Where to begin...

The trip to my sister's was great. I love seeing her kids. They are so entertaining. The 4th BBQ was great. Lots of good food. That's code for I ate too much. Lots of good left overs too though. OTOH, reading is going slow, not because I'm in a funk but because we are just summer time busy. Vacation has been nice and relaxing. GG still makes me laugh and that's good because he equally drives me nuts. Good thing I like him.

It's taken me the better part of a day, off and on, to catch up with everything. As marvey as Google Reader is it doesn't help me read and comment any quicker on all your blogs. I've come to the conclusion that you all are some pretty amazing and wonderful people. Really.

Good news I received that I won a drawing at Marjorie Liu's Web Petals site. New cool stuff is always awesome. So are her books, btw.

Ummm...Steadman called me this afternoon. I have to work on a post for her about Germany. She's going on a business trip to Hambourg, Germany and wants me to dredge up from my memory banks stuff I know about Germany. So hey, you people out there in the world. Any info you can add or help out please make it known in the comments. Steadman and I will both be forever grateful.

The place that didn't hire me for the full time job called and asked if I wanted a part time job. They offered it to me today and I said yes. Sure it's half the hourly pay and half the hours, but it's the place I want to work, so there you have it. Besides they seem fairly certain it will be full time within a year, so who knows. New windows are open and all that. I start next Tuesday.

Zeek, I haven't forgotten about your tag. It's just that getting a "loved one" to list 8 traits or habits turned out to be problematic for the combined grey matter of the men I live with. Oy! You would not believe the conversation that ensued.

Beanie: Trait? What exactly do you mean by a trait?

Me: You're in college. Do you really not know what a trait is?

Beanie: You mean like how you have an eagle eye when it comes to cleaning?

Me: *sigh* Yeah.

Beanie: What? That's not a trait?

Me: Yes, but ...never mind. It's supposed to be in your words, so just never mind.

Beanie: That was in my own words.

Me: I know

GG: Can't you say something nice about your Mother?

Me: Babe...

GG: She likes to read books.

::head desk::

Me: Thanks babe. We'll just do this later.

Spring Vacation

Spring Vacation wasn't really much of a vacation. We had lots of doctors' appointments and lots of chores to do. On the upside, we got to sleep in most mornings, I got a visit from a high school classmate I hadn't seen in several years, we saw my oldest son perform in the play MOUSETRAP and we made a trip to Disneyland, so it wasn't all drudge.

Besides, it's always nice to have that feeling like you've caught up on chores around the house somewhat, because let's face it household duties are never done. There's always something.

Anyway, I wanted to touch base because I always feel so out of the loop when I've been off line for a few days. Besides I also wanted to give people an update on Shmoo's recovery from the car accident and clear the air and my mind of something that's been nagging at me.

Sometime ago Jane (from Dear Author) mentioned that she refers to her husband as Ned because of her love of Nancy Drew. I have to tell you that I thought that was pretty cool, and well, cute. I haven't really been all that wild with referring to my husband as the guy I live with, even though I've been known to call him that. These are the things I muddle in when I can't fall asleep. Anyway, I thought about giving my husband a name for someone in literature, like Jane did. Someone that I really liked or had special meaning. However, either the name was too long or it was a name I'd already given to my children. Yes, my sons have names of characters from books. No kidding.

The tag "the guy I live with" got shortened to TGILW which I have to say is a pain in the butt to type. Consequently, I’ve been racking my brains for another dear name for the DH. One of the nicknames I had for him when we were dating was Gorgeous George. For those of you old enough to remember, the real Gorgeous George was one of the first outrageous wrestlers who developed a ring “persona” and became quite popular. TGILW is NOT flamboyant; is not particularly extroverted; hates the color pink; detests anything flashy and is a pretty conservative guy for the most part. Which obviously is the reason I nicknamed him Gorgeous George in the first place. So I figured, it's as good a name, if not better than TGILW so henceforth TGILW will be known as Gorgeous George or George or GG. Crikeys, I'm still conflicted. But it is easier to type.

As for my dear children, two males one recently turned 20 and one about to turn 17, I am christening them anew as well. Hence forth my older son will be known as Beanie Boy (or Beanie) for those of you who remember the Beanie and Cecil cartoon show. Oy! I’m really aging myself there. My younger son is christened (already) as Shmoo. We originally stole his name from the Seinfeld episode when Jerry and his girlfriend were talking baby talk to each other and calling each other “Shmoopy”. Somehow Shmoopy got shortened to Shmoo and it stuck. So you got it? Good. Enough with the names. I can quit obsessing about that now.

Now for the quick update on Shmoo. He is doing very well. The skin on his face is still pretty pink and looking like he is recovering from a bad sunburn, but it is remarkable how well his face has healed. His eye is doing well also. The tear seems to be healed, but he is still sensitive to light and has some slight blurring. All of this is a normal part of the healing process, so we are happy about that.

Below are a couple pictures of Shmoo. If you saw the pictures from the accident you can see how great he looks now.

Thanks again to everyone for all your kind thoughts, prayers and encouragement.

From Rosie, Gorgeous George, Beanie Boy and Shmoo.

Left side still looks sunburnt.

He is such a goober sometimes!

V * A * C * A * T * I * O * N

During one of my trips down the stream of conscience highway I was thinking about vacations. What it means to really vacation. Most of the trips and time my family spend on vacation is to go to a family event. This year it was my brother's Ironman and my Dad's 75th birthday. We frequently come home exhausted and have to recover from vacation! Not to mention the overload of being in sometimes stressful family situations.

Ironically, I hit on a article today about where we Americans rank with the rest of the world regarding vacations. We Yanks have no mandated vacation. Which would explain why stress related illness and heart disease thrives here.

Since the guy I live with has worked so long for the same company he now has 20 days of vacation a year. It has taken 17 years of blood, sweat and tears to get it. The company he works for is a 24/7/365 operation. At the beginning of each year I have to wrangle him to commit to days for the whole year so the year doesn't slip away without any vacation at all. I found setting aside the days at the first of the year made sure he took the time off and gave us something to look forward to and plan.

This year it was a major deal for him to get two weeks in a row off for our trip to Idaho and Montana. The archaic company he works for prefers he not take more than one week off at a time. Now tell me...if you are traveling any distance at all even if you are flying, one week is barely time to arrive at the destination and get adjusted to the time zone for God's sakes. So you see what I'm working with here...

As usual though I digress from the point I'm trying to make. Which is, we haven't had a proper vacation in ages. A real vacation that is a get away to relax and rejuvenate a bit. So we have two weeks left for this year. We will use some of it for the holidays, but I have to sit down with TGILW and make some plans.

The question then becomes...where to go?

If it's June it must be VACATION!

I'm so excited! We go on vacation this month. We will be traveling to Idaho and Montana.



My youngest brother will be in an Ironman in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. That will be exciting. He has done an ironman twice before in Australia and Utah. This will probably be his last one. Training for this event takes an incredible commitment and alot of time. Throw in a demanding job and the joys of being a new Daddy and he decided that he would be spending more time with his family instead of training for big events like the Ironman. He already has plans to continue doing triathalons so I'm sure before we know it he will have his daughter as his training buddy. His daughter is KADEN of Kaden's Place on my sidebar.


So after the Ironman we go on to Montana. My Dad has a second home there. Dad's 75th birthday is within days of the Ironman, so several of our family members will be with him in Montana to help Dad celebrate this milestone.

So it's June. Time for vacation. I can hardly wait! Wouldn't you like to just rest in a summer breeze?

SUMMER BREEZE
by Stephen Darbishire

INCENTIVE PACKAGE

Incentive package was interesting, but not interesting (or juicy enough) to stick around for another 30 days to help train replacement...yuck!

Gonna be out of town to visit my brother in northern California. The guy I live with and I are going to be driving up together and leaving two teenaged boy beasts home.

Can't wait to get away from it all for a few days and have a change of scenery and a break from same old, same old.

Steadman...where are you?