Naturally Optimistic

Tonight is the night of the big 1st annual Halloween Spooktacular & S-'s b-day Party. This year it's his GOLDEN birthday party so all the more special. I had yesterday off and was busy in the kitchen all day. I made sugar cookie dough, pumpkin cookies, pretzel witch fingers, cupcakes, cleaned the living room (dusted, vacuumed) and made a salad for the b-day party at the Boy's Mom's house last night. Whew. Sadly the witch pretzel fingers - while creepy yet delicious looking - tasted VILE. I don't know if it was the salt I used or the pan I boiled them in but they were NASTY. I had to spit it out. The Boy agreed with me and the whole batch of fingers ended up in the kitchen compost. *sigh* What a waste. So today I have to make monster brain dip, carve pumpkins, cut out, bake and decorate said sugar cookies, make the b-day cake, cut the apples, decorate, figure out the rest of my costume and crack a beer. Whew. I love Halloween. Love love love it!!! I...

Why is it that the same 3 days that are "oh-my-god-I-have-to-have-chocolate-right-now" days are also the "I-am-feeling-so-fat" days? ************************ Dad Update: Dad was moved out of ICU this morning and is now on a regular floor. Old. Not as nice as the ICU (so says my Mom). heh heh. He seems to be doing much better (less headaches, more just stiff neck...which should subside shortly). He has an angiogram scheduled for next Tuesday. He will most likely stay in the hospital until then. And yes, they voted! Well, my Mom voted at the courthouse absentee and my Dad's ballot is on the way.

So.... they put a drain in my dad's head. Drilled through the skull and started draining blood and CSF (clear spinal fluid - I'm now a neurology professional if you didn't now...ahem...ya right). On Wednesday he was awake! Actually awake! And he knew us. All 27 of us who were there to visit and support him. He was a bit confused on things like who the president was (something I'd like to forget myself) and what year it was (2005/2006 is close) but mostly seemed "okay." At least better than the previous night. He calls the tube in his head his "plug." Thursday he was better - more awake, more chatty, intiating conversations and HUNGRY. He ate several big meals. He didn't remember Wednesday AT ALL but knew that Dubya was president. AS the day went on though headaches returned... Friday he was uncomfortable, confused (sometimes) and in pain. He was on morphine and percoset (probably spelling that wrong, I know) . He said some very sad and...

So, I've been away. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I was bitching about my "bad day" last Monday and I wish I could go back a week and tell myself to chill the hell out. It's not that bad. On Tuesday I got the worst phone call of my life. I was home at lunch. My aunt called. "I'm afraid I have bad news for you." My heart sunk to the bottom of my stomach; my legs starting quaking. I was fearing that one of my grandparents had died. "It's your Dad. He's being rushed to the Rochester. He's very sick. This is very serious and your Mom wants you here as soon as possible." By that time the actual insides of my body - my legs, hands, arms, torso had turned to absolute jello. I've never felt myself shaking on the inside before. I started crying. I couldn't stand. The Boy had a horrified look on his face. I'm sure he had no idea what was going on except that I was melting onto the floor in front of him. ...

How on earth can a Monday be SO MUCH LIKE a Monday? Okay - to recap weekend... Meeting of all parents went great. Lots of gabbing and getting to know each other, oohing over wild rice soup and scarfing up massive quantities of beef dip, veggies, cheesecake, pumpkin bars, etc. It was delish. I wasn't quite ready when my folks arrived...but it worked out okay - I did some power dusting/decorating and I don't think anyone really noticed. Saturday - the Boy and Dad worked on the still leaking bathtub/shower - yay! It works and no longer leaks. Yes!!! We ate scrumptious baked goods from way-to-close bakery and later went to visit the Boy's Mom at her new townhome. Our Mothers - lots of gabbing...heh heh. My folks bought a townhome about 3 years ago so they love looking at other new townhomes. Ah the joys of "adulthood." Heh. When we got home - lo and behold - some PUNK smashed in the back window of my Dad's van. Boy was I pissed. I seriously think ther...

Ah....one of the things I do best: procrastinate. I should be cleaning, baking, making candies, making soup, cleaning, getting out my "autumn deocrations," laundry, eating, uh, I mean, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...etc. My 'rents are coming tomorrow and tomorrow night the Boy & I are hosting them, his parents & their significant others....for cocktails and soup and other assorted munchies....nice autumn fare...The house is still a bit of a disaster (post-rummage sale) and I have loads of cooking to do and The Apprentice is on tonight (which I must watch) and and and... I wish I had tomorrow off.... eeeeeeek!

yes...this post is entitled cat pee. Why? Because I have cats who are spraying like mad fiends in the house. The constant cleaning is not doing the trick. The cleaning with the "anti-urine" spray is not working. The phermone spray to calm and relax the cats...you guessed it...not working. The boy and I were joking around on Sunday night about why we've grown so close. "Well, it's because we do so many fun things together," I said. "Like scrubbing the floor, donning rubber gloves and cleaning up lots of cat pee, " he added. Or the game we've devised out of cleaning the litter box. Yes. That's right "game." I mean come on after a while the strong aroma of amonia starts eating away at brain cells and you're left devising games out of scooping bits of poop out of the litter box. *sigh* Today I scrubbed the bookshelves...yep - now they're spraying BOOKS! The only one I had to pitch was a copy of Who's Afraid of Vir...

*sigh* sooooo nice to be (mostly) crap free! The garage sale was a pretty good success...we made probably about $200 between the two of us...and took everything else to Goodwill right away afterwards. I just knew that things would start creeping back into the house if we didn't. There were some interesting characters over the two days. Wow. A play is just waiting to be written about that whole day. Our neighbors A & D had a garage sale too so that was fun. We hung out all day. After the sale we grilled steaks & ate together at their place, then walked back over to ours for dessert and much talking. It was fun. We really need to focus on getting/maintaining new friendships as our current friends are pretty damn flakey. I'm pooped right now...we went biking after work. On a trail - something I had never done before. It was a little bit tough for me but I think I did okay. I fell over once. The queen of smooth I am not. Oh well. Just a little scraped knee for my wim...

Well, today I'm at home. A "vacation" day. Hardly. I have been sweeping & cleaning the garage for the past couple hours this morning. Hanging tarps to cover the obligatory crap that adorns every garage (and things we don't want to sell), sweeping endless bits of dust, dirt and crap, and hauling stuff from house to garage. But I don't know exactly everything the Boy wants to sell and some of it is in the loft in the garage...which I cannot get stuff down from alone. *sigh* And I priced crap for 5 hours last night and I'm sick of it! I want to get to the fun part of selling my shit and putting cash in the cashbox. heh heh suckers. I can't wait. :-)

TGIT - Today is my Friday and I am sooooo happy! I have taken one of my remaining 7.5 vacation days tomorrow...so I can sit at home and go through garage sale items, clean the house, go to th eye doctor, bake zuchinni bread & pumpkin cookies and watch the debate with my boy. God, I love Fridays! Today is pretty decent - this week has sucked so a day with no MAJOR problems seems golden. I did get the plumbing fixed. $126 later. Actually much better than I had anticipated but still. Ugh. I also paid the furnace dude $69.99 last week so that the boy and I wouldn't wake up dead after the furnace kicks on some night from CO poisoning. I do however have a 1 square foot hole cut out of said dining room ceiling. Ugh. Hopefully we can patch that up so it doesn't look as hideous as it does now. And oh, my recommendation - DON'T USE DRAINO* (* or draino knock-off) to clean old pipes. It is just too destructive (and yet, the pipe is still clogged). Calgon take me away!! Th...

*sigh* how can Mondays be SO MUCH LIKE MONDAYS sometimes? It started with a phone call from the boy - "I put the draino in the tub and now there's water leaking through the ceiling into the dining room." Yeah. Great. So there's that. There's the fact that my Mac & digi video camera are suddenly and simaultaneously going on the fritz...and I'M STILL NOT DONE WITH A FINAL CUT OF THE FILM PEOPLE! There's the fact that it was 29 degrees when I went to work today; the cable box is freaking out and not giving me my show "info" with each flick of the remote; there's the fact that we're having a garage sale on Saturday and have NOTHING ready for it; we didn't eat dinner until after 9pm again tonight; there are mountains of laundry to do; the cats sprayed some of my books.....and it just keeps going on and on.... In other news - Applefest was a lot of fun - beautiful, quaint little town, sunshine and autumn colors. We had the best co...

The 43rd Bayfield Applefest awaits! Yee haw!! Thank god it's sunny! I'm off to enjoy the fall colors, the hay rides, winetasting, art booths and apple-everything! ps - I think the Boy is getting ready to buy his first brand-spanking new car...in which case the above will be delayed by a couple hours.... :-) How very exciting!

So I finished the wedding video last night (my cousin's)....dumped it out to mini-dv so I can make a couple of VHS's....I spent 2 of my "free" nights this week over at J's working on this and was SO looking forward to popping it in the mail tomorrow morning and being DONE. After work today I started making the VHS only to find out the mini-dv tape I used is CRAP. There is a flaw in it somewhere and random pixelations, jaggy digi lines etc pepper the video. Great. And that was the 60 minute tape (full) that it happened on....not the short one with only 15 minutes...no, that would be too easy...and Carrster's life doesn't GET to be easy, does it? :-( So, tomorrow I'm sending off the DVD's regardless. I will apologize and tell them the VHS's are on the way....I hate problems. So tonight I have to run around - by CD cases for the DVD's, print & cut out the artwork (because, you know, J would NEVER consider actually helping with ANYTHING e...