"Snow" Day

Today was a snow day for me. Yeah. No snow here in "the 'couve" though. I was able to hit the grocery store and Michael's. Yeah. I finished off three scarves I'd made and did some baking. Did I get my school work stuff done? Not so much. Maybe later. I just got a text message that tomorrow is a two-hour late start day and the weather guys are saying that we'll get more snow Wednesday. What an interesting week.

Here are the chocolate dipped macaroons I made. Delicious, but really sweet!

And here are the caramels I made. Yummy, yummy, yummy! I only cooked them for 11 minutes though. Had I cooked them any longer they would have been toffee I think. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my Pampered Chef stoneware?
All wrapped and ready to go!

Oh and did I mention that my computer is shocking me? Yeah. I'm worried. The one year warranty is over and last time it was shocking me like this it died. Yeah. Fried mother board. Not good. All memory was lost. It really sucked and Best Buy really pissed me off. You can read all about it here or here or here or here.

Ok, it's really shocking me now...I've said way more f-bombs than you can imagine and I'm now getting afraid to touch this stupid machine. Dammit!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

So let me just say that last week was one wild and crazy week, full of ups and downs. I had a lovely dinner at The Melting Pot with my gal pal Liane. We love going there and last week they had a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Hospital. Nice meal, good company, great to get out.

Tuesday I had my author's class, which I really enjoy. But, it's all the way out to Marylhurst University. By the time I finally get home it's almost 9:30 p.m. A long day for me. I get up at 5am.

I was actually able to enjoy Wednesday evening at home with my family, thank goodness because on Thursday I was at work until 8:30 pm for the kids' music concert. What a late night. Sometimes I just wish I lived a bit closer to school. (I live 30-ish minutes away)

By Friday I was wiped out. Seriously wiped out. Oh and I think I forgot to mention that 3 weeks ago (or so) Mr. Tall was rear ended and pushed into a car in front of him. Yeah, the insurance people decided that our 2001 Ranger was totaled. Argh...I hate car shopping. And we couldn't do much shopping until we heard what the insurance company would be giving us for the truck. Thankfully they offered a fair amount, but finding something in that price range in what we want has been challenging. Every time we find what we want and call on it, it's GONE! Blah. So, we've decided to just have a broker do the job for us. If he's good I'll share the love on his information.

Oh and did I mention that we're also dealing with major daycare issues? Yeah...long story short, Shorty is gone from the daycare she used to go to. I really don't want to go into details here, but we've made a report to child protective services. All I can say is parents, talk to your kids. Listen so they feel like they can tell you anything and believe them. Trust what they say. End. of. Story.

We spent most of Saturday ironing out all the icky details of the daycare debacle. Today we got our Christmas tree. (and did a bit of grocery shopping) Yeah, without a truck we had to tie the tree to the top of the rental car. Thank you kind boy scout that helped to tie the tree on in the pouring rain. Yeah, he was a real boy scout. We buy our tree from the boy scouts' lot every year. Nice. What the Enterprise doesn't know won't hurt them. We thankfully arrived home with an unscathed car and a tree still on top.

Next it was decorating time. Shorty was so excited. She promptly unpacked all of the ornaments and spread them on the floor. I would have taken pictures but I couldn't find the camera. I found it after we had the tree decorated. Oh well. The tree is finished, but I'm not feeling like getting up and taking a picture and then uploading it. So stayed tuned.

Car Shopping Sucks

So Mr. Tall was rear ended and shoved into another car last week while driving his Ford Ranger. He is fine (so far) but the insurance company has decided that the truck is totaled. The body shop says they cannot fix it in a way that it would be safe to drive either. So now we're waiting to hear from the claims adjuster on what they'll offer us for the truck. Rumor has it they usually offer you next to nothing, instead of "replacement cost" of the vehicle. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for a fair amount. I've been calling upon the good karma gods out there and trying to cash in good karma I've earned. Wish us luck.

In the mean time, while we wait we decided we should probably start looking for something else. The rental we have is only ours for a week or so more. So....we dropped Shorty off at Grammy's house and headed out to check out the used car lots. We braced ourselves for the smarmy greasy pariah that are car salesmen. The first place we stopped at we witnessed a salesman chasing a woman down trying to make a sale...seriously, does he think this will encourage her to buy the car?

I. Think. Not.

So we didn't find anything we can't live without. Nor did we find any deals that made us want to sit down and sign papers. Part of the issue is we don't know how much we really have work with. We're hoping to cash flow the cost of the new truck. I just don't want to deal with a car loan. I hate debt!!!

So wish us luck. I'll keep you posted. And if you know of a screamer of a deal on a 2001-ish Nissan Frontier or Ford Ranger with a back seat and a great price.....e-mail me.

It's Saturday

So it's Saturday again. Bleh. One would think I look forward to Saturday, but not so much. I was woke up this morning by Yeller McShort at 6:30 am. Thank. You. Very. Much. All I wanna do is stuff a sock in your mouth and spank you on the bottom.

9:30 ballet class. Not bad, but not "mommy time" either.

10:30 play date. Nice to catch up and visit with my gal pal while the short people entertained each other.

2:30 "rest" time for Sleepy McShort who never slows down enough to sleep because she's too busy running to the stop of the stairs and yelling, "is rest time over yet"? during which time I'm madly trying to finish up the last bit of stuff for my distance writing course, since I have report cards to deal with next week and the stuff for class is due by the end of the month. Argh.

3:30 I've given up on finishing any work and am here writing about my day. I'm dreaming of getting away and getting a pedicure of my nails done. A glass of wine. That'd be nice. Where is my genie with three wishes when I need him? Heck, I'd even settle for an empty house where I could sip cocoa and read my book (I just started Love in the Time of Cholera). But I don't think that is going to happen. No. It's not. Oh well. I'll have peace and quiet when I'm dead, right?

Letter To The Computer Gods

Dear Computer Gods,
I want you to know that I'm trying to be patient. Really, I am. And I want you to know that I am thankful for the technologically gifted people you have connected me with in life...specifically my wonderful brother in law, Arron. I'm easpecially thankful that you helped me keep my cool at Best Buy tonight as the Geek Squad guy told me he could basically do NOTHING to help me, unless I had $59 bucks. You helped me be calm and talk nicely and then call Arron. Thank you for given Arron the ability to run the diagnostics on my baby for FREE.

I want to ask you a little favor....please...cure my girl, let her be ok. AND FAST. Like, I don't wanna have to wrap her in a cold box and send her to wherever Acer is. She'll be all alone and oh so scared. And she really doesn't wanna be away from me for a month either. Please let her be ok. Let Arron make her all better.

I'm hoping you've noticed how patient I've been through this whole ordeal. I mean, really...you let some teenage punk break into my home and steal my first baby and then this...I've been patient. I didn't get pissed at my hubby and have even tried to be nice too. I didn't even get angry at the Geek Squad guy for not being helpful in the least bit.

You must also notice that I have INCREDIBLY less time to spend in the internet world. I mean, by now I must have at least 1,000 blog posts to read on my Google Reader. And just think of all the e-mail I'm behind on. I really need my baby back...and SOON.

So, if there are computer gods out there, please let them send a working laptop with wireless capabilties.

Thank you.

Amen