Wednesday, October 31, 2007

It's a windy Wednesday Halloweenie!

Not much going on here today. I woke up with a headache...a stress hangover from yesterday I think! So I just chilled this morning, did a load of laundry, "swished & swiped" the bathrooms in an effort to keep the house appearing clean, drank coffee and browsed a few of my favorite blogs. There are SO many talented creative women out there. The ideas that pour off of these blogs are incredible!

I stayed irritated all day yesterday at brown haired rascal and his lack of bookeeping skills. I had a glass, well...ok 2 glasses, of wine with dinner and that seemed to take the edge off! I love grapes. I waited until hubs got home from work to share the news so he would not have to have added stress while at work. His head spun around in a Linda Blair worthy performance! Once he recovered from the initial shock, he then determined that since we just went through this with dumb-dumb 2 months ago, that he was not going to jump in and rescue him right away.

When I talked to brown haired rascal yesterday I told him that he had made some financial decisions, as a man, and now he would have to figure out how to handle it like a man. I told him he better NOT come over, shrug his shoulders, blame the bank and ask for money. I explained that he was fully responsible and accountable for this and so he needed to think it over and come up with a plan on how he would be rectifying this, and then come talk to us.

If I could borrow Harry Potter for an hour or so, I would have him cast a spell on 7 year old blonde rascal to keep him 7....and then BLAMO in 15 years he would just pop into a 22 year old college graduate with a nice stable secure job and all the common sense in the world! Sure that would mean 15 years of muddy handprints on all door frames, 65 questions a day, me having to explain why you don't say OR spell for your friends the swear word that you heard in a movie, playing "Sorry" 6 times a day, stepping on hotwheels all over the house, finding candy wrappers, rocks, sticks, hotwheels in the dryer,....ahhh reading stories cuddled up together, him calling me "Momma"....see it wouldn't be so bad! By-passing the teenage years would be SOOOO worth it!!

Here is a picture of the table runner I am going to make for blonde rascal's teacher for Christmas...


Cute, eh? Now if helping out in her classroom is not enough, then this little diddy will surely secure some brownie points for me I hope!!

I did get started on it last night. This of course is still in the rough stage...



We are going to the festival at MIL's church tonight. Luckily (for me) it is a school night so gee darn we need to be home by 7:30 to get all showered and calmed down for bed!!! I aim to pilfer a Reese's cup or two, hopefully some Whoppers, out of blonde rascal's haul! Chocolate is, almost, as good of a balm for the nerves as wine!!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Vein in my forehead, Christmas presents and Harry!!!!!

It is not even 11 am and I need to visit with Jose Cuervo.

The morning started out great, got blonde rascal to school, went to the gym where my mind kicked butt! Running is 95% mental, in my opinion. I had a great run, my mind told my body to shut up and keep going! I felt great, the endorphin high was pulsing through me!

I come home to a message on the machine from the bank regarding, you guessed it, 19 year old brown haired rascal's acct.
I called the poor lady at the bank who has to deal with these accts. Bless her heart, wouldn't you hate that job? It is overdrawn PAST the $500 overdraft protection they provide. WHHHAAAAATTTTTTTT???????? I felt my blood pulsing through my veins, the one on my forehead bulging. The awesome runners euphoria that was in my blood stream had been instantly replaced with rage! I felt my eye start to twitch. I think that poor innocent woman on the phone heard me say something about a "little dumb shit".

I paid the $150 check he had written to pay his cell phone, which pushed it over the overdraft protection limit, so the check would not be returned. He gets paid on the 1st, which at that point $716 of his paycheck will go to cover his goofs. That is more than half of his paycheck!!!! I had them shut off his debit card and told them he would be in on the 1st to settle this and then they were to close his acct!!!!! As if this is not all bad enough, he did this 2 months ago and his Dad bailed him out. Dad is going to be livid and NOT bailing him out this time.

I have made a list of a few of the options the little punk has to rectify this situation that I will be sharing with him once I calm down enough to call him, the first option being pulling his big fat head out of his butt! Another one being giving him the address to the plasma donation center. Another one being living in a box under a bridge. Another one being.... I have to stop talking about this... I think I am having chest pains.

Here is what I am going to make for blonde rascal's teacher for Christmas, this cutie tooty table runner... well nevermind I can't get the picture to load. I'll try again tomorrow and maybe I'll have some progress to show!

OOOOHHHH HARRY!!!!

Don't read any farther if you are currently or are planning in the future to read the Harry Potter series... which I highly, very highly, recommend you do!!!!




Spoiler ahead....







Stop now....




Go back....





Harry lived bless my soul!!!!!! What an incredible series. That Rowling, what an amazing imagination she has to come up with that long of a series with such an indepth and twisted plot! I am in awe of her.
So Harry did it!! He fought evil and won. He had love in his heart and courage and loyalty and determination!!!

I had this feeling Snape really was a good guy, even though I had serious doubts at some points. I wondered if Draco ever thanked Harry for saving him? I doubt it since their children sneered at each other in the epilogue. I loved how Mrs. Weasley went nuts on Voldemort at the end, you go girl!!!! Ron and Hermione married...you could see that one coming. And Harry and Ginny...just so sweet! I am sad it is over and I never imagined a series 7 books deep and some 4,000 or whatever pages long would ever keep my interest. Boy was I wrong!

I have to go now. I am going to go find the Valium, massage my forehead and then possibly smoke crack.

Monday, October 29, 2007

It's Monday!

I have not posted since Weds! Oh dear I have sooooo much to say! No, not really. I'll try to make this as painless as possible for you!
Thurs. and Fri. I was engrossed in maniacal house cleaning. You see Friday night was my turn to host scrapbook night. Our group consists of 9 girls. We all used to/some still do work at the PDO at a local church. We started "scrapbook night" almost 2 years ago. We get together once a month to eat,drink, be merry, scrapbook and laugh!!! We always have a raucous good time! I look forward to it every month, getting to see the girls, be silly, laugh at each other....good times folks, good times! I adore these girls and wouldn't trade them! (I am trying to switch them all over to quilting. I am not having much...any actually, luck! Chickens!) As I told you we all were/are employees of the PDO, except one of us. Krazy Kristen. Her sweet baby boy was in our room. Kristen would come on her lunch break to nurse Carter. She is a nut and just cracked us up! She would go to another room to nurse, modesty you know. So finally we told her that we loved her and her crazy stories soooo much that we wanted her to just nurse Carter in our room so we could chat. We were not offended, hey we were all moms, been there done that. So the secret scrapbook society unanimously voted Kristen in...I mean once you have seen someone's boobs it is only fair that they get to scrapbook with you!!! And we have not regretted it, she keeps us in stitches with her stories that sometimes are truly bizarre and you wonder how stuff like that can happen to one person!!!



I finished my "learning" sampler! By some weird turn of events all of my blocks turned out to be the exact correct size they were supposed to be?!?! It is that new Pfaff, it deserves all the glory. Thursday was my last class. I am taking a machine quilting class the week after Thanksgiving. Since this is my learning quilt I may just go ahead and try to machine quilt it. I bought a book...the quilt is small... I can do it?!?!

I am 3/4 of the way through HP #7. I am so anxious and nervous about how it is going to end. I tried to stay up last night and just finish it... but I am a weenie and fell asleep. I love you Harry you brave boy!!!! Today... I WILL finish today!

Yesterday we went to church, had lunch with MIL, back home and played a few hundred games of "Sorry" with blonde rascal...

It was fun. He LOVED it. He wanted to play this morning before school!

Guess who won this round....


I have to go run errands now. Then my friend Lori (you may know her as Jennifer, Jennifer Aniston, if you have read my blog for very long) and I are going to a little Creative Memories lunch thingy dingy that a friend is hosting. After which I must go to the grocery store so that no one in the house starves! And then it will be time to pick up blonde rascal from school and the "Sorry" marathon will continue!
Happy Monday everyone!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

It was a good day....and now goodnight!

Hubs is out of town this week. At a conference in Las Vegas. I hope they learn allot at this conference...between the black jack table and the golf course!

I got after the cleaning of the house today. I was a warrior. I mopped and scrubbed all the bathrooms. The two jobs I hate the most. I threw the bathmats in the wash, opened windows to let some fresh air in and then let loose with the can of Lysol. I was helping at blonde rascal's school yesterday and twice during that 30 minutes they called for a "clean-up" in the bathrooms. You know what that means...the vile stomach bug. That bug will run from my scrubbed, aired out, Lysoled house! Be gone bug!

This little pip squeak got a bath today...

I think she is still a little miffed about the whole thing. That may be why her eyes are glowing.

Tomorrow is my last quilt class. I had to finish my log cabin...

Man that picture is a little blurry. That is the only reason the block looks wonky crooked. It was my camera, nothing to do at all with my mad quilting skills! Before I even dream of taking on Log Cabin quilt I think I will have to reeeeeaaaaallllly fine tune my 1/4" seams and accurate cutting.


And I had to finish my applique block...

Lord have mercy my sewing machine rocks! It is so cool. This applique was so easy...all because of the machine, it almost thinks for you!

Now it is late, blonde rascal is fast asleep, my house smells clean and fresh, I have my favorite jammies on, the lamps have cast such a warm glow on the room. I love it. I love it getting dark earlier. I think I will enjoy some of this...

I know I am behind the rest of the world who read this within the first 3 hours it was on the shelf. Here is the thing, I read the first book last summer. Loved it. Then #7 was chosen for book club last month. There are lots of "Potter heads" in book club so they were waiting with bated breath for #7 to arrive. So since August I read #'s 2-6. I have to say I love that Harry kid. I was sad for him at the end of #5, the end of #6 was terribly sad. Now I am afraid I will need counseling at the end of #7!!!

Or I could flip through these 2 little gems I bought yesterday...

Whatever I do I need to do it quickly because my eyelids are getting heavy!!
Goodnight!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Inner Peace

My sister-in-law emailed this to me. Very worthy of sharing!


Want some inner peace?

 I am passing this on to you because it definitely works and we could
all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice
I heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr. Phil
proclaimed "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things
you have started and never finished." So, I looked around my house to
see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the
house this morning, I finished off 23 Bud Lights, a bottle of Absolute,
a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the
rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates. You have
no idea how freaking good I feel!


Can I get an amen? I never met a package of Oreos that didn't need finishing!!!!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Fall Fashion!


I swore I would never be one of those people who dress their dog. But that was before I got Missy.



I mean seriously it must be cold that close to the ground!



Like any girl would, the first thing Missy does is run off to show her friends...

"Hey guys look at my new coat! Mom says faux fur/leopard print is all the rage this season!"

All the while I am am yelling, like any Mom would..."MissyGETbackhereandDONOTgetcowcraponyourNEWcoat!!!!!"



It must be rough being so darn cute...and fashionable too!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Weekend wrap up.

Another weekend flies by.

Saturday morning was book club. This month we read
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.” Good book. The story follows an autistic kid trying to figure out who killed a dog in his neighborhood. It was fascinating to read about how and why he, with autism, acted the way he did. It was very insightful.

Saturday evening was the Fall Festival at blonde rascal’s school. Here are the cookies I made for the cake walk. I cannot take credit, the recipe came from Shabee Chick’s blog. Hers looked so much better!

Blonde rascal was a skeleton pirate. He wanted to be a motocross rider. He did not like my “use what we have’” method of motocross costume. He thought we could go to the local Honda Power-Sports store and pick up a real motocross uniform, for what would probably amount to somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 or more! I told him that was not happening, I mean sure if Mommy was a rock star or something, but she is not....so how about a skeleton pirate? We have a skeleton shirt, a glow in the dark skeleton shirt at that! $12 on face paint, pirate hat & sword at Wal-Mart and call it good!


Hubs was in a golf tourney so he, regrettably I am sure, could not join in on the festival fun. As Blackbeard and I were about to leave we noticed some steers wandering around in the back, out of the fenced pasture. So after a moment of stealth steer investigating on my part, I determined that our cattle were secure and the wayward steers were not ours but the neighbors. A quick little ringy-dingy and I also determined the neighbors were not home. So I call hubs, who may I remind you is golfing, and explain the dilemma. He tells me to run them into our front pasture and shut the gate. Sure, sure dear I can do that. Whatever! So I grab Blackbeard’s plastic sword and take off after those slabs of beef. I walk up behind them and try to push them up into the pasture. I pulled up all of my cowboy cattle calls that I could find in my mental rolodex. The cowboy section is dusty, from lack of use, after a few “yip yips” and a couple “hey steer” shout outs while making a threatening stance with my Wal-Mart pirate sword, one steer then darts off. That 600lb dumbass obviously was not taking me, or my swash buckling, seriously! Cattle are herd animals so the other 3 fool steers followed suit . I knew they would not go far with so much to eat all around and they would stay close to our steers, so I threw in the towel. I had no intention chasing those bozos all over creation!

I took my sword and my little pirate and went and suffered at the Fall Festival with all 800 students in attendance, or so it seemed! Noise, lots of noise, long lines for the games and ridiculous amounts of sugar ingested by Blackbeard. It was painful.

After church today we had lunch at TGI Fridays. I had some wicked good salmon pasta. I have stayed full all day as a result. Blah! We spent the afternoon accomplishing lots of the little to - do stuff that stacks up. Hubs mowed the grass and changed air filters. I washed some windows on the outside, watered flowers, added a coat of stain to a table lamp that I had painted. I was going for the distressed look, I am not real sure it turned out right.... We then hung a couple of valances, one over the kitchen sink and one in my sewing room. Now I am just pooped and want to crawl in to bed! It is windy and has gotten much cooler as the evening has gone on. Yippee~ fall might be arriving finally!

Oh...yes the steer debacle did get handled in the end. I know you will sleep better knowing the outcome of this story. Turns out neighbor man was out of town for the weekend, wifey was not at home but she is a city girl like me so even if she had been home she would not have been much help! I would have let her borrow the sword though. I am a good neighbor. So when hubs got home we still had 4 at our house which we penned, we drove over to the neighbors house and 9 were running loose on their property and the back gate which goes into a cotton field was open where 6 more steers were loose! Hubs saved the day and got them penned, left the gate open for those still "touring" the cotton field and they eventually came back. It was pitch black at the time all of this was going on. Chasing steers in the dark, how did I end up like this?

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Young love, young heartbreak, young...recovery!


Here is 19 year old brown haired rascal. This was in May after graduation. He is, obviously, a cutie! When hubs and I got married the little toot was 7 years old. That was well and good because he was all cute and sweet and innocent. Of course he quickly became a tween and then, God help me, a teenager! He remained cute and sweet, I doubt innocent, but still a teenager. Some days I wanted to poke myself in the eye with needles rather than handle any more migraine inducing teenage situations!

Back to him being cute. Well, from an early age...say 10...the ladies have loved him. The little hussies started calling him at about 11 years old! Where were their mother's for pete's sake??? So from that point on there was a different "girlfriend" every 3 or 4 days. We kept our thumb on him and didn't think much of it then. At about 14 it became non-stop girls calling. Then at about 15 he was "dating" a different girl every 3 or 4 days! Some of these girls he never even met! We laughed about it and never could keep up with it all. Every once in a while one would last a few weeks but that was rare.

At the end of his junior year he started dating a girl from another city that he met at an FFA function. They dated a few months over the phone and then broke up. Then he immediately started dating one of that girl's friends! This one stuck! He dated her for over a year. She is a nice girl and we liked her but once we saw it was lasting months, instead of hours like all the old ones, we became more concerned. We wanted him to take it slow and not become so serious. We lectured him about how hubs and brown haired rascal's mom got married way too young, with hubs regretting not waiting longer for marriage. I told him how I had a steady boyfriend all through college and I for sure regret that! We explained how you have all of your life to be married but such a short wonderful time where the world can be your canvas, before the true pressures & responsibilities of adult life begin, so don't spend that time tied down to a girl in a serious relationship! No doubt just like everything else we ever tried to tell him, he thought we were stupid. They got serious, she moved here this summer. (Please! She didn't move IN with him, she had her own apt.!)

Again we thought her a nice girl and enjoyed having her around, but they are both so immature and needed to grow up, find their way! We worried that they were thinking marriage...and we again encouraged them to slow down, too young, etc... But, oh, gasp, sigh...they were so in love!!!

Well, earlier this week girlfriend broke up with brown haired rascal. In my humble opinion, she was not ready to be away from home and needs to do a little more maturing. But alas, rascal was heartbroken and sad and bewildered. We hurt for him, knowing that pain of young love is real. We encouraged him and told him he would live!!!! So that first night a bunch of his buddies from high school rallied around him and they hung out, to help him in his time of devastation!

The next evening he and a friend were over at our house cleaning out the barn...nothing like good hard labor to make you forget your woes! They finished and went to Sonic to get a coke. Rascal calls later in the evening and relays the following story.... they ordered, waited a few minutes and then here comes the cute carhop. She hands them their order and says to
rascal "Here is your reciept...and my phone # is on the back!" BAM...heartbreak over....he is back in the game!!!!

Heaven help me!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

A quick hello!

My day today is a little jam packed. So I am just stopping in to say hi! Here is the skinny on my day...
*It was my day for carpool so I carted blonde rascal and the 3 cutie neighbor girls to school. I had to go into school so I could buy tickets for the fall festival which is Saturday.
*Back home to give Val, who is feeling much better I might add, his antibiotic. Now that he is on the mend, he & I go through this WWF type situation to get the antibiotic down. I usually end up bleeding with antibiotic all over me. He really ought to behave better and be glad his furry bootie is alive thanks to me!!! Cuz if it had been up to hubs....
*Off to quilt class at 10:00. Today we are working on our Log Cabin block. I like the Log Cabin. The tradition of the Log Cabin is to make the very center red. Red represents the heart or hearth of the home. In the old days the hearth really was the center of the home where the family would cook, stay warm and it provided their light in the evenings. I would have liked to have been alive during those times. I would have hung out with Laura Ingalls. I would probably need some modern conveniences thrown in though, like...indoor plumbing, Starbucks, washers/dryers, epidurals, the Schwann's man, Pfaff sewing machines... to name a few!
*After class I have to run to the store to get stuff to make cookies for the cake walk at the fall festival. I am making the cookies from Shabee Chick's blog. (Sorry, again I am still trying to figure out how to make a link) They look like candy corn!
*Then back to the school to pick up the fundraiser items which have arrived.
By then school will be out and it will be time for afterschool craziness of homework, snacks, massive running in and out of the house, then time to make dinner...the cycle never ends! Then before I know it it will be time for another round of antibiotic wrestling mania with my friend Val!
Have a great day!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

All quiet on the feline front!

My buddy Val is ok! Well as ok as an 11 year old cat could be. He had an abscess under his chin which they drained. Then the blood test revealed that the old curmudgeon is diabetic. No more "Cat Chow", now it is on to diabetic kitty food. So we, I say "we" loosely, have to start giving him insulin shots! That will be hubs job! Then the vet also suspects he has hyperthyroid, which those tests won't come back until later in the week. The vet was gently trying to say that Val is old and may not really be out of the woods. So we will just play it by ear. But for right now this instant Val is home and looks like he feels so much better and that is all that matters. I suspect he won't be with us for too much longer but at least while he is I want him to be comfortable!

So my madwoman super spaz house cleaning plan for yesterday didn't really pan out. I had some momentum going, scrubbed out the microwave, took out the trash...got sidetracked...changed the sheets...got sidetracked....did make a valance for the window in my sewing room. I am still trying to organize it and when I am finished I will post pictures.

Go hug your cat or dog (...or horses or steers) today! You don't realize how much you love the little toots until you imagine them not being with you. I think I will go hug this little princess....

Monday, October 15, 2007

It's Monday

It's Monday again. We had an uneventful weekend. Aunt Gay (I am steadfastly trying to figure out why I can't do a link...it hurts my brain. If I had a link then you could click on "Aunt Gay" and read about her in my previous posts...but I am a remedial blogger, so I am sorry! Stick with me and I will get it sooner or later!) was in town. We went to the quilt store where I bought these books

I just have sooooo many things I want to make, there are not enough hours in the day!!! First item of business is to take a class to figure out how to work that bad boy Pfaff that I adore! Anyway I am pleased to report that Gay outspent me at the quilt store by a long-shot! She bought a cool foot for her Bernina that sews the binding right on the quilt. Good heavens that is brilliant.

I am distracted today. My cat, Val, his lower jaw swelled up on Saturday. (That sounds horribly grammatically incorrect! But I just don't care enough right now to think of how to re-word it!) From what we could tell at that point it was not a tooth so we called the vet and he said it may be a bite of some kind and to give him a little Benadryl. Well as you can imagine that went over like a ton of bricks with Val! So yesterday evening, he was still very swollen and he started to drool a little blood. I took Val to the vet first thing this morning and they are going to sedate him and see what they find in his mouth.
Here is Val

Yes, he always does his best to look aloof! This was last Easter and he may very well have been pissed that the Easter Bunny did not leave him a tasty morsel! That was also Val at his fighting weight of about 19lbs. "Big boned" you see. About 4 months ago he started drinking water like a fiend. He still acted like he felt ok, his usual grumpy self, and continued to eat. He weighed 14 lbs this morning. He is 11 years old. So the the vet is also going to run some blood work and see what they find.

I have been all sniffly and weepy off and on since Saturday. It rips my heart out to see any of my animals uncomfortable. And in the back of my mind I know he is old and could go down hill quickly. Val, short for Valentine (original huh?), was my Valentine's Day present the year after we got married.

I have all of this nervous energy while I am waiting for the vet to call. So I am about to start cleaning the house like a wild woman! That will be at least one good thing for this Monday!!!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Can I get a Woooo-Hooo!

No lengthy, laborious, ridiculous story about my life today, how lucky for you!

Just a shout out for my Red Raiders! I am an alumni of Texas Tech University. I am not a football fan really, and neither is hubs praise God, but I do love to watch my alma mater play. Today they played Texas A & M.... grrrrrrrrr. I know, I know it is a good school. However those Aggies talk a lot of smack and they are such a cocky bunch. So when Tech puts a whoop on them it makes me deliriously crazy happy, equalled only by beating U.T. So I kicked back today with some chips & hot sauce and a cold brewsky, in true college spirit, and watched a wonderful game yelling and cheering the whole time! By the by, the final was 35 - 7!!! So sorry you silly Aggie punks, go back to College Station!
Yeee haw! Get yer' guns up!!!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Mini Dental Implants

This particular post on my blog is a public service announcement. You see I am genetically flawed, honestly in too many ways to mention for heaven's sake. So for the purpose of this blog I will stick with discussing only one of my genetic mutations. Let me explain my plight and then I will tie in why this all really is, in fact, a PSA. This will probably be outrageously boring unless you have a funky tooth gene flaw like I do, so I will try to throw in some silly and unfortunately gruesome pictures just for added interest. Brace yourselves.

On my Dad's side of the family there is this wacked out missing eye teeth thing. This is genetic so I am sure it goes back way farther than this but what I know is that my uncle (my dad's twin brother) is missing his eye teeth and my Dad's are small. Then my brother(my oldest sibling) has small eye teeth, my sister(middle child) has even smaller eye teeth and then me (the baby) with NO eye teeth. I drew the short end of the stick on that one, but I guess being the baby and getting away with everything made up for it! My Dad and my siblings all had theirs capped. Anyway, I kept my baby eye teeth until I was about 14 when I got braces and, as was the norm for orthodontia of the day, they pulled all remaining baby teeth.

This left me a fragile and emotional teenager with braces and no eye teeth.

Go ahead and giggle, I would too if I was looking at YOUR 9th grade picture! This was circa 1985...whew what a babe I was! As if my missing teeth were not bad enough, add in the feathered version of the mullet and the unfortunate fashion situation that haunted the 80's. Have mercy on my soul. Sheesh, it's no wonder my awkward teenage years didn't damage my psyche even more than normal.

They did wire two false teeth into my braces at some point, thank goodness. Then off come the braces and on with the retainer. Well they connected false teeth to the wire of my retainer. As you can imagine I NEVER lost my retainer!! I would take it out just to hear the squeals of my friends though, great fun it really was.

At 17 I got my permanent bridge, a Maryland Bridge it is called. This bridge attaches the false teeth to the back of the two teeth on either side with thin metal plates. That was close to 20 years ago. Well one side of the bridge finally popped loose about a year ago so I knew something would eventually have to be done to the bridge...and I did not, cosmetically speaking, like how it looked.

(This was blonde rascal and I this summer in Pagosa Springs Colorado. We were at "The Malt Shoppe". If you are ever in Pagosa Springs I would highly recommend that you stop there. We had a malt every day... and I not ashamed of that.)
As you see in this lovely big shot of my mouth, my false eye teeth did not "yellow" to the same shade as my other teeth did. Ewwwww! Then the, before mentioned, metal backing showed through my front teeth giving them a repulsive grey tint. Ewwwww! Now, it was not all a vain cosmetic thing, my desire to get rid of that ugly bridge. You see the hygienist did agree, at my last cleaning, that the bridge was loose which then, she stated, becomes a breeding ground for decay behind there. I have no room for decay in my life so I knew another plan must be set in motion. And by the way they can't "re-glue" the loose bridge back on because you don't get a sturdy bond that way.

I go in for a consultation and they make molds, take pictures, x-rays, and all that dentistry stuff. Then I get hooked up to do at home teeth whitening. I want the end result to be for all of my teeth, real and otherwise, to be relatively the same color! Novel concept. Mr. Dentist tells me I am a perfect candidate for mini-implants. Yipes, that was not what I wanted to hear. I was imagining a new type of bridge that attached to the back of my teeth like before but not with ugly metal that showed through my teeth...all very easy involving no pain, no blood, no shots. Well it turns out that the Maryland type bridge, in any form, is way old school. Other than the implants my other option would be to file down 4 of my teeth and then make a huge crown type thing. Well I am certainly not filing down perfectly healthy teeth. So I was just sick at this news, I had to resolve myself to scary implants.

Mr. Dentist explained how these new mini dental implants, unlike the traditional implants where they cut open your gums, are smaller and there is no cutting of gums. The screw is very narrow, like a tooth pick, they screw it up through your gum and into your jaw bone where it eventually fuses with your bone. Very strong and really a great thing. The end of the implant, a post, sticks out through your gum which they then attach the false tooth to. I was like "Oh Mr. Dentist that sounds like a perfectly macabre procedure and I am the hugest of babies...ohhh I feel like I could puke just thinking about it." So Mr. Dentist said really it is not bad at all but I will prescribe some wacky pills for your to take before hand so you will never know what hit you. "Oh...pills you say? Prescription narcotics? That will have an effect on me for two hours? That sounds charming! Let me go home and think about it!"

I went home and researched it online of course. Which is a catch-22 because you really can find out too much info. I did find lots of pictures of the procedure that I could not stomach looking at! But then I did read a lot of information from other dentists who explained how easy the procedure was and the results were fantastic. I had a hard time finding testimonials that I felt like were "real" patients, not paid endorsements. I wanted the scoop, I wanted to hear a real person tell me what it was like. Now we have come full circle with my story. (I know you are saying finally!!!) Now, when some poor schlepp like me hears they are candidates for mini-implants and they go "Wha...?" Then hopefully when they go home and google it like I did, they might just pull up this blog! (Bless their heart!)

So here is my mini dental implant public service announcement... If your dentist recommends them for you, do not worry your pretty little toothless head over it. Do, for the love off all things sacred, take the sedation anti anxiety pill beforehand. I also got laughing gas. I was only semi-aware of what was going on, I could respond to questions and requests. It seemed like I was in the chair for 20 minutes when in reality it was a little more than an hour. I remember very little of the procedure. Nothing hurt, not the Novocain shots, nothing! Take the sedation drugs is all I can say! Here is a picture during the procedure after they had the implants in.... keep scrolling past with your eyes closed if you don't want to see this!






At this point the teeth are just glued onto those posts. When I got home that day and the meds wore off, I was sore but took a pain pill. Now here is the amazing part...the next morning it was like nothing happened. There was NO pain. I don't understand it, but it is true. I was very careful while brushing, as that worried me a little, but it was never painful.

That is my message folks, don't be reluctant to get this procedure done only because of fear. I hope one scaredy cat chicken, like myself has just googled their way onto my blog. (For the rest of you who are here on purpose I am sorry...just yawn & roll your eyes and then move onto another blog!) I am a real person, and a HUGE baby when it comes to procedures that I can't be put to sleep for! Trust me when I say it is nothing to be worried about, very easy and no pain afterwards! Did I make you feel better? Go ahead with the procedure, you will be glad you did!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Sewing Machine Saga

Here is the very long and corrupt story of my quest for a new sewing machine. As I have previously discussed on my blog, my old Singer sucked. Nothing personal but it was very old and a very base model. Not really cut out for todays quilting! The quilt store where I am taking my quilting classes, well they sell and service Pfaff machines. I sewed on one last week at my class and after sewing on my Singer, which sews and sounds like a go-cart, sewing on this Pfaff was a dream! I want to quilt and machine embroider so I wanted (needed!) a new machine that could do just that.

The good news is that Pfaff has just come out with a brand spanking new swanky model. Well, lots of quilters want the new model so they trade up~ selling their old model and then apply that towards the purchase of the new model. I certainly don’t need a top of the line high dollar machine right now as a novice quilter but a used older model would be perfect. So I dropped a little hint to hubs that I was in dire need of a new machine. I also explained that the new models had come out and they cost more than some cars... ”but of course I don’t need a new one dear because they have some wonderful pre-loved ones, and they are much less expensive, that would be perfect for me!” At “much less expensive” his ears perked. That was hint #1.

Then I thought next I’ll bribe him. Hub’s father, a kind and generous man, passed away 2 years ago. Hubs then inherited a lot of.....paperwork!!!! Hubs is NOT really so very organized, and just downright does not like, despises in fact, paperwork. I am not OCD about it but to avoid clutter I like all of our personal paperwork filed away neatly. Then if and when I need to refer to something I know exactly where it is. Well, when all of hubs paperwork from his Dad’s estate started rolling in I told him I did not want any part of that and he would have to organize it! Otherwise when some important something or other came up missing then hubs would blame me and my otherwise flawless filing system when actually what he was hunting for would end up being in his briefcase! So for the past 2 years all of this mail piles up on the bar in the kitchen. Then I would put in a file folder for him and put it on the counter in the laundry room. Then I started dating those folders and piling them in boxes in the closet. Then when tax time rolls around hubs sits a the kitchen table surrounded by helter skelter stacks of papers and sighs pitifully with his head in his hands.

A few months ago he said “What if I hired you to be my secretary?” Well I knew the depths of his mess and I, kindly, said “No way Jose`, you have got to organize that stuff yourself buster. There is not enough money in the world for me to want to take on that project!” Well fast forward to this week and the idea of organizing a few papers and getting paid was sounding like a grand idea! So I said “I will organize all of your paperwork and you will never again be frustrated by all of that mess you created! Now, you only have to pay me $6 a day for one year, payable upfront! That is less than minimum wage let me tell you!” Being my husband, well he knew exactly what I was up to and rolled his eyes.

So it was on. I decided to show him just exactly how wonderful I was! I took stacks and piles and boxes and weeded out trash, had a “to shred” pile that was 2 feet high. When it was all said and done I had neatly color coded all of his “stuff” and the end product fit easily into one drawer of the filing cabinet! All of that mess and headache when organized turned into one little drawer! Am I good or what?

Well he was thrilled and I said ok pay up dude, payment is due in full! He said no this is a “for better or worse” thing. You just helped me out of the worse! Such a fine wife you are! Wha....What??? I need payment in full....I need my sewing machine!!

Not to worry I had one last ace in the hole. A little reminder of why it would be ok for me to have a new machine. I hope you readers don’t at this point perceive me as a spoiled, scheming, manipulative wife. You see there are other issues here. Quilting is a hobby, yes? Just a little hobby. So let me share with you about hub’s little hobby. I’ll throw in pictures just for giggles!

Team roping. I'll give you the layman's city girl explanation of what exactly that is for those of you who don’t know. In team roping a steer runs and two men on horses chase it. One of the men (the header) ropes the head and then the other man (the healer) ropes the back feet. This is a timed event, with the goal being accomplishing this quickly! There, now you know.


So hubs team ropes. Naturally you need horses.



This Leo. Handsome isn't he? Fast too.





This is Josie. She is a lover. You can't get away from her! She just wants to rub her head on you and sniff you! She is fast too!




Here we have Colonel. He is a beauty.




Here is Max. He is fat!


And if you have a little land, then you have a roping arena at your house so you need these punks...


Granted they do their fair share of “mowing and fertilizing” but I personally would like to see them in my freezer for a years worth of dinners!!!!

Anyway, both the horses and steers have to eat.




Oh please you say, what is a little hay?




What about this?




And then there is this!



Of course you have to build a barn to shelter the little darlings from the elements....

Hello barn!


So when you go to roping somewhere else you have to load your horses up in a trailer. Not just any trailer would do for hubs "hobby"...

That folks is like carrying your horses in a dad gum Bentley! Then there are living quarters inside, you know in case you have to spend the night at a roping. The living quarters are like the Taj Mahal! It is like this horse trailer has been on MTV's "Pimp my Ride"!!!

There, wasn't that fun?? Now if we are purely talking hobbies, both hubs and mine, apples to apples....do you see why I felt NO guilt about wanting a new machine???

Just a little brand "new to me" sewing machine like this....








There she is!!!! Yipppeeee my precious machine!!! The quilts are going to be rolling off that thing!!!!

All joking aside, hubs did say (after I painstakingly organized his disaster of paperwork) "You don't ask for a lot. So if this machine will make you happy, then I want you to have it" Awwwwwww, he is so sweet! He is a good, kind, peach of a husband, who works very hard to provide for his family so if he likes to rope and we can still put food on the table then that is fine with me! I didn't say I won't tease him about it though!! I love him and I'll go ahead and keep him. I love my new Pfaff too!!!!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Too much of a good thing.


Magazine subscriptions. I have come to the point in my life where I have to say enough is enough. I used to be a magazine junky and lived for the day that those babies would show up in my mailbox. But now I am just smooth overwhelmed. They come in the mailbox, then move into the mail stack, they move to the coffee table after that, then 3 months later I pull them off the coffee table and finally thumb through them. I think the joy got lost when I got carried away with subscriptions. One or two is manageable and enjoyable...but more than that becomes a chore. I don't like chores!
I mean sure I ordered a couple last year for blonde rascals school fundraiser.... "Golf", like reading that was going to make me a better golfer! No, no for improving my game I will stick to the only teaching I need and that is "Happy Gilmore".
Then there is "Marie Claire" which that subscription came free with a Clinique bonus last year. Well that magazine is nonsense and I am way too old for it! Sure "InStyle" is fun and I always know the latest must have lipgloss but have mercy that is a HUGE magazine. I really don't have time for that! My true loves are the decorating magazines. I gave up Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion earlier in the year. That is my testing method, I let the subscription expire and then see if I miss it or buy it every month anyway. Well, I have been a long time M.E. lover so that has to go back on the keeper list. The others I think I will just peruse at the store and buy if I so desire.
I do love my "Quick Quilts" and I will be adding another couple quilting ones to the list. So many quilts to make, so little time!
Deep down inside I am an intellect. I am interested in current events and world peace. I believe in quality journalism, the likes of "Newsweek" and "Time" so the one subscription that I will never ever never ever ever let go is....














Ending my "People" subscription...those are fighting words!!!

Come back tomorrow and I will fill you in on all the sordid twisted details of my quest for a new sewing machine!

Monday, October 8, 2007

No turning back now!

If I post it, it will be gospel. If I say I am going to make this...



... cute little advent calendar before Christmas then I will be accountable to all of you in blogland and I will do it!! Granted it is not rocket science! The picture is from the quilt store in Grandbury,TX where I bought the little cheater panel. It could probably be knocked out in a day. So I have given myself more than 2 months to complete a day long project, should be adequate even for this slacker!! Actually to be a proper and functional advent calendar it would need to be done by 12/1 yes? Oh dear the deadline looms..

We had a quiet weekend. Why is it still hot? Blonde rascal made the mother of all messes Friday night when he pulled the cushions off the couch in his room, every blanket within 100 miles and a lifetime of stuffed animals all into the living room so he could watch TV and camp out. The only person this caused problems for was Missy. You see "her boy" is normally asleep in his room with the door shut every night and she is denied access. So Friday night she went back and forth from our room to the living room trying to decide which sleeping situation was most comfy! Saturday morning we made chocolate chip pancakes, which I might add I have decided I don't like. Blueberries yes, c.c. no. It alters the taste too much. I love me some pancakes, so I don't want to veer to far from the natural flavor. Besides chocolate chips and syrup...not happening.

I have some good, fun stuff coming up this week. I think I have devised a plan to get my sweet new sewing machine. I'll divulge my scheme later in the week. Also, I had mini dental implants done for my genetically missing eye teeth 3 weeks ago. They popped some temporary teeth on there while the "real ones" or permanent ones were being created at a lab in North Dakota. Well the real ones have arrived and my appt. is Weds. I may have to have a funky before and after picture post! Yee haw! And no telling what other foolery will pop up that I will feel inspired to share...the sky's the limit! Oh yes, AND I am midway through the sewing room organization endeavor which will require some more pictures! Terribly exciting stuff around here. So if you are having trouble sleeping or something pop back on later in the week...and I'll bore you back to sleep!!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Dear Santa, My sewing machine sucks!

It's not that I don't appreciate having a 17 year old base model Singer, with a straight AND zigzag stitch (woo~hoo!), because I do. I know there are people who would love to even have a machine and if you bring me a new machine Santa, I will donate my old Singer to someone who would love it. I said donate, I won't even try to sell it on E-bay (see I already looked and you can't even give this model away on E-Bay!)
The old Singer has served me well. It started out by sewing clothing for me in college. The fabric was cheap, but I was 20 years old and skinny and hot, so I could pull it off. However, I am no longer skinny or hot or 20 so I don't sew clothing for myself. If I had a little girl I would sew cute dresses...but I don't, I have a 7 year old blonde rascal boy (and I wouldn't trade him, even for a sweet girl to sew for!) So I moved on to sewing decorative pillows and curtains and baby gifts and even a duvet cover, etc...all the usual little hobby sewing.

Now that I have been bitten by the quilting bug my machine has become even more blatantly inadequate! These new machines are computerized and have all the bells and whistles to make quilting a breeze! I NEED bells and whistles and I NEED quilting to be a breeze! AND they do embroidery! Shut~up Santa I really did say embroidery! Think of the dish towel and tote bags and baby gifts I could monogram! There are like 62,000 stitches to choose from on these machines, I mean I could practically sit back and eat a piece of cheesecake while my new machine pieces a quilt!


Santa, I really have (tried anyway) been good this year. I know there was that unfortunate incident while in Chicago....







but you see I was trying to befriend a member of the mafia, I wanted to hear the inside scoop, the lowdown if you will, so I had to look the part, look trustworthy of handling that kind of information. I pulled it off really well, huh? But Santa that was really the ONLY time this year that I have done anything even remotely mischievous or silly or illegal...


Anyway, I suppose it could be worse...I could be making a quilt on this baby...



Don't ya kinda wish though new machines at least came in a beautiful piece of furniture like this?

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Missy, the wonder pup, makes a new friend!



Missy, our cute as a button 7 month old miniature dachshund, is such a little pistol. She has absolutely no idea that she is an 8lb hot dog. What she does not have in size she makes up for in personality and attitude! She is up for any activity, has to be in the middle of everything and no challenge is too big for her.
We have a pasture next to our front yard. This is not normally where our cattle are. Those bad boys are normally in the back pasture. But alas the front pasture needed a little "mowing" so we get the cows right on that. I am from Houston remember, a tenderfoot city girl, I married into all of this cowboy stuff, so I am clueless. They are boy cows(which is an oxymoron because cows are girls), but they are not bulls because, well they can't be "the baby daddy" due to a little gruesome population control procedure that they all endured, so I believe they are called steers! All of that info is really not necessary for this story, just shines a little light on my bovine ignorance!
So anyway, the steers are in the pasture right next to our front yard. So when Missy goes into the front yard to do the doo, she is immediately sidetracked and perplexed by these huge smelly creatures in her territory. She must get to the bottom of this.


"Hey...hey you! What ARE you and why are you in my yard?"





"MMMmmooooooooooooo!"




"MOM!!"

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

My Boy.

My adorable love of my life blonde rascal boy, while I was kissing and hugging and squeezing him at bedtime last night, said to me...."Mom you smell like a sweat sock casserole!" Oh my gosh that little imp! Now people I don't dig ditches or anything for a living where I might be a little malodorous at the end of the day. Granted I go to the gym everyday...but I shower for heavens sake!!! Of course I cackled loudly with laughter, because you have to admit that was a good one, which was the end result he was looking for. Hmmmm...I wonder where he inherited that need to be a clown???

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Quilty Homework


Our homework from my quilt class last week was to complete our block and read a few pages in the book about the block we are going to make this Thurs. Yipee....I finished my homework with one day to spare! That is sooo not how it would have gone down in college. In college I would get warmed up to start a paper at about 10pm the night before it was due. Then there would be rounds of Mountain Dew and No Doz (this was the pre Red Bull era) and that would keep me going til 4 or 5am. Sure I would get my paper turned in on time but then I would skip all the rest of my classes and sleep! (Sorry Mom & Dad, I know you were footing the bill for all that nonsense!) Exactly the kind of thing I would just KILL brown haired 19 year old rascal for now! We live and learn... thank you Lord for that! Well truthfully it was all due to the bad influence of my roommate Cathy. She was a smart little toot and the all-nighter thing always panned out for her. Studying was never my cup of tea, or Mountain Dew as the case may be, so I figured I would follow her lead and procrastinate until the last possible minute! Thank goodness I do not live with Cathy now or I might have been tempted to give the Red Bull a run for its money and stayed up tomorrow night to finish my quilty homework! I have changed my evil ways from the good old college days though, well some of them anyway! Cathy I know you are out there "blurking" ( blog lurking as my friend Kristen calls it)!! Now you have to come out of the woodwork and defend your bad study habits!!!! She knows I love her.... AND I have to say she, and our other roommate Joetta, (I also suspect her of blurking) who I might add abandoned Cathy and I our jr. year to get married, are the ones who inspired me to start sewing!!! Those fab wrap skirts of the early 90's. I owe the dawning of my sewing hobby to those two!
Anyway, now that my bedroom closet has been cleaned out I am moving on to the sewing room closet. It is a disaster of epic proportions. I am going to work on it and I will then show you my future quilting projects which I seem to have accumulated a lot of. This quilting thing is a sickness!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Yummy Dr. Pepper Cake!


I made this cake last night. 19 year old brown haired rascal and cute sweet girlfriend were over for dinner. It was de-lish. I sent the remains home with both of them so that I wouldn't eat ALL of it! Aunt Gay emailed the recipe to me. When Gay sends a recipe you can be assured that it will bring down the house with rave reviews and go directly into the keeper file! That Gay, she is the total package...she quilts, cooks like a chef, gardens, cans & jellies the "garden results", has a warm inviting home...the list goes on and on! I wish she lived closer so some of it would wear off on me!!
Anyhoo...go directly to the store and get the stuff to make this cake. Your family will be singing your praises for days, weeks, even years!!!

German Chocolate Cake mix
Vanilla instant pudding, small box
2/3 C. vegetable oil
4 eggs
12 oz. Dr. Pepper
1 t. vanilla

Mix all together following "mixing" directions on cake box. Grease and dust with cocoa a 13x9 pan. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes. Cool.

Icing:
8oz. cream cheese
1 lb. powdered sugar, sifted (although I never sift!!)
1/4 C. cocoa
1 stick butter
1 t. vanilla
Cream all together and spread on cooled cake.
Enjoy!
P.S. This is a 100% fat free recipe!