I forgot to post this. Karin's baby shower last weekend. She's ready to pop in January. 

No matter how still I am, my camera still decided to smudge half my pictures. 

What's next?

Put up xmas lights today on the front of the house. I was wearing shorts and a tank top. Got a bit hot and sun beaten. Didn't feel like xmas. I was doing okay but the highest point of my roof is pretty high, even for a bean pole like myself. My ladder is 12 feet high but I wasn't about to go climbing to the top of it on my concrete driveway. So I had to get inventive. Not usually a problem for me. So I opened the garage and started looking for something with a hook that I could use as an arm extension. What luck! I found Chad's harpoon gun that his friend Dan gave him years ago. When he got it I remember asking "what the hell do you need a harpoon for?" and he said "I don't know, but isn't it cool?" and sure enough I found a reason for it today. It worked too. I got my lights up and they actually look nice. I got a bit dizzy on that ladder in the sun and so I rewarded myself with a Chipotle. When I got home, in my mailbox was a returned check from the hostess of my slumber party from last week. She bounced a $223.00 check that I have already used up. No telling why my bank posted it to my account the instant they opened last Saturday but by Monday I had already paid my car registration with it and tonight it came back to me. Of course I can't get her on the phone. What's worse is I have a party booked with her crazy ass mean sister in 2 weeks. I am tempted not to do it but I don't want to punish the sister for her mistake. I am trying to tell myself that it was just a mistake and that she wouldn't purposely invite me in to her home and then write me a bad check but you just never know these days.
Then the old lady tells me that she is not coming this year. This would be the first time she hasn't come since, I think, 1990. This isn't the first time she said she wasn't coming but this is the first time that I believe her. Her health is deteriorating and I know that she is simply waiting to die, it's just a matter of when. She has "do not resuscitate"orders. She just can't wait to go. So now I know I have to go to her. I can't afford to fly out and I don't want to go for xmas cause Chad actually got a boss who understands that it's important that his employees be home for major holidays and gave him xmas eve and day off. I've been waiting for this for like, I don't know, our whole relationship. Ain't no way I'm missing xmas with him. It would cost me $470.00 to fly to Detroit in December. I don't have $470.00 and now I'm $223.00 in the hole until I get this nonsense resolved and I gotta fork over who knows how much to get my termite problem taken care of before it turns in to be a big circus tent situation. But if I don't fly out I am afraid she will pass and then I will feel even worse. I'm feeling pretty lousy tonight. I will get by. I always do. But I swear if it's not one thing it most certainly is going to be another. I try to put these things in perspective. At least I'm not in Iraq or a ton of other worse things that I dare not even type for fear of jinxing it. (knock on wood)

Gobbles

Just want to wish you all a happy thanksgiving. I am very thankful today, mostly because I have Chad at home with me. He doesn't have to rush off and cook for everyone else's families. I've put in my time and I am finally rewarded! We are going to Chad's friend's Jason's mother's house for dinner. Man that was a lot of possessive nouns. Then later I will be decorating the house for xmas. I'm gonna put lights up on the house, first time ever. I figured I bought a tall ladder, might as well use it. Have a great day everyone! love you all.

This will be me later. hands off my turkey fool!

alls quiet on top of the hill

It's only Tuesday. man holidays have a way of slowing things down and then once they get here it's go go go and it's over and then next thing you know it's Monday again. Been pretty boring around here. Nothing really to say. Don't want to wish you a happy thanksgiving yet cause then I'll have nothing to say to you on Thursday. geez. Went and saw Happy Feet on Sunday. Chad has been getting Sundays off. It's nice. I lost a half pound tonight. I'm down to below my max weight for my height. Gretchen (my WW leader) told me to go as far as I can go so that if I fall I'll have a cushion. Good idea. Been watching some TV. House is a pretty good show. But nothing compares to LOST (can I get a hell yes from Ballinger) and we gotta wait until February to watch again. But that jungle love scene was pretty sweet between Sawyer and Kate. Oh yeah. .....Corina must have jinxed me. She asked me what I wrote about on here and I told her "oh all the interesting stuff in my life" yeah, well that's par for the course. Ohh, I hear Law and Order SVU starting in the living room so I have to find something to do for 20 minutes until I can go in there and watch without commercials. TiVo has ruined me for regular tv. I stop paying close attention to things cause i know I can just hit replay! Chad asked me the other day what I'd do if the TiVo stopped working. I said I'd get in my car and drive to Fry's Electronics and buy another box, no question. I'd do the same thing if my big screen went out. I mean you gotta have a game plan in place if these emergencies every happen. Oh and I have termites. That was lovely way to start the holiday season. They're outside right now, doesn't look as though they've moved in yet but I guess that's just a matter of time. Terminex wants to charge me $1000 to treat the premises. They say that buys me a 1 year warranty. For $1000 it had better get me a 10 year warranty and a big fat kiss on my ass cause that's outrageous. Anyone know a good exterminator that won't charge $1000?


Aww he's so cute you almost don't want to kill him....almost.

I think Chad over did it a bit. Bowser is destroying the plants with his gigantic shell. He's a proud papa. 

That's Bowser mounting Gaston. Look how tiny Gaston is now! 

Been in the rental a week ½ now. I got a Kia Optima. Pretty nice, I gotta say. It's a four door, which is new to me. Also seems to be a 6 cylinder. It hauls ass and goes thru gas like Chad goes thru beer! It's also brand spankin new. Only 250 miles on it. I'm gonna jojofy it! It's an automatic which is a nice change. I've been stuck in a lot of traffic lately and it's nice not to have not to shift every time I ease up a centimeter!
When I dropped off my baby the guy asked me if the dent on the front hood was from my accident and I batted my eyes and said "uh....no....but if you wanna go ahead and buff that out for me, that'd be greeaat! he said "okay." SWEEEETTT. We'll see if he does it. Or he may actually charge me, who knows. Pretty boring around here otherwise. Chad and I extended our tiny family to include 2 more hermit crabs. It's too funny cause when I first got my crabs he wouldn't go near them. He said they creeped him out. He wouldn't pick them up or anything. He kept picking up Gaston and everytime Gaston would poke his head out Chad would put him down and say "gross." Now he loves them. I don't know what changed. We got a huge one. He named it Bowser. He's the size of a fist, huge, compared to Gaston and the other new crab, Amelie. Chad went out and bought them a new aquarium and accessories like a pool and live plants and flowers to pimp out the aquarium. He takes pictures and he's even reading up on them on the internet. I love it.

take a penny leave an attitude

I'm having a bad day. One of those days when a culmination of small things make you feel like you suck at life and everyone is laughing at you. My final straw today was...well first let me explain something. We sell 99¢ chips at the store. With the tax it totals out to $1.01. Well most people get pissy cause they have to dig around for a penny. And some just don't even look and stare at me blankly when I say it $1.01, not $1.00 then they say "I don't have change" and I say well then you'd better give me that other dollar you're holding huh? and they do and they think I'm a bitch. I say if you expect to not pay the full amount for an item then you're an idiot and you shouldn't be coming in to buy anything in the first place. I'm not cheap, nor am I on some power trip. I don't care about the stupid penny. I've let hundreds of kids get by without it but they genuinely looked and didn't have it and that's ok. when these assholes come in and expect that it's ok to not pay the full amount simply cause they don't want to break their dollar bills or run back to their office for more change again cause the price has been and will always be $1.01 and they just expect me to be like ok just leave, it doesn't matter that you do this weekly and still haven't learning and don't feel like you need to take responsibility for yourself and throw your 'you're so mean and cheap' attitude at me. My company expects me to balance a till every day. If I let all the pennies walk out the door as dollar bill then I'd never balance. It's the principal of the matter and I take that seriously. So today 2 staff members come in and we go thru the schpeel and I say "do you have the penny, it's $1.01" and he looks at me blankly and says "no, I gave you guys like 20¢ extra a few weeks ago!" and I say "not to me you didn't and besides how do I know you're not lying?" and he says "I'm not" and I say "fine, but next time I want you to be prepared with the penny." He's been in before. He knows better. So they leave and I go back to my office. 2 minutes later the woman he was with (I don't know who she is or what her name is. I never got a look at her face when she came in the first time) storms back in the store and slams the penny down on the counter, knockin over a gum display in the process. "Here! I want that woman who was here earlier to have her penny!! I've worked here 10 years and I've never been called a liar!!" I heard all this happen and so I shouted out "wait" and I headed towards the front. She takes off. So I follow her out and call for her to stop. She speeds up and never looks back. A passing student tried to get her attention for me and she ignored her too. I wasn't about to chase her down. I was going to tell her how ridiculous she was being and that she took the whole thing and escalated it entirely way much. But she refused to talk to me or look at me. So she made me feel like shit and I in turn have the pleasure of knowing that I made her feel like shit first. But that wasn't my intention. I was joking about the lying comment but she didn't think I was funny, aparently. I considered finding the guy and apologizing to him for not being more guarded in my joke but not to her, she doesn't deserve an apology if she won't even talk to me when I try to defend myself, she just bolted out of there like a child. This is now the 3rd time my mouth has gotten me in trouble, 2nd time this week even. I can't say anything about the first 2 incidents cause people get too butt hurt and threaten to sue while others turn things around to where I'm the bad one even though I was just the messenger. Today's incident has happend before. German man (as I call him. he's got an accent) threw a big hissy fit at me about 2 months ago when I said I needed the penny. He said "oh yeah, wouldn't want the store to go bankrupt!" Now when he comes in he looks to see if I'm there and when he can't avoid me he throws his money at me, literally. So I'm feeling pretty low about myself today. I am an honest and genuine person. I say things and I don't always think first but that's only when I'm not bottling things up and trying not to offend people. I say what's on my mind, usually it's something sarcastic but it's always the truth. So either way I can't win. I know you're probably thinking that we should just have one of those cups with spare change in them but the company is very clear on that being prohibited so I'm the enforcer of the change. Yay me. Thank goodness tomorrow is a holiday and I have the day off.

they all come out on Halloween

so I stopped at the mail box yesterday on my way home as I always do. one of my neighbors was there and I said hello as I always do when I see a neighbor at the mail boxes. he says to me "oh hey how are you? oh man I feel like such an ass. you know I never got a chance to introduce myself since that night." and I thought yeah cause I have no idea who you are or anything. then I thought it was my new friend Guy with the diarhea house. even though it didn't look like him I figured eh, close enough, maybe I just didn't get as good of a look that day as I thought I had, what with all my trauma from being hit! so i'm about to say hi Guy and he says "you know I was so fucking wasted and I never properly instruded myself, I'm Paul." well get out of town it's Crazy Paul (as Chad and I lovingly refer to him) in the flesh, shaking my hand. For anyone who doesn't know Crazy Paul check my posting from last year, I think around April of 2006. So he starts in again "oh yeah I was so far gone that night you called the cops, say listen are you giving out candy tonight cause I don't know how much to get. last year there were a ton of kids and I ran out of candy so I just started giving them money by the end." clearly our nickname for him is more suitable then we know. I told him I don't give out candy but htat he should just turn off his lights like I do and pretend I'm not home. And that's exactly what I did!