Birthday Party Blog Hop 2011

Guess what July is?  BIRTHDAY MONTH!!!!

Okay, this is a self proclaimed thing, but hey, why not?  And I'm opening it up to you!  Quite generous in my celebrating, aren't I?

So here's how it's going to happen this year - every Thursday is a new Birthday Event where you are invited to link in your own blog.


July 7 - National Celebrations - Of course I'm doing this in recognition of July 4th for the USA, but if you have a different national party, by all means post it!  Oh and dates don't matter, nothing has to happen in July and certainly not recently.  Share your pictures of fireworks or teach us something new about a different country.

July 14 - Local Celebrations - This could be anything from the town pouring out for a St. Patrick's parade to a block party.  My experience is these are thinly veiled excuses for public drunkenness.

July 21 - Other People's Birthdays - Your kids, friends, coworkers, some unnamed person grinning over a cake... it doesn't matter.  It's all about celebrating the cake and ice cream, oh and someone turning a year older.

July 28 - OUR BIRTHDAYS!  Okay happy birthday to me, but why don't you share with everyone YOU getting another year older?  It could be your tenth birthday a million years ago, or your birthday last month.  Totally up to you.  If you can post a picture of you grinning over a cake, even better!  Not necessary, but it would be cool.  I would love to see Unknown Mami's signature paperbag head grinning over  a cake - wonder if she'll take up the challenge?

So there you go a new blog hop for the month of July and you have plenty of time to prepare, dig through your pictures and play along.







<br><a href="http://dementiawoman.blogspot.com/2011/06/birthday-party-blog-hop-2011.html"><img src="http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g295/qandlequeen/Backgrounds/BlogButton_Layout1.jpg" alt="A Walk Through My LIttle World" width="130" height="140" border="0" /></a><br>

Bird Nest Update June 28, 2011

I got to see the babies!!!!  They popped out their heads waiting for momma to bring some food.  Of course momma fluttered away as soon as I showed up.  I was standing in my front yard in my jammies waiting for her to return because I wanted to get a shot of her feeding the babies.  She did NOT cooperate!  From all of the fluttering inside the nest, I figure the babies will take flight in a matter of days and my nest will be empty.

Special Request

Please open your heart (and wallets) to help the animal shelter in flooded Minot North Dakota.  This comes from a family member working diligently to save the animals:

As you all know the Souris Valley Animal Shelter is working hard and doing a great job running a shelter for evacuated pets with nowhere else to go.   They are currently housing more than 500 pets.  This is a huge task and they are putting in many, many hours.  All of us on the board and and at SVAS are being asked what can we do.  Well, the thing we need most is money.  Many, many items have been donated and we are all grateful, but the truth of it is, it still takes money to run the evacuation center.  So if you would like to make a donation or can spread the word we would appreciate it.  A fund has been set up at First Western Bank and Trust in Minot.  Donations can be dropped off there or made via PayPal through the donate button on the SVAS website:  http://www.svaspets.com/

Thank you to all of you who are working, volunteering, and donating.  We appreciate all you do!

Help Us Help Them!

CSA Box 6/27/11

I'm sorry I missed posting last week's CSA box.

There was a ginormous head of cauliflower that actually took a few days to polish off.  It's not something I will eat but The Husband gladly snacks on it so I had it all chopped up ready to grab.  Roma tomatoes, not yet used.  Squash and zucchini were diced up and I added potatoes and red bell pepper to roast and mixed in diced up chicken.  It made a ton of food, but it was enough for a meal for the 3 of us.  Cucumbers got a little use being added to sandwiches.  Seriously if you've never added a cucumber to a sandwich you've got to try it (provided you like cucumbers).  We didn't use very much of what we had so it's possible the rest will be thrown away.  There are makings for a great pasta dinner including fresh pasta, sesame bread and spaghetti sauce.  The bread was gone in 24 hours, but the pasta and sauce are still waiting to be used, probably in the next few days.  The brown paper is wrapped around a small wedge of soft cheese and in the very back is a mix for bean soup that I exchanged for the head of lettuce we were supposed to get.

This week I exchanged a bag of mixed lettuce greens for a packet of rice soup mix.  We received another jar of apple butter and a bag of vanilla granola.  I'm sure I'll plow through that granola in no time - yum.  We got a couple of sticks of honey.  I don't have any fancy plans for them, but I did use one already in baked beans.  The sticks are great for small or pre-measured use.  I guess you could suck on them like pixie sticks, but I don't like the straight taste of honey.  We also got tomatoes and peaches - haven't touched those yet, but they'll surely be gone in the next day or two.  We also got beets and turnips.  I hate beets.  Hate them.  But everyone has been raving about roasting them, enough that I'm curious.  Funny enough that on Friday we actually saw a cooking show that highlighted roasting beets.  So last night I roasted them.  They weren't ready in time for dinner, but we'll have them tonight.  My first stab to test doneness, I sampled the juice on the fork and it wasn't too bad.  So I may be a convert.  For the turnips I made them like mashed potatoes.  We agreed that we could mix it in with regular mashed potatoes.  I also think having them steamed with carrots would be good.

Getting me to eat turnips and beets is a huge feat.  This is the purpose of joining a CSA for me, testing foods I've resisted in the past, adding variety to our diet.  We certainly would not have sought out these foods in the past, but I can guarantee we have additions to our shopping list in the future.

Beets:  Rinse, place inside a square of foil, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.  Wrap the foil securely around the beet and roast in the oven for 1 hour. 

Sunday In My City - June 26, 2011

Today is the end of "Marine Week" in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.  If you have a Marine in your family, you'll understand the immense pride these soldiers carry in their hearts for their beloved Marine Corps.  My ex-husband is a former Marine (phrasing is important to include "is" and "former" not "ex" and "was").  Oooh rah and all that stuff.  So of course his children want to see all of the hoopla.  I'm waiting to hear back from my daughter who went to see the parade and closing ceremonies today.

So, yesterday youngest son and I went downtown to watch a mock invasion.  O.M.G.  We had some of the best seats possible, practically front row.  Totally amazing.

Before the "invasion" we walked around to see the various vehicles.  They were allowing people to get inside and crawl around.

I kept laughing how the Marine looked younger than Ian.  They could be classmates next year in 9th grade!

Getting ready for the riverfront invasion.  We lucked out that a side section of the park grounds were opened up last minute.  We ended up with front row seats at the bottom of the hill.  (That's Eades Bridge in the background) 

This street was blocked off, but some cyclists had rambled up before the blockade.  This Marine grabbed the girl's bike and her helmets for her. 

After the amphibious vehicle came rumbling out of the river, marines came running up to the crowd.

And took up defensive positions... literally, IN FRONT OF US!  Oh, and my 14 yr old, hormone induced son is convinced this was a girl.  I did not get a close enough look to be able to say one way or another.

Then the invaders ran into the crowd.

YMCA!  Actually, he was pointing to an incoming jet/helicopter/huey... or something.

I love this picture because it shows the amount of dust in the air.  All of that helicopter activity stirred up dirt and nasty Mississippi water.  I felt so grimy when I got home.

Warheads

The whole reason we had to go to this demonstration.  Somebody wanted to shoot a gun.  This was a training simulator.  We failed to find out what his score was, but he loved it.

Notice the black smudge in the lower corner of the picture.  I might have dropped my camera at some point in the afternoon.

Semper Fi

Click here to visit everyone else's city

Please excuse the shaky camera action

okay, the best one by far will NOT load for me.  Go here:  http://youtu.be/DWC_kEJSf9E

Saturday Survey - Bobblehead

Do you have a bobblehead in your car?

Do you own a bobblehead, but don't display it in your car?

When was the last time you saw a bobblehead?


I do not, nor never have owned a bobblehead. As part of a different conversation I just looked up where to buy a Jesus bobblehead, unfortunately the head doesn't bobble.  It's more of a Jesus-on-a-spring deal.

I have fond memories of my grandpa's Shriner bobblehead.  He sat in the back window of their car, greeting the people driving behind him.

Friday Fragments - June 24, 2011

Oh my my, what a fragmented week it's been!

So we left off last week with a database crash and rebuild Thursday night and grandma going to the hospital. 

Grandma was released on Sunday night and mom reports that she perked up when she got home.   That's good because my mom is babysitting her boyfriend who had a knee replacement last Thursday.  Too many irons in the fire to be dealing with her mother in the hospital, you know?

I came into work Monday to find that the database had crashed again.  Oh joy.  Worse yet, the entire server had seized up.  Bigger joy.  I spent most of the day trying to resurrect it.  What I should have been doing was running a back up because the bitch up and died.  Dead.  VERY DEAD.

Oh, and backups?  From the chick that spends endless time reminding others to backup?  Yeah, our routine backup failed.  Big time.  Of course on a major file.  The suckage factor here is sitting at maximum.

Tuesday morning I trotted the hard drive to a recovery dude.  He spent all day working on it.  Late Wednesday morning he called with the bad news - no resurrection possible.  On the upside, they waved the $250 bench fee and $125 per hour service fee.  They took pity on our sorry asses.

The rest of Wednesday was spent trying to upload a supervisor copy to our programmer.  Yesterday was prepping the replacement server (sometimes being a packrat pays off - spare equipment!)

Today?  Getting the programmer files loaded and hopefully restore order to our fretful little office.

Next week, we will be fixing our backup systems and looking into a second layer of backup.  I haven't read up too much about cloud technology, but I'm leaning that direction.  Time to educate myself - woo.  Like I have time for that!  ugh.

On top of everything The Husband is stressed out over the opening of a new business venture (yeah the pizza thing died back in January).  So marital bliss at my house.  Envy me.

He did manage a sweet deal on a new car, so yes, I am now tooling around town in a shiny new Ford Edge.   We traded in our Nissan Maxima only to have our car payments go up 49¢, our insurance go down and the extended warrantee refund will more than cover the tags tax and title.  Never in a million years would I ever be able to swing these types of deal.  The man is a wizard at this type of stuff.  So even though he pisses me off, I might keep him around.

My son was snapping a million pictures the other night when we took the car in for a bug shield.  So no pictures of our car, but how about a Ford Mustang?  The rest of his pictures will be worthy of Sunday's post so come back for something completely different (and awesome)

Check out everyone else sharing their week and fragments from their lives.  Hopefully none of them as horrible and dramatic and whiny as mine.

Technology Tuesday

Another long arduous day ahead of me.  We're suffering more server problems at work... yippee...

On the upside, Grandma came home from the hospital on Sunday and is perking back up.

And for fun news - I got a new car!!!!!!!  I'll save the details for Friday, so you'll have to wait.

Wish me luck today, keep my grandma in your prayers and I'll check back in hopefully soon!

Sunday In My City - June 19, 2011

Another walk through the park

Saturday Survey - Drinking

What sort of adult beverages do you most enjoy?  Are you a beer drinker?  Wine?  Mixed drinks?  Shots?  Avoid the stuff all together?

I'm a mixed drink, umbrella, girly, sweet drinks type of person.  The other night though, a beer was what I craved.  It doesn't happen often, not enough to keep beer on hand and I certainly don't enjoy the after affects of getting drunk on the stuff.  I keep a bottle of wine around the house but it lasts for a mighty long time.  I'm good with one possibly two glasses of wine otherwise you might as well pull out the camera because I cannot handle that at all.  Hard liquor is easier for me to handle, but I do not like it straight.  Cover that stuff up with juice and fruit cocktail on a miniature plastic saber.  If my plan is to get drunk, hard liquor is my poison of choice.

Lately, however, I've been the no-alcohol designated driver.  Not for any particular reason, it's just easier with fewer affects on my system, not to mention cheaper.

Friday Fragments - June 17, 2011

Today is my older son's 22nd birthday.  Not sure with his work schedule when we'll get to celebrate.  Certainly not this weekend as he's left the state to be with friends - go figure, it sure as hell is something I would do!  Gotta say, having adult children isn't very easy in the stay connected department.

I'm late in posting today because I've spent the day sitting at the hospital with my grandmother.  She's in great spirits and none too pleased about being at the hospital.  Sometime in the five minutes between the nurse checking in on her and us returning from dinner grandma managed to yank out her IV's and was trying to get out of bed in search of slippers.  Feisty old woman is going to give the nursing staff a run for their money, that's for sure. 

My mom is quite frazzled.  Her boyfriend is in the same hospital - he had a knee replacement yesterday.  Hopefully grandma is released before the boyfriend.  Either way, it looks like I might be taking some time off work to help with the load.

Clearly I was meant to be off work today.  I was in a bit of a snit having called in sick yesterday, but ended up spending all day working on a crashed server so I took today off.

Well, those are the fragments for today.  Check out everyone else sharing their fragments....

Hives

I almost wish I were talking about beehives.  Unfortunately today it's allergies.  Mysterious red welts started along my hair line on the back of my neck on Tuesday night.  I rubbed them down with rubbing alcohol and the itching went away.  Last night I was covered with welts from my neck to my thighs.

No changes in my routine, no new soaps or shampoo or detergents.  Nothing!  But there was a small construction project going on in my office.  I have a known latex allergy and remember looking at the tub of compound the guy was mixing looked very... rubbery.  Sure enough, I looked it up online and there is latex in it.  I've been breathing latex dust for two days.  Damn good thing it didn't affect my lungs!

I'm all hopped up on benadryl and the welts have gone away.  I still feel woozy and all of the toxins are, um, being eliminated.

I'll just mark this up as something to be aware of for future construction projects.  I will probably have to stay away until the work is completed.

Dave Murray's Seismograph

Some you might possibly remember Dave Murray as the weatherman on Good Morning America several years ago.  He left the big lights for his home in St. Louis and has been a reliable source of meteorological news for quite some time.  At some point he landed a seismograph - I don't remember the details about it but remember listening to an interview where he talked about this cool little gadget.

So last night... errrr... early this morning, The Husband and I were jolted awake by a house shaking burst of thunder.  Not just rattle the windows shaking, but rock the house.  And remember, I sleep in the basement so it's a different experience than snoozing up on the second floor.  The house rocked.

I wondered if this little blip of earth shaking from the heavens even struck a chord on Dave's groovy seismograph?

A Smaller Pot

Sometimes it's the simple concepts that take the longest to come to light...

We do enjoy our lasagna, but as everyone knows it takes a bit to make and it does produce a huge amount of food good for several days.  In fact, it makes so much food that even this leftover lover gets exhausted.

MAKE LESS!

So we ventured through Squallmart and found a smaller sized dish.  Voilá.

It did mean I had to break the noodles in half before boiling them, but it turned out perfect.  Just enough food for dinner and leftovers for lunch the next two days.

CSA Box 6/13/11

Multi-colored tortilla chips, red onion, cauliflower, salsa, cabbage, white radishes, zucchini, lettuce, green beans and tomatoes.  The salsa was a little too sweet for my tastes and will be given away.  The cauliflower is going to be chopped up today for hubby's munching - one of the foods I will never eat no matter how it's prepared.

We still had english cucumber left from last week so I sliced it up with onion and added the sweet onion dressing we got in the first box.  Absolutely wonderful.  I'm thinking of doing the same with the zucchini with this week.

Sunday In My City - June 12, 2011

Two years ago my daughter gave me a beautiful pink lily for Mother's Day.  I have often said I would rather have a flowering plant instead of a bouquet of cut flowers.  It was beautiful and looked darling in an old wooden bucket-style planter in my backyard.  The bunnies came along and I figured that was the last I would ever see of that pretty lily.  Imagine my surprise when it returned last year!

Well it came back again this year with even more blooms.  And with three large dogs in the yard bunnies aren't a threat.  The dog piss is a whole other threat, but they haven't gotten up to it yet.

Saturday Survey - Toes

Quick question for today...

What color are your toenails right now?

Mine are hot pink.  Freshly painted this morning.

Friday Fragments - June 10, 2011

Twenty-two years ago this was my due date... only to deliver seven days later.  Ugh.  At least it wasn't so hot that year.  That little guy is nine weeks (or less) away from becoming a daddy.

I'm never really surprised that it gets incredibly hot at this point in June, albeit we're suffering record breaking temperatures this year.  I remember throwing a birthday party for Keith when he turned five.

Doncha love the mullet?

In my infinite wisdom I had everyone gather at a local park and it was nothing but miserable.  Thereafter I never hosted another park party and began the search for alternative ways to celebrate the big day without having the entire neighborhood tromp through my house.

Although we're in the midst of a heatwave, there have been a couple of evenings that were almost pleasant to be outside.  I haven't quite gotten myself off the front porch to actually take a walk.  Just being outside and listening to the birds chatter has been enough.

My calendar is loading up with many interesting gatherings.  I will try to keep my camera in hand to capture the candid shots.  I know, I've been lacking lately.

New Neighbors

Last year a robin's nest was built on the gutter of the next door neighbor's house.  I think it was abandoned almost as soon as it was built.

A few days ago I noticed a robin lingering around my side of the breezeway.  She sat in the windows and on the roof and kept returning.  Sure enough, a nest was built.  Momma robin is in residence and not at all pleased with my invasive pictures.  If she built the stupid thing closer to the ground I would admire her blue eggs, but no, she's selfish.

You can barely see it, but the old nest is on the left.

Momma robin

Bucket List

I don't have a formal bucket list, do you?  If I did it would include a long, thorough trip through Spain.  I loaded up on exchange student info back when I was in high school and later checked into possibilities of attending University in Spain.  This girl has a hardcore desire to go to Spain, to say the least.

My college roommate had the good fortune to spend a few weeks as an exchange student in Mexico when she was in high school.  That was pretty awesome in my book and would have at least soothed my Spain dreams, but no, it was her, not me.

So take a stab in the dark (you're smart, you see where this is going) where her daughter is spending NINE FREAKING WEEKS this summer?  Madrid, Granada and Salamanca have been visited so far.  Her Facebook is loaded with gorgeous pictures of old architecture, beautiful flowers, colorful tiles and just old fashioned awesomeness.

JELL-AZZ

I'm happy for her and truly wish she enjoys absolutely every single second.  What an incredible opportunity.


but I'm still jealous

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Why was I awake at 3am when a 4.2 earthquake hit?

Let's roll back to yesterday morning... I get in my car to drive off to work and the center console was popped open.  hmmm... the door was unlocked and that console has to be intentionally opened.  If I had opened it I would have also closed it.  Remember I'm fastidious about doors and drawers being closed.  And my husband wouldn't ever dig through there.  SOMEBODY has been in my car.

Side note:  a cicada road to work on my windshield wiper!!!!  Red beady eyes and missing one wing!  I literally screamed as I turned it on to flip the bug off my car.

When I got to work I noticed napkins on the passenger seat, all of my stuff was piled up on top of them.  Those napkins had been stored in the console, definitive proof to me someone had been in there.  I checked the glove box and trunk, nothing was missing.  Even though there was still some change in my console, I'm pretty sure a good handful had been taken.

I called my husband to check our other car that is rarely locked.  Yep, it had been riffled through as well.  His change was missing and the dollar bill in his visor was also gone.  Police report is filed, blah blah blah.

I went around the neighborhood last night to let everyone know about the car incident and to make sure everyone keeps their doors locked.

The dogs don't frequently bark in the middle of the night.  We've check them out a few times.  Once there were women fighting in my drive way, back by the garage so I take the dogs seriously, but sometimes I'm convinced they're just barking at possums or one has a bad dream getting the others riled up.

Last night we jolted out of bed three times due to barking.  The street was incredibly quiet each time.  The last time was at 3am and instead of falling right back to sleep we were talking about the various sounds in the house - just shy of actually saying it's haunted - when a huge rumble, just like a very large truck, shook the house.  Sounds are very muffled from the basement where I sleep, but earthquakes are definitely louder.  I sat up in bed, ready to jolt to the floor, telling my husband THAT IS AN EARTHQUAKE.

Car break-in, earthquakes, barking dogs... all part of the night, I guess!

CSA Box 6/6/11

Last week's box had english cucumbers, long grain brown rice, pork chops, shitaki mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, and strawberries. 

The rice and pork chops have been put back for later.  The mushrooms were made into gravy.  The tomatoes disappear quickly every time since that is The Husband's favorite food.  The broccoli were chopped up and put in a bowl for random munching.  The cucumbers are still getting consumed.  I found I LOVE them sliced up like pickles on turkey sandwiches.

This week's box had onion rolls, romaine lettuce (hidden in the back), broccoli, apple butter, bacon, strawberries, tomatoes and a plant (not pictured, we chose a tomato plant).

Broccoli is chopped up ready for munching.  Strawberries were sliced last night and are soaking in sugar for dessert tonight.  Only one tomato is left.  I fried up all of the bacon yesterday morning, something we started doing recently storing the cooked slices in ziplocks in the fridge so we can add it to sandwiches and other recipes through the week.  We ate a couple of slices with eggs then added some to last night's mashed potatoes. 

We're a little weary from the lettuce we keep getting in these boxes.  I'll be using some today with another turkey and cucumber sandwich on the last onion roll.  We found we love these rolls toasted with our sandwiches.  A little tip if you don't have a toaster oven for your rolls, slap them on top of a regular toaster.  It's amazing how well it works.