Sorry, Judy.....

THREE FREAKIN DAYS since my last BLOG!!! LOL!

I've painted over half the hall bathroom (I need someone to help me take down the 6 foot mirror on the wall ), cleaned up the mess in the backyard from our 30 MPH winds this weekend and "babysat" Justin's pooches all weekend. I have also spent several hours scanning a MESS O PHOTOS! (Me and my maternal grandparents are here, circa Christmas 1964?)

I think the only person other than Judy, Iris and Justin that reads my blog is Tammy (next time I visit ID, I will have to meet you, HomeSchool woman), so here's a link to my photobucket... the album is "old family photos" and the password is PHOTOS. There are about 20 new pics in that album.....

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v159/sandimom/Old%20Family%20Photos/

My life is categoried in three stages.... life before marriage #1, life between then (1986) and current marriage (1993) and life as I now know it! As you look at the pics, Paul was my first SERIOUS boyfriend... from High School. We dated into College and drifted. He married Trish in 1985. Their son, Michael, was born in 1991. He is the BEST KID EVER! They took me in for a while between marriages when Michael was about 18 months old. Paul and Trish split up several years back, but I still love them all. Trish, Michael and I share an addiction to Disneyland..... I am going to miss going with them after we move..... We are already scheduled to go in January 2007!

Other than that, I've done several loads of laundry and dishes... life is an absolute THRILL around here!!!!!

Yes, it's been a while since I blogged!

I am back from my trek up to Mt Rainier. It was SOOOOOO gorgeous up there!

When I arrived Friday it was SNOWING! Keep in mind it was 85 degrees at home..... Quite a change!



Saturday morning it rained off and on with a sprinkle of snow mixed in early on. I got the "hard-hat tour" of the project which was quite interesting. Freakin cold, but interesting! Here is the picture that will make Judy spew Snapple all over her computer screen...... Yeah.... that's me in my ski jacket, gloves, fleece hat, hard hat and safety vest! Scary.....











We spent most of Saturday and part of Sunday driving all over the park. I took a ton of pictures, some of which are even half decent. We didn't see any bears, cougars or bobcats, but we did see some grey fox and a HOARY MARMOT. Yes, HOARY, not hairy. It was the funniest dang thing I've ever seen. Like a big, FAT gopher and it CHIRPS LIKE A BIRD. Here is what he looked like:


Like I said, the funniest thing I've seen.... apparently they are rodents.




Russ had to work Saturday morning, which gave me time to work on some swap cards for the Reno Regionals next month. Here is the prototype:


Regionals are October 20/21 up in Reno. I'm hoping to make about 35 of these cards by then. The finished ones will have ribbon and brads on them too. The tag slides back into the punched out hole so just the star on the top of the tree shows. It's an idea I got from a swap card from another SCS member, missellee.

I have the painter coming later this week or early next week to show me colors so I can hopefully have test patches on the house when Russ comes home on the 30th so we can get the house painted. It needs it SOOOOOO badly! I can't wait to have a house that is ALL ONE COLOR with just ONE trim color again! LOL! The grey stucco has white patches and lines of patch where the stucco has cracked. The trim colors are off white and blue (like SU's Not Quite Navy). The old gutters were painted in the blue to match the fascia boards. Now the new gutters are BRIGHT WHITE. My poor house looks like a patchwork quilt! Russ wanted to paint the house grey again, but I am hoping to talk him into a nice cheery yellowy-cream color. Like a rich French vanilla ice cream color. OK... now I'm HUNGRY! LOL! Ours would be the only house on the street that color. We have one blue, one green and the rest are either a shade of grey or brown. BLEH!

That's about all that's new here.......

Off to the Mountain in the morning!

This will be my last blog till at least Tuesday! My flight to Seattle leaves at 8 in the morning which means I need to leave the house around 6:30. I get in to SEA/TAC at 10 and then I get to find my rental car and start driving! It should take me about 2 1/2 hours to get up to Paradise. My flight home is Monday evening at 7:30 and I get home around 9:15.... well, to the airport anyway. By the time I get my bag, take the shuttle back to my car and get home it will be 10 or 10:30 probably.

Mt Rainier, HERE I COME!!!!!

You know your day is gonna SUCK when......

It starts with a phonecall from your husband saying, "You might want to bring your WARM JACKET this weekend". Uh....... WHY????? "We woke up this morning to 4" of snow on everything up here". LOVELY.... and I will be in a rental car of the clown variety (think ford focus 2 door hatchback) driving up into SNOW? This ought to be an adventure..... Can't blog long.... I got to make a run to REI for long underwear! Maybe more tonight if I get packed before bedtime.... my flight is at 8 AM which means I need to be at the airport around 6:30 in the morning. I'm already checked in and have my boarding pass printed. Now I just have to completely REPACK as I had packed for warmer weather.... SIGH..... WISH ME LUCK!!!!!

OK, Judy... HAPPY NOW?????

Since Miss Judy is on my case for not blogging, HERE I AM!

First of all, Monday was just too depressing for me to do anything but watch a bunch of 9/11 stuff and be weepy all day. To this day, I still can't fathom that there are human beings in this world who can have such a deep hatred for other human beings that they don't even know. People who have done nothing wrong but be born on another chunk of ground. I also still can't wrap my mind around the number of casualties that day.....

Yesterday was then spent catching up on all the stuff I should have done on Monday and still catching up from my 4 days gone on my trip to SPUD LAND!

Now I'm running around trying to get ready to go up to Washington Friday morning. I get back Monday night. No internet access, no cell phone, no TV up there. Gotta bring a stamp project!!!!!

Justin is coming over tonight..... he gets to move my firepit for me and remove the showerhead in Russ' bathroom so I can go to Lowes and get a new one. Him coming over gives me the excuse to BBQ!!!! YUM! OOO! I also need him to pull down a big box from the rafters in the garage!!!! Yes, I make him EARN HIS DINNER! LOL!

Gotta go and flip the meat (in the marinade) and prepare the corn!

OH! And Judy - today at my Raley's (grocery store) they had IDAHO SPUDS as big as my SHOE!!!!! 69¢ a pound. I'm just happy that we are starting to get Bartlett pears in season here! YUMMMMM!!!!!!

Idaho knows their SPUDS!!!!

OK... I promised Russ I would post these.... here are the finest examples of IDAHO POTATOES I saw during my visit. The first pic is a bin of "Bakers" at SuperWalMart. I put the cabbage in the bin so Russ could see that these dang things are the size of my shoe!!!! Sorry it's fuzzy... I took it with my cell phone!

The second photo is from the fair (mmmmm... food on a stick!) where we encountered something called "TORTATOES". Basically it's a spud, put on an apple peeler run by a drill motor that spins the spud into one long, curly peel. Then they toss it in the deep fryer and you end up with a big, long, curly, hot potato chip! YUMMMMMM!!!!!

Yeah, I'm on carrot sticks and salad the rest of the week......

I survived and I am HOME!!!!!

I am home! I missed my connection in Vegas and had an extra hour travel time yesterday. When I got home, the cat attached herself to me. I came in, ate, brought my bags in from the car, took out what was needed and went to bed! The cat slept on me most of the night. She was in my face at 6 this morning... ugh.... I DON'T THINK SO, KITTY! We slept in till almost 8! I went to a Pin Collector meeting at the Hard Rock today, and when I came home, the cat had welcomed me back by hurling all over my bed. NICE!

Judy's computer is self-destructing so my goal tomorrow is to "suck" the last files off my old computer's hard drive and find someone to help me prepare it for shipping to Idaho. I'm going to call the "PC Med Center" there and reinstall what she will need and *HOPEFULLY* ship it right to them. Then she can bring her poor PC in and they can transfer her files over onto the new machine. Hopefully I will get it out of here on Wednesday! Then Friday I am off to Washington to visit Russ and check out my soon-to-be-home. I have mixed feelings about all this, but as long as his company is willing to pay him big bucks, I will follow! LOL!

Judy's dog is not sure what to make of me......

Starburst isn't quite sure what to do with me. She will come up and sit NEAR me, but if I reach to pet her, she bolts. It's too funny!

God help me, I'm in IDAHO....

Well, I'm here. I have survived Judy's driving and my hearing is coming back after she SHRIEKED when she put in one of the CD's I brought her. She is now singing STYX's "Babe"......

The TSA or something opened one of my bags that showed up GAPING OPEN on the baggage carousel. GRRRRRRR...... It doesn't look like I lost anything, which is incredible considering the bag was WIDE OPEN. Sheesh. Our tax dollars at work......

That's all for now......

This will be short....

Blogger is NOT being user friendly today.... it has taken me almost 10 minutes to get in to post! GRRRRRR.....

Russ finally brought home some pictures from Paradise. The photo here is the Guide House, which is where he is living. See the floor with one window at the end? That's the 3rd floor where he lives. Of course, he did NOT bring me any pictures of his actual living space, just the outside.... MEN! SHEESH!

I went for a quick ride this morning.... 2.63 miles, 9.9 mph average. Now it's off to get coffee and run a few errands. I have to get Russ back to the airport by 2PM and then I need to come home and do laundry and GET PACKIN' for my trip to Ida-HO! The cat already knows something is amiss..... poor kitty.....

A quiet Sunday morning

Good morning world! No blog yesterday, but I did ride my bike for about 3.5 miles yesterday morning. No bike ride today. Something I ate yesterday made me sick for most of the afternoon. Then I thought I was better so I ate dinner last night. BAD IDEA. So I was sick half the night. Bleh. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. Dinner was soooooo yummy though.... I have a new baked salmon recipe that I have been making... VERY TASTY! We had that with herbed rice (rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat!) and salad. YUMMMMMM!!!! All that's on the schedule for today is taking Russ to church and doing a little shopping over in that area. I need a new pair of everyday shoes..... Unlike Miss Judy, I don't have a different pair of flip flops for every day of the summer (LOL!).... I wear the same pair of shoes every day from about March thru October and these have just about HAD IT! I have another pair I wear every day when it gets colder. They are heavy duty though and will last me 3 or 4 years before they die on me! After church and shopping I have a couple loads of laundry to do for Russ before he leaves tomorrow. I have chicken marinating in Italian tomato-basil-garlic marinade to grill for dinner with a side of whole wheat pasta and salad. Ssssshhhhhhh.... don't tell Russ the pasta is whole wheat and GOOD FOR HIM.... he won't eat it! LOL! We went to BevMo (Beverages & More) yesterday and Russ got a couple of cigars and I picked out 2 bottles of California Chardonnay to bring to Idaho. We also went over to REI and looked at hiking boots for Russ. A nice, quiet, low-key weekend for us! Russ flies out at 3:25 tomorrow afternoon and with the Holiday, we figure he will need to be at the airport by 2.

OH... *THIS* ought to be interesting..... My friend, Trish, works for the County out at the airport. She called me on Friday to ask when Russ was flying out since THE COUNTY WORKERS, INCLUDING THOSE AT THE AIRPORT ARE GOING ON STRIKE TUESDAY MORNING! Doesn't affect Russ, but *I* FLY OUT WEDNESDAY MORNING!!!! AAAAAACCCCKKKK!!!!! Let's put it this way, Trish is an upper level Auditing Manager. She has a shift directing curbside traffic on Tuesday from 10 to 2. This will affect me most if the shuttle drivers are striking..... I park in long term parking and take the shuttle in to the terminal. If there is no shuttle..... It's about a mile walk, with luggage. I think it's time to call SUPER SHUTTLE! LOL! OK... I just looked at Super Shuttle and for a 6:50 flight time, they want to pick me up at FOUR-FREAKIN-A.M.!!!!! I am a 15 to 20 minute drive from the airport. That is INSANE!!!!! UGH! Do I chance the shuttles working and drive or bite the bullet and be on my doorstep at 4 am????? Hmmmm..... That is just SO WRONG....

I'm getting lazy....

Or crazy.

I stayed up too late last night so I missed my morning bike ride. Again. SIGH. Oh well. I got my exercise today planting some plants in the front yard and changing the bed! LOL!

Russ will be home for the 3 day weekend. He gets in around 7:30 tonight and leaves at 3:45 on Monday afternoon.

My desktop chore today is to clean up the mess of files on my laptop. Ugh.....