Trolling Craigslist: Free Stuff

Sometimes my dad and I like to browse the "Free" section of Craigslist just for kicks.  Then we'll email the listings to each other and crack up.  We love to find out what "great finds" people are willing to put out there instead of just throwing away.  While looking the other day, a few caught my eye and I thought I would share.  It's not always the item itself that makes the cut of stupidity, but the brilliant editing (or lack of) that went into the description of the free item.  And sometimes it's a little combination of both the item and the description.  Here goes, in order of not-so-bad to horrible:

Item 4. Trampoline.

 

 

Could you get a little further away from the Trampoline next time?  I know there's a ton of snow out in your backyard and probably loads of dog poop to avoid, but a picture from a little closer than 50 yards away would be nice.  Especially so I can get a close up of the "kissing" metal pole.  Please explain what exactly that is...

Item 3: Plastic Tables and Chairs

 

 

Oh Rick, Rick, Rick....please...don't waste my time by posting this ad if you can't even set the chairs and tables upright to take the picture.  I mean I know you're moving and all and are in a rush to get rid of your shit, but please, just leave them on the deck for the next sorry soul to deal with or throw them away.  If I remember correctly, those things snap apart on a dime, so just pay the neighbor kid a few bucks to smash them with a baseball bat and they'll fit in your garbage can just fine.  Don't make us waste your time twice by asking for another picture of them in their correct, upright position.

 

Item 2: Little Tikes Picnic Table

 

 

 

Where to even begin?  There is so much wrong with this I suppose I'll just start from the top.  The grainy, out of focus picture?...if you're going to rip off a picture from the internet, at least know how to correctly search for an image that is the right size so it won't be a pixelated mess when you upload it.  And while we're at it, don't steal images off the internet and think that people are dumb enough to believe that's the actual picture of your item.

Thank you for letting us know the squirrels are evil in your neighborhood.  Because they are perfect angels everywhere else I've seen.  A little duct tape would make it perfect?  Why didn't I think of that??  Or better yet, why didn't you?  Can't you just fix your own table with duct tape and keep it in your squirrel infested yard?  I'm sure the kids that you force to sit there will welcome fraying silver tape sticking to their sweat pants when they try to get up from arts and crafts time.  And I am absolutely shocked that the umbrella isn't included!  What ever could have happened to it?? 

And I will be sure to flick off the squirrels as I drive off with my new, perfectly chewed up plastic picnic table.  I'm sorry you couldn't keep your patio chairs around--maybe you should have put them on Craigslist for free, too.  I'm sure a little duct tape would have kept those puppies in perfect shape for a few more years.  Let me know how it goes next year with those squirrel traps. 

 

Item 1: Balloons

 

 

FINALLY!  The Gods have smiled down upon me and answered my prayers!  You don't how long I've waited to find four, pre-blown up balloons in random colors.  And for FREE at that!  These are just the thing I need!

Seriously???  What the??  Who in their right mind would take the time to take a picture of four, non-helium filled balloons, type up an ad and upload it to Craigslist and try to get rid of them??  Probably the same kind of person who gives out mints as Halloween candy (see basket in picture).

I have some other ways you could get rid of them...need I list them?

     1. Keep them around for two days and they will eventually shrivel up into avocado size balls and  

         you can throw them away.

     2. Do you have a pin, a knife, a fork, a match?  All of these will get rid of the balloons in a snap.

     3. Give them to the guy with the picnic table and his squirrels will probably take care of them for

         you.

"Our loss is your gain."...?  Ok, now this is a bit dramatic, don't you think?  It will more than likely be your loss because by the time you find someone stupid enough to drive to pick up four random balloons, they will have been deflated, right along with your ego.

 

It's All About the Membrane

I don't have that much experience with boiled eggs but I've come to realize no matter how much you claim to know the perfect method for boiling eggs so the shells peel nice, it's all crap unless you can get the membrane.  Who else agrees?  My brother has a spot-on method for boiling eggs.  This comes from months of practice and trying different methods.  After a few month span of me not boiling eggs, I was in the mood to boil some over the weekend so I could eat the whites for my mid-morning snack at work.  I don't eat the yolks because they are just plain chalky and disgusting.  I am surprised my cubicle doesn't smell of stinky farts because I have two yolks in the garbage can as I speak and one of them is from yesterday.
Anyway, I texted Jeff on Sunday and said "what is your preferred method for boiling eggs?".  He called and told me his precise method, down to the second.  He ended the call with "let me know how they turn out".
Who knew boiling eggs could be so exciting that we now need to know how they turn out?!?  I found it quite funny coming from my 28 year old brother.
I brought an egg to work on Tuesday and the thing peeled like a charm.  I swear the shell came off in two large chunks.  I texted Jeff and told him "the eggs turned out perfect!".  Wednesday was a different story, however.  I cracked the egg like normal and proceeded to peel.  "What's this?", I wondered as the shell of the egg was sticking and coming off in mosaic tile style chunks.  This can't be the egg that came from the perfect boiling method of Jeff's!  Say it isn't so!
 About 1/4 of the way through the frustrating peeling process, I noticed that I didn't have the membrane.  The membrane didn't come off with the first chunk of shell so I was therefore screwed.  I would spend the next four minutes chipping away at this egg, trying to get the tiny pieces of shell unstuck from the plastic-like, sticky substance that is the outer membrane of the egg.  Once it was finally time to eat the egg white, it didn't taste nearly as good, either.  Call me crazy, but I swear the membrane latched to the roof of my mouth and made it difficult to chew.
I brought another egg to work today and gave it another go.  I gave it a good whack on my desk and hoped for the best.  As I peeled the first bit of the shell back, I was happy to see that the egg had it's shiny, slippery surface exposed instead of the clouded over, gray look. And with that I knew I had the membrane in hand.  Just like that, the egg was peeled in a few large chunks and I was free to enjoy my perfectly boiled egg like planned!  I tell ya, it's all about the membrane.

The less I write the less I have to say.

I know I say this before every post I post after it’s been awhile, but this blog has been neglected since my birthday and has grown a long, long beard.   The beard is so long I think I see some hairs starting to creep down below the screen.  Not cool.  I think the less I write, the less I have to say on this little slice of internet heaven that is my own.  Again, not cool.  This is valuable space that people would love to have.  Ok, not really but whatever. 

Anyway, what can I tell you that’s interesting?... 

Did you know that I was getting new/used kitchen cabinets?  Well I was and I was super pumped about them.  My friend’s mom was gutting her kitchen and offered me her solid oak cabinets.  So after measuring and looking at them, I decided to take them.  Well long story short, after four pickup truck loads of hauling cabinets and putting them into my garage, I decided that they weren’t going to work after all.  Too much time would have to be invested and they maybe wouldn’t have looked right in there anyway.  So after discussion with some other peeps in my circle, I decided that I was just going to keep the cabinets I have and do some updating to them.  I am kind of excited about it.  It’s going to be a long project but will hopefully be worth it.  I plan to start it after vacation so that will HOPEFULLY mean that my blog will be back in business in the New Year.  There is also another change to it that I have been thinking about making to the blog so stay tuned for that, too. :)

Did you hear all the ruckus about the Holiday Train that made a stop in Cottage Grove?  It was kind of a big deal and was the only stop in the country that had a free little concert to go along with the stop.  There were three acts: The Claytones, Take 6 and Sheryl Crow.  Drew and I went and it was cold, but it was also really fun.  We were about 15 feet from the stage—I could literally see the pattern on Sheryl’s mittens.  Sheryl played for an hour and the other two acts played for about a half an hour each.  It was a pretty sweet gig.  Nothing like a free concert in CG to kick off a Saturday night! 

I just pulled my camera out of my purse the other day to find the battery completely dead (surprise, surprise).  After I charged it I looked at my last pictures taken and they were the pictures I took during pumpkin carving!  That means it’s been almost two months since I’ve taken a “real” picture.  That’s pretty unacceptable in my book.  I need to get on that in the New Year, too. 

Since I slacked in the real camera department, I’ll leave you with some pixelated cell phone shots.  (I have since upgrade my phone so hopefully my next ones won't be so rotten!) 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!  Thanks for being a blog reader.  :)

Another Photo Challenge, Pumpkin Carving and Spooky Teeth!

So in the midst of my yearly photo challenge, I was asked to partake in another photo event.  I was honored to be asked to take my mediocre photography skills and take Niall's 18 month pictures.  Of course I love shooting pictures of my little gem, but I knew that any 18 month old on the move would be somewhat difficult to get some decent shots of.  Turns out, they didn't turn out so bad.  He sat still for long enough for me to get some nice smiles and I even got him to say 'cheese' for me.  Below are some of my favorites.  I think these out of all of them I took capture all aspects of his personality the best.  :)

How was your Halloween?  I never get many trick or treaters around my house so I still have an almost full bowl of candy sitting on my living room chair begging me not to eat it.  Although I didn't get many kids to see them, I think my pumpkins were the best on the block.  Drew was bound and determined to get some sort of ski logo carved onto his pumpkin and since he "hadn't carved a pumpkin since he was 12", his skills were tested and somewhat failed when it was time to carve skinny part of the Nordica logo.  Oh the shame.  Thankfully some toothpicks saved the day and it didn't turn out too bad.  The other two faces were carved by yours truly.

And now for the really spooky (and maybe gross) part of this post.  I am getting my two front crowns replaced!  13 years ago I knocked out two of my front teeth in a rollerblading incident and ended up with one root canal and two crowns.  The crowns looked great in their day but they were starting to show their age and I figured it was high time I got them replaced.  So on Halloween, the most fitting day for this procedure, I went to appointment 1 of 2 to get my crowns replaced with the newest, latest and greatest technology in dentistry (according to my sister-in-law, the dental assistant).  If you look real close at this before picture, you can see my front tooth is somewhat larger and fatter than my other tooth and you can see my gray gum line.  That will all go away after these new crowns are in.  I know for a fact I had never been so excited to go to the dentist last Thursday!

And now for the 'during' photo:  This is what I looked like in the dental chair for a good half hour.  These are my real teeth that are underneath those crowns.  I guess this is what shade of yellow my teeth would look like if they were never touched by a toothbrush!  Disgusting, huh?  For now I have temporaries on that resemble my old crowns (minus the gray gum line), but in a week from Thursday, I will be good as new!  I will make sure to show you another before and after shot because I know you are dying to know.  I will leave you with this image so you can have a nice mental picture of it all day long!  Hopefully when I am famous someday this image won't surface.  I guess I'll take that chance.  Keeping it real is what it's all about, right?

Have a great week!

Oh and one more thing before I go; my four legged brother turned 6 on November 1st.  I snagged this picture of him with his birthday gifts from my mom's Instagram account.  Happy Birthday Rizzo!

URGENT!!!

I interrupt this 30 Day Photography Challenge to bring you some breaking news!

AP NEWS WIRE: 2013. Oct 21 12:36 PM CDT
HASTINGS (AP) Facebook was down early this morning and may still be experiencing some minor glitches.  I hope your food supply is high and the batteries in your flashlights are fresh--the world may stop spinning.  Everybody please go into panic mode because the World is currently in a state of Code Red.

Ok, in all seriousness... That blurb did not actually come from the Associated Press, I of course crafted that one up, but still.  In all reality Facebook was and maybe still is experiencing glitches early this morning.  I know this because a big portion of my job requires me to be on Facebook.  When Facebook wasn't cooperating with me for about a half an hour this morning, I decided to take matters into my own hands and figure out what was going on.  So I did the most logical thing:  I went to Twitter.
I logged onto Twitter, searched the hashtag "Facebook" and wouldn't you know, the answer to my question was in front of my eyes, about 1000 times, in 140 characters or less.  Who knew that Facebook being in a state of semi-limbo could cause such a fuss.  I grabbed a few screen shots of the twitter feed for proof.
Allow me:

Believe me, this bunch of tweets was just a small portion of the tweets out there.  Did you notice that actual, real-life NEWS channels were tweeting this garbage out???  One tweet (not shown) actually said that a NATIONAL news station in the UK actually talked about the story ON AIR.  Either it was a really slow news day over there, Princess Kate wasn't anywhere to be found so they could photograph her 'post-baby bod' or Facebook is truly taking over our lives.  We need to get a handle on this.  It is really sad.
My favorite tweets of course are the ones who are making fun of the fact that FB was down.  Like when Rob Johnson or @RobOnTheRun said: "#Facebook down?!! How will the girl who didn't talk to me in high school flood my news feed with pics of her 4th daughter's beauty pageant?!" and when Mark Arum or @MarkArum said: "#Facebook is down.  I have no way of knowing if my friends took their kids apple picking or pumpkin picking this weekend."
Hopefully Facebook will be back online soon so we can get on with our lives, jobs and so that Zuckerberg and Google can continue to take over the world one LIKE at a time.

Long Overdue...

Holy smokes!  I knew it had been awhile since I posted a post--I guess I just didn't realize it was way back in July.  Smack dab in the dog days of summer and now I am sitting here in a long sleeved shirt and socks.  Where did the time go?
This summer flew by for me which is good and bad.  The bad is that summer flew by and now winter is going to show its ugly face in no time.  The good is that it flew which usually means that fun was had. I had a bunch  of fun this summer.  The past couple months have been filled with boating, cabin trips, a couple weddings, a long weekend to Chicago and neglecting to properly water my yard.
So although I do plan on A. blogging about Chicago and B. Telling you about other things that may or may not interest you, I am going to leave you with some pictures that have described what I've been up to--because you know what they say...a picture is worth a thousand words.
Pardon me if you've seen these via Instagram...some of these pictures are just too dear to my heart not to share again.  :)
Oh and fall is almost here (it's official on Sunday, did you know what?) which means Honeycrisp's are in season. Grab yourself some next time you are at the store; you won't regret it.
And now for a few photos:

Caitlin and I being geeky outside of the Twins game.

If this crew didn't take Chicago by storm, I don't know who else would...

That's one small food for man.  One giant pumpkin for mankind. #mnstatefair

My favorites.

A vintage chair that I had been eyeing on Craigslist showed up in my driveway one day.  Aren't surprises the best?!?

A pit stop at our old SCSU stompin' grounds on the way up to Kari's cabin.  She's lookin' a bit run down these days, but that didn't stop the memories from pouring out of our mouths!

We made it to the cabin, but we were missing one vital person at that kitchen table.  She knows who she is.

The before. (excuse the yellow-ness--that's what you get with a phone camera + very poor lighting)

The After.

That's it!

Speaking of before and afters, or just photos in general...October is right around the corner which means...wait for it....yes, you guessed it!  My THIRD ANNUAL 30 Day Photography Challenge will be starting Tuesday, October 1.  I know you can't hardly wait!

Apparently I am too old.

So yesterday I was stuck behind this guy on my entire 10 mile journey home from work.  No doubt you have seen trucks like this in your lifetime.  And you have probably been stuck behind one at one point or another.  You know the type; lots of reading material on the back, the dual (not to mention massive) antennas sticking out of the bed of the truck...something I have never understood, and the best part of all...the extremely loud exhaust, lack of muffler, or whatever you want to call it.  Now I am not one to get all uptight about things like loud cars or trucks--they can be super fun. BUT when you are behind one for ten miles and you have your windows down and can't even hear your radio without practically blowing out the speakers in your car, it can be a tad annoying.  Also throw in the fact that you at one point have to roll your windows up because of the rancid stench that is coming out of the dual exhaust.  As I got up closer I read a few of the stickers.  A few were military stickers (kudos to them for having a son in the military--I totally respect that), some were weird symbols that I could not even begin to guess at what they stood for, and then I spotted the classic "Loud Pipes Save Lives" sticker.  I am sure this is a true statement in more ways than one...A., even the deafest of deaf could hear this truck coming down the road and would be sure to get the hell out of the way if he or she should happen to be in the middle of the road and B. I would be willing to bet this truck is a gas guzzlin' hog so he is sure doing his part to keep the oil companies in business which in turn keeps their employees employed and thus keeps food on their table to keep them alive! 
That second one was a stretch but you get my point.
And then I spotted another sticker that read "If it's too loud, you're too old".  It kind of made me depressed as I had just been silently ragging on this obnoxious truck, but I soon got over it.  Apparently I don't care if I am too old.

The Gas Station Chronicles

 Have you ever stopped to wonder what really great stories the walls of gas stations could tell?  Or what stories the workers of gas stations could tell?  Especially in small, up north towns.  Of course the 'up north' I am referring to will only be familiar to the Wisconsin and Minnesota readers.  If you happen to come across this blog from another state, your version of 'up north' may be something completely different.  I recently read (or heard somewhere) that Up North to Minnesota is like the Hampton's of New York.  Going up north for the weekend in the summer around these parts is kind of a 'thing' and can be a big deal.
Anyway, back to my point.  This past weekend my two uncles and I packed up and headed up to Bayfield for some more sailing.  We did our usual bathroom stop at McDonald's in Superior on the way up and on the way home, we usually stop at the Holiday gas station in Superior.  As I made my journey into the Holiday bathroom, I got to thinking that I've never once set foot in the Holiday bathroom that's a mere 1/2 mile from my house yet I've been in this one, 168 miles away from home, probably close to 10 times.  Does anyone else think that's weird?  And most of the time, I don't buy anything, I just mozy in there, still half sleeping from my nap in the car and mozy on out.  I usually feel bad for not buying anything but then I realize that especially up in that neck of the woods, I am sure the workers are used to it and they couldn't probably care any less.  Do you think it's in the handbook when the employees are hired that they have to keep the bathrooms tidy because... as said in an 'up north' dialect: ..."you know, we get a lot of drive-in traffic in this area, you know with all those out of towners coming to and from Duluth and the cities, ya know."
I would love to be one of the gas station workers, just for a Sunday when the pit stops are at their peak.  Maybe even in an even smaller town at a small, family-owned gas station.  The kind where you just swing in because you missed your opportunity in Superior because you "didn't have to go then". You casually walk in, trying not to be super obvious and of course there is the lone cashier with no customers standing at the counter...silently judging you when you casually look up and around to find the bathroom sign.  You walk in, try not to touch anything but yet be as quick as possible and pray as you exit that there will be a customer to distract the lone guy at the counter, but no luck.  You still feel slightly bad for not buying at least a scratch off (which, side note: I am usually a sucker for an out-of-state scratch off...I always think I will win but never do) but then you figure that you will probably never see that kid again...well, at least not for a few more weeks when you may miss your opportunity at the Holiday in Superior.

This Calls For A Blog Post

I did the unthinkable.  After my jean shopping disaster that has been the last year plus, I decided to take a risk.  Shortly after my last post I decided to do a quick online search for the exact pair of jeans that I have at home that I love.  I love them except for the fact that they have holes in them and they would never fly for wearing to any sort of occasion outside of a BBQ and they would never pass the "please follow the dress code" rule that is put at the end of every "Jeans Day" email that comes through every so often at work.  So I do a quick Google search and low and behold, a handful of the exact jeans that I am looking for appears in the first search result on Ebay.  At first I couldn't even bring myself to click on it.  "Used jeans??... I don't think so."  But then my wise, 31 year old brain thought twice.  Why not, I thought.  Why not give them a shot.  What do I have to lose?  So I did some digging and found the pair that looked the best.  They were the right color, the butt pockets didn't have any crazy stitching, they were just what I was looking for.  And the best part??  They were $11.  Eleven dollars people.  For like-new jeans that normally cost $90.  The shipping was $5 and they were to arrive in four days.  I really couldn't go wrong.  And if for some reason they didn't work out, I was only out $16.  So not four, but TWO days later, the jeans are in my mailbox, folded all pretty in the smallest UPS cardboard envelope available.  I took them out, tried them on and they fit like a glove!  Just like I remember them doing in stores long ago before the skinny jean craze took over!  I was so happy I first of course went to a mirror to check out my rear end to make sure that looked ok.  After I was ok with that, I was over the moon and may have danced a little around in the living room with my like-new-from-a-stranger-jeans.  After a quick trip through the washer and dryer, they were officially mine and I could not be happier!!  I am so happy with them that I figured that with my vacation coming up, I could probably use a pair of capri's in the same make and model so off to Ebay I went and three short clicks later, I was the proud owner of another pair of internet, never-tried-on-before-pants.  This time the price of these were $16, but they shipped for free AND the extra bonus??  They still had tags on them!  Seriously people, I may be addicted to online used jean shopping from here on out.  It's super dangerous when you just take a quick gander on Ebay over lunch when your already signed in and PayPal has stored all of your credit card information.  No hunting for passwords, digging out your credit card from your purse or any fussing around--just click,  click and click and boom, you've bought jeans.  The carpri's also arrived in my mailbox already and they too fit perfect.  So there you have it, my used jean buying experience.
My friend texted me the other night and said "did your jeans ever come in the mail?"  I responded with "yes, they came last week and fit like a glove!!  I ordered another pair this week and they came already!"  We then went back and fourth a couple times about the jeans and I said "this calls for a blog post". 

Note, these are not my legs nor my jeans.  I am not even sure if this is the exact replica of my jeans but I figured I better have a picture in this post to even out all the text.

An Ode to the Weekend

This past weekend I was a 14 again, the Parking Police and a disgruntled jeans shopper.

This post isn't going to be as bad as it sounds.  It's not at all a bad thing that I was all three characters this weekend--I loved every second of it!

14 again - I spent Friday and Saturday night babysitting.  Well, technically Friday wasn't real BABYsitting as more of "hanging out with a 6 year old".  It was cool.  I was brought back to the land of Pretend, was reminded how really bad, but oh so good The Brady Bunch episodes really are and realized as an adult how kids at that age have already gotten it all figured out in the "I'll test you" department.

Saturday I really did BABYsit for my nephew.  It was pretty standard in the life of watching an 8-month old. Eat, change, laugh, play, bath, bed.  He is really the sweetest baby you'll ever meet.  :)

The Parking Police - While walking into Cub Saturday morning, right there, smack dab in the front of the store, between the In & Out doors is a mini van literally half parked on the sidewalk, right in front of the water softener pellets.  Normally, this kind of behavior, although annoying and uncalled for, would have just rolled off my shoulders and I would have let it go.  But not this time.  Why not this time, you ask?  Because it was the second time I had witnessed this ridiculous behavior in a month (different vans, same situation).  It's gotta stop and how's it gonna stop if nobody says anything?  This younger (probably mid to late 30's) mom was, I am not joking, parked about 10 feet from the building.  Just sitting there obviously waiting for someone who was inside the store.  If two people with carts were trying to go down the sidewalk to get to their parking spot, they wouldn't have fit through.  This woman was just sitting in this van, yacking on her phone like she was Queen Bee.  Did she not feel remotely stupid that half of her lame Chevy van was on the sidewalk in the front of a building???  Did she not notice that people were literally avoiding not running into her parked van??  I wasn't going to put up with hit.  I gave her an evil eye as I passed but she didn't even flinch.  I got about two steps past the passenger side door and I decided to go back.  I walked back, stared into her window until she finally used her peripheral vision and spotted me standing there.  She tilts her phone away from her chin and just looks at me like "huh"..."duh"??  And I say "You aren't supposed to park here" loudly through her closed window.  Then she must have said "hang on" into her phone and she proceeds to roll down the passenger side window.  I say again, as the window is now half down "You aren't supposed to park here".  And she says all innocently and dopey "oh, ok".  It's like c'mon lady, what do you think??  I think she thought I was a worker or something because there was actually a hint of *worry* in her voice--like "oh no, the Cub Parking Lot Police are going to get me if I don't move".  Anyway, I hope I got her to move.  That behavior is just plain rude.  I was kind of hoping for a small nod of appreciation from some customers who witnessed my random act of rule obeying, but nobody seemed to care or they were too scared that I might judge the way they push their carts through the toothpaste isle or something.

And not that this has anything to do with the Parking Lot Police, but does it take anyone else like 10 minutes to pick out garbage bags??  How come there are like 2 sizes of bags but I swear, the section takes up a quarter of the isle??  I find myself second guessing my gallon size, double-checking that this certain brand has the draw string ties and then comparing box counts to make sure I am not missing some big detail that will make me regret my garbage bag buying decision!

Disgruntled Jeans Shopper - I have been wearing the same two pairs of jeans (I refer to them as my 'fat jeans' solidly for the last 8 months.  I am tired of them.  They are virtually the same dark color, I want a lighter color pair and I want a better quality pair.  Every time I go shopping I look for jeans.  Sunday was no different.  I refuse to cave to the Skinny Jean craze.  People who aren't skinny shouldn't wear skinny jeans.  It says so right in the title.  America is overweight people, it's a proven fact.  Why are you still selling mostly skinny jeans???  Can't an average-size 31 year old just get a decent pair of boot cut jeans anymore?  Jeans that don't hang down to the middle of my butt crack, have just the slightest boot cut at the bottom and don't come with crazy flair or machine-made holes??

Anyway, that's it for me!  How was your weekend??

I don't know what's cooler...

The fact that:

A. Boy Meets World, the show that my brother and I spent countless hours watching while we probably should have been doing homework, is coming back to TV as a spin-off called "Girl Meets World".

B. The show will feature original cast members Corey Matthews and Topenga Lawrence (played by Ben Savage and Danielle Fischel).  This may not mean anything to some of you, but let's just paint a little picture:  Lucy & Ricky, Mike & Carol, Ross & Rachel, Zack & Kelly and Corey & Topenga.  After Saved By the Bell ended and Zack and Kelly were no longer, tweens had to turn to another 'it' couple.  Enter Boy Meets World where Corey and Topenga were little childhood playmates who finally "went steady".  Such a sweet story. 

In related news....the 11 year old girl who will play the role of Corey and Topenga's daughter just Tweeted the official announcement.  An 11 year old, people.  Tweeting.  Let's get some perspective.  When I was 11,  I was just trying to get by without peeking down at my hands in keyboarding class when we had "library" time and had to memorize the home row and then the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog about five hundred times after that.  Now these kids are typing on mobile devices and sending messages out to the world!  Crazy.

I wonder how the show will do.  No doubt tweens will love it and I am sure people my age will tune in just to see what their old pals Corey and Topenga are up to these days.

Walmart Run

Things I witnessed and/or Discovered On My 30 Minute Walmart Trip Today Over Lunch:

• A grown woman was wearing shorts and sandals.  Let's be reminded that it's only 39 degrees outside today, not 70.
• The boy working in the electronics department claimed he knew nothing about antennas for old tube TV's...turned out he knew more than he thought - I bought one.
• Don't try to ring up any electronic device in the self-checkout line...it will ask you to set you electronic aside and a service team member will assist you.
• The head of the self-checkout section disguises herself in street clothes and doesn't stay at her assigned perch at the head of the four-section self-checkout section.  Once her attention is finally got, said person can't figure out the electronic device hiccup either and sends me to a regular cashier.  I wonder how she got promoted to Head Cashier...
• Walmart needs to have cashier lanes open closer to the regular door, not just over by the grocery section.
• While waiting in the new line, the elderly cashier says hello to two people who walk past her line.  She calls the first one by name (Gloria) and does a long, awkward wink at Gloria's friend who is close behind.  I got the feeling that the elderly cashier and Gloria's friend know something about Gloria that Gloria doesn't know they know.
• Elderly cashier called me honey about 6 times in my 2 minute visit with her.
• While making the long trek to the opposite end of the store with my new purchases, I passed the head of the self-checkout (woman disguised in her street clothes).  We made eye contact and she didn't even bother to ask if I had gotten everything figured out ok.  She probably forgot who I was in that short amount of time even though I was carrying a large shovel...the same shovel she had to avoid and step around when she first tried and failed at helping me ring up my electronic device.
• As I was leaving the parking lot some woman in a large truck thought she owned the entire lot and was driving right down the middle of the isle.  Luckily I have a small car so I could avoid her with ease.  I may have said a profanity to myself as I passed her.  In her defense I was driving down the wrong way, but still...it was a short distance that I had to go and there was no need for her to drive right down the middle, especially when she could clearly see me coming.

Do You Hear What I Hear...

A hum, a hum, ringing in ear, let me bring it Q-Tips and Peroxide.  Let me bring it Q-Tips and Peroxide.

So late last week I got what I thought to be water stuck way in my right ear.  It hung around for a few days and by day three I figured it must be wax build up.  I self-diagnosed and poked, paraded and finally did a hydrogen peroxide flush to try to get that waxy bugger out.  No luck.  I couldn't hear and had this irritating hollow sound in my head for days.  Can you say annoying?  I also started "hearing things" too.  While at work, between my heater being on and having only one good ear, I kept thinking I was hearing the Phil Phillips song playing all day long...you know the part where he sings (actually now that I think of it, is he singing or is it some sort of instrument?) all those "dooos"?.... :  "dooooo do do do do do doooo" That's what I was "hearing" with the combination of the heater and the muffled hollow sound in my head.  Low and behold when my feet were cooked to medium rare, I shut my heater off only to hear the complete opposite of Phil Phillips serenading the office on the Blend XM.
Thursday night I was at my breaking point.  I was annoyed that I had to say "what" five thousand times a day and my ear actually hurt to sleep on it.  I slept on my opposite side and ended up not hearing my alarm in the morning because my bad ear was up.  It was time to see a doctor to get this thing out.
I was actually excited to go in.  I had heard stories of people going in to get wax build up flushed out and all this wax comes flooding out like Niagara Falls and I couldn't wait to see that sight.  I know it's gross, but admit it, it's kind of cool.  After the doctor put stool softener (weird, no?) in my ear and streamed water into my canal, out popped this chunk of wax.  It was over in seconds.  To quote my doctor: "Well that's no fun".  A chunk of wax about half the size of my pinky nail came out.  Insert disappointment here.  So much for the river of wax that I secretly hoped would exit my head.  Oh well...at least I know I keep a somewhat clean ear canal.
I also had a small infection so now I am on that Amox (I am not going to spell it out because A., I don't know the spelling and B., I don't care enough to look it up) drug for 10 days. 
Onward and Upward!

what i've been up to

I can gladly say that my computer room is back in somewhat working order!  I am no longer laying on my stomach on the floor to type blog entries which my back could not be happier about.  I will give you the rundown of the project when it's all said and done but in a nut shell, here's the deal so far:  Three paint colors (one which was actually applied to every single wall, one that was tested in a few spots and one that was finally the final one) and three 5'x8' rugs later, I finally have made peace with this room!  Now I just have to hang some stuff on the walls, get a piece of furniture or two in here, lay the rug down and I'm good to go!  I didn't feel like digging for any "before" shots of this room, but here is as it sits right now.  As I type I am patiently waiting for my 3M Command Nails to adhere to the wall so I can hang up some pictures.  I spent literally probably and hour and a half total trying to decide how to hang things and how to hang them symmetrically and proportionally on the large empty wall.  Math can be so tricky!

 

Even though it's not 100% complete, I LOVE this little corner.  I braved Ikea (after my very first trip to that store I swore I'd never go back) and picked up those shelves the other weekend.  I hate to admit it, but the store has grown on me a bit.  Not that I will go there all the time, but I won't avoid it like the Plague anymore.

Anyway, more on that room once it's complete.

I have a new position at work that I love.  It was time for a change of pace and although a good friend of mine left the company and I took her spot, I am very glad I was given the opportunity to learn something new!

It's almost Christmas!  Wow, I can't believe it.  Time flies.  Our family is doing something a little different this year that I'm excited about.  My Grandpa always said that instead of gifts we should go serve food at a shelter or give gifts to a family in need.  So in memory of him this year, we are taking the money that we would have spent on gifts for him and buying for a local family in need.  I am sure he would be proud.  :)  It will be sad and just not the same without him around the tree with all of us this year and I will defiantly miss reading his funny way of writing out the tags in his all caps handwriting as my aunt Kris and I gather all the gifts from under the tree and pass them out: "LEIANNEEEEE"...."KIMMY"...."TIMMY"....."JEFFREEEY"...."ASHLEEEEE"..."KRISEEE"
I wonder how he would have written out Niall's name - I am guessing something like this:  "NIAAAALLL".

And now for good measure, I recent picture of my little Ni Guy and my Christmas tree in all her glory.  Merry Christmas and Happy Shopping!

Splle chek

Sometimes I wish the computer was always smarter than me.  We all know that computers are only as smart as the people who program them, but I wish sometimes they would go above and beyond.
Tonight my oh so-smart-brother texted me a quote from my own blog.  I read it and immediately knew why he was sending the quote.  In my "bloopers" reel from my October photo challenge, I meant to write the word "barely" but wrote "barley" (as in, another word for 'beer'), instead.  If the computer was smarter than me, he (or she) would have read the entire sentence that I had typed and realized that the word "barley" didn't make sense in the context it was placed in and made the red squiggly line under it.   But since the brains behind Apple and Microsoft have yet to make the computer think like a human, we will never know until someone points it out to us, that we used another name for "beer" instead of "barely".
If you are having dejavu right now, don't be alarmed, I have written about this before.  And if you dare to go back to that post, I will tell you my friend's emailing skills haven't gotten any better.  We have yet to talk about a couch again, but she now has the bad habit of spelling the word Vikings with a 'c'...as in "Vickings".  After multiple months of her doing it, I finally called her out.
Please feel free to pass along any future spelling mishaps you may run across on my blog.  I don't claim to be an English major so it actually gives me a nice laugh when my stupidity is pointed out.  Please don't correct my punctuation though, I know that's probably way off the charts when it comes to errors!