Craziness

My first "hometown" had some excitement yesterday. Read the story here. I spent my childhood two blocks from here. And the driver of the trash truck lived across the street from us and his kids were childhood friends of my brother and I. I promise you, this is possibly the most excitement this small town has seen since the Farmer's Oil Company exploded when I was a child.

I Did This!!!

And ALL BY MYSELF!!!




Okay, I did make one phone call to a family friend before I turned the power back on to make sure something I had to do wouldn't cause my house to burn down. But he wasn't there and I had already finished before I called. It was actually easier than I thought. I might have to replace more light fixtures in the future.



If you looking closely and wonder why the light bulbs don't match...it's because the larger globe light bulbs (which is what the box said to use) wouldn't work in that one light fixture. The bulb worked, just not in there. I think the part you screw the light bulb into was crooked and since the bulbs were a tight fit, I don't think it was going in straight. Considering how much I paid for it I'm not surprised. But the fixture had to be replaced and I couldn't find anything I liked, so I bought something cheap that would do for now.

Ironic?

I found this picture on a slide show from the Michael Jackson Memorial:

"Elephants from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus are marched on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, through downtown to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where the memorial service for Michael Jackson will be held. The predawn pachyderm march is a decades-old tradition for the circus, which opens Wednesday at the Staples Center."


Anyone else find it ironic that the "Greatest Show on Earth" is following the greatest "show" on earth?

July 4th Rule #1

Rule #1 for going to watch well-done fireworks anywhere other than your backyard is be prepared to wait in a long line of traffic. It’s annoying for all of us. I don’t know anyone who enjoys it…but it is part of the package. If you also follow Rule #2 (Take turns…let someone in ahead of you, then you go) everyone’s trip will go much better. Why is it when everyone is trying to leave the same place at once the Golden Rule seems to get thrown out the window (along with a few choice words and gestures).

The lady in the parking lot with us Saturday night obviously had NOT been schooled in “The Rules”. Of course as soon as the fireworks end, everyone tries to start leaving at once. In the true spirit of the rules, we were doing our best to abide by them and wait for our turn to back out. As we’re backing out, my friend notices the lady next to us is also backing out. So my friend stops and waits for the lady to notice she was there. Oh, the lady knew we were there…she just didn’t care. She proceeds to back out in such a way that my friend is trapped. She can’t back up, she can’t pull forward. But there wasn’t much space between us and the cars heading the opposite direction in the parking lot, so surely the lady will wait for us to finish backing out. Nope. She squeezes her car in-between all the cars (as we held our breath for sure she was going to hit us) and heads towards another exit.

I’d like to say it ended there, but it didn’t. We ended up pulling behind her at the other exit, but she didn’t want to wait in line to get out of the parking lot, so she backs up AGAIN and flies back the other direction in the parking lot, to try to get out that way. We’re all laughing at her knowing she’s not going to get out any faster the direction she was going. We probably had been waiting in line a few minutes when my friend’s daughter yells out that she was getting out of her car. No joke, the lady gets out of her car and walks up the truck in front of her and yells at him for not moving!!! Where did she think he was going to go? He was trying to merge into traffic and the street was bumper to bumper traffic.

We kind of wanted to watch the show, but we did have to keep the flow of traffic going and she ended up out of our view. I have a feeling the conversation that took place wasn’t very PG.

Flower Mishap

Because my neighbor's front flower beds look like rednecks live there (sorry, I should have taken a picture), I decided to plant flowers in mine on Saturday so it didn't look as bad. Sadly almost half of them have died already (two of them were dying by Sunday evening).

I got drought resistant flowers, I planted them where it said to plant them. What else can a girl do? I'll tell you what...take them back. I bought them at Lowe's and they have a guantee and you better bet I'm taking them up on it. I just hope I have better luck the second time around.

Guess I know what I'll be doing on my day off. ;o)

If I Ever Have Children

I HOPE that I am able to raise them in such a way that they don’t feel entitled. It really drives me nuts when I encounter teens or college students that feel the rest of the world needs to yield to them.

Today’s experience at the grocery store is what has me so fired up at the moment. Sadly, it’s not the first time I’ve had this experience. The parking lot of said grocery store has weird traffic flow to be able to exit. I had been sitting there waiting for my turn to pull into the lane I needed to be in when a college girl in a pick up truck decided that she shouldn’t have to wait and cuts me off. Then before I had a chance to pull in behind her the teenage girl coming from the other direction also felt she didn’t need to wait and cut me off again. Seriously?!?!

I was fuming and wanted to yank them out of their cars and ground them (hey, it’s what my dad would have done to me), but since you can’t exactly do that I just called them stupid spoiled brats. I’m sure it didn’t faze them one bit.

Conspiracy Theory of the Day

I’m not 100% convinced Michael Jackson is actually dead. He has always had such odd behavior I would be surprised if this is all some big elaborate scheme to be out of the spotlight forever. I bet the come back tour was all part of the plan to make it more believable. And before any big debate gets started here…I’m kind of kidding…or am I?

Happy Birthday Lauren

My friend's daughter is turning 11 this week. Her party is today and she wanted a purse cake. Since my friend couldn't find anyone who either had time to make one, would make one, or wouldn't require she order one that served a minimum of 25...we decided to take on the task ourselves.

She found the directions on the Betty Crocker website. She baked the cake, I made the icing and we converged last night to put it together.

It was almost tragic. First the cake wanted to tip over to one side and nothing was helping. After several failed attempts to level it and many minutes just standing there staring at it, I came up with the idea to build the icing up on the side that was leaning to prop it up...and it worked. We also had a problem with the chocolate cake crumbs coming off in the icing. We tried every trick I knew of and nothing was working. Finally we just decided to put it in the fridge after we got the thin layer on and let it set up and use all the remaining icing to put a thicker layer on (which meant no black icing accents as originally planned).

But when we were finished, we were pleased with our final outcome. Not too bad for to amateurs on their first attempt. I don't foresee this being my new career though. I will stick to sugar cookies...they're easier. ;o)

Ode to the Alarm Clock

This is my alarm clock.

I have had this clock since I was eleven. It has woken me up every almost every morning since. Its lavender and has never matched my decor (especially now). My dad won it at some conference he went to. My brother was mad that he gave it to me, to which my mom replied "do you REALLY want a lavender alarm clock?" Yes, I know that I'm a grown up now and that I could easily afford to replace my alarm clock with something a little more stylish, but honestly, now that I have had it for so long I kind of want to see how long it will keep working. I have no intention of getting rid of it until it bites the bullet.

So why am I writing about my alarm clock? No reason at all other than I found it fascinating when I realized how long I have had it.

One Day Down

VBS started today. I tried declaring our offices a VBS-free zone, but it didn't last long. It was a strange day.

On a non-VBS related note (but yet still related to the title), I started a new workout this morning. I was getting bored with the one I had been doing. I found this on Amazon really cheap and decided to give it a try.

Since I'm still recouperating from what ever it was that made me sick this weekend, I watched the first level last night (it's only 20 minutes). My thought was this "seriously, you expect people to loose 20 lbs in 30 days doing that? I sure hope the other two levels are harders." After 15 minutes, I was having trouble keeping up. It kicked by butt! Granted I am still not at full capacity, but I under estimated this workout.

Relay For Life 2009: Should Have Known

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Okay, so not necessarily the WORST. There have been far worse things that have taken place in Relays past, but things were off to such a great start.

Before I tell you about this year, I may need to share a little history. 2005 I decided to start volunteering with our local Relay For Life which is the premier fundraising event for the American Cancer Society (click on the link to learn more about Relay For Life). I had found myself in a bubble and was looking for a way to get to know people in my community outside that bubble and since my mom is a cancer survivor, it seemed like a good opportunity. I served for 3 years as their Logistics Chair and then fell into the roll of Event Chair for the 2008 and 2009 Relays…a position that was a great learning experience, but a lot of work. Enough for the history, but I do encourage anyone who has been touched by cancer in some way to check into getting involved with your local Relay For Life by either forming a team or making a donation.

So now the moment I KNOW you have been sitting on the edge of your seat for (haha)…

We were off to a great start on Friday. Yes it was hot, but things were going pretty smoothly. Considering the amount of help we had, we got set up by a decent hour. Normally, the two hours before the event takes place, I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to put out “fires”. But this year I had time to sit down before the Opening Ceremony. I wasn’t stressed. The campus police weren’t trying to kick us off campus. Everyone that was supposed to be there was there. I actually got to EAT before 9 p.m. Everyone was having fun. It was a good evening. And then the phone rang.

This was my 5th Relay. Before I joined the committee they never had to move it indoors because of weather. My first year, we had to find a back up location at the last minute. Since then it has rained every other year. This was supposed to be a “rain” year, but as of Friday morning, the forecast only had a 20% chance of rain. In Oklahoma, 20% chance means you’re not getting rain. Ha! Around 9 p.m., I started getting phone calls saying that we had weather moving our way. And in the age of iPhones, everyone is a meteorologist and had their own opinion on how bad the weather was going to be. At 9:30 p.m., I finally gave in and called my friend at one of the local news stations and asked him what his weathermen thought. They said the weather we had coming our way was not going to be severe, but we were going to get wet so we decided to move our Luminaria Ceremony up by 15 minutes so we could try to beat the rain.

The Luminaria Ceremony was beautiful and going smoothly. They were half way through their silent lap when my phone started ringing. Seems that a section of sprinklers had not been turned off as requested and was spraying water onto some of the luminaria. I go to find the campus employee who was helping me with the lights to see if he knew how to turn off the sprinklers…which he didn’t, but was calling someone who did…when the phone rang again. The sprinklers were now on throughout the entire park area.

Yes, sprinklers were going off INSIDE many of the tents, and if they weren’t going off inside the tent, then they were spraying into the tent. As everyone is rushing around trying to cover up sprinkler heads, the rain starts falling. Water was coming from both the ground and the sky. Our perfect evening had a damper put on it…literally. When my friend called after the 10 p.m. news to see how things were going, I started laughing and said “I’m wet.”

We had few teams leave, but most stayed. Our DJ almost bailed out on us, but he ended up coming out after all (which we were VERY thankful for…it would have been a long evening without him).

I would like to say that was it for the evening, but about 1 a.m., I got really sick and kept getting sick throughout the rest of the evening. I think I just got dehydrated, but I spent the last half of the evening laying on a couch in the accounting room…that was NOT fun.

But hey, it wouldn’t be Relay if something didn’t go wrong. At least this year I wasn’t running around trying to find a missing gator (check out the “not so funny highlights” from this post.)

The Muppet Movie Says It Best

The Muppet Movie is one of those movies that is a favorite, that I forget is a favorite. This song is becoming a theme lately. Change the "she's" to "he's" and the chorus pretty much says it all.

You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em.
There's somethin' irresistabullish about 'em.
We grin and bear it 'cause the nights are long.
I hope that somethin' better comes along.

It's no good complainin' and pointless to holler.
If she's a beauty she'll get under your collar.
She made a monkey out of old King Kong,
I hope that somethin' better comes along.

Ah, but what could be better than a saucy Irish setter
When puppy love comes on strong?
Or a collie that's classy, a laddie needs a lassie,
A lover and wife gives you a new leash on life.

I hope that somethin' better comes along.

The Joys of Adulthood

In the last month, I have replaced a furnace and A/C coil, replaced springs on the garage door, and have to take my car to a mechanic tomorrow night because my car is making noises that shouldn't be ignored. Really? Shouldn't there be some cosmic rule that major repairs need to be spread out over an extended period of time? Yeah, I know...wishful thinking.

I'm Perplexed

So, here is my dilemma…I am SOOOO bored with my job I can’t stand it. It’s not that I’m not busy, it’s just not challenging for me anymore (well, not in a good way…there are days when it is “challenging”.)

The easy answer is to look for a new job. I’ve tried doing that; the problem is I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. Nothing sounds appealing and it’s hard to look for a job when I don’t really know what you’re looking for. If I were viewing this from someone else’s position I would say its laziness, but really I enjoy staying busy. I would get bored sitting around all day. But I want to enjoy going to work (at least most of the time, I know everyone has those days when they dread having to go to work…but that is a part of life.)

Last summer I was contacted about a position working for an auction firm and the job would require traveling and handling the logistics of all their auctions. Though it was in another town and I might not have been able to accept the position for logistical reasons, I was really intrigued and a little disappointed that I never heard back from them the second time…but oh well. That is the only job I have run across that REALLY sounded interesting…ever. I’ve interviewed for some stuff that I thought would be a good change, but never felt like the best fit.

And don’t get me wrong, I KNOW how blessed I am to have a job, and there was a time when I loved my job, but I’m just one of those people that once I have “mastered” something, I’m ready to take on something else. I’ve pretty much done everything I can (and care to) do where I’m at. I need a new challenge.

Ugh! After all this time, you would think I would have this figured out by now.

Answer Me This

I noticed this morning that my Bath & Body Works bottles had this disclaimer on them "Finished Product Not Tested On Animals". I'll be the first to say, I don't really take this into consideration when purchasing anything. I should be more conscience of whether or not things are tested on animals, BUT does B&B think that some how makes them socially acceptable with the animal rights groups? Do they think that will get PETA off their backs? Really. So they tested it on animals UNTIL they had a FINISHED product and then decided THAT was okay? That just seems to be a dumb statement to put on their bottles.

Boycott

I have decided that I am boycotting Subway until they get rid of that AWFUL $5 Footlong commercial with the horrible singers. Makes me cringe! I change the channel every time.

This Makes Me Happy

To see that big yellow icon so many times in one week instead of the ugly gray one we have been seeing makes me very very happy. Hopefully I'll get to enjoy some of it.

Breaking news - Celebrity Swine Flu Fatality

Rumor has it that they have a suspect.

Have To Laugh

Murphy’s Law seems to apply to my life. Yet another case in point…

Grass
In the last year, I mole decided to take up residence in my back yard. Said mole killed a large portion of the grass in my back yard. Homeowner’s associate will mow back yard, but will not repair grass (not that I really expected them to). Landscapers hired by HOA have decided not to mow in the area where most of the grass is dead, so the un-dead grass is growing tall in spots.

Solution: Buy grass seed and re-seed back yard this last weekend.

Problem: Spent over an hour preparing ground and re-seeding backyard, only to have rain storm (that I was unaware was coming) wash most of the seed into they greenbelt behind my house. Ugh.

Car
Recently, my car has started making a grinding noise. I was tempted to ignore the problem because I didn’t want to pay for car repairs, but I finally realized that ignoring the problem would not make it go away (such can be said about life). So this morning I took the car to the mechanic to find out the problem…which became 3 problems.

Problem 1: Rear breaks needed to be replaced. Thankfully I took it in before it got too bad and it was a cheaper fix.

Problem 2: Windshield wiper fluid sprayer not working (I was aware of this and asked him to look at it). A piece of foil from the bottle got stuck in the hose and clogged it up.

Problem 3: Nail in the tire, and it’s in the side of the tire and broken off. I’m not real sure that was an accident.

More Things That Creep Me Out

I dedicated a post to things that creep me out almost 4 years ago. All of those things on that list still creep me out, but I have some additions.


In addition to this...

And the the Quaker Oatmeal Guy...not the one on the box, but the plastic one in the commercials that just stands there and smiles (sorry, couldn't find a picture),

But these freak me out too!

What's worse is that it has been a while since I've been in Old Navy and today I walked into my local store and what should be standing there as you walk in the door...the supermodelquins! Seriously made me uneasy...almost turned around and walked out.

Are you seeing a pattern here? I'm starting too. I don't like things with platic smiles! The Burger King is still the worst because he moves.