Family Weekending

I suppose you could say the weekend started early for me.  The kids decided on Thursday night that they really wanted Friday off, so they did their Friday school on Thursday before they went to bed. 

Turns out that was a great decision to make because my girlfriend called me on Friday and said she had some free time and could she come up?  Now, since she lives so far, we usually plan our visits in advance, but she had some things come up for her so she wanted to make a more spontaneous visit.  Since the kids had done their school work the night before, we were free.  She brought us a ton of soap she made and I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome it smells.  My skin, and my nose, are so happy.    I call it my skin candy for a reason. 

On Saturday, we took the kids to a forest preserve to check out some of the beautiful autumn colors.  Trees were shedding leaves on the way home from out little outing, so it looks like we made it just in time.  Next weekend all those trees might be naked.  But I did get some pics, and a few little videos of the leaves and us going, “Oooh, did you see that one?”  But the kids had a good time and that’s what matters most to us. 

Plus, while it’s still a bit early to tell, it looks like Darc may have found his dream keyboard.  I swear, he has a keyboard store right next to his desk, so he can change keyboards like other people change their socks.  Both of us are pretty weird about our keyboards – and it’s a known fact that I have a pen thing.  But Darc’s even pickier about keyboards than I am.  Considering he makes one living at them, and hopes to make another living at them, it’s pretty important that he finds one he’s good with for several hours a day.  He had a look of pure bliss when he plugged his new one in and started typing on it. 

As a bonus, the weather was gorgeous this weekend.  And that is an extremely rare thing around here, so it was frosting on the cake.

So how was your weekend? 

PS – Here are a few of the pics I took. 

He can see clearly now

The world’s handsomest, most beautiful boy got glasses over the weekend.  The glasses, when we first saw them, were mixed in with the other glasses in the store.  When they’re on his face, they’re the most stylin’ glasses around.    He makes those glasses look good.  All the other glasses were so jealous.

Seriously, my boy has a very intellectual look to him when he wears his new glasses.  The frames he picked out suit him wonderfully.  He was so wowed that he could see so many things much clearer.  Of course, his baby sister had to get in on the act too.  When we asked him if he could read the sign across the street, he asked, “Which one?”  The MiniNess had to pop off with, “The one that says blah-blah-blah.”  Oh, that kid!  LOL 

So now the handsome prince can actually see how handsome he is! 

*****

I also discovered over the weekend that our computers came already loaded with speech recognition software.  A year and a half and I had no idea!  Here I was reading the comments on some Dragon Naturally Speaking software, and one of the commenters mentioned the stuff that came bundled with his Windows 7 computer.  That made my eyebrows shoot up!  Bundled?  Windows 7?  Seriously?  I did a search and sure enough, there it was!  So naturally I had to play with that for a while, but I didn’t spend any money buying software I didn’t know I already had!  How sweet is that?

*****

We had a bit of excitement last week.  Seems someone in the central part of the building thought it would be funny to pull the fire alarm.  Oh yeah, that was a real thigh slapper.  Apparently, all the units that are in a single building have a fire alarm in them, in addition to the smoke detectors that are in each unit.  But when my smoke detector goes off, only mine does, not anyone else’s.  For the fire alarm however, they are all connected and everyone’s in the building went off.  I went outside to see what I could see when the flashing lights appeared and some some poor little old lady looking helpless, so I tried to help her out of the way and reassure her that nothing was actually on fire.  I felt bad for the poor firemen who had to suit up and come out on a hot muggy night.  All for nothing!  The worst part is realizing that it must have been someone who lives here, or knows someone who lives here, because the only way to get into the building is with a key. 

*****

On the homefront, Darc did some outlining, which is always fun for us.  Now the first 2 books in the (formerly known as) GhostHunters series are outlined and ready to be written.  Yes, that means JD and Dillon will be back!  Seriously exciting!  I’ve missed those characters! 

So now Darc has a plethora of stories he can plug into and get going on at his whim.  Yay!

*****

And that was my weekend.  How was yours?

A Little Bouquet

A couple weeks ago, I picked up a box of cake decorating supplies.  It’s been a while since I lost my old set and really, it was time for a new one.  I kept putting it off because I only decorate 2 cakes a year and it just didn’t seem like spending money for something I’d use that rarely was a wise thing to do. 

But, it is my kids’ birthday cakes and you can’t put a price on that, plus the princess really wanted roses this year.  Well, roses I can do almost blindfolded, I used to make them by the hundreds when I was a young woman at my first job.  But for roses you do need a couple of specialty cake decorating items.

So, even though I bought it a couple weeks ago, I didn’t open the box until the night before I had to decorate the cake.  Surely a dumb move on my part.  Half the items in the box were missing.  All of the decorating bags were gone, and the writing tip was gone and what the heck was I going to do? 

Well.  I improvised.  Thank goodness I had enough freezer baggies on hand that I could cut the corners off of to use as icing bags!  Note to self: stick with the freezer baggies when desperate, as regular baggies will split on you and get icing all over the place! 

[To the person who took all those things out of the box, shame on you.  I know you’re stealing the socks out of the bags too.  It’ll come back to bite you one of these days, mark my words!] 

And for those who were interested, here’s the baby girl’s birthday cake.  She picked the colors, and I made a rose for every year, with scattered rosebuds.  She was happy. 

 

Surprise, surprise, there’s a new post up on my poetry blog!

A Tale of Strength | Poetical Ness

When it rains

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a picture of a hot water heater like this one spewing water all over the place?  I guess anyone who’s experienced that, like we did this weekend, doesn’t stop to think of taking a picture in the moment.  The initial thoughts, aside from curse words, generally tend to be along the lines of “What do we do?!” and “Where’s the bucket?!” 

My son was fixing himself something to eat when he said, “Do you hear that?”  Darc and I stopped what we were doing and I went toward the kitchen to investigate.  At first, I thought it might be a hose on the fridge or something.  But no.  Then I thought maybe the washing machine … but on the way to the washer, I passed by the water heater closet and realized where the sound of running water was coming from.  I opened the door – and remember the light in there blew out a long time ago so it’s kind of dark – and saw that it was raining inside the closet.  For a split second I thought it might be coming from the neighbors upstairs but then I realized it was coming from that little expansion tank on the top of the water heater.  And I mean!  It was like someone turned on a faucet almost full blast!  Water everywhere!  And coming fast!  The expansion tank somehow sprung 3 or 4 leaks simultaneously.  From the top, from the bottom, from the side, the water blitzed us.

I tried calling the office and kept getting sent to their voicemail system.  Well I didn’t have time to wait around for that!  So I threw on some clothes and ran over there. 

Wouldn’t you know, the lady was signing a contract with some new tenants.  I didn’t want to interrupt, but I had to interrupt so I stood there trying to look frantic.  It didn’t really stretch my acting skills.    She asked me what was wrong and all I said at first was that I had an emergency.  I was afraid to blurt out something that might potentially cost them a client.  Hearing a current tenant talk about a serious problem surely isn’t good business.  But she asked me without leaving her desk, so I answered.

Boy howdy did she get up fast!  I felt bad for the poor couple sitting there with their newborn but I had a downpour in my unit!  And a husband doing his best to catch what he could in a bucket. 

Well wouldn’t you know.  The guys in the maintenance crew were running a float in a parade today, for the holiday coming up, and the office lady had no idea who was on call and every person she called didn’t answer.  She left messages for like 5 guys before someone finally called her back. 

Eventually we were able to get the water shut off.  The valve was kind of stiff, Lord only knows the last time anyone turned it.  Eventually someone came in to take off the part that was leaking and put a temporary seal on it until we can get a new expansion tank put on tomorrow.  Eventually we had warmish water again.  They want to keep the heat minimized so it doesn’t scald them when they change out the tank thing, so I can’t turn it up high.  *sigh*  You know, that’s really way more excitement than I need in a year, let alone a week or a day! 

And of course, it happens on a day when I really need a lot of hot water, what with baths and laundry and dishes, oh my. 

At least it’s not raining inside my home anymore!

And how was your weekend?

 

Photo courtesy of: Hot water heater leaking. Water heater leaking problem

Waves and Water

Remember I told you last week that my friend took me and the kids to the beach for the afternoon?  Well, I found some movie making software on my computer and made a video of some of the pictures I took.  Here’s the finished result!

Our Day at the Beach

I thought of doing a voice-over narration, and maybe I will on a future video, but this time I decided some sound effects would be nice. 

I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with the movie software!  I also made one for Memorial Day that I’ll post then, too. 

What Family Role Do You Play?

In honor of Mother’s Day this weekend, I found this little quiz about family roles.  I took it a couple of times and came out with either the daughter or the mother.  Duh!  LOL  I’m sure I’d really stink at being the dad. 

Have a great Mother’s Day tomorrow!

You Are the Mother

You have an abundance of love for humanity. You care about all the people of the world. You love helping others more than anything else. You love to be needed. At your best, you unconditionally love people. You are very nurturing. You are a wise and gentle teacher. You are happy to guide anyone who needs your advice or explanations. At your worst, you are controlling and overbearing. You smother people with affection and gifts. And with this attention you give, you are expecting something in return.

What Family Role Do You Play?

Blogthings: Discover the Parts of Your Personality that Have Been Hiding

You Are the Daughter

You very keyed in to emotions. You care deeply and are quick to forgive others. You often get lost in your own thoughts and daydreams. You find it difficult to stay focused. At your best, you are sweet, sensitive, and innocent. You bring joy to people’s lives. You are open and expressive. You love sharing your optimistic, dreamy vision of the world. At your worst, you feel powerless and like a victim. Your fear can paralyze you. You tend to complain and whine. Whether your complaints are legitimate or not, you’re not one to solve your own problems.

What Family Role Do You Play?

Blogthings: We’ll Tell You The Truth… Someone Has To!

Whensday

I cracked up when I first saw this picture, and posted it on FaceBook.  It brings up a very special family memory for me.  The story behind the giggle is kind of cute though but first I wanted to give some background.

I don’t do horror very well.  As a little kid, my sister would terrorize me by making me watch Dark Shadows, after which I could be found cowering under the bed.

As a teen, I came of age in the Halloween, and Friday the 13th era, which became popular date films.  I almost walked out of The Boogeyman but my date convinced me not to.  I remember perhaps 1 scene from each of those, the rest of the time spent hiding behind my hands.  I would have walked out on My Bloody Valentine but was a guest at someone else’s home and didn’t want to look childish.  So you can see, horror and I never mixed well. 

And then, then I married a horror writer.  Proof that the Lord does indeed have an interesting sense of humor! 

To his credit, the only horror movie Darc ever really strongly encouraged me to watch was The Exorcist.  We caught the 30th anniversary release.  Afterward, I could only wonder what all the fuss was about.

Eventually I realized that what I really loathe is what I’ve come to call “gorror,” that cross between horror and outright, gratuitous gore.  I hate the gory stuff, the bloody, slashing, stabbing, gooey, icky, red yuck.  But suspense I can handle okay.

So when the MiniNess was about 4, Darc picked up a copy of Alien, one of his all time favorite horror movies, and wanted to watch it during family movie time.  I was a bit dubious.  The kids were kind of little for that, I thought.  But we put it in figuring we could stop it if they seemed like they were getting scared.  During the first “facehugger” scene, the scene where the creature leaps onto John Hurt’s face and attaches itself, which startled me since it was the first time I’d ever seen it myself, I heard the little gasps come out of the kids.  Oh here we go! I thought, they’re going to freak out and have nightmares and I shouldn’t have let them see this and …

“Can we watch it again, Daddy?  Can you back up so we can see it again?  That was so cool!”

This is my 4 year old?  My sweet, precious, baby girl?  She wants to see it again?!

“That’s my girl!” exclaimed the proud daddy. 

She couldn’t handle the sight of the vacuum at the time, that sent her screaming to her bed to hide under the covers, but the facehugger in Alien was definitely not a problem.

Yep, that’s not thunder you hear, those are heavenly guffaws. 

Get your copy of my husband’s books!

Buy J Dane Tyler’s Fiction now!