Wednesday, January 31, 2007

32 years and counting...

Well, i'm now 32 years old. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes - i really do appreciate them.

As Minijaxter said, it was a great party. A lot of my friends came and celebrated with me. The little kids were using the hall way as a slide - they'd run and then slide the rest of the way on their knees. Ahh the joys of "hardwood" floors. :) Lots of screaming early on.

Got to meet my friend's new baby Kara. at a month old, she wasn't very participatory in the evening's festivities, but that's ok. :) The food was absolutely wonderful and went over very well. There wasn't a whole lot of leftovers afterwards. Just extra "toppings" a bit of taco meat and the rice which not too many people had. And the cake? OH MY GOD the cake was fabulous and lasted all of 30 seconds I think.

I got some wonderful gifts and gift cards to favorite stores. My hubby got me some great stuff from LL bean. (love their men's shirts and the jeans. ) mom got me some great earrings with variable topaz.

All in all, i had a really good time and i'm so glad all my friends could join me. Of course, one thing i was really excited about (silly but it's SO me) was the new crock pot mom bought me for the party. I wanted something we could keep the meat warm in, but my 6qt crock pot, supposedly programmable, only has 4, 6, 8, and 10 hour settings. To get it to "warm" mode you have to let it finish a timed cycle first - all of which would have been too hot to keep the meat warm. It's been bugging me for a while, and i've been wanting a new one. So I went to LnT. On line i found this great one that i really liked, but it was backordered and out of stock. They were out in the store too. But I didn't want to spend $30 on a cheap one, cuz then how do I justify getting the one I want when it's back in stock you know? :) So i convinced the manager to let me buy the display model. :) And I actually got compliments on it from some of the guests at the party. It's a really nice crock pot.

Anyways - i was going to post earlier in the week, but monday I didn't get a chance and well, tuesday, i got hit with a tummy bug of some kind and was not in a very verbal frame of mind. I'm doing a bit better today so you get an update. :)

BTW, for those in the know, there is a new update at the invite only blog. :) ilannaprivate dot blogspot dot com. :) enjoy!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Your Salvation, Courtesy of. . . .

Hello everyone :)

Today- I made a coworker laugh with this:
I love this.

The gentleman who came up with these, Randy Cassingham of This is True is a genius. He has cards too. I love them.

In fact we gave them out at my wedding as one of the favors. They look like the Monopoly card and at the bottom it says "your salvation, courtesy of J, M and Z." (course our actual names are there. :))

He has some great stories and a free weekly newsletter about stupid people :) You should check him out. You can read more about them here.

There isn't a whole lot of stuff going on right now (hence the lack of posting. :) ) My birthday is this weekend. I'll be the meaning of life minus a decade. (i.e. 32 years old.) We are having a big party and it should be very entertaining. We'll tire the dogs out with daycare first so they aren't too rambunctious, and then well have fun. My friend who is a trained chef is doing all of the cooking. He does things like this every year. In order to raise money for his charity, he offers to do chores and such in exchange for a donation to the charity. Great idea in my opinion, so he is doing it for the party this year. Mexican themed is the current plan. Though the way my husband's eyes bugged out after seeing the grocery bill was *SOOO* worth everything. LOL

Also - i photographed a friend's belly dancing thing this weekend. IF anyone wants to see the pics click here.

Not much else going on - but maybe i'll try to get some doggie pics to post soon. Right now though my battery on the little camera is dead and I can't find the charger. :( might have to get a new one.

In a COMPLETELY different subject. I've started back with the trainer this week. it's been 2.5 months since I hurt my knee. knee still hurts but we're working on it. I've also decided I need to do more if i want to lose fat/weight. So starting next week, (not this week as it's my birthday week :) ) i'm going to start (sigh) getting up 20 minutes earlier and riding the bike for 20 minutes before I shower for work. The trainer, instead of coming on tues or thurs at 5 or 530pm, will be coming on wednesdays at 630am. I must be nuts. But a lot of people say the morning excercise is the best. It's also a different mind set. When i get home from work I don't want to have to work more. So i avoid the bike, or the workouts etc. IF my husband has orders to get me up in the morning, then i'll get up - and then it's done and out of the way. And maybe, JUST maybe this will help me get into an appropriate habit and help me really start moving.

Gonna start slowly making diet changes too. Switching to skim milk (been drinking a lot of milk lately.) Maybe have oatmeal instead of toast and butter for breakfast, etc. Things like that. We'll just have to see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Monday, January 15, 2007

For Your Amusement. . .

(**If anyone wants to see wedding pics, you have to first email me at jleader at gmail dot com and if i'm ok with it, I will send you an invite to where they are posted.**)

First of all - silliness.

For Chrismaka/birthday my hubby's parents bought me the ball winder and yarn swift that I'd wanted. :) So I had them both set up for when the girls all came over for a 'stitch 'n bitch' type evening. We had a wonderful time hanging out for a few hours knitting and chatting and hanging out. Watching mister go for the wine glass was very entertaining. :)

So, i left the swift and ball winder set up after that evening because I never got around to winding all of the stuff I need to wind. (not a huge amount I admit.)

Yesterday I decided to wash my bras. I only have 3 good ones at this point. (they are friggin expensive) So my hubby brought them up wet for me because you shoudln't dry them in the dryer - it kills the elsatic and such much faster...and when you are my size, you can't afford for that to happen.

So i got creative... :)


No long just for yarn! The New and Amazing BRASWIFT!!! :)

hey - you know... it worked. :)

Now...

I'm guessing you all want to know the ALIT stuff. The wedding Extraordinaire that I've been bitching about for the last few months...


well - here goes.

Wednesday night, mom and I head up to Newark, NJ. This makes the trip easier. We spend the night there (after a 2 hour drive) and then drive the last 45-60 minutes in the morning. Less exhausting that way. So we got to Newark around 1230am.

Next morning we head out to LI. I realize that i forgot the AWESOME dress purse I got for the wedding, and so on our way to the hotel we try stopping a few places to find one. Loehmanns was a REAL disappointment... not what that store used to be. :)

We finally get to the hotel in the 2pm vicinity. Mom calls her friend LP who agrees to pick up food for us and meet us at the hotel around 430. This is fine. We figure we can eat and get ready and hang for a while. It worked out really well too. We got dinner because we had no idea what the wedding timing was, and figured, ceremony at 7 we wouldn't get dinner til at least 8 so dinner at 430 is a good idea. So we all get ready and we head out the door around 635. I was so overheated from the shower and running around to get ready (and squeezing myself into the appropriate undergarments) that I was perfectly happy in a sleeveless dress in 35 degree weather. Scary huh? So we drive to the temple. Thankfully it's valet parking.

We go in and check our coats (and the comfy shoes we wore on the way :) ) and say hi to some people. We are directed to the 3rd floor. We get up there and they are serving drinks and butlered Hors d'euvres. (sp?) This means, that the ceremony doesn't start until around 8. (they started directing us in the the synagogue around 745) Then everyone starts coming down the aisle. This was probably the most disjointed wedding party I've ever seen. And it was HUGE. There had to be at least 20 people up on the alter not counting clergy. (and there were 3 or 4 rabbis and cantors up there.) I think the pattern was, if one of the wedding party was married, then their spouse got included too. So if you were married you walked down together with your spouse. If you had a younger child, you walked that child down with you as well. If the child was a little older (around 8) they walked down on their own. If you were single, then you walked down individually. So yes, it was a long processional. There were men and women on various sides. Yes sukaspawn was carried down the aisle. A 4 month old sick baby. (should have been left at home.) She was moderately fussy cuz she didn't feel well, so they were bouncing her around trying to quiet her down the whole time, and the groom was glaring because she was making noise. The best man (the star half of sukastar) had to leave with the baby in the middle of the ceremony to pass her off. Sad huh?

So the ceremony takes about 20-30 minutes. At which point we all file back out and into... appetizers. Yup - a second cocktail hour. Yup - and this was a doozy. They had: A carving stations with brisquet, london broil, and turkey; A pasta bar; a mashed and sweet potato bar with toppings to put in a cup like you would ice cream; a chinese food station; and in the center a cruditee table that was about 8' tall. complete with carved flowers out of potatos and radishes etc. It was... impressive.

An hour or so later, we were then shuffled into the reception hall. (it's about 930 right now.) They immediately start with first dance and then dancing. The $6000 band was very good (not worth $6k though) but also *V*E*R*Y* loud. I think the salads showed up around 10. At which point they came around and took everyone's dinner order. This included cooked to order ribeye steak. Dinner was finally served around 11. Now you all need to remember that this is a THURSDAY night wedding! Soon as dinner was over about 70% of the guests left. In fact a number of them had their meals packed up to take home. (I've never seen that at a wedding either.) Most of the guests missed the cake cutting ceremony which was around 1130. After which they brought out a full Viennese table. (that's what mom called it.) basically it was 5 different dessert stations ON TOP of the wedding cake which they were serving there as well.

We finally left around 1230. Went down to give the valet my ticket and the car was already there. (it was the last one. how sad is that?)

Now i'm sure you want some other stories. There aren't too many because in truth it was an absolutely lovely wedding and the reception was lovely as well (except for the loudness of music and the poor timing.) Well, that and my stomach (and mom's too) are just not designed for kosher food. BLECH! :) (the food was actually some of the best kosher food i've had but still. the replacements they use for dairy etc *shudder*)

So first little bit. We were told that during the picture taking Suka refused to hold sukaspawn. Claimed that the wrap "bound" her arms too much. OY! Later on for the reception, she is the ONLY bridesmaid who dropped the wrap and put on a custom made jaquard jacket in the same robin's egg blue as the wraps. No other BM did this. So of course she had to look different. It wasn't a good choice though because it really dressed it down. Make it look like skirt and jacket not a dress. She also had a fall attached to her hair. Apparently - she'd wanted to get hair extensions but they were going to cost $2000. (that seems kind of high to me but what do I know from extensions? I got good hair to begin with. *evil grin*) So she went to this wig place that does lovely wigs. They even dye them to match. So what does she do? So buys a black fall to put in her hair, and then dyes her own hair to match! Black dye never quite works, always has a bit of a shoe polish look to me. She looked very "vampy." her whole attitude was "look at me, i'm sexy." not quite the effect it had though. Turns out NONE of aunt M's friends like her and they are all worried about aunt M. It's going to be interesting to see how things continue.

What bugged us the most was the baby. Aunt M danced with sukapawn and held her close, facing aunt M and cuddled with her. Star carries Sukaspawn with his arms forming a chair/cradle kind of thing, supporting her from underneath. As much of a greedy sniveling arrogant a$$ that he is, he really seems to love and care for his daughter. Suka though! She carried the child with one around under her arms and around her chest. And that's it. Like a child carries a doll is how she carried this child. Face out so she could "show her off" and not help to her in any kind of loving manner. It just confirmed to us that Suka is playing house and has no real clue. Poor kid has an upper resp infection, and they had her out at the wedding the whole night. And changed her outfit 3 times. After the red satin blob they had her in, she ended up in fancy designer pajamas. (a designer that starts with B and ends in urberry) and the kit is spitting up bits at a time from being carried like that. The kid looked so out of it and tired i felt SOOO bad for this child. My uncle (star's deceased father and a pediatrician) would have had a *FIT* if he'd seen a 4 month old child at a wedding at midnight, let alone a sick one! i truly feel for this poor child.

OTher than that there were no major things that happened. Though I am disappointed. They nixed the waiters with sorbet idea. But there were a lot of people dancing which was nice. My cousin from cali and his wife (cousin is around 60 new wife is around my age) were *VERY* entertaining. They COMPLETELY ignored mom and I, but they danced like Elaine on Seinfeld. No rhythm whatsoever. It was absolutely a RIOT to watch!

Friday we came home and then had our knit/crochet bitch session evening. And then i spent saturday and sunday trying to RECOVER from the trip.

I did get a new toy this weekend though - i got me an ipod nano so I can listen to music at work. :) Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Monday, January 08, 2007

There's no place like sanity, there's no place like sanity, there's no place like sanity. . . .

Click your heels together folks. :) we have a new story.

Technically I guess it's part of ALIT as it deals with one of the regular characters...:)

First: A new acronym/name. The crazy Aunt... is now going to be KAR (or kar) for Krazy Aunt you know who. :) OK?

All right... so kar - who used to be a size 4 when she was young, has been ballooning. 10 months ago she was a 16. she has no increased to around a 22, and doesn't want to admit it. She claims to be wearing clothes from a certain store that only carries up to 14/16. My cousin says it's because she wears the SUPER stretchy travel clothes and just stretches them to fit. (shudder)

so meanwhile - they found Kar a black dress to wear for the up coming nuptials this week. Being as she has become blonder and blonder with her hair color (not the best choice really) she has decided that she needs GOLD shoes to go with this dress. Gold... i kid you not.

So she goes to this really high end boutique my grandmother used to buy all of her shoes from (back when she could wear heels and what not.) While there (I still can't believe this by the way) a woman walks in wearing...you guessed it. Gold shoes. Kar immediately gets excited and wants THESE shoes. Supposedly they fit, but with her pychosis who knows? So she buys the shoes off the woman's feet. yup. Used shoes.

Anyone want to guess how much she paid for them?

Nah - i'll just share. She paid the woman $95 for her shoes. Yup, $95 for used shoes off the woman's feet! She gets home and tells her companion the story and her companion looks at the shoes and says "kar!!! You crazy!! you can get these same shoes, same brand and color and everything, over on **** Avenue for $9.99!! Why you pay $95??"

Yes folks. This is my family.

On the flip side. My friends at the bookstore are all laughing at me. i'll tell you why. Shhh... they say i'm turning into a . . .

GIRL!

LOL - that's right. In preparation for this event, I needed makeup. I so rarely wear it that my stuff is all old, and i wanted some new colors so i bought make up. And I bought GOOD make up. :) MAC. but they had the colors and they were SO helpful and helping me to figure out what colors would be good and would work on my skin etc... I've been in there 3 times the last week, buying more stuff as I realized i needed it. Yup... i'm a girl. I even bought *GASP* a pair of pointy shoes!!! (Hush now... they fit and were comfortable and had a good stable heel so my knee was happy) Scary huh?

well - we are at 3 days and counting until the event of the year! (Of course being as it's only the second week of January, I'm sure other events will present themselves.)

I'll keep you all posted!

Thursday, January 04, 2007

changes upon changes...

So - we found out that my aunt M actually asked Suka's permission to seat us at the same table as them. How galling is that?? She asked SUKA if it was ok to sit Aunt M's own sister at the same table. my my - we know who is controlling this family now I think. It's so bad that when my cousin offered her brother J a robe she'd originally bought for their father before he died, J said "i don't know, i have to ask Suka, She may not like it." It's a ROBE For Cthulu's sake.... (couldn't bring my self to use another deity here....)

So then Aunt M tells my mom that she's going to be nice to us and move us to another table, even though before she said "where else can i put you? I only have 3 tables.!"

But we found out the reason we're able to be moved is because Aunt M had 39 ppl and was trying to put them at 3 tables of 12 but then at 3 ppl left over. SO P says "why not just do 4 tables of 10?" Well duh! so that's what they are doing now.

Aunt M also is apparently losing so much weight from stress and being ill etc, that she is down to a size 0 and they are having to still take in the dress. it's a week to the wedding and her dress isn't done yet and she doesn't have the energy to demand the store do what they promised to do or make restitution.

I did make sure to buy a purse that the camera will fit in. :) (also helps that i have a nice tiny little camera. :) )

i'll update you as I find out more.... :)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

New year? what new year? Who what when????

Oy vay...

and what a start to the year it is.

Spent new years eve and day at a friend's house. It was very entertaining. There were a few half naked young women (legal of course) walking around. One of them was SO excited when i guessed her bra size exactly right. she said she loved me. awwww. It's always interesting when you get into conversations about sewing machines with guys and geeks. One of them is designing a program that will print out a corset pattern once it has your measurements. So he's been working on corsets. But we're all geeks too - so we're talking about the servos and the mechanics that might be required to do all the different stitches etc. The things we all talk about when drunk I tell ya. (course I wasn't drunk - though I think i may need to start drinking....)

Why should I start drinking you ask??? Well - when last we left our cast of As Long Island Turns, a wedding was fast approaching and the various ins and outs were getting very amusing . . .

let's see. The band is costing $6000. That's more than ALL of the vendors for my wedding and in fact, i have some friends who spent less than that on their ENTIRE wedding! There will be staff walking around with bowls of sorbet so they can spoon it to the guests who get too hot while dancing... And from what we've heard - the BM dresses are a hideous cold dirt brown color. Suka even had to return hers and order a size UP b/c her boobs wouldn't fit in the bodice.

Now all the annoying stuff. Cousin P's hubby N was all getting ready for a tux, and then when A asked why they responded that he was supposed to be in the wedding party. A then says "oh we decided that you and he and your son would all walk down as a family instead" but they never bothered to tell them before they went to the trouble to get fitted etc. No one can keep anything straight any more. The various fights that are going on about everything is just getting crazy. I can't wait until it's all over.

Of course - why do i really need to start drinking? Our table. Are you ready?

Aunt M and Uncle M. reasonable to deal with. Cousin P and N w/son D. Also - we get along with them no worries. Helper 1 and Helper 2 will also be there at the table with us (in theory.) I like them so no worries. *BUT* that means we also have to sit with Crazy Aunt R (and watch her eat *SHUDDER*) and SUKASTAR will be at the table with us. Mom says she better not end up next to Star because she'll kill him. Suka is ok, cuz she'll just slap her upside the head if needed. (yes i'm bringing my camera.)

Of course then there's the current fiasco of everyone getting dressed everywhere. So of course Hello and sukaspawn will be in the way, so its been requested that they be allowed to stay at my empty grandmother's house while everyone gets ready. I of course ask why they can't just stay home at their house... well apparently sukaspawn is coming to the wedding. But since they aren't accounted for at the table. (infant no biggie, but Hello will be around too) my guess is, they will walk her down the aisle in arms to show her off, pass her off to Hello, and then send her home again. The point of that - I have NO idea.

there's all kinds of other little dramas i'm not going to go into here. But i'm sure you all get the idea. Any suggestions on what a non drinker should start drinking to break herself in? I'm thinking bailey's, maybe amaretto and cream - mild things to start. Then i might just switch to the grey goose!

I"ll make sure to post updates after the fact! (mom and I though will be dressed to the 9's. :) I even bought MAKEUP!!! at M.A.C no less....oooooohhh. :) )

Laters! :)