Per Mary's Request

The Gingerbread Man

This is the gingerbread man that my mother made for my christmas tree. This one has a "lemon icing" trim and the other one has "vanilla icing" trim. Which means she just used different colors of yarn. :)









The Tree


Here is the decorated tree - as best as you can see. It's a lot of fun with the lights and ornaments. And we had a wonderful party and everyone came and brought the ornaments. It was a VERY full house. :)

Definitions....

Ok - it's lesson time. :)

For those who don't know - most good Yiddish terms are frequently defined in story form, because that conveys the meaning best.

For example. You've all heard the Laverne and Shirley theme song where they sing "Schlamiel, schlamazel, etc etc Incorporated!"

Well - a Schlamiel, he's a clutz. So he's the guy at the dinner who spills the soup. The Schlamazel though, he's harder to define, so the best definition is, he's the guy at the dinner upon whom the soup spills. See?

B'Shairt... (my personal favorite - though my husband calls it B'Sh*t :) ) is Fated. Meant to be. You go shopping and you find this wonderful pair of shoes that you love, but can't afford them. A few weeks later you go back, and not only are the shoes still there, but they only have one pair left, in your size, in your color, AND they are on sale! see? meant to be.

So the definition of chutzpah is basically, Balls. Nerve. Like Oh my god I can't believe they did that! The story goes, that a boy kills his parents. When he is brought to trial, he throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan. That's Chutzpah.

Well folks - we have a NEW definition of Chutzpah. We thought it might be the lady who called my Aunt M from florida to say, that my grandmother promised her one of the Lladro statues from her collection, and that she knows Grandma didn't put it in the will, but she did SAY it and she wants that statue. No... we have an even better one. (one that my friend suggests is deserving of the Golden Fist award. :) )

My Aunt R... you all remember her right? She's the crazy one! She always has dinner with my Aunt M on Friday nights for Shabbos. Well my Aunt M had just had a personal medical procedure done (NOT pleasant, but yes she is JUST fine folks) and was not feeling well. Certainly not up to company. So she actually surprisingly said NO to Aunt R. Told her that she could NOT come over for dinner. They were just going to have leftovers anyway, nothing special.

So a Little while later, Aunt R calls back to say she has been invited for dinner over at Mouse's house for Shabbos. So Aunt M is very happy, "see, she can land right on her feet and still have company etc." Well, apparently Aunt R wasn't invited, she invited herself.

To make it worse, she didn't tell Mouse that she was inviting herself. So she shows up at Mouse's house, and it's a little dark. She rings and rings, and FINALLY someone answers the door. Apparently they weren't having dinner. They were all sick and in bed. So she goes into the house, and... here is the definition of chutzpah... you ready?


Not only did she invite herself to someone's house, without telling them she was doing so mind you, not only did she get them out of sick bed to let her in, but she got them out of sick bed and got them to actually COOK french toast for her to have for Shabbos dinner since she was already there!

Now that my friends, that is TRULY an impressive feat.

Anyone want some Snow Blades?

So the verdict from the doctor is - no more skiing. No more ice skating. No more rollerskating. (sigh) I probably won't pay attention to ALL Of it, but I'm going to give up the skiing at this point.
Oh well - so I'll see if I can sell them for a reasonable amount of money. My ice skates were getting too small for me anyways and i haven't seen them in about 3 years so I'm not going to worry about them for now.

They took a NICE big chunk of miniscus. Unfortunately they weren't able to save it, though they tried. They did the whole repair and then at the end of the surgery the whole thing just fell apart and they had to remove the tear as opposed to fix it. So I will have to continue to baby the knee or I will be likely to get an arthritic knee that much earlier in my life. As a friend of mine says, it's a catch 22. You are overweight so they want you to excercise but you are very limited in the exercise you can do C'est la vie.

Not that much else going on here. Working on some knitting projects and I finished up 5 bunnies over the weekend and shipped most of them out. There some ALIT sukastar stuff going on but it's convoluted and confusing and I'm not sure I've got the details straight enough to write about them yet - so I'll have to hold off for now. I promise some soon.

Laters!

Post - OP

Well here i am. Post op. :) Knee surgery done and over with. YAY!!! i can actually straighten my leg again which is a lovely thing.

So the doctors went in, and they TRIED to fix the miniscus. Unfortunately, every time they tacked it together and then moved my knee, it just came right apart again. So they ended up just doing the trim which the doctor was happier with anyway. This way I don't really need to go through the whole ACL reconstruction which was not something i was really looking forward too.

So i've been walking around today without my crutches. Not too bad- though right now i'm in bed so I can have my leg up for a while. Working from home for the next week at least and then i'll be back in the office next week most likely. Which is good since the boss' are coming for a visit. :)

i've been doing some knitting. Got the most AWESOME! knitting needles i've ever used. They are Denise needles. They are a circular needle kit, that is just great. For $50 you get sizes 5-15, plus various lengths of needles, end caps, and connectors to make longer needles. You can order sizes 17 and 19 to add to your kit, and also longer cables if you need it. (and yes i already have a pair of 17 and 19's and a 30" cable on their way to my house.) Mom started using them, and has currently adopted my size 15's, and will return them in 2 weeks at my party. At which point i'm sure she will have already purchased a set of the needles for herself. :) They are really nifty. IT's great to have everything organized into one kit, and no worries about whether or not you have the right size needles. Just get it from the kit. If you are using that set for a project, well just take off the needles and put end caps on the cable to hold your work on until you are ready to go back to it. You can even put a different size needle on each side of the cable, so you can knit for different textures. :) I really liked some of the other needles, like the Addi turbos. Which means i probably would have loved the quickpick needles too (which are also a kit like the denise) but the problem is, what makes them SOOO nice and quick? They have a nickel coating. I'm allergic to nickle, so the palm of my hand would break out while i was knitting. (sigh) But the denise ones are plastic and work so very nicely. :) here is a picture of the "chain link" pattern i stumbled upon by mistake.


I'm knitting with size 10.5's with a cotton worsted weight yarn that's coming out really nicely. I also got some really cool alpaca yarn that i was playing with but am not sure what i really want to do with it yet. Trying to make some ornaments as well for our new Chrismachanukwanzika foliage... :)

our party is actually a decorate our first foliage party - so hopefully we'll get a lot of fun ornaments for the holiday season - many of which will hopefully be non breakable so the doggie tails don't knock them all off. :) I guess the fragile ones will go on top.

There isn't a whole lot else going on - i've sewn together 5 bunnies. I did them in a 5.5 hour marathon last night. That included putting on fusible interfacing to make the seams more sturdy and putting cotton batting in the ears to give them a little more "body" :) So they are sewn. Now I need to spend another 4 or 5 hours, stuffing them, sewing up their back seams by hand and then embroidering faces on them. The temptation to draw faces with a sharpie is high, but the samples they all saw were embroidered so I guess it's only fair that i embroider. One of them is the bunny to go with the blanket i'm making for my new Niece in law. :) She was born the tuesday before thanksgiving. Course we didn't find out until that saturday night. M called his brother to see how things were going and P answered "well, not too bad considering. But that's to be expected." M asked what, and P goes "Mom didn't tell you?" apparently he figured their mom would call us, where as M's mom figured that she didn't want to spoil P's news. So we found out a few days later. Oh well.

and that's my story - the gimp is now signing out.... :)

a hunting we will go . . . . .

Not for animals of course. :)

So i hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day? We had a good one. It was amusing though. First, mom and I had been talking earlier in the week. She was having a problem because her oven was going to be in conflict. So i told her that when i lived in WI, my friend k's family used an electric Nesco Roaster to do the turkey. Mom had enver really heard of that and was SOOO excited! She went RIGHT out and bought one. So when i got there around 1230 we started setting the whole thing up to roast her 16lb turkey. So i slathered the turkey with a lot of herbed butter, on the skin and under it. Then put it in the roaster breast side down (lets gravity do it's job and pull the juices into the breast.) Then we added a quart of chicken stock to the bottom to help the basting and let it go. well - the booklet said 4 hours which makes sense for a 16 lb bird. well at 2.5 hours we opened it up to flip it over so the skin can start to crisp etc. And well... the bird fell apart. It was pretty much done. 1.5 hours early. the leg and thigh just pulled off with the entire hip joint with it. So we are theorizing that it STEAMED it which cooked it much faster than roasting. hehehe. So we put it in the oven for a bit to just crisp the skin. So the breast wasn't QUITE as moist as usual but it still came out lovely.

The next day - Mom, S, M and I all went to the camera store. We figured since it wasn't in the mall, and was in a shopping center with not a lot of "gifty" type stores we'd risk it. When we got there, there was a LOT of open parking which was cool. And the store was not too busy which was cool. We went because I wanted a new camera. See i *LOVE* My main camera. It's a Canon Digital Rebel. But it's a DSLR camera. lots of interchangeable lenses etc. The problem with that is that it's really rather awkward to bring to things like parties, and events and stuff when you just want a quick snapshot ya know? So i got this.

The canon Powershot SD800IS. It's so TINY!!! i love it!! so i had to use it this weekend. One thing I did was take pictures of our foliage hunting trip.

This is a picture of the farm.















Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm - in Maryland

We decided to start our new traditions as a family. (we did not bring the doggies though)

So we got our very first ChristmaChanuKwanzika Foliage to bring home and decorate. We took the wagon up to the field and I managed to hobble around for a while so we could pick out our tree. We found a lovely douglas fir and had the nice man with the chainsaw cut it down for us. Then home we went to set it up. The Green tree looks really pretty with the red walls don't it?


We put the lights on yesterday - I haven't quite worked out the pictures of that with the new camera. We got LED lights and they are REALLLLLY bright so we get this blue HAZE all over the tree when we try to take the pictures. I"ll have to see what i can do.

I a couple of weeks we are going to have our "decorate our first foliage" party. Since we have no ornaments or anything else, we figure we'll feed everyone and they can donate ornaments to our collection and start our traditions.










Meanwhile - surgery is this thursday - here's hoping i'll be walking well again. i'm sure I will post within a day or two after to let you all know how it went. Mom is looking forward to driving my new car to take me to the surgicenter - since she has a sports car that makes it a little more difficult. And we're trying to figure out how we can go shopping while i'm on crutches. I'll update you with more as I know.

A Decision Has Been Made

And I am now VERY VERY poor...

I took a *HUGE* hit on my beloved Mazda 6. (sigh) Unfortunately the dealer is offering all kinds of cash back incentives on new mazda 6's so old ones (i.e. 1 year) aren't worth nearly what they really should be... Oh well.

So it's paid off - it's gone.

I now have a new car.

A Car i never thought i'd ever be able to afford. When the opportunity to lease it for 2 years for the same amount of money i'm paying now on my mazda loan, i jumped at it. I"ll figure the rest out in 2 years. :)

Here's my new baby:

The Audi A4















pretty isn't it? :)

It's the great pumpkin....

And just like the great pumpkin it's equally elusive.

you see - i have a problem.

I have a wrecked left knee. I also drive a 5 speed which means a clutch. This means that I can no longer drive my car safely. I might heal in a few more weeks and be able to drive, but I can't guarantee this is not going to happen again. So i'm looking for a new car.

The problem is that i'm REALLY upside down on my current car. Which sucks. it's only a year old, has less than 10K miles on it, and i'm taking a 10k hit on depreciation. I'm hoping it will be less when i sell it to a famous used dealership (name withheld :) ) rather than trading it in. Key is i have to do it before i get the new car, so i know how much "downpayment" i have left after paying off the rest of the loan on my current car.

So now i'm searching for new cars. And usually i absolutely *ADORE* car shopping. Comparing features, and driving them to see how they handle etc. But this time it's not as much fun. i'm having a harder time picking a car. I love my current car which is making it difficult. BUt i can't bring myself to go into an automatic version of my current car, b/c the depreciation is so bad that i don't want to put myself in that same situation again.

So i'm driving a bunch of different things. And now i feel guilty too. Cuz the dealerships are being *SOOO* nice to me. I know that's their jobs and all, but they are coming to my house to pick me up for test drives because I can't drive to go to them.

I'm also kind of frustrated because i really want my mom to go shopping with me, but she can't get up here in the time frame i need to get a car in. We did the next best thing, and she test drove a car down by her that i was looking at up here and i was on the phone with her during the test drive which was really a lot of fun.

One car makes more financial sense than the other 2 that will cost the same in the long run, but i'm not getting a "this is definitely my car" kind of feel. And i don't know if it's because i'm being "forced" to get a car when i didn't plan to, or just that it's not my car ya know?

It's a very frustrating situation. and because i'm on a time crunch as well, i'm feeling pressured about making the decision which isn't helping at all...

So like the great pumpkin - the new car is elusive...
*sigh*

have a good weekend everyone. I'll let you all know my decision once i've made it.

Oooh look at the pretty . . . *ZONK*

So anyways...

I went to the doctor yesterday. he says while the MRI scan is not optimal they can definitely see a tear on the miniscus. how bad the tear is they don't know. oh and the ACl doesn't show at ALL on the MRi so it's probably gone too.

So there's the deal:

I will be scheduled for surgery (don't know when yet) for them to "scope" my knee. At that time they will look and see how bad it is. If the tear is repairable, then they will repair it and adamantly suggest I have the ACL reconstructed. The reason for this is that meniscus tears tend to happen more often when the acl is damaged or gone. So they figure, why repair the miniscus without doing the ACL, if not having the ACL will just ruin the fix in the first place? right? make sense? :)

Alternatively, if they can't FIX the miniscus, then they will just trim it back so there isn't a flap to get caught inside the knee joint or under the knee cap etc. At that point it's my choice as to whether or not I want to do the ACL reconstruction, b/c it won't be as critical at that point. And ACl recon is not an easy prospect. Time off of work, MONTHS of physical therapy etc. So not sure how great or easy of an idea it would be for me ya know?

oh well - so that's what going on. Taking abreak from the regular trainer that i use since i can't get a full workout with them right now anyway, and going to use the trainer at the gym that's already got 5 prepaid sessions left for now. Then once i have the surgery scheduled i can figure other stuff out from there. Wheee aren't we having fun?

Not much else going on right now - my brother dropped off his dog, so he could drive down to MD to show my mother his new car. It's a really pretty color from what i could see at night anyway. It's been 6 months since he last bought a car. As he said (and i think this is so appropriate) "some people do drugs, i buy cars." And ya know what? As long as it's affordable, and such then i say go for it - its a lot healthier than doing drugs right? LOL

Ahh well - hope everyone has a great weekend if i don't get around to posting again!

You see what happened was . . .

So this little trick or treater came to the door, and she was being CHASED!!! yeah chased..umm yeah that's the ticket. By a bunch of teenage boys in skeleton costumers... I pushed her behind me to protect her and the boys knocked me over and . . .

Umm, ok how about... With all the kids ringing the doorbell, Mister got SO excited and ran right past me, and his 75 lb linebacker doggie body knocked me down and twisted my. . .

ummm ALIENS!!!! yeah aliens came and I got stuck in their hatch and in trying to pull me in while I was trying to fight them off I injured...

hmm. yeah. Truth is - I locked the back door, turned around and must have stepped badly. Thus possibly tearing the miniscus in my bad knee. (sigh) yup - I was even wearing good shoes (my sneakers, tied tightly.) I had just finished working out but we didn't do any leg excercises. I just stepped and KabooM! so yesterday I managed to get into see a new orthopaedist as well as getting in the MRI he ordered. So my next appt is wed to find out what the MRI said. If it *IS* a torn miniscus then most likely I will be facing some knee surgery.

Oh the flip side I got the impression that thenew doctor might be questioning the old doctor's diagnosis of torn acl from 3 years ago. Said the knee didn't feel loose at all like one that would have a torn acl. Of course a Torn ACL would explain how the mniniscus tore so easily since those tend to be related injuries. But the LAST doctor is also the one who said "oh, well it's torn, but since you are overweight there's no point in surgery itwould probably make it worse. just live it." And he would emphasize over and over that because my leg is too big they can't see what the problem is etc. Funny THIS doctor didn't mention my size ONCE during the entire visit. So we'll see what happens.

Oh well. If any of you want to come up with any more fun stories for how i could have hurt my knee since mine is so boring - please feel free to share them... i'd love it. :)

long island, exhaustion, and puppy cuteness...

OY what a weekend.

Mom and I were planning to go to Ny this weekend to kind of cleanup and clean out stuff from my grandmother's house. Take the things we wanted, so that others could come in and get what they wanted as well as getting cleaning crews in so we could try to sell the house. So the plan was, leave friday night and drive up to newark, NJ. Stay in the hotel there and then it's only 1 hour (or less more like 40 minutes) to where we needed to be.

So, I get home from work, and there is this stray cat. He followed me home earlier in the week and tried to come in my house. (I"m sure my 2 monsters would have loved that) and he looked thin and young. But he didn't come back after that. So when I saw him again on friday i decided to snag him. (or her - not sure) He was EXTREMELY friendly and social. WHen i saw him friday, he was sitting at the feet of a woman waiting for her kids to get back from school, and she was holding an umbrella so I guess he decided to get out of the rain. SO i went out with a cat carrier and he got right in. If he was someone's outdoor cat, I would think he'd have gone home - generally they know their ways. If he's trying to get in to other people's houses, I tend to think he was abandoned and has no place left to go. SO i took him to the SPCA here in hopes he could find a good home. They are a kill shelter but they only kill if ABSOLUTELY necessary (such as disease etc.) I tried Humane but they dont' take in strays. While I was there... This poor puppy came out of surgery. Still quite a bit doped up I'd say. :)
















So then by the time I got done with that, and mom got here and we picked up the rental car it was late. We needed to get dinner still. It was raining and it was windy, traffic was HORRIBLe, and people were squealing all over. We decided that all that coupled with how tired we were we decided to go up saturday morning. So we left around 830 saturday. Got to newark, checked in had breakfast, and then drove to the island.

So we got to the island around 1230 and picked up my GM's old companion. She had the key to the house. We spent about 4-5 hours there cleaning up and arranging and loading up baskets with what we wanted to take etc. Then we took stuf for Aunt M over to her house. She was leaving for temple, so we stayed with uncle M for about an hour. it was GREAT to spend that time with him. Then Aunt M gets home and freaks out thinking that if we were still there that there must be something wrong. Also with her were cousin A and fiance E. E was all glad to see us and smiling and hugging etc. A on the other hand acted as if he was pissed we were still there. Go figure. Made no sense to us. We think he's really conflicted. He's not doing what he has a degree for, and what he really loves because Sukastar pushes him to think he needs more $$ and all this other stuff. He's so loyal and controlled by Sukastar but is going against himself that we think he doens't know how to act anymore.

So we finally go and get dinner, and then we meet the real estate agent at the house. We start going through and while its better there's a lot left to be done. So we told her she needs to give Aunt M a deadline to get the stuf she wants. Then they'll bring in a cleaning crew, and a tag sale crew and get it all cleaned out and ready to go. once she was gone, then we packed up the car with all the paintings we wanted and our stuff and left to go back to NJ. Now, My grandmother was an artist, so a lot of stuff she did. What we found hysterical is that she apparently made some of her own prints. She made copies of her own stuff so she could hang it in different rooms. LOL. She was certainly a trip! So we get back to newark, and then crash.

Sunday morning we actually get up at a reasonable time (thank goodness for daylight saving time.) We left at 1130. Didn't get home til 4. (FRIGGIN NJ TOURNPIKE!!!!!!) traffic galore. So of course we're exhausted when we get back so mom managed to stay over another night. She'll be leaving shortly.

When i got home I got to see my exhausted puppies. Per Mary's request for more puppy pictures - here you go. :)

































And don't forget everyone. Bubbie here says to feel your boobies! LOL

musings and mutterings...

So there's all kinds of ALIT stuff going on - but it's so disjointed I can't keep track. First sukastar is buying the house, then they aren't, then they are, then they sign a new lease where they are living now with the excuse of "we can't bear to cause strife in the family." Which is BS, cuz what it really means is, "well sh*t, i can't afford to buy a house for $750,000."

it's been insane. MOm and I are going up there this weekend to go through the house, try to figure out what we want, and pack some other stuff away to make it appear less cluttered. Of course it's lovely to talk to the Real estate agent and find out that sukastar has a tendency to leave some dirty diapers in the house after they've stayed there etc... fun huh?

Sorry I haven't posted much though - things have been pretty busy. We have a tech out on short term disability so it's been kind of busy during the days.

beyond that - not much else is going on :) dogs are cute as usual.

Oh and I went to see the PHILLY ROLLER GIRLS this weekend. They played a match against the Gotham Girls - the NY travel team. I think Acumamakiki knows a bunch of those folks. :) It was a LOT more fun than i expected it to be. Once I understood what was supposed to be happening, it made it a lot more fun and easy to get into the whole game of it. Makes me want to try rollerskating again. It's been a few years, and I haven't been ice skating in ages. It's been even longer for me an parallel skates... i used blades for a little bit - but stopping just didn't work quite the same as on ice skates and I almost killed myself going downhill one day. LOL BUt i might have to go out to the rollerrink one day and maybe try regular skating again - see if my knee likes it at all. :)

Oh well - Smooches all! And as Minijaxter says - don't forget to feel your boobies since it's breast cancer awareness month! :)

been a while...

Sorry it's been so long since i posted.

It's been really busy at work, we've been shorthanded and things are just crazy. ALIT is really starting to heat up with Sukastar. (that's the couple's new nickname btw. Suka and J together will be referred to as Sukastar... Star in bulgarian meaning sh*t)

They are now claiming that they are going to be buying my grandmother's house. This of course is a possibility we suppose but not sure how he's gonna do it. The impression we've gotten is that he might still have good credit cuz i think they put everything in HER name... but where they'll get a downpayment or a 500,000 plus mortgage I don't know - nor how they'll pay it. So there's all the drama around that.

Aunt R is being crazy as ever and really pushing her custody case which is *SO* not good for the kid. She's trying to blackmail Aunt M into writing her a letter of recommendation/testimonial and Aunt M won't do it. What R has on M i know, and doesn't seem all that bad but knowing the psychology here, it's a pain in the rear.

Ande this is all just the tip of the iceberg - i just can't remember all the details right now... it's too much and overloaded. So we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens in the future.

on a silly note. There is a website called www.dogster.com it's like myspace for dogs. ;) there's bio pages with pictures, and buddy lists etc. It's pretty insane. :) Just thought i'd mention. LOL

laters!

Suka Strikes Again!

So cousin P and her family were up for Yom Kippur. ANd of course suka and J were staying at my grandmother's house so they could be "close to the temple" for the holiday so they can walk it easily since She is SO orthodox.

So P is at AuntM's house and in walks suka. She goes "MooooooMm I need to go shopping in your Pantry so helloD will have some food to eat." Umm. she couldn't bag stuff up from her house? or gee, go shopping? So she asked for basically everything and so aunt M let her have everything. she CLEANED out the pantry taking all the juice boxes that AuntM keeps for grandson D etc. insane no?

So then they are having dinner before the fasting starts. Suka notices that P is wearing a new ring. A diamond band that her husband bought her for their 10th anniversary. Suka says "OH, when did you get that?" and P tells her. So Suka goes "well I want one. J buy me one." (she's done this before with other people. once with E's bracelet - e being cousin A's new fiance.) so A says, "you'll get one when you've been married 10 years." and she of course responds with "well I want one now!" Then she asks P how many carats are in it. P wisely decides ignorance is best, says that she doesn't know and doesn't care. suka says "well, Mine has to have 2.5 carats." of course WHY is asked... she says "well because that's how much is in my Engagement ring, and this way if the band is 2.5 then they'll Match and I can wear them together." P of course asks her why in gods name she'd want to wear 5 carats on her hand. (unfortunately I don't remember the response...)

So then later... P is talking to E about wedding plans. P is saying that E shouldn't worry about her being in the wedding party, she has sisters and close friends, that's plenty. This way P can get her own dress and not worry about things etc. But they want to have D (p's son - he was my ring bearer - he's 8 now i think) walk down the aisle with a couple of other little boys as kind of a mini usher procession of some sort and P loves the idea. So they are talking about it when they hear "ahem" from the couch. They turn and look at Suka who says "what about Princess?" (referring to sukaspawn) so E says "S, she can't walk." (being only 8 or 9 weeks old) and suka goes "well someone could carry her..." of course angling for being part of the wedding party. E said "we'll see..." just to keep the peace but i don't see it happening. Suka of course is trying to drive E to get the most expensive wedding possible. E took P's advice instead (which is good and make P feel better) that she went to her parents to discuss a budget etc for the wedding. P said "once you have a budget then you can work with in it. The photographer I wanted was $4000. That wasn't in the budget so I hired someone else." Suka of course is doing the "oh, you MUST get the flowers from *here* they are they ONLY ones who can do flowers right." It's sickening. I think E (especially being an accountant) will be much more cognizant of budgeets etc and do her best to keep things in check.

I'm told she wants to talk to me about places to register. :) I think that's pretty cool.

Oh well - in the meantime, i've got this killer cough that I can't kick. (nice alliteration no? :)) and i'm trying to cuz we are planning to go to the renn faire this weekend and I don't want to bail. Iknow my hubby is really looking forward to it. Keep your fingers crossed and have a great weekend folks!

** Update: I forgot stuff - mom reminded me. :) hehehe.

First - they were spending the 24 hour holidy at my grandmother's house. They brought with them for sukaspawn:
Their Own crib (not the travel crib that AUnt M bought them, don't know if their is travel or not.)
$1000 Stroller
Electric Swing
Electric Jumper
Bouncy Seat
Every other toy and appliance they could possibly need.

Then when they went to AUnt M's for dinner, they brought most of it with them THERE as well..

Now - financials. hehe. Cousin P was talking to J about $$. She asked how much the nanny was and how much his rent. ($2000 and $2400 a month respectively.) She says
"J, that's 4400 a month! I don't know how much you are making but that's already high, and you then have car payments and insurance and everything else. How are you doing this?" and j says... wait for it... this is classic!.... :)

"I just don't open my bills."

That's right folks - he's ignoring them hoping they'll go away, and even if they don't, if he doesn't open them then he doesn't stress about them. Now of course, he probably isn't getting any calls either, b/c we think he never changed his mailing address so if they are calling (which i'm sure they probably are) they are probably calling Aunt M. And of course, their name is spelled wrong on the caller ID. And we're not sure if they just didn't know how to pluralize their own name, or if they spelled it wrong on purpose to avoide being looked up. Oh yeah. And the phone is in HER name. P was asking him what he was gonna do, that he can't continue not opening his bills. and he said that he hopes to sell that program he started next year for some $$. But i think he's overestimating the value. And anyway - how long would it take suka to go through a couple million dollars? not long i'm sure... this is getting interesting... :)

Part of me is almost HOPING that when we go to NY to go through grandmom's house, that stuff is missing. P seems to think a lot more has been walking out of there of late... and I think the confrontation to find it will be VERY entertaining... :) MWUAHAHAHAHAHA

laters! :)

They're GREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAT!!!!

Ok

so last night, my husband gets home around 10 or so. (he's taking his massage classes so gets home late 3 nights a week.)

We're laying in bed, hoping to fall asleep shortly. I'm a little out of it at this point. I pull my hair out from under my head and neck, and it kind of hits him in the face a little. NOthing major :) (he likes the long hair, so he'll have ot deal with it :)) he blows it out of the way, and then says "you smell good. Different. Are you using something new?"

So silly me, I ask him what it smells like so I can maybe identify the product. Nothing new that i know but but that doesn't mean anything - he's a guy. maybe he just noticed something i got 6 months ago.

So he says... well.. I know it sounds weird, but You smell like Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.

Such romantic words were never before spoken... :)

day of atonement? or just to kick some a$$....

Sorry - it's been so long - I was gonna post yesterday which was actually the day of Yom Kippur, but i was SOO slammed at work i didn't have time. (good thing I didn't take off for the holiday eh?)

So... the suka related bit...Suka has declared that she was not going to fast (this is the woman who has stated she is "orthodox") because she is still post partem. (baby is 8 weeks old)

According to Aish.com:
4) What are the laws of fasting for a woman who has recently given birth?

For the first 72 hours following the birth, she is forbidden to fast. Even if both she and the doctor agree that she is strong enough to fast, she must eat.

If she says that she does not need to eat, she should eat only small quantities. If during the fast she feels that she needs to eat normally, she may do so.

If she is unsure whether she needs to eat, and certainly if she feels the need to eat, she should eat normal quantities.

5) What are the rules after 72 hours since the birth?

Between three and seven full days (i.e. from 72 to 168 hours) following the birth, the law is slightly stricter. In every case that she is permitted to eat, she may eat only small quantities, unless there are complications.

If she says that she needs to eat, she may do so even if a doctor says the opposite.

After seven full days she must fast like everyone else unless there is some complication.

7) Is a nursing mother allowed to drink if she fears a lack of milk for her baby? (which of course isn't valid since she hasn't nursed at all)

In almost all cases this is unnecessary, especially today when baby formula is available that can be used as a substitute for a short period. It is advisable to accustom the baby to formula a few days beforehand to avoid complications arising on Yom Kippur. In extremely unusual circumstances when a sensitive baby cannot tolerate anything other than the mother's milk, it may be possible to allow the mother to drink small quantities. Such serious matters should be determined only after consultation with a rabbi.

SO in other words - she doesn't have a leg to stand on re: fasting. Does this surprise anyone? I didn't think so.

In the meantime i'm completely and utterly frazzled at work. It's insanely busy this week, we're short handed on top of it and the local tech here is unwilling to do the "eh we're all XXX we can work together" and is more of "why can't your workflow get it right and stop giving me tickets that should be in your group" It's pissing me off cuz whenever i tickets for his group - I do them. no questions asked. it's ridiculous. You know it's bad when there are 4 voice mails on your phone and you only went to the bathroom. (sigh) Oh well -

Hopefully it will get better soon.

laters all!

bachelorettes and anniversaries...(they can have their cake and eat it too...)

So ...

This weekend we had a bachelorette party for our friend. It was i have to say a WHOLE lot of fun. WHich is good, cuz it was essentialy the same time of plan they had for MY party, which I missed, so it was good to join in.

First we went to a Moroccan restaurant where it's served family style. You sit at low tables, have your hands washed and eat everything with fingers and pita bread. It was tasty. The bachelorette and others in our group got up and danced with the belly dancers. :) a lot of us had on jingly belts so we jingled every where we walked. :)

We all wore them bowling.

It was very amusing - having us all go bowling and jingling. Then the hokey pokey started and we were all doing that and adding hip shimmies to the moves. There was fun and merriment ( some of it drunken ) to be had - we all had a great time. :) I'm told some of the hubbies and children went out on their own as well... but I wasn't there obviously so not much to say on that. :)

Now - the fun. (you mean that wasn't the fun? Ruh Roh... :))

Yesterday was my anniversary. 1 year down. :) I got my husband a lovely pocket watch from hammacher schlemmer and had it engraved with "24 September, 2006 - A year of time together" :) (I couldn't resist the pun. and he says he loves it so that's good. :) We then went out to dinner at a great restaurant called Mikimotos. Course my husband spells it mickey moto's so when i was telling the girls where we were going during the party, we all started singing, "m - i - c... K- e - y... M - O - T - O - SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" :) yes we're silly.:)

So i had some sashimi, and then panco and mustard crusted rack of lamb, with scallion mashed potatos, tempura onion rings, and grilled asparagus. It was LOVELY. Then I had banana coins for dessert. ( coin size fried banana wontons with honey and powdered sugar. ) M had a deep fried brownie. (all the desserts were deep fried I think.. :) )

When we got home, M insisted and getting out our wedding cake that was saved. Well - see, we didn't exactly save it properly. we forgot to freeze it before the honeymoon, and by the time we got back we figured it was too late and just kept forgetting to do anything about it - so it sat in our fridge... for a year. :)

We cut into it last night. This is what it looked like:
















And yes... he took a bite - from a non green corner. (shudder) I have proof! I took pictures. I wasn't going anywhere NEAR that cake. I'd just had a lovely dinner and saw no need to refund it.

all in all - a fun weekend. :)

Showtunes!!! well helllooooooo D****..... :)

Yes - Today on ALIT we introduce a new character. . . HelloD. I know - Sounds like a children's rapper or something. :)But no... this is the name of the Nanny on ALIT. The one the Suka and J have hired.

Now HelloD has been with the family for years. She was taking care of my great uncle's wife when she was terminal etc... So she LOVES "mister J" which is one reason she stays to put up with Suka.

So the report from HellOD is as follows:
Suka sleeps until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Then she gets up and goes out shopping and playing around etc. She comes home in time to be there when J gets home. Then when he does she goes on and on about what a long and tiring day she's had taking care of sukaspawn. He then, feeling guilty that she has supposedly taken care of the sukaspawn all day and had such a long day doing it, takes care of sukaspawn all evening. This is after a full day of work. HelloD has started taking sukaspawn into her room so as to finally give Mister J some sleep finally.

Are we having fun yet? Oh and she finally posted another article for work. (anyone wants it email me and i'll give you the info.) Wonder if J finally grew a pair (small though i'm sure they are) enough to tell her she needs to do some work or they are gonna go bankrupt. We'll see. I guess it depends on how often she continues to write. Most of last year it was one a month. There were 2 in june and then nothing until this week.

ON a completely different brighter note... :) MY 1 year anniversary is this weekend. So Saturday night I am going to a friend's bachelorette party, and then sunday is our anniversary. The bookstore called to see if i could work on sunday. I gently explained what day it was and my manager said "OHH Congratulations, Never mind!"

Training is going well. Mom says that she can tell my midriff is getting a bit smaller. (course her explanation for why is a bit disconcerting. :)) She says she can tell it's small because before it was stretched tight, and now the skin is dimpled which means there's less there... :) Trainer says she can definitely feel that my ankles are smaller. She continues to kick my butt 2 times a week, but now i'm supposed to try and do it to myself an additional time each week. (sigh) We got these really cool weights too to work with. :) The trainer had asked me to get 8 and 10lb weights to have in addition to the 5lb weights we already have. Well, i figure i'm gonna outgrow those fairly soon - and it's a lot of weights to have laying around. So we got the Bowflex Selectech weights. :) they go from 5lbs to 52.5 lbs on each dumbbell. I got them on a sale that they came with the $140 stand for free. They work really nicely.

Oh and I sold the gazelle. :) YAY! for the same price as I sold the broken treadmill. Freaky ebay karma i guess.

Oh well -that's all she (meaning me) wrote for now. :) Have a great weekend everyone!

The Moment you've all been waiting for...

That's right...

Finally - Pictures of the SUKA!!! :) I came accross the perfect wedding picture to post and you lucky viewers get to see it first. :)

Here it is!

hehehhe - enjoy! :)

Holy Giant Dogs Batman!

So...i'm on the phone with my mom last night when call waiting beeps. It's not a number i recognize so I go answer it asking mom to hold on. Understandably she hung up after a few minutes. :) Cuz... guess who was on the phone!!! :)


hehehe. I spent 15 minutes on the phone with BURT WARD last night. That's right, *THE* Burt Ward of Batman fame. Now, i'm sure some of you are wondering why I might be talking on the phone to Mr. Ward. :)

It turns out, he and his wife run a dog rescue in California. It's called Gentle Giants Rescue. They specialize in rescuing giant breeds like danes, great pyranese, mastiffs etc. They also do some small dogs and some hairless dogs etc. All their dogs get to live in the house with them. (sometimes up to 60 dogs at once!) Anyways, they have developed their own dog food and I was interested in it. i mean seriously, they have their Great Danes (who's average life expectancy is 8-10 years) living an average of 14-18 years. That's pretty impressive in my book. So i was curious. especially as Mister has always had a umm.. "loose tummY" and both of them are very gaseous. So i've decided to try some new food. I have been using Wellness, but they changed their forumlation after hiring efficiency experts and so the bottom line seems to be more important now.

So I had called Gentle Giants because they only sell on their site, the food in pallets of 4 bags at a time. The pricing is very reasonable, and it's non profit, so all they care about is producing a good healthy food. It ends up with shipping to be cheaper than the wellness actually. :) and one thing mr ward mentioned, is that most Dog food manufacturers forget about things like Heart disease etc and the fat contents tend to be high. HIs is a low 9%. ANyways - i know this sounds like an advertisement, but i'm really just putting down my thought process on trying this stuff. :) So I wanted samples to see if my dogs liked it before investing $200. Well, he called back to tell me they don't have samples, but he'd be willing to let me try 1 bag instead of 4, so i figure mom and I will split it and see. What's nice about this food is it is for *ALL* ages. There is no puppy specific, or senior specific food. Their vet clinic will now ONLY feed this food to the dogs staying with them even though they sell other brands. So i'm thinking what the heck right? :)

but still... I got to talk to Burt Ward...LOL

In Suka news... the Sukaspawn (i just came up with that name, I LOVE IT!) i think is gonna end up the girl in the plastic bubble. Suka is paranoid, won't let anyone near her. The entire time of the event formerly known as the naming no one was allowed to see the baby. baby stayed in a back room in a carriage with netting over the top. There's Purell bottles EVERYWHERE so they can sanitize before picking up the baby every time. they DEIGNEd to let my cousin P hold Sukaspawn, and that only lasted 30 seconds before she started making noises like she was hungy. when P offered to feed her SUka Freaked, grabbed the baby and said "NO she NEEDS HER MOMMY! - she's too fussy, isn't comfortable with people, she's just too fussy no one else can hold her or feed her." Kid is gonna have no immune system. :) and no socialization skills either. I'm supposed to get more dirt this weekend so we'll see how it goes.. :)

In other news - my future physical happiness is on its way... hubby started school last night. ahhh those magic hands will now have education. A beautiful thing! :)

Hope lives on . . . .

So, everyone is doing remebrances of what happened 5 years ago. This is a good thing. THis is something that should ALWAYS be remembered.

But what I think is even more important to remember is the hope we all have. That drive to move on and live our lives and not be brought low by such evil actions.

We will always remember those who can no longer do this and mourn their loss and what they as people contributed to our society and lives. We will also do as i'm sure they would want, which is to LIVE, with love and laughter and joy in our hearts. To fight evil and hate with joy and tolerance. That is how we win, by not letting them stop us from LIVING.

Today we remember all those who fell, and those who live on in their names.

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I wanted to share with you folks today the blanket/hope chest we received this weekend. My mother in law bought it for us during the family auction at the reunion last year. It was delivered to us THIS year at the reunion.



















it's *HUGE* :)
We put it at the foot of our guest bed. It's about 6" narrower than the queen size bed. and about 5" taller. Keep in mind that this is a normal queen size bed, with 2 foam pads, 2 flannel comforters and a spring blanket on it, and the chest is STILL taller by a few inches than the top of the bed. I hope that people can still get around it to the bed... :) The cousin who made it for us said that he'd made one for his wife, but it was too small to hold king size blankets. So he made it bigger. It now has 2 king size flannel comforters in there, a bunch of towels, and our spare sheets for the master bed. IT's got this cool slider box near the top, that you can put stuff in and slide back and forth to get at what's underneath. The box and the bottom shelf are made of cedar. So everytime you slide the box, the ceder smell "refreshes" itself. He also gave us some cedar balls to keep in there as well.

I love it. And it arrived in time for our first wedding anniversary which is in just under 2 weeks. (2 weeks from yesterday in fact.)

Life moves forward. . . and I now have a lovely chest (no giggling you!) to put not only blankets and towels and sheets in, but to put Hope in. . . for our future and yours....

SUKA STUFF!!!!

oh i gots LOOOOADDDS of new suka stuff.

But here's the deal - those of you who really want to know about it, email me and i'll email you the whole story. (email me at jleader at gmail dot com) it's all written out and ready to go, but it's detailed enough that i'd rather not post it publicly and i don't think blogger does password protected. :)

In the mean time. Not much else is going on here. I have my husband's family reunion this weekend. Gonna bring a stuffed bunny and blanket that I made for a friend's baby. I keep forgetting to mail it to her. So i figure i'll bring it as an example and auction off custom made bunny and/or blanket. See they do auctions every year for stuff that people make or donate. The funds go into a reunion bank account to help defer expenses for the annual get together. Helps pay for food, location etc. Not sure when our turn is - i think in a few more years. But i figured that would be kind of cool. We'll also bring brownies for the kids to bid on and stuff like that. I might even donate one bunny to the kids auction. The kids will be given $500 in monopoly money each, so they can really participate in bidding with their own "monday." So some stuff is a true donation. :) but if i'm making one bunny, it's just as easy if not easier to make a bunch at once then it is to just do one at a time, because then I assembly line them. :)

Oh well - that's all for today. Here is a picture of the bunny and blanket just so you all know what i'm talking about. Always made with 100% cotton flannel and eyes and nose are embroidered on so it's safe for infants and toddlers as well... :)(i am willing to sell them if a gift is needed for a baby shower or something just so you all know :))

pictures and posts and umm... yeah :) can't think of anything cute.

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone had a good labor day weekend. Mine was relatively quiet as the hubby was away in canada on a Kung Fu Trip. :) So mostly, i just hung around, played with the dogs etc. Though yesterday was lovely (while today is abysmal) and I took my bike out for the first real road test ride since I bought it. ANd I bought it with different tires then i test rode it on, so first ride on these tires. :) It was fun. My brother's friend is gonna buy my old bike too, and it fits her nicely. So i guess, if his 4'10" friend fits that frame well, that would explain why it was too small for my long legged 5'4" body. Although, she did look a bit like kermit the frog from the muppet movie while riding. . . :) she laughed when I said that. :)

I also started some knitting this weekend. I had been working on this shawl called the lace wings shawl. I bought the pattern, but it was designed by regular knitter, and I think it's not written very well. There's mistakes and stuff that make it difficult, and if you aren't experienced enough (which I'm not) it's hard to figure out how to fix them. My mom was saying just by reading it she figured that out, and that she'd have to knit it to fix it. Not worht the effort. :) So at some point I will pick up that nifty yarn again, and try something different. :) Anyways, I have no patience for something with that much pattern to follow. But the yarn is a really PRETTY egyption cotton by King Tut. :) and it's in this lovely vibrant autumn red type color. :)so i'll do something with it later. :) So what i DID start working on this weekend was this:
These needles are AWESOME! :) i love them... :)birchwood, very sharp even in large sizes, very super smooth, and perfect size to just carry with you small projects... they are like 7 or 8" long. Perfect! - perfect scarf size too. :)





Also - As Promised.. Pics of the floor:

Hall Bathroom(see the nifty faucet?)












Master Bath See new counter? :)













Living room(with nifty new rug)












and that my friends I think is about all she wrote. It's taken me about 1.5 hours to get this post done, first with the network down and then with the time to upload pictures so... Later Taters! :)

Mold and Must and Miserable Dust....

Wow - It's been a while. I didn't realize it had been so long. BAD ilanna BAD! :)

Ok - so i'm here now. I was away on vacation over the weekend (from about thursday on) and wednesday i was trying to babysit a VERY talkative 6 year old while working and so didn't get to post much last week.

So - I went to Martha's Vineyard. It's where my husband grew up and where my inlaws reside.

It is a LOVELY island. And it was being nice to my nature, and being cool the entire time we were there. never topped 75. Course it also rained 3 out of 5 days. Regardless of the weather, we had a good time. Got to relax a bit, we went shopping (always a good thing) and we went to the farmer's market. (brought home 3lbs of local honey and some flavored vinegars.) Got goodies for myself and goodies for my friends. One of the most well known souveniers from MV is the Black Dog. It's famous, t-shirts and clothes etc. I got a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie, both INCREDIBLY comfortable and good quality. :) what's also fun, is the spin offs. One enterprising tourist shop has started printing the "bad dog" items. We got my brother a T-shirt that said something like "Bad Dog Oyster bar, always fresh and steaming!" (bearing in mind that the bad dog is showin as a black dog in a Pooping position. :) There's a few really good ones from there.

We went to the local winery and I bought some wine and other stuff. Course, i'll never drink the wine myself - so it will have to wait until i have company over who will share the bottle. :) i'm sure i can arrange that at some point. :)

We never got to go sailing though - water was a bit too choppy and our tummies were sensitive so we avoided it. That was the DOWNSIDe of the trip. My mom and i have had off stomachs the entire month of august. ANd our allergies have been bad this month. In fact on the way up, mom and I took the train to Providence and met my husband there for the last leg of the trip - b/c we were afraid of being without a bathroom. Anywhere we went on island, we called ahead to make sure there were bathrooms available. I did finally have some lobster the last night we were there, but we were being very careful with what we ate... paranoid even.

Unfortunately the other problem was sinus. I'd been taking advil C&S most of thismonth off and on. I was taking it every 3 hours up there. And for the first time in about 4 years, I had to take claritin. you see...it's an island. ANd it was raining. So there was that in and of itself. The really bad part is that my inlaws house is a Mold Experiments' wet dream. the basement smells like the underside of a dock. I couldn't go down there unless I had a cloth around my face to make breathing easier. The rest of the house is almost as bad. It's 30+ years old, and never had any AC, central ducting, etc. The lack of central ducting is probably the only thing that saved us since it would have blown air from the basement otherwise, but that means no dehumidifying. A lot of people thing AC is just to cool things off, but it actually CONDITIONS and cleans the air too. Carpet is at least 15 years old, as is all of the furniture and curtains etc. So it just breeds and breeds. I sat down on the couch and my eyes began to itch and water. Hubbies allergies started getting really bad too, and mom in law was MISERABle, and it was HER house! She finally admitted outloud that her allergies were worse in the house than out of it, and dad in law said even he sometimes notices. I can only hope they decide to do something about it. She mentioned bringing in a professional cleaning service, but I think they are going to have to strip all fabrics - replace carpet, reupholster furniture, get some new furniture etc. Will have to see.

So you see, all in all we had a very good time, but our heads and bellies were miserable. My only other real complaint is that when we go there on vaca, I sleep in bro in law's childhoold bed/bedroom, and hubby sleeps in his own bedroom. Twin beds. I could accept that before we were married but ....sheesh. Time to clean out the old rooms and make them into guest rooms of some kind. King or queen bed, night stand etc.

I think the next time we go - we are going to see if we can rent a house or something while up there, so there can be more comfort options etc. In the mean time, i'm going to enjoy my COZY sweats this winter, and my zip up hoodie sweatshirt. I'm going to LOVE putting that raw honey in my tea in the mornings. In fact i used some this morning. It was wonderful. Very mild, not overly sweet at all, so I didn't get that weird honey aftertaste from drinking too much. I might have to bring some into work and have it here so I can have more tea during the day. :) I can't wait to try using some of the flavored vinegars in cooking, and seeing the looks on friends faces when i give them their gifts... :)

And now - i'm back at work. :) wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Doggies are home. They are like LUMPS. So tired they don't want to move. hopefully they stay that way through the weekend since hubby is going right back out of town to Canada to train with a kung fu grand master one last time before starting massage school. So i get to take care of the puppies - which means no sleeping late. (sigh)

Oh well.

SOON, I promise, I will get pictures of the floors, and maybe some pics from MV. I only took some on the ferry over, and when we went to Gay Head but there are some pretty cool pics. :)

hope everyone had a good weekend, and those on the east coast enjoy the rain this week. :) i'll try to get back to posting more often. :)

I scream you scream we all scream for . . . umm.. well.. hmm... :)

Ok

So my new mission is to buy an ice cream maker. I used to have one but between various moves from place to place too many parts of gone missing and all that's left is a frozen bowl. :)

And of course counter ande cabinet space is severly limited. (I gots too many gadgets)

So i figured i'd get the one that went on the kitchenaid. All i need then is freezer space for the bowl, and some drawer space for the attatchment gizmo. :)

The reason for this mission is, I love ice cream. But i'm trying to get in shape and lose weight. One goal set for me food wise, was to have only 1 ice cream a week. Well. Hmm. this just sucks. :) and I can't get the sugar free stuff cuz aspartame gives me a headache, and if I get the fat free stuff a) it's hard to find that WITH sugar and b) there's nothing to stop the sugar from being like a hypo injected directly into my blood stream. :)

So - i've decided that maybe i need to make my own. Alter it. Make ice milk instead of cream so i can have flavor and dairy with out being high fat. Or use SOy milk, and maybe use honey instead of sugar. I've got all kinds of ideas on how to alter the recipes. Only one i havne't figured out at the custard base ones, cuz they NEED the heavy cream to make them the right consistency. So i'll have to explore. :)

But i wanted to post and interesting recipe I found here: "Perfect Kithcen by Esseti"

Avocado Ice Cream

While an avocado-flavored dessert may seem strange to North Americans, South Americans have long considered the avocado an ideal ingredient for sweet dessert. Try this recipe and you'll understand why.

Three 8-oz. avocados
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup superfine sugar
5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup heavy cream

Peel and pit the avocados. Cut them into chunks and purée in a food processor. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of purée. With the machine running, add the remaining ingredients.
Pour the mixture into the bowl of the machine and freeze.
Makes about 1 quart.

now - I love avocados. I LOVE guacamole - and it's got such a nice creamy consistency. And it's a healthy fat, even if there is a fairly high content. But i never thought of using it in ice cream. ya know? But something about this is REALLY intriguing me and I think I should try making it, if only so I can say I did and tried it. Apparently it's very popular in south america.

I guess I will have to let you all know how it came out. Cuz man, if i can't get my ice cream fix i'll be upset. And it's not just the sweet - it's the cream. :) It's the best thing for heartburn/acid reflux. Oh well - we'll see what happens. I have to get the maker first. :)

blah blah blah. . . . . .

So there isn't a whole lot going on right now. :)

The house battle still occurs, though I think that mom has pretty much decided to stick to her plan and just say no. Probably the best for all concerned. At this point it burns a lot of bridges with that contingent of the family but to be honest, it doesn't really bother us a whole lot. :)

the Flooring continues. They are working on the hall bath now - I think that the master bath is finally done. YAY! :) it looks lovely. there will be pictures soon, i promise!

Went to a wedding this weekend. It was a LOT of fun - and a really gorgeous ceremony. and it was SHORT and sweet - I think from the time the groomsman processional started to the end was less than 20 minutes. And then they did a really cool receiving line idea. Instead of a whole line - they greeted each row of guests as they exited the ceremony area.

The weather was gorgeous and we got to enjoy all of it at the cocktail hour after the ceremony - and then we all went inside for the receptions. It was a lot of fun. I really liked the idea that to get the B&G to kiss, instead of tapping glasses, each table had to stand up as a whole and sing a song with "love" in the lyrics...

I had a really good time - watched my friends get trashed - danced and in general had a good time. though jackie it seems may have broken her foot wearing flip flops while chasing the bride. (not really flip flops, more like "slide sandles" but... still - not good for running.)

I'm also going *NUTS* because I found something out and i can't share it. Once i can i'll let ppl know, but those who know me, know how hard it is for me to keep a juicy secret... hell - i have trouble holding on to a present long enough to wait for the occasion. :)

Then Sunday, i helped my friend sort through some clothes, and then went miniature golfing with my husband and then we went to the mall to get bday presents for his neice and nephew. Then home and dinner and bed.

All in the midst of that day - we were doing the hot and cold compresses for mister's foot. You see he managed to do something to his paw.

Thursday night we went to the vet and had it X-rayed. $220 later, nothing broken. Saturday morning the paw was even MORE swollen and oozing a bit (yick!) So i took him to the emergency vet because the only 2 on duty at my regular vet's office were UNACCEPTABLE. (don't like either of them) And the emergency vet is WONDERFUL. So another $135 later :) my dog is on antibiotics, pain killers, and Benadryl. The current theory is that it was an allergic reaction to a spider bite or something similar. It is going down somewhat. Looks a lot more normal. :) I think the benadryl and compresses are helping which is a good thing. So both dogs are home with me while they are working on the floors. the bulk of the dangerous stuff is done anyway - and they are afraid of the nailing etc.

and that is my life as it stands now in a nutshell. :) pretty boring eh? :)

Whoops...

I realize i haven't blogged much this week. Sorry about that.

Specially since of course ALIT as reared it's ugly head. Not sure how much i remember since there was so much of it.

The latest is that since my GM's house isn't selling well, they are thinking of renting it for a while, and then maybe selling when the market picks up. There's some rumor that the orthodox in the area are "ganging up" to price fix the housing market. Who knows? But the key to this point is that they are talking about renting to my cousin A and his girlfriend E. While it would be great for them to be nearby my aunt and uncle to help them when needed, it still becomes an equity issue as to who is getting more of the estate, whether or not it's really monetary. Make sense? So there's of course the unconcious manipulation going on and mom just doesn't want anyonein the fmaily to be livng there period. B/c then it becomes them trying to recreate the high holidays etc... it's a complicated mess.

meanwhile - not much else is going on. There's lots of stuff really but i can't really get into it too much. :)

The floors in the meantime look AWESOME!! i'll post pictures when it is ALL done and you can see the finished product. :)they are working on the bathroom right now. :)

have a great weekend all!

Anyone have any frankincense and Myrh?

Well the messiah has been born. around 3pm on saturday afternoon. Apparently it was a fairly easy natural birth.

When my mother asked my aunt if the suka was going to nurse, the response was "oh please!" :)

And of course she is named after my grandmother. The name is actualy nice but I will refrain from revealing for anonymity's purposes... :) anyone who really wants to know can email me. :) She was stayin in the hospital for a day or so and baby is in the NICU just to be cautious.

Other than that I don't know much.

Will get the seamstress' help with putting the tags in the sweater and send that on in a few weeks. Mom is working on finding something to send as well.

what's funny about the whole thing is...

Mom and I were pretty ill feeling this weekend. really nauseous, couldn't sleep, headaches etc...I told mom that it was probably the messiah coming making us sick. What's funny is, we started feeling better right around when the birth was done. :) Weird huh?

Not much else to report as of now. The floors are being started today - so hopefully i'll have a bedroom to sleep in this evening.

(btw Mary - you might want to visit your local comic shop and look into a series called Civil war and Frontline... all about should super heros be registered and government controlled or not - lot of interesting political commentary you might like - hell everyone might like... :))

Friday Silliness....

First of all

I just *LOVE these T-shirts. Especially the first one. though I have both. :) hehehe DOOM! The comic strip is also heartily entertaining for those of you who want to waste some time reading... it is definitely worth it. :) I've even met the BF in person and he's a really cool guy. :)
It's silly. MWUAHAHAHA. :)

So, Mom isn't feeling so well today. What's odd is, last night and this morning I had a lot of the same symptoms (just more mild) and no idea why. It could be the weather changes that are happening. We are all sensitive to the barometer. :) *OR* my guess is this is nature's early warning sign that the messiah is coming and we should be prepared. {evil grin} well - it's a theory. And as we all know (and my friend used to have for her signature) I want to move to Theory, because everything works in Theory. :)

Also - if you go to In The Puddle and click on the right hand "vote" button in the comments section - it will take you to an amusing picture. Though if you don't know what FSM-ism is, then go here for more info.

So I dropped off my new skirts at the seamstress last night to have them hemmed up in front (at the waist) since they are shorter in back (due to the butt shelf most likely :)) and the seamstress loved them. So that helps :) but I also found out why they cost so much. I never looked at the tags while at the store - but they are basically sheer handkercheif style skirts over a liner. well theliner is the usual poly. But the entire layered over skirt (both of them) are made out of silk. That explains a lot. Oh well. I just won't be allowed to eat anything (since i'm a slob) :)

Not much else going on here today. I'm just trying to not freeze to death in my office. (my aisle is colder than a lot of the others, noticeably.) and looking forward to going home at lunch to warm up. :) or hell even going outside. I mean you KNOW your office/cubicle is cold, when during the heatwave with temps over 100, you are happy to go outside, and it feels good... sad... really sad. :)

oh well - have a great weekend everyone and if i think of anything more profound i'll post again. :)

the latest delusional amusement...

So cousin P is talking to her brother J (the suka's hubby) and asking if they'd picked a pediatrician yet. J says "yes, we're going with the folks who took over dad's practice when he died." So P says "that's silly, they are more than half an hour away! why would you choose them?" and J says "well because they OWE us. They wouldn't have had a practice if it wasn't for us, and we want someone who will call us back within 5 minutes, and make house calls and since they owe us we figure they'll do that." Cousin P at this point begins LAUGHING! "J, daddy died 15 years ago. His practice may have been the BEGINNING of theirs, but i'm sure they've built it plenty over the years themselves. They don't owe us anything." - J says "so they won't call back in 5 minutes? I thought they did when your son was sick" P says "I called during office hours! and i brought him in to the office."

Disillusionment can be so much fun ya know? They've also hired a nanny at roughly $2k a month. Full time who will cook and clean. P asks how they can afford this, and J says "well if suka does 2 or 3 freelance things a week it isn't a problem." Of course she hasn't been doing more than 1 a month since the pregnancy. It's too hard to write she says. Of course, P completed her PHD including onsite research, the thesis etc, while carrying around her infant son in a carrier. and she didn't have any help. How hard is it to write a fluff article when the kid isn't even out and crying yet?

Sheer Insanity i tell you. The only saving grace to things like nannies and that, is that at least the child will have some good influences. The nanny they hired is someone who's been in the family helping elderly members for many years and so is a known quantity.

Today is the sonogram - so i'm sure i'll have some news by tomorrow, or if not by next week as to what is happening with the birth of the messiah. :)

Tune in.. .same web time (maybe) same web channel :) MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA :)

In other news... i'm inflicting my trainer on mom (EC) tomorrow. She will hopefully help design a set of alternative excercises that will work for her and not bother her back etc... :) finally -i get to watch someone else be tortured. hehehehe.

Secret Shame. . .

I have to admit... I"m strangely, sickeningly addicted to "Walker: Texas Ranger"

hell if I know why. and of course I love ripping the show and the premise to shreds. :) I mean - right now i'm watching, and walker goes "undercover" as a teacher in the high school. So what's his name? Mr Walker. Right cuz that is SOOO undercover. :)

And yet, i'm enthralled. Is it because I just like watching him beat people up? Could be. Vicarious thrills are always good when it comes to violence. :) Maybe it's the Daylight goodie two shoes version of Batman he seems to be. :) (the kick anyone's butt, and amazing 6th sense reflexes) I just don't know. It's a sickness I tell you! :)

In other news, we're currently awaiting news of tomorrow's sonogram for the Suka. She's apparently effacing and they are going to do the sonogram to decide what to do. induce, c-section or wait it out? Of course we think, that the doctor will induce or do the C-section just to finally get her off his charts. :) I think she's been driving him thoroughly nuts for the last 7-9 months.

Crazy Aunt R is up to old tricks again trying to sue everyone and their mother.

and all the usual stuff is all over the place. :)

Ahh well. As long island turns is at it again. :)

Exhaustion thy name is ilanna... :)

it's been a LOOOOOONNNNg weekend... and i'm wiped. :)

Friday - I took the day off to go shopping with my mom. Mall is about an hour 15 away from me. 45 from mom (we kind of meet in the middle.) And I was looking for clothing to wear to the upcomming grouping of weddings I have. :)

SO we get there around 1030. My cousin met us at around 1145. My cousin left around 245 (we had a light lunch in between) and then mom and I finally left around 515 or so. We're looking at almost 7 full hours. Then I had a 2+ hour drive home cuz i Hit traffic in baltimore.

While at the mall, we went to Nordstroms. I found a couple of really cool brown (so warm) skirts with patterns on them. Both with handkercheif style hems. Then I got a brown sheer button down shirt that comes with a matching brown spaghetti strap tank. I also got an ice blue cowl nect "shell" that works nice. I have a lot of variation options with these outfits which is cool. I also found a nice coat, wasn't planning to get one though. It's a microcfiber suedy feeling outside with a fake fur inside. Very toasty warm - car coat length, nice coat and on SALE. So mom really thought I should get it so I did. (she bought me all the stuff at Nordstrom's. THANKS MOM!) So after deciding what to get we had lunch at the cafe, and then we went back to PAY for our purchases. :) Then we went to look at shoes. CUZ well see, i have lots of shoes, but the one thing I dont' have - is BROWN dress shoes. And you can't wear an entire Brown based outfit and wear black satin shoes. Just doesn't work. :) So i needed some brown dress shoes. but Nordstroms didnt' have anything. It's frustrating because apparently 4" heels are back in style this season, so it's either that or flats. Finding an inbetween isn't easy. So we then went to J. Jill. That's the store i was complaining about on thursday. They have some really nifty stuff. and they cut full! but they only carry petite and regular in the store. Oh well. I was able to try on some XL's and get a feel for what might fit from the catalogue, so I can always order if i so choose. Then my cousin left. So mom, and I started looking to see where there might be shoes. But we'd passed all the main stores, and we were so tired and our feet hurt so we decided going back to the other end of the mall was SOO not an option. So we went to JC penney and then Sears. Sears is where we hit paydirt. :) Of course I can't for the life of me find any of the stuff i bought on line. One pair of shoes was a pair by "Personal Identity" a T-strap wedge pump. The wedge is wide though not like those skinny death on heels type shoes. in a mottled brown leather with cut outs at the toe. really cool. Probably 2.5" maybe? The other pair is a pair of mudds. about a 2.5-3" "wood look" heel, but thick. and it's a round toe pump, but wider round toe, with beige stitching on it. Really cute. Neither of them are great for my back, but i'm at the point, that with dress shoes, it's not worth the $150 to buy appropriate shoes for dress and back, and for the few times i'll be wearing them (and the relatively short periods of time) i'll just suck it up. :)

So after that we got ice cream and then left the mall.

Saturday. Saturday, i had to get up and run some errands in the morning, and then pick up my husband so we could go to a bridal shower. (more like a wedding shower since it was one of those Co-Ed dealios.) It was a lot of fun, was enjoying it. Kind of odd for me though because I didnt' know ANYONE there except the bride and groom really. I didn't realize how little our friend base there overlapped. The only people I would have known didn't come down cuz she's due in like a month to pop out the first kid. :) so I understand her not being there. :) so it was kind of weird. :) But fun none the less. And then we had to leave early, but I won some movie tickets in one ofthe games. From there we went to drop M off to pick up his car, and then meet at friend's house for his birthday party. We then left from there and went to philly to see a reading of "the Tell Tale Heart" by edgar allen poe at the eastern state penitentiary. My friend was wonderfully surprised, as he'd thought it was just gonna be the 4 of us. Then 4 other friends showed up at the house, and then another 7 showed up in philly. :) It was AWESOME. There was some history about the prison, and the psychology, a discussion of the insanity defense and then some discussion about poe himself. It was a really great time. Then back to Delaware for dinner where another 7 -10 people showed up, also a surprise. Took over the entire friggin restaurant. :) it was GREAT! we had a blast there too. Got home around 1030 or so. ANd then I crashed. I slept until 1130 sunday morning.

By then of course Sunday had officially arrived. I went out to the store to pick up some stuff for organizing and what not. You know, I should have taken some before and after pics. We had to start cleaning up b/c our floors are beign install soon. My dresser: took me 3 hours, 3 trash bags, 3 bags of clothes to give away, the dresser is full, and so is my hamper, so no sure what i'll do once I do laundry :) And now that is clean. I haven't even touched under the bed or the shoes, or the closet yet. :) Or the nightstand except to remove water bottles. I filled a nordstrom's shopping bag with bottles to recycle. :) I have to empty them all out first. :) Then i had dinner - and crashed. Only to not sleep all that well.

So needless to say - i'm just WIPED. Add to that the heat. and popping in and out of AC'd stores into 95+ heat and back into AC store or AC car... it is just BRUTAL. and we're to have our heat wave this week. WHEEEEEE. I feel miserable in it. I can only say POOR PUPPIES when it comes to the doggies.

Oh well - good luck to everyone else with the heatwave. :)

Frustrating Fashion

Ok

So you have a store. their online catalogue carries, Petite, regular, Tall, and Women's sizes. And in just about all styles, all sizes are available. But the store itself, carries ONLY regular sizes and some of them carry petite. Why? Do Tall and large women not count? Do we not exist in high enough quantity that there's no point in carrying those styles in the store? When I find a place that has some nice fashionable things in good sizes, I get excited because it's a nice idea to have a clothing option that isn't a tent ya know? Which then leads me to another rant.

The concept of plus size clothing. Unfortunately the majority of plus clothing is a size 6 pattern blown up on a photocopy machine. obviously proportions are not the same. Plus women are not all butter balls and round shapes. There are boobs and butts and smaller waists etc.

I want to open a store called "boobs and butts and everything between." A store that has different lines, specifically designed for each sizing set.
And JEANS!! no more size 10, 12, 14 etc. No no, we're going to follow the logic that actually is USED in sizing of mens' jeans. Except instead of Inseam, it will be waist, hip and then Petite, regular, MTall, and Tall. :) how's that sound??

Who wants to start the revolution with me??? And remember, this isn't just for us plus folks, but for those short people, and tall people, and people everywhere in between who have size 8 tops and size 14 bottoms... it's a WHOLE new WORLD of clothing!!!

Sponge Bob Edamame

Ok -

This site has some amusing news posts (short summaries or segments of the post) and pithy commentary on those news stories. One of them is about the Licensing of Dora and Sponge bob Edamame and Edamame pods. Umm.. I'm not even sure what Edamame *IS* and they think this will work for kids? It is certainly and interesting concept, and just goes to show just how screwed up our world is sometimes. :) Spongebob vegetables... :) right, cuz that's what *I* think of when I think of spongebob... then again... mabye it's appropriate, as his apparent brain might be similar to the product "he" is endorsing. :)

I have to say - i just loved Mary's stream of consciousness blog this morning. was very entertaining. I want what she's having. :)

once again, i'm freezing in my office... I don't quite understand it. I have to dress warmer in the summer than I do in the winter. Silly.

so last night - i made lambchops for dinner. I marinated them first for a couple of hours in Vidalia onion honey mustard dressing. THen about 10 minutes before cooking added basalmic vinegar to the mix. My oh my did those come out tasty! Add to that the brown basmati rice and the steamed asparagus and I had a lovely dinner on my own. MY hubby was at his entrance interview for Massage School. He is now officially in as a student and will be starting classes on 9/11. The classes are 3 nights a week for 5 hours a night. I won't be seeing him much for the next 11 months... Oh well - on the bright side, i will then have a trained massage therapist living with me hmmmmmm.... that has lots of potential. :)

To anyone local - the massage school offers on thursday nights at either 6 or 7pm (both times are options I mean), a full 1 hour massage for $30. This is designed to give the students different people to practice on and different body types and issues to work on as well. You don't get to pick the student, and it's first come first serve. (Though I suppose you could call the school to sign up maybe and/or make an appointment) but for anyone who wants massages and can't normally afford the $70 they usually cost... this is might be a good way to do it and help out hubby in the process. :)

Umm - I think the stream of consciousness is probably coming to an end.

Oh wait. :) nope. So Minijaxter has now finished the sweater (MWUAHAHAHAH) and I have the tags. She has made me a couple of swatches so I can practice sewing things into the "sweater" material so I know how best to do it.. machine, hand etc...

Oh and the training is going well. :) I have bony ankles again. :) (instead of tree stumps) and My flexibility is starting to return in the process. I'm also not as tired all the time or feeling as drained usually. This is a good thing. Now i just have to start eating somewhat better and it will go even better in the long run. I'm signing up for another 30 sessions. :) that's another 15 weeks of torture. :) wish me luck :)

Ok - now it's over. Back to work! :) and have a great day folks. :)

I think i need to move away

From the heavy posting that is. :) lets move onto lighter things. Of course I don't really have a topic in mind at the moment.

Not much is going on really. I saw two movies this weekend. Pirates of the carribean 2- dead man's chest was the first. Then we did a double feature and saw ClerksII right after. I enjoyed both movies for entirely different reasons. Pirates was a great historical fantasy. Fun and energetic, and scary all at the same time. Clerks was just sick - which is to be expected.

Of course this leads to a minor rant.

For those of you with kids (and granted Idon't have any of my own yet) I understand the desire to get out of the house and see a movie or do something away from the house. But if you really need to get away. Get a sitter.

Bringing your 2 year old (roughly) to see a PG-13 movie is just ASININE and irresponsible. There's a reason it's PG-13. SCARY STUFF! I mean really. I honestly think that unless a movie is rated G, then children under 5 or 6 shouldn't even be allowed in the THEATRE, regardless of parental approval.

So yes, when we were watching pirates, right behind us was a couple with what appeared to be a 2 year old. one who was frequently crying and upset through out the movie. Kicking the seat I was in etc. But obviously unhappy with being there, whether or not he was scared of the movie. What p*ssed me off even more, was the parents who kept reprimanding him with "Shut your mouth right now!" So not only did you bring the child to a movie ENTIRELY inappropriate for him, but now you are punishing him and yelling at him for being scared and upset while watching said movie.

Truth be told, i'm an advocate for "childrens only" type shows. They used to do this on long island at one of the theatres i'd go to. It was labeled a "mother's show." It was a specific time that was publicized for parents to bring their children to. Anyone without kids who went to that show was informed that it was a mother's show, and to be aware there would probably be a lot of noisy children etc in the theatre and it is your choice to put up with it.

I know the ratings sytem is really a guideline, but I call upon ALL parents out there to actually use some common sense in taking your children to movies and realizze that PG13 is there for a reason, and should be SOME indicator as to the content of the movie.

Ok - rant over for the moment. I'm curious to see if all of you out there who are parents agree or disagree with me. it would be good to know if i'm speaking out of turn not being a parent myself, or if it actually makes sense. :)

Misunderstandings. . .

I think a number of people misinterpreted what I was trying to say yesterday.

Based on some of the commentary, many people are mostly concerned with the pictures and how horrible it is that children are signing bombs, and the impression i get is that they feel i'm arguing that this is ok.

What i was trying to say in my blog yesterday, was not so much about the pictures, but more about some of the commentaries I was seeing about the pictures.

I agree - it's horrible. Children should not hate that much. Whether they are justified, taught, or creative enough to come up with it on their own (which knowing children would not surprise me in the slightest - although that doesn't excuse the adults that condoned it) was not what I was trying to address.

Please, go back and read a number of the comments made on the other blogs about those pictures. What was MOST upsetting to me were the generalizations about "religious hatred" being taught, and the concept of things being a religious war. That is truly what bothered me the most.

The truth is the middle east is so screwed up I don't think anyone really understands everything that is happening. (that includes all of the governments involved as well.) I disagree that Israel is a bully. Yes they have one of the biggest and most efficient armies in the world, and yet are such a small country. However, I can't blame them for being prepared for what they see as the inevitable conflicts and attacks. But that is my opinion. nothing more.

Opinions are just that, opinions, and people need to be able to discuss them calmly and rationally and in an ideal world, be open to the other person's ideas. Take them in, think about them, and if there's disagreement calmly explain the points.

I think we all get a little too worked up over things, and if we feel attacked (even if that isn't the intention of our counterparts) we will fight back.

(and yes i'm segueing here.)

I urge everyone, to please try and be aware of what you are saying and how you are saying it and realize that if the other person starts yelling to you or at least responding in an agitated manner, to stop and think about how you've made your comments to determine if maybe, JUST maybe the other person could have construed it as attacking and aggressive. The other person may just be a nut job, or nervy, or an aggressive personality, but just maybe they felt they had reason, and your tone was misinterpreted. I think if we all just relax for a minute, and stop talking over one another and think about what we are all saying, things could possibly be improved...

Think - don't react. (we're not chemical experiments after all ;) )

Politics...

I really dislike politics most of the time.
Everyone is so dishonest. They twist their words and most people tend to be too lazy to find out what is really happening, base all of their decisions PURELY on whichever TV ad catches their attention, and what their family and friends tend to do. I reiterate. *MOST* people. (b/c people are stupid) The people who tend to read my blog are not. :)

And I will admit - I'm lazy when it comes to politics. I tend not to pay much attention because it annoys me so much. And My mother is such a junky :) as is my brother and they think like I do, that i trust their judgement. So call me a hypocrite.

Today, I was reading on Kvatch's blog, along with a couple of others he referenced, their story with pictures about Israeli children signing bombs headed for Lebanon.

I have a number of issues with this story. And even more issues with a lot of the comments that came out of the story.

I can agree that it's sickening and sad that children are smiling and signing bombs with comments such as "from israel and daniel" or "to Hisballah with love" etc. But this is *SOOO* not a black and white issue. And what i absolutely *CAN NOT* agree with is the commentary that Muslims are raised to hate jews and jews are raised to hate Muslims. that is A) a GROSS generalization, b/c I have friends who are muslim. I am jewish. Neither of us hate each other, nor were we raised to do so. B) jews by nature are not raised to hate anyone (more to wallow in what is our own misfortune. :) ) B) So *NOT* the point of what is going on with Israel and Lebanon and Gaza and everything else.

I think we are all so hung up on the religious fanatics in the middle east bombing everyone that we can't separate any other conflict in the ME as anything BUT religious. Israel's war is a war of survival not of religion. They are a secular country not a religious one. (and please take note, I am *NOT* trying to say that israel is pure as the driven snow, and isn't to blame for some of the conflict. no one over there is without blame. no stone throwing there... at least not legitimately.) How many people have really STUDIED the history of that area? How many know all the things that have instigated this war? how many people have *REALLY* looked at a scale map of the Middle East after commenting on how Israel is trying to strong arm everyone, and then gone "oh sh*t, didn't realize how small Israel really is compared to the rest of the middle east!" Go here to see a map.

When Israel was created, no one WANTED that land. It was barren desert, that's why they said ok to giving it to israel. (yes this is probably an oversimplification, and if anyone can cite sources that prove i'm wrong, please lets start a civilized discussion of it) But then... Then Israel did the unexpected. They built a thriving country. They built irrigation systems and became a real agricultural mecca. Suddenly everyone wants their land back. what's wrong with this picture?

As for children signing bombs, think about it differently. What if we had a war on our home turf, our citizens, children, familes being killed by bombs? OR what if we had a way to send a bomb that would directly target Osama? Would we still think it sick and disgusting to have people signing bombs headed for our deadly enemy? It's very easy to be idealistic when we don't live with war every day.

last but not least, I have not yet been able to find any reference to this on any of the news outlets. Are these pictures even real? Where did they come from? And WHY of all things, are the children writing in english???? That's not their language. They aren't writing in lebanese, which would make sense since they are the recipients (though i don't think they'd be able to read it). Why, when sending bombs from your homeland, would you sign it anything BUT your national language? This screams propaganda to me, to get people fired up against Israel, so that they can then be attacked not just physically with bombs and bullets, but also be morally condemned by people sitting back in relative safety.

I again ask, what is wrong with this picture? You tell me.

**Update: the references are from here: Photo and short story However I believe that the location the girls are from, are LITERALLY on the border with Lebanon and has been bombed/shelled/attacked etc throughout history and are literally on the battlefront. Doesn't mean it justifies the behavior, but I certainly understand it.