Category Archives: family

Dammit to Hell – My Dad Had Another Stroke!

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He had one earlier this year (maybe his first, maybe his second).  I was able to go out there for a week once  he got out of the hospital to help him get ready to be home alone and to get him hooked up with the various social services.

Granted, I don’t yet know anything, but I have a feeling that this time things won’t go as smoothly.

Once again, being out of state, it sucks.  Unfortunately, he lives in an odd part of the state, where his street lives on three different counties.  So typically, its up to whoever to decide which county they want to consider it.  This paramedic and ambulance decided that he’s in one county, so he’s now being sent to a different hospital than last time (in particular, a county that he’s not getting his social services through).  Ugh!

Here’s hoping that the doctors will talk to me since I’m out of state.  He’s too out of it to be able to tell them himself and I never got around to getting him a living will and all that stuff.

Okay, nothing else to say.  Not that I even said all that much.  Hell, I’m not so sure I can even really think straight.  I hate this shit.

You Got Mud on Your Face, You Big Disgrace

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somebody better put you back into your place!

Yeah, yeah, so I’m a bit of a Queen fan.  Actually, I tend to forget just how much I love Queen until I hear them on the radio.  And well, then I just can’t seem to stop singing along and dancing in the driver’s seat.  ‘Cuz Queen, well, they totally rock.  And um…I do have mud on my face right now as I type this.

So last night we attended the Cheap Trick/LA Phil’s tribute to Sgt. Pepper.  It was an absolutely awesome show (then agian, I’d expect nothing but excellence from both Cheap Trick and the LA Phil).  There were some guest performers as well, though they only one I really enjoyed was some Ian guy from a band called Gomez (and yes, I honestly don’t know who that is).  But to listen to an entire show, outdoors, under the stars of nothing but Beatles tunes, well that was just a great night indeed.

Today we got the family together (in-laws) and celebrated the past four months of birthday season.  Out of the 14 (including the baby), 9 of our birthdays are from March through to June.  It makes for a crazy season, that’s for sure.  It was fun to hang out together though.

I was good too.  I didn’t stress about anything. I made the salad, picked up some award winning guac from the farmer’s market and we stopped by Marie Calendar’s for a strawberry pie (to offset the birthday cake and ice cream).  I left everything else to everyone else.  Overall, I think I’m doing a pretty good job of letting go the planning and coordinating of all the in-law functions if I do say so myself.

The gifts were fun too!  I got a bath & body package (hence the mudd – my face is now SO smooth!), a $25 Amex gift card and a beautiful necklace and earring set.  The hubs got all gift cards – Best Buy, Fry’s and Amex (which I’ll no doubt be spending).  But the best part…I borrowed my brother-in-law’s steam cleaner!  I can finally clean our carpets, our couch AND steam clean our ancient tile floors.  SCORE!  So excited about this.

I’ve also decided to pick up a Flip video camera.  I figure I can use it to make video blog posts both here and on my biz site.  But more importantly, I’m hoping to interview some of the gals at BlogHer so I can ask them important blogging questions – how did you get started, how did you find your niche, what can you recommend, blah, blah – so that I can post them on my biz site.  We have a batch of Amex gift cheques that have just been lying about that I’ll cash in for the camera, so it won’t cost anything out of pocket (and the hubs has those birthday giftcards for me to spend!) 😉

Okay, that’s it for me.  I’ve got to do some research on Grammar Girl so I can write up a couple of questions for her (we’ll be giving away her new book on my site the second week in July).  And tomorrow I’ve got a workshop on networking – online and off – to prepare for.  I’m changing things up from my last workshop, so it’s pretty much starting from scratch.  Should be fun though!

Hope you all have a happy Monday.

pleadin’ with you eyes gonna make you some peace someday.

It’s Official…It’s May

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It’s amazing to me how much of the year has gone by already. I mean, really, it’s May! For us, May pretty much starts the summer season. Concert season begins and vacations happens. Our anniversary starts it all off on May 1st and in my husband’s family, it’s officially the start of the birthday season (mine is in mere days)!

But there’s still so much more May madness…A few weeks ago I posted about my friend’s YouTube video trailer for their Fun With War Crimes series. Well, it’s officially launched and ready for your viewing. Enjoy!

And now, now I must go find some allergy medicine as I seem to feel like my nose is about to explode off my face from the damn tickling. And the eyes, the burning, the watering. Man, allergy season sucks. I guess it’s May afterall.

We’re pretty booked with concerts and dinners this weekend, so I probably won’t be around much. Wishing you all a Happy Weekend!

At Least I Was Expecting It

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To put it simply, my husband’s side of the family seems to be lacking some social graces.  They are absolutely wonderful people and I love spending time with them.  But…you knew a but was coming….but…they just don’t  get the concept of event planning.

It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to come home to a message on the answering machine on a Friday night (after 9:30pm) inviting us to something like a confirmation on Saturday morning at 9:00am.  Mind you, they would have known this date for a month at least, but still, the actual invitation doesn’t happen until the last minute.  This is across the entire batch of siblings (though it’s more likely to happen more last minute with one sibling – previous example – than with the other two). Same thing happens with recitals, school plays sporting games and birthdays.

For the most part, I’d been expecting this latest last minute invitation.  I knew my nephew’s first birthday was any day now.  I’d even already purchased his gift to make sure I had it on hand when said last minute invitation arrived.  So yes, I wasn’t completely surprised when we received an emailed “invitation” to his first birthday for this Sunday – as in four days away.  But I can still be grumpy about the whole thing.

I mean how does someone not know when they’ll be having the first birthday (or other milestone event)?  They know when his birthday is.  They know it will be a Sunday (dad is a mail carrier, so he only gets Sundays off).  So surely they knew it would be this weekend and surely they knew it would be this weekend at least a week ago.  So why wait until four days before the big event to even see if family can make it?

Most often, I don’t worry about it.  If we can’t make it, we can’t make it.  I don’t try to rearrange our schedule and I don’t feel guilty if we’ve got other plans.  Mind you, it took at least 2-4 years before I finally stopped stressing and freaking about this sort of thing.  Then again, it probably took me 4-5 years to stop freaking out and stressing about his family’s lack of social graces and planning around the family holidays as well.

My husband likes to say that it’s just his family.  He figures that his parents (mostly his mom) never bothered with basic social etiquette so there wasn’t any modeling going on while they were growing up.  In fact, he said that his family as a whole rarely socialized with others period.  And I guess I can let that work as an excuse.

But…they’re all adults heading towards mid-life now.  They watch TV, they interact socially both at work and at home.  Surely they must be aware just how rude inconsiderate their behaviors are.  Surely they must.  Though sadly, I don’t think they do.

And of course the planner and organizer in me wants to just schedule these family get-togethers in advance so we can know when they’re coming and plan around them.  Yeah, we’ll see how that goes.

Don’t Do It!!! Don’t Go Out There!

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I just got back from running a few last minute Christmas errands and great balls of Santa! Do not go out there! Everything, even the grocery store is a crazy mess. There are lines of cars just trying to enter the shopping centers! People are cutting each other off and not saying thank you (and you just know how that irks me!). They’re bumping into you and pushing and shoving, and well, downright rude. It’s mid-day, mid-week people – what the hell?!?

Luckily my first stop was at a small, local shoe repair and luggage shop – new luggage for the pre-teen nieces. That only left my nephew so I headed over to Tilly’s. Of course I had a helluva time just getting anywhere near Tilly’s. I finally found parking and headed in to find yep, you guessed it, a line. Not just any line mind you, but a long line with people with their arms full. Slow moving lines. Which of course meant a gift card. Which is fine since we got the HIM CD the other day so we’ll just hand it off to him and he’ll be fine.

So now, I am officially finished. This of course is great news since I’m not sure how much more abuse my credit card can take (stupid Amex is still acting up so we’re not using it while it sorts itself out). Tomorrow I’ll wrap and maybe take a photo or two and whooorah! I’m done.

Mind you, I haven’t yet heard from any of the in-laws as to which house we’ll be meeting at or how we’re divvying up the food prep. No worries for us though, I’ve got at least our Christmas morning taken care of – eggs, sausage & cinnamon bun-like strips. Just the right amount of protein and sweet 😀

I was still hoping to pick up a decanter for this awesome bottle of wine that our friend gave us so we could enjoy it either Christmas Eve or Christmas night, but I’m not about to deal with parking at the local mall or strip mall just for that. We have a bottle of prosceco we can enjoy instead 😉

So consider yourself warned & stay away, far away from any store, mall or strip! You can thank me later!

Next up…Wordless (or Not-So-Wordless) Wednesday – it may take a while to get them out of my camera, uploaded and published, but I assure you, it’ll be soon-ish.

Post Wedding Festivities with Dad

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My life was thrown for a bit of a loop late yesterday. I’m hoping that things will work out for the best, but really, my hands are tied and there’s nothing that I could do to change anything. I’ll find out more this evening, and then I’ll figure out how best to deal with it.

I’m choosing to keep things positive, so here’s a photo of my dad and I after the wedding reception (and in both of our cases, lots of alcohol) before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I’m sure I could wax on (and on and on) about how thankful I am (‘cuz let’s face it, I am thankful for so many wonderful things) or about the meaning of Thanksgiving or whatnot. But really, I just don’t want to. Instead, I’d rather spend the next couple of non-family-obligation hours just relaxing.

I tried listening to some Christmas music, but I made it through two songs before it just started to annoy me. I’m choosing quiet and rat-a-tat tapping of my fingers on the keyboard as my background noise. Basically though, I’m ahead of the game: the trifle is made but for the final layer and crumbles; the brownies are sliced and packaged to curb further taste testing; the corn bread casserole is assembled and waiting to go into the pre-heated oven that last hour before leaving; the bags are packed with all my food offerings and bowls (and plastic wear and plates since one year the host inlaw neglected to double check that there were enough – there were none!); the wine is chilling and so am I.

The hubby is getting ready to take the pupster for a walk – but first he must update his iPod :insert rolleyes here: while the pupster goes insane waiting for the walk. I’ll be hopping into the shower in a bit so the curls will have a good chance to dry before we head out and then I’ll either curl up with my book club book or watch a little TV. But yeah, it’s a good day so far.

I wish you all a wonderful day filled with warmth, love, good food and good times. Please be safe while on the road. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

PS – I’m a little behind on catching up on everyone’s blogs and leaving comments (or even replying to my own comments), but rest assured, I’m following along. 

Thanksgiving Planning

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It was asked that we (all three remaining siblings) provide the sides for Thanksgiving while the other sibling provides the turkey. That’s it. No other direction, no other organization. So, the hubby and I have taken it upon ourselves to provide dishes that we know we like and that more than likely, others won’t make. So here we go so far…

* mixed greens with cranberries, fresh (really fresh from the farmer’s market) goat cheese, sugared nuts and a champagne vinagrette

* cornbread casserole – the hubby wanted cornbread stuffing, but nothing jumped out at me

* possibly some green beans – easy to transfer and steam in the microwave (and some much needed veggies)

* Paula Deen’s pumpkin gingerbread trifle (in fact, I’ve already baked the gingerbread earlier tonight!!)

* a mishmash of crudites and appetizers (who knows how long we’ll be waiting for the entire family to show up with their sides and we need more than just potato chips, right?)

* a bottle or two of yummy wine (we’re more than willing to share – but really, we’re the only ones that drink wine).

Any other suggestions for easy sides that can travel well?

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I’m thankful that I was able to finally send out our last batch of invoices – so much closer to having all of our bookkeeping up to date for year end. Woohoo!

It’s Friday, Let’s Get Random

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No matter how long you try to be good, you can’t keep a bad girl down.

Man, I’m exhausted.  I mean too exhausted to even try to be a bad girl (but I’m lovin’ Gossip Girl and I love Kristin Bell’s narration on there and well, that’s just a great quote).  So let the randomness begin…

  • Man, I was in a bad mood when I wrote that last post.  Sorry, didn’t mean to be quite so pissy, but damn, freeway construction sucks!
  • Why is it that whenever we leave the kitkat home alone the entire house gets covered in cat hair?  I mean clumps of it on the floor when normally this doesn’t happen.  Weird.
  • My hands are crazy dry and I can’t seem to find the right hand lotion to magically fix me all up.
  • I’m tired of crappy restaurant or fast food.  This week had way too much crappy food eaten at horrible hours.
  • We’re (unfortunately) doing a family Thanksgiving with my hubby’s family.  I only say unfortunately because 1) the host home can’t cook – and they’re in charge of the turkey,  2) the rest of the family is expected to bring the side dishes but no one has created any sort of plan (and I have up on planning any and all family gatherings last big get together – for reasons explained here), 3) they’re rarely on time so you can bet that what food is around is now overcooked, cold or whatever else – this also screws with the order of things when the person that supposed to bring the appetizers shows up 2-4 hours later than the rest of the family, and 4) the family isn’t willing to try anything new or creative so that leaves some pretty standard, sub-par food selections.
  • That said, I actually enjoy visiting with my in-laws.  They’re good people and can be tons of fun.
  • So now I need to come up with side dishes that 1) won’t be duplicated (see lack of planning above), 2) will be something that’s not too strange or creative so others will actually try it and 3) that travels well since we’ll have to drive about an hour or so and who knows what access I’ll have to cooking/reheating options.  The hubby wants me to try some cornbread stuffing, I’d like to bring a salad and some veggies and maybe make some rolls or something.
  • Man, I’m so behind on reading everyone’s blogs AND on the DVR.  Not to mention that I have multiple blogs to write for my site and I have less than two weeks to read The History of Love.
  • Dude, I was running around today with somewhere between $100K – $200K of engagement rings (and a diamond tennis bracelet) in my purse.  Don’t be too impressed, I was just running an errand for a friend and returning some stuff to her friendly jeweler (as she was doing a favor for another friend looking for engagement rings).

And now I must get off the computer for a bit and find some lunch.  And oh yeah, I still need to unpack and vacuum up all that cat hair.  And open a week’s worth of mail.  You know…get back to life and all that.

Later y’all!

And Speaking of Lists…

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It’s about that time that I put some serious thought into my Christmas list.  The hubby won’t step foot into a mall, so anything I want needs to be able to be found online (I typically do an amazon.com list).  For the family (the in-laws) we draw names and have a $50 limit, so that’s a different list for them.

So just thinking out loud (since there’s not all too much that I really want or need) I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts here in no particular order…

And totally unrelated to my holiday shopping list, but how awesome does this sound?  Honey and fir…talk about smelling like the holidays!

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I’m thankful for having the opportunity to have a relaxing lunch with my hubby while he’s on vacation works from home.