Tag: family

Little Miss Sunshine

Today was our first time outside since we arrived on Wednesday. Heh. (OK, so Amy & dad went out yesterday…) We got ready early in order to join Lynn & Doug at Keys Restaurant by 9:30. We walked into the joint at 9:29am. We rock. 🙂

I overindulged at breakfast having 2 eggs (over easy), hashbrowns, and toast AND 2 slices of French toast. More than one person can eat, which is why I let other people share my food. There was quite a bit of sharing going on – we’re the sharing family. And it was nice to have one more meal with Lynn & Doug before they returned home.

Once we’d said our farewells to Rachel’s folks (back at the apartment), we sat around & discussed our day’s plans. It was agreed that we’d go see Little Miss Sunshine at the Riverview theater at 7:10pm. And before that, go to the wine bar across the street from the theater. So what to do until then? Why, go shopping of course!

We started out at the Half Price Bookstore. I found Spy Muppet’s License to Croak on CD-ROM for $6, so I bought it. Rachel & mom also bought some stuff while we were there. Then we headed off to Pier One so the girls could use a gift certificate on cushions for one of their chairs. They found just what they were looking for, so they bought ’em. Then a trip to the new Trader Joe’s near them. I bought some Truffles for us and for Aunt Becky & the others who have been checking in on my kitties. Plus some cashews – unsalted & low salt. We also got some sushi, salsa, guacamole & tortilla chips for a light meal. Back home, we partook of these goodies. Yum!

We learned some interesting things while having our snack. First, sushi & nachoes are a good snack. 🙂 Second, putting wasabi & soy sauce on turkey still tastes of turkey. However, guacamole on turkey is an improvement upon the turkey. And third, cleaning up from sushi & nachoes is very fast (I did the dishes – heh!)

When it was 5pm, we moved on to the Riverview Wine Bar. They have several “flites” (samplers) that they offer for $9. Dad got the K’Syrah Shiraz flite, mom got a Riesling flite, and Rachel tried out the Chardonnay flite. Each flite has 4 wines with 2 oz samples of each. Amy tried a Victory HopDevil beer. I had water. We also got the cheese sampler – a goat cheese, a bleu cheese of some sort, an Italian cheese that resembled Swiss in appearance but not taste, and a zola (IIRC). I liked ’em all but the bleu cheese. Oh, and I made the mistake of seeing the specials board – they had creme brulee. Eep! So of course I had to get that. It was very yummy!

The Riverview theater is a second run theater with $3 evening movies (and $2 matinees). They also have reasonably priced popcorn (mom ordered us 2 GIANT Cokes and a large popcorn and it was $9). The movie playing was Little Miss Sunshine, which was riotously funny. Amy considered it good exercise, all that laughing. I agree. I’m loathe to say much about the plot because I went in knowing next to nothing and enjoyed it all the more because of that. If you want to laugh a lot and you don’t mind foul language from time to time, I heartily recommend this movie.

Tomorrow, we’ll probably have more grand adventures. But I shall leave you all with the lovely photo of mom in her make-up from yesterday’s session. Oh yeah, and I’m in it too. Mom is the lovely woman on the left. I’m the silly woman on the right. Heh. Enjoy!


Mom & Me. Yup, that’s make up on my face! Hee!

(PS, I can’t imagine getting any sleep tonight – I had some of the caffeine-laden Coca Cola with the movie. Whoops!)

Mary Kay Day

Before I get started, here’s a joke that’s on the girls’ fridge:

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the lightbulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That lightbulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

Hee hee!

Anyhoo, the weekend in progressing nicely. Last night, Becky & Michelle arrived for warm-ups & dessert. The pies were very good – I had pumpkin with real whipped cream (sorry elsaf) and apple pie with ice cream. Yummy! We then played a game of Scene It with me, Becky & Michelle beating the teams of Amy, mom & dad, and Rachel and her folks. Go us! Rachel’s folks headed back to their hotel while we ladies played Apples to Apples. Rachel won that game.

We slept in a bit today, but eventually everyone showered and dad made us all Egg McMikey sandwiches. Doug & Lynn arrived and we had turkey sandwiches and cheeseball for lunch. Mmmm, turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce on ’em are good!

Once the dishes were cleand up, we started setting up for a Mary Kay party. In addition to being an Episcopal priest, Lynn is a Mary Kay Consultant. Becky & Michelle again arrived and Amy gave us all hand pampering to start the session. Then Amy & dad headed downtown for coffee and other essentials. Doug braved the crowds at the Mall of America to see the World’s Largest Gingerbread House.

Folks who know me know that I am not a make-up wearer. I do very low maintenance work on my face & skin. But hey, this was going to be fun, so I partook of the session. (Michelle is another non-make-up person, but the night before we’d agreed to both go through with it.) The facial was quite nice and we discovered that foundation helps tone down my rosacea. We even put on blush (heh – me, putting on blush!), eye makeup, and lip stuff (lip liner, lipstick, and lip gloss – sheesh!) My least favorite makeup is still lip-stuff. I even let dad take a photo of me and I might post it tomorrow.

I decided to get a few things including the stuff from our hand pampering session and a foundation/moisturizer which I might use on days when my photo will be taken (to tone down my red cheeks). I think Lynn did some good business with our small group. Go us! She even gave us her sales pitch for the Mary Kay world, which, nice though it is, means you have to talk to people, so most of us declined completely. 🙂

We had a blast during the party and I’ll need to remove my makeup before bed. Heh. Something I haven’t had to do since I was in the school play.

Supper was leftovers from our Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was just as good as the day before – yummy stuff! We even polished off a few of the dishes – go us! Still some turkey and some mashed potatoes left, but most of the rest of the food is gone.

Lynn & Doug once again returned to their hotel with promise to meet at Key’s for breakfast in the morning. Becky & Michelle stayed for drinks & games. I had an amaretto sour (no suprise) but gin & tonics and Cosmopolitans were also present. We wound up playing Trivial Pursuit, Genus IV because Amy & Michelle like to play it, but Rachel & Becky do not. So mom & I entered the game to make 4 (which is more fun than two) while Becky knitted and Rachel cross-stitched. Dad read for a bit before retiring early.

Mom quickly lept to the lead, but was unable to sustain it as Amy & Michelle caught up. I lost with only 3 pieces when Michelle won the game. Go Michelle!

Tomorrow promises to be another fun day with the parental units & the girls. Go us!

Thanksgiving 2006

This holiday weekend has been only the second time that both families have been together (the other being Amy & Rachel’s wedding). Last night, Rachel made vegetarian lasagna which we had when Lynn & Doug arrived (having driven into town). The dinner was excellent and accompanied by salad, roasted squash, and rustic Italian bread (from their Co-Op). Good eats!

But the REAL banquet was saved for today. Amy got up early and started on the chestnut stuffing (chopping & browning the bread) and then the turkey (which had been soaking in brine in the fridge for nearly 12 hours). As the morning progressed, I made the sweet potato souffle (having made the cheeseball last night), Rachel worked on the rolls, Lynn made the green bean casserole (using green & wax beans from her garden), Doug made the mashed ‘tatoes (having made cranberries the day before), and Rachel made the apple pie. Mom and dad carved the turkey (which turned out beautifully). And then we feasted at 2pm.


The feast, lovingly prepared by all.

Once we got the kitchen cleaned up again, we all crashed, some napping, others watching Love, Actually on cable. I napped a little, and now I’m typing this up.

We still have pies. Amy & Rachel’s friends Becky & Michelle will be arriving around 7:30pm for games, leftovers, and DESSERT. Mom baked her pumpkin pies yesterday and as I mentioned just now, Rachel baked an apple pie.


Mom’s pumpkin pies.


Rachel’s apple pie (with snowflake cut-outs).

Oh, and just cuz I can, gratuitous cat photo:


Früvous helped out by staying out of the way.

We said thanks before we had our feast. Today in particular, I am thankful that we were able to gather for this. Thank you, Amy & Rachel for making all of this possible. 🙂

Sister Visit

Here we are at my sister’s apartment. Mom, dad, and I got up at 0’dark-thirty this morning to head for the airport. We had a 7am flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul. We arrived nearly 2 hours ahead of time and had no issues with security (though dad and I somehow managed to get in the express line while mom took the long way though – still, it gave me time to have breakfast – a Cinnabon Pecanbon). Though we had to wait for the plane to be de-iced, we arrived in MSP on time. We were at the far end of the airport, so it took us awhile to reach baggage claim. And lovely Rachel was there waiting. Yay Rachel!

Dad and I waited for the bags while Rachel walked mom down to Starbucks. And our bags arrived very quickly. Once we were all together again, Rachel drove us to Amy’s workplace and we enjoyed some coffee & cookies (turkey-shaped gingerbread) in honor of the upcoming holiday. The office space is very nice. As were the cookies, come to that. 🙂

As Rachel hadn’t had breakfast yet, we stopped at Bruegger’s Bagels for some bagels. I had rosemary & olive oil with cream cheese – very yummy! Rachel then took us to their apartment (home for now) and we greeted Früvous, who growled & swiped in response. (He’s such a cute, grumpy cat.) We vegged in the apartment some, then mom made the crusts for her pumpkin pies, then we vegged some more.

Around lunchtime, we headed back to Amy’s work and got to see her cubicle. Cute cubicle! And with the new park across the street, she even has a nice view. We walked a couple of blocks to a coffee shop in the Open Book complex. I had grilled panini (sour dough) with cheddar and their autumn minestrone soup. Very tasty! We were all happy to let dad foot the bill. 🙂

On our way back home, we stopped at their Co-op to pick up the turkey. It’s a 16lb free range turkey (though why Rachel had to pay for it if it was free, I’ll never know… 😉 Amy’s gonna be the Master Chef for tomorrow’s meal, so most of us will get to relax (and watch the parade, ha ha!)

We’re back in a vegetative state while we await Amy’s return from work. I decided to read my flist & update my journal in this time. The girls are reading and I believe dad is napping. Yup, this family knows how to par-tay! 😉

trinalin, party animal extraordinaire

Usually my most social time of the year is December, near the holidays. But things transpired that this weekend was also a big social weekend for me. Two nights in a row going to parties and tonight having Dinner & a Movie with my folks.

Friday night, our teacher’s association had a party to celebrate our first quarter. We were encouraged to bring games for play, so of course I brought Dutch Blitz. However, once folks got there, everyone just got into conversation groups and talked & ate the evening away. I was shocked when I finally looked at my watch to find it was nearly 11pm. It was quite nice, just chatting with folks I don’t get to see much during the school week. And yes, when teachers gather, they do talk about teaching. I noticed that we rarely discuss kids in particular, but we do talk about general trends that we notice. (For example, far too many parents these days are too busy being “best friends” with their kids rather than being parents. That makes working with some students difficult.) Thankfully, there are many other conversation topics that pop up too. So I didn’t get to teach anyone to play Dutch Blitz, but I still had a great time decompressing after the first quarter.

Saturday night was another teacher-filled night. Each year the Fisher’s have a Steak Grill party, and it happened to be the same weekend as our association party. The folks and I headed off to Gary & Marcia’s for good eats. Mom and I sat with Tammy, the art teacher, and my retired 2nd grade teacher, Jo. We had a lovely supper (great steaks – HUGE! Plus French Onion soup, salad, loads of wonderful bread, and baked potatoes). Mom brought a pumpkin cobbler, which was very popular (and tasty too). She’d had it before, but it was her first time making it. Dad was sitting with Gary and the Hoyings (my former government teacher who’s now at another school, and his wife) and having a lovely evening. It was nice seeing folks I don’t normally get to (like my former principal, Steve, the aforementioned Jo, and the Hoyings).

After two nights of being entertained at other people’s houses, I did my own entertaining here. When my folks and I shopped at Trader Joe’s two weeks ago, I bought some pesto, frozen artichoke hearts, and mozarella. I promised mom that I would make them pizza sometime and today was the day. I had purchased some Boboli crusts (one whole wheat, one regular) and Roma tomatoes last weekend. So I spread the pesto on the crusts, sliced the tomatoes thin and spread over the pesto, then sliced the artichoke hearts thinner and put them on top. Sliced mozzarella and shredded Asiago cheese went on top. When I opened the pesto, I knew we were in for a treat – it smelled just like fresh basil. Once again, Trader Joe’s wins the Internets!

When I have the folks over, I usually share one of my many DVD purchases with them. Tonight we watched Over the Hedge (which I hadn’t seen, but bought the day it came out). The folks brought salad around and I had several types of 100 calorie packs of snacks to choose from. The first pizza was done as soon as they arrived – yay me! We watched the movie and ate supper and were pleased with both. Best of all, I’ve got leftover pizza for two more meals. 🙂 Lucy let mom hold her when she came in, so she wins the Internets too! They were really interested in us when we first started eating, but then lost interest and fell asleep in various places.

So I survived a people-filled weekend. And I’ve got another one next weekend when the parental units and I head for a Jesus Seminar on the Road in Fort Wayne, IN. Hope it’s as fun as this weekend was!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a lovely labor day weekend because Amy & Rachel decided to visit us. They arrived Wednesday night and we spent Saturday-Monday at the folks’ cottage at the Lake. It was fun hanging with the girls and the parental units. Amy’s friend Alissa (pronounced a-lEEsa) and Alissa’s boyfriend Jon joined us for some of the weekend. And Aunt Becky came up some last evening for supper & card games. It was great seeing my sister & Rachel (who’s practically my sister too) again and I hope they had a pleasant flight home & have a great day relaxing with Früvous (their cat) tomorrow.

I’d write more details, but I’m too sleepy (and have a cold – which started up about 4 hours before the girls were supposed to arrive on Wednesday – bleh!) so I’m off to bed. Hope you all have a lovely Tuesday!

Lots of Stuff

Lots of times this week I’ve wanted to write about things in my LJ, but never did. I’ll see if I can remember them all now.

  • Windows XP on a Windows NT4 network with Clean Slate running has proven to be a real PAIN IN THE ASS. I’ve been working my butt off at work getting student accounts out to them, and finally on Friday, most kids had their accounts. The business lab was returned to Windows XP (we’d put Win98 on it last year because I wasn’t ready for the transition. We’re only going to XP because the newest machines cannot run Win98 at all. Blech) this summer. And when the students logged on Friday? Microsoft Word didn’t work (wasn’t “installed”), they couldn’t get out to the Internet, their Quick Launch bar didn’t display, and load of other issues popped up. I had removed all of these problems with my test account before I set up the student accounts. So of course, they didn’t work as planned. When I thought I finally had the fix, it worked with one student but not another. I left on Friday angry with Windows XP (and Clean Slate, but for another XP-related issue that still isn’t resolved). So today I popped into the school to try again. I discovered that Clean Slate had prevented Windows from clearing out the local profiles (copied from their network profiles) and that second student had originally logged on with the bad profile. Once I deleted the profiles, they worked! So I pointed all of the students to that profile folder and tested another random student. It worked – yay!

  • Clean Slate is a program by Fortres Grand Corporation that erases any changes made to a computer when someone logs off or restarts. It’s been a godsend for preventing spyware & adware and viruses from filling up our PCs. I don’t have to reinstall Winders part-way through the school year anymore. However, it still has issues. We’ve cleared up most of the Win98 issues (except for the Daylight Savings Time bug – so I’m now telling Win98 machines to not change at DST – they get their time from our server anyhoo). But now with version 4, we’re experiencing all the bugs with WinXP. The main problem? When students log off, it locks up. Sits at the “saving settings” portion. Why it’s even hanging up then, I’ve no idea. I’ve already told XP to NOT save settings back to the remote profile folder. I’ve got the developers working on the problem – we’ve still got some testing to do. Until then, students will have to hold the power button in 10 seconds until it turns off. Thanks Clean Slate.

  • The kitties are growing. They’re so damn cute! I don’t have any recent photos of them, however. But now when I sit to watch Lovejoy (currently in season 3), Linus climbs onto my chest or shoulders and Lucy sits at my feet. They love to play with each other and with me (sometimes when I’m trying to play City of Heroes/Villains – often to judiang‘s dismay. They’re last check up had them both still healthy (fewer ear mites) and growing nicely. Linus was 2.2lb and Lucy was 2.3lb. Considering Linus always tries to prevent Lucy from eating, it’s good to see she’s holding her own and then some. 🙂

  • It looks like it’s going to be a good year with my students. I’ve been having fun so far (and I hope they have too). I hope I don’t keep channeling Monty Python while I’m teaching physics, however. Thankfully a few of them knew what I was alluding to. I hope I can get a handle on the tech job so that I can work on improving my science curriculum. I wanna do some new stuff and want to find out where I can speed up some topics (or maybe even cut some) in order to cover more material.

  • With regards to the tech job in general… Each year, I get a little more behind. There just isn’t enough time for me to do the job in 3 periods a day and 200 hours in the summer. And as such, I’ve been getting more behind each year. This year is the year I’ve hit the wall. I’m just so frustrated with being behind and getting behinder. I love doing the tech work, but the frustration is disguising that fact from me far too often lately.

  • Yesterday I helped mom’s cousin with her laptop and printer. Using some floppies and a USB floppy drive (from school – heh) I was able to transfer her fonts from her old machine (Win95) to her new laptop (no floppy drive). She has a brother printer, which I’ve never worked with before. After finding the Quick Setup Guide (on the disc, not on paper) I was finally able to get it working with her laptop. I didn’t get to stay there as long as I needed to (she had some more questions that I need to help her with), but I needed to get home. After all, the folks and I had two weddings to go to.

  • The first wedding was a cousin on my mom’s side. His second attempt. She’s Catholic, so the wedding was held at the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Chapel at Lehman Catholic High School. Definitely the first time I’ve been to a wedding in a high school. It was a very pretty chapel and the service was only 25 minutes long, which was greatly appreciated. I hope Gregg and his wife have many happy years together. L’chaim!

  • After the wedding, we tried to find the reception at the Sidney Airport (no, that’s not a typo – Sidney in Ohio), but couldn’t find the road the airport was on. Well, I couldn’t find it on the map. Would have been interesting going to a wedding reception in an airplane hangar, I must admit. A short trip to Kohl’s so I could get a wedding gift for the next wedding (the one I was actually invited to), and then the folks and I had supper at Applebee’s. Very tasty meal. And I had an amaretto sour.

  • The next wedding was a cousin on my dad’s side. His second attempt too. This wedding took place at her sister’s house in the spacious backyard. Dad was disappointed no one fell in the pool the whole time we were there (he’s such an optimist). The ceremony was shorter here, but I was actually able to hear it (Gregg’s was harder to hear). We stayed for the reception there and had some yummy food (Greek pastries with cheese, meatballs, chicken salad, Pepsi). Then we hung around for the cake, but they kept putting it off to have people dance. Well, watching the hokey pokey and some of the Greek dancing (she’s from a Greek family, aparently) was entertaining, but I wanted cake! The cake was yummy and full of wonderful sugar. With the 2 cans of Pepsi that sugar kept me awake until after 3am. Heh. I hope Mick and his wife have many happy years together. Nozdrovye!

Well, that’s the stuff that I can remember that I wanted to say. Hopefully I’ll not store stuff up for the next time. 🙂

White Christmas

We actually did have a White Christmas this year. But not quite what they had in mind with the famous Christmas tune. Our White Christmas was caused by a snow-thawing fog that lasted until after 1pm. It was quite impressive. And rather calming.

This year’s Christmas was a bit unusual, not least because we opened presents on Christmas Eve. Granny in the hospital also added to the oddness. Thanks, btw, to all of you Granny well-wishers.

It was looking pretty bad for her. She wasn’t eating, and her hospital psychosis was rather pronounced. She remembered us granddaughters when we visited her on the 23rd, but she was confused as to where she was & wanted to go home with us. (No surprise there – I wouldn’t want to be in the hospital either!) On the 24th, dad, Amy & I visted and she was even loopier. She hadn’t been eating (with her intestinal complaint, there really wasn’t any place for food to go!) and was confused as to who we were. Christmas morning, she was just awfully sleepy. But later on Christmas, they finally had success with the intestinal complaint. And when dad & I visited yesterday, she knew who I was and had eaten some breakfast. And later, talked with Aunt Becky on the phone and was feisty. That’s a good sign. Granny’s naturally feisty. 🙂

So, perhaps Granny will finally get back to normal. There will probably be some transition before she can go back to Becky’s house. But here’s hoping she’ll be home as soon as possible.

I’m currently at elsaf‘s place and the two of us will soon be driving to judiang‘s house. I hope to update more about my vacation thus far when I get there. Here’s hoping the drive is smooth & detour-free!

Merry Christmas!

Yay! It’s Christmas today! And in our recent tradition of having nontraditional Christmases, we actually opened all of our presents last night. It was fun opening presents in the evening. For one thing, there was wine instead of coffee. Heh. It took over 2 hours to get everything opened (with occasional breaks for food & stuff). Mom was originally thinking she might have gotten more presents for Amy than anyone (an Amy Christmas), but it turns out it was a Dad Christmas after all. Yay dad! (One of the presents he got, however, was the replacement order of jumping beans from Oriental Trading. Mom said she’d had 2 boxes sent to my place with dad’s presents. And I got 2 boxes one day. And didn’t examine the labels all THAT well – and neither did mom. She wrapped the boxes without opening, and voila! Dad opens a box to find my jumping beans. We all laughed.)

Now, there were rumors that Santa was still going to come around last night, so we did put out our stockings. He even left 2 stockings here for the parental units. Amy will be arriving shortly to help me carry the stockings over (*wink wink*) but also to open Leo’s presents for him. His lack of opposable thumbs does make it hard to open presents.

I’ll probably report in more detail about the day in another post. I just wanted to get my “Merry Christmas” out before the day was over. Hope everyone reading is having a nice End to December, regardless of which holidays, if any, that you celebrate.

Bought Something Day

Yup, I’m a capitalistic pigdog, but I had a lovely day out with my parental units. Shopping the day after Thanksgiving in Miami & Darke counties is never a hectic thing. Well, as long as you don’t get up at o’dark thirty in order to shop at the 5am openings. (5am??? are people NUTS?) We started at the Piqua Mall, which was the busiest you ever see it, but that only means it was as busy as most normal malls are on a regular day. I only bought a $5 Pong/Breakout Atari thingy that hooks onto your TV. The mall shopping, however, was over quickly & we moved onto my favorite Black Friday shopping place – Greenville. Greenville is a small town (well, not as small as my town) with several nice mom&pop shops in the downtown area. I like supporting local vendors. And it’s days like Black Friday that make or break them. I think we helped to make a couple of ’em. 🙂

For those of you familiar with KitchenAid, Greenville is where the famous mixers were first manufactured. Hobart Brothers made commercial mixers in Troy, OH and the KitchenAid brand was made in Greenville (and still is). There’s a nice KitchenAid store there which we shopped at. I got a couple of nice cookie sheets & a spatula. It’s red & it’s silicone. I’m hoping it doesn’t desintegrate like the plastic ones I usually buy. We had lunch at a cafe/store called The Montage. I had a Reuben & their potato & cheese soup. (The cheese is just a small handful of shredded cheddar sprinkled on top – but the soup was very good.) The folks got the senior meals. Heh. I bought lunch & it was less than $20.

We finished the shopping out with getting a few grocery-like essentials at the Greenville Wal-mart, which is in the ‘burbs (heh, Greenville ‘burbs – not bloody likely!) I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about Wal-marts, but the ones in Troy & Greenville are well maintained, clean, and often have what’s advertised. And they had the groceries & supplies that I needed. Best of all, I only bought what was on my list.

Anyhoo, as a result of today’s shopping, I have finished judiang & elsaf. I still have no idea what to get Amy, Rachel, or the parentals. But I’m sure I’ll find something. 🙂

Tomorrow is a day in with Leo. And Sunday, the folks and I will probably go see Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. This has been a good break.