Merry Christmas

Well, things are now on the side of happy slopes as opposed to uphill battles. We've made it through Christmas with some great memories. Irene is old enough now to really enjoy the wonder of Christmas. This included leaving Santa homemade cookies (this was a truly impressive process for Momma, BTW) decorated beautifully and a letter to Santa as well with the help of Dadda. I can't tell you how adorable this was. If I can figure out how to upload the movie from my camera to You Tube, I'll post the movie here. It's truly adorable.

I have to say this is the first time ever that I have participated in being Santa to the extent I have. The cookies were amazingly good and the reply from "Santa" had an enormous affect the next morning. The biggest appeal was the picture I got of Irene actually looking saucer-eyed at the cookie plate in amazement that Santa had actually come and brought her a Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer! She had asked for him on Santa's lap at the mall when she went to get her pic taken with Brookie (her buddy). We scrambled for days looking for one until Kerri (Brookie's mom) put us on to the link above. There was quite the issue with that but ultimately, Grammie and Tata came through for us and found it at a Walmart up in their area.

She found her stocking next - stuffed full of goodies. So much so that she was entertained for quite some time before she realized we got to open presents (2pm as a matter of fact) when family showed up. It was truly amazing. OH! She did get to open CandyLand (with Dora) earlier on in the morning and we played 4 rounds of that. :)

After that, we had 11 for dinner that night with all the goodies that go with it - 3 desserts ended up showing up. :) Ultimately I couldn't even have dessert believe it or not. Not because I was stuffed (I wasn't really). I just couldn't look at one more piece of food. :0) It was amazing.

My parents had come in on the 22nd. So they helped to put up a lot of what still needed to be done. My father got the outside rigged up with what he could. My mom helped me inside with all the decorations, the dishes, you name it. We had gone out to dinner Sat night and sunday morning. I cooked Cajun Flank Steak (from cooking light) Sunday night. I then made filet mignon for dinner Christmas Eve night. Mom and Dad tried to convince me that ordering Chinese food was an ok thing. I said no way to that one. My brother later suggested it might have been because they had no good Chinese restaurants in their area, but I chose to think it was because they felt it was too much work :). *shrug* either way we had filet's. Christmas Day breakfast was a Dutch Baby. Lunch was meats spread out on a counter and people making their own sandwiches. Dinner was the traditional turkey spread. :) All were satisfied it appeared and we were happy to have our house back to normal by the end of the evening. Mom was awesome and did a massive portion of the dishes so I didn't have to look at them the next day. And finally,Mom and Dad headed home the 26th.

I've since then been basking in the glow of the peaceful aftermath - doing a few exchanges, getting the dog food that should have been purchased before christmas, but we were able to stretch it. :) Otherwise I've been happily sitting in my chair watching Dark Shadows Collection 13 in bliss. I have to start a new Cross-Stitch piece. I am behind already. I wanted to start making those little Amish quilts cross-stitch minis for each of the teachers for June graduation (Irene goes to Kindergarten next year). I think I have to make 6 by the end. We'll see if I make it. :)

Anyway, that was Christmas in a nutshell. We now contemplate whether to go to Tahoe for New Years. We're still debating. I guess I had better nail Marcus' foot to the floor on that soon. ;)

Off to go see the new Dr. Who Christmas Special. Happy Holidays to all!

Just Shoot Me and get it over with

There comes a time in our lives when we're just fed up with everything around us ( as much as we love it ) and just hold out our arms wide and say "Shoot me". Today feels like that. I am so stressed out and soo tired that I can't deal with anymore. I can't even work. I slept well last night so I have no idea other than hormonal issues what is going on.

so I say: "Just Shoot Me".

Disneyland: Arrival Day Sunday

So Sunday we flew down to Ontario, CA airport and got a Budget Rent-a-car to take the three of us to the Inn in Anaheim. We decided long ago that we weren't going to tell Irene about going to Disneyland until after we had flown down (or at least on the plane). She figured out from over-hearing Dadda that we were going somewhere on a plane. We were fortunate she didn't pick up anything else. :)

She was fascinated by the idea of renting a car and kept asking questions about "the white car" and why we didn't have Momma's or Dadda's car. :) It's been funny what she fixates on. Anyway, half way down I-57 I turned around (I was not driving), pointed the camera at her and we told her together that we were going to Disneyland. Photo snapping ensued as she went from dawning of recognition of where she was going to, insane jubilation, to oh my goodness I can't control myself, to I'm the cutest of them all. I'll dig out the photos tonight and post them here. :) They're adorable.

Funny enough, though she didn't talk about Disneyland after that. She needed to talk about the hotel we were going to stay out. She absolutely wanted to get into our hotel room. We arrived at the Fairfield Inn (see previous post for link) at around noonish. We were able to sign in, but our rooms would not be available until 4pm. Well... no nap for her today. We grimaced. April, Andrew, Mason, Geran, and a close friend - Brian, also were there. It was to be all the cousin's first time in going to Disneyland. They too grimaced as their 2 year old was sound asleep in the car outside. The hotel was kind enough to provide a spare room for them to put him down for a nap for a couple of hours. The rest of us ended up going to Downtown Disney for the afternoon and cruising. Much to Irene's distress, we didn't get to our room. She talked about it over and over and over for quite some time after that. :)

Our hotel is about 1.5 blocks away from the Disney entrance. Was a perfect walk (so long as you didn't have to carry around a 37lb child). We did nothing but walk while we were there. The car remained cold the entire time we were there...well cold to certain amount. It turned out to be 85 degrees down there the entire time we were there. Clothes had not been planned well *sigh*.

We walked down to Downtown Disney and spent $$$. Picked up a sweatshirt, t-shirt, and a photo book for a friend at Irene's pre-school. The store was huge!!! I took pics of the front of it. Again, I'll find and link here soon.

We walked further and found a French restaurant that made benet's (sp?). We all shared them and watched the kids dance to 80's music. Got tons of pics. Hubby then decides that the powdered sugar left in the goodie bag was too much to simply throw away and promptly ate most of it. :-O . Got pics of that too. :). We walked around some more. Saw the end of a wedding at the Disneyland hotel. Unfortunately I was too slow with the camera and ended up getting a blurry pic of Cinderella's carriage drawn by a horse with the couple in it going down a path. It was just beautiful!

We saw the Koi ponds around the Disneyland hotel and then went in and messed around at the arcade they had there. I realized that while we were walking around in there that it had been there that I had gone with my Junior High School Band to play. It was great to remember something for once. ;)

We finally got to our hotel and threw our shoes off for an hour to allow the steam to roll off. Irene was thrilled with the sleeping arrangements and we found that we had an adjoining door between ourselves and my hubby's sister and her family. So that was cool. The cousin's got to play a lot as a result.

April (Marcus' sister) had gotten reservations for 13 of us at the Naples restaurant in Downtown Disney that night. It was a nice Italian place that was entertaining from the point of view that the kids got to see them making Pizza. It was a lot of food. Irene had a hard time as she was on "borrowed time" with having had no nap. She wanted to do anything but sit still. A nice person came around offering to make animal balloons. She got a butterfly wand which thrilled her. Those that were there included Aunt Ellen, Uncle Kenny, Brian, Mason, Andrew, April, Marcus, Irene and myself. I think 4 of us got lost in the shuffle as they didn't end up making it till the following night to coordinate dinner etc. So 9 ended up being for dinner that night. We walked back to the hotel and prepped for the following day. We got Irene down for bed by 8:30pm and we followed around 9:15-ish.

Sunday: the beginning of a lot of fun yet to come. :)

Happiness is a child at Disneyland

Well we made it to Disneyland and had a blast. As you can see from the above picture, Irene just really enjoyed every single minute she could. I have so much to tell and probably should break this down to multiple posts. So I'll go with an overview of our schedule on this posting.

Sunday: Left morning from San Jose Airport and arrived in Ontario. We drove to Anaheim to our hotel called Fairfield Inn . It was located just across the street from Tomorrowland. We pretty much walked from there to Disney everyday - it was great! Spent the afternoon in Downtown Disney - the free way of walking around Disneyland without being in Disneyland directly. More details in another post.

Monday: Got up at 6am moaning and groaning because we were so sore from walking. Picked up a quick light breakfast at 7am so we could get into Disneyland at 8am. We hit Main Street first and ran into Pluto (above), got his autograph along with several others. We had reservations for Breakfast with the Characters at 9:50am. After that we were pretty much in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland for most of the day with a break mid-day for a nap. More details in another post.

Tuesday: Got up again at 6am, not nearly so sore. We were on our own today. Monday had a lot of people we were enjoying Disneyland with but didn't get through a lot of rides. So we made up for here. We got over there at 8am only to discover you had to have an early pass to get in, otherwise you got in at 10am. *sigh*. So we went to breakfast at IHOP instead. Expensive breakfast - don't go unless you're really that desperate to be in IHOP for the sake at being at IHOP. We made it into Disneyland at 10am and discovered our child was a speed demon. Matterhorn is her favorite ride, along with every other speedy ride she could make it through. No nap today as the park closes at 8pm. So we did *everything* we could and had a blast. Our closing part of the evening was getting onto the Peter Pan ride and then walking down Main Street. We stopped off in the Emporium there and got a scrapbook for the trip. During that short interval, Irene fell asleep in Daddy's arms and we had the perfect exit to a wonderful dream come true. I wish I had taken a picture of that one one. Didn't even think to. Oh! I did get a gig and half of other pics though ;).

Wednesday: Our trip home on the plane. We found out the night before that I-57 (one of the highways we had to go down to get to the ONT airport), was to be closed for a simulated terrorist attack on the Angel's stadium *rolling eyes*. So we got up at 6:30 or 7am. Brought quick McDonalds to our room and attempted to pack up all the goodies and our dirty laundry from the trip. We were able to do that and get ourselves to the airport before any issues occurred with the highway. We sat happily and had some snackies, played with our PSP's, watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on another PSP, and finally boarded our flight home in happiness.

I purchased a whole bunch of things for all of us, ranging from clothes to toys. I have to say it was the first vacation in years that I wasn't ready to go home afterwards from. There were a number of reasons, but the biggest one was: We were all together doing something as a family that involved us and only us.

I think I hate computers...

What do you think? Maybe a job change to east coast where I could actually make a living working in a stitching store???

*grumble*

Britain's Stupidest Laws

This was a great read! If you need a funny, click here.

Halloween 2007

Well, at this time last year, there was "much ado about nothing" to quote a phrase. Last year was the kicking and screaming child of 3 who was afraid to even go to the door to hand out candy. This year, you ask? Perhaps a pic would be helpful:


Yup..she's a happy camper. Needless to say we went to The Vineyards with Amber, Chris and the girls. It was adorable and fun. I had not been into Skypark or anything remotely similar so was not prepared for what I was going to encounter. It was truly a lot of fun. We went down only one square block of the place and still came out with a large stash. :) She came home and said, " Momma, I am veeerrrrry hungry." I asked her if she wanted a sandwich. She looked at me with a serious face and said, "Yes momma, I would please." And she snarfed and entire peanut butter and jelly sandwich. :) We then had to hit the neighborhood for a small amount of time after that.

Oh, during this time, we ended up leaving candy out for the kids asking them to take 2 per person. We found we were cleaned out when we got home (fortunately we didn't use the entire amount so we could still hand out some more). When moving around to the other houses around the neighborhood we talked with friends who said we didn't have a lot of kids...so we were cleaned out by ones that didn't understand the concept of honesty :(. Oh well. it's what I expected. I know Marilyn said last year they had even taken her nice bowl she had left out. I left out a ziplock container. That was left :)

OH!!! Pumpkins! I have to post our pumpkins! I did two this year.

Tinkerbell:














Malificent

Change and worry

So I have determined that Fate/God/ conspires to make sure that our household is shaken up when things are relatively calm and complete feeling. What is the point of this other than to create angst? To make us learn that change is a good thing?? What the heck!? All it does in my case is send my blood-pressure through the roof and bring the household down to it's knees because it's so disorganized I can no longer cope because change conspires to make me feel that this is so.

I know I don't make sense, that I am just rambling, but am trying to get the angst of change and the worry that goes with out out of my heart so I can think clearly. I really do love the people around me but every now and again there is something that goes astray and I just can't handle it.

I think it is time for Dark Shadows and cross-stitch to reenter my life again. I've lost my center of being.

4th birthday pics available

Well I finally got my act together and got Irene's 4th birthday pics up from a week ago Saturday. Still need to do the thank you notes - hopefully Sunday. I am making progress finally. Here is where to find the pics.:

Irene's 4th Birthday

Enjoy!

and yes..I am working on getting the La Fondue party pics up as well. Patience...patience

Getting excited about Irene's birthday

I am about ready to run around screaming I am so jazzed about our little one's 4th birthday. :) This morning I was way stressed out worrying about food and organizing everything. This afternoon after having a good lunch at El Palomar Taco bar, going over the list with Amber, and going to Trader Joes to find alternative lower fat foods for the party, I am finding things are much better now. :) Still debating on getting my entenmann's cream cheese coffee cake - we'll see who wins out...will power/pocket book or my need for my favorite coffee cake in the world! :)

Anyway..back to the grindstone..but had to pass it on. :)

Amish Quilt Picture

Well, here we go! Here is one of the latest pieces. This is the Rainbow Amish Quilt. I've added it to my Flikr photos. Hope you enjoy! Click here.

BTW: It ended up not staying in my house for very long. I ended up giving it away as a gift this weekend. :) I think I am destined to never keep the pieces I make. Oh well. I enjoy making them.

I was not ready for October!!!

Normally I am fully aware that October is coming upon us - Irene's Birthday, my birthday, Amber's birthday, Halloween and all the school stuff in between you would think I would have a clue. This year? nooooo *sigh*. Monday, Oct 1, 2007, my husband came to me in the bathroom while I was frothing at the mouth with toothpaste and said, "You do realize that today is the first of October, right?" My brain came oozing out of my ears at that point and my brain took a nose dive. "Yowww kiibbing meee.. write?" I say with toothpaste drooling down my chin (I know..you don't need these images, but I had to do it.).

He shakes his head at me and my head starts to whirl as all the things come down around my ears. I clean myself up and realize that there is *no* way we're doing Irene's birthday on the 6th (less than a week away) and her stuff from Birthday express had not yet arrived. At least I was sorta on the ball. :)

I begin to panic. Then I took a deep breath and hollered, "We're moving her birthday party to the 13th!!! I can't do it soon enough."

Hubby holler's back "why not?"

I rolled my eyes, thought of the 10,001 reasons why not and resorted to "Because no one will come to if they don't have time to prepare themselves." Seriously, wouldn't *you* need a weekend in between to go birthday shopping if you wanted to attend? I tended to not go to the one's that didn't give me a week in between time to do the shopping etc. Seriously.

I know I put my honey into a large amount of stress by changing the date, but I seriously could not get thing together that quick. He's got the party, a game tournament, and a hockey game that day. Oh well. These things happen. So I have my brain back now. Got written invites out. Now we just need to do the evites to everyone else that has a computer that I can be sure of. :)
Her birthday express stuff came in last night *thank god*. Depending on the # that say they'll be there, I may end up at K-mart making more goodie bags to send home. I am tempted to order like another pack of 8 at Birthday express but between order and their shipping it with a 3 day max ship time, it still took 7 days to get to me. Not going to risk the stress. Party store and K-mart..here I come.

Marcus wants to take me out for my birthday. Personally I don't think it's worth it..but he's cute that way. So we're shooting to go to Hula for dinner and get a babysitter. We'll see if that works out.

20th: La Fondue - girl's yearly night out.
26th: Field trip to Gidzditch Ranch - yumm...fresh pumpkin pie. This year, I am just getting 2 pumpkins. :)
Nov 2nd: Pampered chef party - Dessert party as usual. This is the time for the Christmas orders. :) Write the date down. If you're reading this, then you're coming.


Anyway...I think this a sufficient post..what do you think? :) Enjoy!

To the people I am grateful for

Enjoy!

Shake Shake Shake!!!

This weekend

Well, it RAINED!!! Yay! Saturday was a glorious pour down of rain (sorry Amber. I know it was a pain to drive in, but the first rains always make me happy). I took Thursday and Friday off of last week in order to finish cleaning my house and putting it back to the point where I could at least function again. I also got in the last of my cross-stitching in for my latest project. I finished! I'll take pics and post them to flickr soon. I have to say I am quite pleased.

Since we last talked about cross-stitch pieces and what I was going to do, I have since gotten furniture to go on the wall. I now have a nice cabinet that holds a lot of my nice crystal. So I don't need nearly as much in the way of needlework pieces to fill up the wall. I've since hung the newest piece (the amish quilt piece), on the handle of my cabinet door of one side. It definitely needs another piece on the otherside. So I am thinking I'll do one more amish quilt. After that, I might actually tackle my season pieces. We'll see. Right now I am working on some small halloween kits that would take a couple o days to finish to hang around the house. I have about 8 of them :) I'll take pics of those when I am done as well.

Anna Moo - Makin Moosic

I had a great experience of late with a company that distributes a wonderful CD called Anna Moo's Makin' Moosic. It's a great album. Irene LOVES it. If you want to hear it, Rapisody has a free listen... Click here. NOTE: This is *not* a religious album as Rapisody puts on the header. I found that halarious. It's just a great kids album.

You can actually purchase these as MP3 downloads though at another site. It was $9.99 for the download or you can get the CD for $13. I chose the download. When I first got the download I found that one of the songs (about subtraction) called Ten Fingers had a skip in it. First I sent email to them on their website but I don't think they got it. Two weeks after that, I called their phone # on my order. I called at 9pm my time which was midnight their time. I told them the issue and my order # in order to prove I did indeed order it. I got an email from them the following day, that they had pulled the download themselves and found that they too had the skip showing up for them. They were going to fix the download and send me an email asap.

Needless to say, the following day, I had that new download. What's more, they updated the entire download so that it updated CDDB so that the album cover showed up in ITunes and everything. I loved quite a few of their other albums. And will probably order another album soon. If you like the music from the link I highly recommend buying at: Songs for Teaching.

Click here if you want the Anna Moo: Makin Moosic Download

Now to find Laurie Berkner - Irene Loves this person. Marcus gets her showing up on his satellite radio all the time, on the kids radio section. It's great.

Picture to the first day at school

Ok. Here we go...here are the pics I got this morning :D

enjoy!

Why? Why? Why?

Well..it started this weekend. Irene's started asking Why? to everything we talk about. Mother of god don't let me loose my sanity now!!!!

Where's the book that answers all the why questions of the world?

*sigh*

It has begun.

First day of school - again???

Well, I have to do this..even though Irene thinks she is just going back to school. Today marks her completion of her first year of pre-school and movement into year 2. Can you believe this??? I was a nervous wreck this time last year. I think I decided to go into work that day after dropping her off..but man that was a hard one for all of us I think. This movement into the next year was marked with the use of a new school lunch bag. I know, you're saying yeah..big deal..but this one was a big deal believe it or not. Irene's been using the same lunch bag up today since she was 3 months old!!! yeah..it lasted that long. I am amazed too.

So this morning with as much grandeur as I could muster, I had her stand at the front door with her new lunch bag to take a picture. I actually have the camera here with me..but I've had no chance to get the pic off the card. :( I'll update this tomorrow with the pic so you can see.

I swear she grew another several inches it seems. Last year at this time, she couldn't reach the sink at school and only barely could reach with the stepping stool. She couldn't even see herself in the mirror when she first arrived. Now..*sigh* She can do both without the use of a stepping stool. I am truly amazed at the movement that has occurred in this year that has gone by.

Fresh change

Well I had to go and change my template again last night. I've been playing around with where I wanted my weather beacon to go there, and found that I just didn't have the right colors all the way around. Like it? I know..I am a geek. But this is quick satisfaction for those days when I am far too busy to do be able to do anything more intricate.

I'm at home this afternoon. Little one is napping and I am working on database and installs. How is that anyone thinks I am competent at the database thing? I worked on it for a cycle with BDE and IBX. I still know nothing but somehow I am here... Not sure I am happy to have ever volunteered for it. I guess that it's a good thing from the perspective of...if they wanted to move me out of IDE, I have another place to go. Although in all honesty..I would just prefer to go learn Java and try out JBuilder with Eclipse at this point.

Yeah..I am burned out. What can I do? Blog.

Reading is fun again!

Well..over the past three years, I thought that I didn't like books anymore. Reading was a chore - no matter what I did. I had struggled through Book 5 of Harry Potter, the 6th book seemed like a fast read but still took me weeks because of interruptions. After I had finished the 6th book I began to think that I just couldn't read anymore. Too many other things interrupted and when I read, I sink myself into the book. When it's interrupted when I am not ready to be so, I find it is very difficult for me to get back into the book. Of course, I didn't realize this at the time. It's only now after having finished HP 7 - The Dealthly Hallows in the space of 2 1/2 days of glorious uninterrupted time that I now understand. My hubby was fully aware that when the Harry Potter book came out those oh so many weeks ago that that weekend was *mine*. He was fully aware that he would be a "Harry Potter widower" (as he put it) until such time as I got to the end.

What an eye opener it was to realize that it wasn't that I didn't like books anymore. It was just I loved them sooo much that I didn't cope with being torn away from them when I wasn't ready. Let me tell you, that reading HP 7 rekindled my love for reading again. I was on fire to find other books I had not read yet. This last weekend, I found 3. It's very evil to go to Costco (on so many levels). I picked up 3 books. The first one was The Gilded Chamber - story of Queen Ester. It's historical fiction based on a Jewish girl taken into the Persian royal court to be a concubine and ends up being Queen. A great read (am about 1/2 way through now). Another I picked is another historical fiction book. Unfortunately, my brain escapes me what the title is or what's it about. :) I'll update this post when I get home. The last one was one I have been dying to pick up along with it's predecessors and successors: The Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister . This one I just couldn't pull the trigger at Borders cause of cost ($14.00 for paperback, $3x.00 for hardback). Amazon's price was great but I wanted instant gratification. Turns out Costco has it for $8.69 for paperback. Even better than Amazon. :) heheh Needless to say, I am very content. I haven't been stitching, or watching TV, or playing games these past week. I've been happily reading.

BTW: Harry Potter 7 is GREAT! I finished my first run through that first weekend. I just finished listening to the audio book edition yesterday in the car. I seriously need to get the rest of the audio books. It's the only way I'll be able to take time with those books for now. Reading from a book seems to be only for the first time read it seems right now. Going back to book 5 has been really hard.

UPDATE: The last book is called The Garden of Ruth. It looks fairly interesting. Both this and The Gilded Chamber were $8.69. Turns out Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister was $10.88 or something close to that. About the same price as Amazon - but no need to wait for it to ship. Almost done with The Gilded Chamber - about 3/4 of the way through the book in 4 days!!!

Bedroom completed - mostly :)

Well here are the pics of her bed room. I have to say I am quite pleased. It came out really well. I just need to add some splashes of color in the form of room wall stickers with the different fairies of Tinkerbell. It was a bigger undertaking than I thought. It took us 2 full days to really complete. My dad was sweet enough to re-paint marcus' old toy box he had as a kid to a deep powder blue (she asked for blue). And then he put up her canopy. Thus the pic below


Ok. This one doesn't show the glory of the canopy though...so how about this one? :)

You'll also notice that she no longer has any of the little lady bugs/flowers etc on her walls. I decided to pull those down. I went to Disney Store and got her the Tinkerbell screen you see in the above pic (was on sale amazingly enough). I'll also be getting some of those sticker decals for the walls that are easily removable. Her room walls are still a bit stark for my liking. Below are the rest of the pics of the other sections of the room.


We switched where her chalk board is now to the other corner and then moved some of the toys from the living room to there. I then put her lamp over to the right of the book case (it used to live to the left of it - where the dresser now is).



The dresser did a 180 degree switch. We put it under the window and moved the bed over giving some space plus it keeps her further away from the window for winter purposes. And last but not least....

Not sure if we're going to keep the floor seat you see there. But it's a cute spot for "Bear" in any case. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

As I move towards vacation

Well finally! Summer vacation is here! I am so burned out you can find me no longer moo-ing out on the prairie. ;) . Mom's due out on Tuesday afternoon. The schedule? Get Irene's room reorganized. Her room is organized half way between little girl and baby/toddler due to left overs of baby changing station etc still there, but a bedside table and a wood play trunk sitting in the main living room waiting to be used but not enough energy on the weekends to get things moved around. I am seriously on a mission that this gets done. Am really looking forward to it. I hope the ideas I have make Irene excited about being in her room. I'll do before and after shots. Will post them so you can see what I did. :0)

I sit here watching my automation run and decided to fiddle with my blog page again ;). Like it? I think I need a new color setup and change again. Feeling like I need a fresh look. Can you tell I am so in vacation mode it isn't even funny anymore? :D If you don't see me for a few more weeks, it's because I never got off the vacation bus. ;)

It's amazing what you learn, just by reading other blogs

Well I've been so much fun with Google Reader that I found a nice little analog clock that Nick Hodges' blog had. So I added it to mine as well. It's got customizable colors and choices between 12 and 24 hour times. Ok..so I am easily amused. It's that time of ship hell...so I am easily amused while I wait for a download to finish.

Much has occurred since last I posted. Dealing with new concepts: cholesterol *gasp*. Found out Wed, that beyond going back to Weight Watchers to loose my weight, I need to actually choose different foods than what I am used to. :( Fortunately it is a situation and problem that will cause me issues 20-30 Years down the line, so the change I can make can be gradual. The 3 biggies:

* Lessen Starch *the hardest one for me*
* Get rid of stuff that contains the partially hydrogenated veg oil (some of the stuff in my house actually surprised me that it had it)
* Eat more veggies (this one will be hard too..although some things like pre-cut veggies will help).

There were additions too:
* Soy protein (YAY!!! I finally get to keep somethign I enjoy. BTW: Amber introduced me to the most awesome Soy milk called Soy Dream. Also advised the vanilla which I can sooo enjoy now.) * Irene LOVES Edemame so back to Trader Joes I go to get a couple more bags o that.
* More Fiber... Going to try that Fiber that ends up being clear in the glass.. See how that is.
* Dr. Suggested also oat bran. Not sure if that is just to add more Fiber or if it is for another purpose.
* Fish Oil tablets. Interesting. Guess Costco has a vat that works out well. I already take a ton of vitamins...guess it won't hurt to add one more *sigh*

So that'll be a big change. Hopefully it will help resulting in my weight loss a bit quicker than I anticipated as well. So we'll see. I have to go back in 6 months for another test to see if my changes will make a difference.

Let's see..Parents are coming out next week, so I'll be on vacation. Much needed before the big push. Looking forward to that.

Outside of that, the world is calm. :) Wow. Knock on wood.

Success in the backyard pool

Well, I have to say, I think swimming lessons are paying off. We had a major success during Marcus' birthday party on Saturday the 7th of July. At our house, we have her in a swim suit that has "floaties" built into it. She discovered the fun of an inner tube floating toy. She decided that Dadda didn't need to hold onto her, so that she could move the inner tube around in circles.

Well, Dadda was holding her and she wanted to get to an inner tube she wanted to get into. Instead of helping her get there, he simply let her go on her own. He then told her "Irene, look at what you're doing! " Realizing she could do her swimming on her own essentially dog paddling, she decided that she was going to stay in the pool forever :). We had to have several people switch off with us so that we could take breaks with following her around while she swam. Adding to the fact that she didn't nap that day, she fell asleep at 7:15. :)

Seeing this happen, though makes me glad we decided on the swim lessons this year. I just want her to learn to swim properly so she has no need for "floaties" come next year. We'll see.... It's a MAJOR breakthrough though. It's the first time she hasn't been clinging to us for dear life...again..not sure how I feel about that ;)

Swimming Update

Well we finished our first set of lessons the Friday of the 4th of July week. Since the 4th landed on Wed, they postponed the class to Friday due to the holiday. I, in my mush filled brain, didn't realize that the classes ended that week and scrambled to try to find a new class. We talked with her teacher afterwards and were told she was sooooo close to floating on her own that she could move to Level 2 if we wanted. I opted to be safe and stick with Level 1 once more. I didn't see her looking nearly as confident as the teachers did and with having the pool in our backyard I didn't want any false hopes.

I left a message with SV Rec Center, fully expecting that all sessions were full, but I got lucky. There was a 6:30 level 1 still available (she got the last spot!). So Monday we started another 6 class session. Her teacher (Teacher Peter) this time was one I saw working with Level 2's during session 1. I thought he was talking way too fast for the kids but they seemed like they were getting it. He also does different exercises that Irene hasn't tried before. As a result, I was very happy that she did level1 one more time. She's with a "gaggle of girls" this time where as the last sessions there were 2 boys and 2 girls. The poor guy teaching this class isn't quite sure what he got himself into. :) It was quite hilarious to see the differences between the 2 groups.

As I result, I am going to sign her up for Level 2 for Session 3. *sigh*. Expensive, but if this keeps swimming a happy thing for Irene and she learns to swim better with greater confidence, then I'll take it. Here's hoping.

Women in Art / Painting Mona Lisa with Mspaint

Emeli pointed out these two you tube videos, which were very entertaining.

The first is Women in Art. A wonderful morph of various women in paintings showing art history very nicely.

The second is: How to Pain the MONA LISA with MsPaint . This just blew me away. :)

Enjoy!

Success!!!

Well as you can see above, I am not the one in the pool :) . She went all by herself. We are SOOO PROUD! I am amazed. She LOVED it. We were worried for awhile that we wouldn't get her out, but she listened to the teacher and got out when asked. WE WERE SOOOO PROUD!!!

Talk about fun! More pics to come!

Harry Potter - discovery of the need for Audio books

Well, in the last 2 weeks I finally having great excitement toward getting the last Harry Potter book coming out on July 21. I pre-0rdered the book down at the Mall at Borders (first time ever ordering it locally. Usually get it at Amazon). That being said, I have very little recollection of the previous books now. I haven't had the time (can anyone relate :) ). I am though discovering the joy of audio books in the car. Now that I am taking Irene to pre-school, my drive tends to be a bit longer than dropping her off at daycare. As a result, I pulled out the only Harry Potter audio book I have ever owned (Book 6 - The Half-blood Prince). I am finding it such a joy to listen to that I am seriously beginning to look at getting the previous ones. I can't believe I did it, but I spent $75 on the Book 6 audio book because they were the CD editions (not download). I went to Itunes in the last couple of days and found they were much less expensive(by $32). I was amazed. So if you have an Ipod or don't mind burning your own CD's go Itunes. worth it IMHO

Swimming lessons begin today

Well, we're going to see if Irene is going to freak out going to swim lessons and going in the pool with a teacher and not momma. *shudder*. Tonight is the first night. I am expecting the worst (kicking, screaming, no no no!!), but hope that maybe she will want to get right in and do her thing. Last night she was dunking her head in upside down at the pool steps :) She wanted to go streaking into the pool and go swimming to which I put a an absolute *NOT* to. :) Here's hoping this enthusiasm continues.

I am going to be the pessimist here now.

Contemplating my week

Well, this week has been very very full. I won't say stressful, but more just full of those little details you have to get through in order to feel satisfied that you completed your "job". When I say "job" I mean all those things that not only include work, but taking care of the dogs, mop the floor to remove the last traces of doggie diarrhea from the previous week, dust bunnies out of the corners, boxes off the floor that you've been tripping over for weeks, vacuuming because your cleaning lady hasn't been here in 2 months due to surgery, and taking care of the incidentals like a 3 year old, and a husband going to a gaming convention for the 3-day weekend and your parents and grandmother coming to visit to keep you company and give you a bit of a break. Busy huh? :)

I have to admit, I did it all this week. That and more. Dio has decided that along with our next door neighbor that he has a vendetta against gophers and fully intends to dig up our entire grassy area to get at them. As a result, last weekend I came home to find he had dug 3 - 2 foot deep holes in various places across the grass. Talk about ripping your hair out. Then the gophers go at during the week buy putting up 5 more mounds throughout the grass. Got those cleaned up, the left over mounds of dirt went to fill the holes Dio created and all I have left to do there is re-seed and compost - our gardener didn't have time to do that sort of stuff this week. Another thing that had to get done was to put a nice looking fending unit in to bar off the new veggie patch. We're not sure what is causing Dio's digestive issues - dog food or the stinky soil that all dogs in our family so far seem to just LOOOOVVVEEE. We barred off the grassy area until I could get the fending in, and the grass repaired. I was fully intending to get it done before my parents arrived. Another one checked off the list - approximately 2 hours before they were due today.

Now I sit, basking in the glow of my accomplishments. I realized I hadn't blogged a lot lately and realized this would sum up the week fairly well. Parents and grandmother are due in any time now so I sit for the first time since getting up this morning with my 5:50 wake up call from my little one and enjoy a moment of silence while she naps in bliss.

Work is nearing completion on the latest project. C++Builder 2007 I think will be pretty good. I hope anyway. I have my own opinions about projects in general and have learned to keep them to myself - reason? It happens over and over again no matter how much I b****, moan, and groan. So why waste the effort? Some things are improving, but other issues appear to remain in the fold of so much tradition that I doubt anyone realizes it's a problem anymore. We'll see. I like being a peon - and plan to stay that way for a while I expect. Have been desperately trying to get to the gym. Succeeded fairly well last week. I hope for better this week as well.

Well..time to get away from the computer again. But thought I would check in and say "Happy Memorial Day"

I ALMOST FORGOT!!!

Well, geez. It's been nearly a month and I haven't mentioned the new addition of a family member. :) Please welcome our new puppy dog! His name is Dio and he's part lab-retreiver, part Border Collie. He's amazingly sweet but extremely timid - especially around men. We adopted him through the Animal Services group here in Scotts Valley. He'd been given up for adoption the month prior and had been there for quite some time due to the fact that he was so afraid of people. We adopted him on Monday April 23rd after I spotted him on Saturday afternoon during a walk. He's the sweetest baby in the world and is getting very good at using an extremely large and cold nose to flop your hand on his head for a good petting. :)

Also the other thing we were not prepared for: HE LOVES THE POOL!!!! We're still unable to get a lot of pictures of him. He's extremely scared of people with things in their hands - even me still. But he's coming out of his shell slowly but surely.

We're going through the growing pains but overall, life is getting better. Lady loves her new companion and is no longer afraid to go riding in the car when she knows Dio is going along. Hopefully more pics soon.

Logic and a 3 year old

Ok, I seriously don't think I am ready for this, but this last weekend showed me just how smart a child of 3 can be. *shudder*. The family went to the mall to get Momma some shoes (was at death's door when it came to my feet). We did our shopping and during our excursion she was constantly touching things. The day before, when we were doing our errands she was doing the same thing and we had had a talk about the fact that we were not supposed to touch things.

So I reminded her (I thought) by saying: "What are you not supposed to be doing? What did we talk about yesterday?"
Irene: "Not to touch anything". She yanks her hand back from touching all the socks on the wall
Momma:"That's right. Why were you touching it?"
Irene: "Because we didn't talk about it." (referring to the fact that we had not talked about it *today* yet). *rolling eyes*

I was so flabbergasted that she had actually come up with a completely logical reason for this, that I nearly tripped over myself. I also completely lost my mind at that point and simply stopped the conversation. I didn't respond. I just couldn't fathom that a 3 year old had come up with as logical an answer that an adult would.

I am not ready for this.

Update to getting up on her own

Well it's been quite a while since the last post. So I thought I would follow up on our latest story. News flash! Child got out of bed on her own 2 days later to go potty at 1am without Momma!!! wow! I still went in to help with the toilet paper..but still. I was amazed.

She stays in bed when we put her there for bed at night, and will of course tell us just as we are ready to shut off the light "Momma, I have to go potty.". We roll our eyes and allow her to go do her thing.

Oh..the other "funny" thing although I don't think we've seen the last of this. Marcus found her on the potty in our bedroom bathroom cause the toilet paper is easier to reach. He watched in dismay as she flushed 1/4 of a roll of toilet paper down the potty cause she decided she didn't want to pull off a little bit. She (of course) thought this was halarious. Marcus and I are still wondering if the toilet is going to still work in the next couple o days. *shudder*

An era is over...

Well this morning brought an end to the era of "Moooommmmaaa!!! Mommmaaa!!" over the baby monitor to come get the little one out of her bed to come to snuggle.

This morning, we heard a KATHUNK! as the door to her bedroom slammed open and I groggily opened my eyes to find a little blonde haired, blue eyed girl standing next to the bed eagerly awaiting to climb in to get to "her spot" between Momma and Dadda for a family snuggle before getting up and starting the day. I am not entirely certain how I feel about this. I am happy because I don't have to get up out of a nice warm bed now, but my baby is becoming more and more independent. Plus what will this mean as we tell her about bedtimes and staying in bed and going to sleep. :) We'll see. It's and end of an era though.

My husband agrees.

Having way too much fun with these templates :)

Well, it was time for a face lift again! :) The light blue was nice and all, but it didn't show URL links very well and it was almost too mellow. So this template is called "Son of Modo". We'll see how long it lasts. My favorite is still the one that looks like writers script - which is of course called "Scribe". I might return to that one if I don't like this. One of the reasons I had to change was because I switched my account login to get the new features Blogger.com offered. Now it looks like the person that originally did the "Scribe" template ported to the new edition, so I am happy.

It's still fun to play though, right?

Easter weekend
It's Easter weekend and we just finished the 2nd Egg Hunt. Turns out the school had one yesterday too. Irene I guess had quite a blast. So by the time went for this Egg hunt, Irene was totally ready for "hunting". I got pics both inside and out. The first thing that happened was that she, Brooke (yes Brooke was there), and Madisyn all got dressed up in Madisyn's dress up clothes. That was adorable to watch. Then more children arrived and we headed outside. Soon it was a zoo! Supposedly there were 20 children coming. Some with both parents some with only 1. It was still a zoo. :) Amber and Chris did a great job getting that all put together. It spurs me to want to do something a little more extravagant tomorrow..but now she is down for a nap (she was soooo tired). I might go out after Marcus comes home and get some more stickers and things to stick in the eggs..but we'll see. I haven't made up the Easter basket yet!! *ACK!* Ok..guess I know what I am going to go do now. :)

Pictures later!

New Cross Stitch piece update.

Well, yesterday the bug had bitten me so bad, that I went to Beverly's during lunch after my allergy shot and got the supplies. What's amazing to me is that I have a ton of threads. Seriously..I kid you not. I'll show you the next time you come to my house or we hold a girls craft night ;). It amazes me, however, that when I go to do these projects where it is not the kit, I *still* have to go out and buy 5-9 skeins of the cross-stitch thread for each of these projects. Did I mention this just amazes me? This project was no different. This time I was missing about 9 needed colors and black 14 ct aida cloth. Last night I began the organization process of cutting the thread, putting a couple of blocks into the project card and the rest into the repository for future use. I got all but 2 done... then I got distracted that it was time to go to bed...so I have a bit more to do tonight before I get to start the project tonight. :)

BTW: I highly recommend using Patterns Online.com. This is where I got my latest pattern for $3.95. Personally now, because I do have my stash of colors, I much prefer the patterns over an entire kit. They are easier to store (computer), and you can do as many of the projects as you might like - just print out a copy of for that next project. The pattern is not as easily lost, and the big one: If you have a toddler running around with their favorite marker and want to color on "mamma's coloring sheet" you can just reprint and continue where you left off. :D Can't tell that has happened to me, have you? ;)

Anyway..that's the latest. Will hopefully have this piece done a lot sooner than the previous switchplate now that I am back to real fabric :).

Butterfly Switchplate Cross-Stitch is complete.

Well I finally finished Irene's piece for her room. The picture to the left is one of the sharper editions of the pics I took. Additional photos can be found here. I have to say that this was a lot harder than what it looked. Cross-stitching on vinyl is going to be a rarity for me. It gets harder to work with as you add more detail. Getting the backstitch into it was near impossible after doing the cross-stitch. Reason: Vinyl has no "give" or stretch. Fabric stretches as you add the additional floss. Vinyl won't do that. It's been a good learning piece on things I need more data about cutting fabrincs though. It's something you have to be very precise with I think. I believe I fudged this piece well enough here on the cutting out of the holes and around the edges but it's not easy and most definitely not perfect. :-S

Anyway..the reason this suddenly appeared was because I have been "bitten" by the cross-stitch bug again. I found this new piece I am going to work on. Reason? My grandmother gave me her collection of thimbles which I have hung in the dining room. There is a picture of them here. It's not the greatest way to show them off mind you. You notice that they are dwarfed by the enormity of the wall itself. So my thought, the new piece is one of several that are about 4 1/2 inches wide by 6 inches long. Several of those posted around the thimbles would help make the wall "disappear" so to speak and provide a way to help bring out the thimbles. I expect I'll be doing about 6 - 7 of those type of pieces :). Insane you say? We'll see. :)


Enjoy

Nostalgia

Well, I decided while I was eating lunch at my desk to look at some of my previous post from last year around this time. Ranging from Easter to the weather being so miserable...remember the 23 days of rain straight we had in March??? :)

I have to say, it's been fun to look back at all the changes and posts and how many things I recorded across the year. Easter, toddler beds, loss of binkies, and bottles..isn't it amazing? Last year at this time I was still getting over those little surprises.

This year, so far it's been the aquarium (never did get those pics posted...I do have them), Doodlebops (no pics there..too dark), and our latest endevor: The Hockey Game. *wide grin*. I got some pics, but not sure how they turned out. We'll see.

I took time off in the morning on Thursday to go to Longs Marine Lab in Santa Cruz as apart of the pre-school field trip we had. Kids had a wonderful time. I had 2 kids this time (as opposed to my previous post to Gizdich Ranch where I had 4). Irene and Brooke plus 1 teacher. Everyone appeared to have fun. I got some pics on my phone..again not sure how they turned out though. Will take a look this weekend if I get to take my time off.

Back to work!

This was from the night we shipped Delphi 2007

I was originally afraid that I would say something I shouldn't just before we shipped, so I simply put this in Drafts until I had a brain to publish it. This was written the night we shipped Delphi 2007. Enjoy
----------------------- Waves on the screen as we move back in time! --------------------------
Well..it's 10:20pm and I am here at work for a second day in a row of late nights (after working all weekend) attempting to ship our product. My brain, which I thought was originally mush, has a startling level of clarity right now. I'm surprised actually as I expected to be dropping out of my chair. What's more, I am validating under a German OS. This is another surprise to me. When we first merged core and intl QA I thought I would never get used to looking at non-english OS'. But here I sit and wing my way through our set of test cases that need to be run in order to verify we have a working ISO and test file set.

I know I am rambling, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to blog right now, but I figured eh...I am sitting here watching installs occur. There isn't much more by brain could do and I am dying to write for whatever reason. I have to tell you, I never thought I could drain the power out of my little IPod Nano as I have these last few weeks. I dare say that it might be what's keeping me from dropping on the floor like my little one will do on occasion curl, up and go to sleep. It could be that the cupcake and Chai Latte are also helping my poor little sappy brain to function...who knows! But music is a wonderful thing and a good motivator when you need just the right thing.

I shall continue to ramble here....It's been interesting to watch these last few months mince through the meat grinder of time. I've watched our company make a turn around, show an enthusiasm I thought dead, and bust their butt's off with long weekends and long hours to result in the culmination of tonight. Last night was everyone pulling together and installing the latest ISO's on every OS under every language we have available to test on for Ent, Pro and Ent_Trial SKU's. That was an amazing feat. I seriously thought I was going to see smoke rise up out of my office as all of my machines ran multiple VM's on servers and Workstations throughout the day, into the evening and on into the night.

I turn now, however, and find that my installs have finally finished which means I now need to run away and get the real work done. Send a few prayers to the shipping gods this night. We're going to need it.
--------------------- Waves appear on the screen as we move forward -------------------------
Well during that night we not only revalidated our ISO images for Pro, Ent and Ent trial on various OS's on various languages, but we also had to test our new Akami system on various OS's with various languages (which is our ESD system). Anyway talk about an amazing amount of "How the hell do we test this? How long does it take to get the digital bits up that we need? Did anyone think to test this with a field test build just for fun?...ummm..."

Needless to say, QA is already starting to come up with points on contention to do things differently. Hopefully this will never happen again.

I learned something about cross-stitch

I have come to the conclusion that if I ever do another cross-stitch switch plate, it better be for something serious..cause wow. It's tough doing the last finishing touches (like back-stitching). I'm almost finished though :) Irene really likes it too..so I can't complain. As soon as it is finished, I'll put up pics on flickr. :)

stress central

Well things are working getting to a head on work... it's stress central with the joy looking forward to a fun filled weekend of working at least all day Saturday and if I am not done then by Sunday. :( I have *never* had to get a babysitter to watch Irene on the weekends until now and man!! I am feeling soo guilty. She already doesn't see us a good portion of the time during the week because of work...now I have to tell her that I can't take her to the park on Saturday because of this. :( I had hoped I would never have to have a babysitter on the weekend because of work. I am hoping things will go well today...keep your fingers crossed.

A quick blog...

Well in an effort to have a small family day today (Sunday) before I needed to work, all of us decided to go spend my gift certificate at Target from the Raffle early this week ( I won $30 certificate). Well we decided to go over the hill to the Target on Blossom hill road. I picked up a new Nintendo DS game called Hotel Dusk: Room 215. Neat mystery game that uses the DS like a book..neat concept - couldn't resist. But that actually wasn't what I wanted to share.

After picking up the game, we decided to cruise the mall to tire the little one out and I wasn't ready to go home yet. :) We found a Borders...I figured hey..let's go in. As we walked around a book caught my eye. I had to share it. It's c alled In the Company of a Courtesan: A novel. It sounded intriguing. Here was the description:

Renaissance Italy enchants in Dunant's delicious second historical (after The Birth of Venus), as a wily dwarf Bucino Teodoldo recounts fantastic escapades with his mistress, celebrated courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini. Escaping the 1527 sacking of Rome with just the clothes on their backs (and a few swallowed jewels in their bellies), Fiammetta and Bucino seek refuge in Venice. Starved, stinking, her beauty destroyed, Fiammetta despairs—but through cunning, will, Bucino's indefatigable loyalty and the magic of a mysterious blind healer called La Draga, she eventually recovers. Aided by a former adversary, who now needs her as much as she needs him, Fiammetta finds a wealthy patron to establish her in her familiar glory. Through Bucino's sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued narration, Dunant crafts a vivid vision of Venetian life: the weave of politics and religion; the layers of class; the rituals, intrigue, superstitions and betrayals. Dunant's characters—the steely courtesan whose glimpse of true love nearly brings her to ruin; the shrewd and passionate dwarf who turns his abnormalities into triumph; and the healer whose mysterious powers and secrets leave an indelible mark on the duo—are irresistible throughout their shifting fortunes. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I put this on my amazon wishlist. I nearly croaked at the $14.95 on the stands..but Amazon has it offered by online sellers for $6.45. Am intrigued.

I've become an Access geek??? What the...???

Well I just read an interesting newsletter that had originally been marked as Junk. I subscribed earlier last year to become a Palm OS developer and thus got the tools to mess around with. It's free..soo why not? Something good to learn, right? Well I knew that Palm Source (makers of the Palm OS) had been bought by a company called Access. This newsletter I got this week said the following:

Last October (2006), ACCESS announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, Inc., had begun the process of changing its name to ACCESS. As part of that process, ACCESS is renaming all products that originally had Palm-based names. The first product to be renamed is Palm OS, which is now known as Garnet OS.

So now I am scratching my head. What the (you enter your favorite phrase here). I am curious as to how they think this is a good idea? Palm I thought was a revered name..but I guess now with the hardware and software split, hardware gets to keep the name and software doesn't???? I guess that's how businesses work, right??

I don't know..maybe this will be a good thing as they can branch it out more..give it a look that they don't think will fly with Palm users might or might not be ok with under the Palm name??? Who knows. Anyway...I am still struggling to get the stupid examples to even build and run on my machine. I am sure I've done something wrong. *sigh*. I may have finally found the tutorials that I am looking for a while back but haven't gotten around to trying it again. We'll see.

Anyway...I shall get off my soap box now. Just was surprised.

Dora & the Journey to the Purple Planet

I totally forgot to blog about this! Irene got her first PS2 game! For Christmas, she received from her great-Aunt and Uncle the game called Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet. She LOVES it. She got the controls down the first day after playing the Earth section. After that it took her about a week to complete all the planets and send her friends home.

She now asks for playing that more than watching TV (which I'll take any day). I highly recommend it to those looking to get a game system. This game also is available for the Gamecube and subsequently the Wii (in case you're looking for longevity that way). The reviews up on Amazon reflected that kids around 3-4 had large amounts of play time with it while those on the older end of the range (6 or so) got bored with quickly.

Once you've played all the levels the child can go back to any of the planets that he/she likes at any point. Irene currently likes the "Red Planet". She's got a big fascination with Robots lately for some reason, so anything with Robots (be it Dr. Who, Scooby Doo, or Dora) is her type of thing.

We saw Doodlebops!

Well, Irene made it to her first concert ever... :) We went to see Doodlebops. The one draw back: it was a 1pm show. Now for those of you that aren't aware, I will explain. Irene still takes naps (most of the time). So we were a bit nervous about the fact that the concert was right when her nap was supposed to be. Attempting to find a way to get her to sleep in the car was not a certain one. Momma thought: oh! well we'll tire her out by running a couple of errands to the store etc and then come home and then having her ride her bike around! Right??? yeah...umm..right. Believe it or not we did do that..but when we went to get in the car..she still didn't nap *sigh*. Momma napped..but Irene didn't (btw: Dadda drove in case you were wondering).

We get there and find that there is a sharks game, a Scientology convention, Doodlebops and a Volleyball competition going on all at the same time. Momma started getting very nervous and biting poor Dadda's head off. But he got smart!!! "Here, I'll drop you and Irene off. Go find the seats and get her settled. I will find a parking spot and meet you there." Momma, seeing logic in this, pulled Irene out of the car and headed towards the San Jose Civic Auditorium.

We got close and Irene began to freak out at all the people. Momma didn't flinch. She picked up Irene, settled her on the hip and took her inside. We found (naturally) more people. Irene squirmed down and had an amazed look on her face. Kids were everywhere. Suddenly, Irene zeros in on one thing - the flashy wavy wand with a flag on top. Who was Momma to argue? one toy right? How much could it be? (I know...you're saying you poor sap..what are you thinking???). Anyway $20 later for the one wand we make it through the main doors on the main floor. Irene walks through with absolute wonder and a little bit of "freaked out" running across her face. Mickey Mouse club house music was playing and Bus Driver Bob was on the stage entertaining the kids for a bit. She stopped dead in her tracks looking at the sea of people. The fear that Momma had dreaded was beginning to appear. Momma bends down and attempts to distract her. Nothin' doin' . She's in partial freaked out mode now..not willing to move anywhere. Then she spots other children going up to find seats. She decides she wants a seat too. Momma is pleased - we're making progress :)

To the amazement of all, Momma and Irene make it to their seats and Irene is showing serious excitement at this point. Freak out is gone and she is happy - wand in hand (I'll try to get a pic for you). Dadda arrives soon after. The last part of the puzzle was her buddie Brooke (from school). The two of them couldn't stop talking about the Doodlebops all week! Short version: Brooke's parents thought they were supposed to be at HP Pavillion when in reality, it was at San Jose Civic Auditorium. They made it about 5 minutes after the show started. We were so pleased. :D

The show was nice, simple, and fun. The girls were absolutely thrilled. Momma took Irene to the front to try to dance, but there were so may "bodies" that Momma couldn't cope and we stopped at the outskirts. Irene of course got very very upset and it was now an hour later than nap time would have started. So the two started to join together. Needless to say, we decided to stay in our seats from then on. Brooke's mom took the picks because Momma was lame and forgot her camera :p. So when I get links to post, I will do so.

So how about that for a nice long post??? :P

I learned something new...

Well I learned something. Awhile ago I switched to Google as my home page. It's all wonderfully customized. In doing more customization tonight, I realized that Google has an RSS reader called Google Reader. It's quite cool. I was able to add stuff here on blogspot and others on 360.yahoo.com. Both read quite well and I added the reader gadget to my home page on google too... :) It's quite neat. Anyway..the new thing I learned tonight...had to share.

*cough cough* *sneeze* blowing away the dust

My god...it's been forever since I posted!!! Last time was Thanksgiving!! *sigh* Well it's going to be a short one today because as some folks know, when time crunch occurs everyone seems to wig out and want to stress others out with it. My latest you ask? Let's try having somone upstairs looking for me and says he can't find me only to let managers know this without even trying to oh..let's say send an email first. *ripping hair out*

Anyway nuf said for the moment. Just had to get that out. Busy as all snot over here. Almost as insane as when we try to ship everything all at once..early..oh..wait..isn't that what we're doing??? *rolling eyes*. We need some emoticons here