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!

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!

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!

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.... :)

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! :)

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!