Festival of mutants

I took the bus to work today. My car is at the shop and I did not want to work from home unless I absolutely had to, and I could take a bus, so I did. The ride to work was okay, actually. It was the trip home that scared me. I had to wait in the terminal for the bus to arrive, and I have never seen so much drama in my life. I spent the while time sitting there trying to not meet anyone's eye. I can't even recall what everyone was arguing about, all I know was it was loud and it was ugly. At one point a guy came in and started talking to his friend (they all seemed to know each other) about his new job at McDonalds. I respect people who work at McDonalds - I worked there myself. It's a lot of work for not much money. The funny part was when the guy said "Yeah, I have a friend who is a manager there and HE TOTALLY HOOKED ME UP!!!"

I wil NEVER think of a McDonalds job as any kind of hookup.

I had a hot date with AAA!

Meant to blog yesterday but the day got away from me. Have plenty of time now, since my car has decided she needs some time in the spa. The only reason I have not broken down and cried is because they have not called with the estimate yet. I may sound crazy for saying this, but this has been the least hassling instance of car trouble I have had. I have been pretty lucky when it comes to car issues. This morning, I got into my car, started it up, and it started chugging, like it was not getting enough gas. I stepped on the gas, hoping it was just because it was parked on an incline, but the chugging did not go away. I turned it off, and tried to turn it on again, and that was not happening. (This has happened a few times before - I turn the key and nothing happened. I replaced the battery hoping that was the problem, but....I guess not.) So, I called my best friend AAA. They were out within the hour and hooked up the cables. Turned the key, nada. After jiggling with it a few seconds, it started. The AAA guy deduced it was the starter. I said, great, but it is still chugging. He said it was probably because I was parked on an incline, just let it set for about 10 minutes and it should be fine. I was wary, so I asked him who he recommended to have the starter fixed, and he told me about a local guy whose garage was on the same street as the church where the hubs and I got hitched.

I drive there (less that 5 minutes) and the chugging never went away. In fact, as I pulled in, the check engine light came on. I need a new coil, apparently all the rain we got over the weekend caused the coil to go. I don't really understand it, but I'm not a mechanic, now, am I? After I get the new coil, he will check the starter (which I am resigned to needing - it's original on a car with 182,000 miles) and I should be back on the road tomorrow.

EDIT: Just got the estimate: $433, yikes!

Appreciate what you have...

Today was spectacularly rainy. We went out for breakfast and as soon as we got home we were summoned upstairs to help put in a bookshelf and visit with family. We spent the rest of the day being lazy and appreciating a warm home. Now we are getting ready to Wii race with my brother and sister in law who live in Georgia. They said they just passed a mile long line for gas. I'm scared for this country...

Crazy comes in all shapes and sizes.

Today at work some people who worked upstairs decided to have a potluck - they each cooked a dish and brought them in to share with everyone. We used to have them all the time in our department but there were layoffs and now there aren't that many people left.

One of the women in this group is obsessed with the microwave. She often reheats her lunch 3 or 4 times during her lunch break. Today, though, she really out did herself. Someone brought in mini-meatballs in tomato sauce. This woman would go to the crock pot, place 1 meatball on her plate, put in the microwave for about a minute, bring it back to her place, sit down, and eat it. Then, she did it again. One meatball on the plate, one minute to re-heat it, sit, and eat. She did this 3 times before I left with my own heated lunch. (One 4 minute cycle, thank you very much)

If we only had one microwave in our lunch room, I would have smacked her.

Survivor

Tonight is the new survivor. I have seen every episode since the start of the series. The hubs will only watch with me if there is a water challenge planned, so I will often use this time to stitch. I haven't been stitching a lot over the past few months. I am getting close to the end of a project (except for the dreaded backstitching), and I guess I am losing motivation. The holidays will get me back into stitching shape!

We need smarter pharmaceuticals...

You know how with birth control pills they give you that last week of sugar pills so you can stay in the habit of taking a pill every day? They should remove the sugar pills and replace them with chocolate.

My new favorite side dish

I have often claimed Broccoli as my Dr. Seuss food. I'd eat it raw, cooked, hot, cold, in a house, with a mouse, on a boat, with a goat, you get the idea. I have recently started making broccoli slaw as a side dish, and I can't get enough of it. I was never a fan of cole slaw, so although I have been aware of this product for a while, I only used it to sprinkle in salads. I bit the bullet last month and decided to try it as a slaw and I LUHHHVE it!!! I'll never toss the long stems away again.

Watched Heroes with the hubs last night. I thought it was pretty interesting but the hubs was disappointed. He does not like the way everyone who dies comes back to life. The only thing I did not like was the way Mohinder turned into a slut. I thought he was a nice young man...he deserved to be green and scaly now.

Ummmm...yeah...

So I was all set to watch this last night and come 8 PM, I realized I was a week off. Bummer. Instead, we ended up watching Rome on DVD. I am really disapointed that they cancelled that show. Yes, it was downright butal at times, but I found it interesting and I really liked Pullo and Vorenus. We are still in season 2 (which I think it the last) and I am riveted.

For the past few months, I have been trying to break the habit of watching TV in bed. When we changed from satellite to cable, I purposely did not have the tv in the bedroom set up because I knew I would not be able to resist the temptation. The hubs rented Law and Order DVD's so I could watch those before I fell alseep - at least those had a concrete end. Then I started listening to the Harry Potter books on tape. I have listened to them all before, but I like them, so I put them on when I go to sleep. I rarely get past the first track, so they last a long time, but the hubs is getting tired of listening to the same story over and over.

This post needs no title...meaning I can't come up with a pithy title...

Today will be another lovely lazy day, once I have completed all my chores. I picked out some Christmas designs last night while the hubs and I watched this. Not a great movie but it was fun trying to recall the names of all the people in it. Once my kitchen is back in order, I'll start preparing and measuring my Aida. I haven't determined how many "thingies" I will need, but the most I will be able to make is 10. I may have my first one completely finished by the time this starts tonight!

Lazy days...

What a nice morning. Was able to sleep in and lounge...ahhhh....

Today we are going to go into the North End and have pizza here for lunch. We went for the first time a couple of weeks ago when my brother and sister (in law, but she's more like a real sister to me) came to visit. I'll post some pictures of that vacation - we had the best time!

After lunch? Who knows. We will probably just stroll around the city and pop into shops that look interesting to us. A perfect sounding day! Hope the weather holds out...

TGIF!

I have been waiting for Friday all week. After having a rough start (I was not feeling too hot on Monday, and MISERABLE on Tuesday) I feel quite refreshed for the weekend! I am starting to prepare my list and budget for holiday gifts and hopefully, I will not be too ambitious where stitching is concerned. I always tend to over estimare what I can get done and underestimate how long it will take me to do it. I can't go into too much detail as to what I am stitching, because I may have reciepients who read this, but I will give a hint: she was a great inspiration for what I will be making.

Phew!

I almost did something REALLY stupid! I was tired of the Kodak software messing up the free patterns I was downloading, so I decided to uninstall it. Then I realized I could not find the 600 or so pictures I had previously downloaded from my camera. I did manage to find them, but not after experiencing a stomach dropping feeling. Ugh, that was AWFUL!

What a difference a day makes...

Yesterday I was feeling like this:

Thankfully, I felt much better today and I went back to work. I picked up a few groceries on the way home and made spaghetti and meatballs for the hubs (his fave!), and then prepared some boneless chicken breasts in marinade(this kind and this kind) to go into the freezer for later this week. I had an energy spurt!

Monday, Monday

The party yesterday was fun. The kids had a good time and they got lots of toys, as we expected. Consequently, they were not as excited to get the book and art supplies, but as their parents told us, "They'll be asking us to read to them tonight, they're just a little overstimulated right now". That was polite of them.

This week I am going to focus on getting rid of some stuff and organizing some of my crafty stuff. I stocked up on some floss at a recent Michael's sale, and I have actually been bad about putting my floss on cards lately. For Easter, the hubs got me a floss winder, so I thought I'd try that, but alas, the floss cards I have do not fit. So, I have been winding by hand...

Family Sunday

Today I am going to a birthday party for my 2 nieces, who turned 4 and 5 this month. We are giving them book and art supplies instead of toys. They have enough toys.

Yesterday we went to the bank to get the mortgage process started. We opened a joint savings account to start saving for the down payment. We realld should have done this a long tim ago, but it's done now and that's the point. We have been concentrating for the past year on paying down our debt, and we are making some real good progress. If things go the way they have been, I will be down to 1 credit card payment per month by the end of October. At the beginning of this year, I was paying off 3 a month. The scary part of this whole thing is that I don't use this card anymore, and it will still take me a year to get it all paid off. Just saying it out loud is frightening. But, I am on my way and I am excited about the prospect of being debt free....until we get our house...

Bad Blogger

I really need to start blogging again. Think I'll start first thing in the morning!