Newt on the Loose Day 3

The alarm goes off

Grrrrr, I really don't want to get out of bed.

But hey, I'm alive.

Yippee for me.

Stumble down the stairs

Make coffee

Crazy puppy pile goes outside

Barking their fool heads off

Cats run around my feet begging for food

Mommy needs her coffee first.

Meow Meow Meow

Oh, for cry'n out loud, I'll feed you already.

Awww hell, might as well take a shower.

Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to work I go.

Bus ride home, enter crazy man. Laughing and gibbering from the minute he got on.

I will attempt to paraphrase:

"Yep, torn the thing down! Catholics, there aren't any catholics in the south did you know that."
(maniacal laughter) Well, there might be one or two but there aren't ANY in Tennessee (Maniacal Laughter) "Hey, throw that book in the garbage, that's totally useless (Maniacal Laughter) Huh, look, they have their own little farmers market (pointing to the little tent an old farming couple set up in a currently vacant business parking lot) Hey, I bet the CIA is running it. (Maniacal Laughter) That's the problem, too many taxes. Minnesota taxes their people to death. (Maniacal laughter) Hey, when do we get to Wally-Mart? Yep, that's the problem, too many taxes, that's what Minnesota does. (Maniacal laughter) then he elbows the poor young kid sitting next to him "Am I right - I'm right, its the government, they are after us all. HEY - WALLY MART this is my stop (Maniacal Laughter) "No catholics in the south" - as he steps off the bus.

I swear you could hear the audible sigh of relief from everyone on the bus.

Then we watch him cross the street even though the cross walk clearly is letting you know the light is going to change. And he stops in front of a car and crouches and starts dancing back and forth like he dares the driver to hit him.......................

Finally home

Happy puppies dancing all around me

Alright, time to clean litter boxes

That will be the highlight of my evening. Goodie for me.

Time to heat dinner

Cheesy Jambalaya - god this is good stuff

Then the dogs and I couch potato it for the rest of the night. Flash Gordon, Eureka, and Eureka again. Love that show.

Chat with the hubster. Almost start to cry but I get a hold of myself.

"I love you"
"Have a good night baby"
"I miss you"
"I miss you too."
"Sleep well bubby"
"You too honey"
"I love you"
"I Love you too baby"
"Ok, I'll talk to you tomorrow"
"Ok, sleep tight"
"You too"
"Love you"
"Love you too"
"Good night"
"Good night"
"Bye"
"Bye"

And now it is time for bed.

Snore.......................

Newt on the Loose Day 2

Sophie the bed hog and I got up with the alarm.

Alarms suck.

We stumbled down the stairs, let out the frantic, insane, and barking their fool heads off puppies. Which, by the way do flips in their kennel while they wait for me to let them out.

One big dog pile stumbles out the back door and heads for the grass to do their thing.

Four screaming cats ran frantically to their bowls for breakfast.

The coffee is brewing.

I bow to the coffee gods.

Is there a coffee god.................

Pause while I google............................

(Nice elevator music plays)

And here are the websites to pick from:

Welcome to God's Coffee - God's Coffee™ offers your congregation the opportunity to enjoy delicious, fresh roasted, gourmet coffee and support your church's worthy cause

God Drinks Coffee: A Freshly-Brewed View on Prayer

The Temple of the Gods of Coffee - Welcome Oh worshipers of the Goddess Caffeina and her consort Juan Valdez

God's Communist Coffee - Product naming and packaging design is a complicated art.

Coffee with God - Christian Spirituality w/Edges - Coffee with God involves good coffee, dark coffee - something with character - Brazilian or Ethiopian or Tuscan, not Folgian. This point may seem irrelevant,.........

Apparently there is no coffee god. But it does have a history.

Anywho, the pups made it as miserably difficult as possible for me to leave in the morning. Being all cute and pathetic looking, wanting to snuggle and get pets. But I, the evil mommy, wrenched myself away from their mind controlling cuteness and went to work.

I got to talk to the hubster and he even sent me an email.

We talked about how we missed each other. Lots.

After work the pups and I had a fun time. We played in the yard, they helped me cook dinner. Which thanks to Kell was Cheesy Jambalaya. Yum..................

Then I finished watching "Stargate". The extended cut was actually pretty good. There was nothing in it that I wished I hadn't seen or detracted from the original's spirit. The theatrical version took out some of the military paranoia and need to shoot things. But having it back in the extended version wasn't too bad.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night. In fact for whatever reason I had just started to doze off when I woke up, heart racing, in sheer panic.

"What if I die?"

"Who will feed my puppies?"

I mean, Sophie and Max can just chow down on my corpse, but Caleb and Lily are locked away.

"Oh god, my heart is racing, is that bad?"

"What am I going to do?"

Then when my sanity returned I realized I'll just email Jer Bear every morning and let him know I am alive. If the emails stop he should go to the house and take care of business. Pretty simple actually.

Problem solved..............well, as long as I make it to work tomorrow in time to email him.....................awwww hell.................well, nothing I can do about it now..............ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Newt on the Loose Day 1

At 8:15 Sunday morning I kissed the hubster goodbye.

He's off to a class in California. Sigh.................

First stop: Target
Going to do some fall cleaning

After being lost in the vortex that is target for about an hour and 60 bucks the poorer I headed home

Everything bagel for breakfast. Fantastic!

First up: the living room. Sort and put away hubsters magazines and papers.

Dust off piano. Sneeze.

Start vacuuming living room. Chasing after furry dust bunnies bigger than Lily.

Pick up dog bedding and blankets - go outside and shake them out.

Sneeze

Wash doggie stuff.

Sneeze

Shake out entry way carpet. Sneeze.

Pull out jackets I probably won't wear this winter and stick in Space Bag.

Suck the air out - these things are SO damn cool.

Nicely hang up the rest of the coats.

Remove all items from entryway.

Sneeze.

Vacuum and wash floor.

Wow, much better.

Sneeze.

Start removing various living room items, dust, sneeze, repeat.

Dust and wash floors.

Put various items back.

What is that smell?

Pick up DVD's from floor and start to sort and put away.

Oh, god, the smell is worse.

Sniff Spiderman cover.

Don't need spidey sense to figure out Caleb peed on them at some point.

GROSS - EWWWWWWW - GROSS.

Scrub down DVD cases, throw paper covers away. Use cheesy inserts for cover so we know what it is.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Ok, half of living room scrubbed down. Time for my date with the couch.

Start to watch Stargate - the directors cut.

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Paw paw paw in face.

MEOW!

MEOW!

MEOW!

What huh? Alright sheesh, I'll get you some food.

Feed the kitties

Brush teeth

Take some Tylenol PM

Read a little snuggled in bed

WHAM! Book hits nose.

Throw book on nightstand, turn off light. Go to sleep.

Made it through the first 14 hours without hubster.

Random Friday

So last night we went to a gallery show that our friend was in. While we were there it started to rain. Biblical flood sort of rain. And all our windows were open at home.

On the way home we drove through massive amounts of standing flood waters.

We watched a truck fly past us at about 70 MPH only to watch him hydroplane across three lanes. He didn't hit anything, he was very lucky. But we laughed our asses off at his now top speed of 40. I can only assume he wet himself when it happened. See, you AREN'T invincible just because you have an SUV or a full size truck. In fact, driving across flooded roads is sort of like driving through a lake, you can't no matter how many wheel drives you have.

When we hit the exit to our house the rain stopped. In fact we noticed that leaves were still blowing about in the road. And under cars and trees the ground was dry. Fan-flipping-tastic!
We made it home before the storm hit. Who'd have thunk.

So we threw the pups outside and closed all the windows. Got the pups back in the house and then KABLAM! We got nailed with lots and lots of rain.

For once, the Karma Cow was on our side.

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The hubster leaves on Sunday for a business trip. Sigh. Cry. Whine. He wont' be back till late the following Sunday. Sigh. Cry. Whine.

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But it does mean I get to eat cereal for dinner

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I went to Candyland today and got 2 pounds of Lego Candy for our friend's kids. The hubster is bringing it to the girls for their birthdays. Legos you can play with, build things with, and eat. Does life get any better?

Of course that means I got some for us, and some dark chocolate caramels, and some dutch mints. Had to get the dutch mints.

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Tonight I am going to make stroganoff. I have never made it before. Should be interesting.

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When all is said and done I'll probably wonder why I just didn't get the hamburger helper version. Probably won't taste much different.

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The peaches are most excellent right now. The hubster and I have had sliced peaches with cream(non-fat milk) every night. Yummy............

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On the bus last night a guy was admiring my phoenix tattoo. We ended up having a discussion along with a couple other people about the differences between LA Ink and Miami Ink. We all prefer LA Ink.

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Tattoos seem to be a way to bond instantly with people. I can't believe how many conversations have started up over ink.

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Thank God it's Friday. I'm not sure how a four day week could take so damn long.

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Tomorrow might very well be the type of day in which we never get out of our PJ's. I love those days. Well, we might get out of our pj's but................that would be TMI.

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The weather is supposed to turn cold and rainy. Part of me is sad. Part of me is looking forward to putting on comfy pj's and slippers.

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And my favorite outfit of all starts to work around this time: Shorts, tank top, hooded zipper sweatshirt, and slippers. Oh yeah baby! That is the best thing in the world to run around in.

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Ok, enough rambling..............on to the weekend!

Caught red handed

Girl J and I discovered one of our guilty pleasures that we never went public about.

We both LOVE Spaghettios. The plain ones, the ones with meatballs, AND the ones with hotdogs. I have never found someone that loved all three like I do.

Yep, she caught me with the can on my desk. I normally turn the label around so that it looks like soup.

Basically I never came out of the closet because I was so tired of people talking about how disgusting they were. While trying to heat/eat them.

I never quite understood why people feel the compulsion to discuss how much they hate a food while someone else is trying to eat that very food.

Sort of like the Twinkie hecklers that used to hang out at the twinkie booth at the fair. And as we were taking our first bite and trying to enjoy our twinkiegasm they felt compelled to loudly comment on how disgusting they were.

So, come out of the closet with Girl J and me, what's your secret guilty food pleasure????

Finding home

September 2007 marks a historic moment in my life. 9 years ago I moved to Minnesota. I did so on a wing and a prayer. I took a leap of faith and jumped with eyes wide open into a new life. A life with a wonderful man who made my heart sing and whose very voice left me with butterflies in my stomach. This is now the longest amount of time I have ever spent in one place. And for a girl with wanderlust in her heart it means a lot. It means I have established roots that I don't intend to pull up. It means that I have created a life I don't feel a need to walk away from. It means that I have found home.

As timing goes we were watching a movie a week or so ago and there was a song in it that made me sit up and take notice. It's called Find Yourself by Brad Paisley. And it speaks to my heart:

When you find yourself
In some far off place
And it causes you to rethink some things
You start to sense that slowly
You're becoming someone else
And then you find yourself
When you make new friends in a brand new town
And you start to think about settlin' down
The things that would have been lost on you
Are now clear as a bell
And you find yourself
Yeah that's when you find yourself
Where you go through life
So sure of where you’re headin'
And you wind up lost and it's
The best thing that could have happened
‘Cause sometimes when you lose your way it's really just as well
Because you find yourself
Yeah that’s when you find yourself
When you meet the one
That you've been waitin' for
And she's everything that you want and more
You look at her and you finally start to live for some one else
And then you find yourself
That’s when you find yourself
When we go through life
So sure of where we're headin
'And we wind up lost and it's
The best thing that could have happened
‘Cause sometimes when you lose your way it's really just as well
Because you find yourself
Yeah that's when you find yourself

So thank you to Mike and Heather for giving me the encouragement to make that leap, and Thank you to Jerry, Sean, Sarah, Fred, to Jes, to Girl J, and especially thank you to the hubster for helping me to find myself.

Saying Hello from Miles Away

Saturday Girl J and I went to the Fair! We had too much fun! 10 hours of walking, people watching and eating. And more eating. And more eating.

First, there were the hats I made just so when we put them on we could hear Lil A say "You are NOT wearing those into the fair"

Then as we walked around we tried to find things that made us think of bloggers we love. So, if you look closely you might see a sign in the picture. I am not sure what was funnier, finding the perfect picture for the sign or the comments we heard as one of us held up the sign and the other one took the picture. And if you don't have a sign it doesn't mean we don't love you. We had more signs than perfect pictures.

This shot was for Scott and Jay - no sooner had we been lamenting no cute butts had walked by when this one crossed our path.

If you were only here for an installment of Mike Eats it - this would be one to sample.

Then we walked past the Democratic Party Pavilion. One of the booth ladies helped Girl J hold up the signs. And the guys got a great laugh out of Cynical Bastards name.
Well, and this one didn't need a sign: Bet ya didn't know your mom was running did you Jay and Kell? This one we took for Cynical Bastard - sorry, no sign though. Since we know how much you like to post the ladies - here is one of the fair princesses in butter.

This one was for dad. He loves Prairie Home Companion

And for Kell, it was a no brainer
Tink too (These were images turned into purses - they were SO cool.)

My favorite fair food: Deep Fried Twinkie

Macaroni and Cheese on a Stick
Pretty cow - I just loved the colors - she's a chocolate milk cow if I ever saw one.
Deep Fried Cookie Dough