Thursday, January 29, 2009

They've got a problem

I can't remember what we were talking about tonight, but Angel #4 made the comment that 'if someone doesn't like me, they've got a problem'. No self-esteem issues going on here, lemme tell ya.

Hubby's buddy, Leleo, is moving off island. When people move down here, they tend to get rid of a whole bunch of stuff because it costs so much to ship stuff out of here. He bought a few things from Leleo, but also hauled home all the stuff Leleo threw away. Most of it was junk, but I did get a brand new set of spring-form pans, so that was cool. Now I've got to make cheese cake, just so they get used. WE also got a pair of plastic ninja swords, which he promptly broke. Now he's trying to staple them together because we won't let him melt it back together.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

glad it's just a mix-up with Google

Thanks for the explanation, Jeanie.  As soon as Bravenet and Google get things straightened out, I'll put you guys back up.  Hearing the daily exploits of your geezerlyness is one of the highlights of my day...besides I've got to find out if Afton is completely successful in housetraining the adorable Mr. T.  

My friend, Gwen, is donating all proceeds of one of her novels, Oh Goddess, to the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis, which, another friend, Chrissy, is suffering from.  At this time, there is no cure for PF and, though she's fighting it in her own hiliarious Chrissy way, Chrissy is living on borrowed time.  I personally, have benefitted from Chrissy's generous nature and would hate to have this wonderful woman's life cut short.  If you've ever lost someone who could effortlessly put a smile on your face, you know what life without Chrissy would be like.  If you'd like to help, please buy Gwen's book.

It's not that I don't love you guys...

Sorry to all my Bravenet Blogger buddies - I had to take your blogs off my blogroll.  For some reason, all the Bravenet journals are making my Google malware warning pop up on my screen when I click on my journal.  If it's happening to me, it's probably happening to other's and I don't want the members of my reading public (however few there may be) afraid to click on my journal because the Bravenet links are causing problems.   I wonder if Bravenet got hacked or something.

Tonight, WE wanted us to test his theory that if everyone in the world all jumped up and down at the exact same time, it would cause worldwide earthquakes.  He wanted the whole family to stand real close together in a bunch and jump up and down to see if we could put a hole in the living room floor.  When his idea didn't meet with much enthusisiam from the fam, he tried to prove it himself.  When I yelled at him for jumping so hard he was making the lamps shake, he thought that proved his theory.  So, just to be on the safe side, don't all jump at the same time.

Monday, January 26, 2009

We love-a the Caesar Salad!

We just got back from supper at a friend's house.  They decided that the main even would be a real live Caesar Salad, done the way old Caesar himself did it.  We all sat around the table and watched as Denis cracked the eggs, added the other ingredients, mixed the dressing and tossed the lettuce leaves.  Apparently, the proper way to eat a Caesar salad is with your fingers, so that's what we did.  It's a bit messier that way, but more fun to eat - the kids especialy loved it.

I got another bladder infection Friday.  I think I've finally figured out a tie-in.  I think drinking too much iced tea makes me develope them.  I'm not sure why they do, but the last time and this time, I'd been drinking a lot of iced tea before I got the infection.  I think it's a theory worth making note of, since I really don't want to have any more since they really hurt.  I'm also trying a new homeopathic remedy for curing it - drinking apple cider vinegar.  It taste awful and the cure is about as bad as the disease, but if it saves me a $150 doctors office visit, I guess it'll be worth it.

Friday, January 23, 2009

All WE all the time

It was a WormEater kind of day today.  First off, he got his report card today.  It showed is 1st quarter grade, his 2nd quarter grade and the semester grade, which is the average of the two grades.  In his worst class - he got "C"s both quarters, which should have made his semester grade a "C" also, right?  Instead, his semester grade was a "D".  What's up with that?  How do 2 C's average out to a "D"?  You'd think the teacher would have learned averages in math class a long time ago - but, wouldn't you know it, it was the math teacher that gave him the grade.  Makes me wonder what he's learning in there.

Then, tonight, during out Bible study, we were talking about the verse that said that Jesus didn't baptize people, but his Disciples did.  We asked the kids why they thought Jesus didn't baptize.  WE's response was that maybe Jesus didn't want to walk into that water with all those sins they washed away floating around in there.

Finally - Angel #1 picks WE up after school and drives him home.  WE has about a half hour to kill while waiting to get picked up and tonight, he told us what he does to pass the time.  He walks girls home from school.  Isn't he a nice guy??

We had some friends over for lunch today.  They know a lot about native plants and pointed out some of the different ones we have growing here and what we can do with them.  We sent them home with some breadfruit from our trees, a little bit of sorrel and some nasturtiams, whose leaves and flowers have a peppery flavor and are tasty in salads.

Random Daydreamer Fact:  I lost my last baby tooth when I was 16 years old - it had to be taken out by the dentist because it wasn't even loose yet.  The same thing happened to the first baby tooth I lost, which wasn't until I was in 3rd grade.  I was a late tooth bloomer

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Why do I love Craig's List?

How can I NOT love it after seeing an ad like this one:  http://honolulu.craigslist.org/big/zip/1001241837.html
I want to be BFF with that person.

Talk about Craig's List - Angel #4 graduated up to her full-sized violin, so we're going to try to sell her 3/4 one on the List.  Every little thing we can get rid of is an accomplishment, imo.  We've got way too much stuff.

Our friend, Charles, played at the Hawaiian Inaugural Ball yesterday.  He sent us a picture of him in front of the capital building - he looked REALLY cold.  Those temps are a little much for a poor Hawaiian guy to handle.

Random Daydreamer Fact:  My feet went from the width of AA to a B over the course of having 4 kids.  So, a benefit of having a bunch of kids is that I can actually find shoes to fit me now.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Will you still love me?

Last night, WE asked me if I would still love him if he was a werewolf.  I told him I would, unless it was a full moon.  Makes me wonder where he gets his questions from.  So, is he a werewolf and he's gently leading me up to the revelation?  Or maybe he's just contemplating making a species change.  The world may never know - we can only hope.

Angel #4 brought home her class picture today.  Most of the kids had inpronouncable Hawaiian names, but I was thrilled to see Billy Jones - I think he's my favorite kid, just because I can say his name.  There was one kid named Willow, it looked like a boy, but I've only heard of Willow being a girls name, so I asked the angel.  Willow is a boy, they call him Will - which would make his name Will Rogers.  Uh...yeah

Book Review Tuesday:  Two for the Road by Jane and Michael Stern.   Jane and Michael Stern travel all around the country, eating at diners and truck stops in a quest to find the best food in America.  This book is an interesting account of how they started in such an interesting professions and some of their adventures along the road.  They also threw in a few recipes along the way.  V entertaining.  They also named one of the best kind of ham you can buy is from Nueske's Meat in Wisconsin - which is kind of neat since we actually know the Nueske's.  How cool is that?

Monday, January 19, 2009

Food fest

Today we had a potluck after our Gospel meeting.  Our ministers are heading off-island and, except for a couple weeks in late Feb for our Special Meetings, they won't be around again for another six months.  So, it was kind of a good-bye supper.  For some reason, cookies were real big this time, I think we had 4 different kinds - not that I"m complaining.  I LOVE cookies.

Tanya:
our temps today were 61-75, that's pretty much the yearly average, though I think it'll be a little bit warmer in the summer.  Temps will probably get up to the 80's.  Much better than the 130 degree temperature variation you guys in WI have throughout the year.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Yay for pictures!

















Here you go, the requested pictures.  Though I'm not a photographically inclined as you, Alaine, I DID manage to get these buggers onto my computer and into the blog, which deserves a big round of applause, I believe.  *clap clap clap*  Thank you so much.  :D   Okay, the one with the white roof on the bottom is the view from out bedroom.  To give you an idea of how steep the mountainside we live on is, that roof belongs to our across-the-road neighbors and the power lines are the ones that run along the highway that we live on.  When you come in the kitchen door, the porch runs along at ground level, but when you walk across the room 25-30 feet, an look off the lanai, the above is the view you get - the lanai is about 10 feet off the ground.  This is mountain country, people - though thankfully without the snow that most mountainous regions get.

Angel #2 and one of her friends, Shannon the slug, slept until 1 this afternoon, though the other friend had to be to work at 8:15 am and was up by 6:30 frying herself up some Spam for breakfast.  I'm not used to teenaged girls getting themselves up and actually making a big breakfast before heading out the door.  When #2 had to be to work at the same place as her friend, she got out of bed about 5 minutes before she had to be out the door.  Though, I have to admit, the smell of Spam frying at 6:30 in the morning, isn't something I'm too excited to wake up to, so I guess I'll keep Angel #2 and her sluggy habits.

Weird thing.  When my hair is wet, I can't do much of anything with it.  So, yesterday, when I went grocery shopping, my hair was still wet, so I just threw it into a braid down my back.  I never did get around to whipping it into a bun, which is my usual style.  Two people came up to me yesterday and thought I was someone else.  One lady came up to me and started calling me Lisa or something and one of #2's friend's boyfriends thought I worked at a coffee place, then asked if maybe she was my sister since we looked so much alike.  I don't know if they were both thinking of the same person or not, but it's interesting to think there's someone out there who looks similiar to me - though I'm sure I'm the cuter one.  :P

let the giggling begin

Well, the party is in full swing.  2 of Angel #2's friends managed to get grounded yesterday and couldn't come to the party, so there's just #2 and two friends, which creates plenty of giggling.  Problem is, I was planning on 4 extra girls and made enough food for them all, so we've got a ton of food lying around here, though I'm not too worried about it not getting eaten, not with a bunch of teenagers in the house.

This morning our phone rang at 6:30 - we were awake, but not out of bed yet.  It was the company that hosts our credit card machine.  Hubby answered and held his cool rather well, I thought.  First he asked where she was located and she told him Tennessee.  Then he asked if she knew where we were and she knew it was Hawaii.  Do you understand what the time difference is between those two places, he asked.  "Oh, I thought I was calling a business, not a residence, I'm sorry."  Uh, how many businesses do you know of that are open at 6:30am?  All I can figure is that she was trying to get an answering machine or a answering service so she didn't actually have to deal with the problem she was calling about.  She could just leave a message and shove the file into her done pile, making the return call our responsibility.  That's one of the major problems with living in Hawaii, the whole time zone thing.  Not only do have to do any dealings with most of the Mainland right away in the morning, we've also got clueless people who don't understand that even though it might be 10am where they are, it's 5 o'clock in the freakin' morning where our telephone is ringing.  We've actually had telemarketers calling us at 4:30am trying to sell us crap, then they get nasty when we express how extremely ticked off we are to get woke up by an unwanted phone call from someone trying to sell us something we didn't want in the first place.

I finally got around to taking a picture of our gorgeous view today.  Now, give me another week or two, and I might even get it downloaded from the camera and posted here.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

How can there be no angel food?

For her birthday cake tomorrow, Angel #2 wants angel food.  So, after picking #4 up from school today, I headed over to Safeway to pick up a box of cake mix.  They had NO angel food cake mixes in the entire store.  Hard to believe, isn't it?  Thursdays are always bad days for grocery shopping anyway - Fridays are when their food shipment comes in - but I thought being angel food cakeless was pretty extreme.  I'll have to try one of the other grocery stores tomorrow and hope I have better luck.

The angel wants to meet 4 friends at Fun Factory, the arcade downtown, and spend an hour or two there before coming home for pizza and (hopefully) angel food cake.  Then the girls are going to spend the night and do whatever 5 15 year old girls do at slumber parties.  I'm guessing listen to emo music, talk about cute guys and giggle a lot.  We're shipping #4 over to another friend's house so she'll be out of the way of the party goers.  I think we're in for a long night tomorrow.

Out To Lunch

It was so nice and quiet here with all the kids back to school.   Life is good.  Actually, I wasn't home very long to enjoy the silence.  I had to leave the house at 10:30 to run some errands.  At 11 a group of us from church met for lunch.  One of the families divides their time between living in Oman, in the Middle East and Hawaii.  They are heading back to Oman on Friday, so it was kind of a goodbye lunch for her.  We all met at the health food grocery store.  It had just opened up a couple weeks ago and I'd been wanting to go there and check it out and this was the perfect opportunity.  I've decided that buying organic to feed my entire family is WAY out of my price range.

The family was discussing the $150 million inaugeral party and WE was very upset at the high price tag.  He started doing a little calculating on his own to figure out how much SHOULD be spent on a party like that.  If he was president, the party would only cost about $20,000, and this includes the price of renting 2 bouncy houses.  We were also dicussing how they're saying that this is going to be the coldest inaugeration in history.  A friend of ours is going to be there with his band to play at one of the parties.  He's Hawaiian born and bred and has never experienced cold like they're having up north.  He's in for a rude shock.

Alaine
you're right, Margaret Atwood is the author of A Handmaid's Tale.  Maybe, if you liked that one, you'll like The Blind Assassin.  It just wasn't my kind of book, I guess.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

sometimes you gotta help a brudda out

Our friend Mark can be a bit of a doofus at times.  He's the one who accidentally drained the water garden at our old house last month.  Well, yesterday he came over to our house and said that he'd pulled up too close to the gate at the end of the driveway with his truck.  The gate scraped along the hood of his truck.  When he came over today, he was ready and held the end of the gate up so it wouldn't drag along his truck again.  Best case scenerio would be that he wouldn't pull so freakin' close to the gate, but that one hasn't dawned on him yet.  So today, I took a can of white spray paint and painted a line across the driveway along the path the end of the gate takes.  Now, if Mark can just figure out to keep his truck on the correct side of the line, he should be all right.

The two older kids went back to school today, the two younger ones do tomorrow.  YAY!  It's time for them to go back, they're driving me nuts, though it was fairly quiet around here today.  Angel #4 went back with Maddie (her best friend and Mark's daughter), so it was just WE and his friend here, and they were rather peaceful for a change.  Tomorrow will seem like pure heaven. 

Book Review Tuesday:  The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.  Meh  Sometimes I don't know what's worse, knowing right from the beginning that a book isn't going to have a happy ending, or getting it unexpectedly sprung on you at the very end.  This one was the former, starting off right away with Laura Chase's suicide, then flip flopping from present, to past to really really past, to a bizarre science fiction story interwoven into the whole works.  I'm sure there was some deep philosophical meaning to the whole thing, but I didn't find it...I didn't try too hard either.  I'm not good with hidden meanings, foreshadowing and that kind of thing.  I think if an author wants to say something, they should just come right out and say it.  But, that's just me, I'm kind of a practical, tell it like it is kind of person.

Monday, January 12, 2009

sizzle sizzle - the sound of a brain frying

bluba bluba bluba - that is the sound of my brain melting down to an oozy mass and trickling out my ears.  It's what happens when your children have had the last 3 weeks off for winter break, you've spent the day foundering around town trying to get errands done and somehow, ended up with 2 extra children to add to the 4 you already have.  Oh, and thrown in a new pet and a husbands birthday and you've pretty much got my day.

WE got a new cat today to replace the lost, lamented Bonsai.  This is a 7 month old female calico he's named AK-47.  Charming, eh?

For hubby's birthday, I made a couple of lemon meringue pies - that and banana cream pie are his two favorite desserts and since we've got another birthday coming up this week, we'll get our fill of birthday cake then, so I stick with pie for his birthday.  I got him a new pair of slippers.  Since moving up the mountain, it gets pretty chilly here, so I bought myself a new pair of white fuzzy slippers a couple weeks ago and he keeps stealing them and wearing them.  So, in self defence -  or slipper defense, I guess you'd call it - I bought him his own pair.  Instead of white fuzzy ones though, I got him fake suede sheepskin ones.  Now my slippers should be where I put them in the future, unless one of the kids start stealing them.

Alaine, I'm notorious for NOT taking pictures (which can be today's random Daydreamer fact).  We forgot to bring the camera during the birth of 3 out of 4 of our kids and most of the pictures in our photo albums are pictures other people took and they gave us copies.  When we DO remember to take them with our digital camera, we forget to download them or lose the memory card and if we use the 35mm, when I get them developed, I usually find pictures from 2 or 3 different kid's birthdays on them, which, since the kids birthdays are all about 3 months apart, isn't very impressive.  So, someday, when I have a camera, memory card, batteries and a download cord all at the same time, I'll take a picture of our view off our porch and post it here.  Uh, I wouldn't hold my breath though, if I were you.

Stormy Weather

We had lots of rain and amost hurricane force winds this morning.  Branches were knocked down and it was pretty exciting.  Fortunately, the worst of it was over by 9:30, so we made it to church with no problem.  All that wind pushed to vog away and the sky was so intensly clear today after the storm, it was awesome.  When we were headed north this afternoon, we could see all of Maui and part of another island.  Usually, on the best of days, we can only see the top of Maui.  We could also see the three mountains: Hualalai, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea at the same time, with the observatory at Mauna Kea sticking out as clear as a bell out of the top of the snow capped mountains.  Yep, it was pretty.  The storm also turned the ocean a deep purple color that looked incredible against the sky.  Sometimes you need a little rain and wind to reveal the true beauty of things.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Cords, Cords, Everywhere

It started out simply enough.  I had to fill out some paperwork for our business.  I couldn't find all the information I needed in our files, so I knew I was going to have to set up the work computer.  We have a computer whose only purpose is for me to enter our business stuff on.  No internet or anything, just a basic PC.  I haven't set it up yet from the move simply because we have enough business stuff still sitting in our bedroom that hasn't been dealt with yet and I didn't want to add anymore to the chaos.  But it was time to bite the bullet.  First off, I had to find the tower, which had mysteriously disappeared - it turned up under a desk.  The monitor was easy as was the cord to attach the monitor to the tower, but then things started getting complicated.  I needed a mouse and keyboard, as well as a power cord to plug the tower into an outlet.  We have a tub where we keep all our miscellaneous computer stuff in, oh so effectively labeled "Computer Stuff".  Problem was, during the move, we took all the cords and things lying around and shoved them all into the tub randomly and things were so tangled up that I couldn't even manage to get anything out of there.  I yanked things out and started winding up cords and tying them up with twist ties.  But you can't just throw them back in the tub, that's where this mess got started in the first place.  Grabbing my box of gallon sized zip-locks, I started sorting them and labeling the bags.  I did this until it got too dark to see down there (there's no lights in the basement), then finished up the job this morning.  I found the cord, mouse and keyboard I'd been looking for, though I still haven't gotten around to setting up the computer, or finishing the paperwork that started this mess in the first place.  Neither have I, despite having about 10 chargers of unknown origin and another dozen download cords, found the missing cords to either our digital or video cameras.  I've got the sinking feeling there's another tub, also labeled "Computer Stuff" still floating around here someplace.

Friday, January 9, 2009

more on driving

Angel #1 says thanks to everyone who've sent their congrats.  Tanya, I AM thankful I don't have to worry about winter roads, though we've got mountain roads to contend with, especially at our new house.  We're at about 1200 ft elevation and have a twisty road to drive on to get to it.  One side of the road has no shoulder to speak of and if you go off the side, you fall down the side of the mountain - not fun.  This just happened to a teen girl and the van she was driving was totaled and she would have been also, if she hadn't been wearing a seat belt.  But, he's 16 and growing older, he's very responsible and the least I can do is give him the freedom that he's been working for, as long as he continues to deserve it.  At this point, all I can do is pray he'll be careful and safe.

I've discovered that putting leftover rice in your bread dough is really tasty.  Since I always seem to have leftover rice in the fridge, I think that's going to become part of my regular bread-making procedure.  Bread making is so fun because you don't have to stick to any kind of recipe.  You can thrown random bits of stuff in the dough and just find out what'll happen.  Sometimes is taste great - other times, not so much.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

on the road again

#1 passed his test today, he's now an official provisional driver in the state of Hawaii.  He'll be able to get a full-fledged license when he's between the ages of 17-19, which will give him full driving rights.  With his provisional, he can drive by himself, with family members, 1 non-family member under the age of 21 and anyone over the age of 21.  He also can't drive between the hours of 11pm-5am without written permission from us or-if he's leaving work-his boss.  I think he can live with that.  I thought it was sweet that the first person he took on a drive with him was WE.  WE was so excited about #1 getting his license he was bouncing around in the car seat like a puppy.  

While we were waiting in line at the DMV, there was this old lady in front of us.  She was incredibly unsteady on her feet and kept looking like she was going to fall over.  She was having problems filling out the license renewal form, then couldn't see the letters in the eye test.  When the tester asked her when she'd last been to an eye doctor, the woman said she had new glasses coming in 2 weeks and she'd just been recovering from some eye disease where she was almost completely blinded.  #1 and I looked at each other and both expressed the very intense desire that this lady NOT be allowed to drive on the road and were relieved when she was told to come back when she got her new glasses.  Our relief was short-lived though, when we saw her get into her car and start it up.  She almost backed into another car on her way out of the parking lot and would have if the guy hadn't laid on his horn.  Sure makes you feel safe out there on the roads, doesn't it?

Shelley, #1 had to take a state written exam in order to get his temporary license, then took a school course in driver's ed then finish his behind the wheel training with his teacher as well as having to log in 50 hours of behind the wheel with us.  I'm sure I'll still be nervous knowing he's driving out there (especially with those blind little old ladies cruising around) but he's a pretty level headed kid and I think he'll do just fine (besides, now we'll have an extra driver with us when we go to Iron Bridge, Canada in June  :D  )

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

white knuckle driving

Cindy, you were right, it wasn't a mutant grapefruit we found in our yard on Sunday.  It was, in fact, a pomelo  .  You win the "Name that Mystery Fruit" game - bet you all didn't even know you were playing, did ya?  :P

Tomorrow morning, Angel #1 goes in for his road test for his driver's license.  He was all nervous about it this morning and totally obsessed about failing until we found out his doofus driver's ed teacher told the kids that if they failed the test, the state made them wait until they were 18 before they could retake it.  I wish she would get her facts straight before terrifying a bunch of teenagers.  After I made the appointment for him, I asked how long he had to wait to retake it if he failed...it was 1 week.  Much better than the 1 1/2 years he thought he was facing.  I think that relaxed him about the whole test-taking thing.

Book Review Tuesday:  Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fanny Flagg  - Fanny Flagg writes good old fashioned feel-good books.  Can't Wait to Get to Heaven starts out with Elner Shimfissle getting attacked by wasps and falling out of the fig tree in her front yard to her death.  Throughout the book, we follow both her family and friends reaction to her death as well as Elner's journey after death.  We find out secrets Elner kept for others as well as the monumental changes she made in peoples lives both during her life and after her death.  Sweet and touching, it also has many laugh out loud moments as Elner, in her blunt, matter-of-fact way makes everyone's lives more meaningful.  I want to read this one again and again, just because it was so darn sweet.  After reading it, I've started to look at life in a different way.

Monday, January 5, 2009

International Sunday

Today, after our afternoon gospel meeting, we all went to the nearby food court at the shopping center for supper.  There are about 6 places to eat there, a Chinese place, a Mexican, Korean, Japanese, pizza (Italian) and... with a slight nod to actual American food, a Dairy Queen.  This week I had a hankering for mushroom-zuchinni chicken, so I headed to Don's Chinese Kitchen, though I've never actually seen a guy named Don working there.  Last week, I did Mexican, which was a treat.  The Mexican and pizza places just opened up a couple months ago.  There had been signs announcing the 2 places were opening soon or, in the case of the pizza place "Palucci's Pizza comming soon".  We looked at those signs for over two years, the first year never even noticing that they'd misspelled 'comming' in the pizza place sign until Angel #2 pointed it out one day. 

Hubby, Angel #4 and her friend were out in the yard today, hubby machete-ing his way around the property, when they discovered an orange tree out by the road.  Can you say 'fresh orange juice'?  YUM   They also found these huge fruits hanging on another tree.  We juiced one up and they taste like sweet grapefruit, but, like I said, they're huge, like the size of a really large cantalope.  I'm not sure if they're mutant grapefruit or some other kind of fruit altogether.  We'll have to bring one with us on Wednesday night and show Auntie Violet, the knower of all things Hawaiian, to find out exactly what these things are.

On my journey through Craigs List tonight, I saw something for sale that makes you wanna say: so, what's the story on this one?   For $200, you can buy a teak cremation urn.  Good news, it says it's brand new, which makes me feel a bit better.  I would hate to think someone was selling used ones.  I'd spend a lot of precious time wondering what happened to the previous occupant.  It's also solid teak, not one of those cheap veneered ones that the tightwad dead people are hanging out in.  But, the question is, why are they selling it?  Did they get a new lease on life and decide that they weren't going to need an urn anytime soon?  Maybe they got it for great-aunt Mable and the old biddy refuses to cross over to the other side and they eventually got sick of the darn thing sitting around collecting dust.  You know darn well that as soon as they sell the sucker, Aunt Mable is going to bite it and they'll be advertising for a cremation urn in the Craig's List 'wanted' section.  Life just works that way, ya know?

Sunday, January 4, 2009

busy Saturday

Hubby, the machete master, was hard at work again today hacking away at the long grass and stuff by the big tree in the back yard.  There's a huge long rope hanging from one of the branches - about 40 feet long - and he wanted to make sure there weren't any trees or branches sticking out that the kids could hurt themselves on when they were swinging.  The whole area, like much of the rest of the property, is surrounded by a lava rock wall, and he worked his way around the borders of that wall.  It's starting to look really nice around here.

Now that I've got an oven again, I've been doing a lot of baking.  Yesterday, I made some bread and had an inspiration.  We had some leftover rice from supper the night before, and I dumped the rice into the bread dough while I was kneading it.  It turned out really good, so I think I'll be doing that more often.  I also formed some of the dough as long rolls so we could make sub sandwiches out of the leftover turkey we had from last nights supper.  They were very much good, if I do say so myself.  :)   The turkey came from our neighbor from our old house.  He gets a holiday turkey every year from work and since he doesn't have an oven in his apartment, he gave the turkey to us, which is pretty nice of him.  Turkey and stuffing with the fixings is my favorite meal of all time.  YUM!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

giving Chrome another try

I downloaded Google Chrome for my internet browser shortly after it came out, but decided I didn't like it and went back to good ol' Internet Explorer.  Well, now I've been hearing horror stories about hackers messing with IE people, so I decided to give Chrome another try.  Problem is, as soon as I downloaded it again, I remembered why I didn't like it in the first place.  I love having my list of favorites running down the left hand side of my screen and always keep my favorites list activated and handy.  Chrome doesn't let me do this and I'm getting antsy seeing a screen without that familiar little list running down the side...I'm a creature of habit and don't like anything different.  I once spent almost half an hour with MS Word trying to get page arrangement back to the way I like it after it somehow got changed.  I simply couldn't write with it looking the way it did.  Well, I'll see if I can get used to a Favorites-less page - if not, I'll have to find some other browser that LOOKS like IE, but is just pretending.

The other day while I was reading my book, Angel #4 came over and gave me her opinion on what makes a good book - which is cover and title.  She then told me that the book I was reading had such a dumb title that NOBODY would want to read it.  The book?  The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde.  Looks like ol' Oscar is going to get an unpleasant surpise the next time his royalty check comes in.  LOL

WE was telling us about his plans for the future.  Turns out that when he grows up, he's going to have a lion farm.  Of course, he'll be raising zebras on the side so he's got something to feed the lions, so that'll add to the work a bit.  I'm not sure what he's planning on doing with the lions he's raising, I don't think there's that much of a need for them right now...but, I could be wrong.  He's a little worried that his farm work is going to interfere with his other career of NASCAR driver, but I'm sure he'll get all those bugs worked out.

Friday, January 2, 2009

I managed to stay up til midnight!

I'm not too into the whole 'stay up to midnight to bring in the new year' thing, but it got late so fast last night that by the time I realized I was tired and wanted to go to bed, it was quarter to twelve, so I figured I might as well stay up. Besides, I knew the Angels, along with the rest of the state of Hawaii, would be setting off fireworks at midnight and I wasn't going to get to sleep til that was over anyway, so I just went out on the lanai and watched the fireworks go off all over town. We've got a gorgeous view of the entire town off our front lanai, one of the benefits of living on the side of a mountain.

Today for lunch, we invited our friends Denis and DeAnne and Mark and Deborah over. Mark and Deborah live in Michigan and come to Hawaii every year for an extended vacation, so we've got to know them a bit over the last 3 years. We had a really nice time and the weather was warm and sunny, so we could eat out on the lanai and look at the view over lunch. Life doesn't get any better than that - especially since the rest of you are bundled up and shoveling snow. :P

After falling woefully behind in laundry during our move, I'm happy to say that I'm almost all caught up now. I have to do it a little differently here than I did at the last place since it's so damp up here. We've got clotheslines in the open basement area under the house and I hang the clothes up there and let them get as dry as possible overnight. Then, the next day I have to throw them in the dryer for 10 minutes or so to get the last of the dampness out of them or else they'll mildew. I really hate having to use the dryer, but since it's a gas dryer and I only need it for about 10-15 minutes per load, I guess I can suck it up.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

finding my way back to the face of the earth

Yep, I fell off the face of the earth, but no worries, I'm back. We found out we could move into the new house on Monday the 22nd so got right to work moving our stuff. We just got the internet hooked up at the new place this morning, so I'm back in business. We rented a big truck from Monday afternoon til Tuesday aft and moved all our big stuff during that time. By Monday night, we had enough stuff set up that we spent our first night in the new house. It's so nice to be back in the country, it's much nicer hearing crickets at night instead of noisy neighbors. Though we're creating enough noise ourselves tonight. New Years Eve is celebrated majorly down here and both WE and angel #4 blew a whole wad of their Christmas money on fireworks today. They've been setting off firecrackers, smoke bombs and a whole bunch of noisy stuff for the last couple hours. WE set off a smoke bomb on the porch and the whole house smells like rotten eggs now.

We're living up the mountain now, at about 1200 ft above sea level and it's a whole lot colder up here. Yeah, you roll your eyes and think, how cold can it get in Hawaii? Well, lemme tell ya, the low 60's may not sound too cold, until you live in an unheated house. Our bedroom was 62 degrees the other morning. Sure makes it hard to crawl out of bed. Hopefully our blood thickens up soon and we won't feel the cold quite so much.

We had an unwelcome surprise on Wednesday morning. We spent the night at the new place, then in the morning I had to meet the carpet cleaning guy at the old house. While I was there, I noticed the water garden had been drained and there were dead and dying fish lying in the bottom of it. I couldn't figure out who in the heck would have siphoned all the water out of there. I called our neighbor, Mark, and asked him if he knew and his response was, "oh-oh, you mean I forgot to take the hose out?" Turns out he was trying to catch a few of our red fan tailed guppies and put them in his aquarium. He was going to siphon the water down a bit so he could get them easier. While he was doing that, someone he knew came by and he got to talking with him and forgot all about the siphon hose. There was about a foot of muck and sludge in the bottom and it stunk like a swamp. I made Mark come over and clean up the mess - he would have been a perfect candidate for that Dirty Jobs show, standing there covered in green slimey mud scooping sludge out with an ice cream bucket. Yeah, I laughed, I'm evil that way.

We've got about an hour before the new year, which means you all have already done your celebrating and more than likely have been in bed for a couple hours (or more) already. Here's hoping we all have a wonderful and happy 2009!