Already There

Candy jars are everywhere

2011-06-08T16:16:00.001-04:00

That was one of the first things I noticed at the office. It was one of the things I had forgotten about right along with the afternoon popcorn snack. For me, I find what works is that I only eat what I bring in myself and say no to mostly everything else. Once in awhile a "treat" is fine but not too often and it better be good. Moderation is key. Since I tend to have a desserty breakfast my sweet tooth starts out satisfied by 6 am. That is right. Desserty breakfast involves organic oatmeal, greek yogurt and blueberries all mixed up. So good. Then coffee with french vanilla creamer and a muffin or blondie or a cookie. Some goodness that I've baked up. So candy dishes I can pass on but of someone brings me fresh berries and yogurt, watch out.

Goodbye Selah Bug

2011-06-07T16:25:00.001-04:00

Last week we had to put Selah, our sweet little rescue German Sheppard, to sleep. She had adjusted well to being an only dog since Dryfuss had passed last summer. And by adjusted I mean, we completely spoiled her. We still weren't even remotely ready to say goodbye. Losing her just hurts the heart and our house and yard just feel so big and empty now. We miss so many things about her. Goodbye my little Selah Bug.

Back to "real" pants.

2011-06-06T14:04:00.001-04:00

Or skirts and dresses. I work from home full-time no longer and I'm ok with it. I actually was starting to miss people and wearing real clothes.

So the first thing I had to do was check out my closet. Yikes. I had gotten rid of a lot of stuff I didn't like a year ago but I hadn't tried on things. Lots more ended up in the donate pile and I was left with a pretty limited work wardrobe.

So armed with some coupons I headed out with the intent to get some pants, skirts and tops I could mix and match. I had 3 stores in mind: Old Navy to check out their 50% off clearance, NY & co and Express. In just about 3 hours I ended up with 2 skirts, 2 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, a sweater and a belt for about $250. I was very happy with that.

I waited on shoes till I started and I'm happy to say that on 5 days in I can wear all the high heels I want. I do need to go back to Old Navy to have them remove the security tag from the sweater and I need to exchange a shirt from Express that is just a bit too big.

So I'm doing the office thing again but this time I'm only buying stuff I love. No more "Well, its cheap and for work" because then I don't even look forward to getting dressed. I'm also not allowed to wear black pants every day.

Testing

2011-06-06T12:18:00.001-04:00

First post from my phone. I think I might like this.

Note to self: Quit Complaing

2011-01-18T09:34:00.003-05:00

So last Friday I listened to Slightly Stoopid till the sun came out. Around lunchtime I bundled up and Selah and I went out and did some shoveling of snow in the sun. Felt fantastic and dramatically improved my mood. We got another 4 inches of snow on Friday night so I went back out Saturday since the sun was shining again and got some more sun. Had a nice quiet weekend as I had anticipated. Did some household chores and I started prepping the upstairs spare room to be painted. I've moved all the furniture and spackled all the holes, now I need to caulk the cracks and I'll be priming the room hopefully this weekend. That room is in dire need of fresh paint.

Yesterday, I did go get my new tires and the husband drove on them to work today and said not once did the traction control come on as the roads were a slushy mess this morning. He's quite happy with them. Thanks Belle Tire.

We also went and test drove a new Buick Regal yesterday. The interior styling is so nice. They've really upped it since I got my Grand Prix in 04. That may be my next car... in a year or so. It did feel narrower then my Grand Prix but it is also taller. Nice ride, looks sharp. I know the couple of you reading this are wondering why GM? I'll tell you why, the husband and I are both from GM families and have both supported GM in our careers. Our dads are GM retirees so I will continue to support the brand and with products like the new Regal they won me over. Wonder if I can find any pictures of my first car, the 1979 Regal my dad and I built? That was a tank in comparison to what I drove yesterday.

Happy Tuesday!

I need some Vitamin D

2011-01-14T09:40:00.002-05:00

I know I have choosen to live in MI where we truly get the experience of 4 seasons and I'll admit winter is my least favorite. Though I look at it as winter is the time to take a break from yard work so I actually look forward to it in the spring. It's a great time to cuddle up on the couch and nap or watch movies or just do nothing. But the worst part for me is when we get to multile days with no sun. I think its been since Sunday that we've had any sun and that was just at sunset. No real sunshine during the day. It can be 10 degrees out but if the sun is out, I can deal. 10 degrees with no sun? Ugh. I checked out the forecase for the next week, everyday shows flurries with a cloud showing a peak of sun. So it's a tease and the forecasters have all their bases covered. Man, I should of went into that. No, wait, I seriosly am enjoying my career in the IT project management right now. I'm on a project I really enjoy, working with some really interesting people and I have the wonderful benefit of working here at home. Last year I did have to put on work clothes and go to 1 meeting. Not too bad.

Ok, I'm going with audible vitamin D, listening to Slightly Stoopid radio on Pandora.

I see a quiet long weekend in my future. No plans other then I will watch the Miss America pageant on Saturday to support Miss Michigan, Katie La Roche, whom I've never met but she is a Bay City girl from the dance studio I go to. So I have to support her and I saw her solo on youtube. The girl is good, real good. So go Miss Michigan!

Long weekend and with that I'm getting new tires for the Grand Prix on Monday. Maybe hit the mall for some sales. Nice little Monday in my future, plus its MLK day so Holiday! Everyone have a good weekend and if you have sun where you are at, take a minute and soak it up and appreciate it. But wear sunscreen if you need too. :D

It's been how long?

2011-01-13T09:52:00.002-05:00

My apologies to the few of you who actually took the time to read this blog and then kindly left a comment and I never checked my comments. Whoops. I have to admit I kinda forget I have this thing since I have never made it a habit. Ah well, I'm okay with a little inconsistency.

So since I last checked in the bathroom is completed and is all I hope for and more. I don't take baths as often as I thought I might but I do enjoy them when I do. I got a jet tub so if I want to use jets, I can't use bubbles or soap of any kind. Since its a shower/tub combo, I usually end up taking a shower and taking a bath but the order sometimes flips around, I just don't think I've figured out a real rhythm to it yet.

Another change is last summer we had to have Dryfuss put down. The poor guy just got to the point where he sometimes couldn't get up anymore without assistance and he was in constant pain, it was a really hard decision for us to make. Our vet actually came out to our house and put him to sleep in the backyard where he was laying in his favorite spot. Shoot, I'm tearing up just writing about it. Ok, had to take a break, now I'm back.

So now Selah is an only dog and we did think about getting her a friend but she's an old mellow girl so I want to wait till spring to see how she's doing before I seriously look. THough she has been driving me a little nuts with her constant licking the last couple of days so I need to start walking her more to see if that helps. Poor girl needs a job, it used to be watching D. :(

So this post inspired me to create the 'Goodbye' playlist. 33 songs came up. Yeah, I'll just give you the short version.

1. Goodbye - Alicia Keys - Meh, next, not ready for a slow song.
2. Everytime you say Goodbye - Allison Krauss - Yep, I can listen to this, upbeat and a banjo. Score. Just looking ahead in the playlist, lots of country coming up. No surprise here.
3. Hello Goodbye - The Beatles - Not my favorite Beatles song but I like it being in this list
4. I Can't Find the Words to Say Goodbye - Billy Dean - I follow him on facebook. Glad to know he's still out there doing his thing.
5. Goodbye says it all - BlackHawk - Wow, I forgot how much I love the sound of this band. And I still know all the words.

Oh no, my craiglist dryer thermastat has gone goofy only heats when I set it on dry timing where it is supposed to sense when its dry and automatically turn off. Nope, it'll run forver now. Looks like I'll be setting my alarm on the my phone to remind me.

6. Never Say Goodbye - Bon Jovi - Yes, love this song.

Still working from home and loving it. I am the conference call queen these days. Though I really need to clean out the closet again and get rid of more work clothes. Stuff I haven't worn in 2 years now. I did a cleanout last year but still kept some work clothes just in case. I think now I need to narrow it down to just my favorites. My favorite 'work' clothes now. Leggings and the husbands thermal shirt.

7. Why would I say goodbye - Brooks and Dunn - Did I ever mention that I sent these guys a wedding invite? They sent me an autographed photo. Country ruled in 1995.
8. Starts with Goodbye - Carrie Underwood - I have to admit I'm not really a fan, I liked her on Americon Idol (which may of been the last season I watched) but I'm just not into the coutry Diva thing. That being said, I like this song and this is probably the first time I listened to it. Though this is the kind of song you sing along to in the car when you are alone. lol.
9. Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye - The Charlie Daniels Band - Who wants to 2 Step?
10. Say Goodbye - DMB - Perfect ending for today. I'll save the list and hit it up again later. Go jazz flute! Or is that yazz flute.

Oh Snow

2010-02-09T13:05:00.000-05:00

So the weatherman is calling for snow. It started coming down about 2 hours ago and is epected to keep snowing for the next 18 or so hours though they are only calling for 4-6 inches. We'll see. In the meantime I have the trim guy and plumber here at the house working on the bathroom. Techincally I could proably take a bath tonight though I still don't have any lights in there but that is what they make candles for right. I may be picking up some Mr. Bubble too. Kinda hoping dance class gets cancelled tonight with the snow.

So the snow is inspiring me with a new playlist:
1. Backstreet Boys vs. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars That Way (MeiJonce) - I really like this mashup, the songs really compliment each other.
2. Good for Me - Amy Grant, this showed up since one of hte composers last name is snow.
3. Snow in July - Garth Brooks, this actually is his whole Chris Gaines thing he did back in the late 90's. I actually liked the CD and listened to it a lot.
4. Velvet Snow - Kings of Leon - Interesting tune.
5. I Celebrate the Day - Reliant K
6. When I get home for Christmas - Snow Patrol - Christmas songs were bound to come up on this list but its ok, the song has a meloncholoy sound I can listen to year round
7. Snow Angel - Tori Amos - love this song and I'm not a huge Tori Amos fan
8. Alibis - Tracy Lawrence - Tom Snow is a busy composer.
9. First Snow - Trans-Siberian Orchestra - the only instrumental on the list.
10. Snowed Under - Keane - love his voice.

Short fun little list.

I started this thing when? Hi post #105

2010-02-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

All the way back in 2006. Holy cow. I remember I started this before I even had a Myspace, though I did join Myspace shortly after. I've been completely inconsistent with posting as I really can never focus on what to write about. Squirrel.

Even now I sit here staring at the screen, twisting my hair and I've got nothing.

Random list of thoughts:
1. My dogs are getting old, seriously. I would just like them to get through this winter and get to enjoy another spring/summer. I'm not ready to lose them yet.

2. So ready to take a bath in my new tub. I'm hoping by Valentines.

3. I should bring back random MP3 player day. Yes, I still have the same MP3 player but I've added no new music to it in about 18 months because none of my computers support the software thanks to XP/Vista/W7. Yes, I do have 3 computers and each have a different OS (2 work, 1 personnel). I do have all the music on the home computer though. Can I get WMP to generate random playlists? testing... testing..... OK sorta. lol. So what I did was auto generate a playlist with the word 'ham' in the song title. This could be fun.

4. I've fallen 4 times at dance class this year, the last left quite the bruise on my right knee. I may just have to admit that its time to admit I should move up into the 'ladies' class. I maybe able to pass as 26 on a good day but my brain/body are definitely 36. My relationship with gravity just keeps getting closer and closer.

5. That is an interesting thought, especially if you plan to be buried when you die. As you age gravity keeps pulling parts of you down until you finally end up in a box in the ground. Huh, never had thought about it that way before. Damn you gravity!

So the Ham Playlist:

1. Ain't that a Shame - Cheap Trick - actually a good start to a list
2. Apple Shampoo - Blink-182 - good 2nd song to a playlist
3. Birmingham Jail - Michael Martin Murphy - what can I say, I spent a good part of the mid-90's wearing boots and belt buckles and this is a beautiful song.
4. Chameleon (LOL Boys Remix)-Christina Milian - I have a thing for dance music, this is going to help me with my other playlists I have too. This got added to the remix one. Though I can't stand any remix that is over 4 minutes.
5. Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for my Sham Friends - Fall Out Boy - Loved their concert, no lines at the beer stand or for the bathroom. Hush, that makes for a great concert.
6. Champagne Supernova - Oasis - will always love this song
7. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon - LOL. Love it. So random. Um, is it weird that I still remember all the words to this song. Ah pop music, it'll get ya.
8. Drinking Champagne - George Straight - class George, always makes me smile. Love the lyric 'I never loved you much when you were mine' Ouch.
9. Hammer Down - Billy Dean - Fun country song, need to goodle Billy Dean to see what he's been up to. He's a on F, now I'm following him. He's still playing
10. Hammerdance - Omni and Otherwise - Whoa, interesting song.
11. Shame (At Night) - Kid Cudi vs. Evelyn King - Party Ben - And now I wanna disco.
12. Krawhitham - Aerosmith - Rock instrumental, nice.
13. Molly's Chambers - Kings of Leon - First time I've heard the song, nothing really stood out about it.
14. Shame - Matchbox 20 - God I love Rob Thomas' voice. Nice song.
15. Shame and Fortune - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Makes me chair dance.
16. Shame on Me - Twister Alley - Ahh this takes me back to the day of 'Cactus Moon' starring the Jessie Couch band. Only Flint people will get that reference.
17. Shameless - Garth Brooks - This just makes me want to slow dance with the husband who is the best dance slow dancer EVER. He is. If you've danced with him you know what I'm talking about.
18. Shottas (Featuring Kardinal Offishall & Cham)- T-Pain - Kinda seems odd, mixed in with the country
19. Ten Pound Hammer - Aaron Tippin - I always like him. Man, the thing that got me with main stream country musci is how once the industry embraced the pop song style, that is all we got on radio and seriously after awhile I couldn't listen anymore. Oh that and then I started listening to Dave Mathews Band.
20. What a Crying Shame - The Mavericks- This band has fantstic voals. This CD used to be in constant rotation in 1995/1996.
21. Whatchamacallit - Pussycat Dolls - What a way to end a playlist. LOL.

I just realized I don't have any MC Hammer. I may have to correct that.

We're getting closer

2010-02-02T09:17:00.000-05:00

On the bathroom that is, since my last update the tub has been installed and the drywall is done. So this past weekend the husband and I spent Saturday priming the walls and Sunday painting. I choose (yes, I'm taking full credit for the color choice) a lovely shade of green called Promenade from Behr. I love the color in the can, I love the color on the roller, I love it on the wall. When the morning sun hits it.... I'm not so sure. This time of year we really get a yellow light from the sun as its so low on the horizan and when that yellow light hits a green wall? Well, I'm not sure that is how I'm going to want to start out my day. We've only done 1 coat with the plan to do a 2nd once all the fixtures are in place so I could still change my mind on the color. I just know I don't want to do tan.

Here are a couple pictures, though they really don't capture it as well as I'd like:

Another Project Complete

2010-01-13T13:16:00.000-05:00

No, not the bathroom remodel. Still waiting for the tub to come in (which should be any day now). No, I decided to tackle a small project to take care of a minor annoyance I had with brass door pulls. For some reason the people who built this house 20 years ago had a love affair with brass pulls on all the closet door pulls which makes no sense since all the door knobs are brushed nickel. We replaced all the pulls in the hallway (3) and in the kitchen (1) a couple years ago. Well, I finally replaced all the ones in the bedroom closets and the coat closet. For most of them I just purchased new pulls but in the office the pulls they used had a 2.5 base on it and I couldn't find pulls or new bases that big so I decided to just paint them. They turned out pretty good. Way better then they were before.

The old pulls were an odd oblong shape with the huge circle spacer behind them.

I had these simple round pulls from one of the other rooms that I like better with the spacer. Ugh, the flash really showed off the ugly brass.

One can of spray paint.

And 4 coats of paint later this is what I ended up with.

I still have a lot of spray paint left. I have a pair of lamps that just may be painted with this hammered finish. That will need to wait till spring or until I find a bigger box I can use to paint in. Though my next mini project will probably involve some pond pictures.

CD ripping is done for now/Advice for Gym Newbies

2010-01-06T09:22:00.000-05:00

So the CD ripping is 99.5% done. There are 10 CDs in the disc changer in the boat that are left plus a couple box sets that could be ripped. I have a feeling we already have most of the songs on the boxed sets anyway. Plus, they are buried under all the Maxim magazines that the husband has kept and I really don't feel like trying to get them out. I mean I can see it now, I find myself buried and unable to move under stacks of Maxim magazines and the guys working on the house find me. LOL.

So this being the first week of the year at the gym it tends to be really interesting. Monday was kinda busy a couple new faces but mainly regulars who were getting back in the groove. Tuesday night was actually pretty slow but there were 2 new faces and new to working out. I felt bad for them because I could tell they had no idea what they were doing. Now, I didn't offer any help nor did they ask for help and honestly if I see them again at the gym I'll be surprised. Now I'll give them credit for coming to the gym but that's it. They were totally unprepared. No idea what they were going to do. I mean one of them went from the elliptical, the treadmill to the bike all in less then 20 minutes. She did not work hard enough to sweat and complained her feet were too tired from work to stay on the treadmill where she was only walking. Sometimes I wish gaining weight physically hurt, like each fat cell expanding was like a bee sting. Because if it hurt, there would be no fat people since everyone seems to shy away from things that make them hurt. I mean after 2 days at the gym and a dance class sitting here without even moving I have soreness in my left hamstring, my neck and shoulders/biceps. I really think many people have a hard time differentiating from good pain to bad pain. I'll be honest it can be very uncomfortable working out, sometimes it hard to breath, sometimes I want to throw up. But how I feel when I'm done, the results in the way my clothes fit and when I pick up my 50 lbs niece and throw her around and am not tired, it is all totally worth it.

So newbies at the gym my advice to you is this: get a plan, break a sweat, stock up on aleve. You can do it and you'll be glad you did. If you don't think you can do it, get outta my way cuz I'm gonna do it!

So it's 2010

2010-01-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

Nice, I guess I could finally get rid of the dress I wore for NYE for 2000. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever wear that again. LOL. I can't post a picture of it because I wasn't digital then nor do I have a scanner now. I should get one though, I have so many pictures I would like to scan. At least the ones from 2000 are in an album, I have tons that need to be in albums. I need to keep an eye out on sales on albums and work on that. Maybe I should finish the projects I'm working on now though.

Current projects:
Currently ripping all my CD's, this will be done this week, maybe even today with the exception of the CD's in the boat's disc changer. Those will wait to spring. I like to pretend we don't have a boat in the winter.

Cleaned out my main closet. This is a by-product of the bathroom remodel. I have split items into piles so I have a pile to just donate which I'll drop off this week when I go grocery shopping and then there is the stuff I'm going to take to a resale shop and see if they want it. I went through all my old work clothes and pulled out all the stuff that was only work clothes so I know I haven't worn those in over a year now since I've been doing this work from home thing for over a year now. I'll need to reorganize the closet once I can move everything back into it. That should be soon.

Painting: new bathroom, old bathroom and both spare bedrooms. Also do to remodeling project. Hmmm, I should paint my closet too before I move everything back in since I do love the smell of fresh paint. Hmmm.

2010 is gong to be the year of getting the house in order before spring/summer hits when I plan to enjoy the yard and then get some projects done in the yard too. Also, boat trips are in the forecast. I'm hoping for 3-4 trips not in Bay City, hopefully Lake Charlevoix, Cheyboygan, Lake St. Clair, Caseville/Tawas. That is an ambitious summer and months away at this point.

Off for more CD ripping (Steve Earle and the Dukes currently)

Let the Destruction Begin

2009-12-11T10:23:00.001-05:00

I think I'm officially a grown up now. I say this because I just gave a giant check to a contractor to put a new roof and to remodel the upstairs bathroom in the house. I think it was the check writing that felt so grown up and wow, I didn't even write it, the HB wrote it. But I hugged the check before we handed it over. So this week the progress has been:

Monday - back of the garage roof tore off and reshingled
Tuesday - front of the garage roof tore off and reshingled
Wednesday - Snowstorm
Thursday -Windstorm
Friday - Tearing out the upstairs bathroom. This by far has been the loudest day so far.

This is what the old bathroom looked like:

It is tiny, only 3x9, with the weird slanted ceiling. The new bathroom will be 10x9 with a nice big tub and lots of storage and double sinks. Can't wait. But have to live through the process. Finally something to write about. :D

Next week they cut a giant hole in the roof on the back of the house. Nervous!

A frosty sunrise over winter wheat

2009-11-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

A picture via a cross-post.

2009-10-30T14:19:00.000-04:00

This totally counts as a picture and a post. I swear it does.

http://cheapjap.com/2009/10/30/sharesies-diy-costume-brilliance

Happy Halloween!

Starting Small

2009-10-23T12:03:00.000-04:00

So I want to try and get into a regular habit of blogging. I'm going to start with weekly Friday entries and a picture of the week. I'll start small and see where I go from here.

This is a picture I took of the pond this morning. Definitely is fall out there, the leaves are falling and its chilly out there. I started the pond cleanout a couple weeks ago but stll need to climb in and cut everything back. We also were having an issue with algae that I've been treating for the last week and it is starting to get back under control. I want to kill all the algae before we get to regular freezing temps and we put the heater on the pond.

Our crew of 11 or so fish from last year have spent the entire summer breeding and we must have 100 new babies in there and we want to see if we can get the majority through the winter. If we start to get over crowding next year, we'll deal with it then. We know enough poeple with ponds who would be interested in fish. Tee hee. Maybe I'll do a fish giveway. Happy Friday!

Negligant

2009-07-29T14:55:00.000-04:00

Looking back at my last post I can confidently say the fish did make it through the winter. They did so well in fact we know have babies. I told D that he is officially a grandpa since he can't ever have kids. Yes, D is my 13 year old german shepperd. I guess that makes me a Great Grandma to my fish babies.

So yeah, I have no excuse, I work from home now and can find time to get on here but never can think of anything clever to put on here. Maybe I should just resort to pond pictures!

You can see 2 babies in there, 1 in the center, 1 on the left center. Awww, aren't they cute?

I hope it isn't too soon to call it

2009-03-10T15:58:00.000-04:00

But it looks like we've managed to keep the fish alive for an entire winter. Everything is melted now and the fish made it through. I even started pulling some leaves and such out of the pond when we were teased with some lovely 60 degree weather.

While I do enjoy working from home one of the things I do miss is the ride to work everyday in which last winter there were many days I'd see 2-3 bald eagles on the drive in. But the nature at home isn't that bad either. Yesterday the back field was flooded and a pair of ducks decided it would make a nice swimming hole. Well, until Selah saw them and scared them off and just about 20 minutes ago she scared off an entire flock of seagulls. My little barker!

The dogs are also happy about the warm up, they are spending a lot more time in the yard in between their nap sessions. I had no idea how much they slept until I started staying home all day. But D is almost 13 now. I'm going to make sure I get a lot of pictures of him this spring/summer since with old dogs you just never know.

So it seems I only post when it is 18 degrees

2009-01-13T12:55:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it is still cold. Got a fresh 3 inches this morning and now the deep freeze is moving in. Thanks Canada! Love ya, eh! The good news is the pond still isn't frozen and the placement of the heater and the aerator seem to be working. Here is the pond currently.

So it isn't very pretty right now. But its not frozen which means we can pick out some Koi this next spring/summer and actually keep them alive. Woohoo. That makes me excited.

I'm working from home these days so it doesn't take much to make my excited. I'm a people person and I'm alone with my computers and my doggies for 9 hours a day. I need real human interaction, makes it easy to motivate me to go the gym after work though and to go to dance class.

From 85 to 18... degrees that is.

2008-12-19T08:49:00.000-05:00

I've lived in Michigan my entire life and never do I remember so much snow so early in the season. In the work parking lot there are snow banks already about 15 feet high. My driveway has already been plowed 3 times and will need to be plowed once the 6 inches of snow we are expected to get today finishes. It is just amazing.

How is just 1 month ago I was here???

The good news is, today is my last day of work for the next couple weeks, the dogs love the snow and the pond has NOT frozen and I really need to take some pictures of how cool it looks. After 8 years of having the pond we think we've finally figured out the correct placement of the aerator and the pond heater to keep the fish alive for the season. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, salt over my shoulder.

I can Feel it Coming in the Air Tonight

2008-12-18T08:02:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how to explain this, but I can feel change in the air. It's coming just like when you can feel the rain coming. I know that career wise I'll be doing a change but I don't feel like that is all that is going to be thrown my way. I'm not even sure how to explain or maybe it is just that I'm switching to a new work laptop and that's got me feeling all loopy. I mean whenever you move your files around it leaves me feeling a little discombubulated. (Don't you just love that word? Say it out loud. So. Much. Fun.)

Anywho, I'm a lover of change and tend to thrive on it. So this is going to be good.

In other events in my life, I have done minimal Christmas shopping so far. Though I really don't have a ton to do, mainly just gifts for the neices and nephew and things for some friends. Nothing to stress over for once. The way the holiday break from work happens is I will have 5 shopping days before Christmas and I'm looking forward to doing some shopping with the panic, stressed out crowds. Yeah, sounds nutes, eh? But I lov eto people watch and this is always a fun time of year and it's a good way to run into people you haven't seen in forever.

I know I mentioned I'm at a different dance studio this year but what I did fail to mention is just how much I'm enjoying it. For the first time in years, I just get to stand back and learn. Last night was my hip hop class and I'm just having fun with it. The weird thing is most nights the room we use has no mirrors and that has taken me awhile to adjust too but I don't mind it anymore and the good thing is I know when I can't see myself dance I tend to just go for it more and I can definitely feel it. I mean a one hour class last night required 2 advil for the back this morning.

So now the title of this post and my ramblings have gone astray. It must be time to jet.

Wheels on The Bus Go Round & Round

2008-12-16T08:28:00.000-05:00

I grew up in a rural area. In fact, I lived a 1/2 mile from a dairy farm. As a kid this truly meant one thing. I rode the bus to school. My elementary school was about 4.5 miles from my house but the school bus route probably covered about 20 miles. I was on the very edge of the school district and the route followed the edge. This meant I was usually one of the first kids on the bus and would often ride the bus for 30-45 minutes before I even got to school. The flip side of that I was often one of the first few kids off of the bus.

As I grew older and kept advancing at school the bus rides got longer as the middle school and high school were about 7-8 miles away from my home. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time on the bus and learned quite a bit during that time.

In elementary school, I learned about 'it'. Now I wasn't sure what 'it' was, but I knew when I was older I would figure 'it' out. I also learned that its probably best to not defend yourself with an umbrella unless you enjoy morning visits to the principal to call your mom.

In middle school, I learned that a clarinet case makes a great arm rest to use for a nap. I found out the hard way that when boys punch you, it means they like you. I learned that the older kids reserved the right to the back of the bus which meant by the time I was in 8th grade I could reserve the back seats for me and my friends. Back there I learned about hair spray and what height you could use it too. I also learned that Mt. Dew and vodka mixed rather well. I learned that turning a bus around on an ice covered dirt road doesn't usually work out well for the bus.

Freshman year of high school, buses were cut, but they brought them back for my sophmore year. My bus riding in high school was sporadic at best. I did what I could to try and bum rides until I turned 16 and then I started car pooling with a friend who lived a mile away.

My favorite year on the bus had to of been 8th grade. It just happened to work out that there were about 6 of us girls who took over the back of the bus. We all had grown up together and had no idea that the next year we'd all go in such different directions in high school. But we had a great time back there that year.

Thrilling as the Raptor, not as rough as the Mean Streak

2008-12-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

Hi. How have you been? I hope things have been going well. Me? How have I been? Thanks for asking. Well, the short standard pass in the hallway answer would be good or fine. But if I was to be 100% honest with you, I'd have to say it has been a roller coaster ride around here and I'm not even sure where to start. I know a list! I like lists!

1. Summer ended and we underutilized the boat this year.
2. We built an 8x12 pavilion in the backyard.
3. The busyness at work ended.
4. Chet Fest was another huge success.
5. I started taking dance at a different dance studio and am not teaching this year.
6. Fall came and was really beautiful this year.
7. Work slowed to a crawl.
8. We took a vacation to Jamaica for a week to see our friends get married.
9. My project from work got cancelled.
10. Found a new project.
11. Went to the wedding reception for the friends.
12. Celebrated Thanksgiving with friends.
13. Now it is December and we woke up to about 6 inches of snow this morning.

With all this going on, I've realized I am ready for a change so the new project is a definite step in that direction. I'm working on some other potential changes also, but I need to let those options pan out first. The thing is I'm going to make the effort to make this blog happen. It'll just be what is going on with me and my roller coaster ride but I'm hoping for a fun ride. Feel free to jump on if you wish.

The Boat Got Wet

2008-08-05T09:28:00.000-04:00

I know, it took us until August 1st to actually put the boat in the water but then we had 2 nice boating trips after that even if the first one ended with us getting a little wet.

We took a vacation day on Friday and actually hit the water about noon which is early for us and we headed way out into the Saginaw Bay and just turned the boat off and floated, did some swimming and relaxing in the sun. It was the best Friday I've had in a long time. We have a Garmin GPS that has XM weather integrated into it that we were keeping an eye on as there was a chance of scattered storms. Sure enough, two little dots popped up on the radar and before we knew it we could see the storms in the distance even though we had a gorgeous blue sky over us. We decided to make a run for the river before the 2nd cell hit the main water and we got into the river just in time when it started to drizzle, then eventually pour. Pretty much everything on the outside of the boat was wet. I pulled up the carpet and put it in the cutty and shut the door so the cutty stayed dry but everything else was wet. WE pulled the boat out and got her home and all dried out while all the while the rain and storm kept going.

Sunday, we also went back out for another nice calm day of boating but took some friends with us and then anchored out at State park beach. We ended up staying out until about 8pm. It was just a fantastic Sunday afternoon. I'm anxiously waiting for some more great days to get out there and enjoy the water. This weekend so far is looking a little cooler but still nice.

Why I love Thursday Nights

2008-06-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

I get to watch 2 different dance show back to back! First, the results show from 'So You Think You Can Dance', where the best part is always the group opening number and last night's was no disappointment. Mia Micheal's piece was fantastic, it felt very 'Alice in Wonderland' with a nice dark twist. I loved it. Other then that the results show is none too exciting for me until the end when you find out who gets kicked off. I was happy last night with how it worked so that it mixes up one of the couples that keeps ending up in the bottom, maybe with new partners they'll shine next week. I'm finally start to pick out the people I'm rooting for but I'll wait another week or 2 before I make it public as to who I'm rooting for.

After that, it is 'America's Best Dance Crew. Love this show. Some of the stuff these crews come up with is amazing and the real battle seems to be the difference between your traditional studio trained dancers (ballet, jazz and acro) and those that are the strictly into hip-hop/breaking. I mean you can see a difference in their lines and in how they hit their steps. I am always amazed when you see a clean, tight routine. This show is quickly becoming my favorite of the 2 this year. I love Super Crew and So Real Crew and of course A.S.I.D since they are Detroiters. The show is just a lot of good dancing, and good music. Along with Mario Lopez who is not aging at all. So not fair!

It all just makes me want to dance.

I'm back

2008-05-29T23:18:00.000-04:00

I had to look up the great cookie recipe. This was easier then going through all the old magazines trying to find it, which means the magazines just need to be put in the recycle bin because I'm not going to ever use them. I know me and these magazines are for cooks who like searching out odd ingredients. Basically, if a recipe has more then 5 ingredients, I'm out. Too much to do. If I have to use multiple bowls and pans, forget it. I like at the most 2 pans.

Though I have gotten more creative. One of the local restaurants make a dish called 'Chicken Pesto Pasta' and it is delicious. The name pretty much describes it perfectly, though to be even more accurate we could call it 'Chicken Pesto Mushroom Onion Pasta' but that is a bit wordy. Though notice, that is 5 ingredients, plus a little olive oil to grill up all the good stuff but I don't count that. So you grill up the good stuff, boil some pasta (yes, this uses 2 pans). Drain pasta and mix everything together in the pasta pan and woozers. The stuff is as good, if not better then the local fare and I make enough for 2 whole meals for us at probably around $10 total. The restaurant, its like $11.95 a piece. Yeah, I don't know who I am any more, I cook and I tell people how it saves me money. Ahhhh, serenity now.

Night folks.

Ahhhh! 15 Days Left!

2007-12-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

How can it be there are 15 day till Christmas and I still haven't started my shopping. Oh yeah, its cuz I'm crazy! Not too mention busy as all get out lately with work. I mean busy is good but there are days when I am on the phone all darn day and it will only get busier for the next few months.

No NaPoBloMo for me!

2007-11-13T14:15:00.000-05:00

So I managed to go 11 days in a row posting. Then Sunday happened. Which really was a good day, that then led into a decent Monday. But I never posted. I barely even was on the computer except for working on Monday. I guess sometimes we all just need a break. I really have to give credit to everyone who blogs every day. I just don't seem to have it in me which is perfectly ok. So now I know that I won't sign up for NaPoBloMo next year.

Sunday, I made my public debut of GH3 in public. I did 2 battles and lost both but had fun playing. Last night, I practiced some but was just having an off night. And all this practice is leading up to Thanksgiving where I plan on playing most of the day.

Anxious Much?

2007-11-10T15:45:00.000-05:00

So as I've mentioned I'm not a gamer I just recently have gotten into the whole Guitar Hero thing and I played for a couple hours today and was doing ok on Medium but not good by any means. Just barely getting through the songs and then I stopped for a lunch break and suddenly was just completely anxious. I mean from time to time I get a little anxiety but this was so weird. It's Saturday, I have nothing planned and here I was feeling all anxious and panicky over a video game? So weird. So now I've cleaned the house, did some laundry and am heading for a shower. To relax.

Feel The Burn

2007-11-09T15:32:00.001-05:00

So on tri-cep day we usually do 3 sets of hanging dips with 10 per set. Last night, the hubby though it was about time I added some weight other then just my body so I put on the belt thingy and hung first a 5lb weight (8 reps) then a 10 lb weight (5 reps) after doing a normal non-wegihted set and then followed up with another non-weighted set. At the time it was hard, but not bad. Then we did the rest of our tricep workout, reverse dumbells raises laying on the ab bench and then just pull-downs. How do I feel today? Sore. Ouchie. I mean good sore, but unexpected sore. Tonight is legs. So I’m ready for more burn. Yes, I’m a gym rat and I love it.

I really wanted to do a random Friday 10 today but just haven’t had time. I got some new music to add to the MP3 player first though. Hopefully next week I will get to it. Have a happy Friday!

Yeah for Endorphins

2007-11-08T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'm happy it's Thursday, that means Friday is in my sights now and I don't even have any plans for the weekend yet. This week just feels long. Work has been busy. Dance was a much needed break last night but my workout class afterwords was just so good. The format is a cardio-kick class with some weights in there and in that class I have a set of 5 lb and 8 lb dumbbells that I use which is really light considering at the gym I seldom pick up anything under 10 lbs. We start with a nice warm up to get everyone moving. Me, I had just finished teaching a tap class where I had reviewed everything we learned since class started in September so I was really warmed up. So we do a lot of jumping jacks, some kick boxing and then we did the dreaded 1 legged bouncing kicks. I'm a dancer and I hate these more then anything. Finally weights, in which last night we did a good overall body workout along with some squats and then finished on the floor with some bicycles for the abs. Everything from the whole week just came out with the sweat. For people who don't work out but have stressful jobs, I definitely can see why they talk about their stress so much. You gotta have an outlet for it. For me, it's dance and working out.

I think Elle Woods said it best "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy."

Poor Little Bunny Foo-Foo

2007-11-07T13:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, so call it karma but after writing yesterday's post you'll never guess what happened? Go ahead, take a second, give me a gues....

Yeah, so I hit a bunny with my car. I barely saw it, but I felt it and it was such an unpleasant feeling. I added to the roadkill and I feel terrile about it, and I had no time to react. I couldn't of sverved anyway do the the narrow road and the other car headed towards me.

The husband offered these words "That is why they make so many of them..."

Thanks Honey.

Good Idea?

2007-11-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

So the husband and I are thinking of starting a blog together that documents our ride to work everyday. We see so much wildlife and unfortunately some wildlife that didn't make it across the road. Just mainly a this is what I saw this morning type of thing. It could be good, right? I can try to add pictures when I get them, though not of dead things. We're thinking we'll start it as a New year's thing. I think it'll be fun! And we'll do it together, cuz we're dorks. Though fun dorks. Hot fun dorks!

Weekend Wrap Up!

2007-11-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

So in the last month I've now had 2 weekends where I have pretty much just stayed home instead of going out and I've enjoyed both of the them. Yesterday, was all about Guitar Hero 3. I literally played until my left hand was too sore to go on. The good news is that it feels fine today so I may be able to play tonight if I want. May not have time though since after work it's gym, grocery shopping and then Heroes at 9. I have a feeling after that I'll be tired.

I'm still fighting off the remnants of that cold and it is breaking up but the cough sounds terrible which seems at its worst at bedtime which sucks. I am feeling way better though then a week ago.

The other weekend I stayed home was where I started getting out kitchen ready for the mini-remodel. I got rid of all heinious wallpaper and primed the walls. Now, I need to pick out a new kitchen light and then paint the ceiling. I'm hoping to do that this weekend since we currently have no plans. We're taking our time doing the project, so who knows when it will be done. Tonight I'm moving all the trim pieces and stuff off the kitchen counters and into the spare room for now. So even though everything is taped off with blue tape, the kitchen won't look so cluttered.

Now, another long work week. Oh fun!

Super Sunday!

2007-11-04T20:20:00.000-05:00

I am not a gamer, at all. So for me to share with you what I'm about to share is HUGE, really HUGE. Today, I beat Guitar Here 3 on the Easy level. 41 of 42 songs!

Sweet Saturday of Mine

2007-11-03T17:22:00.000-04:00

Still recovering from the cold and I am feeling better. Though not quite ready to completely stop with the cough sryup since the coughing really sucks. So to rest I'm staying in for the weekend and the husband is off at play with his friends. He'd actually going away this weekend has been planned for awhile, my being sick was not planned. So far today I've had to go in search of Dryfuss after he escaped through the fence. I was heading outside to do some fall clean up around the pond and noticed the neighbour trying to get in our back gate. She had just let Selah in and was wondering where Dryfuss was. Yeah, not in the yard or the garage so off I went to find him. I circled the block once stopping to ask a couple people with no luck and then the 2nd time he was just a few houses down. I didn't even call the husband to freak him out. After that, I decided to play a little Guitar Hero III which was going really well until I came up on a challenge and I can't beat it. So then I watched some TV, maybe even took a little nap. Finally, I went back out and did some work in the yard so the puppies could hang outside for a bit since they can't be trusted alone. Now, the night is wide open. I'm debating on if I should even shower? I'm not going anywhere, no one is coming over. Laziness at its best. Well, I think I'll check out my dinner options and do some reading.

Crossing My Fingers for Survival

2007-11-02T15:45:00.000-04:00

In my backyard we have a nice little koi pond. OK, maybe not little, but it isn't huge either, maybe 10x10 with a nice waterfall. We built the pond the 7 years ago since the previous owner of the house had grand ideas for a pond feature but ended up with 2 little puddles and on over abundance of plants with some nasty water. So we dug it out and replaced it with a larger one complete with a waterfall and then bought a few Koi. We had a relatively mild winter that year and the fish survived with no problem. But the following year, the pond froze completely solid and in the spring we found the puppies trying to dig out sushi out of the pond ice. Ewwww. We figured it was a fluke, bought more fish and added an extra bubbler and a heater to the pond. That winter was even worse and once again the pond froze. We gave up for a year with no fish and tried again the following year, in which we froze more fish. Ugh. So this year, we went and bought a dozen Koi and now have 10 left that have grown fantastically through the summer.

We have a plan for this year, hopefully we won't lose a single koi. The friend who designed the pond works for a guy who sells koi and he's going to let us move them into an inside storage bin for the winter. Which means, they will be in a warmer air environment where they can be fed all winter and they will be huge next summer. Plus we can go visit them.

I don't know what to do about this guy though since I haven't seen him in a few weeks and I'm starting to miss him.

Cough Sryup Dum Dums

2007-11-01T13:57:00.000-04:00

No, its not a candy I found for Halloween, it is what happens to me when I get a cold. See I woke up on Sunday with a sore throat and knew it was the beginning of a cold. Being the work friendly sole I am I worked from home Monday - Wednesday to try and not infect my co-workers. I know, I could just do sick days, and normally I would just veg on the couch and not worry about work. This is one of those times where if I ignore work, it would just get ugly so I had to stay on top of things and I was actually pretty productive. Besides with IM and email, I was in almost constant contact with everyone I work with. But the problem is the cough syrup. I need it so I don't cough, but its like drinking stupid juice. I'm just dumber when I'm taking it. Forgetful. I do things like instead of putting a granola bar and a nutri-grain bar in the husband's lunch, I put in 2 nutri-grain bars. Derrr. Ah well, as this is day 5 of this sucker, I'm probably almost done. Hopefully only another day of this stuff and don't worry the husband drove me to work today.

Best Cookies Ever Recipe

2007-10-31T06:38:00.000-04:00

So I made them again and considering that I usually make cookies once a year and now I've them twice in a month. I do love these. Though I made them to take to a Halloween get together this evening. The recipe is as follows:

1 Bag Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
6 Tbsp. (3/4 cup) unsalted Butter
3 Eggs
1 Cup sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour (the 2nd time i made these i used a 1/2 cup, which i liked better)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 bag Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup (4 oz) chopped walnuts

1. Use a double boiler to melt the bittersweet chips and butter
2. In large bowl use an electric mixer to beat eggs and sugar until thick
3. Stir in chocolate mixture
4. Mix in semi-sweet chips and walnuts
5. Take a sheet of plastic wrap and form dough into 2 logs, each 2 inches in diameter and wrap tightly.
6. Refrigerate log for at least 1 hour or until firm.
7. Preheat oven to 375 F
8. Unwrap dough and cut into 3/4 inch pieces (i then cut them in half to make smaller cookies)
9. Place pices on greased cookie sheet.
10. Bake for 12-14 minutes

Enjoy the deliciousness. And I wouldn't blame you at all if you wanted to lick the bowl.

Have a Happy Halloween.

Dancing Cookies?

2007-10-18T16:24:00.000-04:00

I will be posting the recipe for the cookies! They were a big hit at the workplace. The husband’s birthday also was a fun time. We had dinner at Old City Hall with friends and had a good time.

Other then that this has been a good workout week. Made the gym on Monday and Tuesday and had a great workout last night after I finished teaching. Teaching this year is so much more relaxing this year knowing I only have to come up with 5 good ideas and with 3 of those I have an awesome co-teacher. Though I do miss the little ones, as I got to the studio last night one of the little girls from last year said to me ‘I remember when you were my teacher’ and I said ‘That was a lot of fun last year, wasn’t it?’ and she gave me a big head nod yes. Too darn cute. And the little ones give out so many hugs. I don’t have any huggers in my 8-10 year old class this year. But I’ve got some really smart, talented kids in there. One of the girls who just started dancing last year, who is not a natural at it at all, has completely amazed me this year with her dance memory skills. She’s got the head and heart for it but will really have to push herself on the technique and she’s so stubborn I have a feeling if she sticks with dance that in 5 years I will be completely amazed with who she turns into. I’ve now been at the studio for 7 seasons and it is amazing to see how some of the kids I had my first year of teaching have developed. What I found really cool was with the 8-10 year old class on the first week this year I only had 1 girl I had never had as a student before out of about 15 girls. Shoot, the owners oldest daughter was born the month I started dancing there and now she is a 2nd grader!!! Holy cow.

But as far as me dancing this year, I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I have not gone to teacher’s class yet this year as I no longer teach the night of class, I’ve been opting to go to the gym instead of going to class but I have been dancing with both the classes I teach. There is a hip hop class coming up I will probably go to and then we’ll see from there. Rumor has it that teachers are only performing 3 dances this year too so that alone is incentive for me to want to perform.

Hello Ghirardelli, U R my new BFF

2007-10-12T09:49:00.000-04:00

A year ago the husband got me a subscription to ‘Food and Wine’ magazine and it has taken me a whole year to attempt a recipe from the magazine. I have to admit I am not a gourmet cook by any means. My specialties are grilled chicken, steamed veggies, tuna noodle casserole, goulash and chili. I’m not a fancy cook. I like quick, health, simple meals except on weekends I might make something that takes longer but is still easy to make. So most of the recipes in ‘Food and Wine’ are just way more complicated then I want to get.

Until the last issue, I finally saw a recipe that caught my eye and it was an ad for Ghirardelli chocolate. I saw the gorgeous picture of a double chocolate cookie that made me want to lick the page. I read the ingredients and the list was short. I checked out the directions and they looked simple even though I needed a double boiler to melt a bag of chocolate chips. I happened to mention it at work and a very nice person offered to loan me one. A quick trip to Wal-mart after dance on Wednesday and I had all my ingredients. So last night after dinner (tuna noodle) I made the batter and then made these little logs and put them in the fridge for an hour. I preheated the oven, sprayed my cookie sheets and starting cutting the logs into pieces. About 10 minutes later the smell of chocolate and walnuts started to creep into the entire first floor, at 15 minutes I pulled the first batch out of the oven. After about 5 minutes the husband came into the kitchen to sample one. He told me they were terrible and I wouldn’t like them. I tried one, and discovered by terrible what he really meant was terribly delicious and regular old chocolate cookies would never be enough again. These are so rich and delicious and chocolaty!!! I ate 3 and had a nice glass of milk. I packed the rest up to bring into work as a treat for the husbands birthday.

So happy birthday honey! You know I love you, but you are going to have to share me with my new lover, Ghirardelli’s double chocolate chip cookies.

Goodbye Summer, I'll miss you!

2007-10-11T15:34:00.000-04:00

Well after a few glorious day of heat, the cold has now arrived and for now I'm ok with it. I mean it is nice to turn the AC off and break out an extra blanket at night. I sleep so much better when it’s cold. Growing up my parents never used the furnace. Instead, they heated our home with a woodstove. So if I wanted heat in my room, I had to leave my door open which I seldom did. I would just pile on all the quilts my grandmother had made for me and make a little cocoon for myself. I still love being under heavy covers like that. Unfortunately, the husband is more of the light as a feather type of bedding and I end up thinking I'm cold when I just want more weight on me. Don't worry I get even with him by cuddling all up to him until I'm hot then have to move away taking my hotness with me. You didn't know I was that mean did you? (Shhhh, I don't want everyone to know I'm mean.)

Now this being ok with the colder temps will be fine for a bit but as soon as we get some blowing snow I'll be thinking about hot days of summer that look a bit like this.

That is us in the boat going underneath the Mackinaw Bridge which is the connection between the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. The bridge is also the line between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. I'd probably of posted this picture back in August when it was taken but I just got the CD of pictures from that weekend today. This is perfect when it is cold out to remind me that it will be 7-8 months before I get to do that again. We're seriously thinking about keeping the boat up in Cheboygan for a month next summer and just drive up there every weekend (about a 3 hour drive each way). The water is just so darn pretty and well not so polluted compared to Saginaw Bay. But honestly, there are months to decide before I need to worry about that.

Mmmmm Wasabi!

2007-10-05T16:47:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday! So glad your finally here, I've waited all week for you. No big plans this weekend. Just some sushi with friends, a housewarming tomorrow followed by a going away party. Sunday, I'm hoping to enjoy some outside time since the weather is being fantastic. 80's in October! I love it.

Oh and I reread the last post and I must apologize for the description of my mornings. Ughhh. Rereading it I nauseated myself a bit. Just remember no one has yet showered and we have major coffee breath going on during that morning routine.

Have a great weekend!

Human Pin Cushion

2007-10-03T11:14:00.000-04:00

So last week I went to my yearly girly exam and was given a lab sheet. Well, since on Wednesday's the husband and I drive seperately to work I decided that I would go get by blood work done this morning. I love our morning routine. We get up, he makes coffee while I feed the puppies, then we make our cereal together and enjoy it on the couch watch the news. I can't think of a better way to start a work day. So this morning, he makes coffee, I feed the puppies, then I get a big glass of water and try to ignore cereal cruches and coffee slurping. He did extremely well. I get ready for work and then make our lunches, he heads to work, I head to the lab.

I arrive at the lab and the waiting room is pretty full, there is also a sign on the door that they have a new computer system so please bear with them as they have to enter everything in. (Note to Covenant Medical, ever hear of a data conversion? Just wondering.) So I wait, and wait. Finally, after an hour they call me up to enter my data which then takes another half hour. Then they show me to a room. I take off my sweater and sit down (I am wearing a Tshirt) and then the search for a good vein begins. Then the first poke, then the waiting for the blood to come. No such luck, then they call someone else to come help my tiny veins. They decide that arm isn't going to work so they get the other one ready, put in another needle and I do bleed, a little, but not enough. The helper is called back in and they put the 3rd needle in. Finally, a small needle and they get what they need. I'm now sporting under my sweater blue tape on one arm and purple tape on the other with a total of 3 holes in my arms.

After that I rewarded myself to a cinnamon raison bagel and a cup of coffee from Tim Horton's. I apologize to everyone in advance for my case of the dumb dumbs that I will have today.

Sometimes I just need to escape

2007-10-02T16:14:00.000-04:00

So I put on the headphones and here we are with another random 10 because I can not listen to what is going on around me for another minute.

1. Ciara - Pick Up the Phone. So I don't have an Ipod I bought a different brand 2 years ago because I was anti-ipod back then. I've changed my mind and am going to convert so I've been working on putting all my music into Itunes. It would be easy if where I back up my current MP3 player was the same place I'll be using the new Ipod when I get it, but no. Not to mention Vista and current MP3 player don't play well together at all. So it's a lot of work but I'm getting through it.

2. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence - Could this song be more appropriate right now? I love it. Now, that I have the headphones on it seems to have calmed around me. Thank goodness.

So I've been thinking about the direction I should take with this BLOG. Right now, it's really random. I read a lot of fitness/health/weightloss blogs and I could try and focus on that I mean I did lose 25 pounds over 5 years ago on Weight Watchers and I have kept that off. I must of learned something along the way. I also enjoy reading beauty and fashion blogs but I look for the ones that are budget friendly and I may have a couple of my own little tricks up my sleeve. Or I could just randomly leave 10 songs here everyday. I also enjoy reading more of the journal type and some of the parenting blogs even though I have no intention of becoming a parent myself. That statement may need its very own post. Maybe I'll just cover it all.

3. Scandal - Warrior - Bang Bang I am the Warrior.

So anyone out there have any guess on what direction should I take this? Another thought I've had is to document the wildlife I see every day on my way to work. Sometimes alive, I see lots of bald eagles. Sometimes, roadkill, today there was a dead deer and possum. I know gross. One day, I actually had to drive around a turtle (it was alive). There is a pair of swans that had babies in the spring and now I see about 6 swans swimming every day. Though I'd need more pictured to document it. The cormorants are hilarious every day.

4. Janet Jackson - R&B Junkie

Maybe I should just leave AlreadyThere to my random whatever and start another blog to document the wildlife? Anyone want to vote? Chances are if you vote, you'll win as I have so many readers. (Did the sarcasm come through there?)

5. SheDaisy - Without A Sound - Honestly, I'm not picking these songs. I seriously, pulled out the MP3 players just to get some peace from the noise and some of the most appropriate songs are coming up. I really like this song. Gorgeous piano in it, granted it's a ballad and I usually want something more upbeat. I like this a lot, it could be a beautiful lyrical dance especially for competition. This would of been perfect for one of the girls I used to dance with who was hearing impaired. Gorgeous dancer with less hearing then the rest of us.

6. Trick Daddy - The Children's Song - I guess I could blog more about dance, especially if I'm going to do random 10 songs like this. This song I can see a lyrical type hip hop a large group with smaller kids and bigger kids, have everyone wearing all white and use their hoodies for visual effect with hands in pockets and such. I got lots of ideas, when I hear music I automatically try to picture how I'd want to represent it visually.

7. 3 Doors Down - Let me Go - Ok, so I probably wouldn't choreograph to this song, but part of that is radio really played this song A LOT. I try to stay away from some of those unless they are older tunes. If I groan when an over played song comes on, I know the audience just might too. Which doesn't mean there isn't already awesome choreography out there for this song that if I saw it, I'd probably fall in love with it.

So this year I am only teaching 1 night and just 2 age groups. Which is perfect. I haven't gone to the teachers class yet and am not sure if I will. Though I've been told they are only dong 3 numbers this year which is so much better then the 6 we've been doing. I haven't decided. Though I'm itching to take a class instead of just teaching.

8. Britney Spears - Don't Let Me be the Last to Know - So the news of the week for her is that she has to give up her kids to The Federline. I see one of 2 things happening, either she cleans up her act or she just loses it. I'm hoping for the cleanup, have my fingers crossed for the girl.

9. Dave Matthews Band - Cry Freedom - I have to admit while I know quite a few DMB addicts, I'm just not one. The music is good but I'm barely a fan, let alone a fanatic. Course, if I were to see them live, my opinion might change. I do need to go to a good concert. I love the crowd energy at a concert and really are there that many places where you can truly scream? I think that is what I need today, a good scream. Last night, I was feeling really anxious and I'm still not sure why. But it didn't affect my sleep thankfully. I slept fantastic, that was probably do to the 20 minute run and the chest workout I did at the gym.

10. Mariah Carey - To The Floor featuring Nelly - and on that note. I've given you my random 10 and a lot of random thoughts. Same time tomorrow?

Smallville is Addicting

2007-09-28T09:31:00.000-04:00

Last tuesday Smallville Season 6 came out on DVD and we purchased a copy on Wednesday. By Tuesday we had finished the complete season. So that was 24 episodes we watched in less then a week. Then on wednesday of this week I decided to take a look to see when the season 7 premier was. Just so happen it was last night at 8pm. Now, a normal night for the husband and I has us getting home right around 8 from the gym and then I have to make us some dinner. Last night, we made sure we were home by 7:45 and I had dinner ready for when the show came on. This is highly unusual for us. I mean we like our TV but we don't usually make sure we are anywhere to see a show (sporting events are a completly different). If you haven't watched Smallville, it's the story of Clark Kent starting in high school and being a teenager learning about who he is and where he came from. Now, before I met the husband I might have seen a Superman movie, but didn't really know too much about him. The husband made sure all that changed and I couldn't thank him more for it. Though I'm still not into comics, though he really isn't either these days. We watched all the movies, we saw the newest movie. I actually even read 'The Death of Superman' and truly liked it. So Smallville, when we buy a season to watch, don't bother calling. We aren't answering. We call you as soon as the season is over. Though now with actually watching the opener of season 7 that didn't answer all of the cliffhangers yet from last season, I think I have to still watch next week to see what happens there. Then we'll see. I love watching it on DVD so much better then on TV. This is the only show we do this with... so far. As soon as Heroes Season 1 is on sale, I'm gonna let that be my next addiction.

Not Quite Fixed and a Random 10

2007-09-20T10:11:00.000-04:00

1. Panic at the Disco - Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks - Not my favorite tune of theirs but doesn't make me want to skip to the next song.
2. Ace of Base - Cruel Summer - This takes me back to those summers that seemed so long when I'd have summer break. I was the type who didn't want to go back to school to learn, but if I could of went back to just hand out with my friends to sit around and talk, I would of done it. Some of my favorite memories of high school are hanging out at Band Camp when it was just the band there 2 weeks before the rest of the school showed up.

So onto the car while we for the next song. The dealership replaced the Steering pump but the husband who does know a thing or 2 about these things still doesn't like how the car sounds so next week it is going back to the dealership. The car is loud unless of course I have the stereo cranked, then I can't hear a durn thing. That is mainly how I prefer to listen to the radio anyway.

3. Hinder - Homecoming Queen - Funny, how I was talking about high school and this song comes on. I remember our Homecoming Queen. Sweet girl that I grew up with. We were never really close but we did sit in the back of the bus together in 8th grade so we must of been BFF's at one point. LOL. Anyway, her goal our entire high school career was to be the Homecoming Queen and she made it happen. She was a cheerleader and in the student council. Blond and beautiful. Sounds like a teen movie, doesn't it? Last I saw her was at our high school reunion and she was one of the organizers. I haven't seen her since and that was 6 years ago. Which means, our 20 can't be all that far away is it? Yikes!!!

4. Gwen Stafani - Danger Zone - I have to admit I truly like what this lady has done as a solo artist, but I'm seriously in need of some new No Doubt music. The sounds are different and I love them and her. Speaking of new music, I went Best Buy yesterday to buy season 6 of Smallville and was checking out the new CD releases. The only ones I wanted were Rihanna and Foo Fighters, but I didn't get either. I'll wait for them to go on sale. I still want to get Kelly Clarkston's latest CD but haven't gotten that either.

5. Semisonic - California - Mellow, mellow, mellow. This song would be so much better if I was at the beach laying in the sun just talking about nothing in particular with my friends or even just dozing and relaxing, wishing the day didn't have to end. But no, I'm in front of the computer, at least it is another gorgeous day in these final days of summer so I can at least later go out side and feel the deliciousness of the sun on my face. Tonight is the annual wine walk in Bay City and I'm so happy I don't have to wear a jacket to do it. I'm thinking I'll wear this striped Cami tunic style shirt with my skinny dark jeans, brown belt, brown sandal heals, tan cropped sweater if it gets cool and my turquoise Solas purse. Course, I may still completely change my mind. But is what I'm leaning towards.

6. Cher - Believe (Remix) - Yikes, this is a long one. I have a lot of club remixes but I need to go through and pick out like 10 of my favorites and edit them down to normal radio air times so I can use them at dance. I like lots of variety to use in warm ups and stuff so if I use some of these long remixes I only end up using like 3 songs for a jazz warm up and everyone starts to get tired of the songs. I'm going to make a CD of some good 80's music too for class. I actually made one last week but burned it as MP3 files and the ancient studio CD player can't read that so I need to do that again. OK, on hold till the next song. Be back in about 3 minutes.

7. Clay Walker - This Time Love - Ok, so this is the first concert my husband and I went to see together and we still just love seeing Clay perform. We've only seen him twice and it was 10 years apart but he puts on a fantastic show and seems just like a fun guy. I'd totally have a beer or soda with him and share some Hooter's wings with him. But the funny story about the first time we saw Clay is that we'd just started dating, maybe for about a month. For some crazy reason I decided to die my darkish blond hair red. Reba red. And it wasn't pretty. The husband still hasn't forgotten it. It has been agreed to by both of us I should just stick to my naturalish color which now is a medium brown (though there is some red in it, in the sun)I really love the color right now after summer, since its now got some natural looking highlights in it, but since the grey is just starting to show I'll be getting it colored next week. I'm going to have her match it as closely as she can to the color it is now.

8. Jennifer Love - Could This Be Love - Yawn. Actually, it's a pretty song but I'm just not into ballads, especially by pop singers. I'm not sure why, but they come on the radio and I turn them. I want up beat and want to jam. Maybe that is part of why I'm not a fan of doing lyrical dance, I just don't get into it because I'm not into the music. Moving on.

9. Cee-Lo - Sugar (Gimme Some) - now this gets me moving in my chair a bit. I really wanted to use this song a couple years ago at dance but its not exactly appropriate and the song needs to be just a tad faster for class use. I've found if I use anything with a slower beat which is great for the dance floor, but in class the kids start to get bored. A favorite trick of mine is about 2 weeks before the recital is to speed the music up just a bit and the kids never know and it gives them an extra little pep. Mean, mean Miss Jody.

10. Coldplay - In my Place - I was lost oh yeah... Until next time.

The Car is getting fixed.

2007-09-18T10:21:00.001-04:00

2 Days in a row. Wow. I know!

So this morning I took the car to the dealership. I have a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix that is just barely still under warranty and lately there has been this terrible whining noise coming out from under the hood. The husband assures me it is the steering pump or something in that general area so hopefully the super friendly guys at the service center at the dealership can figure this out and get it all fixed up for me. Now, this is not the dealership I bought my car at since I took my car to that dealership to get an oil change just once and will not be doing that again. I didn't really care for the burning oil on the drive home from where they spilled oil all over the place and made a terrible mess. Now,the dealer did offer to try and rectify the problem with another free oil change. As if! So the answer was no, no and absolutely NOT. So the dealer I went to today was the nice guys who fixed my car after the husband got hit in it and during that whole thing they were fantastic. So good that I'm willing to drive across town to another town just to go there. Honestly, this is the only place in my life that has been completely pain free in dealing with getting a vehicle serviced. So if your GM car needs work, go to Garber Buick in Saginaw, MI. Fantastic!

Work thought and ChetFest recap

2007-09-17T10:32:00.000-04:00

I spend a lot of time reading other blogs and very little time commenting (I know how rude) so you'd think Id take the time to actually update here more frequently. Myspace may be taking up too much of my time. That and work. But I don't want to talk about that here. I don't actually want to talk about work at all. I hardly ever do when I am outside the walls of work other than with the husband and even then I don't get too detailed in what I do. I think I talk about my dance job more then I do about the job that actually pays the bills and it isn't that I don't like what I do, it is just I don't like to bore people to tears talking about it. I leave it that I'm in IT and I'm a project manager. They don't want to hear about documents that I create and then edit forever or the spreadsheets of data I use to track hundreds of items or the schedules I weekly update. Gosh, I don't even to talk about it anymore now.

So ChetFest was yet again another fun weekend. The Monday events were by far my favorite. After the delicious french toast breakfast we made for everyone who camped over (This year there were about 8 tents setup in the backyard) was finished and digested it was decided to start with a nice game of a whiffle ball. Only this year we had a blow up 8 foot by 3 boot pool that we made home plate that you had to stand it to bat from and then if you ran home you had to dive into the pool. Completely ridiculous and hilarious. That should be the tag line for ChetFest. After the game was over, the tarp was brought out for slip and slide. More ridiculous and hilarity ensued. This year we were smart and took the day after Labor Day of work to just rest and recover before getting back to work. Terrific time. Since then we had a weekend of bachelor/bachelorette parties and this past weekend which had no plans and was delightful with the amount of nothingness we did. This week is Wine Walk and a wedding.

I'm setting a goal to blog at least once a week and also to comment more on other pages. We'll see how this works out. Feel free to guilt me, I usually respond relatively well to guilt at first... Until I start ignoring you.

Where has August Gone?

2007-08-27T15:58:00.000-04:00

Between the long hot work days with a nice workout at the gym after and the super short weekends somehow August is almost over. To recap, Cheyboygan was amazing. The weather was fantastic and we only had 1 bit of rough water on the ride back from Cedarville to Cheyboygan. I did take some fantastic pics though they are all up on myspace. The weekend after that was Kari and Joe's wedding which was fantastic. The reception was a lot of fun, kinda nice to hang out with the dance girls while not at dance. This past weekend we did the Princess Wenonah Cruise with the Detroit cover band Rockstar. That was a lot of fun too. Now, this week we'll just spend getting ready for Chet Fest which is bound to be fun and crazy.

Then next week dance starts again. I can't believe how fast its went. At least I'm only teaching 1 day a week this year. I did cut back. I'm currently not planning on actually dancing in next years show since I'm not teaching on Monday's I'm not going to drive into Saginaw just to take teacher's class. We'll see how that goes. But only having to worry about 5 dances this year will be nice, very nice.

10 More Random Songs (Yesterday & Today)

2007-08-09T14:53:00.000-04:00

I did this yesterday and never posted it so here are yesterday's 10 random songs.

1. Jimmy Buffett – Changes in Lattitude, Changes in Attitude
2. Panic At The Disco – A fever you can’t sweat out – wow that was loud!
3. Usher – Superstar – slow but short, thankfully short
4. Benzino – Boottee (Remix) – this song is cracking me up
5. Amy Winehouse - Hey Little Rich Girl, though I need to fix the artist name on the song. I found out about it from Retro Music Snob. Love, Love, love that website.
6. Mildred Bailey/ Red Norvo & His Orchestra – I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart – yeah, it’s a big band classic, kinda slow… this is one of the reasons Chet laughs at my MP3 collection. Its just so random.
7. Wang Chung – Everybody Have Fun Tonight. Tee Hee. I love this song and it does make me want to have fun tonight.
8. Madonna – Don’t Stop
9. J Lo – Could This Be Love – sometimes it is hard to admit the music I own.
10. Johnny Cash – I Still Miss Someone - sometimes I'm really proud of the music I own.

So here is today's list which I just started listening to and will be 'live' blogging through.

1. Styx - Come Sail Away - Which is the perfect song to get ready for my upcoming vacation. I mean I won’t be sailing but power boating counts.
Oh wait, 2nd song was Jackpot Intro from Chingy, I'm not going to count that.
2. LeAnn Rimes - I Dare You - Even though I'm not the country fan I used to be, I do love her voice. I like her way back in the 'Blue' days and it is nice to hear how she's matured and done so without making a complete spectacle of herself and remained a classy lady.
3. Kylie Minogue - Love At First Site (Remix) - Another amazing, classy woman. Maybe I should create a playlist of classy songs. And yet, I'd put Janet Jackson on it but not Britney. What about Madonna? I've loved everything she's done with the exception of 'Bedtime Stories' and that is only because of where I was at that point in my life, though I do own it now. So yes, she's a classy lady too. Sorry, Tweet, with all that panty-dropping, you don't make the cut. Wow, are these remixes long and I listened to the whole thing.
4. Gary Allen - Man Of Me - So today's randomness is getting into what little country I have on here. I used to have lots more on the old MP3 but didn't copy most of it over and then lost it when the old hard drive crashed so now I need to rerip a lot of CDs. And yes, I now backup my hard drive every day. Wait, I still have the old MP3 player, I may be able to just copy all that over. I need to check that out. That song did get my toe tapping.
5. Fall Out Boy - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a little more Touch Me - When I saw these guys in concert back in May I could not believe how much fun I had at the show. First, I got to hang out with some new friends and some new friends which is always a good time. Second, these guys put on a fun show and the audience loved it. Third, the audience was mainly underage so the beer line was fantastically short.
6. Britney Spears - Oops I did it again - Did I jinx myself by saying she's not classy? I just remember this sweet girl who had the world at her feet and it's just sad to see how she's let that go. Course, this song makes me think of Jack and Grace singing and dancing to this song which was awesome. I'm not gonna lie though, if she puts out a CD I can actually at dance class. I'll but it.
7. Janet Jackson - Go Deep - I still love her voice and would really like her to go on tour so I can go see her!
8. The Steve Miller Band - Fly like An Eagle
9. LeAnn Rimes - Can't Fight The Moonlight - wow, twice in 1 day.
10. Mariah Carey - We Found Love - I can't leave on that. Boo
11. Billie Holiday - Easy To Love - I can end on that.

Have a great weekend!

11Years?!?!

2007-08-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

Another summer weekend has passed us by. The Gin Blossoms were good. The problem is they aren't really hard enough to be a beer tent type of concert and we spent the entire concert socializing and didn't really pay attention to the band. Our own fault, what I did pay attention to was good though. After the concert we met up with Kari's bachelorette party and those girls were having a great time. It was a good Saturday night, followed by a relaxing Sunday. Now it's back into the weekly grind. We woke up to thunderstorms this morning at 5am so decided to skip the gym and just hit it after work which is fine. The forecast calls for rain all day but I hope it does stop so I don't end up grilling my chicken inside the garage tonight. Last night, after the gym we stopped to get our weekly supply of chicken and ended up grabbing a couple steaks too. This was the first time I've grilled steaks in about 20 years. They turned out delicious. I also grilled asparagus with a little olive oil and sea salt. Super Yum!

This weekend we are celebrating our 11th anniversary. I know! How did we get here? We are going boating in Cheboygan all weekend which should be a good time, it was last year. One of the other couples going has the same anniversary as us so that makes it even more fun. A good shared event.

Hot Hot Heat

2007-08-02T09:17:00.001-04:00

I need to write about how truly warm it has been these last few days so that when February is here I can look back at this and cry. It's been terrifically hot. Low to mid 90's all week and being this is Michigan the humidity is enough to melt your face off. So I've been sweating pretty much any time I'm not at work where the AC actually feels good and not Arctic. But it is OK, we've been pulling the 2 a days at the gym again and even though it is hot in there with no AC, it does feel good to work out and have the sweat just pour off me. This is a stark contrast to February at the gym when at 6 am I will wear my hoodie with a long sleeve t-shirt under it the entire time I'm running and never break a swear. Hopefully, it holds through to the weekend so we can get some boating in with it. Though I hope the water is a bit calmer then it was last Sunday when we went out for a ride and thoroughly got bumped around in 3-4 footers. I love boating when it is hot. The hotter the better for me actually. The good news is even with the heat I'm still sleeping well since I'm so tired from the 2 a days.

On the dance side of things, I will only be teaching 1 night a week this fall, I was planning on cutting back and the way things worked out, I really got to cut back. So this year I'll only have to choreograph 5 dances instead of 11 and the way things look right now I'm not planning on dancing in next year's show. That could change if teacher's class decides to do a hip-hop because I don't want to turn that down, but as of right now. I'm not planning on it. I'm still not 100% sure on how I feel about it.

This weekend is Pig Gig in Bay City and we're going to see Gin Blossoms. I'm expecting it to be a fun time.

You Probably Think This Post Is About Me

2007-07-27T10:27:00.001-04:00

So the sunburn is healing nicely. My entire nose already peeled and I've been babying my skin and it feels fantastic. I had a couple samples from the Chanel counter from a year or so ago of one is a Hydration serum and the other is a Night cream and my skin feels so soft. I'm also using a Hydro-cortisone cream with oatmeal in it as soon as I dry my face after washing it. The combination of the 3 is awesome. So I've been looking at prices online and am thinking I'll make a visit to Macy's to buy at least one of the products I'm liking. I just don't know if I want to spend that much. I'm queen of the drugstore products but I may just have to splurge here.

I also need to not ever let the no sunscreen on my face happen again. I was wearing huge sunglasses so I my eye skin was OK but I do look like a raccoon and I contemplated using a tan towel on my face to try and even out the color and I may still do it once I see if I'm going to peel again. But I honestly can't wait for any tan on my face to fade out. I like my face nice and pale and I can always add a little color with some bronzer. Right now it's just too much and someone will actually think I'm 34.... Egads!!!! I'm so Vain!

Summertime Slacker

2007-07-25T13:07:00.000-04:00

Holy crap am I bad at this blogging thing in the summer. Granted I did take a week off of work during the very beginning of July and am taking random vacation days through out the rest of the month and next month to get some quality boating in but those aren't good excuses. I know the blogs I like to read I like to see new posts to see what is going on in those strangers lives. I'll get back on track.

So as for boating, we've had some good runs. THis past weekend was the Sunsation Rally in Lake St. Clair which was awesome. We got there on Friday about 3 and after we checked in and were hauling off all the goodies they gave us this year, we ran into Carl and Heidi who we met 4 years ago. Later on, 2 other couple we met 2 years ago who are locals showed up and we all got caught up and even went and grabbed some food together.

Saturday morning, we were up and ready to go for the big run which is always scary fun. Scary, becuase there are around 60 boats in our group all going at least 45 mph, usually faster and fun becuase, it's like nothing else you'll ever do. I really enjoyed it, then we had a nice lunch at Mac N' Rays though we got stuck with a craptastic parking spot this year. Then we met back up with everyone and headed to Muscamoot Bay for the Sunsation Raft up, which turned out to be fun. THen back to dinner and the raffle, in which after buying $160 in raffle tickets we won at least $300 in stuff. Always fun!

Sunday, we met up with our friends and went to Gull Island for Aquapoolza which was a Sea Ray hosted family event and I got a fansticically bad sunburn on my face. I can't believe I forgot suncreen on my face. I'm usually so careful about it. Dumb Dumb Dumb!

This weekend is looking good for some more boating so I'm looking forward to that.

The Show is Over

2007-06-22T11:53:00.000-04:00

Finally, of course it has been 6 days and I'm already starting to miss dance again. The show went well. It was fun, though maybe not for the audience since it was about 3 hours long this year. Doh! Everything went well and I'm glad it is over. In the mean time I've caught up on watching 'So You Think You Can Dance' and I love that show. I also found my notebook I used last summer to write down song ideas and choreography ideas that I never used again. I guess it was a good think thought when I look through the songs and at least 3 of them ended up in our show anyway. I think someone else was inspired by the show too. I'm really hoping a girl wins it this year. I think that would be awesome.

Boat will hit the water this weekend too. So excited. I'll have to write more about that once we actually go out.

Recital Time = Crazy Time

2007-06-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

So it's the crazy time of year for me. My dance reciatal is just over a week away so my time when I'm not at the real job seems to be around extra dance rehearsals and making sure I have everything I need done for the show. The good news is I have all the correct shoes and tights and all the needed costume peices, the only thing I want to get our some new false eyelashed because somehow one of my old ones is bent and when I tried wearing it I ended up looking like I had one droopy eye. I've been working on a tan. I've actually fake baked a couple times and I went to the beach last Saturday. To reach a nice shade of tan I'll totally be faking my color with the Tan Towelettes. The best way to use these suckers is at night before bed and sleep through the stinkiness and in the morning wash it away and be left with a nice little glow. I have been hitting the gym a little more often lately, sometimes even twice a day. It's amazing how much better I feel in my skin when I make sure I get a good sweat out of it on a daily basis. Not too mention I've got the 34th birthday next week already. How in the world did that happen? Didn't I just have my 30th birthday like 6 weeks ago? Birthdays don't freak me out. I never lie about my age or play silly games about not getting another year older. But time passing so fast, that is what freaks me out. Not bad. I'm just always amazed how fast time goes. Unless I'm at the doctor's office where time does seem slower there. Oh and at work it can go slowly sometimes.

The new camera has definitely been getting a workout though I haven't downloaded anything in awhile. I plan on working on that this weekend. It'll get a workout this evening too where I'll be off rooting for a friend in the Hooter's bikini contest.

Vodka Lemonade

2007-05-29T13:43:00.000-04:00

A good weekend was throughly enjoyed. Spent a lot of quality time with good friends. Ate extremely well. I think a little too well but I hit the gym this morning and plan to get in another cardio session this afternoon so everything should even itself out in a couple days. I spent part of the weekend getting used to my new camera the T100 Sony Cybershot since my old camera (the T9) is no longer in working condition. There was an incident. Alcolhol was involved. The T9 actually ended up in a Vodka Lemonade. The camera seems to have a permanent hangover. A new camera was in order. Enter the T100. Which I love.

Friday Movie Review

2007-05-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

Here it is my Friday movie review.... Ok, I'll be honest, we watched it on Wednesday. Still only the 2nd movie we've watched since joining the Blockbuster variation of Netflix. Anyway, we watched 'Lady in The Water'. I was expecting it to be scarier then it was. I loved the scene with the movie critic which I truly think was the whole purpose of the movie. Instead of a the hidden twist that is usually in a M. Night Shamalan movie he just outright kills off the critic with him narrating his own death. I found it amusing. Maybe I'm wrong that way. For that scene alone it is worth seeing. Really, was better then I was expecting and beating my expectations is always a good thing.

On a completely different topic I'll be seeing Fall Out Boy in concery this weekend and I'm pretty excite about that. So excited that I'm currently only listening to them on my MP3 player instead of listening to random songs. It's good that it's all up peppy so I can use it to further enjoy my Monster and my portion of my Friday afternoon that is leading up to the weekend.

There is also some Dockidering in my future. So excited about that I can't stand it!

Have a great weekend!

Still tired!

2007-05-21T13:52:00.000-04:00

The weekend was so good that I'm still recovering.

Friday - Frankenmuth Beer Expo
Saturday - Dan's Birthday Bus which involved adults rollerskating. Yikes!
Sunday - Wedding Shower

Sleep was rare. Much fun was had even though my poor camera ended up in a drink on Friday and is now dead. So I'll be ordering a new one very soon. Luckily, the in-laws let me borrow my old camera to use for the weekend.

I know, I'm bad

2007-05-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

So I begged for comments and then I even got a couple and what do I do? Pretty much nothing. Ok, that isn't completely true. I did write a nice post and then blogger ate it, then I was mad a blogger and so I ignored blogger for awhile. I'm ready to try again and I'm sorry for being away for so long. But I have been busy.

The dance recital is less then a month from now and all my dances are completed. Yeah! Now, its just lots of practice until then. I'm ready. Well, pretty ready.

The Wings are still winning so I'm happy about that. I even wore my super fantastic Red Wing Shirt I made myself today. (Yes, I know I was way blond then, this was back in 2002!)

I should do a new picture of myself in that shirt. Tee hee!

This weekend is Dan's birthday. You know my loyal reader Dan? Anyway, looks like a Beer Expo and a Birthday Bus are in the agenda. I'm thinking it'll be very fun and I'm excited.

If you stop by... say Hi

2007-05-04T13:30:00.000-04:00

Some one has actually read this! Yes, Dan told me he stopped in for a read. Thanks Dan, and see I now have mentioned your name twice. But Dan, what would be really nice is if you left me a comment then I'd know for sure you had been here. Or anyone else for that matter. Course, after you read paragraphs about something like me growing my bangs out, you probably don't care and are left wondering if I don't have anything better to talk about. I do, I really do.

I mean there is always dance. Recital time is getting close and I have all but 2 out of the 11 dances completed. Plus the 5 I'm in are completed now it's just lots of cleaning and the kick line is kicking my ass, the steps aren't hard, but doing all those kicks is definitely a workout. I'm now in the level 2 Hip Hop Belly Dance class and I'm really enjoying just taking a class and now that I have my scarf that jangles, it is even more fun.

There's the house. We got the pond up and running last weekend and finally found the leak and fixed it. So nice now. We are going to start looking for new furniture out there so we can spend much more time in the backyard. Oh, and we're going to get Koi soon!

There's the doggies. We also fixed the fence in the backyard so Selah can no longer bust through it anymore. The dogs love it, we love it. No more poop surprises in the garage. Sometimes Selah doesn't even want to come back inside now, she just wants to hang out in the yard.

There's the boat. A few modifications are going to happen for this season. We're getting a drive shower installed that basically gives the drive a constant shower of water to help maximize drive life or something like that. It's all really complicated... We're also upgrading the stereo and installing a new GPS all of which will be really cool.

There's the husband who just finished his last class for his Master's Degree and with in a couple weeks will officially have that Masters degree and shortly after that we will celebrate it! We're both excited about this.

There's hockey. We could talk Red Wings (tie 2-2 with San Jose) or the Midget team the husband is coaching and I was disappointed when I realized they aren't midgets at all. Just 14-16 year old boys/men. Such an interesting age group some are 6'4 with beards and some are 5'0 and probably haven't sprouted a single body hair yet. But this team is doing well so far. 3-1 so far this season but 3-0 is what counts for the league.

I haven't seen any more movies since 'Departed' though we may go see 'Spiderman 3' tonight. And I've been watching the new season of 'Entourage' which is good but just seems to move so slow sometimes.

If you made it through this post. Let me know what you want me to talk about.

Bang Bang!

2007-04-27T13:26:00.000-04:00

A couple visits ago to the salon I did something crazy. I got bangs. I haven't had bangs in over 10 years. I have a tiny forehead and for me to have bangs I don't get the option to pull them back, they just end up to short. My hair girl wasn't sure but when I showed her the picture of Reese Witherspoon in the yellow Nina Ricci dress with her cute bangs she said " You both have the same little faces, OK, I'll do it" I did initially like them but I got mixed reactions for sure. The husband said 'Wow you hair is really straight this time'. I have no idea what he meant by that. My hair is straight and always straight after a trip to the salon. My best dance friends started to pull away in their car because they didn't recognize me. The girls I know in the under 18 set all seemed to like them. But my best gay friend and my style friend didn't say anything. At all. So the bangs aren't a big winner. I do like that I tried them and I'm hit and miss whether I like them in pictures of me.

So now I'm growing them back out which considering the bangs are about 10 inches shorter then the rest of my hair is going to take awhile. Be being a planner have come up with a plan to get me through it. I know the worst part will be the in between because at the gym and at dance I always wear my hair pulled back and up. I can't stand my hair in my face. I'm always amazed by the girls who have a big chunk of hair in their eyes. The plan is grippy headbands when they are long enough to go back. After my dance recital I will get the rest of my hair cut to start blending them in since they should be to my nose by then. I hope. I think once I get the blend going on I'll be able to convince them to tuck and hide them away better. OK, so it's not a great plan and it is just hair. But a plan none the less.

I should post more.

2007-04-24T13:40:00.000-04:00

I really do want to post here more often and I'm not sure why I don't. I read a variety of blogs daily and do post comments on them occasionally but not enough to start developing my own readers. In a way, I don't mind, I'm not a writer and I know my posts aren't the most well written (wrote) posts out there. I also have issues with grammar. When I read this back to myself later, I usually cringe a bit but know I didn't obsess how these words got here. I tend to just type, spell check and then re-read once and hit publish. In so many other areas of my life I tend to be very detail oriented that when it comes to this, I just won't let myself do it. So I seem to only post when I feel like it. I don't even have a common theme going on here. Do I need that?

Anyway, spring has finally arrived here in Michigan and I'm thrilled as summer is my favorite season. I can't wait to get the boat and bikinis out. This summer I will try to do much better with posting during the boating season. The freedom and thrill from the speed and the sun is so calming for me that I just no I have more to share about that.

Keeping Promises... then ranting

2007-04-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

So we finally watch 'Departed'. My favorite part was Leo with his shirt off. I did like the movie though even if I had to hide my eyes a few times. I just don't like watching people get hurt of any sort so I look away but still listen which sometimes is almost as bad. We still have 'Lady In The Water' to watch and I have no idea when that will happen as this has become Birthday season which officially kicked off last Friday and I believe doesn't end until Labor Day weekend. So the first birthday we celebrated was Parker's where we ended at Madame Shelley's with some singing and dancing. I got some terrific pictures (currently in a slide show on myspace). This weekend the celebration continues as it is Ron and Ben's birthdays. Plus another super cool event that I have to wait to talk about another time. It should be fun.

Switching topics entirely... So after this whole Imus thing I have to say our society really needs to look at how people talk about one another and what is acceptable. I support the freedom of speech but when I have a hard time picking out 4 'clean' hip hop songs a year to use for my dance show something is wrong. Shoot, Fergie talks about 'dancing like a ho', even if it is edited, we all know what she's saying. Gwen says 'The Shit is bananas' last year my entire 5-7 year old class knew all the words to that song. This is only our pop music. Now, I love to shake my thing to Pussy Cat Dolls but I don't think there is a single song on PCD I can use it class. All these are on the radio all the time. Fine, record your music with whatever topics and words you want to use but please try to come up with stuff you wouldn't mind listening to with your 5 year old once in awhile. Oh, and drop me a note when you do, cuz I'm waiting.

Should of been a Movie Review

2007-03-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

So last night was suppose to be the first of Movie Night Thursdays. We recently joined Blockbuster online and they've sent us 2 movies to watch that we've now had about 2 weeks and well, just haven't watched them. Now in the past 2 weeks I have watched a lot of movies just not on DVD. The issue is we put the PS3 in the basement with the big TV, though we seldom watch TV just the 2 of us down there but last night we were going to make the effort. We ate dinner up stairs while watching 'Poseidon' on cable and planned to go and watch either 'Lady in The Water' or 'Departed' and then... I realized the Red Wings were playing Nashville and this would be a great game, so turn on the pre-game and start watching, the game started at 8pm. I believe I fell asleep about 7:58 and then woke up after the game was over to ask who won. Sheesh. Some hockey fan I am. Even worse, some movie fan.

Coming soon Movie Review Fridays...

Oh and 'Poseidon', yep, it sucked. Micheal Vartan laughed like he was crazy through most of it and was completely annoying

Shaking It Like Shakira

2007-03-29T15:50:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a week just flies by and others seem so slow. The work portion of the week during the work day has been slow but my evenings have been flying by this week. Monday and Wednesday night I had dance and it is quite busy there trying to get in as much choreography as I can before the week off for Spring break. Then on Tuesday this week I took a Hip Hop Belly Dance class through the local community center. I had no idea what to expect but I did not expect to see so many woman there. There were at least 60 of all ages and shapes. The instructors were very energetic and are more concerned with us having fun then learning to dance. The class does focus on belly dance moves that we'll do to Hip-Hop style music like Shakira and Beyonce. The class was fun and I could feel the burning in my hips and in my abs during class. I wasn't sore though yesterday or today but I've signed up for a 4 week session so I have 3 more classes to go and then I'll decided if I want to move up to the next level. Next week I won't have class due to spring break for the school district but the following week the instructor is bringing in the noisy skirts that we can buy from her. I think those will make it even more fun.

I do think I can Dance... ok anyways

2007-03-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

So for this years dance show I'm performing in 5 dances. Down from the 6 I was in last year. Remember, when I talked about this http://alreadythere.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html well that costume came in. It is very classic and on the high cut side. I know I will like it when I see it on stage but I don't know that I like it on me yet. Actually, I have all 3 of the costumes we bought for dance and while I know every one of them will look really nice on stage, I'm just not a big fan of them alone. Especially my ballet costume but I know it will look awesome with the dance. Maybe, I'm just jealous of my creative movement tap class who got the cutest costumes with black velvet leotards with pink sequined poodle skirts. I love those costumes. So for the other 2 dances we didn't order costumes for we're going to be wearing black leotards with tux jackets for 'Tea for 2' and dressing like dead people for 'Ringa linga ding dong' I have no idea if that really is the name of the song we are dancing to but so far it is my favorite dance this year.

I'm seriously contemplating cutting back on the teaching next year, the 11 dances is just too much, but will I really do it? Tune back in September and find out.

Things I Like to Watch On TV

2007-03-22T16:07:00.000-04:00

I have to say my favorite shows on TV are those without commercials shown on HBO and Showtime. The top 3 are as follows:

Entourage - who doesn't love Vince? and Ari?
Weeds - I've never even partook in the drug but seeing what Mary Louise Parker's character goes through, just hits a side of me that makes me wonder who I'd turn into if I found myself suddenly single. And she still takes ballet, how can I not love that?
The L Word - who doesn't love words that start with the letter 'L'? I still miss Dana but am happy to see Alice has pulled her life together... or at least it seemed she had, who knows how she'll handle the new GF going to Iraq? Oh and Jennie is just getting on my nerves... she and Phyllis should run away together to never be seen or heard of again. I love the actresses though, just not their characters
Deadwood - who doesn't like to naughty words all the time? The dialog is just so good. Sometimes someone would finish talking and I'd be all 'Whoa... I didn't get any of that.' and rewind it and watch it again.

I know I said top 3, but I changed it to 4. Haven't watched 'The Tudors' yet, but it'll end up on my list.

Now, I do watch other shows too... but none I need to actually watch.

American Idol - thanks to you Internet I can happily miss watching and still know who is singing what and wearing what
The Hills - I love my MTV and LC
Dance shows - doesn't matter if it is Dancing With The Stars, Dancelife, So You Think You can Dance, I'll watch it if I see its on.
Hockey - Love the sport but I can check scores on the Internet and I have to admit I don't get into the games until playoffs where we can gather with large crowds to cheer and boo together

Then there is the show I LOVE and will only watch on DVD, a season at a time:

SMALLVILLE - so good, all great characters and it has some cheesy times where I like to say 'Bum Bum Bum' as they go from one scene to another but its darn good TV anyway.

We can't forget reruns:

Seinfeld - I used to do make hair to look just like Elaine when I was much younger and I thought it looked good, real good. So many good quotes from this series and there is almost always a quote for every life situation I find myself in.
Friends - I grew up with these people and I still love them. I had a student named Chandler, cute little girl. I always called her Chandler Bing. I'm sure her mom still hates me, but I found it fun.
MTV/VH1 - If the husband is not in the room and I've got the remote I check these channels first to see what I might find, though I have to admit I've been over the Real World for quite a few seasons now.

Random and the Weekend

2007-03-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'll admit it. I did not watch the parade but I did have a fun day. We had the First Annual GLGA St. Patty's Day Hot Tubbing Party. Was just too fun.

So I'm doing the random thing yet again. So far I've had:
1. Killers - Exitlude from Sam's Town
2. Whitesnake - something from the Greatest Hits CD
3. Chicago - the musical, the song Billy Flynn sings while he uses Roxie as a puppet
4. J LO - Walking on Sunshine
5. Ludacris - Rollout
6. Another song from Chicago, but the movie. Nowadays with Roxie singing. Interesting, I don't think I've ever had a song from either Chicago CD come up and today I get 1 of each. Which reminds me, I need to put the Wicked soundtrack on my MP3. I love both of them. So now I'm going to make this post last through the rest of the top 10.

So on Friday, we watched University of Michigan...

7. Usher - Can U handle it? This is gonna be way too mellow, but I'll give it a chance.

beat Michigan State at hockey. Afterwards, we went to OCH and closed the joint down. Saturday, we went to a house party that was a lot of fun. Sunday, started at the Allison's, then OCH and Jimmy's long fun day. I have so many pictures from the weekend I just haven't uploaded any of them yet.

8. Fleetwood Mac - Songbird - I don't know that I've heard this song before
9. Taylor Hicks - The Deal - I know I haven't heard this before. But its not bad.

So only 1 more song to wait for. Yeah, I can't really think of anything else good to write about so I was doing other stuff while waiting for songs. Checking emails and such. I had to clean up my inbox today, I'd let it get really ugly and I can't stand that at all.

Tonight the husbands hockey team starts their play-offs. It's #2 playing #3. They are the #2 team and last time they played #3, they won 10-3. So my fingers are truly crossed for these kids. Should be a fun game. If they win, they play for the championship on Thursday. Woohoo!

10. LeAnn Rimes - The Right Kind of Wrong from Coyote Ugly.

Today has been completely random. I think I may need to start doing this random thing once a week. Not that anyone reads this.

Bring on the Parade.

2007-03-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

I'm finally feeling better. I'm not 100% back but I'm getting there. That was absolutely no fun. I mean I actually stayed home for 2 Saturday nights in a row. Ok, we had a Wii party on the first one but I for one didn't have that good of a time. This past Saturday night though was wonderful. I had tentative plans to start taking down kitchen wallpaper. Yes, the same wallpaper I talked about taking down last year but I was home alone and I just watched TV and napped all evening and it was terrific. Now, I won't lie and say that I stayed home all weekend. We did go to OCH on Friday to see the boys and then went to Jake's. Sunday, we also met up with the boys at Bell Bar, then Green Hut and ended at Jimmy's. That was more of a training session to prepare for this weekend and the St. Patrick's day parade. We are actually planning on watching the parade in person this year instead of on TV. Bay City is also having a beer tent downtown this year which should be interesting and of course the normal stops at Mulligans, OCH and other establishments. Always a good time and a great opportunity for some great pictures. I plan on taking many. I may even post a couple here. But its only Wednesday so I have to dance tonight and finish out this work week before I get too excited.

Under the Weather

2007-03-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

So when I thought I was getting sick, I was not kidding at all. I had the full on Respiratory flu, started out with aches/pains and the chills. Then the fever hit with the extreme tiredness, then after the fever broke the sinuses filled up. It's been 10 days and I'm still not back 100%, this morning I woke up to a terrible sinus headache. So I'm still taking drugs for that and holding off from starting the antibiotics but if need be I'll start those on Sunday. I still have a very unattractive phlegmy cough. I sound gross, but I must say I did a fantastic job on my eye makeup this morning.

I'm just happy it is Friday. Right now I'm planning on going to dinner with the husband and the guys friends after work and then they are going to see '300'. I have no desire to see that nor is there anything else I want to see so I'm going to go poke around the mall for a couple hours. Or... I may just go home and nap. I still haven't decided. I know someone will bring the husband home. I just really don't want to let myself get too tired this weekend. I still need to recover and as much as I love poking around the mall, I know I don't really need to spend any money right now.

I did though somehow make it to the gym 3 days this week. I won't say I had great workouts, they were weak and lame but hopefully by next week I'll be closer to 100%.

Down with the Sickness

2007-02-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

Or at least I feel like I'm coming down with something and whatever it is, doesn't feel good. A sore dry throat, a headache in the forehead and an ache at the base of my neck. I know what'll happen those 2 aches are going to join together to turn into a giant ache. Not to mention I'm hungry. Which I totally don't get... I hear other people say, oh I don't have an appetite, me, it is like there isn't enough filling food around. So of course I'm starting to fill the beginning of this thing and I got crap I have to do. I mean it is going to be at least 8 hours until I get some couch time in today. Boo. I need some delicious rest complete with comfy pants and a hoodie. My red hoodie. I love that one.

I will be a Thighmaster

2007-02-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

Isn't it odd that when you have a couple really busy days in a row at work and then a non-busy one, that the non-busy one may as well be a 15 hour day instead of an 8 hour day? Or I'm just really wanting my Friday to start. I've got big plans too... I want to start my weekend with... a nap. I know, how lame is that? But I know that we're going out this evening to OCH and it will be a long night and if I'm tired now, I'll be even more tired later and the husband will still be roaring to go.

We've got 2 hockey games this weekend with the team. Those should be fun and we're doing dinner with friends tomorrow and River Rock on Sunday after hockey for $1 beers and burgers. We haven't done a Sunday there in quite some time.

So I made it to the gym 4 out of 5 days this week which is good since the costume I'm worried about is in. I'm hoping that with double layered tights any jiggle I have will be held down. So, it's officially on now. Work those thighs. Goal is best bottom ever for me in a bikini this year.

Springing into a Wrap Dress.

2007-02-21T13:46:00.000-05:00

So I thought I'd just pop over and do a nice little Wednesday post only to discover that Blogger really wanted me to finally upgrade to the new Blogger, so I finally did it. Fine. Now that is done. Sheesh stop bothering me about it already.

What was I going to post about? Nothing exciting. It is mid week, I have dance tonight and forgot to bring my energy drink I had at home in the fridge. The good news is the studio now has a vending machine and I can get one there. Granted it is Diet Rockstar, which is OK, but I prefer the Lo-Carb Monster, that I left at home. I get to do my 5 hours of teaching and then take my Cardio-Pump class which I haven't been to in 2 weeks. Last week was cancelled due to it being Valentine's day, the week before I skipped to go to a Wine Tasting. But the costume I have been concerned about it is allegedly now at the studio and now I'll know exactly how much work I need to do to get my heiney in shape for the thing. I'm hoping its not so drastic that I have to give up pizza. I'm willing to cut out all other fast food, but I love my pizza. So I basically have 4 months until I wear that costume which is good.

I did do some shopping last weekend at Great Lakes Crossing with a work peep. That was fun and I got some cute stuff for spring that can either be work or after-work clothes but now it just needs to warm up. A Lot. There was also a night at OCH and Madame Shelly's on Friday and a Saturday of Hockey, Hooters and Wii. This weekend shall prove to be exciting too with some more hockey.

The No Pants Dance!

2007-02-15T14:28:00.000-05:00

This week has been cold and long and well... Just wintry blech. I'm tired of being cold, I'm tired of sweaters,winter boots and road yuck all over my car. It's not that it hasn't been sunny, it has, but the bright sun reflecting off the white snow just gives me a headache. Wow, am I a whiner or what today?

I started my day out with conference call at 6am so I had to miss the gym so I'm just feeling sore. I did a good leg workout yesterday and I am sore. I need some good exercise to get the blood moving through my sore muscles. And I know what has me down today they had this body fat assessment in the cafeteria today and it was just this silly electronic thing you hold after they put in your age, height and weight and while I was expecting my number to be higher then the husbands I wasn't expecting it to be twice as much as his. We both think something didn't work correctly with it, but I didn't want to go back to do it again. Funny how 1 stupid machine can just ruin my mood. Ah well. I just need to go and get a real test done and forget about this fake one.

Oh and last weekend in Detroit. Terrific. Fantastic Fun. The Calgary flames stayed in our hotel on Saturday night and we ran into a couple of the Flames shopping on Sunday and let's just say they aren't shy and would totally do Pants Off Dance Off!

Random on the MP3 Player

2007-02-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I don't do it more often. Hit Random and just giggle at my music collection. So far today I've heard

1. Rihanna
2. A remix of Dirty by Christina
3. The Scientist by Coldplay
4. Michael Bolton - I skipped that
5. Panic at the Disco
6. Styx - Light Up
and currently Aerosmith - Big Ten-Inch Record
next up Foreigner - Soul Doctor

I have to admit to having quite a few of greatest hits albums and best of albums. I can't help myself. Right now my addiction is Phil Collins and the Police. I think its just that it takes me right back to being 13 and basement party sleep overs. I can't even tell you how excited I am for the grammy's and the Police reunion. I will be DVRing that for sure.

I may just keep typing so I can tell you what the next song will be in just under 2 minutes. So if you've got an MP3 player, your challenge is to hit random and let me know what your first 5-10 songs are. Don't be ashamed of anything you got on there. My collection is completely random. I have all sorts of dance mixes and hip hop, lots of stuff I can use for class. Some old jazz, 80's music of all sorts. Country.

9. Heart - Crazy on You, love the acoustic guitar intro and yes, this is from their Greatest Hits album. This song is totally making me smile.

I'll stick this out for song #10.

Oh, I also love cover songs and am working on building up a little collection of those. But as you can see so far I haven't had a cover come up yet. I remember when everyone in the late 80's was doing covers, before sampling became the thing. I like a good sample, I do, but it is nowhere near as good as someone's take at a whole cover song.

It's time for #10.

Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls.

Totally grinning right now. This song takes me back to about 16 in which I did a jazz dance to this song and we started out in trench coats and then removed those and I can't remember what costume we wore under those. I can't remember anything else about that dance either. I do remember loving this song and the dance though.

Let's go Crazy!

2007-02-05T23:52:00.000-05:00

The weekend was busy and fun although extremely cold. Friday, we had a wonderful dinner at OCH and then went to Madame Shelly's for some dancing and karoke. Saturday, I went to the bachelorette party where we went to 5 different bars around Saginaw and ended up in Freeland where the crowd was fiesty. Let's just say that we had to suddenly leave. Sunday, was superbowl and we ended up with about 30 people coming over. An really interesting mix of OCH friends and hockey parents/kids. Then after the game we started boxing on the Wii. Just too much fun and my back is still sore.

I enjoy having the Superbowl get together at our house but I end up not getting to watch much of it, though I did make a point to go upstairs to watch Prince for halftime and he was awesome. I want to go Crazy right now.

Inconsistent or just busy?

2007-02-02T15:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not being very consistent here lately, am I? Last weekend was lots of fun.

Friday - Hockey game, OCH, Jake's
Saturday - Hockey game (i skipped as i didn't feel well), the in-laws, OCH and Madison Pub to see Fancy Thermos play.
Sunday - Spent the day at Waltzing Matilda and got some nice things. 2 skirts, a dress, a pair of pants and 2 shirts. Then Mulligans for dinner.

Overall good weekend and this week has been just as busy. Tuesday we went to see the OHL Skills Competition and ran into a couple of the hockey kids then did grocery shopping at like 10pm. Last night being my other 'free' night I had a hair appointment. (I did may a change to my hair that I like, don't know that I love yet.) Then went to Target and went home and did some serious house cleaning that included scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees but the house will be ready for Sunday and the Superbowl.

Silly me, I had grand ideas of staying in tonight and taking it easy getting a couple more things done that I don't have to worry about later in my busy weekend but turns out we're going to dinner at Tommy V's and then OCHering. So tomorrow I'll have to finish my superbowl shopping, mainly just veggies and kidney beans for the chili and more beverages. Then I have a bachelorette party. The Superbowl party on Sunday. I'm already tired just thinking about it. Hopefully, I can make tonight somewhat early and get some good sleep.

Frosty Friday

2007-01-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

So we made it to the gym 3 out of 5 days this week. I'm ok with that. Considering I also had to nights of dance this week and on Wednesday I started learning our tap number in which we are doing a kickline and I stood between an 8th grader who is taller then me and a 23 year old who is slightly shorter. So the 3 of us together were 13, 23 and 33. At the time, its no big deal but when I think about it now, no wonder it was totally kicking my ass. It was fun though and a great workout and the costume is just so 'classic' I have to do it.

Weekend plans involve a lot hockey. Games tonight and tomorrow morning. Plus an OCH visit more then likely this evening and who knows what else. I'll probably start working on getting the house ready for Superbowl. I also got to get invites out for that.

It's snowing again too. Which I can't complain about too much, since we've only had consistent snow for the last couple weeks but it has been cold. Super cold. It is January though, it is to be expected, hopefully those El Nino winds will kick up again pretty soon.

Eagles, Hockey and Tanning

2007-01-23T13:43:00.000-05:00

One of the best parts of my daily commute is that I get to travel along the road that follows the Saginaw River and last week on Thursday on the way to work I saw 3 bald eagles. The first one I pointed out and the husband may have been slightly doubtful, but the next 2 he saw. We both get excited about seeing them. So then Friday as we are headed up I75 to go to Sault St Marie for a hockey tournament we see yet another one. I've heard seeing them brings good luck. Well, I played the game board at the hockey tournament and turned my $5 into $27.50. Course, I donated it back to the team. Later that night the husband totally kicked some poker booty and came out a few bucks ahead. Too bad, seeing those eagles didn't help out the team. They played some good hockey but just couldn't quite pull out a win this time. We all had fun though.

And on a completely different topic... One of my co-teachers at dance had been going to the tanner at least 3-5 times a week for at least the last 6 years. As long as I've known her she's been brown. Well, she decided to take a break in the fall and she is now white like me. She, of course, is hitting the winter blahs and wants to hit the tanner again. I keep telling her no, but I can tell she is going to. Now, I have tanned a few times in my life but luckily I've never been addicted. I do love how it warms you up in the winter but I've always had dry skin and am a moisturizing queen so I just tend to not do it. Last night I found myself telling her that she should take pride in her whiteness. I later laughed and hoped no one over heard that comment without knowing that I was just talking about her non-tan skin.

To dance or not to dance? No question. Dance.

2007-01-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

Do you ever forget how old you are? At dance, I'm pretty much 8-10 years older then all the people I'm working with this year and most of the time I don't even think about just how old I am compared to them. Until that is, someone complains that they are getting old. That happened tonight and I just told them ' You? Old? I'll be 34 before the show in June' Yep, the birthday will fall the week of the show. I don't freak about them, I just know that in those weeks leading up to the show I'll feel the tiredness in my body I felt last year around the show. It wasn't just my body either, it was my mind. I choreographed or co-choreographed 11 dances last year, plus performed in 6 dances. That's 17 full dances I kept in my head somehow. No wonder I was so exhausted. I seriously, considered hanging up the performing shoes after last year. But I just can't see myself doing that, I also keep telling myself I should cut back after all since teaching dance is a hobby. I haven't even really tried to do that. I do love it, I love the kids, I love the creative freedom I get from it. Teaching dance is just so different then my desk job where I use just my brain all day while sitting on my arse. Dance uses my body and my mind in a much different way. Though having the logical mind that I do, sometimes putting the emotion and feeling behind my dancing can be very tough for me. That is something I'm going to work on this. Dance from my heart, less from my brain.

Ready for the Weekend!!!

2007-01-14T12:06:00.000-05:00

This has been a great weekend. Not just good, great. Friday, we went OCHering and got to see so many of my favorite friends. Saturday, I went to lunch with more of my favorite people and went out to dinner and dancing with more terrific people. Today, it's Chucky Cheese for the nephew's bday and I don't have work tomorrow. Yippee!!!! I love this weekend, in fact, I'm going to get back at enjoying it right now.

Working the Kinks Out

2007-01-12T10:03:00.000-05:00

So Wednesday night after dance I did the Cardio Pump class at the studio that I normally do, the only thing is it had been 3 weeks since I'd taken class because of the holidays and stuff. Class was good and hard, just how I like it. Then Thursday morning we hit the gym and the husband wanted to do legs. Now I knew that would be a lot for my legs within a 12 hour period but I did it anyway. (That goal about the better derriere, not to mention the high kick costume I have to wear in June). I was sore by last night and then this morning that walk down the stairs.... Ouch. My body didn't want to move, but I know the best way for me to work out the soreness, it to get the blood flowing through those muscles. So we went to the gym again this morning. The good news is we went 4 days this week, plus I did the cardio pump class. I'm contemplating going to the gym tomorrow just to get in extra cardio. It's been an excellent workout week so far, that would be icing on the cake.

Tomorrow, I'll get on the scales again. I tend to avoid them for a week or 2 after the holidays since I know I wasn't working out and my eating wasn't terrific, well health wise. Believe me, everything tasted terrific. I know I didn't gain the dreaded holiday 7. I have kept measuring the waist and hips and they haven't changed, but that doesn't mean the scale didn't creep up a bit. I'm guessing tomorrow will be in check with where I want to be and if it isn't, I know a couple more weeks of good behaviors will get me there.

A new alternative to my lunch that I've found I like is to make my salad (romaine lettuce/spinach/carrots/kraft fat free Italian dressing) and dump a pack of tuna on it. Only 90 calories for the tuna but 20 grams of protein and I didn't get hungry until dinner time. So I'm going to mix that in more regularly then my normal turkey sandwich.

Addicted, so what?

2007-01-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

I've always loved the smell of coffee but it took years to actually like the taste of it. Of course, thanks to the popularity of Starbucks and other such places I slowly started by drinking the fancy coffees. Give me a coffee with caramel or chocolate and I'd drink it. Over time while I was working I'd drink coffee mixed with sugar free hot coco and eventually I replaced the coco with sweet n low and non-fat creamer. About 3 years ago we actually bought a coffee pot for the house and now I can't imagine not having coffee in the morning. I love the smell and warmth and how cozy it feels sitting on the couch with my mug in my hands. Even at work, when I'm usually drinking out of stryofoam, having the cup just relaxes me. Not to mention warm me up since work is usually cold. So I believe I've slowly become addicted and there are still occastional mornings at home where I don't drink my coffee. Actually, at home I seldom finish my mug, I think the husband makes it a bit too strong for my taste and at work its more watered down so I like it better. My name is Jody and I'm a coffee addict.

Ludington

2007-01-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend we went to Ludington for a hockey tournament. The tournament itself was fun, there were 6 teams and overall they were pretty well matched. Our record was 2-1-1 and the kids came in 3rd. But this was the first time I'd been to Ludington since I was maybe 4 years old.

We drove out Friday afternoon, which quickly turned to dusk and then extremely dark. I'd forgotten how dark everything is when you get away from even a small city like Bay City. I had to use my high beams a few times and I never use them just driving around town here.

Saturday, in between games, we drove out the see the beach and lighthouse. The water looked pretty rough but still pretty. Great waves for some boogy boarding. Then we drove up to see the sand dunes and saw a bald eagle. It was a small one but we paced along side it for awhile as it just drifted in the wind and was going 28 mph. Very cool. We then went back downtown and had lunch at the nice little brewpub that good beer and good food. I really liked it. Then we napped until the next game.

It was a nice weekend with a lot of driving with no snow. Though it did snow a bit last night. We're going up to Sault St. Marie the weekend of the 19th and right now they don't have any snow up there. Should be interesting. I am excited for another tournament, it was a lot of fun. The boys are an absolute riot.

I'm Yummy Mary

2007-01-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

So the other day we stop in at the Verizon store since the husband's cell phone was really slow. For instance, when he'd hit contacts, it would take 8-9 seconds to pull up that screen. It was just so slow. Mine was a little slow but nowhere near as bad as his. So we decide to stop into the Verizon store to have the phones checked out, turns out all the needed was a OS Upgrade. So the guy takes our phones, we play Tetris for the next 10 minutes and then he comes back with the phones and tells us that we're all set but the upgrade leaves us with blank wallpaper so we'll need to re-add them if we want. Well, I'm in the habit of always making my banner match my wallpaper. I'm also in the habit of taking pictures of my adult beverages. So in the past I've had 'ILUVCAPTN' and 'Pickletini', that day I had' Yummy Mary'.... And the guy holds the phones out and says 'I don't know whose is whose'. I look at them and say 'I'm Yummy Mary' and take my phone and then say 'There's something I never thought I'd say'.

The guy smiled.

The husband laughed.

Just another day in my life.

Holding My Eyes Wide Open

2007-01-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

This getting back into the swing of things after the holidays isn't near as easy as it used to be. I've yet to have a good nights sleep this week. I'll be tired and then go to bed only to lay there wide awake. I refuse to look at the clock while I wait to fall asleep but I'd guess I was awake until 2am before I fell asleep last night and then got up at 5:05am and went to the gym.

I'm actually glad that I can't go out this weekend since we are going to Ludington for the husbands first hockey tournament as an assistant coach. The team has early games both on Saturday and Sunday. This will force me to get this sleep schedule back in gear.

It's not like we are normal 8 hour sleepers anyway, usually more like 5-6. Even over the break when I could sleep in, I was wide awake by 9:30 but I'd went to sleep at 3:30. So now my body just doesn't want to fall asleep at midnight. Though I did have a wonderful nap from 9pm-10:30pm last night. I turned on 'Knights of Prosperity' at 9 since I really wanted to see the new show after it at 9:30 and of course I made it maybe 5 minutes into 'Knights' and I was out. I'm sure its quality entertainment but I couldn't hold off the couch monster.

The couch monster can be your friend or enemy. Right now, I'm mad at him because even though the couch is 15 miles away I can hear him calling me. Loudly. I miss him.

Grow Up Already Ladies

2007-01-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

I'm constantly amazed by people. So often I find myself shaking my head and just laughing. At what point in life do people mature? I ask this because while teaching dance I'm not at all surprised when I hear one of the kids say 'Oh, I don't like her'. They are kids and I can understand that coming from them. As for my friends, some of them are quite a bit younger then me and I still see that behaviour from them and I'm ok with it. I guess I figure they'll get over it as they get older. But yesterday I realized some people I associate with who are quite a bit older then me are truly still doing the 'Well, I just don't like her'. Sure there are people I feel that way about but in adult professional situations you have to act above that. You can't call a meeting and not invite someone just because you don't like them. Socially, it is different. If you don't enjoy someone, don't spend time with them. But professionally, its unacceptable and completely immature. This isn't exactly high school or is it?

Goals.

2007-01-02T10:14:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! So I don't make resolutions, but I do like to set new goals for myself. So for this year my goals are:

Be nicer to all the people I love
Be more involved with all the people I love
Blog More
Work towards a tighter rear end

I met last year's goal where I wanted to lose a few lbs and have been maintaining that so now I just need to continue to work on that and focus on my rear.

Boxing and Relaxing

2006-12-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

Happy Boxing Day! Not that I'm Canadian but I have to appreciate a country who actually has a holiday for shopping. I, myself did not do any shopping as of yet today. I should still make a run to the grocery store but I can't convince myself to leave my house, or to be more accurate, my couch.

Though I did do some boxing on Nintendo Wii last night, it really is a lot of fun. We had some of the guys over last night to check out the Wii. A fun time was had and a few people are now talking about getting their own.

So Christmas Eve and Day were good. Christmas Eve afternoon with the in-laws was nice. We actually went out to dinner instead of my sister-in-law stress cooking and while the in-laws seemed impressed, I was less. Just another big chain restaurant. Nothing special. Afterwards, we went to the Allison's for the G.L.G.A. get together which was a lot of fun. (I've added a slideshow to myspace) We spent the night there and got up and had a nice relaxing Christmas morning. Then headed home to shower/change and head to my parents. That was really nice, just my parents, grandparents, brother, his wife and my new niece were left there. The niece is getting so big and is very adorable. I may even volunteer to do some babysitting.

Right now, the husband is on the phone trying to figure out what to do this evening. And I need to get off the couch, and make myself look ready for public. Have a nice night internet.

Sweaters, Cameras and Holidays!

2006-12-22T09:50:00.000-05:00

So I did manage to get the Sweater Sunday pictures up on myspace last night. I only put up 16 of them though I took about 140 pictures. Of course, there may only be 80-90 good ones anyway. I'm still amazed with the amount of photos I take even though I'm on my 3rd digital camera in 5 years. It's not because I've broke any of them, I just like to upgrade every couple of years. My last 2 have been Sony Cybershots which I just love. So small and fits nicely in any purse I happen to carry. I got the T9 back in the spring and am just thrilled with it. This camera is better at low light then my first one, which I believe is the T1. Both camera's take their best pictures is either bright natural light or in low-light with flash but if I compare pictures I took on the same day with both cameras I can really see the difference. Take a look:

This was taken on a cloudy afternoon in Bay City in July when the Tall Ships were coming in with the T1:

This was taken about a half hour later with the T9:

The T9 is a lot clearer then my T1, and I still use the T1 since Sony got cheap on me and doesn't include the docking station with the T9's. So I just put my memory card in my T1 and use the docking station that goes with that to do my uploads.

I love, love my camera and can't even imagine not having it. So with the Holidays heading at me this weekend I'll be sure to have some fun pictures to share along the way.

Tonight, I have our dance christmas party. Sunday is Christmas with the in-laws, then GLGA Christmas, Monday with my family, Wednesday we'll be at the Curran's. So lots of fun in the next few days and lots of good photo ops.

I will share 1 Sweater Sunday picture with you here. Dryfuss and Selah would like to wish you a very Happy Holiday Season!

Ben Sweatering?

2006-12-20T13:22:00.000-05:00

So last I time I ended with mention of going to look for an ugly sweater. I'm sure this left you wondering why someone would seek out an ugly sweater. Well, let me explain. I have been invited for the 3rd consecutive year to go to Sweater Sunday at Jimmy's 4 Aces in Bay City. The event is held the last Sunday before Christmas/Christmas Eve so it fell on the 17th this year. It just a good excuse for a bunch of random friends to get together and have a 'crates' time while wearing the ugliest sweater they can find. This year I wore a terrible Winnie the Pooh little girls sweater that I got at Goodwill for $1. I have nothing against Winnie the Pooh, but I am not at all a fun of wearing themed garments at all, so this is what made this garment appealing to me.

I have lots of pictures of this event and I may even post some here. No, wait I won't. I will put up a slideshow on myspace, so check it out there. Currently, my myspace is themed for Sweater Sunday as it is. I can't wait to see some of the pictures other people took. I didn't end up with any good pictures of my sweater, hopefully someone else did.

This is an official G.L.G.A Holiday endorsed by a founding member, Ben.

Next G.L.G.A. event is Christmas Eve at the Allison's. That will be a good one too. But I've still got to do my Christmas shopping before then. I'm totally working on it.... sorta. Gift cards make shopping so easy, but present opening rather boring. I may have to make the wrapping more exciting to make up for it!

Functioning at 95%

2006-12-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

The voice is mostly back, I sound like truck driving smoker. Please, if anyone who is reading this who happens to be a truck driving smoker, don't take offense to this. See my brother is a truck driving smoker and I sound a lot like him right now. That is all I meant by that.

Seriously, my luck would be the first comment someone would ever leave would be hate mail from a truck driving smoker. Though, I'm sure I don't have to worry at all since no one reads this. Ok so if you are reading this, please leave me a comment! See what this is doing to me, now I'm a comment whore. Next, I'll make you tell me how smart and pretty I am. Also, please tell me how thin I look cuz then I'll be super nice to you even though I'll awkwardly handle the compliment unless I've had a few adult beverages in which then I'll be "I know, thanks." See, I get a little cocky sometimes when I've had a few. I also get loud and that filter that keeps you from saying things you shouldn't, it vanishes. Totally gone. The next morning I'll ask the husband "Did I really say "erghkegerg" to x?" and he's like "Yep, the filter was gone".

Wow, the other 5% of me that I need to function must be the part that stops me from rambling. So enough of this. I'm off to find an UGLY sweater!

And then I lost my voice.

2006-12-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

Yep. So I thought I was good on Friday. Nope, see I was in a haze due to the Daschle/Nyquil combo I had going on. So Friday was Hef's 40th birthday party and it was fun, but as the night went on my voice just started slipping away. Then I hit the Secrets. They didn't help. I tried some Diet Vernors, that didn't help. By the time the lovely staff of Jake's Corner Bar asked us to leave, I could barely talk. I woke up on Saturday with little voice, same on Sunday AND the headache and throbbing were back. Monday, I had to do it. I went to the Doctor and while I know most people have horror stories about their doctor visits; mine was quick, super quick. Appointment was as 2:45, I was out of the there by 3:05. No kidding. Turns out I have laryngitis. So I got some antibiotics that I can tell are working and some nasty ass cough syrup. I mean old school stuff I remember choking down when I was a kid. I do it like a shot and chase it with some juice.

Which reminds me. When I'm healthy and can partake in the adult beverages again. I want some Gin n' Juice and maybe to hang out with Snoop Dog. (No it's not the cough medicine making me say that). Though it could be the Diet Pepsi.

Boo to Colds

2006-12-06T18:39:00.000-05:00

I was getting cocky, I'll admit it. I hadn't been sick since last April, which considering the amount of time I spend around germy people is amazing. It hit me early Tuesday morning, the sore throat, the throbbing head. So yesterday I drank some cough syrup and slept most of the day, today I stayed home again but actually did some work. I think I'll be good enough to go back tomorrow.

Here I was thinking the Whey protein shakes I incorporated into my diet last April were really boosting my immune system and they could have, but I didn't get a whole lot of rest last weekend and then did my typical long Monday and BOOM. Cold.

As long as I'm good by the weekend I'll be happy!

Introducing Dryfuss and Selah

2006-12-01T14:44:00.000-05:00

Winter has happened. We had our first storm of the winter, great way to start out December. Not really. I decided to work from home today as did a lot of the other folks I work with. This morning was mainly ice, I woke up about 3:30 am to the sound of the ice pelting the window and the ice kept going until mid-morning. A couple hours ago everything started switching over to snow but its not really sticking yet, so it is just mainly sloppy outside now. I'd almost of rather to have the nice dry cold snow. Mainly, because Selah, (GS#2), loves those cold snowy mornings. She is so funny to watch play in the snow. This stuff, no one likes, Dryfuss (GS#1), hates being wet anymore. He's 10, almost 11, he wants to potty in a nice dry warm place. Can't say I blame him. So since I've never mentioned these guys before let me tell you more about them.

They are both German Sheppards, hence the GS.

GS#1 - Dryfuss or D for short, as I said he'll be 11 in April, we've had him since he was about 18 months old and we were still living in in Troy. We were asked to house sit him while his owner went to India. Dryfuss had been living in an apartment, so when he came to our house and had his own little fenced in backyard to hang out in, he was thrilled. When the owner came back and took D home. D just wanted to be outside and the owner asked him if we wanted to keep him. I begged since the first dog I ever had was a GS named Chris. I got my way and now years later, he's starting to slow down some. Instead of playing catch with a tennis ball all day, he'll do it a few times and then lays down.

GS#2 - Selah, after we moved to Bay City and fenced in about an acre for D to play on I thought he was lonely and should get a friend. One of the ladies I work with knew someone who had a female GS that needed a home. We drove to Dewitt to meet her and I fell in love, she is just so sweet and soft. D seemed to like her too. So we adopted her. She had more issues then D as far as behavior, it was obvious she had been abused and liked to get into things. We got her a crate since she was crate trained and then we couldn't get D to stay out of it so we had to go get him one.

Here is a picture of them:

As much as they can be a pain. I do love them, just not to much all the constant shedding they do.

D almost always has a tennis ball with him, he's on right, Selah on the left.

Hump Day... Still?

2006-11-29T23:34:00.000-05:00

Man after a 3 day work week, a 5 day work week just feels long. I'd rather eat Turkey again tomorrow then go to work, but it doesn't work that way.

I read an article about stress being the new status symbol at work and while I hardly ever complain about being stressed, I'm going to make an effort to not do it at all. I figure I work to pay my bills and since I'm going to do that, I'm going to make the effort to enjoy myself while I'm there. I love to make jokes at work, but if I get one laugh a day out of someone, it is worth it. I do the same thing teaching dance sometimes, but at dance I'll even use odd voices I don't use at work. I feel most comfortable when I can do that and love that I have that freedom. Well, this girl is off to rest on my couch which is a terrific hobby of mine. Not mention Pretty Women is on and well falling asleep listeing to Richard Gere's voice, can't be a bad thing, can it? Sweet Dreams!

Turkey and Stuffing

2006-11-25T21:11:00.000-05:00

So I made homemade bread stuffing for Thanksgiving and I was surprised, it turned out good, really good. I also made garlic mashed redskin potatoes that were yummy. To make the I roasted cloves of garlic which I'd never done before and it made everything smell so good. Definitely a good thing that I'm not a vampire. I just like garlic way too much.

So we went to Dan's for Thanksgiving dinner and the day really turned into a Guitar Hero party. I am absolutely terrible at any type of game like that, but it was still lots of fun. Though Hooligans and some red wine may have helped it seem like even more fun. After dinner and a few hours of Guitar Hero the party then headed to Jimmy's 4 Aces for karoke. Super fun time was had. We've got Sweater Sunday coming up in a few weeks which will mean another night of Karoke there. That party is an excellent time too.

Yesterday, we decided to go to Lumber Baron's for dinner which was fun, great company, good crabcakes, but other then that... The food is just ok. Didn't leave me excited and when I do go back, I'll stick to the bar side. Though, we did go to their Martini bar, the Stables after where the band was really good. And just when it seems like the night would end... Oh no. We then headed to Lucky's Pub which is a dive bar for the youngsters in town. Full of 21 years old and way too many boys, it was just a sausage fest in there. After that we headed to a new place to us, Madame Shelly's and that was fun. We stayed for last call and then headed over to Waltzing Matilda to hang out with friends who own the store and the OCH crew. After a couple hours of that we went to the owners house and hung out until about 6:30 am, at which point I just wanted to sleep in my own bed. So today... total lazy day. I did clean up the kitchen and take care of clothes in my room and pick up the house a bit. But I did some terrific napping. It was real good. Tonight, I'm doing exactly this sitting in front of either the computer screen or the TV screen in my hoodie and sweats, relaxing. Its what I do.