OKC state fair and eskimo joes

went to the OKC state fair last saturday, as i said we would 'cause of our boycott of the tulsa state fair. and i have to say, that it was ok, but we won't go back. it was a poor imitation of the tulsa state fair, which we now know is where the good fair is. my first annoyance was the lack of the super round up ride, it continued when they didn't have a kids zone area with make and take craft projects for free, and the local radio stations and tv stations were absent (along with all the goodies they give out), and well.... just a lot of other things. it's sad really, because this is the state capitol, and the state's 100th birthday, and the fair wasn't worth the $18 i had to pay to get us in the gate, plus the $40 for ride coupons, plus other money for food.

so, on the way home we were planning to go to this new restaurant/convience market/gas station on route 66 near acadia called "pops". we went north on 35 instead of getting on the turner turnpike for home and got off at the route 66 exit instead and went east for acadia. when we got there, right about 2pm, they were packed! and they said that since they close for an hour between 3 and 4 pm, that they wouldn't be seating anyone else until 4pm. well, we didn't want to wait that long, so we each got a bottle of pop from the large selection of stuff you normally can't get and continued on route 66 toward home. the scenic route. we get to wellston, and we get to the crossroads... i see a sign for stillwater... and decided that eskimo joes would be fun! it was only 30 miles... what the hey!

we get into stillwater... and geee... there sure are alot of cars! as we get closer to joes i realize there is a home game at OSU this weekend, and not just any home game, but the one with texas tech! i dropped mom off in front of joes and find a parking spot in a grass lot 2 blocks away. mom calls me and says it's open seating, but she's found us a small table upstairs. when we get there, we only find 1 chair, but we order anyway, and i find us 3 more chairs not too far away. it's noisy, it's really crowded... but it's also a lot of FUN! i've never watched football like this, and i've decided it really the only fun way to do it. with lots of people and cheering and screaming! it was a blast, and the food was good too. we brought home our cups, we have 2 orange and 2 purple.

so, that was the weekend, and i think we need to do that again sometime... just being out on the open road, and making a last minute dicision to go north to fun!

stay tuned...

oh! the chili cook-off is on the 5th of october... downtown sapulpa! be there or be square!

oooohhhh! new to me car!

yes, a newer car than i've ever had. it's a 2003 nissan sentra, white, with dark tint windows. and..... and a/c that actually works! i usually don't get cars until they are 8 to 10 years old, so this is a real treat for me. we gave 7 grand for it. i've got loan payments, but i've got a job and husband got a really great job that he loves, so we can actually afford it.

only one more full year of child support... the first one will be 18 in march, the other turns 17 this week.

so, i guess i've been lax on the blogging... i've been lax with my journal also. just so much going on and i swear the days just blur together! this last week is a classic example. getting back into the swing of the school year. the whole re drawing of the elementary districting lines was SO a mistake and i swear they had no clue what they were doing! the busing schedule is just now getting to where people know where they stop and pick up. we've been in school for 8 days! we're down on enrollment, but not much. jefferson heights is over flowing!

finally saw that movie "the queen". it was pretty good. it was on starz tonight. i remember all that stuff like it was yesterday.

the chili contest is on october 5th this year in downtown sapulpa. i'm entering again... maybe i can get 1st place this year. $500 first prize would be nice.

the okc state fair is sept. 13-23. we'll be there one of the saturday's. we're going to that new pops restaurant on the way home. it looks pretty cool... i was hoping they would have delaware punch, but i looked at the list of pops they have and it isn't listed. i'm going to buy the base for it online so we can have it that way.

husband is dove hunting in inola. he said they haven't seen much. i think the dove all have hunting season marked on their calendars so they know when to hide... they're not stupid.

so, anyway, i guess that's all for the moment... stay tuned...

BOYCOTT THE TULSA STATE FAIR!

this is a public service announcement and a call to action! boycott the tulsa state fair for what they have done to bell's amusement park! they made them move so they could put in a parking lot! this totally stinks! our family will be giving our money to the OKC state fair!

for even more fun... let's all send the fair board commission a piece of gravel for the new parking lot!

i am so stinking mad about this! a tulsa tradition for 50 some years and they kick them out! it's just wrong!!!!!!

anniversary, going west, horrid motel room

so, our 12th anniversary was on monday. we did the redneck thing, went bowling. i beat him the first game by 3 points, he smoked me on the second game by 20 points! at one point, i'm swinging my arm back for the throw, and the ball slipped out of my hand and went backwards... bouncing to the floor behind me! i thought this only happened in cartoons! everybody was laughing with me! it was funny! after the bowling, we went by the liquor store for some rum, reasor's for the coke classic and orange juice, and home. we finally decided to drink that bottle of champain from our wedding, it was still good, and knocked me on my butt. didn't even have any rum and coke. i really can't believe it's already been 12 years... seems like we just got married a couple of months ago...

so, we're in silver city, nm right now at my nana and papas (dads parents). on the way here we saw so many windmills! it's soooooo cool! there's more this year than last. i think this is a great idea for power.

we get to santa rosa, nm to stay the night at the sun n' sand. DO NOT STAY THERE! they have two sets of room, one for adults (these are the clean rooms) and another for familys or those with pets (nasty dirty rooms). this is a chick trip, me, mom, and the girls and mom's two girl cats maggie and tabby. thanks goodness mom always carries a small cleaning kit (she does clean houses for a living) with us. she gave the room a good scrub while the girls and i went to the park lake that they have there. this is the main reason that we stay in santa rosa instead of going farther on to vaughn. anyway, we won't be staying there again! and i'm giving them a sucky review on yahoo.

so, that's all for the moment. a public service announcement is the next blog post, then i'm out of here for the moment.

KFC "doggie bag" bowls

Ok, so the KFC bowls. Who looked at the doggie bag container and decided this could be sold as an entrée? I mean really?!
There used to be this restaurant in the Tulsa area called “po folks”. If you’re from the south, you probably used to eat there. I loved that place! Lots of biscuits on the table with butter and honey… plus all the other wonderful southern foods. I really wish they had never left.
Anyway, if you ever did take a doggie bag home from this restaurant, it looked a lot like the KFC bowls. And this is what we fed the dog or cat or visiting opossum or visiting raccoon. We’d just dump the doggie bag on an old cookie sheet on the porch and let whatever animal got there first eat up. We certainly never actually ate what we brought home, we just didn’t want to throw away good food that could be fed to the friendly critters that inhabit our neighborhood.
And now, if you’ve noticed their latest creation, it includes a biscuit! I don’t eat at KFC because I like the local place we’ve got “charlie’s chicken”. It’s a local chain place that has better food for a better price.
And they don’t have “doggie bag” bowls!


So, yeah! Summer is going on. It’s raining like from the day’s of noah, but at least it’s not like last year where I was worried about wildfires from some dumb donkey throwing his cigarette butts out the window! Now it looks like a jungle outside because it won’t dry up enough to get out there with the weed wacker and mower.
‘til next time. Stay tuned…

my poor red volvo!

so, here's the pic of my poor red volvo. back on march 26th, i was parked out front of the school across the street. it was between 6 and 6:45pm, i was in the building at a TAPS (teachers and parents of sapulpa) meeting. when the meeting let out, a cop was standing by the office, we were in the library. he asked the principal who drove the red volvo, he pointed at me. so, the cop goes "your cars been hit." and i go, "that front end damage happened last spring in a parking lot, some dumb kid couldn't pull out of the space next to me properly." and then he goes " no, this just happened, and it's the rear end that's been hit."
we go out the door, and i see it! i was so totally freaked out! and mad! the lady across the way was in her front yard and heard the crash, she turned around in enough time to see the newer gold colored full size pick up drive away. she called the cops. they still haven't found who did it, and the car only had liability insurance cause it's so old (1991, worth maybe $1000). so, i'm out a car. no money in the budget for another. i've been carpooling with mom, thank goodness that i work at the school that the girls go to! sometimes i get my husbands 91 honda accord to drive for the day, but not very often.

so, that's all for the moment... stay tuned...

tomitillo avacado salsa made with la costena green sauce

ok, so there's this restaurant in jenks, ok. the same people used to have the atomic burrito restaurants, but then they went upscale and opened los cabos on the river walk in jenks. atomic burrito had this tomitillo avacado salsa that was to die for, so when they closed up i was in withdrawl for the salsa! when they opened up the new place, thank goodness, you can still get the salsa... but it's pricy to eat there. you can spend about $40 for two people! i know this won't sound like much to some of you people out there... but it does to us.

so, anyway, the salsa. i needed a clone! i hunted the internet... i made a couple of recipes... they just didn't taste right. so yesterday, we're at wal-mart in the mexican food area and i see the la costena green salsa. i look on the back, and sure enough it's got the same ingredients that was going in the recipes without the avocado. i grabbed a jar and some avocados. i pitted and mashed one of the avocados, then added about half the jar of the green salsa.... success! it's a close enough clone for me and my chips... and burritos... and anything else i care to put it on! i am one very happy person!

so, yeah, stay tuned... it's almost summer... and without a car (story for next blog) i'll be home a lot more...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

just had to get that out of my system. i have cabin fever... i hate being stuck at home. got in with mom monday and tuesday, but since then we've been here. there's only so many movies in the cabinet, and sometimes there really is nothing on directv.

i made rice krispie treats, but those won't last long. the food choices will be very thin by the end of the weekend. i thawing some stew meat at the moment, gonna fry it up with some montreal steak seasoning, onions and green pepper and have some potatoes with it for dinner.

i just knew we we're gonna get a nasty winter this year... we were long overdue. how the school days will be made up, i've no clue. they could take spring break, or make us go deeper into june. this is just so totally nuts! if i wanted this kind of winter weather i'd live where my aunts and uncles do... jim and shawn are near denver, jerry and lisa and steve and mary are in gillette wyoming. couldn't pay me to live either place!

well, must go do some cleaning or crocheting or something to take my mind off things...

stay tuned...

ice, ice baby!

"yo! VIP!... let's kick it!... alright, stop! collaborate and listen..." i love that song, and am not afraid to admit that i'm a child of the 80's.

but it's true at the moment... right here at home. ice, ice baby. lot's of little ice pellets (sleet) are coming down outside... all weekend! southwest of of got freezing rain, that nasty stuff that breaks things like power lines and trees. we're cold enough here to get the sleet and a bit of snow. turns out the sleet is so much more fun for sledding! we've got like 2 inchs of sleet on ground. the girls wanted to go down suicide slope, but dad said that by the time you got to the bottom of that hill you'd be doing 80 and really kill yourself. so, we went down the driveway. i slid at least 150 ft or more from the top of the driveway by the old tree to our part of the driveway that cuts up into our yard. lots of fun!

ok, more later. it's not like i can go anywhere...stay tuned...

snow gone!

yea! no more snow... except for in the woods where the sun can't shine real well. we have a bad corner by the rifle range that doesn't get much sun in the winter, and i was so scared to go down it. very glad when it thawed.

so, i hit the big 34 on pearl harbor day. i would have been born on dec. 8th if we had lived here, but i was born on the west coast in orange, ca. i was born at 10:51pm. it's always so nice to see hawaii getting bombed on your b-day every year... not that i bother with it any more. what's the point of aging past 21? i'll be 21 until i'm 65! went into a liquor store i'd never been in yesterday in tulsa for some peach schanaps, and i didn't even get carded! guess i finally look older than 21.

very busy until school is out for winter break on the 21st. the girls last day is the 19th, cause on the 20th they are doing all the x-mas stuff and we don't celebrate x-mas. i have to go to class for my last day on the 20th, so i guess husband can watch them or dad can.

guess that's all. stay tuned...

snow and a duct tape sled

hi! all! this week we actually got snow! real snow, not like the stuff we've been getting the last few years. the girls got to go sledding for the first time in their lives.

of course, since we never see real snow except maybe once every few years, we didn't have a sled. i got creative! i got a lid off a storage container, a pizza box, two of those large thick black plastic trash bags, and of course... duct tape! note pictures:
the first picture is the body, the second is after it got the final layer with the second trash bag and taped up. we later added a long polyester scarf taped onto the end to help hold it up when going down. the first trip to suicide slope (big hill on the property, if you don't stop you land in the berry thicket), we just kind of held onto the slopeing up part and went for it. note pics of girls using sled:

the second time that day (friday) dad went too. we had a blast! i haven't been sledding down this hill or any other since i was about 12. the sled lasted the day, but then the plastic started to go. we'll have a real sled for next time, but at least the girls didn't have to miss out on the fun!

got snowed in of course... only in oklahoma can you wake up to 67F and end the day at 32F! we got about an inch of ice, then 6 or 7 inches of snow on top of that by the time it quit at 3am on friday morning. mom has studs on the minivan, so we got out saturday to clean a house. today we went in at 1pm to clean the office, church services were canceled for our congregation. i have a feeling we may get an actual winter this year instead of what one girl i know calls what we've been getting "extreme fall".

well, i hope you've had a great week! stay tuned...

make a cake and get sick too...

made a cake to take to dinner thursday. everyone loved it! glad, as the last baked good i took to this event nobody liked... and it was a cranberry coffee cake. whatever... how was i to know no one liked cranberries? it's thanksgiving for crying out loud.

so, i've been fighting off a cold all week, and thursday i wasn't feeling the best... but i went anyway. friday morning i wake up and feel like i've been run over by a truck. i spent most of friday and saturday in bed. the girls made me get well cards on the computer! such sweet babies! last night i felt well enough to do 3 days worth of dishes that had piled up in the sink, then i took more nyquil and went back to bed. this morning i felt a little better, still not 100%... maybe 75%. i rested, 'cause we had to do the office job in the afternoon. i'm gonna go to bed early tonight, 'cause i have a house job to help mom with in the morning and then class.

i'll be done with school at the end of december. wow! 2 years that went by quick! in the new year i'll be concentrating on getting a job. it will be weird to be back in the real workplace. cleaning houses doesn't count. the house cleaning was nice, my girls were never in daycare, they could come with me. but, cleaning just isn't my thing... i don't mind cleaning my own house... but other people's houses drive me nuts.

my 9 yr old has lost 2 more teeth in the last 2 days. teeth 15 and 16. they're in the tooth jar for safe keeping.

well, guess that's all for this week. stay tuned...

FICA job here i come...

gonna be done with my tech class soon, at the end of this semester. doesn't seem like 2 years have gone by. could have gotten done in a year if i went full time, but with the kids, and still helping my mom with a few of her house cleaning jobs, i could only go in the afternoon. PELL grant full ride. got my A+ and Network+ certs, gonna try for my Server+. i think i can pass it. starting to look at the job websites, and i've got my resume posted a few places. had to change my references... ex-bestfriend was one of my personal ones. that wouldn't be good.

got a cold. had my flu shot... so i won't get that nastiness! going to bed lately with my friend nyquil. works great. what is it that only the right half of my face is stuffed up?

baby blankets to crochet! my teachers wife is due with their 3rd child (another boy) in about 5 weeks. i'm making him a blue blanket in a pretty pattern stitch, it trades off single and double crochet every other row. easy to make, and quick. then a friend of mine in california is having identical twin girls! i'm gonna find some of that pretty multi print yarn in two different colors so they can each have a different one. her mom showed me a picture, and even though she's only 29 weeks in, she's huge!

turkey day is almost upon us. i starve at thanksgiving. i hate turkey! usually they have a ham, so with enough dipping sauce or mustard on it, it's edible. there's usually a salad, and maybe some mashed potatoes... but i won't touch the gravy 'cause they put turkey guts in it! GROSS! they also put hard boiled egg chunks in the stuffing! stuffing should come out of a box that says "stove top" on it. just the way corn bread should come out of a box that says "jiffy" on it. i'm bringing a prailine pumpkin cake this year, found the recipe on the betty crocker site. should be good. i love to bake! still working on the cookbook idea, just haven't had any time to put it together.

husband came home from hunting... didn't even see anything! he wasn't happy. he goes over to inola to hunt with his brother. he's got land along the barge thingy? river? canel? whatever... that thing over there that barges go down to the gulf in. kerr something or other.

the girls are out enjoying the weather, riding their bikes. i can't believe they're gonna be 8 and 10 in february! how did that happen? seems like it was just yesterday and i had a 2 yr old and a newborn...

well, outta here 'til next week. stay tuned...

puzzle pirate fun, bell's amusement park

have a new addiction... puzzle pirates. if you haven't heard of it and you love puzzle games you have to check this game out! it's an online pirate virtual world. you get a house, some basic clothes, and a rat for a pet to start. playing games you earn pieces of eight that you can spend on all kinds of things for your pirate. better housing, different pets, furniture, clothes, swords, etc. it's the coolest thing. when theres a fight between ships, you play puzzle games against eachother to see who wins. i totally love it!

have to vent here about how bell's is getting screwed over by expo square. they've been there for 51 years... and now expo square wants more parking! this is just so wrong on so many levels it's not even funny! i've heard he's moving the park to jenks, which is probably for the best. jenks can thumb their noses at tulsa once again, just like they did when they got the aquarium and tulsa didn't want it. my soon to be 8 yr old was finally gonna get to ride zingo for the first time... she can't miss out on this history, this first in her life.

ok, more on poorly dressed news people. was watching cbs sunday morning show today and one of their reporters was wearing a brown/rust plaid jacket, grey plaid shirt, and yellow plaid tie! he was also wearing some lovely clark kent type black frame glasses. why! i know that jacket had to come from some dank resale shop in some nyc basement, no one would actually sell something that ugly new. not now, maybe in the 60's, but not now.

ok, well, i'm done for the moment. see ya next week. stay tuned...

tooth reconstruction

had to finally have work done on that tooth. $162.00 later, i've got a new resin molar. he was able to get out the old filling and have enough tooth left to put a mold around it and use that white resin stuff they cure with the purple light ray to build my new and improved molar. i know this stuff lasts, cause i've got some of it on 2 of my bottom molars from when i had my braces put on when i was 15. he had to build up my bite to keep my rabbit 2 front teeth from knocking off the braces on the bottom teeth. i'll be 34 next month, and that stuff has held up this long, so i think it's better than that old filling material.

colder weather here, then in the upper 70's by wednesday. this is so normal for oklahoma.

damn campaign ads!!!!! i will be SO GLAD when this is over! i dread the 2008 debacal that we have to look forward to... it's gonna be bad.

well, short this week. not much going on in our little corner of the world. stay tuned...

neal boortz is the coolest!

neal boortz was in tulsa last night at the PAC, mom won tickets on KRMG. we were in the orchestra row H seats 1 and 2. it was great! he had a funny about chicken cannons that they use to test airplanes. the french borrowed one from the FAA to test their fast trains. they shot a chicken at one of the trains, it went through the window, destroyed a seat and hit an instrument panel and caught the train on fire! they complained to the FAA, who asked to see the test data cause they had never had that happen. they looked it over, and told the french to thaw the chicken before using the chicken cannon next time! some people...

working on 12 inch granny squares for a charity project. i need 12 done by next saturday, i've got 6 done. i need to buy more yarn. we're making them for the veteran's home near claremore. i'm doing mine in OU colors.

nice to have fall here. i'm enjoying the cooler weather. last friday, i got industrious and waxed my car! it's a red 1991 volvo sedan, and you know how red likes to oxidize. i'm not real fond of red, but as i never get to pick the color or the car... my last 2 cars (both volvo's) were hand me down's from mom. i started out with a 1974 green volvo station wagon that i bought off the neighbor for $500 when i graduated high school in 1991. i drove that car until 1995, when a drunk driver in a taurus didn't stop at a stop sign. i tried to stop, left like 40 ft. of skid marks, but i plowed into him anyway, pushing in the entire drivers side of the car. i crunched the front drivers side of the volvo enough to bend the frame and puntcure the battery. i got out of the car and started saying some not very lady like words to the man. he went to the hospital and then to jail. of course, he didn't have insurance... so, anyway, i had $1000 in the bank, and the bank gave me another $1000 loan and i bought a 1982 cream volvo stationwagon the next day. this i drove until 2001, when the 1982 developed a nasty oil habit and was well over the 200,000 mile limit. mom being the nice person she is, gave me the 1987 silver volvo sedan. she had just got the 1991 red volvo that i drive now. 3 years later, the 87 up and died, and mom sold me the 91 for $1000. she had gotten a nice 1998 dodge grand caravan, and wasn't using the volvo. so, now the 91 is well past the 200,000 mile limit. i'm not real sure on the exact mileage cause the odometer broke about 6 months after i got it. it was at 178,779. what i want is one of those new toyota fj crusiers in voodoo blue... but at about $28,000... i don't see that happening.

well, i've gone on long enough... stay tuned...

one of those weeks...

this was one of those weeks where i'm trying to figure out when i'm gonna do the laundry at the local mat.
monday, i helped with TAPS duties until about 10 when i could get into the cleaning job that i help mom with every other monday. their grown son, his wife, their 7 mo old baby and his 3 kids are living there while they build their new house... aaaaaaah! luckly, i think his 3 kids are only there 1/2 the time, the other time at their moms. but still...
tuesday, was a advisory board meeting for all the TAPS people to meet with the superintendint of schools. we meet once a month and discuss issues going on at our elementary school we represent.
wednesday. 9 yr old has an eye appt. at 10:15. so, i pick this morning to rewire the phone into the house from the gray box on the back of the house. the old wire was old... so i got some CAT5e and went at it. by the time i looked up it was 9:50 and i still wasn't done! we rush to the doctor and then home where i finish hooking up the phone. wow! no more static on the line, it's like magic! see my redneck networking below.









thursday. dentist for the girls at 11:30am. we're out of there by 1pm. we eat at mcd's for cheap happymeal day and then finally make it to the laundry... only to find that someone is using the big side loaders i like to use. so, i have to use 4 of the smaller ones. and spend more money. ugh!
friday. i clean another house with mom. this one they have 5 kids. 2 are hers 3 are his. the house is 4700 sq ft. i change all the beds and vacuum. 3 hours later... we go pick up 9 yr olds new glasses, face wal-mart (briefly) and head home.
so, this was my week. tomorrow is the dentist appt. for me! yea!
stay tuned...

one red leaf and my stretchy cat

we had an out and about day yesterday. actually, new fridge hunting. the one we have is going...as to when we don't know. but it's making a noise that my husband tells me means the compressor is on it's last hurrah. something about losing freon? looked, only found prices higher than we can pay. looks like it's the bargain post for us.

our first fridge we got the week after we got married and moved into a duplex in sapulpa. husband traded his vcr to his brother for the beer fridge from his shop/garage/place to hang out with his friends and work on cars. it was a lovely 1974 hotpoint frost freezer/refridgerator in harvest gold with racing stickers on it. (when the girls got big enough to play with crayons, i let them color on it to make it look better) the strip of metal between the fridge and freezer doors was a nasty rusty mess. it was 14 cubic feet. this lasted us until about 2000, when i'd had it with the lack of space, and found the fridge we have now for $400. it was my uncles landlords fridge from the lake house they were selling. a 1992 roper in a lovely white. 20 cubic feet! oooooh! the space! it was frostless! and looked brand new despite it's age.

so, anyway, to the above pic. after our south tulsa adventure, which included lunch at the food court at woodland hills mall and a trip to the candy castle, we ended up at hunter park on 91st street. i let the girls loose for a while while i read "the end" by lemony snicket, then we headed for a walk. i snapped the above pic to the east of the play area by the woods. i liked that one leaf, just lying there...

rain today! and boy do we need it! water tank full out back, but it wasn't down that much. the ground is getting some much needed moisture. maybe the pond will get a little fuller.

on to the next picture. this is sequoyah. and he's a spoiled rotten baby boy kitty! this is his stretched out pose. he does this same thing on his back too. hard to imagine that when he came out of katie, he was only about 5 inches long. katie dropped 6 her first and last litter. 3 boys that look like coy (which is what katie looks like) and 3 girls. 2 black with patches of white and orange and one mostly white with a few patches of black and orange. the daddy was mom's tom cat, levi, who is black and white. we kept coy and the white one with patches who we named emily. so we have 4 cats including fred. i have a pic around here somewhere of all of them...

jack thinks he's a cat, but this is because he was raised by cats from the age of 6 weeks. he even tries to take a bath like they do! it's the funniest thing!

so, i guess that's all for now. stay tuned...

i am the chili princess!

entered the central tech chili cook off on friday. me and mom's chili. actually my chili recipe. anyway, we got 2nd place! i'm so happy! out of 23 entries and i get 2nd! this just adds on to my happiness with the county fair wins.

been teaching the ebay class at tech on tues and thurs. nights. last week and this week. 11 students! the last thing i taught was a small photography and darkroom class for my art teacher senior year. i was the head photographer and darkroom editor for the school paper and yearbook. i should have just moved into that darkroom second semester of my senior year i was in there so much. even after i graduated, i was in there for another 2 days finishing up for the yearbook, developing film and printing pictures. it was a lot of fun! now it's all digital... black and white photography is an art. i love ansel adams!

this last week was such a blur! on class nights i'd come home, cook dinner, and leave so i could be at the class 1/2 hour ahead of time to get everything going. tuesday night was the eureka season finale on scifi, so i had to stay up until 11pm to see it. i got to bed at 12:05am. yes, i do own a vcr, no i didn't feel like messing with it. i think it's time to get one of those dvr things. directv has them built into their boxes. maybe it's time to upgrade, we still have the basic box we got back in 1998. yes, we do have a dvd player, a nice phillips one. i can change the region code on it so i can watch the catherine cookson movie "the round tower" i've got in region 2. it's the only way to get that movie on dvd, i sure wasn't buying another video tape! i got it off ebay. anyway, i googled how to change the code back and forth, found it pretty easy. we have 2 vcr's too. one is about 7 years old, got it when my uncle died in 2001. the other is the vintage 1985 RCA, tank that one is! still works great! had to miss survivor too. for 2 weeks. i'll live, it's the last bit you have to make sure you watch anyway...

i might do an e-book. i've got a great bunch of recipes i've come up with, most use what i like to call "dump cooking". dump in the cans, and instant dinner. no real measuring required. i've got my chili recipe, 2 pasta sauces, and a mexican lasagna that use this principal. i've probably got about 15 or so recipes i could put in it. i'll have a picture for each recipe too. they've got a pretty good set up over at lulu.com.

here's a picture of my baby dog, jack! (see above). this was the pic i got 4th place for.

well, guess there's not much else. stay tuned...

jcpenney now selling clown wear...

note the attached picture. dad made the comment that "clowns have to have ties too." doesn't the green and orange ones remind you of some of the totally horrid ties from the 70's? they look like they belong in the 10 cent bin at the salvation army thrift store. i certainly wouldn't pay the sale price or the regular price for these ties, nor would i been seen with anyone wearing one! i really don't know what is up with the tie, shirt, jacket combos that i've seen some guys sporting on the t.v. there was the spokesguy at the white house that was wearing a white shirt, red polka dot tie, and grey striped jacket... give him a red plastic nose and he could have been the hobo clown in the circus! it's like they're all getting dressed in the dark AND they're print and color blind as well! it's scary... i can't even pay attention to what the news is sometimes because i'm focused on the gastly clothing combos the news guy is wearing. not that they're saying much lately anyway... ever heard the song "dirty laundry" by don henley? it's SO TRUE!

ok, so, i'm back online at home. had to get a new modem. DO NOT BUY MODEMS MADE BY U.S. ROBOTICS!!!!! they are crap. i went through 2 of them in maybe a year and a half. and it's not that lightening is getting them... i always unplug the cord outta the back when i'm not using it. the phone company likes to test the lines around here too much. the modem before the bad ones was the one that came with the dell computer back in 1999, it lasted about 6 yrs. i went to best buy this time (i was over there, the 9 yr old had a orthodontist visit. just a check up. she'll need to start getting those teeth fixed in about a year and a half.) and had to give up $40 and tax for the new one. but it has intel stamped on it, so i'm happy. i finally traced the problem to the modem when the phone guy called and said he'd tested the lines and they were fine. (sure, just wait until it rains again!) i dug out the ibm 486 processor thinkpad laptop with the 14.4 modem running win95. i hooked it in, and it dialed up just fine.

you've just gotta love that it's 92 F on october 1st! our weather can be so strange. i don't dare put the summer stuff away until almost december... and then you're never really sure.

OH, a word of warning. bacardi 151 is VERY STRONG. i'd seen some report about a lawsuit in a bar in like florida or somewhere. so, i'm like, sounds like some good stuff to try. i bought the small bottle at the liquor store, and added the usual shot to my pop of choice (this time it was diet mt. dew). i have vague recollections of my husband taking off my jeans and socks and putting me to bed. if i would have paid attention, i would have realized that "151" isn't just a neat sounding name, it's the PROOF! one good thing did come of this, i had a toothache and now it's gone! i do not normally drink like this! i can truly say that i have never been this drunk in my entire life. i never saw the point in high school... at the keg parties thrown by the baptist preachers son. i still hate beer. i was always telling them when i got invited, "if i'm gonna have a hang over it's not gonna be from drinking too much beer! just think of it as more for you!".

went to the tulsa state fair yesterday and my 7 yr old rode the super round up for the first time! her first adult ride! i'm so proud! this was my 9 yr olds third year for adult rides. she goes on zingo and the super round up with me.

well, that's all for this week! stay tuned...