How do I know I was sleepwalking last night?

I didn't realize it right away. My alarm went off this morning and I felt tired...really tired, so I just kind of stayed in bed, listening to my alarm for a while. I remember thinking to myself, "Man, its friggin hot in here." I glanced over at the window that was supposed to be open. It wasn't. That's when the confusion set in. I had no memory of closing it....but the strange thing was that I could see stuff on the other side of the window, between the glass and the screen. I bolt up to a sitting position. I said, "What the hell!" I stroll over to the window, open it up to discover this list of items all lined up.
1) A flashlight: which had new batteries as of last week, but was almost dead now because it had been left on.
2)three tubes of lip gloss, all different brands and flavors.
3) 4 spools of thread, all different colors, all stacked up on top of each other.
4) my cordless phone...thank goodness it didn't rain last night.
5) a bottle of water, unopened
6)three Sharpie markers, with no lids. I still have not found the lids. I stuck the markers in plastic bags until I can find the stinking lids. They were new markers too.
7) the two silver rings I was wearing when I went to bed last night.
8)a roll of Scotch tape.
9) my toothbrush.

OK, this means I can't sleep with my bedroom door open again for a while. I must have been strolling around the basement because half that stuff wasn't in my bedroom. Oh but it gets better. When I went to take my shower this morning. I found 4 pairs of shoes in my shower. Two pairs of flip-flops, a pair of sneakers and a pair of dress shoes that I have not worn for months. Who knows what else I was into or when I will discover it. I honestly don't even want to think about it. But hey, at least I didn't drive the car anywhere.

They make me beg.

You know, its annoying really. My Sister and Mother tell me about the cute pictures of Rue and do they download them and send some to me. Rarely. I usually have to beg or make threats. I'm not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they secretly enjoy torturing me. Most people do. I don't recommend it really....because it forces me to add their name to my "LIST." It's not a place you want to be.

Anyway, I did manage to get a story out of Mom and Tisha. When the Rue wakes up, you don't go in her room and get her up right away. She needs to lay around and babble to herself a little bit, its part of her waking up process. Rush it and she'll probably be cranky. I kind of understand it. It's like me, I need 'quite and calm' for the first 5 minutes after I wake up. It really makes a difference in how my day will go.

So Rue was awake in her crib, moving around a little (she'll be in her toddler bed soon)and she was kind of chattering to herself in a sing songy kind of way. Tisha could hear her on the monitor as she was getting ready for work. Then she heard, "click, Click, click" over and over again. Tisha was trying to figure out what The Rue was clicking. Tisha walked down the hall and peaked in to find Rue at the foot of the crib, stretching over the foot of it, flipping the light switch for the closet. She was focused on the closet, and was watching the light through seam of the doors. She couldn't reach the room switch because it was just out of her reach. Tisha walked past Rue's bedroom door to grab something in the kitchen and Rue saw her. She started yelling, Mama, I up! I awake Mama! I up! I awake!" This yelled, "OK Rue, I'll be right there, I just have to grab something first." and the Rue yelled louder, "Mama! I awake!" Tisha yelled back, "I know Rue, I'm coming." Aww, the Rue...she's a card.

Last weekend she was at my parents neighbors house. Taryn was outside in her stroller and she'd been playing the drop my bottle game. The adults caught on so when they stopped picking it up, Rue took over. She'd hand Taryn her bottle and and say, "Milk!" Taryn would smile. Then while Rue was handing back the bottle, she noticed that Taryn had spilt some on her stroller. "Uh Oh! Milk!" she said in a gasp, while pointing to the wet spot on the stroller. Taryn just looked at her like...so what. My Dad thinks that Rue and Taryn are going to be good friends who battle with each other sometimes, but the minute someone else tries to bug them, those two girls are going to gang up and battle back. I can totally see that. I already know who's going to be bugging those girls the most though...its Rue's Papa and Taryn's Daddy. They already pick on them. Thank goodness Auntie Nett will be around to teach them how to put those pesky men in their place. I'm going to have my work cut out for me.

I heard that Rue is the Greeter at daycare. It's her unofficial title and of course, she doesn't get compensated for it....lol. She likes to tell everyone that walks through that door, "Hi!" How cute. Once in a great while, she's the last toddler in her room. When that happens, they like to take her over to the baby room for a little while so the toddler teacher can leave a little early and the baby teachers get a Rue Rue fix. She likes the teachers but she's a little pissed about getting tossed in the baby room. She tells them "NO!" and that she's not a baby. She's right. She was moved to the toddler room early because she was advanced enough to swim and not sink, with the older kids. Once she's in there, she's fine...she gets lots of attention and gets to play with the babies toys...what's not to like!

Well, I better be going. I need to leave several messages on my parents answering machine, harassing my Mother to send me photos. It really needs to be done.

Book Love

Book Love

"The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six."

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Star the books we LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen***
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre** - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling***
5. To Kill a Mockingbird** - Harper Lee***
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger***
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger***
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald***
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams***
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame***
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen***
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ***
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner** - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery***
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding***
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel***
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons***
54. Sense and Sensibility** - Jane Austen***
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities** - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon***
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary** - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes** - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole***
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables** - Victor Hugo

I know I've got some crazy reader friends out there...how many have you read??

Meme that I stole from Tami...because I could.

Meme

I am: crafty~ enough said.
I think:I should really be in bed sleeping.
I want: to win the lottery.
I wish: I would win the lottery twice.
I hate: looking at the state of the garage.
I miss: my Rue Rue.
I fear: clowns....kidding! I fear being lonely.
I feel: jumpy.
I hear: the tv.
I smell: fabric softener.
I crave: super fresh peaches.
I search: for my soulmate...but I'll settle for someone that doesn't annoy the crap out of me.
I wonder: when people will start hanging up their coats and putting their sneakers away.
I regret: nothing at the moment.
I love: life, good or bad...atleast I'm alive.
I care: about my friends and family
I always: spoil my niece
I am not: sure where I put my glasses.
I believe: I just heard a mouse run across the floor upstairs. GREAT, now I have to get some traps and catch it before it has babies.
I dance: when nobody is around to see me do it.
I sing:like a sick seagull...so I have been told.
I don't always:agree with people but I am always willing to listen to their point of view.
I fight: the urge to burn bridges.
I write: when I'm in the mood and with pathetic grammar and punctuation.
I lose: my scissors and glasses...ALL the time.
I win: or I lose, either way, its still fun to play along.
I never:want to watch an actual surgery. EVER!
I can usually be found:at home or running errands
I am scared: to end up a crazy cat lady.
I need: a vacation.
I am happy about: all the ideas I have for Christmas ornaments.
I tag: YOU!

Was I really that goofy?

I guess the correct question is...Am I still that goofy? DON'T answer that. I already know what you'll say. Let's face it, your predictable. I was digging through some stuff and came across these old photo booth pictures. I can tell you exactly where they were taken and who's in them but not when they were taken. My best guess is that it was my Junior year in High School, maybe my Senior year. It doesn't really matter anyway. My friend Tami is in the right set, and Deanna is the one in the right. That's back before Deanna married my Uncle. Shoot, I don't even think they were dating then...basically because she was jailbait, but she sure did chase him. I would be here all day if I started telling that story. I'll skip it. Anyway, Deanna gets a little irratated when I tell the truth about the trouble we were up to as kids. She swears she was an angel...uh, I was there. Angel(cough)hardly(cough).

I actually feel like I could have been walking down the halls of our ould high school today. Well, only because I'm broken out. I have no idea why, but suddenly I'm zit central and I don't like it. Must be hormones...friggin hormones, what a pain in the butt.

I'll tell you about the first time I ever saw Tami. We were in Jr high and we had both placed in the County Soil Conservation Poster Contest. That's a pain in my side...I'll explain in a minute...but Tami and I were both at the local News Paper office to have out pictures taken. We didn't speak to each other or anything, I just noted her existance in the universe. Back to the contest. I won forth place. Which I would have been fine with, but I got a letter notifing me that I wuold have won the first place prize but I spelled the word Terrace wrong. Yeah, me, the dyslexic...spelled something wrong. My art teacher didn't catch it either. Anyway,the part I loved is that in the letter that told me I had to settle for 4th because of a spelling error, well, it had the word "poster" spelled wrong several times. Do you have any idea how that drove me nuts. I still have the poster. It's rolled up in a tube in my parents basement. I think I'm going to frame it with the letter and my 4th place ribbon. lol, No I won't...I'd be in a perpetual state of irritation if I had to look at it everyday. Maybe I'll take a picture of it and post it on here though.

The next time I saw Tami was the first day of High School our freshman year. We had every class together except one. Our Senior year, we only had one class together...it was a total flip. Tami and I were like polar oppisites in the respect that she actually did her homework and I did some of mine, sometimes...if the mood stuck me. Oy Vey! I swear, if I could write a letter to my high school self, the first topic I'd touch on would be..."Do your damn homework! You're smart, you remember stuff, you are just bored...EVERYONE IS, get over it." Actually that's a really great idea. For my 20th Reunion, I'll wrote a letter to teenage Netter. That's not until next summer though.

There are stories I could tell about High School....oh yes, gooooood stories. I'm not sure if the statue of limitation has run out on a few of them so I won't go into details. KIDDING! Seriously, I was a pretty good kid. I didn't go wild or get caught doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing. I made sure of that. My Mother made it very clear to me...when I left the house, I was responsible for my actions. which meant, if I wanted to drink as a minor (I was told I shouldn't) she couldn't really stop me once I left the house but if I got caught, I was going to sit in jail because she wouldn't bail me out. You know, when you are told something like that and you have a Mom who doesn't B.S., you use your head a little more.

You know, Tami and I have a plan to start an on going blog post. I think we should pick a day of the month and assign topics. We'd call it "Remember when..." Doesn't that sound like fun.

OH and speaking og Tami...she's a closet lurker. I know for a fact she reads several of your blogs but doesn't leave comments. She's been blogging up a storm lately and putting me to shame. Stop by and visit her. She blogs for all four of her children as well. Check it out.

Baby news!

There is something in the air... or the water... in any event, it seems that we are going to have another baby in the family. Nope, not me...nope not my Sister, nope not my Cousin Cindy, or her daughter. Nope not Crystal, Marla or Denise...that I know of anyway. It's not one of my Aunts. Give up. It's Shannon, my 20 year old cousin. Yep, that means this December, she's going to have a dry 21st birthday. She was scared to tell me about the baby. I still can't figure out why...but she had her Mom call me. Whimp! Anyway, I'm going to be planning a baby shower. The due date is April 1st, 2009. Yep, she's 3 months preggers. REMEMBER, you heard it hear first.

What a day!

I should have stayed in bed today.

I'm not even joking.

I should have known it was going to be this way from the moment I stepped out of bed and knocked my glass of water off my nightstand.

Then I went to the bathroom only to discover a little late that there was no toilet paper. Someone had used the last roll and not replaced it...and low and behold there was no paper in the cupboard either. Let me put it this way...its not like a little shake was going to get the job done..if you know what I mean.

When I took the garbage out, I snagged the bag on something in the garage and stuff fell out onto the floor and I had to pick it up. Of course it couldn't be something simple like paper, nah, it was juicy stuff.

Then when I was wheeling the garbage cans out to the street, the wind caught the gate on the fence and blew it into my ankle. It hurt like hell.

Over the weekend someone broke a snapple bottle on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, right in front of my bathroom. I noticed the wet/sticky spot and the million wet towels piled in the washer, that nobody started. So I rand the cycle this morning, but not before I found a piece of glass that they missed. By "found it", I mean, I stepped on it while I was barefooted. Oh and since it was colored tea that they spilt, I had to take the carpet cleaner to it because it left a stain. Mind you, it would have come right out if they would have used it right away instead of leaving it for 24 hours for me to clean up. I spent several hours getting that stain out.

Then I about tipped over the canoe at lowtide because I was trying to get the counter balance off the bottom of the bay so we could replace the broken rope and hook the boat back up to it so it wouldn't smack the dock in bad weather or when boats went by fast. Plus two crabs popped out of the counter balance weight and scared the holy living crap out of me. Mind you, its not my boat, but would anyone else go out there at low tide and dig around for that weight?!

Annoyed by all of this, I decided to go to the library and return my books. While I was there, I picked a couple others up. When I was checking out, I found out that one of the books was supposed to be in the sale pile...so I paid 75 cents for it and it was mine for keeps. I left there, stopped to get gas because they left the van on empty for me...and picked up groceries for supper before heading home. When I unloaded the van, the book I bought was missing. I had the books I checked out, but not the one I bought. I called the library, I didn't leave it on the counter....soooo, someone got lucky and has a freebie on their shelf.

Sam wasn't supposed to be home until 6PM but he came home early. He was starved so I started supper and for some crazy reason, I couldn't get the grill to stop flaring up. I had several small fires burning out of control. Luckily, I was able to save the steak and it was very good, but that meant that I had to stay in front of the grill or risk serving hockey pucks to Sam.

Oh and I called my Mom and found out that the package I sent her that contains her birthday present may have broken is shipping. It rattles. Grrrr. Luckily I insured it. Now I just have to find the slip of paper.

I think I'm going to bed early tonight.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

The parts were cast....

..and it looks like Sam has the part of Max Bialystok in his High Schools fall musical, "The Producers." I thought he would have made a wonderful Leo Bloom but it wasn't my choice, anyway, Sam's great in anything that he does. You know what this means right...I'm going to be listening to the scores non-stop and by the time the show opens, I'm going to be sick of it. Well, you have to admit, there are some crazy songs in that show.

The funniest SNL skit in years!

I laughed my butt off. If you didn't see it, check it out.

For the record...

I friggin HATE remakes of classic songs.

Did I say HATE....yeah, it annoys the living crap out of me.

For goodness sake, write something new, be creative.

Stop...I say again, STOP, before I'm forced to dislike anything you do in the future because you have tainted yourself with a remake.

Case in point.

I usually like Chris Daughtry. BUT...

The fool has a remake of Foreigner's classic, Feels Like The First Time.

Chris, Chris, Chris...no, no, no. Maybe if you just sang and didn't go so over the top. I mean seriously it was a tad bit over indulgent. Gag.

I'm so disappointed.

The Ka Ka turns 21

Most people are blogging about something else today. Something I don't want to mention because its Katie's birthday today and the joy of that special day was tarnished in 2001. I too, remember that day and the sorrow it brought this nation...and I will never forget but...today is Katie's 21st birthday and life moves on.
So, no more talk of sadness for me, nope its time to reflect on life and happiness. That little four year old ( photo: Vintage birthday girl, Katie, in the middle with her cousins, Jessica and Stephanie)I started taking care of is now 21 and a college senior. Have a wonderful birthday Katie. Stay away from the TV, radio, and newspapers...and eat lots of cake.

Halloween is around the corner

 

I love Halloween. LOVE IT! I decided I need to get rid of some of my craft stash and since Halloween is around the corner, that seemed like a good place to start. I made a little broom stick, flower decoration. I even stuck in some bones, skulls and a spider for good measure. The broom hangs vertical, not sideways like its shown in the picture...its just long, so its easier to photograph when its catiwampus.
I have my headstones out and I've been trying to figure out how I should pain them. I need to get posts cut first, to attach to the stones. I know I have black and grey paint around here for the epitaph...so hopefully, you will see some results on that project soon. I'm feeling very craft right now. When that happens, I roll with it. I think I might actually decorate the front yard this year. Or at the very least, the basement. We'll see how much energy I have as the days wear down.

I'm feeling craft.

I've been feeling very crafty lately and have been working on several projects. I'm only showing you two. The first is a little wallet that works great at places like Six Flags, when you need ID, money and a credit card but don't want to haul around a bag all day. You can't ride rides with a bag in tow. Anyway, I had this little wallet but it had a embroidered picture of Oscar the Grouch on it. I pulled the stitches out and got rid of Oscar but I didn't like the way it looked when I was done. I searched through my fabric stash and came up with these circles. I just cut them out and attached them with a flexible glue.
I even stuck some inside for the heck of it. I think I'm going to use it to keep my Metro card in it and my train tickets when I go into NYC.
As you know, we have under 4 months until Christmas. You know what that means....ORNIE TIME. Yes, I have to get my Annual Christmas Ornaments done asap. I can't show the 5 I already have done, because Tami reads my site and I don't want to completely give away my secrets. I have several other ideas but I don't know if I will get to them. The needle punching is taking forever, though it is relaxing...but I have lots of other projects that I want to knock off. Lots and lots of other projects. It's scary how many things I have going right now.

Who's been married for 35 years?!

I didn't forget or anything, its just that I've been busy lately. The end of August was a mile stone anniversary for my Aunt Vickie and Uncle John. Yep, they have been married for a loooooong time. Take a look at the little girls in the front row of the wedding party picture. The tall one in the middle is my Cousin Cindy and the little one on the left is me. I was three years old. Yep, three and once I had decided that I wasn't going to walk down that aisle with a church full of people looking on, there was no changing my mind. I vividly remember sitting on Aunt Vickie's lap while she tried to bribe me with candy bars. Didn't work. I also remember my Dad taking me out to the car and spanking me...that didn't work either. My Mom was off dealing with my newborn baby sister, Tisha...who was 6 days old at the time. I'm not sure anyone understood my fear of walking down that aisle, even if I had Cindy's hand to hold on to. It didn't seem to bother me, running around the reception full of people. What they don't get is that at the reception, nobody really noticed me, or at least I didn't feel like they did. At the wedding, it was a quiet church full of people with nothing to watch but me, walking down the isle. I'm sure part of my hesitation to play high school sports came from the whole idea of people being focused on what I was doing. Let's face it, I'm a "behind the scenes" kind of gal.

That was some wedding. At the reception, My Father and his co-horts, took off with all four tires from Aunt Vickie's Datson. Yep, and somehow Vickie got a hold of the keys to Mom and Dad's car. The only reason she gave them back to my Mother was because of that baby Sister of mine. Ah, good times. All I remember doing is running around like a wild child and eating cake. I lost my flowers somewhere. It's kind of hard to believe that it was 35 years ago. I can't wait until their 50th anniversary...lol, I think the tires may have to disappear off their car again.