Life’s always better with sleep

Finally!  I finished it!  My Vince Flynn book that HAS to go back to the library and can’t be renewed because someone else put a hold on it.  That meant I had to crash read it, which meant I’ve been staying up all night and doing the zombie thing during the day.  Yesterday was the worst!  I pretty much spent the whole day on the “snarl” setting.  At one point, I got a couple hour nap in, and I woke up to the kids giggling on my bed.  They were mimicking daddy who’d been mocking the Chicago accent. 

See, last week when we went to the store, the road we typically take is under construction.  Big surprise, it’s Chicago!  When isn’t a road under some sort of construction?  As we were driving rolling slowly past, we could see they were using some huge machine to make the new lane flat.  Darc quipped, “Mek it flaat, dair, niiice and flaaat.”  I wish you could hear it, it’s so funny the way he just nails the accent.  I don’t know quite how they do it, but Chicagoans tend to make the short a sound in the back of the throat and push it out through the nose.  Think Dennis Franz.  As we drove by, one of the kids said, “They’re working!” and I said, “Well, one of them is, the other nineteen are standing around.”  We figured that must have been the new guy.  We don’t really wonder why it takes them years to finish a road around here.  Seriously, they’ve been working on this 2-mile stretch of road since last October, and they’re still not half-way done with it.  “Mek it flaat!” 

And remembering that reminded me of when I finished the pretty pretty princess’s cake last week and the handsome prince said, “Hey mom, I like the font you used on the cake!” 
“The what?”
”The font!  You know, the writing.”

That boy!  Oh he cracks me up sometimes! 

So I passed out last night even before the kids went to bed, and actually got a full night’s sleep in.  I’ve had my drugs already, (caffeine and nicotine) and I’m ready to hop in the shower and get dressed to hit the library.  More books!  Yay! 

Modern day time travel

Take a trip down memory lane with me, won’t you?  Darc and I stayed up the other night having giggle fits over songs from  our childhood.  Yes, the grand ol’ ‘70’s.    I cracked up over Darc’s confession that he didn’t know the singer from the band Wild Cherry was white – you know, the “Play That Funky Music White Boy” song.  He didn’t watch Midnight Special like I did so he missed that one.  There was one song, “Love Rollercoaster,” that was huge because the rumor going around was that the screams in the song were “accidently captured” and were actually “the screams of a girl being murdered in the next studio.”  I kid you not!  The big thing was to keep calling radio stations and ask them to play it again, so you could hear the poor girl’s dying cries.  Yeah, file that one under urban legends of the ‘70’s! 

Dreams was a big one, as was Go Your Own Way, both by Fleetwood Mac.  I confess I was a little miffed that Dreams won the #1 spot of the top 100 songs of the year on my local radio station, beating out the Bay City Rollers Saturday Night.  Just please don’t tell anyone!  I was only 12!  Which reminds me; remember You Light Up My Life?  Did you see the movie??  Yeah, me too.  I remember my friends and I sitting in the theater wondering how Didi Conn managed to belt out that song with her breathy little voice.  We didn’t quite get the concept of “voice over-dubbing.”  Yep, she was also Frenchie in Grease. 

How did this conversation get started, you ask?  Well, when I came out of the smoking room, Darc asked, “Were you whistling in there?”
”Umm, yeah, sorry … I was listening to my iPod.”
”What in the world were you listening to?”
”I was Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay.”

I think, for me, that is one of the defining songs of my childhood.  I’ve been on those docks, lived not terribly far from them, and I can see them when I close my eyes while listening to this song.  I can smell the salty air and see the sea lions playing.  I can feel the sand in my toes and the cold water washing over my feet.  Dock Of The Bay was played often on the radio station I listened to, and learning how to whistle like Otis Redding was considered an accomplishment.    This song isn’t simply a song I listen to, it’s a place I go. 

This video – Top 30 Best rock songs of the 70′s – has a nice compilation of some 70’s songs – I’m sure it’ll bring back some memories. 

What I left behind

Some time ago, my Beloved did a post that he was inspired from by another blogger we follow, Mapelba.  Her post asked the question, Where are you and your crazy stories from anyway?  My husband responded with, “Where Do You Come From?”  I figured I’d do my own version of the question but before I could get to it, my computer died and I kind of forgot about it.  I’d saved the LOLCat though, and that sort of reminded me when I saw it again. 

I laughed the first time I saw it, then I realized how close it hit to home.  For various reasons, I play personal things close to the vest and don’t reveal much here on the blog.  There’s no need, really.  And it protects the innocent from the guilty.  That being said, I can say I’ve left behind people who had a different definition of family than I did.  Where mine came from, I have no idea.  I believe in loyalty and my relatives didn’t.  I believe in being there when someone needs you, and my relatives didn’t.  It was one thing to talk the talk, but when it came to walking the walk, they were cripples trying to make me an amputee.  So I kept on going. 

I’ve left behind betrayal, and backstabbing.  Lying and deceit.  I’ve left behind strife and arguing, delusion and denial.  I’ve left it all behind because that baggage was just too heavy to carry anymore.  I have other things I wish to carry, things who’s burden is light. 

I carry my love and loyalty for my husband and our children.  I carry my hopes for our future.  I carry my dreams, and my laughter.  Those things were not allowed before and I found that to be unacceptable.  I shouldn’t have to answer to or explain myself to people who don’t love me, don’t even like me, yet presume to declare that they know better than me what’s best for me.  I saw a biography show once about Cher, and she said something that really stuck with me.  She said, “I answer to 2 people; myself and God.”  That’s where I’m headed now. 

I have a husband I adore who cherishes me, I have children I treasure who love me.  I no longer deal with in-fighting, family feuds – none of that crap.  And it’s heavenly!  I have all I need and all I want, and I don’t have the things I don’t want.  What more could I ask for? 

So if and when I tell you I like you, or love you, or care about you in some way – take me seriously, because I know what it’s like to be lied to about those kinds of things, and I wouldn’t do it to anyone else.  I tend to mean what I say, because to do otherwise is to not be true to myself, and my markings, unlike kitteh’s there, are true.

Tuesday Tootsies

Hey, I had an idea!  Well, okay, no I didn’t.  Darc had an idea, which he got from a blog I read that I’ve told him about.  Let me set this up a little.

I follow a blog called Seraphic Secret.  The writer of the blog is a Conservative Jewish scriptwriter in Hollywood – is that an awesome combo or what?  Anyway, before Shabbat he often does this thing he calls Friday Footwear.  It started as sort of a little family quirk when his wife and daughters didn’t want him to take face pictures of them for his blog so he quipped, “Well then, let me take a picture of your shoes.”  The rest is history.  Darc has occasionally (oh all right, frequently) heard me complain about not having anything to blog about.  So he suggested I do something like the Friday Footware thing, something fun that didn’t require a lot of contemplation (because nobody contemplates like I do).  I kind of resisted because I didn’t want to do a direct rip-off of Friday Footware, and I don’t have any shoes worthy to take pictures of myself.  (You really don’t want to see my gym shoes, trust me on this!)  Then the idea of Tuesday Tootsies struck me, and I thought, what a great idea!  I’ll find pictures of shoes I’d buy if I could, sort of like dream shoes, and blog about that!  How cool is that?  (Shut up and get with the program here!)  I’m going to indulge my shoe thing.  Come along for the ride!  Or should that be stride?

 

I love these shoes – they’re so cute – so much like a sandal and so much like a pump, all rolled into one.  Great for summertime.  I like the strappy-ness and the wooden heels.  I think they’re sexy.  Not bad for $90!  (like I’d ever pay that much for a pair of shoes!  It’s fantasy footware!)  Plus, they also come in purple and teal for the more adventurous types.  Which, when it comes to shoes, I am. 

ps – click the pic for the link

D’ooooooh

But it comes with a free frogurt!
That’s good!
But the frogurt is also cursed.
That’s bad.

So we ended up doing some more troubleshooting on my dead-to-the-world computer this weekend.  I’ve been extremely hesitant to do this because it meant testing parts on Darc’s computer and I didn’t want to take the chance of messing up anything on what is now the only computer in the house.  Darc decided to overrule my resistance and test things himself.

The connection between my hard drive and motherboard is working.
That’s good.
But the motherboard is cursed.
That’s bad.
But the hard drive is good!
For the win! 

Well, sort of a win.  At least I know that all my data, my pictures, my Sims, my copies of Ghost Hunters and Witch Hunt – everything that was on my hard drive is still there and in good condition.

I just can’t get to it with a bad motherboard.  So that’s where I need to focus my energies – well, my wish list anyway.  I have to find a motherboard that’s going to work with what I already have on my system, and so far, everything I’ve looked at, when you buy a motherboard, it doesn’t come with a CPU (central processing unit) already attached – you have to do that yourself.  Can you say pain in the butt?  I don’t have any thermal glue, which is necessary to put them together.  So I’d have to buy it, which is going to add more money to the bottom line.  And putting in a motherboard can be a tricky thing.  So many things could go wrong.  *sigh*

So in the meantime, I’m still sharing with my wonderful husband who so far hasn’t expressed having any kind of problem with sharing his computer with me.  He even says, “Now that we’re down to one, it’s not mine anymore, it’s ours.”  I mean, is that awesome or what?   

 

I see you!

All the time, kitteh, all the freakin’ time!

 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

My hero

I think that’s the nicest thing a quiz has ever said about me!  *sniffle*

 

 

You Are Most Like Ronald Reagan

People tend to think you’re a god – or that you almost ruined the country. But even if people do disagree with you, they still fall victim to your charms!

What Modern US President Are You Most Like?