There, I think I've got the basics of it!
Yesterday I seem to have forgotten just how old I am, Munchkin was done her homework and was bored, and she CONVINCED me that it would be a GOOD IDEA to play "Grounders". Oh boy was she ever wrong, it was not a good idea at all, it was a very very very BAD IDEA! Because I had never played the game before, she explained the rules to me, but made changes on my behalf. She decided that I didn't have to have my eyes closed when I'm "it", and that we'd play it with walking only, no running. My goodness she was being nice and considerate of my age! She also decided that she'd be "it" first, fine by me as I knew once I was caught I wouldn't be able to catch her in return, so I just had to keep from getting caught.
Here we are, climbing all over the play structure, I was hiding in the slide tube and on boards under the structure. I'd sneak off the structure onto the sidewalk, anything to keep her from knowing where I was and catching me. The game was going great, I was thinking to myself that we should play this more often! I was getting cocky! Here we had been playing for 15 minutes, and she hadn't even been close to catching me yet, heheheee, I was good!
Suddenly, here I was at a dead end part of the structure, where the only place I could go without her catching me was down the chain ladder. I start to climb down and then it happened. My foot got caught in the chain, and my hands slipped. Down I fell straight onto my tailbone first, then hit my head on our nice pebble ground. I was winded, I was hurt, I was seeing stars. I thought to myself, "Damn I'm dumb, who do you think you are that you could keep an 11 year old vetran of Grounders at bay?"
The good thing is that for 15 minutes we were having fun playing together, not necessarily something we do all that often. Bad news is that my pride was bruised, I got cocky and paid the price. Yeah I still hurt a bit, but that's the price of having fun sometimes. Like Silv said, "It's all fun till someone looses an eye, or in this case, breaks their back!" to which I replied "Yes Daddy!" :D

How Adam Got Eve

2009-04-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

Adam was hanging around the garden of Eden feeling very lonely.

So, God asked him, "What's wrong with you?"

Adam said he didn't have anyone to talk to. God said that He was going to make Adam a companion and that it would be a woman. He said, "This pretty lady will gather food for you, she will cook for you, and when you discover clothing, she will wash it for you.

She will always agree with every decision you make and she will not nag you, and will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you've had a disagreement. She will praise you!

She will bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. "She will NEVER have a headache and will freely give you love and passion whenever you need it"

Adam asked God, "What will a woman like this cost?"

God replied, "An arm and a leg."

Then Adam asked, "What can I get for a rib?" Of course the rest is history............!!!!

Why Women Are Crabby

2009-04-19T11:27:00.000-05:00

We started to "bud" in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had calluses on our backs.

Next, we get our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn't even know we had.

Our next little rite of passage (premarital or not) was having sex for the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn't end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about.

Then it' was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn't spend the entire day leaning over Brother John. Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were preparing to have Rosemary's Baby.

Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a watermelon whole and we pee'd our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived, the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in pain all the way to the ER.

Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while the OB says, "Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hearmeroar. Calm down and push. Just one more good push (more like 10)," warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the %*#!* (and hubby) square in the nose for making us cram a wiggling, mushroom-headed 10lb bowling ball through a keyhole.

After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when all that "cute" wears off, the beautiful little darlings morphed into walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little poop machines.

Then come their "Teen Years." Need I say more?

When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual prime in our early 40's - while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th birthday.

So we progress into the grand finale: "The Menopause," the Grandmother of all womanhood. It's either take HRT and chance cancer in those now seasoned "buds" or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves.

Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life's cake: Being able to pee in the woods without soaking their socks...

So, while I love being a woman, "Womanhood" would make the Great Gandhi a tad crabby. Women are the "weaker sex"? Yeah right. Bite me.

The Birth of Yahoo

2009-04-11T08:24:00.000-05:00

An old, bearded shepherd, with a crooked staff, walks up to a stone pulpit and says . . .

And, lo, it came to pass that the trader by the name of Abraham.Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods, when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And Dot said, "There will be a lot of banging in the land."

And Abraham replied, "It is my most fervent wish that this be so." And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.

But his success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading.

And the young did take to Dot Com's trading, as doth the greedy horsefly to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderite’s, or NERDS for short.

And, lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would only work if you bought Brother William's drumsticks.

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."

And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known, "eBay, " he said, "We need a name of a service that reflects what we are." And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"Whoopee!" said Abraham.

"No, Yahoo!" said Dot Com

I'm not as far from crazy as I thought (an old post from an old blog revisited)

2009-04-09T08:26:00.000-05:00

I'm sure the people with the pretty white fancy jackets that close in the back are fast on their way to pick me up. My kids, neighbor, her kids and I all went to the beach yesterday and there I realized that I'm crazy. I half expected my fancy jacket to be waiting for me when I got home. In fact I'm surprised it wasn't, perhaps it will come today.

As you've all noticed by now, my hair is incredibly short. Well my older 2 kids swim just as well as I do, and my youngest is fast on her way there. So my youngest (we'll call her Somebody Else, as whenever I ask who did something, she always reply's with that) and I swam half-way across the lake and back. When we got back to the beach, there were people set up on a blanket close by where we set up. Sombody Else is tanned even darker than I am, and has blond hair, but is just as good with accents as I am. Well, she decided to be a royal smartass and started to talk with an East Indian accent. If you know me at all, when one person starts with accents, I have to speak that way as well, especially if it's put on. Anyways, I started to talk like my kid and you should have seen the looks we got. I don't have much in the way of boobs and with my hair as short as it is, people looked at us real funny. One thing you have to understand, when I speak with this particular accent I sound like a boy who's voice just changed.

My neighbor doesn't swim so she was lying on the blanket watching, and enjoying, the show. Somebody Else is just as nasty as I am with voices, and smoothly switched to speaking with a Mexican Mennonite accent, which I followed. We had my neighbor in stiches, and the people lying on blankets and towels around us, really got confused. I swear some of the believe I truly am a male, dressed like a female. But when I broke into the Mexican accent, I really confused them because then there is no mistaking that I'm female. Well my neighbor has her own very strong accent, which she can't get rid of as she's from Honduras, and has never shed her Spanish accent. (My tan is her natural color, and Somebody Else is darker yet...sheesh).

My older 2 (Nobody, and Not Me, for the same reasons as Somebody Else) came up and broke into Native American accents. You can just imagine the confusion with all these different accents floating around and changing quicker than you can say "Jack rabbit". Well my neighbors youngest is 3 yrs old, and she (we'll call her Trouble, as she's always asking "You looking for trouble?"), decided to start speaking Spanish. That made Nobody, Not Me, and Somebody Else, start to speak in French with these mixed up accents, and I decided to switch over to sign language. No one could understand each other as none of us are fluent in French, Spanish or Sign. Our conversation was nothing but a bunch of jibberish, but we had fun, and truly enjoyed the looks on everyone elses faces. It went from people looking at us from the corners of their eyes, to out right staring. People just couldn't help but stare in outright astonishment at our behaving in such an outrageous manner.

So like I said, I won't be surprised when that fancy white jacket shows up in an ambulance with more than a few attendants. Nor will I be shocked to find out that there is one for Nobody, Not Me and Somebody Else either.

Well I'm off for a walk right now, perhaps my whole house will be turned into a rubber room by the time I get back. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, after all if my house were made of rubber, the kids and I would have a lot of fun jumping around everywhere......lol.

If you can read this…

2009-04-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to
a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in
waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng
is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The
rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a
pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh
and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Here's an eye test for you!

This one's for Silv

2009-03-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

Silv, I'm sorry I didn't include you in the When Life Hands You Lemons award post. The fact of the matter is, that I know darn good and well that you wouldn't pass it on to anyone! BUT seeing as you posted this in John's blog, I just had to write a post special for you! First though, I'll quote your comment to John.

"And what the hell is this I don't even get a mention on her crappy blog, there's something wrong there.
I mean she gives out the crap about me being the love of her life an all, but do I get soo much as a mention , not a fucking chance. Seems that my friends were right when they told me that she was just using me for my culinary skills. yep it's all clear to me now, I'm just a kitchen slut, and that s all I'll ever be to Skye, just a kitchen slut, it's not fair I tell yuh it's just not fair at all, I have sooo much more to offer I really do.
I feel so used so cheap so taudry and when my memory fails and I can no longer prepare Beef Wellinton she will discard me like an old boot, the bitch."

Because of your crying and whining, I've got the worlds smallest violin for you, Silv. I hope it plays you a really, really sad song!

You know perfectly well how much I love you. You know perfectly well how much I appreciate you. Hell, if I didn't love and appreciate you, do you think I'd put up with all your "kids"? Especially Lucifer, what with his butt and tit nipping, the perv! Takes after his old man, come to think of it ;) which is one of the reasons why I love ya soo much! Dammit, now my bitching about you whining and bitching is getting all screwed over!

Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was bitching about your crying fest over at Paintings Art etc! Do you really think that John wants to hear about your problems? Do you really believe anyone cares but YOU? Well, sorry Babes, but you're sadly mistaken! Now go be a good slut and make me some of your wonderful soup. I'm hungry and had a long day at work!

So Silv, I hope you accept this Worlds Smallest Violin award for crying the blues!

I've waited long enough!

2009-03-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

Seeing as I have today off, I decided that I have the time to finally figure out to whom I should give the When Life Hands You Lemons award. I follow quite a few blogs and have been having a difficult time deciding who my 10 should be. Minka is the one who awarded this to me, and I would love to include her in my 10, but somehow that just doesn't seem right. After all, is it really fair to give an award to someone who's already recieved it and who passed it on to you? No, I didn't think so either, so we'll just consider Minka as the unofficial 11th reciever without actually passing it on. I hope that's alright, Minka :)

The terms and conditions set out for this award :

1) Put the logo on your blog or post.

2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude.

3) Link to your nominees within your post.

4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

5) Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.

I chose these people because they either make me laugh when I need to, or think when I've been rather lazy. Sometimes they make me see things in manners that I have never thought of before. All in all, they're a bunch of great people!

Now, without further ado, I give you my 10 Awardees:

1) Sue, over at Farvel Cargo for always making me smile!

2) Penny, over at Penny for your thoughts for making me think about the world when today's news say's nothing about it!

3) Etta Rose, over at Sanity on Edge for her Sunday Silliness blog posts where she consistently uses nothing but bloggers and/or blog names to write her post for Sunday's. There are always great links to bloggers I hadn't come across!

4) Jenn Thorson, over at Of Cabbages and Kings is good for a laugh as well!

5) John at Paintings Art etc always makes me see magical things with his photography. There are times when I can imagine fairies and unicorns, his pictures are so good!

6) Ah, and Sass from Are You Sassified, she posts these wonderful Friday's Fabulous Finds which always give me a new blogger to check out. Not only that, but she's outrageously funny!

7) And then there's Tracy over at Rambling Thoughts of the Neverending Mind. She's not afraid to tell it like it is, she's brutaly honest, and incredibly sweet. I can't help but love her posts!

8) Blunt over at Blunt Delivery has pointed out that we are kindred spririts. It seems that we think alike in a lot of ways!

9) Oh, we can't forget Frog, now can we? Frog comes to us from Frogs in my Formula, and you better make sure that you aren't eating or drinking when you read her blog! She makes you laugh so much that you'd choke, or spew a huge mess all over your computer if you were eating and or drinking!

10) I don't want to leave anybody out, so I'm including Nobody in my award recievership. He has this weekly posting blog, called Nobody 5-7-5, where all he posts is a picture. The object is to look at the picture, disect it in your mind, and then create a haiku for it. At the end of the week, when it's time to post a new pic, he goes through the postings that were made over the past week, picks one haiku from each blogger, and includes it in his post under said pic. I hope that makes sense :). Until I found that particular blog, I hadn't really enjoyed haiku's all that much, thanks to Nobody, I've started thinking in 5-7-5 parameters...lol.

Well, with that all said and done, I hope everyone accepts their prizes!

Until next time, Cheers and have a good weekend!

First Off....

2009-03-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

....I'd like to say that as soon as I can figure out which 10 people I'd like to honor with the blogger award that I have in my sidebar, I'll be posting it.

Until then, please enjoy this post :)

___________________________________________________________________________

The good napkins, the joys of having Girls!

My mother taught me to read when I was four years old (her first mistake). One day, I was in the bathroom and noticed one of the cabinet doors was ajar. I read the box in the cabinet. I then asked my mother why she was keeping "napkins" in the bathroom. Didn't they belong in the kitchen? Not wanting to burden me with unnecessary facts, she told me that those were for "special occasions" (her second mistake). Now fast forward a few months....It's Thanksgiving Day, and my folks are leaving to pick up my uncle and his wife for dinner. Mom had assignments for all of us while they were gone. Mine was to set the table. When they returned, my uncle came in first and immediately burst into laughter. Next came his wife who gasped, then began giggling. Followed by my father, who roared with laughter. Then came Mom, who almost died of embarrassment when she saw each place setting on the table with a "special occasion" Kotex napkin at each plate, with the fork carefully arranged on top. I had even tucked the little tail in so they didn't hang off the edge!! My mother asked me why I used these and, of course, my response sent the other adults into further fits of laughter. "But, Mom, you said they were for special occasions!!!"

Ok, I Have To Apologize!

2009-03-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I made mention of the fact that I could not believe anyone would need such common sense instructions as to wait till the power came back on, in order to turn on a coffee maker when the power is out. I also pointed out that my very own sister asked me to check my computer when MY power was out. I should have known that instructions such as those previously mentioned, are indeed necessary! I should have, like really folks, how much more proof did I need?

Apparently I needed more. My Grams called me earlier. She was worried that there was something wrong with her brother-in-laws phone. She had tried to call him no less than 6 times, and kept getting the same message.

I should have asked her what the exact words were, but nooooo, I didn't think of that! I asked her what the problem was! BIG mistake, here folks, I know better, I do, honestly! Please believe me!?!

Ok, so you don't believe me, I don't either, so I can't blame you alright!?!

Anywhoo's-it, Grams says that a woman keeps telling her she's dialed the wrong number. So I ask what number are you dialing? She reads off the number to me. It's the right number. Ok, there's something fishy going on here! How can you dial the same number that I have, and be told it's the wrong number? I tell Grams to hang up the phone, I'll make the call and find out what's wrong. She says thank you.

So I call my great-uncle, and this is the message I get "Hi, you've reached so-'n'-so. I'm not home right now, so please leave a message after the beep." I leave a message saying that Grams is trying to get ahold of him, but keeps being told she's dialed the wrong number, hense my calling, can you please call her to let her know you're ok?

I call Grams back, and tell her this. She tells me that's the same message she gets. WHAT!!! You get a message that he's not home, and you tell me that it's the wrong number? Geez!!!

I don't argue with her, that would be rude, I just tell her that I asked him to call her. She says, get this, she had talked to him this MORNING and that he didn't have time to chat at that moment, BUT that he'd call her back later this EVENGING! Grams called me at 6, the evening hadn't even technically started yet! I called my great-uncle for no reason! Ok, so he's a sweet man, and I love him to death, he's one of the very few family members I have any respect for. But common, if someone says they'll call later that night, give 'em a chance to do it before you start harrassing them and then having your granddaughter harrass them for you!

I have got to learn patience in dealing with people who just don't get it. Honestly though, I just don't get why other's can't seem to get the simple parts of life. Some day's it's just really hard to be me.

Space Age Coffee

2009-03-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Well, my coffee maker went on the fritz and so I had to buy a new one. I thought about doing what I usually do and get a second hand one for anywhere between $5 & $15, but couldn't find a 12 cup one this time around. The reason I tend to get second hand coffee makers is that the last couple of times I had bought new, they lasted about a month and then died. The twice used ones tended to last around 3 or 4 years. Seemed like the smarter choice to me...lol.

Anywhoo's-it, I ended up buying new this time. It retails (according to looking it up on-line) for $99. The store I bought it at was selling them for $79.99, but this particular box had a sales ticket on it for $49.99. I decided to get it. What I hadn't noticed was that there was a second sales ticket on it for $34.99. When I went to pay, that's the price that came up and I damn near shouted "Whoohoooo" due to the great price for a top-notch model coffee maker, brand named "Oster"!

This coffee maker is so high-tech that I actually had to read the manual to see how to set up the clock and timer. I got it all set up, ran plain water through it in accordance to directions and then proceeded to brew my first pot of coffee. This machine is GREAT! That was the best cup of coffee I've ever had in my life! (At least in regards to plain coffee, that is). So now I'm the proud owner of a top-of-the-line coffee maker and I got it on the cheap. Damn I'm proud of myself :D.

After all was said and done, and I was half-way through the pot of coffee, Silv came into my kitchen to get himself a cup. He had been sleeping up to this point, and hadn't even known that I had gone out to get a new machine. When he saw my new kitchen toy, he said, "This machine needs a space ship built around it!" He looked at it, played with the buttons for a bit, noticed that the clock had 120 minutes on it and asked what that was all about. "Well," say's I, "That's not technically the clock." I pressed a button below the timer and the actual clock appeared showing the correct time. "What was that on the display then?" he asked. "That, my dear sweet kitchen slut, is the fresh brew timer. It shows you just how long it took to brew the pot of coffee, and lets you know also how long it's been on the warmer for. Once the minute hand reaches 120 minutes, it shuts the machine off. It even warns you that it's doing so by ringing a bell."

Fast forward a bit and Silv and I are playing on our computers, as we are wont to do. The coffee pot was empty, so he brewed another. As he's doing this, I just had to laugh! I suppose he was turning it on when all I heard coming from the kitchen was "Engage!" Once the bell rang to let us know that the pot was done brewing he decided to be nice and go get us each a cup. Now I was laughing even harder! Coming from the kitchen were the sounds of Star Trek! "Oster, Folgers, 2 cups, black, hot!"

Silv was so impressed by this coffee maker, that he went out to the store and bought himself one.

Ooooohhhh, I almost forgot! Silv decided to read the manual as well, only he went so far as to read the troubleshooting pages. I hadn't done that! Oh man did he start to laugh! "This page must have been written for blondes" say's he, "The possible causes and solutions are even repeated for those that have bleached their hair blonde!"

"What are you talking about?" I ask, "Here, read", he says. And so I read:

Problem: The "Brew Now" light does not light up.

Possible Cause #1: The appliance is unplugged

Solution: Plug unit in!

Possible Cause #2: There's a power outage.

Solution: Wait for power to be restored!

Problem: The coffee is not brewing.

Possible Cause #1: The appliance is unplugged

Solution: Plug unit in!

Possible Cause #2: There's a power outage.

Solution: Wait for power to be restored.

Possible Cause #3: The decanter is not completely on the warming plate.

Solution: Place decanter on warmer plate!

Problem: The coffeemaker only brews water.

Possible Cause: There are no coffee grounds in the filter basket.

Solution: Add coffee grounds!

Problem: The filter basket overflows.

Possible Cause #1: The decanter is not completely on the warmer plate.

Solution: Place decanter on warmer plate!

Possible Cause #2: The decanter lid is not on decanter.

Solution: Place lid on decanter.

Problem: The coffee is not hot.

Possible Cause #1: There's a power outage.

Solution: Wait for power to be restored.

Possible Cause #2: Auto Shut-Off has been activated.

Solution: For best results brew a fresh pot.

You just gotta wonder if there really are people out there that can't figure things like this out for themselves! I made mention of that to Silv when he reminded me of my very own sister. He said "Um, Skye, don't you remember your sister calling you last winter? First she asked if your power was out too, to which you said 'yes' and then she asked you to check the computer to see if school was cancelled, did she not? And just how were you to do that, when the power was out?"

*Insert Homer Simpson forehead slap here* DOH I guess I just had my very own blonde moment!

Children’s views on:

2009-03-07T07:29:00.000-06:00

1 Nudity: I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!"

2 Opinions: On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents."
(What do you think, is this child the "Little Johnny" of all the jokes)

3 Ketchup: A woman was toiling to get ketchup out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang, so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer it. "Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle."

4 More Nudity: A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The boy watched in amazement and then asked "What's the matter, haven't you ever seen a little boy before?"

5 Police #1: While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about 6 years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, "Are you a cop?" "Yes," I answered and continued writing the report. "My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?" "Yes, that's right," I told her.
"Well, then," she said as she extended her foot toward me, "would you please tie my shoe?"

6 Police #2: It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me "Is that a dog you got back there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, "What'd he do?"

7 Elderly: While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"

8 Dress-up: A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, "Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit." "And why not, darling?" "You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning!"

9 Death: Walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly wilted his collar. It seems, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, dug a hole, and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what his father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaather, and unto the Sonn, and into the hole he goes."

10 School: A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can't read, I can't write and they won't let me talk!"

11 Bible: A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly something fell out of the bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed between the pages. "Mama, look what I found," the boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" with astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered, "I think it's Adam's underwear!"

Why you should always look to the potential outcome!

2009-02-28T07:49:00.000-06:00

An elementary school class started a project to make planters to take home to their parents. They wanted to have a plant in it that was easy to take care of, so they decided to use cactus plants.

The students were given green-ware pottery planters in the shape of clowns which they painted with glaze. The clown planters were professionally fired at a class outing so they could see the process. It was great fun! They planted cactus seeds in the finished planters and they grew nicely, but unfortunately, the children were not allowed to take them home.

The cactus plants were removed and small ivy replaced them and the children were then allowed to take them home.

The teacher said cactus seemed like a good idea at the time!

19 Ways To Keep Yourself Sane

2009-02-21T15:58:00.000-06:00

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.

3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "In".

5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks, once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to Espresso.

6. In the memo field of all your cheques, write "For smuggling diamonds".

7. Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy".

8. Don't use any punctuation.

9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

10. With a serious face order a diet water whenever you go out to eat .

11. Specify that your drive through order is "To Go."

12. Sing along at the Opera

13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.

14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.

15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.

16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Bottom.

17. When the money comes out the ATM, scream "I won! I won!"

18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling "Run fast, they're loose!!"

19. Tell your children over dinner. "Due to the economy we are going to have to let one of you go!"