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!!

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.

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!

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!

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!!!!

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!

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?

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!

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!

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....