Tuesday, January 31, 2012

listening to one side of a conversation is funny

So, hubs is on the phone with a buddy of his from Hawaii. He hadn't talked to him in awhile, so they were playing catch-up. Funny thing is, Muutuu (the Hawaiian friend) kind of has his brain fried from drugs (that's not the funny part, the funny part is coming up) and he's telling Muutuu that he's back up in Wisconsin and said, "yeah, lots of cheese. What town are you living in now? Pepperjack?" And I'm like, Pepperjack? That's a weird name for a Hawaiian town, then I realized that Muutuu was still stuck on the whole cheese part of the conversation (also, he was probably high). Muutuu's whole life is kind of like that, sort of one step behind the rest of the world, but he's a sweet guy, just not real bright. He's also an awesome musician and just made some decent money playing a wedding. Funny thing, he speaks in really strong pidgeon and I can barely understand half of what he's saying, but when he sings, the accent is gone and his voice is super. He's a Hawaiian version of a redneck. Yep, you can find rednecks everywhere.

My friends and I have an awesome girls night out planned for this Saturday night. We're getting hotel rooms, going out to dinner and were planning on seeing One for the Money, which we've all been looking forward to seeing since we heard they were turning Janet Evanovich's book into a movie. I checked the movie showtimes for this weekend and can you believe it, One for the Money isn't playing here! :( :( :( I am SO bummed, I was wanting to see this with my friends so badly and getting the four of us together at the same time is such an event (Jamie lives 2 hours away from the rest of us) that the odds of us getting together to see it later on is almost nil. I suppose the other 3 of us could get together and see it, but it just wouldn't be right if Jamie wasn't with us. Now, we'll probably just skip the whole movie thing and sit around gabbing all night like we did on our last girls night out. That's fun too, but I had my heart set on seeing some Stephanie Plum (and I really wanted to see Grandma Mauser shoot a roast chicken). BTW, in case you were wondering, I'm totally Team Ranger

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

it's a record breaker

Last night, Angel #4 did what I think every kid in the country in the past 50 years has done, she went into Guinness World Records to see what record she could break. She finally decided on making the worlds longest staple chain (fyi, I went for the pogo stick record). She started before we sat down to supper, but while we were eating, I noticed the dog was playing with something. You guessed it, Diesel ate her potential record. She had to start over again and spent the evening stapling and connecting. I figure it's a relatively harmless record to try to break (at least she's not going for sword swallowing) but I can't help but think that some time in the very near future, I'm going to need to staple something and we're going to be all out of staples.

Hubs gets home from Hawaii tomorrow. It'll be nice to have him back, our family unit has shrunk considerably in the last year. It'll only get smaller as WE and #4 make their way out into the world, though we've got over 5 years to go before #4 graduates high school, so I've got a little while with some of my kids yet. I talked to a friend today that announced that she's expecting baby #4 come August and another friend just had #3 on Monday. It's nice to see that the future is still being born, I'm just glad I'm no longer being the one supplying all those babies. :P

Monday, January 23, 2012

fun in South America

Angel #2 sounds like she's already enjoying herself in Uruguay. After her adventurous time getting there, I'm glad she's all settled in. Of the 4 plane rides she had to take to get there, 3 of them were delayed, 2 of them for over 2 hours. That kind of thing makes a long trip even longer. But, she's there now and having a great time. She's been wandering the city, shopping the markets and had her first day of Spanish class today. Tomorrow, she starts horseback riding. She's already made friends from all different countries. Wow, I just think it's all so cool and I'm so proud of her that she was brave enough to leave her comfort zone and start seeing the world.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

And then there were 2

Please Afton, enough of the holding your feelings in already - I don't want you to get an ulcer or something. lol

Things got a little crazy Thursday night. Angel #2 had been s-l-o-w-l-y cleaning out her bedroom (which is always a disaster area) and trying to get her bags packed for Uruguay. She's a bit OCD, which makes everything more difficult. She was scheduled to leave around 1:30 Friday afternoon and we were planning on meeting Rent-a-Grandma for lunch near the airport around 11, so she was planning on busting her butt Friday morning to finish things up. Then, around 10 Thursday night, we get a call from hubs (who's still in Hawaii). He just got an e-mail from United saying her flight from Chicago to Washington DC was cancelled (predicted blizzard in Chicago for Fri aft). Hubs said he'd call United and try to get her rebooked somehow. About half an hour later, he called to say that she was rescheduled and would be flying out at 6am Friday morning. Yikes! She ended up doing some speed packing and didn't get to be until 12:30. We were up and out of the house at 4:15am Friday morning getting her to the airport, which was made especially fun because it was -7 degrees outside. I got her there about 5:15am, got her checked in and took off for home. WE and Angel #4 didn't know about the flight change and I didn't want them to get up for school, find me gone and freak out.

#2 called from Chicago to say she got there safely though her flight there had been delayed for half an hour. She then called at 9am to say that her flight scheduled to leave at 8:45 had mechanical problems and they were all sitting in the airplane waiting to take off. Finally, around 11, she called to say they were leaving. I was getting a little concerned, hoping they'd take off before the blizzard showed up and grounded them for good, but she said it had just started snowing when they left. Due to the morning flight change, she had a scheduled 10 hour layover in Washington, DC, which was shaved off by a few hours by the mechanical issued in Chicago. She contacted a friend of ours in DC who picked her up at the airport and gave her a quick tour of the city and took her to dinner during her layover, she said she had a great time. She'd always wanted to see DC, though not maybe quite so quickly. She called one last time to say she was back at the airport waiting to board her plane to Buenos Aires and that's the last I've heard from her since once she's out of the country, no more cell phone. She had a final flight from Argentina to Uruguay and is scheduled to arrive in about an hour and a half, so I'm hoping I hear from her soon so I know she's all safe and sound. This morning I got an e-mail from United that said: On behalf of United Airlines, we want to express our sincere apologies for your
experience with flight 847 on January 20, 2012.
They were offering some kind of compensation for flight difficulties. I assumed this was in response to the mechanical trouble in Chicago, until I saw that the flight number they were referring to was the one from DC to Buenos Aires, so now I'm really curious as to what the heck happened. Traveling is a pain in the butt, that's why I prefer to just stay home.

Things at home have been pretty chilly lately. The last couple days, temps haven't gotten to much about 5 degrees and frequently dipped to the negatives. I didn't realize how quickly you just get accustomed to the cold until this morning when I went out to shovel some snow off the deck. I grabbed a shovel and, just wearing a sweatshirt, I shoveled off the deck and the sidewalk leading to the garage. At the time, I was thinking how nice it was to have temps warm enough to go outside with just a sweatshirt, then I noticed the temperature outside was 10 degrees. Hardly balmy weather by anyone's estimation. Sheesh, Wisconsin sure has hardened me.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

even the bank was frozen

Well, it finally feels like a Wisconsin winter outside. It was -5 outside when I got up this morning. I stopped by the drive thru bank this morning, there were two bank employees outside by the ATM unfreezing it when I drove up. Then when I tried to use the drive-thru, the little door on the canister kiosk was frozen shut so I just gave up and went inside instead.

We're going to have a little less cat around here after today. Both Fred and Pepper went in this morning to get fixed. I wanted it done before Angel #2 left since they're her cats and I didn't want to be responsible for it. We can pick them up this afternoon, a bit groggier and sore, but also unable to increase our cat population, which is a very good thing. Though, this summer, we're going to have to get a couple of barn cats to take care of the rodents out there. But barn cats are different, you don't have to clean their litter box and they don't sit on your head at 6am when you're trying to sleep (yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Fred).

Angel #2 is spending the day packing and cleaning, getting ready for the great exodus tomorrow. I'm going to miss her when she's gone, but it'll be nice to have her all safely on the plane and on her way down there so I don't have to worry about MY part in all this anymore, which is namely: getting her safely on the plane and one her way down there. I get worked up over stuff like than and have been having trouble sleeping the last couple weeks. I think once she's gone, I'll be able to relax a bit. Besides, she's been on a real country music kick lately and I'm getting those songs stuck in my head. Between "Red Solo Cup" and "I Wanna Check You for Ticks", I think I'm going to go crazy.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

snowy

Well, it's snowing today. Besides the few inches we had last week and maybe an inch or so last month, that's been about it. Even the weather's been exceptionally warm. Not only did we have temps up to 50 last week, but it hasn't gotten below zero all winter yet - in fact, I don't know if it's gotten below ten degrees more than a day or so. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't been whining just a bit, after all, it's winter, you're required to whine. It's not even the cold, it's that darn wind that is so awful. A couple weeks ago, hubs and I went to grab something to eat at Culvers. When we left, he headed out a door opposite of where we came in. As we were trekking through the parking lot, I was complaining of the extra walk outside. He pointed out that it wasn't that far and what was I complaining about. I said, hello? It's winter and it's cold outside. He said: You realize you're eating an ice cream cone, right? I shut up.

Angel #2 is getting ready to head out for Uruguay on Friday afternoon. She's only bringing a relatively small suitcase, so it'll be interesting to see what she's decided I can't live without for two months. One thing's for sure, since it's summer down there, she's gladly leaving her winter coat at home. Uruguay is sounding nicer and nicer.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Ding Dong Ditch - kitty cat style

WE came downstairs last night telling us he made a discovery. For the last week or so, he's been hearing a scratching at his bedroom door and, thinking it was his dog, he got up and opened the door to see no one there. But, last night, he heard the scratching, but the dog was already in his room, so he knew something nefarious was afoot. He waited right by the door til he heard the noise, then quickly opened the door and caught Fred, the cat, trying to run for cover. Yep, the cat was purposely tricking him into getting up and opening his door then hiding around the corner so he didn't know who was doing it. Fred is kind of a stinkbutt.

For the last couple days, I've been trying to build a website for our heating company. It's been slow going, not only because my computer is getting really bad and freezing up every few minutes, but I also don't know the slightest thing about building a website. I was working on it yesterday and ran into a problem. I called GoDaddy tech support for help, told the guy my issue and he went into our account to see what was going on. Then he said the words that made my stomach plummet and my heart stop beating. "Oh, that's scary." Seriously? Is that really something you want to hear your tech support guy say? He's suppose to be SUPPORTive, that's part of his name, not terror inducing. After he talked to some other tech support guys that also couldn't fix the problem, he had me download a completely different program and bypass the one that was giving me the problem. Things are working a bit better now, which is good, I thought for sure I broke our website for good.

In some amazing news: it was 50 (FIFTY!!!) degrees out today. Remember, this is January 11 in Wisconsin - not a place or time when 50 degrees is even relatively normal. Everyone was out and about, walking the sidewalks, visiting outside, it was simply amazing. It's been gorgeous like that all week, but today it peaked. Tonight we're back to our regularly scheduled winter and have winter storm warnings with 5-8 inches of snow expected. Looks like we'll have to get our shovels out this winter after all.

Monday, January 9, 2012

how did THAT slip my mind?

The fact that I didn't mention something else that happened Friday night either shows that I was really tired when I last posted or that my life is so bizarre at times that the craziest things can slip my mind.

During Friday nights shopping trip, I decided to do a little bra shopping while #4 and her friends were at the store. So, I'm in the fitting room, half naked, when my cell phone rings. I see that it's a call from home, so rather than ignore it, I decided to answer it in case it was an emergency. This is what I heard when I answered WE said: "Hi mom, I've got an emergency! (see how accurate my mom instincts are?) Diesel (the dog, in case you've forgotten) walked in some blue paint when he was outside and I didn't notice until he'd walked all over the place. There are blue footprints all over the kitchen floor." I told him that since I was half-naked in a fitting room at Gordmans, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it and that he'd better get down on his hands and knees and start scrubbing the floor. Well, he did what he could, but since our kitchen is still in the remodeling stages, that lighting in there is pretty bad, so neither of us saw the extent of the damage until we got up on Saturday morning. Here's what apparently happened: A few weeks ago, a bucket of (really really) blue paint got dumped on the ground by a back corner of our deck. Since it wasn't a place where people commonly walk, we let it there to dry up so it could be dealt with later. Since the weather got cold shortly after that, instead of drying up, it appeared that the paint froze instead. The weather was in the 40's on Friday, thawing out the paint. Diesel investigated, got it all over his feet, walked around the deck, up the steps to the door, through the unheated entryway, into the house, through the kitchen and dining room and into the bathroom. I felt like Steve on Blue's Clue and had the irresistible urge to sing "Someone's Got a Letter" and figure out a mystery. Instead, I got all the paint scrubbed off the vinyl floor in the kitchen/dining room but there's nothing I can do about the blue footprints on the wood deck or the wood floor of the entryway. The kids say it adds 'character' to the house, but I think the house had more than enough character before the blue prints showed up.

Sunday, I had another busy driving day on the road. Right away in the morning, I had to drive hubs into Green Bay so he could catch his 9:30 am flight to Hawaii. I got home and had about 45 minutes to get ready for church, 20 miles away. We all stayed after church and had a great lunch/gabfest together until I had to leave around 1 so I could drop the kids off at home and head out once again for the 35 mile drive in the opposite direction to get Angel #2 from her weekend away. My poor little mini-van really burned up the miles this weekend.

Friday, January 6, 2012

there, away and back again

I had one of those "running around all day" days. Some friends wanted Angel #2 to spend the weekend at their house. They live over an hour away, so we met in a town in the middle for lunch and switched her out. So, I started at noon by leaving home and driving 35 miles west for lunch. After a wonderful lunch, I boogied out at 1:30 and headed back to the high school in our town to pick WE up for a doctor's appointment. The appointment was in a town 25 miles east of our house, so off we went. After the appointment and a few errands, we went back home and arrived at 4:45. I needed to be home before 5 because I promised I'd take Angel #4 and 2 friends shopping in a town about 10 miles away and the friends were done with basketball practice at 5. (keeping up so far?) So, before I had the chance to head out again, hubs called and said he needed me to pick up a furnace part for him...guess where? The town 35 miles away I had lunch in. I picked up the girls from basketball and told them we were going shopping in the big city instead, so off we went. I picked up hubs stuff, the girls had a good time shopping and we headed back towards home. The 3 girls were spending the night at someone else's house, so I dropped them off there, got home around 9pm and now I'm in my jammies relaxing from my day as chauffeur to the teens.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

a wild and crazy new years eve

We cut loose at the Daydreamer household last night in honor of the new year approaching. It was an evening of drinking and debauchery with a bit of crazy talk thrown in. Yep, you guessed it, it was hot chocolate, popcorn and a marathon family game of Skip-Bo, and the crazy talk? Angel #2 spent the evening talking with goofy accents. We shut it down around 11:00 and I don't think anyone made it until midnight. I feel so fortunate that with a house full of teenagers, they were all content to spend what's supposed to be the biggest party night of the year with us playing card games.

We woke up this morning to wind and snow. It wasn't too bad, but the plows didn't get out until mid-morning, so we decided to skip the 35 mile drive to church and stay home this morning. We could use the extra time in bed sleeping off the affects of all that hot chocolate and junk food.

Yesterday, hubs and WE were going to finally get our mailbox set up. We've been living here since July, but since we have a post office box in town, we didn't really see a need to hurry up with the whole mailbox thing. Well, about 2 months ago, the guys got the post put in for the mailbox, but didn't get around to mounting the box on it. Yesterday, they were going to put up the box, but discovered they needed longer bolts, so the mailbox is, for some reason, sitting on the living room sofa. Pepper, the cat, is oddly attracted to the box and last night, we found her taking a nap in it, like a little, furry, Publishers Clearing House letter. This new found nap place of hers has the potential to scare the living bejeebers out of the mailman some day.