It Aint Easy Being Cheesy

How's this for dinner...

grilled cheese sandwiches
mac & cheese
Cheetos
cheese cubes

Actually, it is fairly easy to be cheesy...you can't get much easier than this.

Note: This is Paul's plate. No cheese cubes for me.
That's just carrying things a little too far.

Photo Book

I got an email from Creating Keepsakes magazine about a free photo book from Shutterfly, so I decided to order it and see what they're like. I only had to pay shipping & handling. Instead of digital scrapbooking my own pages, which you can do if you want, I decided to go the easy route and went with their dog template (they have many templates to choose from). You can customize the layout. I used my favorite pictures of Abby with just a few captions. I can't wait to get it!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Fuzzy Feet

Before:

After:

Whew! What a job!

Feeling Left Out

The little one wasn't too pleased to be locked in the bedroom while the Direct TV guy roamed the house doing his thing. The looks she can give are hilarious.

What The Hell Is That?

Okay...now not only do we live across the street from the city's largest ugly brick mailbox, but now behind us they're building the city's largest...enclosed patio...or something. I don't even know what to call it. It's not a pergola...those are open lattice across the top. This has a roof! They started building it late last week, and I just took this picture tonight.

Seriously? I guess I'm going to have to wait and see what it looks like when they're done. Do you see how much of their back yard it takes up? Usually these people have a big trampoline back there that the kids use every single night in the summer. I wonder where they're going to put that now. I also wonder if they got this approved by our joke of a homeowner's association.

Pickle Face

I just love it when I come across stuff like this!



Thank you, Quiznos pickle, for making my day!

Top O' The Mornin' To Ya

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hee, hee, hee. Like that? I made it myself last night. I hate the whole "Kiss me, I'm Irish" thing, so this is my take on that! Oh, I also hate leprechauns too...did I mention that? You also won't catch me not wearing green on March 17th because I'm not about to be pinched. You don't mess with a girl with an Irish temper!

We're meeting Amber and the kids over at mom's for dinner...reubens!

Just How Bad is Leroy Brown Anyway?

He's bad, bad Leroy Brown.
Baddest man in the whole damn town.
He's badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog.

Radio stations should not play that song in the morning. That's the last song I heard before getting out of the car, and I can't get it out of my head. It's just so darn catchy!

ABCs of Me

A. Age: 41

B. Bed size: King. It's a double-sided pillow top. It sucks...worst bed ever. We've learned from this very expensive bed that we both need a firmer mattress.

C. Chore you hate. Grocery shopping. Most people probably wouldn't call that a chore, but it is to me. It's torture.

D. Dogs: LOVE them! I'm partial to big dogs....like the size of retrievers and up.

E. Essential start to your day: I don't really have anything that is essential to start my day. I very rarely drink coffee, so it's not like I have to have caffeine to get me going. In fact, I prefer to go without caffeine, as too much of it makes me uncomfortable and jittery.

F. Favorite color: Blues and greens. I don't have one favorite color.

G. Gold or silver: Silver fits my skin tone better. My wedding rings are gold. I'll wear either I guess, but because I don't wear much jewelry, it's not an issue.

H. Height: 5 feet 6-1/4 inches.

I. Instruments you play: None. I wish I could play piano, as I have the fingers for it, but never learned. I tried to play the guitar once in my life, but that didn't work out so well. Frankly, I don't have the patience to learn an instrument.

J. Job title: Medical Transcriptionist III

K. Kids: No human kids. Miss Abby is my baby girl.

L. Live: Illinois

M. Mom's name: Rose

Photographer: anankkml

N. Nicknames: Mon

O. Overnight hospital stays: Three times. Once with tonsillectomy, once with knee surgery, and once with laparoscopy. I've had just about enough of that.

P. Pet peeve: There are too many to name, and I just don't have all day. People giving unsolicited advice ranks right up there.

Q. Quote from a movie: "If life has taught me anything, it's that 95% of people are always wrong."~Edward Cole - The Bucket List. Just saw that movie last weekend--loved it!

R. Righty or Lefty: Righty

S. Siblings: Biologically - Gary, Barry, and Debra. Honorarily - Sheila.

T. Time you wake up: Alarm goes off at 6 during the week. For some reason on the weekends I keep waking up at 7:28.

U. Underwear: Yes. =)

V. Vegetables you dislike: Lima beans and black-eyed peas (that is a vegetable, right?). Nasty, nasty, NASTY! We were at Cracker Barrel a couple of weekends ago and as we were walking out, I heard some lady ask the vegetable of the day. Lima beans. Why on EARTH would a restaurant serve lima beans? I just don't get it.

W. X-rays you've had: Too many to count. I had my elbow x-rayed in the 9th grade when I slipped on the ice. I think that was my first experience with one. I've had x-rays of my neck,

back, ankle, and obviously my knee.

Y. Yummy food you make: The sugar cookies are pretty popular.

Z. Zoo animal (favorite): Bears...especially polar and panda.

Photographer: Hal Brindley

Things To Think About

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea....does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?

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Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

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If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

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If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP? ?

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What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

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I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use. Toothpicks?

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Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office?

What are we supposed to do, write to them?

Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

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Is it true that you never really learn to swear until you learn to drive?

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As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice:

When you put the two words 'The' and 'IRS' together, it spells 'THEIRS'?

Boy that last one sure is true. Even after Paul's raise and the 2% decrease in the amount he is paying to Social Security, with the two tax increases that have happened, we're bringing home almost $100 less per month than we were at the end of last year. =(

Southerner's Medical Dictionary

Got this in an email from a friend of mine. I don't know if I would call it a "Southerner's" dictionary...especially seeing as how our family comes from the from the south and we are highly intelligent beings. It's more like a stupid white trash dictionary. Yeah, that's MUCH more politically correct. =)

Artery.............................. The study of paintings

Bacteria........................... Back door to the cafeteria

Barium............................. What doctors do when patients die

Benign............................ What you be, after you be eight

Caesarean Section......... A neighborhood in Rome

Cat scan......................... Searching for Kitty

Cauterize........................ Made eye contact with her

Colic................................. A sheep dog

Coma.............................. A punctuation mark

Dilate............................... To live long

Enema............................ Not a friend

Fester............................. Quicker than someone else

Fibula............................. A small lie

Impotent......................... Distinguished, well known

Labour Pain................... Getting hurt at work

Medical Staff.................. A Doctor's cane

Morbid............................ A higher offer

Nitrates.......................... Cheaper than day rates

Node.............................. I knew it

Outpatient...................... A person who has fainted

Pelvis............................. Second cousin to Elvis

Post Operative............... A letter carrier

Recovery Room............. Place to do upholstery

Rectum.......................... **** near killed him

Secretion....................... Hiding something

Seizure.......................... Roman emperor

Tablet............................ A small table

Terminal Illness............. Getting sick at the airport

Tumor............................ One plus one more

Urine.............................. Opposite of you're out

Love It!

Sleepy Face (aka Wrinkle Face)

Every once in a while when I'm lying on the couch watching TV, I'll glance down to the other end and see this looking back at me. It always takes me by surprise but makes me laugh EVERY single time! It's like she's just staring at me and plotting her revenge. In reality, it's her "just woke up" face and she's looking at me to see if I'm going to get up. I call her "wrinkle face" because of the big wrinkle that always shows up down the side of her face. Usually with that...and her realization that I'm not getting off the couch...I just get a huff and snort and she goes back to sleep.

Sorry about the quality of the picture...my cell phone sucks!

Finagle My Bagel

I have no idea what that means. I just needed a word that rhymed with bagel!

Anyway, since I have nothing better to do than take pictures of my breakfast, I thought I'd share. I've been on a quest to make a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel that rivals Mickey D's. Not that that is difficult. There's aren't that great, but we were hooked on them for a while. Because we're going cheap lately and eating at home more (trying to anyway), I've been attempting to make them at home. The difficulty is in the sauce. I think McDonald's uses some sort of hollandaise sauce. I didn't even want to attempt that, and bottled holandaise sauce just doesn't sound good. When Paul orders breakfast at Subway he gets their Southwest Chipotle sauce on his sandwich, so we decided to go that route. We've experimented a little. We found some chipotle mustard and Paul mixed it with a little Miracle Whip. It was okay...me not being a huge fan of that particular zesty spread. It was good enough, so we used that a couple of times. (Note to self...try that mustard on a brat!! ) Recently we ran across some of the new flavored mayonnaises by Kraft, and they happen to have a chipotle. So this is what I used this morning.

Photo from Amazon.com

Not too bad. Definite chipotle flavor. I only used a little bit so as not to overpower everything. In order to keep the sandwich from being too bready, I used the Thomas Bagel Thins. Other ingredients...Oscar Mayer bacon...scrambled eggs...American cheese...salt and pepper. Simple. Easy. Tasty.

Hahaha. I Googled "finagle" to make sure I was spelling it right, and apparently there is a brand of bagel called finagle a bagel. Interesting. If I'm ever in the Boston area, I'll have to check them out. Not that that is going to be anytime soon!

Christmas Eve 2010

It's all about the food, right? We didn't do much for Christmas this year, as we're really trying to watch the budget. You still have to eat, though. Christmas Eve we went over to mom's. She wanted to make steaks and baked potatoes and watch a movie. As I'm not a fan of steaks made at home any way but on a grill, I steered her toward appetizers. That way we got a variety and we could contribute. Check it out...


This pictures is even missing a couple of things. Mom made chicken wings, homemade caramel corn, cheese dip/chips, and her delicious homemade egg rolls. We brought potato skins, bacon-wrapped shrimp, and a different kind of homemade caramel corn. Yes...WAY too much food for the three of us. It's impossible to make appetizers for three. Of course, mom could have made a few less than 20 egg rolls.

Egg Rolls

Chicken Wings

Teriyaki-marinated bacon-wrapped shrimp

Potato skins

We've been wanting to attempt to make potato skins at home for a long time, and these turned out SO good. It was much easier than I thought it would be.

We ended the evening watching a movie. Mom had never seen In The Line of Fire.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like Clint Eastwood.

Happy 4th!

God Bless America!

Have a happy and safe 4th!

Food For Thought Friday

Breakfast

What is the last movie you saw and how did you like it?

Hang on...let me ask Paul because I don't remember. He don't remember either, so he has to check his "folder." He keeps a list on the laptop...you know...he's the movie buff and all. Okay, the last DVD I saw as a movie called "The Uninvited." It was okay...kind of weird. The last theater movie I saw was Wolverine at the drive in. It was okay. I like the regular X-Men movies better.

Lunch

What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

I don't think I can pick just one because it totally depends on my mood. Baskin Robbins has a chocolate peanut butter that I REALLY like (but I don't get it often because Paul prefers soft serve). I still like chocolate chip mint or butter pecan. I really like my ice cream loaded up with crunchy things like chocolate chips or nuts or something. Oh, there is always Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby. I think I've mentioned that on here before...vanilla malt ice cream swirled with fudge and peanut butter and then mixed with peanut-butter filled pretzel nuggets. OMG!

Dinner

What is one goal you want to achieve this summer?

Get the area that we just had tilled in the back yard ready to plant some bushes and covered with mulch.

Midnight Snack

What do you do to pamper yourself?

Take a bath and read a magazine.

Recipe of the Week (instead of your recipe for life, what is it just for this week?)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Food For Thought Friday

Breakfast

What is your favorite part of the summertime?

Grilling out. Longer days...so you don't feel like it's time to go to bed when you get home from work because it's so dark outside. The feeling of the cool air conditioning when you first step inside from the sweltering heat. Being able to go outside without having to bundle up. Watermelon. Fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. The smell of freshly cut grass. Painting my toenails so I can wear sandals. Less traffic in the mornings since school is out.

Lunch

How was this week different than others?

Well...there was no leaking water or exploding trains, so I guess that's different than the last few weeks have been.

Dinner

What did you think of Michael Jackson?

He was an icon and I'm shocked and saddened by his passing. It's tragic. I often felt sorry for him. He didn't have a childhood and no privacy in later years and look what it turned him into. He'll never again have to hear the things people say about him.

Midnight Snack

What do you have planned for this weekend?

I'm working Saturday, but besides that we hope to get done we didn't get to do last weekend...work out in the yard...power-wash the siding, work on painting the porch railing, etc. Oh, and give Ms. Abigail a bath and a haircut so she looks purty and smells sweet for her visits with her favorite peeps.

Recipe for the Week (instead of your recipe for life, what is it just for this week?)

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with. ~ Michael Jackson

God Was Teaching Me A Lesson

I don't know how many times in the last couple of weeks that I said, "I hate this house." All the different home-related issues we have been having were really getting me down. As Paul said...it's all about perspective. After being evacuated, all I wanted to do was get back home to our house even with all it's problems. This has to be God's way of telling me to be happy with what I have because it can easily be taken away.

They finally started letting people back to their homes at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon. We drove all the way over here only to find a police car blocking our road. Our road and the road behind us were still considered to be too close to the tracks and weren't cleared yet. The cop told Paul she would let us through to pick up some necessities. She said at that point it wasn't a mandatory evacuation but it was suggested that we not stay. Once we got home we debated about staying. There were a couple of families on the street who were home, but we thought it was better to be safe than sorry, so we drove all the back over to mom's. They finally cleared the entire area for all residents to return to their homes at about 5:30 p.m. Below is a map of the area to give you an idea of how close we are to the tracks. The X is our house approximately...the circle is the site of the derailment and explosions.


It was so good to be back home. I was totally exhausted. I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep Friday night with all the stress of leaving and reading the news and all that.

The investigation into the derailment is underway and could take months according to the news. They are still thinking it was from the tracks being washed out from the heavy rains. Apparently the crew of the train was calling to report high water on the tracks at the moment the train derailed. Today they discovered that one of the train wheels hit a gas line upon derailment. There was a protective covering on the gas line which did what it was meant to do...otherwise things could have been much, much worse.

I feel sorry for the clean up crew and investigators out there because boy was it hot today. The heat index was reported to get up to 95 but the humidity was unbearable!

What's Next????

First it was Paul's tooth extraction that didn't go well. Then it was the leak in the kitchen from the overflowing toilet in the bathroom upstairs. Last Sunday our sump pump decided to burn out. We're talking sparks flying out of the breaker box. Today it rained so hard that water is seeping through the walls of our basement (thank God Paul replaced the sump pump). To top it all off...and this is the biggest one of all...we were watching a DVD tonight when at about 11:30 there was a loud knock on our front door. That alone is enough to freak you out, but when you see that it's a cop...well, that just makes it all worse. While I was trying to keep Abby away from the door and trying to turn off the security alarm, the cop informed Paul that there had been a derailment of a train carrying hazardous material and there was a mandatory evacuation of the neighborhood. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!

Photo courtesy of Rockford Register Star

I'm sure by now if you've watched the news you already know about this...114 cars...all carrying ethanol...as of right now 12 cars on fire and they can't control it. Click on the picture to read the story. Everyone within 1/2 mile is being evacuated. The train tracks are approximately 2-3 blocks from our house. There is one road behind us and after that is the trees and the tracks. As of right now, they still don't know the cause of the derailment. The initial speculation is the rain washed out the tracks. That I can believe. We were out to dinner tonight and while we were eating there was a torrential downpour. As we were walking out to the car, the water was up to our knees in the parking lot. We could barely get through the intersection of Sandy Hollow and Alpine to get home, and we crossed those tracks...about 1-1/2 hours before the derailment...and the amount of water was outrageous. We were both saying how we've never seen anything like it.

There were some civilian injuries with some people in critical condition. We don't know for sure, but we're thinking it was the people in the cars waiting at the railroad crossing when the train derailed. The two people on the train are okay. I have heard that there was one death, but that isn't verified.

We're at mom's for the night. We have no idea how long the evacuation is going to last. I guess it depends on how long the fire burns. This is just so weird. It's something you read about on the news but you're not involved in. Below is an eyewitness video.

I'm going to go watch the news a little more then try to get some sleep. I'm supposed to work tomorrow morning, but considering how I didn't bring any change of clothes, I don't think that's going to happen. I'm sitting here in sweat pants and a T-shirt. God, I hope it's not too long before we can go home. I just tonight read an article in one of my magazines about preparing for a disaster and having an emergency kit. We even talked about that we need to do that because you never when when you're going to need to evacuate. How weird is that!!