Graduation!

For the third year in a row we traveled to Knoxville Tennessee on the first weekend of May. The event? Graduation! 

This was the year for our youngest son to graduate from Johnson University and oh what a graduation it was. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and was inducted into Delta Epsilon Chi Honor Society.  

Graduation celebrations actually started the week before when the Junior/Senior Banquet was held and Senior Superlatives were awarded. Andrew came home with a few: Most Huggable, Best to take home to Mom and Dad, and the second part of Should Have Been a Couple. Here's a photo of him and some of his fellow awardees  (Andew is second on the left)

Upon arriving on campus Friday afternoon we attended the annual tea at the White House that was hosted by Dr Weedman and his wife. Dale took a panoramic photo of the table spread (first time using this feature on his phone) 

Here's our graduate cooling off with a little punch  
I was NOT dressed for the day. when we left home it was raining and COLD. Up in Tennessee it was still sunny and hot!

Dale wasn't dressed for it either ... and I stink at taking photos, they're squinting because they're facing the sun. 
Andrew and his friend Jacob. "seriously Mom, go away!"

Dale took some outside shots - they look a lot like they did the previous year!
     

On to Graduation Night. This year the event was held at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium. Gathering outside, getting a little anxious to get the show on the road.
 
in the front here is Ben, Andrew's roommate for the last three years.


Last year when we met Ben's parents his mom told me that Andrew was the brother Ben never had. Awww, sweet!

We were lucky to get there early enough to get seats fairly close to the front. Ian had to work but made it just before they started. Of course we had to find our boy's name on the roster 

Andrew's boss, mentor, and friend, Dr Cook got a photo of him crossing the stage to receive his diploma


Dr Weedman presents his diploma 

Now let the fun begin. Celebrating with friends

After graduation roomies! Andrew, Cody, Ben, Austin, and Tyler

Big group shot 

Gretchen, Andrew and Maria

The Brainiacs - Sam, Austin, and Andrew. They have so much to be proud of!

Andrew and Alex

Devon and Andrew

Dr  Steve Cook and Andrew

and family, the proud parents and big brother.  

 Mom is so proud of both her sons, she can't stop talking about it ... even to get her picture taken.

Dad and Ian remember this time last year ....

It took forever to leave. It's hard when suddenly you realize that all these people you just spent the last four years living, learning, and growing with are suddenly moving on to the next step. But, for Andrew it won't be quite as hard. His plans for after graduation include moving into an apartment with four of his friends (see photo near the top) and he has procured a job working in the Registrars Office at the University.  He's so excited and I'm excited for him even through my sadness knowing my nest really is officially EMPTY.

As our sons are moving on to new phases in their lives, Dale and I are finding ourselves doing so also. None of us is sure of what the future holds but we are certain of one thing - no matter how much distance separates us - we will always be bound by the love, admiration, and devotion we hold for each other. Family ... it's what life is all about.

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Thanks to modern technology - Skype, Facetime, and text messaging - we're all just a click away! Woohoo!!

In case you were wondering. Probably not, but just in case ....

So, it's pretty obvious I've fallen off the blogging wagon. I've tried several times to "get back on the bicycle" and ride again but to no avail. To be perfectly honest I've got so much going on physically, mentally, and emotionally, that I just haven't felt the call to share my life with the blogging world.

No wait, I take that back. I have thought about sharing it, I'm just not sure the world is ready to hear what I have to say.

But, today

I am contemplating giving it one more try. If I do, it will have an entirely different "ring" to it though. Sooo, if it comes to fruition I might just have to start a whole new blog site. I've already come up with a new name just in case ... it will be titled: SAIDFRAZ - Mid-life Crisis - Are We There Yet?

What do you think? Should I go for it? Or, should I crawl back under my rock and slip away into oblivion?

While you ponder that I will give you a couple of quick updates.

1. For the first time in my life (at least that I can remember) I do not have a cat living in my home. On April 13th my beloved Spunky was attacked in our backyard. It was right in front of my husband and happened in a flash. Her injuries were such that we had to make the difficult decision to have her put to sleep. I love cats but I'm here to say if I ever, EVER get the chance I will capture that stupid %^&# ninja cat and take him to be put down. He doesn't deserve to go humanely but if I told you I would kill him myself you'd hate me. 
2. My youngest son graduates from college this week. He's graduating with honors and we are so proud of him. 
3. Same son has made the decision to stay in Knoxville after graduation and will be working for the university. They sorta created a position just for him. He's that good!
4. Oldest son, still living in Knoxville will be moving into a house with new roommates. In anticipation of his move he's already acquired a cat - my first grandchild! Unfortunately his move has been postponed a couple of months and he cannot keep the cat with him at his current apartment. So, mom and dad to the rescue. Lyra will be coming home with us this weekend. Oldest son better hope Mom doesn't get too attached to his little girl, otherwise he'll be in the market for a new one. 
5. Two sons, both living in Tennessee. Two parents, living in an empty nest in Georgia. What can I say? Maybe it's time to think about relocation??

Oh yeah, the catkins are back and once again my dear, darling, light-of-my-life husband keeps tracking them into the house.  

Pray for me that this season passes before I go postal!

According to Eddie these trees at school


smell like

goose poop,

dead fish, 

and 

rotten food!

For once I'm glad that my allergies have my nose all stopped up. What I want to know is, how can something so beautiful smell so bad?

Happy Spring!

Spring break and we're all under one roof

Scenario: Andrew is home for spring break and Ian blew in Tuesday night for a surprise three day visit. Mom and Dad are in hog heaven, it's beyond wonderful to have both our sons home at the same time.

Ian came bearing gifts - he never forgets his mom's once a year craving

Peeps! It wouldn't be Easter without them. 

While we're all having a great time being together - talking, laughing, guys watching basketball, eating and let's not forget basket upon basket of dirty laundry - yesterday was an exercise in ... something. I can't come up with a good word for it so I will just tell the story. I actually wrote this last night so if the "time frame" seems a bit off that's why. 

Since Ian has to go back to Tennessee tomorrow I was determined to fix him a “good” home cooked meal. He cooked for us the night before so I figured it was only right for me to return the favor. There was an issue though - what should I fix? Most of our usual standby favorites had already been eaten earlier in the week and the only thing left was Italian. Spaghetti was out since Andrew and Dale aren't real fans of it and I didn't want pizza. What was left? How about lasagna? Hmm, well why not, especially since I make a pretty good lasagna (oops, excuse the boasting).

I must tell you, I have a hard time calling it lasagna because my grandmother, God rest her soul, always referred to it as BASAGNA!

So, basagna it is! I didn't have any of the ingredients on hand and would have to stop at Kroger on the way home from picking up Eddie. I usually avoid taking him grocery shopping with me because ... well he totally distracts me (and for the record it's not just him that I don't like taking grocery shopping, husband and sons drive me crazy at the grocery store too,) and he comments on every single item that I buy. Shopping with Eddie makes me feel like I'm being scrutinized and judged for my food choices. I'm not sure why I let an eleven year old make me feel guilty for buying Cheetos and wine, I guess I might have issues. Annnyway, sometimes I just have to grit my teeth and do what needs to be done. This was one of those times.

I'll go ahead and admit that I had a goal in mind for this meal. A) it had to wow my guys and convince them  that mommy really can cook and B) I needed to at least match, if not surpass, my own son's gourmet cooking skills. (He cooked for us the night before and it was delicious. I'll admit he didn't get his cooking skills from me, it's from watching all those cooking shows over the years. Is it sad that I was making it into a competition with my own kid? Wow, maybe I really do have ISSUES!)  Anyway, regular old lasagna wasn't going to win it for me, I needed to ramp it up a notch to get the desired results. So, I picked up several little extras to give my meal a little oomph. Extras such as adding Italian sausage to the ground beef, saute'd mushrooms as a topping, a whole loaf of hot, buttery garlic bread instead of our usual Texas toast, and the icing on the cake … err, that would be pie. Yes! I was serving dessert. Key lime pie. Yum!

Lasagna is not a meal that can be prepared in twenty minutes, it takes a lot of time so we rushed home from Kroger so could I began fixing dinner right away. It's not like there's only a small window of time that we're allowed to eat in but Andrew is used to eating in the cafeteria at school around 5pm. It's always hard for him to come home and have to wait for mom and dad's 6:30 to 7 dinner hour, so when he and his brother are home I try to have dinner ready earlier than usual. So far this week I've failed miserable at this but I figured tonight, if I could stay focused and stick to my plan, I'd actually might be able to pull it off.

Well, you know what they say about what we want and what actually happens. Midway through the meal prep things started going south ...

First the phone rings and it's my mother. I almost didn't take the call because she rarely calls me unless she's having troubles with her computer. I'm the go to guy for computer and tv problems which really aren't earth shattering problems and I figured the call could wait til after dinner. But something told me I better answer anyway. Good call. It was worse than a computer problem, she's lost her purse. She was trying not to panic but I could hear it in her voice, she was close to the edge.

I tried to calm her down, asked questions and encouraged her to keep looking, all while I'm finishing up browning meat and mixing the sauce. I'm getting close to the point where I need two hands to start assembling the dish. I'm trying to figure out how to get off the phone without upsetting her more when I look up and see the cat dipping her paw into the can where I just poured the grease from the frying pan. Second later Eddie comes in and wants to heat up his food in the microwave. No! You CANNOT put a metal thermos in the microwave and no, I don't have time to explain why. Yikes! Everybody STOP and let me cook. Please! I finally disconnected from the phone call, got the kid fed and shooed the cat away. Hopefully this will be the last of the distractions. If not, all bets are off that we'll manage to eat before nine o'clock.

Fortunately everything else came together just fine and despite the hectic-ness (that is so not a word but I'm using it anyway) dinner turned out great. We all stuffed ourselves and still had enough left over for another meal. But now, I have a stomach ache. I'm not sure if it's from the rich and spicy food. Or, it might be from overeating, or maybe the stress of trying to pull it all together. It's probably a combination of all of the above. I hate when I put so much unnecessary stress on myself by trying to make things perfect.

These days our family times together are few and far between. I need to learn to relax and make the most of what time we do have. I need to remember what's most important is not so much what we eat or what we do but simply being together.

I'm glad to report that my mother found her missing purse (and for the record it wasn't lost it was just misplaced), the cat did not throw up from eating grease, I've got a four day weekend coming up, AND tomorrow my husband and I celebrate 26 years of marriage. Yay for us!

Darn it all, I didn't take one photo of my perfect meal. Boo! But, here's what Ian served us the night before. Doesn't it look good?

After graduation Andrew can join us with a glass of wine, 35 days and counting.
Actually, after graduating two sons I think Dale and I deserve a bottle of champagne!

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home

Time for a confession ... I just ate the most unhealthiest of lunches. And it was soooo good!

My usual lunch fare is a turkey or roast beef sandwich on toasted, swiss-cheese-topped hoagie bread. Sounds yummy, huh? Well, it is. It's also full of calories.

Lately it's been impossible to hide that fact that my mid-section has become quite

... how shall I put it?

Fluffy?

Oh, who am I kidding - I'm fat! But, living this life of fluffy-fattness isn't making me very happy so I've decided to make a few changes, starting with my lunch fare. I purposely didn't buy any deli meat at the grocery store this weekend. Also gone is the white hoagie bread buns.

So, what does one turn to for lunch options when the mainstay has been eliminated? Well, how about leftovers from the previous night's dinner? That's great when you're eating leftover veggies and such but dinners at my house aren't always on the right side of healthy. Sometimes I go for easy, yummy, and I-don't-care-how-many-calories-I'm-eating dinners. Last night was one of those nights. We had Brinner (that's breakfast served as dinner for the uninitiated) which consisted of waffles (sugar free syrup for the hubs, of course), scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits.

Fortunately or not, depending on what you think about day-old rubbery eggs and hockey-puck-hard grits, the only leftover was bacon. 

Whenever I cook bacon I always fix way more than we can eat at one sitting. I then refrigerate it for later use in salads, as a topping on a casserole, seasoning in green beans, etc. Today however, I decided to toss tradition to the wind and reheated the bacon for my lunch. Thirty seconds in the microwave and it was as good as the night before. Apparently the cat agreed because as soon as I pulled it from the microwave she was stuck to my side like glue. (And yes, I shared my bacon with the little princess.)

So, let me tell you ... that bacon was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! It was so good that the original four pieces I reheated morphed into seven. Nom, nom, nom, yummy-in-my-tummy good. I'm pretty sure though, that I will pay for my indulgence later in the day. All that grease two days in a row can't be good for me and I'm pretty sure I didn't save any calories by switching out bacon for bread.

To top it all off,  my house now reeks of the smell of the bacon for the second day in a row.

Oh well, it was a good idea at the time and so worth whatever price I may pay later. BUT, I think the next time I have a craving for Brinner I'll suggest we head over to iHop and eliminate the temptation of leftovers.
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as a side note, have you noticed lately how BACON is the THE food of choice these days? Everybody's cooking with bacon. My condolences to the piggies of the world. 

One small step

I did it!



I finally painted the kitchen cabinets. The task of taking them from red to white proved to be a lot harder than I anticipated. I was challenged by several things - first, and not entirely unexpected, was the amount of paint it called for. Second, I just don't have the stamina I once had and was forced to spread the work out over a week and a half. And third, mentally I wasn't aware of just how attached I was to my red cabinets and wasn't prepared for how much I would miss them.

I had almost a full gallon of Behr Paint with Primer on hand. The fact that I wasn't going to have to spring for paint (have you priced a gallon of paint lately? Yowsa!) was the deciding factor that tipped the scale in favor of tackling this project. This was going to be a cheap and easy project. Yeah, right.

I took advantage of a Monday with no Eddie to start painting and began in the breakfast area of the kitchen. I figured it was easier to start there where I could knock it out fairly quickly, painting the wainscoting before moving on to the actual cabinets. I wasn't naive enough to think one coat of paint would cover the red, but was really thinking two would do the trick. I was quickly disappointed when the first coat wasn't covering well at all. Imagine my delight (and dismay) when I discovered I was painting with ceiling paint and not wall/trim paint. Doh! It pays to pay attention to what you're doing.

there's wainscoting behind the bench, promise!

 After switching to the right paint I quickly took care of the wainscoting and moved on to the cabinets where I removed all the doors. By this point I was already tired but forced myself to press on. I had to take advantage of my kid-free/husband-free work day. I successfully applied two coats on the outer shells of all the cabinets before calling it quits.

The following day Eddie walked in after school and pointed out the obvious, "hey, you're painting!" He went on to voice his approval and added, "it looks good without the doors, you can see where everything is." I had to chuckle at his diplomatic approach. I think all those lessons his mother has been pounding into his head about making only positive comments is finally sinking in. Either that or he's trying to save me work. The funny thing is, just the night before I had commented to my husband how I would like to try the open cabinet look. But, coming from an eleven year old it suddenly sounded weird not to mention a timely Facebook post by a friend discouraged me further. She claimed it was impossible to keep the dishes clean when they're out in the open like that and we all know how I abhor extra cleaning. What sealed the deal was the look my husband gave me when I initially suggested it. Fine people, rain on my parade!

one of two painting assembly lines. Please excuse the surrounding mess, I *am* painting you know

I didn't attempt any more painting until the weekend. Before putting paint on the doors I had to remove all the hinges and handles. After the painting was complete all that hardware had to be reattached and the doors rehung. I have 19 doors, 5 drawers, and 4 hooks which, when it's all said and done, amounts to removing and reattaching 492 screws (508 if you count the two doors that were put back upside down and had to be fixed).

BEFORE

AFTER

Did I mention that when I started this project I promised my dear husband that I would try to keep the chaos to a minimum and I would do all the work myself? Yes, me and my handy little screwdriver worked ourselves silly. As luck would have it dear husband finally took pity on me and took over, with his handy electric drill, and rehung the last nine doors lickty-split. But by then the damage was done. My fingers, wrist, and elbow felt like they'd been through a meat grinder, and it wasn't just my right arm but both since I'm apparently ambidextrous when it comes to using tools.

Note to self for future home improvement projects - always, ALWAYS check first to see if there is a power tool that can be used to get the job done. And never, NEVER tell your husband you can do the job yourself. ... he might just take you at your word! And speaking of projects ... I failed to mention that I did not have the resources to make a few of the changes I desperately wanted to make. Specifically speaking, I want to change out the hardware! Yes, you read that right. I really, really, REALLY hate the brass hinges and white porcelain and brass handles on my cabinets and one day, as God as my witness, I will change them! Ok, sorry, I got a little over dramatic there but you can bet, next time around, I will use the drill.

Anywho, the painting is done and my kitchen is pretty much back in order. Switching from the red to the white has really brightened things up. I look at it and am pleased with the change but I'm also reminded why I painted them red to begin with ... every tiny imperfection and each and every speck of dirt glaringly stands out. The crisp white of the cabinets also makes the appliances and floor look dingy and worn. We won't even talk about ugly white laminate countertop that screams, "put me out of my misery!"

Sigh.

For now, I'm just going to focus on how bright the kitchen looks and be thankful for tiny improvements. I think my dear husband is pretty happy about it too because he knows I will work hard to keep everything looking clean and fresh (for awhile anyway).

Why ... I might even ramp it up a notch and

mop the floor! How's that for improvement?!

I learned a new word and I'ma gonna use it!

When talking to my mother yesterday she informed me that I needed to write a few blogs, that she needed something to laugh at. Unfortunately I haven't been feeling very funny lately so I guess I will have to disappoint her on that level. But, to keep peace in the family, I will write something today. There is no theme to the blog, just a lot of mish-mash (my term for filling space).

I learned a new word today - insouciant - it means showing a casual lack of concern, indifferent. I read it here http://now.msn.com/penelope-soto-florida-teen-jailed-for-giving-judge-the-finger. Lesson learned - a person's insouciant behavior in court can lead to a higher fine and thirty days in jail. Apparently this chic never got the memo that hair-tossing and giggling, followed by finger flipping is frowned upon in our judicial system. Sadly she probably still doesn't get it and will eventually end up back before a judge in no time.

We've had a lot of rain and cloudy days this winter. I think that's probably why I'm not feeling very funny, it's hard to find humor in dreary weather. It's also hard to find motivation to do much when all I really want to do is hunker down in a blanket and zone out in front of the TV. Usually I have a list a mile long of things I want to do and find it hard to pinpoint what to tackle first but right now I'm sporting an insouciant attitude towards making that list, much less acting on it.

See how I used my new word there? Clever, huh?

Every once in awhile I do have a day where I get a burst of energy and manage to accomplish some small feat. Wednesday was that day. It probably came about because the sun actually made an appearance and it proved to be a mild day. I decided to take advantage of the good weather and took the cat outside for some play time. Spunky's been feeling a lot like me lately - sorta blah - and I thought the time outside would cheer her up. She had a grand time roaming around the backyard. She was inspecting every little thing as if she'd never seen it before. I guess it's been too long since her last romp.

I decided that I should follow her around and video her escapades .... cause you know, everyone loves to see videos of kitties.

I actually caught her in the act of climbing up to the treehouse, something we've wondered how she managed to do. As you can see, it was no easy task but she finally made it up there. After a few minutes of investigating her surroundings she got this gleam in her eye. I recognized the gleam as I've seen it many times before. The cat is about to spazz out. She tears down the board and races lickity-split across the yard to the back porch. This feline is freaking fast. When she's in this mode, I swear she is part jaguar. Or, maybe it's cheetah. Whatever. She is breaking the sound barrier as she goes from spot A to spot B.

Because I knew what was about to happen I was able to capture it on on video ('cause I just knew all of you would want to see it). Except, I didn't. Because my stupid phone didn't have enough space in it record. Sob. I missed the whole darn thing.

Well, dagnabbit, we can't have that happen again now can we? One never knows when an award winning video opportunity might present itself so obviously something needed to be done. The logical thing would be to clear up space by deleting photos off my phone. I didn't have the time or energy to go through them one by one and pick what needed to be saved and what could be deleted so I decided my course of action would be to remove all of them from my phone and deposit them onto my laptop where I could later decide which were keepers and which were goners. However, knowing me and my current state of non-motivation I wasn't so sure just when I would get around to that purging process.

I also wasn't too keen about not having any photos readily available on my phone for impromptu postings to Facebook and Instagram, and then there's always my Project 365.  I needed to be able to access the photos from my phone and my laptop. Long story short (aren't you glad?) I decided to try out Dropbox which would enable me to do just that. All I had to do was download the app to my phone and my computer, set up an account and start the download (or is it upload, never can keep those two processes straight). Sounds easy, right? Well it is. But, it's also very time consuming. As in it took me ten, yes TEN hours to download 1100 photographs. By the time it completed I could have manually gone through the pictures myself and made the decision to keep or delete each one ... about three times over!

Ai-yi-yi I'm sure there must have been a simpler solution to my problem but if there is I don't want to know about it. What's done is done and now I have a whopping 1.8GB of available space on my phone. What the heck? That's not much more than it was before. Obviously the problem wasn't so much the photos as the apps I have on my phone? I really do need to read up on my phone and figure out what I'm doing here. Meanwhile, I'll just carry on with my insouciant self and make a list of things I want to accomplish over the next couple of weeks ... if I ever get up the energy and motivation.


these babies are going white

these babies are screaming for me to put my craft hat back on


but a small stack of hundreds of books that need to be gone through and re-homed


a garage that needs to be purged

and


this baby that needs lots of love and attention. (And perhaps a little brother or sister??) She appears to have a pretty insouciant attitude regarding the whole situation. But what do you expect? She is, after all, a CAT. She'd probably show the judge the finger too ... if she had fingers!

Argh!

One should not enter into a home improvement project unless the following criteria can be met:

1. there is a definite idea of what the finished project will look like
2. there are sufficient funds to buy the necessary supplies to complete the work, plus a little surplus for the unexpected surprises that always accompany these projects
3. there are enough available hours to complete the project while keeping the chaos to a minimum
4. there is total support and approval from family members, specifically the spouse, who will be impacted by the work

At the moment I have not met ALL of the above criteria, therefore I am not embarking on a new project.

But I really, really want to. 

Dry Cracked Feet?

In the last year or so I've developed really bad dry, cracked feet. Sorry, I know that's TMI for some of you. Anyway after weeks of trying all kinds of creams and lotions I finally found one that has worked wonders. I apply it religiously twice a day and it keeps things pretty much under control. Another plus, I've also discovered that it works well on rough elbows. Yay for smooth skin!

For the most part I am a woman of routine. If something isn't a part of my regular routine then there's a good chance it won't get done. If I miss even one day of twice applied cream rubs I notice a difference immediately. Therefore I have to make sure there are set times to apply this miracle cream to my feet.

The obvious first time is in the morning after showering, when I'm applying makeup and drying my hair. Rubbing the cream on my feet before doing all the other stuff allows plenty of time for it to dry before getting dressed. I then go merrily about my day.

The next obvious time would be at night just before climbing into bed. The liberal nighttime applications allows plenty of time for the cream to soak in and soften these rough tootsies.

But for me, nothing is ever as easy as it should be. My bedtime routine has been a tricky one to maintain for several reasons. First of all I obviously have to bare my feet before applying the cream, the key word being "bare." I don't know about you but to me "winter" and "bare feet" shouldn't go in the same sentence. When it's cold outside around here it's generally cold inside too. This calls for extra measures to be taken ... extra measures such as wearing socks to bed. Well poop. Now I have to choose between soft feet and warm feet.  Ugh, I really dread taking off my warm socks and climbing into a coooold bed but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Second to my dilemma, I go to bed much later than my husband. It's usually lights out for him around 11:30 but I stay up, on the computer and watching TV, until around 1:00 AM or later depending on how wired I am. The problem? I've yet to find a way to put the foot cream on without disturbing his sleep. First off, where should I sit to apply my foot cream? If I sit on the bed I wake him up as I  plop my fat butt down sit (obviously we don't have one of those mattresses that doesn't transfer movement, nope it's a lumpy old mattress that's almost as old as my marriage). I can sit in the chair next to the bed but it has squeaky springs that make enough noise getting in and out of, that it could raise a dead person. I could also do it in the bathroom but if I don't wait a sufficiently long time I end up sliding across the floor and catapulting into bed. Don't ask me how I know this will happen.

Oh, what to do, what to do? I figure I'm going to wake him up anyway so I might as well play it safe and sit on the side of the bed, and hope for the best. The best being I don't wake him up. The next best being he wakes up but turns over and goes right back to sleep. The worst ... well, I won't go into details but it ends with a grumpy, overly tired husband  ... one who ends up snoozing his alarm clock 467 times the next morning.

On to the next hurdle ... opening the tube of foot cream.   There's no easy way to do it without it making a LOUD popping sound. I guess to a sleeping person it's tantamount to the cork from a champagne bottle going off. Pow!, In a relatively quiet room this sufficiently startles even the soundest of sleepers. Oh good grief. At this point I just pat him on the back and say, "what? Did you have a bad dream?"

Once I've applied the miracle foot cream the third and final hurdle presents itself - getting my cold, greasy feet under the sheets without once again disturbing my back-to-sleep husband. The getting in bed is not the hard part, it's what I do after I'm between the sheets that is ...

Stop! Get your mind out of the gutter.

The problem? I don't know about you but when I have cold feet I have this overwhelming urge to attach them to whatever warmth I can find. That would, of course, be the warm backside of my husband. It's like his body is a magnet and my feet are being pulled to him and it takes every ounce of will power that I can muster to not assail him with cold feet. But most of the time I don't and it's not because I'm a sweet loving wife. Nope, it's more because even the manliest of men does NOT like cold feet touching him, ESPECIALLY not at night, and ESPECIALLY not on a cold night when he is snuggled, warm under the covers fast asleep. To do so is only inviting said husband to take revenge ... do I need to repeat the line above about snoozing the alarm THAT STARTS GOING OFF AT FIVE %^&* THIRTY IN THE MORNING?!?!

Now I know what many of you are thinking, I could just forego the nightly slathering of foot cream. Or, even more reasonable, I could actually go to bed at a decent hour and take care of all this before he falls asleep. But then, where is the fun in all that?  And what, pray tell, would I have to blog about?

Whatever did I do before without Facebook?

The simple answer to the question would be, before Facebook I didn't share with the world every little minute bit of my life.

But now I do.

It's like an addiction.

Sometimes I wish I would stop. Many times I'm sure there are people out there that wish I WOULD stop. The glorious thing about Facebook though is NO ONE is required to read what I write. And, they are more than welcome to stop at any time. They're also free to disagree with me at any time (but be careful doing so on MY wall, 'cause if you tick me off your comment is gone ... and if you continue to tick me off, YOU may be gone too!).

For the most part I try to keep my statuses light and non-controversial, very rarely will you see me post about politics or religion. It's not because I don't have an opinion, or that I don't care. I do. I just don't share it because a lot of the time my thoughts aren't what you'd expect. It might even change the way you think about me. And we all know I have a problem with how others see me. I want to be liked and I want your approval. (Just call me Sally Field, oops, showing my age here) Isn't it ironic then, that I chose to put myself out there on Facebook (and my blog??).

Anyway, Facebook. Status Updates. Light and non-controversial. That's me.

I went back and looked at what I've posted over the last few weeks and decided to bring you some of  (what I consider) my best ones. Those of you who are friends in real life and follow me on Facebook, you can stop reading now since you've already seen it. Unless of course I annoy you on Facebook and you have me hidden ... then, haha, the joke's on you!

 
Ok, this first one isn't so light and airy. Yes, I admit it ... I was in a MOOD. I have several "friends" that every time they pin something on their Pinterest account it shows up in my news feed. Guess what, I don't need or want to see what you're pinning. That's what Pinterest is for, where I can pick and choose who to follow and what boards I like. The rest is invisible to me. Or should be UNLESS YOU SHOW IT ON FACEBOOK every. single. time. you pin. Ok, rant over. I found the simple solution was to hide certain people on FB which, for the record, makes me sad because now I also don't see the "other" stuff they post. Oh well, that's life.

 
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Jimmy Kimmel. In fact I agree with my friend Beth's response - if I'm going to watch a late night guy I would choose Jimmy over the other too. But, I don't generally watch late night talk shows, it's just not my thing. I really liked watching Nightline before switching over to HGTV. It provided interesting news stories. Now I just go straight to HGTV and get sucked in there, so no turning back to Nightline at it's new later hour. Thanks ABC for helping, once again, to dumb down America.


Don't get me wrong, I love my cat. I want her to be warm and happy and content. However, I don't want to share my chair with her. I want to be able to get up and go to the bathroom or get something to eat or run out to get the mail and not come back to a chair full of cat. She looks at me with disdain when I tell her to move. She makes me feel guilty for disturbing her ... which wouldn't happen if she'd just stay where she was to begin with. This is the look I get when I roust her out of my chair 
If you look into her eyes I think you can see her plotting my demise.


I know you find it hard to believe but some times I do whine. Notice two people liked this status. All the others probably rolled their eyes and asked, "do you think she wants a little cheese to go with that whine?"

I followed up not long after with this ...

A truly embarrassing but totally hysterical chapter in my life. As it was occurring I couldn't help but think, "I can't believe this is happening." After it was over all I could think was, "boy am I glad I didn't have to pay for dozens of broken wine bottles," followed by, "thank goodness there weren't more people around to witness this," and "gosh, I wish I had a video to post on Facebook." So there you have it. I CAN laugh at myself!


I really do "love" leaving the refrigerator door open and do it every night while preparing dinner. But my momma did teach me well and I constantly harped at my own kids, "close the door, we're not refrigerating the whole kitchen." It's one of those "do what I say, not what I do" things that will be handed down from one generation to another.


We had day after day after day with clouds and rain. I use to enjoy a good rainy day but not so much anymore. It might have something to do with a back porch and patio that floods every time it rains, Or it might just be me becoming a cranky old woman. Either way, one day of rain I can handle but more than that and I want to scream. And, if I hear one more person claim, "but we need the rain," I might just lose it. I mean seriously, I NEED to sit and eat chips and watch TV but that doesn't make it a good thing now does it? Yes, I know I'm not being rational here but hey, it's my blog and I can say whatever I want . So there! Anyway, I wasn't posting to complain about the rain but to rejoice in the sunshine. Yay, sun!


I was really sad because a favorite show, Fringe, was coming to an end. It was just like losing Lost all over again (and for the record the Fringe finale was much better than the Lost one). I just don't get why shows like American Idol and those dumb dance shows keep going. All the reality shows are a waste of my time (well, not really because I don't watch any of them). And don't get me started about the "new" shows the networks give us only to yank them out from under us after a few episodes. It's almost to the point where I don't want to even start watching something new anymore because I know the chances are it will be gone in a flash. I guess the answer would be to stop watching TV and do something else with my time.

And all who know me laugh. They know that's not to happen in this household!


For the record, I'm not really doing so great with this resolution, but I am working on it.

Sometimes I just can't help myself though.

I come by it honestly. It's a family trait. If you're reading this and you have an ounce of West blood in you, you know you're guilty so don't even try denying it.



This post was from yesterday. I think my husband gets irritated sometimes when I post things like this. TMI Personally I think it's hilarious that we've been eating off/with things the cat has licked. Sure it's a tad gross but you know what? It hasn't killed us yet! Of course if my dogs were still alive and one of them was licking the spoon I would have been thoroughly grossed out but somehow it's just different with the cat.

So there you have it. A sampling of my life on Facebook. Nothing special. Nothing controversial. Just ho hum everyday life. So why, you ask, do I post all this stuff?

I don't know why. Does there really have to be a reason?

Now lets look at the flip side of Facebook. The things I see, the things that keep me coming back ...


My beautiful niece and great-niece in Connecticut that we seldom see in person but are regularly "see" on FB.

 
My husband making a statement that sadly most people don't really get.



A wonderful achievement shared by a homeschooling-mom friend.



A photo of someone who is no longer in my life but will always hold a special place in my heart. So happy to see her smiling face!


A random person that I've found who loves cats as much as I do and provides a special service for them. And shares it on the Internet. Squee!


A photo of a friend's daughter. I taught her at our co-op when she was just a young thing. Now's she's all grown up and so beautiful.


Two friends on opposite ends of the spectrum. A friend from my childhood that is having kitty issues (it's a good thing Tashi is such a cute kitty), and a friend of my son's from college, we share our loathing of a sports team.


Childhood friend and I have the same warped sense of humor.


A friend from high school, another cat lover ... what can I say?



My nephew reminding us that he will be on Hawaii 50 tonight, woohoo!

and finally
 
I can keep track of, tabs on see what my boys are up to without being the overly involved helicopter mom.

I could go on and on, these are but a few examples of what I see on FB and why I keep coming back. Sure there's stuff out there that drive me nuts but I try to keep all that hidden. The other stuff, what you've seen on this post ... that's why I do Facebook.

So, why do you do Facebook? Is it your place to share, to keep in touch with family and catch up with old friends? Or is it your place to go to share an agenda, alienate people, and/or rant like a crazy person? Can you guess which ones will be my friend on Facebook?