Some Days

Some days it doesn't pay to be a home owner. I'm thinking this is one of those days. I went to switch my laundry from the washer to the dryer this morning and found a piece of plastic laying on the bottom of the washing machine. After some investigation, I discovered it came off the piece in the middle of the washer (the thing that agitates the water...that I'm now "agitated" about).

First thought was to ignore it, quickly followed by the fact that there is now a sharp edge in my washing machine and I can't imagine that will be good for the life of my clothes. So I'm thinking of attempting the following (in this order): 1) Super glue. Hey, it's worth a try. 2) sanding down the sharp edge...it could work. 3) Check into what it would cost to replace the part. Part of me is thinking that it will cost more than I paid for the washer and dryer since I bought them, practically new, from family members who made me a REALLY good deal.

I wish the washing machine was my only immediate issue I encountered this morning. After switching the laundry, I went to turn on the light in the kitchen and "POP"! The last working light bulb in my light fixture burned out. I know what you're thinking...1) it's just a light bulb and 2) why hadn't I already replaced the other bulbs that were burned out? WEEELLLL...I tried that at Thanksgiving since I had another set of hands around (aka Mom), but the globe wouldn't come off the light fixture to change the light bulbs. There HAS to be a way to do it, but unlike most light fixtures, there isn't anything to unscrew. We tried just popping it off like my brother suggested, but it kept pulling the whole thing loose from the ceiling. I've never really liked this light fixture to begin with because it's ugly and it is hard to keep clean. I highly suspect that I will be purchasing a new light fixture this weekend and installing it. Not really what I had planned for this weekend, but I'll just add it to the list of "to do's" along with taking down the outdoor Christmas lights (sorry, but the weather has not been cooperative enough to do this sooner) and getting a jump on cleaning house for next weekend's Pampered Chef Party.

Stop Already

This is the conversation that took place when I went to the allergist this afternoon:

Allergist: Did you have a baby? (FYI, I've been seeing this doctor for 5 years)

Me: No.

Allergist: Do you have any children?

Me: No, but I still hope to someday.

Allergist: Are you trying to get pregnant?

Me: No, I'm not even married yet.

Allergist: So, that shouldn't stop you.

Me: Well, I would prefer to do it that way.

Allergist: Just remember, you're not getting any younger.

SERIOUSLY!?!?! Did I really need that reminder with the impending birthday coming up in less than 20 days? And even more, my child-bearing plans had absolutely no relevence to this appointment. I was just there so she could look up my nose. Sheesh!

Major Home Owning Don't

This is me, outside FREEZING my tail off...


This is my "other" hair dryer (the one I use when my good hair dryers bite the dust).


This is the garden hose I forgot to unattach this fall before it got cold that is now frozen to the faucet and MUST be removed before tomorrows cold front. I'm already fortunate that my pipes hadn't burst.

And this is the end result after standing outside for 20 minutes warming the faucet with a hair dryer so that I could remove the hose. Lesson learned!

To Bad, You Missed It

Well, I had this really long post typed up in MS Word explaining why I have been absent from blogging with a quick run down of everything that happened (and didn't happen) the month of December, but I've tried for two days now and this stupid (I'm an adult, I can say stupid) site won't let me copy and paste anymore and it is too long for me to retype (nor do I want to retype it). So I will leave you with this little story instead...

Unless you live under a rock (or in a state other than Oklahoma) you are highly aware of the blizzard that hit on Christmas Eve and squashed many Christmas plans (side note, I was in fact able to leave town before they started closing roads, but it was a nerve wracking trip home...but I made it safe and sound). Anywho, I returned home to find a 3 foot drift on my front porch and a slick, snow filled driveway. The porch I could deal with, the driveway not so much. My driveway is steep, so if it is the slightest bit slick, I can't get into my garage very easily. After some work I did manage to get in and decided to leave driveway maintenance for the next day.

Tuesday morning I got up and was shoveling the driveway when the mailman showed up. I was walking down to the mailbox when he says "Be careful. You fell last year." Much to my dismay, this was the same mailman who witnessed this escapade on my birthday last year. I obviously made an impression on more than just my tailbone!

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
For Christmas, I really want one of these. No really, I'm serious. I could ask for a boyfriend for Christmas to help me with all of those projects around the house that require a second set of hands, but I think this will be more reliable. The only thing better would be a new car, but this will be easier for you to get in your sleigh, and it is much cheaper.

Your Friend,
Stacey

Because I Have THAT Kind of Humor

I can't even pick a favorite!

It's that Time of Year Again

What is my biggest pet peeve during the holiday season? Yep...people who decorate their cars. I saw my first wreath a week and a half before Thanksgiving, but today a saw one that takes the cake. A woman had actually put antlers and a red nose on her SUV. Yes, the woman made her car look like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer! All i have to say is if you feel the urge, fight it!

Add This to My List of Favorite Songs

I don’t know how long this song has been out there, but I heard it for the first time yesterday on Slacker. Kind of one of those “right song at the right time” kind of things. The song is beautiful and so are the words.

What Faith Can Do
by Kutless

Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes and make a new beginning
Anyone can feel the ache
You think it’s more than you can take
But you are stronger, stronger than you know
Don’t you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason for someone not to try
Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright
Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

Overcome the odds
You don't have a chance
(That’s what faith can do)
When the world says you can’t
It’ll tell you that you can!

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do
That's what faith can do!
Even if you fall sometimes

You will have the strength to rise

Ban

I think I'm going to petition the networks to ban all Zales, Kay, or any other jewelry retailer who has a sugary sweet Christmas commercial with some over the top wonderful guy giving some girl a piece of jewelry. Can't handle it right now and I can't afford to replace my TV when I succumb to the knee-jerk reaction to throw something at it.

What Was I THINKING?!?

That pretty much sums it up. My first Etsy sugar cookie order was a learning experience (that’s the nice way to put it).

First, how long does it take to make, decorate, and individually wrap 84 red Volkswagen sugar cookies with flames on the back? Answer: 20 hours approximately (maybe a little more).

I mixed the dough up Friday night, and then got up early Saturday morning to starting working on them. Naïve me thinking “oh, I’ll get these done early so I can do some house cleaning this evening.” Uhhh, didn’t happen. I started at 7:30 a.m. and finished decorating them at 9 p.m. I did take two short 15 minute breaks and had to get up and move a few times during the day, but I basically spent the entire day making cookies. And other than a small bowl of cereal and a handful of pretzels, I didn’t eat either. By 9 p.m., this is how things were looking:

My kitchen at 9 p.m.

This is how much space 84 cookies (actually there are 97 I think) take up on my kitchen table.

Almost finished product. Those look like flames right? Say "yes".

You would think from there I would have gone to bed. I WISH!!! I was having my bible class over for dinner the next evening, so I did some house cleaning while the icing set up. At midnight, I was putting cookies in little plastic sacks and tying them with a bow. Bedtime came at 1 a.m. I SOOOO didn’t charge her enough.

Fast forward to Sunday night. Bible class group left at 7:30 p.m., so I’m thinking “YES! I can curl the ribbon, box them up, and make it to bed by 10:00.” I go to retrieve the container of cookies and much to my dismay, the wheels had bled on over half of them! WHAT?!? I’ve never had this happen before. At first I’m thinking it’s just one or two. Oh no, well over half of them had black icing bleeding a good half inch onto the red. Shoot me now! I’m panicked. I want to cry. I can’t redo all of these cookies. Not only is there not enough time, but my hand is killing me still from the day before.

I’m now doing this mental check list in my head…“what did I do differently this time that I haven’t done in the past?” I had just used the same black icing the weekend before to decorate Halloween cookies and they didn’t bleed. Maybe I didn’t let the red icing set long enough. I have no idea, but it was too late at that point.

Cookies Saturday night, wrapped and ready to go.

Cookies Sunday night. Thankfully they were not all THAT bad.

This morning I emailed the lady and explained the situation. I told her I could keep them and refund her money (my office would have been eating sugar cookies for a LONG time) or I could ship them and if she’s not happy with them I would refund half her money. I’m praying she’s nice and that doesn’t happen because if it does, I will maybe break even on the deal. Why you ask? Because even though I did some research, I way underestimated the cost of shipping. My expenses came to almost half of what I charged her.

Did I mention I did NOT charge her enough? And for all of you out there that said I should be charging more, please don’t say “I told you so.” I get it. Lesson learned. LOTS of lessons learned to be exact.

Cookies, Glasses, and a Flashback to the 80’s

Cookies
These are the Halloween sugar cookies I made this weekend. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I actually made Halloween sugar cookies. I bought a new “boo” cookie cutter and had a fun with it. I named the green cookie “Frankencookie”. It was actually an accident, but my favorite once I was done. I took pictures so that I could it to my Esty site next year.

Glasses
Because of too much extra money I have in my cafeteria plan this year, I decided this would be the year to replace my frames. I’ve had the same frames since I got glasses seven years ago. Since I don’t have to wear them all the time they’ve held up well, but I was bored with them. Plus I also needed new prescription sun glasses because the ones I have give me a headache because they’re too tight and they couldn’t loosen them up. To my delight, EyeMasters was having a “Buy One, Get One Free” sale with no exclusions. Score! Of course, I couldn’t pick out glasses on my own, so I had to call in reinforcements.

Saturday morning, my friend/fashion advisor met me at the mall to help me pick out glasses. No joke, I think at one point we had close to 20 pairs of frames in our hands. Just randomly trying to narrow it down wasn’t working, so we divided them up by style and narrowed down each style, then narrowed down what was left. It took us a while, but we finally found a winner (sunglasses were thankfully easier).

One of the sales people asked me on numerous occasions if I had finally found frames. He was laughing by time I took the final selection to him.


Flashback to the 80’s
My bible class had an 80’s Party on Saturday night. It was actually a lot of fun. (Side note, anyone else notice lately how “80’s” many of the current styles are. Scary!) Here are a few pictures from the event. I didn’t do a great job of getting very good pictures, but you get the gist. Awe, the good ‘ol days.

Date

I know that title has some of you excited. Don’t get your hopes up. Friday afternoon I had my yearly date with Cody. Cody is the guy who inspects my house for termites. He’s the kind of guy I’m often attracted to, but would never let myself date. He has that cute “bad boy” thing going for him, but what little I’ve learned about him over the years tells me that our “values” are very different. I do have to give him props…he doesn’t smell like cigarettes anymore. I didn’t like that much. So thank you Cody for the date. It may be short and sweet, but they’re the best dates I have all year long. How sad is that?!?

Ugh!

Besides the fact that I’m having one of those “frustrating” days/weeks for reasons I won’t go into (because I’ll get more frustrated), my attempts at a cheap…because that’s all I can afford…80’s Party Costume have not been successful. The skirt I bought one size larger than I normally wear at Goodwill because I didn’t want to try it on turned out to be two sizes smaller. Ugh! Back to the drawing board. I just emailed a friend and told her I was going to make my hair stand on end, spray paint it a neon color, go naked, and be a Troll Doll. It might come to that!

Very Funny

My co-worker/friend Sarah sent this picture to me.

They are "ear cuffs" designed to protect you from burning your ears when curling your hair. Sadly I am infamous for burning myself with with heat styling tools (and sadly, not just in the head region). And the fact that I have no feeling on the upper tips of my ears made burning the tops of my ears a common occurrence. So sad I didn't think of it first.

De-li-laaah

I won’t even beat around the bush. I CANNOT STAND Delilah (you know, the radio show host). Her voice bugs me. Her “oh-so-thoughtful” act (that I don’t buy) bugs me. Her “life is a bowl of cherries” attitude bugs me…it doesn’t feel genuine. And normally her advice/relationship counseling bugs me. If I have the option and I will turn the radio station as soon as I hear her voice. But last night for some strange reason, I didn’t change the station. Maybe because I had a feeling the caller who was requesting a song for her and her fiancée had one of those stories that makes you think “oh brother, where do they find these people.” Whatever the reason…I didn’t change the station.

The caller asked Delilah to pick a song to play for her and her fiancée (remember, she gave Delilah permission to pick the song). The woman went on and on about how great her fiancée was. How he took such great care of her and her kids. In true Delilah fashion, she probed for more information. The caller had two kids. The caller and her fiancée had been together for 4 months and were getting married Mother’s Day of next year. The caller’s youngest child was 4 ½ months old.

Delilah expressed her concerns (I don’t think the girl quite had a counseling session in mind when she called…she just wanted to dedicate a song to her honey for the world to hear). Delilah was already telling the girl to take it slow. To not be so quick to jump in to a relationship. That getting engaged so quickly was a risky thing to do, especially when she was already so young with two children from other relationships. Delilah was justifiably concerned that maybe this girl only THOUGHT she found her knight in shining armor. And when she found out that she and this guy has only been together 4 months and she had a 4 ½ month old child, she flat out told her “so you jumped from one relationship into another”. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but GO DELILAH! She wrapped up her phone call by advising the girl to take it slow and not rush into anything.

And the song that Delilah played for this girl and her fiancée…“You Can’t Hurry Love” by Diana Ross.

LOVE IT!!!!

Long Overdue

Here is the latest in the list of "home improvements"...the upstairs bathroom (a.k.a. the roommate bathroom). I should have posted these almost two weeks ago, but Facebook was as far as they got.

The yellow turned out a little brighter than I intended, but I think with other color accents it might be fine. It actually looks lighter in the pictures than it does in person. Right now I have a roommate again, so it's staying as is, but I MIGHT eventually try painting it a lighter shade of yellow...we'll see.

People of Walmart

Be forewarned that some of the commentary (and a few pictures) are not quite PG, but so VERY funny! Check out the People of Wal-Mart.

I don’t know if any of you saw David Letterman’s show last night, or like me, saw this clip this morning, but am I the only one who is seriously disturbed by the fact that the audience was laughing? I mean, I got the feeling he was being about as serious as a comedian (who naturally have a tendency to use humor as a defense mechanism) could be. The situation is sad/humiliating/wrong and by no means a laughing matter. He’s married, he has a child, and he just admitted to some very inappropriate behavior. What is wrong with people?

Paging Dr. Freud

I’ve been to busy to post this earlier, but days later I’m still thinking about this dream.

The other night, I dreamed I went to the Wal-Mart Market and when I got there, all I saw were gray cinder block walls and empty boxes. I asked where the groceries were and the lady asked me if I was single or married. What did that have to do with anything? She said there were two different parts to the grocery store and I had to shop in the appropriate area. Well this made mad. I was shopping for groceries and for something I needed for a baby shower and I didn’t see why I should only be allowed to shop on the “single” side. The lady called the manager. The manager and I really got into it. The manager tried to kick me out. I ran and found myself in the single side, but was desperately trying to sneak into the married side so I could get the stuff I needed that the single side didn’t carry. There was a lot of hiding behind stuff and covertly maneuvering myself through the grocery store without being discovered by the manager (who was still searching for me.) I woke up before I finished my shopping trip.

Analyze THAT Dr. Freud!!!

Longing for the Day

I am longing for a day when I can sleep in and not wake up until my body decides it is time to wake up. I'm sitting here wondering when was the last time I got to sleep in. I don't remember. My days off have been spoken for for way too long.

Why am I lamenting? Because I woke up this morning EXHAUSTED from my day yesterday and so badly wanting to stay in my nice warm bed, only to be reminded that tomorrow...Saturday...my only free day each week, has once again been spoken for and I have to get up early AGAIN.

I really need a day off that is in fact a day off. I mean, this was premier week...my favorite week of the year when the new fall shows start...and I didn't get to watch any of them. I have hours of recorded shows that need to be caught up on. Priorities!!!