Chatter chatter chatter chatter...

 

Brrrr... It's a little cold in the house... 62 right now.  I'm thinking it's time to toss the electric blanket on the bed.  I'd like to turn the the heat on right about now... but it's still not time for that yet.  Sweatshirts and socks are on and putting my really cold feet on my hubby at night :)

Now mind you... I am NOT complaining that the weather is getting cold.  I'd love to have this weather vs. the 90s that we've had a few weeks ago.  I love love love fall and winter.  I am a sweatshirt girl.  I like layers.  I love blankets.  I just need to get them out so I can use them!

Can it get ANY colder?

You think it's cold where you are...

I think I got this one... FEELS LIKE -33 degrees... Yeah... that was my morning.

My first day of wearing no pants to work...

I actually did wear pants into work... but it sure as hell didn't feel like it.

Anniversary, Birthdays and NYC... woops

So I just realized I didn't do the Happy Anniversary for my sister TJT and her hubby JT. I happened to call while they were at their anniversary dinner and chatter it up with ALT for a bit.

Then I forgot to post a cake for my dad's birthday... JEEZE...


And today is my mom's birthday... Happy Birthday MOM :)

I won VIP tickets to see NKOTB in New York while they were no the Today Show... I'm honestly glad I didn't spend the money to go because the show was canceled this morning. Why you ask... well there is this hurricane Gustav heading into Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Yep... Katrina's got cousins.... lol. We've talked to some of Jerome's family... I believe that they are all safe at this point in time.

Dumpster Diving 2008... what a bust.

Well there is only one more section of town to cover and that's next week (this week is a skip week). It's unfortunate that there has been such crappy weather on each and almost every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of all the past weeks for diving.

We've had snow, rain, wind... everything. People haven't been able to get into their garages and clean them out because the weathers been crap. People haven't hauled their stuff to the curb because it's been raining. It sucks!

Jerome and I went a few times... but the best was what I already posted - all the plastic stuff. We did find some fencing (gotta try and keep Pork Chop in the backyard instead of the street!), a fence gate, an outside dog house, a kids rocking chair. But that's about it. It sucks... did I say that already?

On an up note... with all the rain it looks like the lilacs should be blooming soon! Yeah!

Rain Rain Go Away

Come again another day... like Saturday-Wednesday... I want to go dumpster diving... but not in the rain or worse... snow!

From my igoogle page...

Sorry it's been so long...

Well what really can happen in a week anyways... oh yeah... lots!

So our first full day of spring came and went... strange to me that it snowed like crazy that day. The proof is in the photos I guess...


Easter Sunday Jerome and I went to Lisa's mom's house for a ham lunch with Lisa's husband, Lisa's brother and her grandmother. It was good time... even though they were late as usual! Come on guys!

Pork Chop is growing by leaps and bounds. He went in for his boosters and rabies shots. He weighed in at 17.4 pounds! When Spike went in for his appointment he was only 14 even. I'd say we definitely got our Pork Chop!

That's about it... with the exception of one more thing...

It's backkkkkk...

Ugh... so this morning around 4am I woke up to the noise of a snow blower... yes... at 4am! We got between 2-4 inches of wet snow. Ish. We were teased last week... heck even this weekend. I didn't wear a coat and if I did it was just a lite fleece. Stupid snow. At least now the dog should know where he's suppose to go to the bathroom - he was a bit confused when the snow started melting and he could touch the grass!

Here's what the local news station had to say.

Can you say... Global Warming?

It's cold cold cold cold here. So cold that Pork Chop was happy to put his sweater on... not chewing at it or even struggling to have it put on him.

Here's just how cold it is in this state... so cold that we now that a town in northern Minnesota won a federal trademark making it officially the "Icebox of the Nation". Jeeeeze.

Why do we live here?

Here's a story from our local news station... ugh...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This past weekend I got the tree put up and the holiday decorations out. There was a bit of a debate as to where to put the tree this year since we have some additional furniture in the living room - the two striped chairs and ottomans. Ends up that I put it in the same exact spot as last year in front of the side window.

The tree went up with the same decorations as years pasts... with the exception of two. The first is one that I didn't put up... Lily's paw printed ornament up. But what I did put up brought a smile to my face... what do you think?


On Saturday it snowed our first "storm" of the season. We got about 7 to 8 inches of snow plus drifts in places. And today it's snowed another 3 to 4 inches already... and is still snowing. Ugh. I would be complaining more... but.... I have to say that dumpster diving paid off this past year. Remember that snow blower that I said I picked up and hoped that it would work... well... IT DOES! Yahooo! Free snow blower!

The girls ended up not coming over this weekend... so... I didn't get as much candy making done as I had hoped. (I was thinking I could teach them some of the recipes for what my family makes this time of the year.) Needless to say, I still got some done.... chex mix, chocolate covered pretzels, peanut clusters, cornflake cookies, cashew turtles, and Jerome pecan candy. I had wanted to also do some of Ella's sugar cookies, Oreo Balls and who knows what else... but I'll have to do that some other time. Check out the new recipe blog for recipes and photos.

I did also make the lasagna that I had planned on - even without the extra mouths but I didn't get to the point of wrapping presents... which I need to do before we head to Wisconsin so I don't have to ship GWM and MJM's presents.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow...

So the cities are under a winter storm watch. We could get up to a foot of snow by Sunday...

To make it a bit more like the holidays the girls should be coming over for the weekend all three: PST, JST, and Tink. I plan to make Christmas candy this weekend and put up the tree and other decor. I'm even planning on wrapping up the presents for shipping out (oh to be ahead of the game... you think it will happen????).

I think I'll also put together some lasagna this weekend... with all the mouths we'll be feeding it will probably go quickly.

Swamped... in more ways than one...

Sorry for those of you who are concerned! Everything is fine... for the most part.

Swamp #1 - We were out of town Aug 31- Sept 10. We went down to Mississippi and Louisianian - swampland :) We were visiting Jerome's family - Grandmothers, Aunts, Uncles, Sisters, Brother, Mother, Father, Niece, and Nephews... and then some... as we had also attended another family reunion while we were there.

I finally can say that I have been to New Orleans. Although, I have heard how impressed the Monty Crew is with the city ( so much so that they honeymooned there) I can't say I was too impressed. Now, after speaking with Linda (a co-worker of mine of 5 years) I find out that I would have been more impressed had we been there at night. True, I hit Canal and Bourbon Street in daylight. I honestly thought it was just like any other city. I missed the night life, the people in the streets, the stumbling drunkenness in the streets, the performers. All of it. Guess I'll have to go again-this time at night :)

Swamp #2 - Since my return from my vacation I have been swamped at work. I've got a few big projects all full steam ahead and will wrap up come October 5th.... and the system that I work on has been broken for the past week... not good. Sorry for those co-workers that I may have chewed their head off and then spit it right back out. Honestly.

Swamp #3 - Today we had a bit of a down pour here. And when I say a bit I mean holy crap! The window wells filled up - and yes, we do have window well covers over them!!!! So I went outside - in the rain and scooped water out of the well with a pitcher into a bucket that I then slung over the fence to the front yard. JEEEEZE! We have had enough of what damage can happen when it rains. Between the power outages, the trees uprooting, and now this. Enough.

So yes, we are live... just... swamped :)

It's back on!

So last night around 4PM the power finally came back on. The people across the street from us still didn't have power though. By the time we went to bed though, they had power and all were happy :)

Storm August 2007 Part 2

Freakin a!

What is with these 70 mph winds that come into my town? Our house had no damage - just some big tree limbs came down... and there is one still stuck in a tree that I'm not going after.

But, my neighbor across the street had a huge tree uprooted which is now laying oh so tenderly on her kid's playground thing in the backyard and the power line... oh wait... the power line is snapped. Great.

She just called and told me we won't have power for a day or two... who wants my food?

Storm August 2007

Update: We came home from Anna's to find that our power had been restored! I asked a neighbor how long it had been on since we were gone most of the day and he said only about an hour before we came home! Which would mean from Saturday at 3am until Sunday at 7pm is when we had no power. Ugh.


Holy Cats!

So Friday night we had JST over for the night. We ran to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner and walked away with $100 worth of grocery - surprise surprise. We watched a movie and just hung out until we decided to head to bed. We were asleep in our house when for some reason I awoke. It was 3am. Outside there was flashes of lighting - but no lighting bolts - just the sky was light up like daylight. I nudged Jerome and told him to move the car that was on the lawn since it looked like it was going to rain. He got up in a dash and tossed on some shorts and headed outside.

I figured I would take a look at what was outside to see if I really wanted to deal with it getting wet since we were having a Block Party Saturday afternoon. Off came the cushions of the chairs and we tossed the carpet pieces into the garage.

When that was done I went inside and turned on the TV to watch the weather channel. It stated that we were going to get some high winds (50-60 mph) and there was a sever thunderstorm warning. And then it happened... the TV cut off along with the fans, air, lights, clocks... you name it. The power was out.

It's kinda funny that JST had made the remark before heading to bed that there was a flash light in her room! Good thing as we needed it. We found the other flash light and I light some candles. I just stayed watching the rain since it's been so long since we've had some like this.

It started to rain and the winds picked up. I went downstairs to check the window/wall in the laundry room... sure enough there was a leak. A bad leak. It was spurting out of the window well. Ughhhh. I grabbed the dirty towels from the laundry and started sopping up the mess. I ran upstairs to get the mop.

Jerome woke JST up and told her that it was cooler the basement to go and sleep downstairs. Which, we all did after having a quick snack and chat. (Gotta love having an 8 month pregnant person in the house!)

I called the electric company and their machine stated that we should have power by 8am. Fine and good - we don't really need it while we sleep downstairs. We woke up at 9am or so, with no power. I called the electric company again. Now, it stated that we may not have electricity until end of day Tuesday. WHAT?!?!?!?! ugh.

There was a pretty good sized branch in the middle of the road from the tree that recently lost big branches when Monty Crew was at our house last. We had twigs and a few branches in the yard but nothing major. I figured we better check the gutters since I noticed a few of our neighbors up in theirs. Sure enough it was packed. I got to cleaning it out.

Since we had no power, we didn't dare go in the fridge for long. And, with an electric stove now we had to cook our bacon, eggs, and grits on the grill! It was kinda fun, until we realized that both of our cars were in the garage - that has an electric opener.

JST's mom and sisters came to pick her up and take her back to the land of A/C and TVs. We of course stayed in our "campsite". I called Lisa and asked if she had power. Sure enough she did, so I asked if we could bring over stuff from our deep freezer and our fridge/freezer. I packed up the two coolers and we were on our way. We hung out there until about 3 pm when we left for our Block Party, that we weren't even sure if it was still going to go on.

I set out two chairs and a table out front and brought the charcoal grill around front too. We figured we could grill up some of this chicken from the freezer for the party... and figured other people may want to too.

We hung out with Denise and her daughter and a few of the other neighbors showed up too. We ended up going to Denise's garage to "congregate" and stay dry as it decided to rain again.

We headed home and went to the basement to sleep. I'm starting to feel the pains of not sleep in my bed... the floor and that couch are not cutting it. Ughhh. I awoke this morning hoping we would have electricity... not the case. So, today, we headed over to Anna's where we are BBQing up the last of the meat that we kept.

I'm sure I'll be calling into my renter's insurance this coming week. Wonder if they will cover everything????

We went around the neighborhood to find out that about 5 block south of us many large trees were down, along with power lines and electric poles snapped in half. We took pictures, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to load them here.

And by the way, I am not cracked up for this whole camping thing!

Garage Sale Weekend has come and gone...

So the big event was this past weekend, our garage sale.

Wednesday night my co-work MV came over to drop off some kids clothes and a few other things for my sale. As she set up her goodies I kinda took a break. I skipped out on my contact fitting appointment and set up the tables and such in the garage. When she brought in her items that's when it felt like a true sale.

Thursday after work I dropped Jerome off at home while I headed to a happy hour for an old boss. He was canned, or in nice terms laid off from our company a few weeks short of his 10 year mark.... makes you wonder! Anyways, while I was sipping on my single beer Jerome was at home checking things off a list that I had of things to do by the end of the night. How lucky am I that once I got home most of the items were already done! Thanks Hun.

So we set up the sale more and more, figured out what things would be outside, what would remain inside of the garage, etc, etc. I wondered a bit how I was going to do this all by myself in the morning... but, Jerome called in sick on Friday, poor baby was sick. :)

We woke up Friday morning and started setting items up. I put the signs all out around our little neighborhood and grabbed breakfast for us from McDonald's. Stupid McDonald's tried to short us a Hashbrown... how dare they! I had to run back to McDonald's to complain. Soon after breakfast our first customers showed up. It was a long and hot day - we even had the A/C unit that we found during dumpster days going in the garage. So many people wanted to buy it that we stuck a "not for sale" sign on it! We had a great turn out and plenty of sales. One of our customers was nice enough to tell us that our sign down the street had been knocked down/blown over. Jerome ran down the street to fix it. Even Nicole made a surprise appearance at the sale.

It rained Friday night, and Saturday morning there was a ton of fog. I watched the weather and it said that around noon we should be having showers... not the case though! I ran around making sure all of our signs we still standing only to find out the one that had been knocked down the other day to be missing. Yup, I think our neighbors stole it... how awful... and they weren't even home... JERKS! So I made another one out of scrap wood that we had and set it up on the opposite corner. Another good sale day and a pretty good turn out, but I think Fridays was better. We sold our TV that was in our living room, we tried to load it into the guys car, but it didn't fit. He said he would come back on Sunday to pick it up in his brothers truck.

Sunday we sat around... in the heat... burning up. I ran around looking for the signs, now paranoid that our signs were all going to be missing. YUP... one more sign gone. JEEEZE. This time I took a end table that we were trying to sell off and made a sign. Silly me put the arrows on but didn't check the other side... I had arrows going both ways! Ughh... So I had to repaint it.

Anna and Nate showed up in support of the sale. We tried to get Anna to buy anything and everything that we thought she should have. She ended up getting tons of stuff - and all three lamps... wooo hooo no more sitting in the dark! It was a slow day, but then again it was Father's Day (Happy Father's Day Dad!) and a Sunday at that. So we didn't make much of a profit on Sunday and started closing up shop at 3 pm - gathering the other contributors items into piles so they can take them away, moving tables around so maybe we can use 1/2 of the garage for the truck or cars, and bringing the stuff from outside in. We had a few more customers - after all it was 1/2 price day! But I think we were officially closed at 4:30.

All in all we made a pretty good profit. Next year I think we'll be having another one - so start saving your stuff now... but beware, you'll need your own table and I will probably be charging some sort of fee for us sitting there selling your stuff if you aren't there. (This year, not a big deal as there wasn't all that much stuff from others - one of those contributors even tried to make us money with Pull Tabs!)

We will be dumpster diving this year and making money off of other peoples trash!!!!

So... 2 signs stolen, 1 pair of earrings stolen, 1 switching of price stickers that was caught, dumpster junk sold for a profit, TV sold at a profit, one McDonald's hashbrown almost missed
... and money made to boot... I'd say was a pretty good run for three days!

Our 10 days of Summer is here

And of course this weekend is my garage sale... guess I'll be seeing if that A/C works in the garage!

More guests in town...

This past Friday we had some guests come into town. Yup... Monty Crew visited us - well the adults did anyway! They had a little "get-a-way-from-me" weekend from the bambinos and their dog and choose to come to MN to visit us!

Friday we had plans to meet up with them at the stadium for the Twins vs. Red Socks (baseball - for those of you who don't follow that's MN vs. Boston). Jerome had a happy hour gig after work so I road the train to the stadium to meet him. As I was waiting for him to ride the train from the other way to the stadium one of the security guys walked up to me and told me that the train that was coming in next would be out of service once it reached the stadium. I told him, "I don't care as long as my boyfriend gets off the train"... WOOOOPS... (go back and re-read that sentence.... I'll wait....)
Yup... I called my husband of nine months my boyfriend. Doh! I started laughing as soon as I said it and the security guy probably thought I was crazy so I told him what I was laughing about and he chuckled himself! I was glad to see Jerome actually get off of that train and walk away from this situation.

We waited for The Monty's since they had purchased our tickets so that we could all be seated together. Finally Susha called and asked where we were... we saw them standing at the corner of the landmark that I gave them looking for us. I told Susha to turn around, keep turning, keep turning... (making a full turn around!)... then she spotted us and headed our way.

We made our way into the stadium with our tickets in hand. We also made a whole lap around the stadium... thanks to Andy's guided tour :) Tee heee! Jerome went in and found four seats - ends up there wasn't assigned seats for our section - what do you expect for $10??? The three of us went and picked up some food and drinks and then headed up.

We saw a very drunk little girl (little girl ha... she was probably 20, maybe even 21... isn't that just how old I am????) fall all the way down the steps and knock poor Jerome's beer over a bit. She'll feel that in the morning I suppose. We left at the 7th or 8th inning since The Monty's were giving us a ride back to our house and had parked in a parking ramp. Now I'm speaking from experience here... if you are going to stay all the way through some event... do not park in a parking ramp... it will take you an hour to get down from the 9th floor of the ramp (Smile Lisa!)
We headed home and I warned them ahead of time of the dumpster dives that were going on in our area to beware of crazy drivers and heaps of junk on the lawns. Well guess what we did... yup... me and Susha went out for a bit! We left the guys at the house and took some flashlights to sniff around. It's much harder in the dark but we still managed to find a few things... and Susha made the bigger haul than me :) Needless to say she said she wants to come out next year when this is going on... should be a fun time!

They stayed at our house Friday night and when we awoke on Saturday morning I thought to myself I wonder what I should make for breakfast. I went to the cupboards... hummm only enough pancake mix for two people. Went to the fridge... only four eggs... enough for two people... checked the milk - we could always just have a bowl of cereal... only enough for one person... JEEEEZE! Andy saved the day by heading over to Mickey D's for some breakfast... yummy!

I checked for when the nail shop opened - 9:30 a.m. We planned to get there shortly after they opened... and we did. Trisha and I both got pedis I couldn't wait. The guys ended up going after Trisha eBay winnings an hour north of us. Her kids better be on their best behavior... momma got them some nice things this weekend!

After our pedis we looked around Bloomington to see if we could find any dumpster treasures in the daylight... on pick up day. We didn't have much luck - I wish she could have seen it on Thursday... she would have died! We decided to go on a quick shopping trip into Target, I picked up some coals for the grill. Then I showed her The Avenue. Great store for big girls and plenty of sale items! We headed home and started getting food ready for lunch. Brats and hamburgers on the grill. I ran to the store to pick up milk, eggs, tomatoes and potato chips. This way I was set for Sunday's breakfast! After dinner they hung out for a bit and then headed over to their hotel for Saturday night after their concert. Sounds like it was pretty posh.

Jerome and I headed to Anna's to take her the twin bed that we use to have in our 2nd bedroom in the apartment. It was originally hers and she let us borrow it for when we had guest or the girls over night. Jerome helped her switch the locks on the bedroom doors (one had a lock and one didn't) and Chris made himself at home in his new bed. We watched Firehouse Dog and then left out.

We headed home and I started cleaning up the kitchen to prep for Sunday's breakfast with The Monty's. We made plans to have omelets in the morning. They were bringing the bacon and juice, I was supplying the eggs and veggies. I chopped up the veggies and shredded the cheese. I also set the table and got the coffee pot ready. I headed to bed around 2 a.m.

I woke up Sunday morning and was brushing my teeth as they called to find out if we were up yet or not. But of course! The headed over and breakfast started. The winds started to pick up while we sat at the kitchen table chatting and while Jerome was eating since he was the last to have his omelet made. It sounded like the house was shifting from the wind, the lites even flickered a few times (I'm sure it had nothing to do with cutting limbs down last weekend... wink wink!).

At one point I got up and walked into the living room... and then I noticed... two huge limbs from the tree that is between our house and our neighbors had broken off and were sitting in our driveway. Oh boy! Well at least The Monty's had pulled their van up to our garage... imagine if they had just left it near our front door vs. our back door... well I'd be writing a totally different post! The guys got up and hauled the branches to our backyard. And the Monty's left out of town while they could. Jerome went back to eating his omelet and I went a picked up other sticks that had fallen from all of our trees.



I told Jerome they should have just put it between our houses instead of our backyard... what were we going to do with it... we couldn't cut it up! So he and I hauled it to the grass between our houses and told the neighbors son about it. He came right out with his chainsaw and chopped it up. We picked up the rest of the yard and Jerome told me he was heading to St. Paul to pick up JST.

I stayed home and chatted with the neighbors since it seemed like everyone was out picking up their yard. To bad the dumpster crew picked up on Saturday - lots of people had tons of sticks and limbs to go out!

JST came to our house and hung out for a good bit. She and I chatted while Jerome mowed the lawn. For those of you who have been wondering.... JST is the mommy to be. Yup, I'll be a grandma before I'm a real momma! We caught up about things going on in her life, how she's feeling and we even took some belly pics. The photo is manipulated to protect her privacy. She's five months and is due Sept. 25th. She seems very happy... I hope she stays that way.

She looked at our wedding pictures that I had out on the table since we are going to be ordering them in two weeks. She asked why some were glossy vs. matte. WHAT?!?!?! Oh good lord. Here I or Jerome had mixed up the original pictures with some that we had reprinted. Big no no since we needed to bring the originals to the shop to order. We figured everything out... thank goodness but without JST looking at the photos we could have had some big issues with the photography people (not that we haven't already!)

All in all it was a pretty good weekend. I even managed to cut some lilacs for inside the house and plant the rest of my peas in my garden.

Oh shooot... that's another thing. When my parents were in town last weekend we tried to help one of my purple lilac trees from growing into the while lilac bush. Well perhaps we shouldn't have helped it by tying it to the fence... one of the limbs busted in the wind storm. I don't know if lilacs will "regrow" or not... but I stuck it in the ground in hopes that it would... we will see!