Time And Tide

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. Lyndon B.Johnson

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Glucose
You are glucose. People feed off of you. You are
sweet, caring, and a source of energy for
everyone around you. You can inspire others
with your creativity and depth, and you can
keep people alive when in times of famine.
People love you...or at least the way you
taste.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh, and I didn't download a virus it hunted me down and attacked me from behind while I was updating windows. All fixed now. I hope.

Sunday, December 28, 2003

You might be a redneck

I've been having a fun time noting all the differences in language between the people whose blogs I read. Kim has her hydro (I'll confess to thinking it was some kind of whirlpool tub) and Shelley's looking for a thumb drive (no clue there but a zip drive comes to mind). There's the whole cart and buggy thing from a while back and I've seen Kim write about her kids wearing toukes - not sure if I spelled that right and I'm too lazy to check.

I'm sure I'd throw plenty of people off if I used the word "poke" instead of brown paper bag, or mentioned picking a peck. Peter Piper must have been from the south.

I've experienced the same with my husband. Doug is from New Jersey (and Iowa, and DC and Mass...the list goes on) and our first winter together he used to scold me for making Leirin wear a toboggan to keep her head warm. "A toboggan" he'd say "is what you go sledding on, you wear a touke to keep your head warm."

Ok Mr. Man...maybe where you are from, but here it's not toboggan (ta boggan), it's toboggan (toe-boggin) and in South Carolina IF we get snow we go sledding, should the opportunity ever present itself, on garbage bags or trash can lids. A laundry basket will do if we ever get any real amount of snow. You don't buy sleds (not toboggans) here at the corner store because we don't get snow so we have no need for a toboggan except to keep our heads warm.

There is apparently a big difference in what comes on a hot dog also. Want comedy? Put a yankee cook in a small southern town and order a hotdog all the way. You'll get back a wienie in a bun covered with all kinds of stuff, and no chili. "Umm, Doug..." I remember saying as I held a dog once trying not to wrinkle my nose, "What's this?" So there began the great hot dog debate. Here, a hot dog is wienie, chili, and mustard. A hot dog plain is wienie and bun only (and it's wienie here...never wiener). A hot dog all the way is mustard, chili and onions. And a chili dog is chili on a bun, no wienie. That's it...no relish, no salsa, no onions or peppers...nadda. After 10 years he has managed to develop a strong following of people who love a garbage dog (everything on it but the kitchen sink) and he has given in to what a hot dog all the way really is - though he still grumbles about it on occasion. It's all worked out fine and now if I ever eat a hot dog I'm just as likely to order it with with relish and bacon and other unusual yummies as with chili.

Leirin has a friend from school that is from Ireland. That got interesting at the restaurant when we went to dinner. Fries are chips and chips are crisps and cookies are biscuits and biscuits are scones. I don't think we have scones here. Interesting.
We did finally get her order placed and she got what she wanted and we all recovered from the confusion.

My husband, after all these years, is now a bona-fide southerner. There is no trace of yankee left except that he still calls our front porch a stoop. It doesn't matter that it is only a few feet square of concrete with two steps and no cover - if it's flat and attached to the house it's a porch, unless of course it's brick or tile sunk into sand and wider than a walkway, then it's a patio, but you won't find too many of those around here. We have carports instead of garages, though the influx of northerners coming here to retire is changing that and we have as many homes with garages as carports. At our house we have neither carport nor garage...just a driveway with a couple of overgrown holly trees draping over it. Doug tells me that up north a garage is very important. Since we don't have snow here, we tend to leave our cars parked out in the open and hope for rain. That's a redneck carwash.

Saturday, December 27, 2003

Well Crystymas is over and my house is almost back to normal. Normal meaning it's a wreck still but I'm working on it. My husband didn't lie...I got the big haul this year - including that table saw I've been wanting so bad. Yay me! He did a great job picking out a good one too. The table has wheels to make it easy for me to move around the basement and it has it's own vacuum system to collect the dust. That's way cool. I just have to finish with the kitchen shelf and spice racks I've been building and get the ice machine stand he had me build out of the way and I'll be ready to set it up. I can't wait to cut something! I even got a gift certificate for Home Depot (already spent). Next year I think I'll just ask for lumber.

Emily got her DDA replacement for Christmas and boy was she happy. That bear hasn't left her side since Christmas Eve. She was so thrilled when she opened it and saw what it was that it was almost a pitiful sight to see. I could have bawled watching her nearly cry because she was so overjoyed. Leirin's gift of the year was a new camera to replace hers that broke the week before Christmas and Doug got a new tv for the bedroom. Now I can't keep the kids out of the bedroom and I have no quiet place to play with my laptop. For the first time ever I think I'd like to give the kids tv's in their own rooms so I can have a quiet place. Jake got Morrowind Bloodmoon but is he in his room playing it? No, he's in OUR room watching the new tv and Doug is in the livingroom watching football so I'm still out a quiet, comfy place to sit and write with the laptop unless I want to sit in the rock hard chairs at the kitchen table.

Leirin's guinea pig has a fungal infection so tonight I had to give him the treatment. Little bugger bit me two times. For future reference, he ticks before he bites. Next time maybe I'll move quick enough because I'll know what's coming. He's a sweet pig, but his skin is just so sore it's painful to have the oil treatment rubbed all over him. He was sorry afterwards, I'm pretty sure he was.

Not much to blog about today really. I'm still trying to get caught up and I've done more laundry this week than I should have had to do in a month. Still the beds need to be changed. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to get the rest of the upstairs finished so I can break out that saw. I wish Linda lived close to me. We'd have a grand old time with a table saw, I'm sure.

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

MERRY CRYSTYMAS

Crysty-mas because this is MY year for the big haul (according to my husband). I got a laptop! YAY! Plus, he says there is way more coolness to follow. Lead the way Mr. Man, I'll follow...

Actually I'm not really a selfish wanter like I make myself sound, but I have been wanting a laptop for a really very long time. And now I have one :) I think this may be my year for the great big power tool haul too. To this point I've only received hand tools but me heart has longed for something more substantial - a table saw, or even more cool, a radial arm saw - I'm so weird. This I know. And I'm OK with it.

I'm sitting here having my coffee trying to put off for as long as I can the cleaning and wrapping and completely rushed chaos that lies ahead of me for the next few days. We have our family Christmas gathering with our immediate family today, and tomorrow we will be at my grandma's for the big blow-out. It is always fun. And of course the day after Christmas will be the big clean up day. Actually, that part usually takes me about a week to get through.

The day has started no less hectic than I expected. Gimli puked a big yucky mess in my kitchen floor (anybody that's ever had a dog that eats everything in sight will be sympathetic - anyone that hasn't may just be grossed out), Pooh Kitty has unwrapped one of the presents under the tree by scratching on the box and I didn't remember to set the coffee pot up last night before bed. It's so hard to make coffee when you need coffee. I freely admit to being a coffee addict. I'm useless without it. Oddly enough, I can still remember days when I didn't touch the stuff. Somewhere along the line I switched and became a coffee person and I'm still not sure how that happened. When I was little I always thought that drinking coffee was a grown-up thing. I think it's a side effect of having kids and being completely drained of energy yet still needing to keep up with the energetic little buggers. Whatever the reason, thank goodness for coffee without which I'd never make it into clean clothes every day. I probably wouldn't even have clean clothes. I love coffee. All hail Juan Valdez! Go Colombia! I could easily write a coffee song to rival Adam Sandler's Turkey Song.
I love coffee
it's my morning treat
Wakes up my fingers
it wakes up myyy feet
Coffee for me
Coffee for you
I take mine with cream and sugar,
do you?
Coffee is good
Coffee is great
Just a pot or two and I am good to go
Oh I liiiiike having coffee
in the moooorrrnnniiiinnngggg

Thank you, thank you (takes a bow)

Enough foolishness. Once more cup and I'm off to the wrapping races.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS ONE AND ALL


Friday, December 19, 2003

Ok it's gotten to the point that people are asking me if I'm ever going to update my blog again so I thought I probably should. I've been sick the past week with the big nasty that Em brought home from school. Instead of doing what all sick people should do, I've been running about in the cold evenings looking at houses. Yes, houses. Sometimes a big whine pays off, I guess. Turns out dh doesn't like living here either and is perfectly willing to talk about a move if we can find the right place. Finding the right place, it turns out, is not an easy thing to do. Seems like all houses are made with only 3 bedrooms instead of 4 and nobody is selling land that isn't actually a cliff. Maybe we will find something at some point. We have one more place to look at in Mountain Rest that might just turn out to be the ticket. After that, it's on to planning to build.
So Em was sick last week and went to the doctor twice. Jake was sick also with asthmatic bronchitis. Thankfully, he seems to have been spared from getting the new nasty that Em gave to me. He's been sick with something for ages it seems. Poor baby has such bad sinuses that once they get going it is hard to keep them from flaring up over the least little thing and he will end up with sniffles for months on end. I'm betting he ends up having his adenoids taken out at some point.
And I found a DDA replacement for Emily. She is wearing different pajamas but after 8 years was probably due for a clean pair. I still keep hoping that one day the original DDA will show up in some really stupid place here in the house (maybe if we move we'll find her during packing? Who knows?) but I'm happy to have this one to offer her instead. I have wrapped DDA in Christmas paper and nobody knows I have her so she will be a special surprise at our family get together next week. I can't wait to see Em's face!
The kids get out of school early today so that means I have a lot to do, and quickly. My car is full of mud from our trek to look at land. This is the first time it's ever been dirty and it's heartbreaking. I have to get it cleaned out. I'm supposed to meet my Pop for shopping tomorrow morning so it has to be cleaned up today. The girls are going to my mom's tonight so it will be just me, Jake and Pop loading up to spend the day spending money. I love shopping with Poppie. He's always so much fun.
The next two weeks will begin, not only our hectic holiday week ahead, but end of the year business stuff. I hate taxes, filing, reports, and forms. YUCK. Hopefully I will manage to get it organized and stay that way. Yeah right. I think that every year but it never happens. I get closer, but haven't hit the mark just yet.

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Need help finding something

It's getting late and I'm very tired. I've been searching for something special that was lost several years ago. I've been in the attic, down to the basement, up in the top of closets...she's gone. Please click this link. There aren't many who read my blog but if those of you who do could look, or pass the word that I'm trying to find this doll I would be forever grateful. It's been 4 years now and Emily still looks for her. It breaks my heart. I can't find her original D.D. A. but if I could find her one like it it would be the next best thing. I can't tell you how much it would mean to both of us.