Wow, I'm really bad at this blogging thing. I don't think I've posted two days in a row yet...
I can't believe it's October already. It seems like the kids just started school a couple of weeks ago... Maybe it's that way because of all the hours I was putting in at work when they started school (ya' think?), or maybe it's because the week days fly by, then the weekends are gone in two blinks - it's just not fair! It's gonna be Christmas WAYYYY before I'm ready!!!
Anyways, Danny had a birthday last weekend - I think I already gave the play by play of that weekend. This weekend, my Dad had a birthday, which I missed because Danny & I were playing softball in a co-ed tournament at Disney's Wide World of Sports. (I didn't find out about his party until a week before - we were already committed to play and incredibly, didn't have 3 extra guys and girls like we normally do when we play co-ed tourneys). We did ok at our tournament, 4 wins, 2 losses - we wound up taking the kids out of school Friday, then stayed over Friday night, played until 11:00 pm Saturday night when we lost our second game (we had a LOOONNNNNGGGG rain delay between 5:30 and 8:00) then hit the road and got home around 1:30 am Sunday morning. Needless to say, we slept in as late as parently possible this morning, then had a lazy day of grocery shopping and laundry and tv watching. Then I made the mistake of checking my email - I was off Friday, and I hate walking in Monday not knowing what I'm in for. Oh, who am I kidding - it's Sunday night and Danny's at his mom's, so I cheat and work a little most Sunday nights... We joke at work that it's like crack - it's a horrible addiction. So, here I am, almost midnight and still up and online. Yippee doo.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Weekend Recap
It's officially Monday, and I'm on my last day of vacation and up before 7am - go figure. Danny's mom is back from New York (she went up with my sister-in-law and her husband for a wedding) and Sunday/Monday each week are his nights to stay with her. So maybe I couldn't sleep because I didn't have him there to cuddle with - I seem to have forgotten how to sleep well and sleep in without him. Yes, it's weird (well, not really "weird" I guess, but I use that term for lack of a better one) that he spends two nights a week with his mom. Truthfully, it kinda sucks. A lot. But there's not a lot we can do about it at the moment. There are 6 kids, and none of us have the room to move her in with us, and she can't stay by herself all the time, so three of our families share nights at mom's. Anyways... Back to our weekend... :)
Friday we tried a new brick oven pizza place in Trinity - I highly recommend that if you live in our area, you NEVER EVER go there!! First of all, it wasn't even a "real" brick oven, and it looked like someone made a big "oops" and had a huge splotch of unfinished plaster over part of it. The heat source was gas, not logs, and I'm quite certain there wasn't a real brick in the thing. Our garlic knots were rock hard, Italian sub was horrible and we had to ask for the oil/vinegar stuff that usually accompanies an italian sub, and the pizza was soupy. Yes, it was soupy and soggy except the few inches around the outside crust. We both had horrible gas and upset stomachs pretty much the rest of the day. Not so much on the fake brick oven pizza place.
Then we went to the AMC theater in Oldsmar to watch Good Luck Chuck. Even though there are two theaters much closer (and it's much more expensive), we prefer that one because of the "stadium seating". You'd never have to worry about not seeing over someone's head in that place (unless they were freakishly tall, and by that I mean way over 8' tall, and even then their head still probably wouldn't block your view), and the seats are incredibly comfy. We laughed until we almost cried, or gagged, depending on which scene. There was one scene in there (I won't spoil it for you by telling you) that literally made Danny gag - I thought he was going to lose his lunch right there in the theater. The guy behind him was gagging, too, and I was pulling my tshirt up over my face trying not to look... Lots of T&A in that movie, and very funny - so if you don't mind all the skin, I highly recommend it.
After that, we picked up the kids and went by Mom & Dad's - Danny helped my Dad put a new sink and cabinet in his bathroom. I watched cartoons with the kids until Mom got home & we chatted for a bit, then Danny & I went to go fill in for some friends and play ball in Dunedin. On Saturday, we dropped the kids at Mom & Dad's (THANKS!!!!) and headed up to my brother-in-law's house in Spring Hill, helped him load the trailer for his run to the junk yard, chatted a bit with him and his wife, I setup her email on her computer to go through Outlook Express, then the boys loaded up the AC part in the Expo and we headed home. Kind of funny now that I think about it - Danny drove that puppy over to his mom's last night with the AC still in the truck! I think it's the condenser - the part that sits outside your house? Not sure... Anyways, for dinner we went to the store and picked up some steak, provalone cheese and hoagie rolls, and Danny made this melt-in-your-mouth steak sandwich covered in Marsala sauce loaded with mushrooms! AWESOME! This one definitely goes on the menu when he opens a diner (someday). After that we hung out and watched TV, completely uninterrupted until we dozed off. Sunday we went out for breakfast, picked up oil for the boat, and cleaned/hung out at home until it was time to go to my sister's house for a family dinner. Tasha seems to be doing really well, seems to be happy, and Ed seems like a super nice guy. I need to get over there and spend more time with her - teach her how to crochet so she has something to do while she's home alone... I'm hoping the weather will play nice today and we'll get to go fishing, but it's not looking good right now. We'll see...
Friday we tried a new brick oven pizza place in Trinity - I highly recommend that if you live in our area, you NEVER EVER go there!! First of all, it wasn't even a "real" brick oven, and it looked like someone made a big "oops" and had a huge splotch of unfinished plaster over part of it. The heat source was gas, not logs, and I'm quite certain there wasn't a real brick in the thing. Our garlic knots were rock hard, Italian sub was horrible and we had to ask for the oil/vinegar stuff that usually accompanies an italian sub, and the pizza was soupy. Yes, it was soupy and soggy except the few inches around the outside crust. We both had horrible gas and upset stomachs pretty much the rest of the day. Not so much on the fake brick oven pizza place.
Then we went to the AMC theater in Oldsmar to watch Good Luck Chuck. Even though there are two theaters much closer (and it's much more expensive), we prefer that one because of the "stadium seating". You'd never have to worry about not seeing over someone's head in that place (unless they were freakishly tall, and by that I mean way over 8' tall, and even then their head still probably wouldn't block your view), and the seats are incredibly comfy. We laughed until we almost cried, or gagged, depending on which scene. There was one scene in there (I won't spoil it for you by telling you) that literally made Danny gag - I thought he was going to lose his lunch right there in the theater. The guy behind him was gagging, too, and I was pulling my tshirt up over my face trying not to look... Lots of T&A in that movie, and very funny - so if you don't mind all the skin, I highly recommend it.
After that, we picked up the kids and went by Mom & Dad's - Danny helped my Dad put a new sink and cabinet in his bathroom. I watched cartoons with the kids until Mom got home & we chatted for a bit, then Danny & I went to go fill in for some friends and play ball in Dunedin. On Saturday, we dropped the kids at Mom & Dad's (THANKS!!!!) and headed up to my brother-in-law's house in Spring Hill, helped him load the trailer for his run to the junk yard, chatted a bit with him and his wife, I setup her email on her computer to go through Outlook Express, then the boys loaded up the AC part in the Expo and we headed home. Kind of funny now that I think about it - Danny drove that puppy over to his mom's last night with the AC still in the truck! I think it's the condenser - the part that sits outside your house? Not sure... Anyways, for dinner we went to the store and picked up some steak, provalone cheese and hoagie rolls, and Danny made this melt-in-your-mouth steak sandwich covered in Marsala sauce loaded with mushrooms! AWESOME! This one definitely goes on the menu when he opens a diner (someday). After that we hung out and watched TV, completely uninterrupted until we dozed off. Sunday we went out for breakfast, picked up oil for the boat, and cleaned/hung out at home until it was time to go to my sister's house for a family dinner. Tasha seems to be doing really well, seems to be happy, and Ed seems like a super nice guy. I need to get over there and spend more time with her - teach her how to crochet so she has something to do while she's home alone... I'm hoping the weather will play nice today and we'll get to go fishing, but it's not looking good right now. We'll see...
Friday, September 21, 2007
TGI Friday!!!
The car thing didn't work out, so it's a good thing mine still runs and I still like it. It's really fun to drive unless you're sitting in stop and go traffic on I-275 here in lovely Tampa at 8:00 in the morning. Then it sucks a little, but still fun.
It's now Friday (again), and I'm on vacation! Woo-Hoo! Danny and I are both on vaca today because he's a birthday boy this weekend, so we're getting ready to go do lunch (all by ourselves - SO nice!), then maybe a movie. It's looking like Good Luck Chuck (Dane Cook - friggin' hilarious!) and food somewhere...
We're getting a little bit of a late start - had to take Christan to the doctor's office and get her albuterol, advair, Z-pack and cough medicine, so Danny wound up mowing the yard. So we're off - more later!
It's now Friday (again), and I'm on vacation! Woo-Hoo! Danny and I are both on vaca today because he's a birthday boy this weekend, so we're getting ready to go do lunch (all by ourselves - SO nice!), then maybe a movie. It's looking like Good Luck Chuck (Dane Cook - friggin' hilarious!) and food somewhere...
We're getting a little bit of a late start - had to take Christan to the doctor's office and get her albuterol, advair, Z-pack and cough medicine, so Danny wound up mowing the yard. So we're off - more later!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
My new car (no, Truck? no - Crossover? YES!)
Finally went to drive the Ford Edge yesterday after thoroughly washing and vacuuming the Mustang, then borrowing my neighbor's car to go get a new battery for my car. Yes, we also have the Expedition, but it wouldn't start either. Guess why? Battery... It's been one of those months, er, several months... Remember the sandy hill? Yeah, it just keeps getting steeper.
So I've been drooling over the "luxury" cars - well, crossover SUVs. But before that, I'd been eyeballing Ford's new cutie, but haven't ever been at an open Ford dealer to drive one until yesterday. I REALLY liked it!! I drove a red one (trying to get a picture up..) which happened to be a demo (by the way, D-E-M-O spells D-I-S-C-O-U-N-T) with just shy of 5000 miles on it. It's a 2007, Fire Red with Black Leather, and it is just so darn cute!!! They're giving me $9500 for my trade in, plus there are a few rebates, Ford loyalty bonuses or some crap like that, so it brings what was a $31K vehicle down to around $25K. Not bad for a brand new car, well Crossover - we paid more than that for the Mustang when we bought it. Anyhoo, it's a V6 (remember I have a 15 year old learning to drive), has all the airbags imaginable (remember I have a 15 year old learning to drive), and has earned 5 stars in the crash safety test (did I mention I have a 15 year old learning to drive?). It has some kind of advanced stability trac system, a 6 CD changer, a huge center console with lots of cool little trays and organization thingies, climate and radio control on the steering wheel, one touch thingy to make the rear seats fold down, leather seats, lots of other little things I'll never notice, and shiny wheels (the shiny wheels are VERY important - I really like those!). The only thing it didn't have that I wanted was a sun roof (moon roof?), but there's a possibility of making that happen, we'll see.
Basically, we're down to the hard part - financing. I went late Saturday afternoon, and they couldn't get a person to talk to about my "shades of grey". Our credit is definitely improving, but still not great, so the finance guy says if he can talk to a real person as opposed to a computer, he can get 'er done. So I should be getting a call on Monday, and hopefully leave work early to go get my new car!!!!! (This is the picture - obviously Ford's picture, not mine...)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
If it's not one thing...
It's fifty others. Ever feel like you're walking uphill in deep sand? You take big huge steps, but instead of making headway you're almost at a standstill because your feet keep sliding in all the sand? Yeah, that's me right now.
Our car has been sitting in my mother in law's driveway for a little over a month - the compressor for the AC had burnt out (or something like that), essentially causing the car to make lots of noise and not blow cold air out of the vents. I've been driving the truck, which has a bad heater core and leaky AC seals. Danny had graciously loaded it up with freon, which lasted for about three weeks blowing fairly cold air (I milked that for all it's worth! Have you ever heard anyone scream at you for turning up the AC to 2? That was me for several weeks.. Sorry Christan!). It still blows slightly cold in the mornings, but the air kind of falls out of the vents. In the afternoons, after the truck has baked in the sun all day and it's miserably hot and humid outside - no cold air. So I got paid Friday (get paid twice a month, kind of sucks), of course Danny got paid Friday and got his bonus, so we put the car in the shop to get it fixed, and picked it up Friday (I actually got off from work early - woo-hoo!). The car started right up, sounded great (well, for the most part - we have "transmission noise" that's "common" in mustangs, a little on the loud side, but it'll be fine "for a while"). Danny has a tournament today, so we went to hit at the local rec center, and when we got ready to leave - nothing. No click, no attempt to turn over, nothing. !@#$%^&#!
The battery was dead. WHAT?!? I just bought a battery - it's barely been a year! I installed it myself, so I remember! So off to Napa I go today, to get it replaced because it is thankfully under warranty. Before I do that, I'm washing and vacuuming the car, because as soon as that b*tch has a battery in it and I'm fairly confident it will start after I turn it off, I'm going car shopping... :)
Having already driven my FX 35 and Lexus RX 330, nothing really looks good, though. I totally spoiled my dinner by eating desert first. I've driven a Toureg(not a lot of pick up from a dead stop), the aforementioned Lexus (OMG!!!), the Infiniti (WOW - and OMG!!!), and intend today to drive a Ford Edge (I think it must be one of those self torture things??), perhaps a Mazda CX7, and I don't really know what else - a Murano perhaps? a Pathfinder? I really don't know. Wherever the wind (and my car) takes me. I'm trying to keep an open mind and look at cars (real "cars", not the SUV or CrossOver type), but there really aren't any that trip my trigger. If I can't find something I like (and willingly without malice make the payment for), I'll stick to my car with questionable reliability that I tend to get to drive an average of 10 months out of each year - because the other 2 months, it's sitting waiting to be "fixed". Guess we'll see what happens.
Our car has been sitting in my mother in law's driveway for a little over a month - the compressor for the AC had burnt out (or something like that), essentially causing the car to make lots of noise and not blow cold air out of the vents. I've been driving the truck, which has a bad heater core and leaky AC seals. Danny had graciously loaded it up with freon, which lasted for about three weeks blowing fairly cold air (I milked that for all it's worth! Have you ever heard anyone scream at you for turning up the AC to 2? That was me for several weeks.. Sorry Christan!). It still blows slightly cold in the mornings, but the air kind of falls out of the vents. In the afternoons, after the truck has baked in the sun all day and it's miserably hot and humid outside - no cold air. So I got paid Friday (get paid twice a month, kind of sucks), of course Danny got paid Friday and got his bonus, so we put the car in the shop to get it fixed, and picked it up Friday (I actually got off from work early - woo-hoo!). The car started right up, sounded great (well, for the most part - we have "transmission noise" that's "common" in mustangs, a little on the loud side, but it'll be fine "for a while"). Danny has a tournament today, so we went to hit at the local rec center, and when we got ready to leave - nothing. No click, no attempt to turn over, nothing. !@#$%^&#!
The battery was dead. WHAT?!? I just bought a battery - it's barely been a year! I installed it myself, so I remember! So off to Napa I go today, to get it replaced because it is thankfully under warranty. Before I do that, I'm washing and vacuuming the car, because as soon as that b*tch has a battery in it and I'm fairly confident it will start after I turn it off, I'm going car shopping... :)
Having already driven my FX 35 and Lexus RX 330, nothing really looks good, though. I totally spoiled my dinner by eating desert first. I've driven a Toureg(not a lot of pick up from a dead stop), the aforementioned Lexus (OMG!!!), the Infiniti (WOW - and OMG!!!), and intend today to drive a Ford Edge (I think it must be one of those self torture things??), perhaps a Mazda CX7, and I don't really know what else - a Murano perhaps? a Pathfinder? I really don't know. Wherever the wind (and my car) takes me. I'm trying to keep an open mind and look at cars (real "cars", not the SUV or CrossOver type), but there really aren't any that trip my trigger. If I can't find something I like (and willingly without malice make the payment for), I'll stick to my car with questionable reliability that I tend to get to drive an average of 10 months out of each year - because the other 2 months, it's sitting waiting to be "fixed". Guess we'll see what happens.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Have pics, will share
Finally got the pics up and posted. They're kind of all jumbled, in no particular order or categorization, but they are here: http://niccilorai.com/pics/index.htm
Improvements... Well, kinda
Today is Sunday, September 9th (I almost typed August, then had to check the calendar to find out what day it is... knew it was Sunday, clueless on the date). My bathroom still isn't done. It is painted (went with a solid color on the walls), and the tile is grouted, but still no sink and no toilet. My son returned to school on Thursday and Friday, had an excellent day both days, and I actually worked at work. So that's definitely an improvement.
I spent the day yesterday in Sarasota playing ball, and my husband spent the day at his buddy's house finishing a project, then came home, went to the store, and went back to his friend's to watch a fight last night. I got home around 10:30/11:00 last night, and slept in gloriously late today in between knocks and screams of permission to enter the bedroom to go to the bathroom. Today I was thinking we'd finish the bathroom, and as much as I don't want to move today, it would at least be done and I wouldn't have to wake up several times a night or morning for another week to grant entrance to the only bathroom with a toilet in our house. Ha!! Not so much... Danny went golfing this morning. "Oh, I didn't tell you?" Nope, I'm certain I would've remembered that I wouldn't see you the entire weekend except to sleep. But have fun. Really.
I'll stay home and start the laundry, say "no" fifteen times to shopping requests, and lots of other fun stuff. Actually, maybe we will go shopping... Advil is onboard now, so it might not hurt so much to move in a little bit...
I spent the day yesterday in Sarasota playing ball, and my husband spent the day at his buddy's house finishing a project, then came home, went to the store, and went back to his friend's to watch a fight last night. I got home around 10:30/11:00 last night, and slept in gloriously late today in between knocks and screams of permission to enter the bedroom to go to the bathroom. Today I was thinking we'd finish the bathroom, and as much as I don't want to move today, it would at least be done and I wouldn't have to wake up several times a night or morning for another week to grant entrance to the only bathroom with a toilet in our house. Ha!! Not so much... Danny went golfing this morning. "Oh, I didn't tell you?" Nope, I'm certain I would've remembered that I wouldn't see you the entire weekend except to sleep. But have fun. Really.
I'll stay home and start the laundry, say "no" fifteen times to shopping requests, and lots of other fun stuff. Actually, maybe we will go shopping... Advil is onboard now, so it might not hurt so much to move in a little bit...
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