Random Dozen

I'm doing the Random Dozen again.  It's easy and requires minimum thought, something that is good for today--last night involved a couple of margaritas, so I'm on the slow side, but on the plus side the margaritas were out at an actual bar and there were no kids in sight!


So here goes:
1. Do you do garage sales? If so, tell me about one great find. If not, tell me why not.  I most definitely do garage sales.  When I can find the time.  I got to go about two weeks ago and found a booster seat for Bruiser and a Columbia snow suit for Bruiser for a dollar.  For the day I spent less that $10 and got some great stuff.
2. Name the last thing you fixed.  Fixed as in fixed for dinner, or fixed as in mended?  I'll go with mended, I sewed a button on one of Nick's shirts.

3. Name your A) Favorite item of makeup OR B) Favorite tool.  I don't really do lots of makeup(or any really) so I'll have to go with favorite tool.  That would be a screwdriver.  I use one all the time to get those battery compartments open.

4. Which room in your home needs organizing more than any other?  My kitchen.  Things tend to pile up on the counters, especially now the Bruiser likes to mine the lower cabinets for fun things like the spatter screens, pans, bowls, etc.  Things end up on the counter where he can't reach well yet.

5. Which room could use re-decorating?  Our front room.  It has our dining table in it and the walls are a blah cream color and the rug just sucks.  It could really use a makeover.

6. Share something unique about your town.  We have the highest institution of learning in the country.  No really, we are at 7200 feet and we have a four year university.  Highest elevation for a four year university in the country.

7. If you could send a one-sentence message to your great-grandchild, what would it be?  Make time for the little things.

8. Do you Facebook?  Yes, but not religiously.  I like to check it but keep it mostly separate from my blog.

9. Describe your favorite shoes.  They would be my Keens.  A trail shoe and one of the most comfortable shoes I own for long wear and lots of walking.

10. Do you listen to more talk radio or more music radio? What kind of station is it?  Music radio.  We don't really get much talk radio here in the boonies.  My favorite in country, but I'll listen to rock too.

11. How far would you travel for a really good (favorite) meal?  I have to travel about an hour for a decent seafood meal. And about the same for a good steak dinner.  My town is lacking in both departments.  However, if you want a good Mexican meal you have about 5-6 different choices right here in town.

12. If you were totally honest with yourself (and us) what should you probably be doing right now instead of blogging?  Napping, Bruiser is down and Turbo is at school.  Just wanted to get this knocked out before resting a bit.
 
So go link with Linda and answer the Random Dozen for yourself.

Random Tuesday

Time once again for Random Tuesday Thoughts.  Get the new and improved button from Keely and link up.

• Weekends are entirely too short.  Especially if you spend them doing laundry.  But hooray for me, mine is done (for the next two weeks anyway).  I even got the towels folded and put away and the sheets, too. I'm usually content to let them sit in the dryer until I do laundry again.
• Fall has hit with a vengeance.  Mornings have had frost and the afternoons are in the 70's.  Makes getting dressed interesting.  Layers, it's all about the layers.
• Bruiser had his first cold of the season.  Snotty nose and all.  He's learning to run when I come at him with the tissue or hanky.
• I'm looking forward the the new seasons on TV cause there is nothing there to watch right now. 
• We had a garden fail this year.  The zucchini plants grew but did not make zucchini.  we got lots of dill, a few carrots and a couple of beets.  Not very productive.  Maybe next year.
• The Tooth Fairy made a visit last night as Turbo lost another tooth.  This particular tooth has been loose all summer but last night it got very wiggly and kind of hangy and Turbo let Nick help it come out.  Thus the Tooth Fairy had the scrounge up quarters for him and remember to get them into his room before light this morning.  Go Tooth Fairy!

OK that's my random ramblings for this week.  Go see Keely for more.

Meet Me on Monday

Trying something new today with Meet Me on Monday.  Sounds like fun.  You answer five questions and than link up at Never Growing Old.
1. What is your favorite pasta dish?  I love lasagna but love a good Alfredo any day.


2. What is the last thing you do before going to bed?  Put carmex on my lips.  Keeps them nice and soft cause it's really dry here.

3. How many nights a week do you go out to eat? We go out to eat maybe twice a month.  We order in maybe three times a month.  The rest of the time we cook in our kitchen, or the back grill.  The budget doesn't allow for more than that.

4. Are you an avid book reader?  Most definitely.  I love to read, romance, fantasy, action adventure, mystery, nonfiction, anything that catches my interest.  I'm most often seen with a book in hand, or my computer, even when watching TV--this habit drives my husband nuts.  I read during the commercials and then watch the show unless it's boring than I will read during the show too.

5. Would you rather have x-ray vision or bionic hearing?  I'd have to go for x-ray vision, but only if I could choose when to use it.  I hear too much already--little sounds can drive me crazy.  But I'd have to be able to turn the x-ray vision on and off, so I could use it when I wanted to, not all the time--that could be more info than I wanted if it was on all the time.

Now go answer the questions and check out other's answers at Never Growing Old.

Friday Confessional

TIme once again to confess all, or almost all, or, well, really what you want to confess.  Anyconfessions, go link with Glamazon and get it off your chest.

I confess:

• I'm thrilled that Nick (and the bank) let us get our new camper--even if he lied about the loan the first time.
• My laundry is taunting me.
• It's time to do it and I really lack the motivation to start it.
• The piles are just sitting there laughing at me.
• Bruiser is sick and he just wants to be held while he sleeps.
• I make a lousy mattress.
• I'm looking forward to having Nick gone this weekend--he's hunting.
• Also looking forward to refilling the freezer with meat.
• I'm sort of sad and sort of happy to see summer go.
• Do you ever hit the end of your day and are just tired of being touched?
• I'm looking forward to a glass of wine tonight.

Your turn, what do you confess?

Camping, Jones style--Spin Cycle

This week's Spin Cycle is the Great Outdoors.  We know lots about the great outdoors at our house.  I also know that a tent is not the most comfortable way to experience the great outdoors.  It's much more comfortable in a camper.

Nick lived up to his part of the bargain.  He got his four wheeler and now I have my new camper.

We went from this...

...to this.

Quite the upgrade.

And now I will leave you with a tale of camping with a three year old Turbo.  That summer was the first summer we had the first camper.  Turbo was three and quite the loud talker.   He had trouble saying S's, they came out sounding like D's.  And he liked poking sticks in the fire.  He also liked marshmallows, but not roasted ones.  He liked eating them plain but called it eating them naked.

Now imagine you are in the next camp site and hear form the other camp site, "Mommy, Mommy, I want to eat marshmallows naked and put my 'dick' in the fire!"

We got some really strange looks the next morning.

Camping is something that we do every summer and plan on doing lots more especially now that we have the new camper.  Getting out is our way of having fun and we have a great state to get out in.

Now Go see Jen at Sprite's Keeper for more great outdoor spins.

Random Dozen--Labor Day Edition

1. Describe the best sandwich in the world, according to you.  I love French dip sandwiches.  We make awesome ones at home--with Swiss cheese and mushrooms and we dip them in consume.  Just makes me hungry to think about them.


2. Which inspires you more: a good conversation, a song, a book or movie? I get inspired by music, but love a good book.  And I won't turn down a good conversation.  So I guess all three.

3. What is your favorite board game?  Trivial Pursuit.

4. As you grow older, are you more or less patient with small children? I have small children at home now, so I guess more patient, most of the time, but they have such a knack for doing the one thing that gets on my last nerve.  Talented little suckers.

5. Name one item you never let yourself run out of.  Lotion.  It gets really dry here and without lotion, my skin just gets so dry and itchy.

6. Do you agree with Tennyson's assertion, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?"  It's our experiences that make us who we are and if we don't experience things like love, we are not complete human beings, so yes loving and losing is better than never loving at all.

7. Name one national treasure or monument that you have visited.  There have been many--Yellowstone, the Tetons, Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore are just a few in the last few years.

8. Which is more painful, to be disappointed in someone else or to be disappointed in yourself?  For me being dissappointed in someone else becasue I have no control over their actions and they can hurt me far more than I can hurt myself.

9. What makes your kitchen uniquely yours?  We have concrete counter tops we made ourselves.

10. Are you a crafty person?  Not even close to one.  My mom can do anything, my skills extend to scrapbooks and that's it.

11. What is your favorite traditional picnic or BBQ (cookout) food?  Spareribs on the grill with a recipe we found last Superbowl.  They are so good we have made them four or five times since.

12. Name one leisurely activity you enjoyed over Labor Day Weekend.  We went camping Sunday night.
 
And I just need to get the pictures of the new camper taken and downloaded and pics will be up, I swear.

Random Tuesday--Oh What a Weekend

So a new Button for Random Tuesday Thoughts.  Looks pretty cool, but then I didn't really have anything against the old one.

Ever need a weekend from your weekend?  We did so much this last weekend and are now feeling like we had no weekend at all and are now back at the grind.  We had family in town, Nick went to the first football game of the season, we went and drove across our great state to get a camper, bought said camper, took it camping, then came home-back across our great state(5-6 hours each way).  Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Bruiser is living up to his nickname--his forehead is all scraped and bruised up.  He crashed into the bottom step of the back porch Saturday.

Our new (to us) camper is great--pictures tomorrow.  We will be so comfortable once we get the electricity figured out.  There is space for all of us and we are just thrilled and so looking forward to next summer and going on camping trips.

OK so enough gushing about our new acquisition. 

I am addicted to reading advice columns.  I read Dear Abby, Dear Prudence (on Slate magazine), Dear Margo, and the Mouthy Housewives.  If Keely actually does it, I might get to add Ask Keely(or the UnMom, whatever she calls it).  I love reading about other peoples problems.  I'd never ask a question of my own, I like to think I'm not that messed up, don't burst my bubble.

Fall is definitely in the air here.  It frosted last Thursday and this morning our furnace kicked on.  The S-word is just around the corner, I know it.  In some ways I'm looking forward to it, in others I really could have used another couple weeks of summer.

Now go see Keely and get your random on.  Ask her a question if your feeling brave, or just want to know the answer.

Spin Cycle--R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The Spin Cycle this week is all about respect.

I thought I'd find some quotes about respect:

• Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners. Laurence Sterne
• To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater. - Author Unknown
• Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human. - John Cogley
• Love and respect woman. Look to her not only for comfort, but for strength and inspiration and the doubling of your intellectual and moral powers. Blot out from your mind any idea of superiority; you have none. - Giuseppe Mazzini
• That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. -William J. H. Boetcker
• Treat others as you want them to treat you because what goes around comes around-Anonymous

Respect is hard to earn but easy to lose.  Without respect society does not work, but fear does not lead to respect.  And respect starts with yourself.  once you respect yourself, respect for others is easier to have and demonstrate.  I'm trying to teach my boys to have courtesy and respect for those around them--mostly by teaching manners--cause that's where it starts for most of us.
This Spin brought to you courtesy the Spin Cycle for Sprite's Keeper.

Writer's Workshop--When I was a kid I was afraid...Still Am Sometimes.

Writer's workshop time.
The prompts:
1.) Childhood fears you’ve taken into your adult life.
2.) Write a post that begins and ends with a merry-go-round.
(inspired by writingfix.com)
3.) Why were you mortified? Write about a true embarrassing moment as though it was happening in slow motion.
(inspired by writingfix.com)
4.) Open letter to a celebrity.
5.) Oprah says we all have a story. If you were on her show, what would your story be? What would you be talking about? What advice would she give you? Write about it and provide a snippet of your interview together.


Number 1: Childhood fears you've taken into adulthood.

• fear of spiders
• fear of bugs
• fear of large groups-where I don't know anybody but am expected to "mingle".
• fear of scary movies--even Dracula is too much for me.
• fear of miller moths
• fear of anything that has more than four legs really
• fear of looking like a fool in front of everyone--a la middle school and high school.
• fear that 'they' are talking about me
• sometimes I can even spook myself in the dark.
• fear of public speaking

These are the fears left over from childhood.  I'm not even going to go into the ones I have developed since "growing up".  What are you still afraid of that you were afraid of as a child?
Go link your own take on the prompts at Mama Kats.

P.S.  The bank said yes so we get to go get the camper this weekend.  Pictures next week.

What I Meant to Say

Free therapy time for all those times you bit your tongue and didn't say what you meant to say.  Give your poor tongue a breaka nd say it already!  Then go link with Brittany and Angel.

Mine for this week:
To Nick:  What I said:  "It's up to you if we go for the sweet deal on the newer pop-up camper."
What I meant to say:  "You are nuts if we don't go for this camper.  It is what we want and for aprice we can't turn down, and besides you promised I got a camper if you got a four-wheeler."

To the bank:  What I said:  "Please give us this little bitty loan."
What I meant to say: "Please, please, please give us this little bitty loan.  Please?!"