Yesterday

I had one of those fantabulous days yesterday. My daughter came home to visit right around lunchtime, and I invited my son and daughter-in-law over to eat with us. I made chicken quesadillas and flan. Authentically Mexican food. For a daughter-in-law who is authentically Latino. And who can cook. It was something I had never tried to make before, and if you know me at all, you know that I am VERY tentative in the kitchen. I know I complain about how much I HATE to cook. And I do, seriously, but its mainly because I never learned how other than by trial and error on my own (emphasis on the word "error" here). My mother was a NON-cooker for the most part. She, bless her heart, had the ability to burn and scorch even stuff out of a can. So I feel out of my element in the kitchen. Ill-at-ease, and always vigilent for the next disaster to strike (oh and they do...they always do). But yesterday, my attempts at Mexican food turned out pretty good. Well, there was the one failed flan on Sunday night, but I got up super early and rushed out to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to try again. Monday morning's flan turned out fine.

Anyway, everybody ate, and nobody died, although I always am suspicious that people just eat my cooking out of politeness. But then, last night, we all congregated again to chat and to play cards, and they asked me....ME....the non-cooking, fearful of the kitchen woman if they could heat up the left-overs and eat again!! And that made me happy.

Happy Stuff...

So, my multi-talented daughter-in-law got hired to do some freelance photography with our local newspaper here "The Daily Reflector". She really does take awesome pictures, and she was thrilled to have the chance to do this. We are thrilled for her, too. Anyway, I wanted to share the links for her first 2 assignments. So, enjoy:

http://www.reflector.com/scene-around/scene-around-the-tar-river-arthritis-walk-179631.html


http://www.reflector.com/scene-around/scene-around-the-historical-society-open-house-179596.html

How can this be???

I keep seeing this news clip of a John McCain rally where an older woman says that she can't trust Obama because she believes he is "an Arab". WTF???? Does it scare the heck out of anyone else that people can be so stupid? How do people like that manage to get through life on a daily basis? At least....at the VERY least McCain made the effort to set stupid McHeifer woman straight. He tried to correct her wrong assumptions. But what he should have said is "Get the hell out of here because we don't need ignorant fools in this campaign." My guess, using all my psychic powers of discernation is that stupid McHeifer woman voted for Bush last election. I would stake my life on it.

Grrrrrr......

Do you ever have one of those days when the planets align just right so that the entire universe conspires against you? I am having one of those days. Nothing serious or devastating, mercifully. But its been one aggravation and inconvenience after the other. ALL DAY LONG! For starters, I had a flat tire today. I knew that my husband was near-by, and I also know that my husband is one of those "Ready Freddie" kind of people. He has an arsenal of tools in a nice little bag in the trunk of his car that includes a tire pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and a cool little kit that can plug a hole and have you on your way in a matter of minutes. So I made the call for help, and he was there in record time, dragging out tools and mysterious devices, etc.

First up, the tire pump died. As in refused to work properly. So, he got my tire blown up with just enough air that I wouldn't ruin the rim if I drove on it, and told me to follow him up the road just a mile or so to a little store that would hopefully have one of those air machine thingies. He took off. I made it about 200 feet and the tire went completely flat again. I had to call him back and say that I couldn't make it to the store. Ok.......so......we proceed to plan B, which is to actually change the tire and put on that little doughnut spare just to get me home. Only after wrangling with the piece of crap jack that comes with my car, and burning his fingertips on the hot lug nuts, we discover that Plan B was shot all to hell because the spare is flat. Go figure. I was ready to scream. He ended up driving all the way home and getting another tire that we happened to have, luckily, and finally....finally I was on my way again. With a pounding frustration headache.

And now I was just online trying to purchase concert tickets for an event in November that we want to see. I got through the whole purchase process, take the option to print my own tickets to avoid these excessive shipping charges and wouldn't you know it? Our fancy new printer that we just installed (we meaning husband, because I don't install stuff) refused to print. Which involved a whole lot of husband having to try to figure out what the heck was wrong with my computer settings that wouldn't send the information to the printer. (we haven't figured it out yet). So I decided to turn on my husband's desktop to print the tickets from there. And of course, more issues come up that I have no idea about. Nothing would print. It wouldn't even open the file up so I could even SEE the tickets. It ended up being an issue with husband's not having installed Adobe reader (he just recently redid his computer and is still adding things). We got it done. Tickets are printed. But again, a minor little thing that should have taken less than 5 minutes, ended up taking more like 45. I have a headache now. And all I have done is feel frustrated. Hubby has been the one doing all of the manual labor to fix the onslaught of problems.

On a happier note, I just got a call from my daughter, who had taken off this morning to drive all the way from Virginia up to New York where a friend of her's was getting married. I am always uneasy when my kids are on the roads. But she made it, and she's fine and I hope she has a wonderful weekend with these college friends from Duke that she hasn't seen in a while.
She is coming home to visit with us on Monday, and I am looking forward to it. She always says, "But Mom, you just saw me on such and such a date", which honestly was back in July, I think. But even if it was just last week, its never enough for me....HaHa. She hasn't lived at home in like 6 years, but I still miss her. When she was in high school, we used to occasionally spend our Saturdays going out for lunch and then perusing some funky little thrift shops around town. Well, sometimes we shopped at the mall, but its the thrift shop shopping that I remember most.
Alot of times we came up empty-handed, but every now and again we would hit upon a piece of treasure. I still have the blue teapot with the bright yellow sun face on it that she spotted for me. Good times, I tell you. Good times.

Random Stuff

-Going back to work this past week was somewhat challenging. It was absolutely nightmarishly busy, but I made it.

-We went with Stephen and Hannia to the County Fair last night. I haven't been in years. I remember it being fun, back when the kids were young. Now....not so much. It was kind of lame. It was crowded, expensive, and there just wasn't a whole heck of a lot to hold our interest. We walked around, rode the ferris wheel (at a cool $16 for 4 people for maybe a couple of minutes. what a rip off). And we ate some fair food: corndogs, funnel cake, and cotton candy. It was somewhat nostalgic, but not all that enjoyable. I hope I remember that it was lame next year, so I won't go waste my time (and money).

-Today Jeanne, Calvin and the girls came up for a visit. We went to see my husband's Great Aunt. She is 87 years old, and just been diagnosed with lung cancer. She is in a nursing home. That was kind of hard and depressing, but we felt like we needed to go. Actually, Aunt Grace was sitting up and talkative and in good spirits. Her mind is still sharp as a tack. The hard part was walking down the halls just lined with people who had nobody there to visit them. One woman grabbed my hand as we were leaving and tried her best to get me to stay there with her.
She apparently had had a stroke and was unable to talk, but she clearly wanted me to visit with her. Half of our group had already exited the building and were already getting into the car, so I had to wrestle my hand away and that made me sad. A personal note to my friends and family:
If I ever have to be put into a nursing home, please bring me booze when you visit. If I have to be there, at least let me be too drunk to know whats going on. Seriously.

-I am unhappy to say that it looks like we will have to forego my excessive Halloween decorating this year. There is just NO time. I hate it, and I will miss it, but it just isn't going to happen.
The main reason is that we will be leaving for NY for the week of Halloween, so we won't even be home for the holiday. On the bright side, we plan to party and celebrate to excess in the city, so its not like I am completely ignoring Halloween. I would NEVER do that!!!

-I hope you all have a good week. I will probably be just as bogged down at work as ever, but I still plan to try to get back into the gym schedule as much as I can. I miss it. I think my back is well enough to start working out if I take it slow and easy for a while....? I hope.

Most Unfortunate....

So, I have been out of work for the past 2 weeks recovering from back injuries that happened during a car accident. Luckily it wasn't a tragic accident, and I am almost back to normal. Apparently, as I am getting a bit older, my lower back has decided it wants to be fragile. I dealt with back issues back in May when my son Stephen was graduating from college. I got through that 5 hour car trip to ASU, and consequent sitting in uncomfortable seats at the convention center for the ceremony by pain pills and muscle relaxants. Hey, it got me through, and I was feeling pretty good....haha.

But now I return to work tomorrow. And wouldn't you know it? I have gotten up with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and all the other wonderful symptoms of a full blown cold. Yay! Hubby has been sick with a cold all week end, poor thing. And now....I get to go back to work feeling crappy.
Oh the joy. Because there is no way in hell that I would feel justified in calling in sick. They have been scrambling to cover for me these past 2 weeks as it is. Not that I give a flying flip about the struggles of our management to cover me. Its my friends and co-workers who bear the brunt of the inconvenience. I wouldn't do that to THEM. Its just such a shame that I couldn't have had this cold and gotten it over with while I was laying around the house, bored out of my mind, and not being able to do a whole lot of anything because my back was out of commission. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to schedule these kinds of things when it would be more convenient????

ETA: Ooops, false alarm. I guess it was just a really bad episode of allergies. That or the zinc lozenges that I used really knocked that cold out quickly. Either way, it was good to not be sick as a dog today.

Freaky Fashion

I love me some boots. Of course, its rare here in Eastern NC that it gets cold enough for me to actually wear any of my boots, but I love the idea of them. Once in a great while I wear them, and it makes me happy. But these peep-toe boots....I don't get them. Apparently they are hot fashion items this fall/winter. But I can't figure out how they would work. I mean, I have to wear socks with my boots just to be comfortable. But would sock-covered toes sticking out of this boot look right? I don't think so. And also if its cold enough to warrant a boot, why would you want your toes sticking out like this? My toes are the first things to get cold. I do think these are kind of/sort of cute, but totally impractical so this is one trend I don't think I am going to be buying into.



And this freaky little boot is heinously ugly, yet I can't tear my eyes away from it. I don't think I would actually wear it. Its more like an interesting piece of art. And NOT wearable art.
Look at the upturn of the toes, and the heel....It screams foot torture to me. Its by a line called "Irregular Choice". These boots are not, by far, their most, um, UNIQUE, design. And uniqueness apparently does not come cheap. These short little boots run about $190. Which is NOT outrageous for a nice, sturdy, classic pair of leather boots that will go with almost anything and last for years to come. But for something this trendy, its kind of pricey. Yet another thing I won't have to spend any of my hard-earned money on. But its definitely interesting.