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My mom tagged me to write 8 random things about me so here goes!
1. I like to put chips in my sandwiches. Not sure when it first seemed like a good idea, but it’s something I never really outgrew. The weirdest thing I used to eat as a kid? Boloney & sugar. How gross is that?!
2. I must have the shower curtain closed, as well as all drawers & the hall closet doors. I know this isn’t really so odd, except that when you have a husband who is constantly leaving drawers open, it’s an ongoing battle. What bugs me the most is the shower curtain, though. If I don’t close it right away, I can feel that open space just staring at me.
3. Except for driving through Canada on two seperate road trips to the lower 48, I’ve never left the country. No Mexico for spring break, no romantic trips to Europe with Honey. Someday…..
Oh wait! I just remembered! We went to Nassau in the Bahamas for our honeymoon! I didn’t need a passport ~ does that technically count?
4. I love, love, love Audrey Hepburn. I can still remember the first time I watched Breakfast at Tiffanys, and how much in awe I was of her beauty & grace. I think that she was a kind person in real life solidifed how much I adored her. I think I’ve seen most everything she’s been in, but Breakfast will always remain my favorite. Honey bought me “How to be Lovely” last year for Christmas; we could all learn a thing or two from Miss Hepburn.
5. I am very competetive, but hate sports. Bucky teases me about how pissed off I get when he plays dirty at Uno. I know, I know, you’re supposed to play all those nasty Reverse & Draw 4 cards, but I can’t help taking it personally!
6. I am both a planner & a procrastinator. How is that possible, you ask? I make lists. Lots & lots of lists, and I plan ahead for things that I know have deadlines. And yet, I’m still always waiting until the last minute to finish them. Even in college, I was forever writing my papers up the last possible moment. There’s just always so much to do and never enough time, you know?
7. I’m not quite as picky about how things go into the grocery cart (although I do start at the back & work forward for obvious reasons) but I HAVE to place my items on the conveyor belt according to type. Fruit & vegetables, frozen, cold-case, canned or boxed, meats, personal hygiene, miscellaneous. My reason for this is that the baggers generally don’t know how to bag my groceries properly. They’ll toss canned green beans right on top of my caged-free eggs! Or ground beef on top of apples! So, I try to help them out & make it fool-proof. It helps my anxiety by not feeling the need to correct them. It’s really a good system! Even better? Honey has now adopted my system and will also group our groceries on the conveyer belt. I am a proud wife.
8. I hope that our baby gets Adam’s sense of balance & coordination. Physically, he’s good at everything, and I am, arguably, the most uncoordinated person on the planet. I’ve never been comfortable in my own body, and I will never be one of those willowy women who saunter down the sidewalk while men look on. Actually, you can generally see me staring at the sidewalk so as to not trip on a crack or step in dog-poo. Classy, huh?
So that’s it. Eight things you didn’t know about me.
Adam & I are heading north to Anchorage this weekend for my office’s holiday party. The company pays for airfare & one night at the hotel, so we just have to pay for the second night & we get ourselves a mini vacation! I’ve not been to Anchorage in years, and Adam’s never been. I believe our hotel is right downtown, so we’ll be able to walk to restaurants & shopping. Or maybe we’ll be taking taxis: I checked the weather forecast this morning and the high temp is forecasted to be around 26 degrees with lows in the teens. Brrrrr.
Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving 
A few months back, my bathtub drain was clogged. The problem was quickly resolved with a bottle of Drano. Within that same week, we gave Porter a bath, which is an entirely different, and much more amusing story, and my bathtub drain became clogged once again. Ever since, I have been calf-deep in bath water everytime I take a shower. Forget about taking a long, leisurely shower on the weekends, because my bathtub would have overflowed. I have spent close to $50 on various drain-unclogging products, all to no avail.
This weekend, Honey went into the crawl-space to take apart the pipes and remove the source of the problem. I just hoped he wasn’t going to show me whatever he found. He came back from under the house only to announce that the plastic pvc piping was glued tight. Having to hire a plumber simply to unclog a drain was so not on my list of things to do. My anxiety level was already running high because I had finally gotten the last of the body work done on my car from my accident last spring and my car was still making noises it ought not be making. These are things that Tracy-on-Zoloft could handle. Tracy without Zoloft, not so much. I don’t do well with things like this ~ multiple things happening at once, things that are out of my control although easily solved with a simple phonecall to a professional. They just seem so out of my reach, you know? I’d rather curl up in my chair and not attempt to find a solution.
Honey, on the other hand, in a uncharacteristic moment (he usually gives up, too), took the one wire hangar I had; one from the dry cleaners with the felt covering it to protect our fine garments, and shoved it down the bathtub drain to loosen the massive hair glob. Except that he couldn’t. The hanger would only go so far before it stopped against something metallic. It was at this point that he called me into the bathroom.
Honey, have you tried putting the drain stopper down?
Of course, I’m thinking, no, I did not try putting the drain stopper down. I was so stunned at my stupidity, however, I literally couldn’t say anything. I could have been stubborn, I could have been indignant & said I never put the drain stopper up, because I hadn’t. Instead, I just stood there & grinned like an idiot. And was thankful as hell we hadn’t gone through the humiliation of calling a plumber.
More importantly, I love that Honey can still surprise me. Yes, it was a simple fix, but like I said, he normally would have given up, too. It’s like now that I’m unable to deal with certain things, he has realized that we have to have at least one person our household that can cope, and for that I’m very appreciative.
Saturday afternoon Adam took Porter on a walk before we went to dinner at my brother & Michelle’s house. (This is not a cute story, so today he’s “Porter”, not “Doodles”) When he got back home, he told me all about how Porter had found, and subsequently ate a dead bird. Since it was already dark out, Adam had no idea what he was in for when he tried to fish out of Porter’s mouth whatever it was that Porter was eating. Even though he realized there were feathers dangling from Porter’s mouth, he furthered tried to retrieve the dead bird from his jaws, because “he had already touched it at that point”. EWWWWW! He finally gave up and Porter gulped it down.
But wait, it gets grosser than that.
Later, at Bucky & Michelle’s house, Porter started to make pre-vomiting noises, and if any of you have pets, you know exactly what that sound is. Unfortunately, I had forgotten all about the dead-bird incident, so after Porter vomited, and I very foolishly looked over to see how bad it was, I saw a lump of brownish-black muck. Yes, Porter had vomited up his dead bird.
Michelle went running out of the room, I wasn’t about to help Honey clean up that mess, and I think even Bucky had to leave the room, too. Now, I’m not overly squeamish, but I cannot deal with a dead bird and then the dead bird’s return.
This morning, after I had forgotten all about the disgusting incident, Adam brought it up out of the blue. He shook his head in dismay and said ~ I can’t believe you all are about to have children. Like he’s not. Bucky & Michelle, by the way are due November 26th. I had to remind Honey that there is a difference between poopy diapers & baby spit-up and dead birds, and cleaning up dead bird vomit is where I draw the line.
I told you Porter would eat anything.
One day ages ago, when Porter still drank from his puppy water bowl & not from the toilet where he leaves drippings on the toilet seat for me to sit on when I go pee for the hundredth time that day (and before I painted all of our trim white), I noticed something floating in Porter’s water dish and HORROR! It appeared as though we had not only developed a mouse problem, but we had a mouse suicide on our hands. But wait! It was just one of Riley-cat or Mendy’s toys, and it went from THE WORST THING EVER to being really quite funny. And you know I had to take a picture of it.
This photo of Honey & I at our friend Brady & Colleen’s wedding last June is here for purely vain purposes.I’m feeling pale & frumpy & hate hate hate my current haircut, and don’t we look cute & happy in this photo? So relaxed.
I am definitely growing my hair back out.
So in the spirit of getting back to blogging, which really is quite therapeutic for me, I’m going to try to post a little something everyday ~ even if it’s just a photo. Or at the very least, I will try not post once a month My apologies in advance for those of you who don’t think Doodles is as adorable as I do. Honey says it’s the ears, but I think it’s all in the eyes.
My apologies in advance for those of you who don’t think Doodles is as adorable as I do. Honey says it’s the ears, but I think it’s all in the eyes.
We have learned that Doodles will eat just about anything. Once he was begging for my mexican food, so I gave him a taste of salsa. He didn’t care for it, but it also didn’t teach him to not beg. Earlier in my pregnancy, I was having lemon cravings; couldn’t get enough of lemons. One night, I even spent a ridiculous amount of money on fresh lemons to make lemonade. Lemonade that I had to hand-squeeze because I don’t own a juicer but I HAD to have fresh squeezed lemonade. FYI, Doodles doesn’t care for lemons, but man, was the look on his face priceless!
He does love fruit, though. Apples, which you can see him eating here, nectarines, peaches, satsuma oranges. We never ever feed him from the dinner table because that will only make the begging worse. It’s bad enough that he rests his cute little head on the table & watches as we eat, his eyebrows raised & his sad eyes moving back & forth between Honey & I.
I gave him a Sweetart from leftover Halloween candy, and he loved that. Oh, and he used to eat his own poo when he was a puppy, but thank goodness he outgrew that. And he used to eat “almond roca” from the kitty litter, also when he was a tiny puppy. Magically, after we had him neutered, the poo-eating behavior stopped. Has anyone else experienced that?
Since I started my new job, the only thing I really miss about my old job is that I can’t take Doodles to work with me. There is a dog in the office next door and he sometimes wanders in, which makes me happy but also makes me miss Doodles a little more. Instead, he gets to have fun at my mom & Mike’s, aka Doggie Day Care, where he gets to play all day with their dog Sadie & my brother’s dog Kona, who also goes to Doggie Day Care. I’m sure Doodles would be just fine if we left him home during the day, but he’d be bored out of his mind. As long as he behaves himself at my mom’s & learns to not jump & down on their couch (I don’t know where this behavior comes from!), I hope mom & Mike will continue to let him come over to play.
Normally, Porter, aka Doodles, will sleep in my comfy chair. A big chair-and-a-half with an equally large ottoman. I wake up in the morning, and invariably, he’s asleep in my chair. Which is fine. Because he’s asleep & not bothering me. And he’s never been one to sleep in our bed. He’ll take a little time-out in mom & Mike’s bed, but he rarely sleeps in ours. Although, there was that one time we couldn’t find him and he was in our bed, surrounded by a pile of clean laundry, with a pair of my underwear wrapped around his neck. Not quite sure how he managed that, but whatever.
Then last night I heard him click-clicking down the hallway (I am a very light sleeper when it comes to pets causing a raucous in the middle of the night) & I fully expected him to nudge his nose into my face to be let out. Instead, he plopped down on the floor at the foot of the bed. So I go back to sleep. Until he decides to hop into bed. And do circles until he finds just the right spot. But, wait! It’s not the right spot! So he must get up, do some more circles, and then plop down again. And these aren’t dainty little plops, mind you. And then get up, do some more circles, and then lay down halfway across my body with his back-end way too close to my head.
And then our bed clearly wasn’t good enough for him, feather bed & all, because he got up & continued to pace back & forth from our room to the living room FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Needless to say, I did not get a good nights sleep. I wish I knew why our perfectly good furniture is all of a sudden not good enough for our DOG to sleep in.
Oh, Doodles, it’s a good thing you’re so damn cute…..
PS ~ Adam & I both told our co-workers about Porter’s strange activity, and consensus seems to be that we had a bear in our yard.
If I had a lovely picture that expresses my gratitude, I would, but I’m at work & just really wanted to get this out ~ THANK YOU! Thank you to my mom, to Jerusalem, to Jeanetta, to Melissa for all your encouragement & support. And to Tanya, who was on the phone with me for 2 hours last night while she talked me down from my metaphorical ledge. She saved me, and helped me to see things in a new perspective. I feel like I am seeing more clearly today than I have in a long time, or at least since I became pregnant. There’s no way I could get through this without the help of my wonderful friends ~ even Melissa, who may be a total stranger, but who has been so sweet with her comments. While I don’t want to be a drain on my family & friends, it’s nice to know that when I need help, all I have to do is ask.
I don’t ever know about these quizzes, and this one certainly did not pinpoint who I am. I can be impulsive, but I can also be very practical. I am definitely impatient. But a captivating singing voice? I don’t think so. Plus, and I’m sorry Jerusalem, but I don’t believe I’ve seen a single Jane Austin movie, so I can’t say as whether Marianne is me or not. It also goes without saying, then, that I’ve also never read a single Jane Austin novel. Maybe I ought to put that on my list of things to do.
:: M A R I A N N E ::
You are Marianne Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are impulsive, romantic, impatient, and perhaps a little to vocal in your honesty. You enjoy romantic poetry and novels, and play the pianoforte beautifully. To boot, your singing voice is captivating. You feel deeply, and love passionately.
I love fall. Almost as much as I crave the sun after a long winter, I also crave crisp days, leaves changing colors (as much as they can around here in the land of evergreens), pumpkin-spice candles, lazy Sundays watching movies, and cooking. Honey actually does most of the cooking in our household, but last night I was craving scalloped potatoes. And since we bought a 10 pound bag of potatoes at Wal-Mart for $2.00 ($2.00!!) this weekend, scalloped potatoes were definitely in order. I do love them, but it takes sooo long to cook, which is why I don’t make them very often. My co-workers Mary & James both pre-cook their potatoes, and duh, why had I never thought of that?
Fall & Winter are also the time of year for baking. I have already made a batch of party mix, a family tradition every Christmas-time. I usually get a hankering for them about now, so will usually make a double-batch now, and one again in December. Mom wrote a post recently about traditions, and party mix is one of my favorites. If you are interested in the best recipe ever, here it is:
16 cups cereal (rice chex, corn chex, wheat chex, Cherios, & pretzels)
2 cups nuts
1 cup butter or margarine (I have always used Nucoa brand margarine, because that’s what my mom always used)
1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp garlic powder
(I think that’s right; it’s from memory.)
In a large roasting pan, melt the butter & mix in Worcestershire Sauce, salt & garlic. Mix well before adding your cereal, pretzels & nuts. Stir until everything is coated. Or not so well if you want some clumps 
Bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring every 15.
It is a must to taste-test at each stirring interval. And don’t ask me why, but my favorite beverage with party mix is orange juice. It’s just my tradition.
Always make a double batch because it never lasts long, especially when you share with your loved ones. On a side note, Bucky (my brother) & I love the “clumps”, the bits of cereal that don’t fully separate. They just have extra flavor. Well, we never told Honey about the “clumps” because we’re mean & selfish that way, and when he finally found out about them, he for-shamed us for keeping it a secret so long! Ooops. Who said marriage is all about sharing.
During Christmas, I always make several varieties of cookies as well. Sugar cookies are by far my favorite. Mom, avert your eyes now, but I bought a pre-packaged bag of sugar cookie dough yesterday. I know, I was horrified that I did it, but Michelle made some a couple weeks back, and they were so good! It was a total impulse buy, and I never, ever buy pre-packaged stuff like that. Well, except for cakes & brownies, but NEVER cookies! What is my world coming to? I just wanted cookies, and I wanted them now!
My taste in music also slows down a bit in the fall. I’ve been listening to the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack for days now, and I never grow tired of it. This time of year, I’m all about Louis Armstrong, Harry Connick Jr., Frank Sinatra or any one of those fine fellas, Ella Fitzgerald & Billie Holiday, of course my Williams Sonoma The Last Time I Saw Paris cd, any of my Pottery Barn Dinner & Cocktail cd’s ~ really, anything that is slow, romantic, and evokes that hard-to-describe feeling that music is so good at doing. The other night Bucky & Michelle were over for dinner & we listened to Simon & Garfunkle circa “Mrs. Robinson”, and that was just perfect for how I was feeling that evening. What is it about “The Sound of Silence”, anyway? It just does something to me.
Oh, gosh, I really should be getting back to work. I get so tired by mid-afternoon it’s hard to concentrate, and it just gets worse as the week goes on. Come winter when it’s dark by 3:00 pm, it’s going to be especially brutal. Although, don’t they say you get a crazy burst on energy in your second trimester? At least that’s something to look forward to, besides hemorrhoids & flatulence!
I don’t much have the energy to write about everything I want to write about, so here’s some photos instead. And PS, is anyone else’s blogger behaving oddly? Links show up as code, as do photos. Weird.
Harvest banner from Miss Jerusalem
Lovely sign made by Miss Jeanetta. My Aunt Georgia framed the tiny quilt for me. She’s really good at giving me family items that she knows I’ll love.
View from my comfy chair tonight.
Brought out my favorite fall candles, a wedding gift from Michelle & her family.
Riley-Cat & Mendy staying warm. This was actually the first time I’ve seen them both laying on the cable box. Mendy is named after the Mendenhall Glacier, where Honey is a guide on the weekends.
And there you have it. Some of my favorite things.
