Ice, Ice Baby!

We woke up this morning to a coating of ice all over the trees, the deck, the roads and the announcement that schools were closed today. Victoria was thrilled, even though her class was supposed to have their holiday party today -- for which I had made fruit salad for 30 people last night!

It should have been a cozy day, except that our downstairs heater stopped working at some point yesterday and it was brisk, as my dad from Boston would say, downstairs. So I started the world's biggest fire in the fireplace, but all the heat went right up the chimney -- unless you were standing directly in front of the flames, pressed up against the screen. I felt like a pioneer woman -- must keep the fire going! -- AND like a 21st century techie as I had two computers going in the office, the coldest room in the house.

Late in the afternoon, I took a mini-break from work to vaccuum under the cabinets in the kitchen. I don't know why they called out to me to do that -- I was just stopping to make myself a cup of tea to clutch for warmth's sake so I could keep working from home today. (Hi Monty!) But I simply had to do that vaccuuming, right that minute.

Did I mention my downstairs heat wasn't working? So I was wearing a heavy-ish jacket-y coat as I switched on my Hoover, and a few minutes into my tiny little task, I thought, hmm, that's odd, suddenly I'm very warm. Wow, housework must really be good for you after all! Hey, wait a minute ... I'm REALLY warm. My heat had mysteriously come back on.

There's a whole saga about my heater. We moved into this new (new to us) house 18 months ago, and we've had at least 15 service calls on the heater. We have a home warranty, so that's a relief, but our heater has been out for days at a time, fixed, out the next day, runs for a month, mysteriously out again. One guy who fixed it, fixed it so well that it was 90 degrees downstairs and the heater wouldn't turn off. Turns out the former owner had paid someone to rig the heater so it would pass the home inspection. We had a few weeks last winter when no one could fix the darn thing for more than a day, then I smelled natural gas and called the gas company, and they fixed it for a while.

So last week, it mysteriously went out again. (Hmm, do heaters have horoscopes? Like, could I see a portent in the heavens or something so I could predict just when it wouldn't work so I can call ahead to the home warranty company??!! Actually there is a portent: our local weather guy says it will drop below 35. My heater stops!! Spooky!!) And we had our favorite home warranty-approved company come out and fix it. I'm on first-name terms with Ken, and Tracy who does the scheduling back at the office. Ken fixed it, and said we needed a computer part, which he installed on Monday. Wednesday -- no heat! I think my heater is cursed. Or maybe there's someone with a voodoo doll of my heater -- I can see him now, sticking pins in it during the weather forecast.

Bah. Humbug.

I must be officially middle-aged. I was just in Old Navy, and not only did I think there were very few cute things for my daughter, but I was also put off by the lack of cashiers at the checkout. It is 2 weeks until Christmas, and they had 2 cashiers working.

During lunch hour.

When people who work try to get their shopping done.

One of the cashiers was moving like she was underwater and about to run out of air. Maybe she was just silently protesting the fact she had to wear an elf hat at work, but she didn't have to take it out on all of us. I was standing in line, waiting to buy three pairs of socks. I do think that Old Navy has really cute Christmas socks, and I had picked out a pair with gingerbread men on them and two more with snowflakes.

The other cashier was moving a little more quickly, so three people ahead of me in this line went over to that register. That put that cashier behind. Then a guy wearing his official Old Navy headset kept walking back and forth very officially between the two registers with a shirt on a hanger in his hands. Hmm. No elf hat here. He was careful not to make eye contact with any customers, and took his shirt over to an empty register.

Was he opening a new register to handle the overflow? Could it be? I'll never know. He spent 5-7 minutes trying to slide his official register card and get the register going, but never made it. After 15 minutes of waiting, as the line trebled, I tossed my socks on a nearby display and headed out of there. I used up my whole lunch for three pairs of socks I didn't even get to buy.
I did enjoy holding them. And I saved myself $15 bucks by not buying them, I guess.

When I got back to the office, I was relieved to find out it was not that I was middle-aged -- all my coworkers are hip, younger folks. They said they wouldn't have stayed either!

Good Enough to Eat!

My local Harris Teeter had a limited supply of this great ice cream -- Tar Heels Sundae. It's vanilla ice cream with fudge brownies and little chocolate footballs filled with caramel! It was great! Not just because the ice cream was good, but also because I'm a Carolina alum who's trying to teach her 7-year-old daughter about Blue Heaven. I must tell you that there were NO Wolfpack, Duke or Wake Forest ice cream flavors. Just Carolina.

meme meme meme me!

a meme n (mëm): is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs.

Got a challenge from Two Peas to blog about 10 memories from my school years, so here goes.

1. Plaid uniform
From first through eighth grade, I attended Holy Spirit Catholic school in a hideous plaid uniform. We didn't have the nice blue and white plaid like so many Catholic schools. Our plaid was rusty red, dark green, brown, black and navy blue. There were so many stripes and criss-crosses of different sizes that you couldn't tell which was the background color. Was it the rusty red (which faded to an unusual shade of burnt orange after a solid years' wear!), the brown, the green? During the younger grades we wore the skirt with the two suspenders that criss-crossed in the back. By fourth grade, we were lucky enough to have drop waisted jumpers and even pants that we could wear under them. When we got to 6th grade, we had red vests and skirts that pleated from the waist. All years, a red tie (like the girl scouts used to wear) and a white shirt.

To this day, I can't wear plaid. Every year, there's some zippy tartan number that's the "must have" for the new fall season, and each year I think "This year it will be different!"
But then I try it on ... and it's just plaid. Yuck.

2. Shortest girl in the class
I was the shortest girl in the class from 1st through 5th grade. We lined up two-by-two from shortest boy to tallest boy, shortest girl to tallest girl. There was always an odd number of boys, so I had to HOLD HANDS with a boy when we walked in line to recess etc. In 6th grade, a new girl came to school. She was 1/4 inch shorter than me and instantly became my best friend. She's still my best friend almost 30 years later. But in 6th grade, when we finally WANTED to hold hands with a boy ... that's when they wouldn't let us anymore!

3. We are the Trojans!
So there I am, a cheerleader for my little Catholic school, yelling things like "We are the Trojans! The mighty, mighty Trojans! Everywhere we go-oh, people want to know-oh, who we are, so we tell them ... We are the Trojans!" etc. A Catholic school, with TROJANS as the mascot?!!! We were too naive to know about Trojans, and it's only funny in hindsight.

4. Prepositions
My 6th grade English teacher made us learn our prepositions in alphabetical order. I still know them. About, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at ...

5. My favorite books
I loved the Little House on the Prairie books, Louisa May Alcott, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, Black Beauty, Misty of Chincoteague, and Judy Blume.

6. The Farrah
It was the height of fashion to have the Farrah Fawcett hairdo when I was in high school. Many could achieve it, and on rare good days, I could have those perfect little rolls of hair down the side of my face. We only did the sides, never the back. But usually the humidity of my beach community ruined my Farrah, especially because I did not understand the wonders of Rave hairspray at first. My hair did "feather" nicely, though, so all was not lost.

7. Mousse
Mousse was invented just in time for me to avoid hari kari due to my non-holding Farrah. The Farrah was over, but it was handy for big hair of the 80's.

8. The Preppy Look
Okay, I admit it. I had button-on bermuda bags, strawberry wrap skirts, and those little colored leather belts with the interchangeable goldtone buckles. I think I had a train, ladybugs and something else. I wore brightly colored polo shirts, baggy jeans and parachute pants. I stopped short of the add-a-bead necklace.

9. Journalism class
I loved being on the yearbook committee my junior year and also did a radio show for our school. It sparked a career for me and I'll always be grateful for the experience.

10. Cootie Catchers
We called them fortune tellers, but nowadays they call them cootie catchers. These go back to elementary school, not high school. But we used to love to make them out of paper to tell each other's fortunes, the more elaborate, the better. Do you remember how to fold, number and color them? You can click here for a website that will show you how. My daughter saw them on Nickelodeon the other day and I got big points for remembering how to make one so I could tell her fortune. She's saved it next to her bed, near her rock collection and CD's.

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam ... SPAM!

I had no idea you could spam a blog. But it has happened to me. And heck, this isn't even a blog I've been particularly good at keeping up with. Life just had a way of interfering with that this summer.

How did a spammer find my tiny lil blog?!

Well, Mr. Spammer, I made some changes to foil you next time! If you'd like to post comments, all you folks out there who are NOT spammers, I truly welcome your thoughts. You'll just have to do that word verify thing.

Now I've got that whole Monty Python skit running through my head ...
"But I don't loike spam!"
"I love it. I'm having the spam spam egg spam spam spam and more spam, spam"

wink and a nudge, eh?

Scrapbooking ... or reading about scrapbooking

Is it the same thing or slightly different? In my new house, which has a dedicated scrapbook room, I have found I am not spending as much time scrapbooking. I haven't done any of my album for 2004, and am stuck on December 2003. Maybe it's the whole Christmas in July thing -- a little early.

At first I thought it was about the lack of entertainment. I was used to scrapbooking at my kitchen table with a clear shot at the TV and my new room didn't have cable, or a tv. I tried listening to music, which was a good thing, but missed my TV. After a yard sale, I had enough $$ to go to Target to buy a Polaroid TV which came with a DVD player. (I think it was kinda cute that I was buying a Polaroid television set for a scrapbook room -- get it??!!! Who knew Polaroid even made TV's?) So I played DVD's, and did some more scrappin'.

You know what was good for scrapping? Believe it or not, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It's 3 hours long, and it works whether you're listening to it or not. You know what's not good for scrapping? Love Actually. I always watch it instead of doing my albums.

I can't figure out what it is about that movie, but I love it. Actually. I can watch it over and over. In fact, after my 10th or so time seeing the whole thing or pieces of it, I found its fatal flaw. They edited one scene too early. I remember seeing it and thinking "how cute" and then when the song it references comes on, I thought, how odd, but I didn't realize that something was wrong until I really looked at the wardrobe. It's the scene with the movie "stand-ins" after their date. Only, what you don't realize until later, (or until I spoil this for you. Stop reading now if you don't want to know!) is that although you see the end of their date at this point, you see the beginning of their date about 10 minutes later when everyone's going in to see the kids' Christmas show at the school. And then her line "All I want for Christmas is you" makes perfect sense. This hasn't ruined it for me ... but now I revel in my keen-eyed perception.

Since I'm on the subject, I'll tell you about my other amazing blooper that I figured out all by my ownself in 10th grade. Subject: Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Harrison Ford is in the map room with his staff of Ra, it extends a foot above his head. Well, if you remember that the medallion had two sides, the old guy who translated it said the side the Nazi's didn't have said you had to take back one kadaah (unit of masurement) to honor the Hebrew god, and Indiana and Sallah said the staff would be six feet tall before he told them to take back 1 foot, then the staff would be five feet, wouldn't it? And with Harrison Ford being 6 feet tall, the staff would hit somewhere below his chin and the sun would not penetrate the crystal, and he would not know where the Ark of the Covenant was. But thanks to movie magic, the staff is proudly taller than good ole Harrison, the sun shown through, the crystal lit up, pointing a laserlike beam of light right smack dab onto that map and sure enough that's where they found the Ark. There are more bloopers in that movie (I saw it a bazillion times in 10th grade due to my major crush in Harrison Ford) but that's the big one for me.

Okay, so if I can remember all this stuff, why can't I remember that I like to scrapbook and I have a year or more's worth of pictures up there for me to get down in an album? Why did I read 3 or 4 scrapbook magazines this month? Why do I surf Two Peas, but don't do my albums? Maybe I need to make a to-do list and put scrapbooking on it!!

Oh, and my brother turned 38 today. Happy Birthday Ray!