I Hate IBM With A White Hot Inferno of Anger

I live in an area where IBM has been a prominent employer for many, many years. Back in the good ol' days it was the kind of place you could get hired right out of college, work your whole life there, and retire. They used to treat their employees really well, they even had a big "Family Day" every year, a health club, you name it. I used to be jealous because it seemed like my Dad was the only Dad that DIDN'T work for IBM, I was the ONLY one it seemed not going to "Family Day".

Well, let me tell ya, a few years later boy was I glad my Dad didn't work for IBM. That's when the first layoffs started. And they've continued ever since. When they'd have a layoff, it used to make the news. Now they lay people off so frequently it's hardly even noteworthy. Little by little all the good benefits and perks went away. And loyalty? The people who run IBM now care only about making the stock prices better so they can retire in a few years with a big fat payoff. They don't care one bit about employees. It doesn't matter how good at your job you are, nor how many years you've worked there. When it's time to make cuts everyone is fair game. Especially if you happen to be really good at your job and you've worked there a long time - you put a big target on yourself 'cause you make too much money. And the worst part to me is that when times are better, they hire, hire, hire - but NOT the people they laid off!

This is not a company laying the groundwork for the future, cultivating employees for long-term careers. This is a company that cares only about the bottom line in the short term.

My own DH was laid off from IBM too a few years back - TWICE! (Thankfully he doesn't work there now, he actually got a much better job elsewhere.)

Just for kicks I Googled "I Hate IBM" and I found this gem of an article: Think & Ask IBM Layoff, Executive Reviews...Everyday Life @ Big Blue. Scroll down to read the comments at the bottom of that article, and be SURE to read the small print right under the heading "Reader's Comments"!

And the impetus for this post is that I found out yesterday someone near and dear to me was one of their latest casualties. And I am 100% sure it was not performance related. I've seen it a million times - it's a "cost-cutting measure".

IBM, you can cost-cut my you-know-what!

Woot! I'm a Winner!

How cool is this?? I won a case of Primo water over at I Should Be Folding Laundry! I don't know if she picked readers randomly or if it was based on what we said in our comments but here is what she asked for:

"Tell me in the comments section one thing you do for the environment, do you recycle every week? Do you ride a bike? Commute with a group? Drive a hybrid? Use cloth diapers? Tell me, because it's my hope that by you leaving your comment that readers will learn to live greener just from your comments."

Here was my comment:

We also reuse our water bottles, separate our recyclables from the trash and use reusable grocery bags. In addition we have like a million dish towels that we try to use for cleaning and spills to reduce the number of paper towels we use. And in order to save energy this past winter, since I'm the only one home most of the day I kept the heat as low as I could tolerate and wore a coat in my own house all winter long until everyone else came home! It did save a lot on heat! :-) 'Course now that summer's here, we're trying to find energy-saving ways to stay cool (which means try not to use the A/C) so a free case of water sure would be an energy-saving way to keep cool! ;-)

I don't know if maybe she felt sorry for me about wearing my coat in my own house all winter and thought maybe conversely in the summer I'd have to go around naked unless I got some water to cool me off or what, but hey, I won!

If you want to read that entry and everyone's good ideas on how to be "greener" it's here.

And here's why Primo water is better for the environment - get this:

Primo is the first nationally available bottled water whose bottle is made from plants, not crude oil! Primo offers you the convenience and great taste you're looking for – in a bottle that's friendly to the environment.

How? It's all about the plastic we use. It's called Ingeo^tm, the world's first and only performance plastic made from 100% annually renewable plants. Nearly all other plastic bottles made in the United States are manufactured from petroleum, a non-renewable and diminishing resource.

Wow, pretty interesting!
And a big thank you to Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry for this cool prize!

Update on my GE WJRE5500 (aka my washing machine)

If you've been reading my blog for awhile I'm sure you remember my saga of trying to get the carefully chosen, consumer reports rated "Best Buy", infamous GE WJRE5500G model washing machine. Now that I've had it for a while, I thought I'd post an update.

Does this pic say it all?

I am very happy to say I am very happy with the washer. Very surprisingly, it's QUIETER than the front loader I had, and it seems to extract just as much water out of the clothes as well. I'm sure it does use more water than the front loader, but considering front loaders only have an average life span of 5-7 years, the small amount of money you save is pretty much wiped out by having to BUY ANOTHER WASHER. I am presuming this one will last longer! (See my PSA about Front Loaders for more about how I'm not the only one whose washer only lasted 5 years - costly repairs are a big problem with front loaders in general, not just my model and brand. If you're a member of Consumerreports.com go and read the USER reviews for different models if you don't believe me - titles like, "Good While It Lasted", "Good Machine But Not Worth The Repair Cost", and "Nothing But Trouble" to name just a few.) The clothes seem very clean, and there's no problem with it going off balance. The wash cycle is shorter than my front loader's was, and it holds more clothes, so I actually feel like I can get through all my laundry quicker. Two thumbs up from me!

In case you're thinking of buying a new washer soon, or you just love washing machine photos, here's a couple of pics of top and inside of this washer:


I ordered this washing machine through Lowe's (I looked everywhere - Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowe's and no one carried this model in their store - anywhere I went it had to be ordered). It cost about $450.

Two morals of the story:
#1 - Do not buy a front loader!
#2 - The GE WJRE5500 *is* worth the wait! :-)

Grumpy Cow

No, no, no, I'm not talking about ME, I'm talking about a website I bumped into while "card dropping" and it's called Grumpy Cow. Today's post happens to be "Win a Custom Blogger Template". Now since I have already used every last brain cell I own to figure out how to set up my blog as it is (there was actual gnashing of teeth when I added the third column), I would LOVE to have someone who actually knows what they are doing jazz up my page. So I'm entering the contest. If you're as un-savvy as I am when it comes to HTML and CSS and XML and WTH? Then head over and enter too! :-) She's got some REALLY cool templates and banners, some for sale and some for FREE!

Shout Outs to My Entrecard Top Droppers!

I want to take a moment to thank my most faithful Entrecard droppers!

My top five droppers are:

Obscure History - if you have not ever been to the "flying book" (that's what I call his icon in my mind) you MUST check out his site. I don't know where he finds this stuff and how he chooses it, but he chooses an event from the past that happened on that day and tells you all about it. Sometimes it's a "memory refresher" and sometimes it's a "whoa, I totally never knew that".

So Now What - this is the blog with the little armed groundhog. This blog has extremely thoughtful posts, generally on current events. Sometimes I don't like to read really long posts, but I always take the time to read these, they're worth it! :-)

First Door on the Left - now as I sit here luxuriating in my "Rush Runs America" t-shirt, one would not think that First Door on the Left would be a blog that I enjoy, as it is a decidedly left-leaning political blog, however, it is actually one of my favorite political blogs! As much as I love Rush and all things conservative, I actually enjoy hearing what the "other side" is saying. I even agree now and then! And, his Friday night cartoons are THE BEST!

Freaky Frugalite - If you read my blog often, then you've already heard me call Freaky Frugalite one of my favorite blogs, so if you haven't already checked it out, you're missing good stuff! She's a homeschooler who likes to save money (I do too!!). She usually posts a few times a day with all kinds of interesting topics. I love fresh content!

New York Renovator - I posted just yesterday how I spent an entire afternoon reading her renovation story. She doesn't just post about her home though - she posts about all kinds of home-ownership topics - like how she treated the iron chlorosis in her maple tree and how to fix drippy paint cans.

So thank you so much, for visiting me so faithfully over the last month - thank you for clicking on the cow! :-)

I've Been Awarded an Award!

Well, much to my surprise, I have been honored with the Arte y Pico award from New York Renovator! This is one of the blogs I visit every day - the link is actually already on my blogroll. I once spent an entire afternoon reading her whole renovation story! (Don't come crying to me if you get sucked in and end up reading the whole thing too - I warned ya!)

I am doubly surprised to get this award because JD at I Do Things So You Don't Have To already "got a shiny award so you don't have to" for me, but in this case, I certainly don't mind getting the award myself! :-)

So thank you, New York Renovator, for this most honorable and esteemed award!

The rules for passing this honor on:

1) Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award - for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award. http://arteypico.blogspot.com/

So now I have the honor of bestowing this award to the following very deserving blog:

Livin' Life SandyStyl - Sandy has had a rough couple of days, so hopefully this cool award will brighten her day. She's usually a very frequent poster, and you'll never know what interesting tidbit she'll be sharing - photos, freebies, memes, etc., - go on and give her a visit!

Now I'm going to find a nice spot for my lovely award! :-)

The End.

1977 Was More Frightening Than I Remember

I was reading the forums of the infamous Two Peas in a Bucket scrapbooking website and someone posted about a hilarious post from the blog 15 Minute Lunch. I went and read it and the gist of it is, this guy was installing an exhaust fan in his wife's grandfather's house and found a 1977 JC Penney catalog in the insulation. He shares some truly unbelievable examples of fashion and style from 1977. Here's just a taste for you:

(I had to keep looking and re-looking, but yes,
those are both men in this photo.)

And it's not like these pics are from Vogue or some high fashion magazine, this is from Penney's. Which would lead one to the logical conclusion that people actually purchased and wore this stuff.

Anyway, there's more pics and hilarious commentary to go with them, however, be warned there is foul language. (If the language bothers you, at least go and scroll through the pics, they're plenty funny on their own.) Check it out: 15 Minute Lunch

Edited to add: I kinda like those "barrel" chairs and table!

The end.

Forgot to Tell Ya the Coolest Thing About My Garden by the Big Rocks

(Just a quick post, I was able to get online at a friend's house, high speed it still out.)

If you climb onto the big rocks with the garden around it and look down you see this:

And, in this crevice lives a fat brown gopher-groundhog-woodchuck-creature! I was actually a little bit nervous that he might pop up to say hello while I was standing at his front door, so I was ready to jump, but he was either in there paralyzed with fear or else out hunting for dinner. (Come to think of it, wouldn't it be funny if it's him that's eating my flowers?) We see him occasionally when we pull into the driveway. He usually waddles at top speed back to his hidey hole as soon as he sees us.

(I don't exactly know what creature this is, but there's a blog I like called So Now What? and if you look at the square picture on the right, sometimes I imagine my little brown friend is going to pop out looking like that one of these days...)

Internet, Oh Internet... Where Art Thou, Internet?

We had EXTRAORDINARILY bad storms here yesterday in upstate NY, and although I am lucky enough to have power, the high speed internet is down, and I put myself through the agonizing torture of 46.6 Kbps dial-up just to let you, my faithful readers, know that I wasn't slacking off today - it's only because of an Act of God that I am unable to post.
I'll post when I can...

Love, Me

Ok, who watched Camp Rock?

Ok, who will admit it? Well, I will. DD is 9 and she is a big Jonas Brothers fan so Friday night was movie night here. (I believe they also showed it on ABC Saturday night.) Me, I'm a Nick fan. DD likes Joe. The movie was ok. It was no "High School Musical", but it wasn't bad. I might have enjoyed it more but I was extremely distracted by Joe's eyebrows. I was waiting for his eyebrows to have their own lines in the movie.

DD had me throw a tape in the machine to tape it, so she was watching it again Saturday morning. I went and looked and the DVD isn't out until Aug. 19, but the CD is already available. I threw a link up to the CD at Amazon; I already ordered it. I thought the songs were pretty good and a wide variety of styles.

Now that Camp Rock has finally debuted, I guess Disney will be inundating us with the Cheetah Girls "One World" promos for the rest of the summer. It will actually be a pretty good "movie" summer though for DD - we are also eagerly awaiting the American Girl "Kit" movie, and Walle, the new Pixar movie, is coming out within the week. Haven't seen Kung Fu Panda, but we are lucky enough to have not one, but TWO drive-in theaters to choose from, and that might be a good one to catch there this summer.

(If you're sitting there grimacing that I, a grown woman, watch all this "tween" stuff and enjoy it, let me tell ya, the appreciation for it comes after years of being subjected to watching Dora the Explorer, Teletubbies and Barney. After that, anything would seem good.)

Photo courtesy of Aceshowbiz.com

I'm Not Going to Limit Myself to Wednesdays...I'll Go Wordless Whenever I Feel Like it

If the Deer Don't Eat it and It Wants to Grow There, Then I Go With It

Garden by the big rocks

That's my gardening philosophy. Where I live it is extremely difficult to have gardens, or even shrubs for that matter because of the deer overpopulation. They eat nearly everything. In fact, if we don't fence off or cover our shrubs in the winter, we will not have shrubs in the spring. (Eh, not that that ever happened to us...) Trying to have gardens during the summer are a big challenge. Wouldn't you know the deer have even walked up right against my house to eat the roses off my rose bush?? Jerks!!

They do sell plants and flowers marked as "Deer Resistant". The deer laugh at this. So basically, it's trial and error. I have found some things that the deer don't seem interested in. They don't eat my purple irises. So I have tons of those. They don't eat marigolds, but I don't like them that much because they're annuals. I don't actually like gardening much, so I like plants that I only have to plant once. I've even resorted to going around my property and digging up native plants and planting them in my garden in hopes they would survive. (And hey, at least they're free, so I don't get AS mad if they are eaten.) We actually have some really nice wildflowers. My favorite doesn't really come into it's glory until late summer, but we have these really tall purple thistles. You can't pick them though. They have some gigantor thorns you wouldn't believe.

So yesterday I was working around this garden that we have surrounding these cool boulders near the end of our driveway. I trimmed off the dead iris stems. I also replanted some Wild Geranium that my Garden Wizard Aunt was so kind as to give me, since the deer didn't eat it where I have it up by the house, maybe they won't eat it down by the rocks. Pulled out some grass and weeds and generally inspected what was growing this year. I have a few mystery plants. That's always fun! The first one is growing where I had planted coreopsis last year. Which is a perennial. Except not mine. Now there's something growing there and I have no idea what it is, but it hasn't been eaten, so I'll leave it and see what happens. (Please, if anyone has any guesses for me, please share! It's the smaller plant in front.)

Mystery Plant #1

This is mystery plant/weed #2. I pulled quite a few of these out where the irises are, but I left some growing in the back. I honestly have no idea what it is. Some that I pulled out were quite tall.

Side view of Mystery Plant #2

I've heard there's a shortage of honeybees, but not in my yard. I had to be careful while I was weeding, they were all over these purple flowers that I've had for years that the deer don't eat, but I've long forgotten what they're called.


As if gardening at my house is not challenging enough, there's a minor problem when it comes to watering the garden by the big rocks. Hose doesn't reach. So I had to come up with my own means of getting water down there.

Hey, it works!

Sometimes I have to make a couple of trips, or sometimes I use TWO kitty litter containers filled with water. (I took a pic of it by my truck because I love my truck, btw, in case you forgot.) So I'll cart some more water down on my way to meeting DD at the bus stop this afternoon and hope the Wild Geraniums take okay.

And don't get eaten.

As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior!

76 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Ok, I totally stole this idea from Freaky Frugalite's blog, but it's so funny I had to share (she actually had a much better score than I did). There are separate tests for men and women - click on "Take the test" and see how YOU fare as a 1930s spouse!

I took them both because after doing the female one, I just HAD to see what the men's one was like. Basically it's a list of traits and you check off the ones that apply to you (some are bad traits, some are good).

The one I thought was particularly funny from the female test was, "Keeps self dainty, perfumed, and feminine."

From the male test, "Gives wife real movie kisses not dutiful "peck" on the cheek."

Let me know YOUR score! :-)

An Unspectacular Meme

I was tagged for this fun meme by one of my favorite bloggers - the Freaky Frugalite! I read her blog every day - she posts about lots of different topics - you never know what interesting tidbit you will find - go check it out! (And her site has a big ladybug which is very cool! :-)

First, here are the rules:
1. link the person(s) who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.
Ok, here are my six "Unspectacular Quirks":

1. I don't like sandwiches. I mean, if that's all that's available, I'll eat one and live. But I almost never make myself sandwiches at home. And on the rare occasion that I make or want a sandwich it's usually either tuna salad, chicken salad, or egg salad.

2. I hate to take the recyclables back to the store. I'll clean up cat barf, take out the garbage, clean toilets, but take back the returnables? No way man! (DH does it. Don't want you thinking I just throw all those returnables away!)

3. When I pump gas the total MUST end in a 0 or a 5.

4. I was traumatized in my childhood by a dish my mother made called "Scallops Thermidor" and as a result I have always HATED ANY AND ALL TYPES OF SCALLOPS. However, after many years of persistence, my DH has finally somewhat convinced me to try scallops and not detest them. Somewhat.

5. I drink diet soda because I like it. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with DD and couldn't drink regular soda. After she was born and I could go back to regular soda, it tasted WAY too sweet and never went back to it. Coke Zero is actually my fave soda.

6. I have my own Webkinz account. As a matter of fact, yesterday was Mozilla's big Download-the-new-Firefox-Day in an attempt to set a new world record for number of downloads in a day. (Did YOU download the new version? It's nice, I likey!) And an issue I had that was preventing me from getting onto Webkinz using Firefox was mysteriously resolved because now for the first time in weeks, I can get on! My issue was that after entering my user name and password, I would click the "Begin Playing" button, and I could SEE the button being pressed, but nothing would happen. I emailed Webkinz and they gave me a phone number and service ticket, and I called the number and the tech guy had me try a bunch of things and he couldn't fix it! So I'm very happy that it's working now - bonus!
So now here are my six tags:

Muthahood Crib - "Did someone say Margarita? On the rocks with salt, please." An interesting potpourri of posts. She just did a contest for Favorite Dad Bloggers, some good links!

Mature Not Senile - "You will find my opinions about life and everything else here.I have always been broadminded and view almost everything with open interest unless it's very technical - then I'm lost." Really interesting and thoughtful posts on a surprising variety of topics I wouldn't expect.

Maternal Spark - This is a website that I only recently discovered. Lots of great "Mom" tips. She's got quite a big giveaway going on right now too.

Heart Shaped Hedges - "Busy mother of 3 trying to get through the day without making too many mistakes." Recently she got one of those scam emails from Nigeria and she's trying to play their own game with them - I hope they write back soon! :-)

Ask Grandma J - "Because who else would you ask?" A very funny blog that is updated pretty much every day, she's hilarious!

2nd Cup of Coffee - "Why "2nd Cup of Coffee?" Because I wanted people to feel like they're lingering over a 2nd cup, sharing good conversation." She's a VERY talented and entertaining writer, she's also a LOST fan! She was just recently published in a book called Life Savors.

The end!

This Looks Like a Bad Picture, But It's Actually A Good Picture!

Because it shows Texdog behind the new screen in our slider, woot woot!

He's gonna really have to turn on the afterburners to bust through THIS screen. We got special pet screening. It was a bit more expensive but if it lasts longer, it'll be worth it. The very cool thing is that DH, who never replaced a screen before, got it right on the first try. I helped and it wasn't exactly easy. Definitely seems like the kinda thing you'd have to do over once or twice to get it right, but no! Got it on the first try. The pet screening is quite a bit thicker than the old screen so DH really had to muscle the spline in. I don't think - despite the well known fact that I am "strong like bull" - that I could've done it.

So, that was the good news. The bad news was this:

Went down to the basement because DD wanted her "bin of crap" (it's a plastic tub with misc. McDonald's toys, dollar store whatnot, pieces of this that and the other thing - aka "crap"). And not for the first time in my life as a homeowner, I see water on the basement floor. I swim upstream to discover the source - lo and behold it's Mr. Dehumidifier who for some reason, decided NOT to shut off when his little tank was full. Luckily we've learned from the past and most all our stuff that is actually on the floor is in plastic bins, so very little got damaged. We even had plenty of cardboard from our last "water event" in the basement to absorb the water.

It's not even like we've ever even lived near a river or anything that has caused the various floods in our basements of the two homes we've owned. We've had floods for a whole variety of reasons. I thought this one was particularly clever and unexpected.

Eneman!

So DH was out geocaching in the hot weather Saturday and came home with possibly the most interesting and disturbing travel bug I've seen in our over 400 caches that we've done.

It's Eneman!

(I know this because that's what it said on the back of his cape.)

I said to DH that I wish I knew where to get a hold of more of these. Wouldn't this make a great Secret Santa gift?

(In case you're in the dark, the word across his chest that is somewhat worn and hard to read is "Fleet" which is a brand of enema.)

Three Things that are NOT Cool About Me

A couple of weeks ago I did a post called Three Things that are Cool About Me. Well, it was hard to choose from the multitudes, but I narrowed it down to three things that are NOT cool about me...

I know, I know.

Yes, the switch is set to AM.

DH calls these my "Joker Pants". At least I don't wear them. Any more.

(Ok, these pants are seriously from 1990. I don't think I've worn them since then. I don't know why I keep them. Sentimental reasons I guess. Doesn't everyone have some stupid, out of style, ancient article of clothing they can't part with?? Well this is mine!)

Texdog Busted Through the Screen Door

DH opened the sliding glass door to let Tex out a couple of weeks ago and Tex forgot that the weather is warmer now and that the screen door was there. Busted his big black dog head right through. He's actually forgotten about the screen before, but he's always bounced off. Hard to be mad at him though. Could you be mad at this face?

So I looked online to see how to either replace the screen, or see how much it would cost to buy a new door. After looking at the instructions to replace the screen, I was like, "no way I can do that"! So I took the measurement of the door and went to Home Depot. They had the size I wanted and it was only $30. Not too bad I thought. I then spent 20 minutes in the parking lot figuring how to strap this thing in the back of my truck. It was just a tiny bit too long to fit it in with the tailgate up, so I wanted to be sure since I had to leave the tailgate down, that it wouldn't somehow fly out on the way home. Now physics and engineering are not my strong suits, and if they have cameras monitoring the Home Depot parking lot, I'm sure a couple of security people were having a good laugh watching me try to figure out how to strap this thing in. To add to the difficulty level, it was drizzling. So by the time I decided I was finished strapping it in using winch straps and bungee cords, this is what I came up with:


I even remembered to tie on the little plastic red flag (pats self on back). So I get home and bring it around back up onto the deck. Go to put it in - doesn't fit. Wha?? Try again. Nope. Doesn't fit. What the heck?? Turns out our old door is 61" rather than 60". (60" being the standard size, of course.) GAH!!!! So DH tells me he thinks he can replace the screen. (I secretly think "good luck with that!" to myself) and so last week we returned the door (DH came up with a FAR easier way to transport the door that did not require one strap or bungee cord) and bought not just screening - but PET screening (supposedly stronger). We also got a new "spline" and a "spline tool". So DH rolls out the new screen. Would you believe it was defective? Had a "run" all the way across it. So I returned that earlier this week (luckily the roll is small and did not require winching or bungee cords) and got a new roll. DH is going to make another attempt to replace the screen sometime soon - now that the heatwave has passed it would be nice to let air in. I'll report back with how that goes. *crosses fingers* *says little prayer*

Anybody out there ever replaced a screen? Is it as difficult as it looks??

Thank You For Making My Dream Come True, Mrs. Mecomber

Mrs. Mecomber remembered that I hoping to be tagged for my first "meme" and she tagged me! Do me a favor and go visit her over at New York Traveler.net !

This one is nice because it’s short and sweet (she took it easy on me). All you do is answer the question with one word, and tag four bloggers. Here goes:

One Word Meme

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Your significant other? K
3. Your hair? Clairol
4. Your mother? Heaven
5. Your father? Bestest
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? Obama
8 Your favorite drink? Diet
9. Your dream/goal? Lake
10. The room you’re in? Bedroom
11. Your hobby? Scrapbooking
12. Your fear? Spiders
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Lake!
14. What you’re not? Unloved
15. Muffins? Tops
16. One of your wish list items? Tiffany's
17. Where you grew up? Upstate
18. The last thing you did? Brushed
19. What are you wearing? Nightgown
20. Favorite Gadget? Laptop
21. Your pets? Lovies
22. Your computer? Entertainment
23. Your mood? Happy
24. Missing someone? Lots
25. Your car? TRUCK!
26. Something you’re not wearing? Wig
27. Favorite store? Bookstore
28. Like someone? DH
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Tonite
31. Last time you cried? Forget?
Now I'll tag four bloggers, but no one is obligated. (Apparently I'm told I'll be hating memes in no time, so I don't want to torture anyone if they're already at that point. :-)
Hot Rods in the Hudson Valley ... "Content is for informational and amusement purposes only, and even that might be a stretch."

Dance of Motherhood ...with a shot of tequila! "A theatre of comic, dance and drama..."

Absolutely Moms - Nessa's Place ..."a bit attitudal, a smidge smartazzed and a whole lot blunt. What ya see, is what ya get."

What Lies Within the Mirror (She's the Monkey Farts Candle Maker. Either this extra publicity will help me win, or if she hates memes I think I've just sealed my fate...)

The end.

I Promise, I Was Not Actually Searching For This...

"Pink makes your kitty feel elegant, modern and quintessentially feline." - Kittywigs.com

Well, I for one am glad someone has FINALLY come out with cat wigs. Because you know, sometimes your kitty wants to kick it up a notch when she's heading out for a night on the town. She wants to stand out from the crowd. Up until now, what were her options? Fancy collars? Been there, done that. Colorful toenail covers? So yesterday. At last someone has seen the need, and fulfilled it.

For the cat who has everything - Kitty Wigs!

(I think my Basil kitty would look good in the blue one.)

Kitties did a lot of layin' around today. We have an indoor/outdoor thermometer and in the afternoon sun it hit 104F. We have the A/C on, but I was out grocery shopping at Hannaford for most of the afternoon, so I had the temp set fairly high while I was out. I kinda think they like it hot though. All evening I had the "Hot Child in the City" song in my head, except in MY head it was going, "Hot Cats in the City...Running Wild My Little Kitties...."

I think the heat is getting to me.

The end.

Photo from: Kitty Wigs!

To All my Entrecard Friends...

Am I the only person who gets so involved in reading most of the blogs I visit that I FORGET TO DROP MY CARD?

I end up looking in my drops inbox at the "cards you haven't dropped on" and I'm like, "Wait, I visited there today, and hey, I visited there today too...?" So some of you get two visits from me 'cause I have to go back and drop. A-duh.

I know a lot of people "drop and run", but I do try to read most blogs I drop at. I guess that would be why I rarely am able to drop more than 50 cards a day. (I mean, I can't be spending ALL day on blogging - I have soap operas to watch and bon bons to eat you know.)

Entrecard

Ok, I Knew A lot of People Were Unhappy with Google's New Favicon, But...

Didja notice the big Google "G" we all are so familiar with on your browser tab has been replaced with a lame wussy little g? Yes, Google has changed their favicon. And some people are very upset about this. Someone was so upset they registered for a domain name called bringbacktheoldgooglefavicon.com. It starts off, "Dear World,"...

(I hate it too, btw.)

(But no, I didn't sign it.)

Actually if you go to Google's Blog, scroll down and look at some of their alternate choices. Aren't like pretty much ALL the alternate choices better than the one they picked?? What were they thinking?

How To Make a Heatwave a Little More Bearable

Quote from DH: "Having a keg is fun!"

So we didn't turn on the A/C until 10:15pm last night!! Ok, we kinda cheated though... We stuck it out through the afternoon, but at 4:15 we left to go over my Dad's to hang out and watch the Belmont Stakes, so we got to spend the remainder of the afternoon and most of the evening in glorious A/C. Got home about 10:10 and looked at the temp on the thermostat - it was 86F (inside). So I promptly went about the business of flippin' the switches on the thermostat to "cool". I heard it click on, then I anxiously went over to a vent to feel if it was cool... And yes! It worked just fine, woot, woot! So we got a decent night's sleep in coolness. We do have it on today - we have it set to 80 though (we usually set it between 78-80). That sounds like it's not very cool, but it's really not bad at all, and what makes a huge difference is that the A/C dries out the air so it's not humid in here anymore. My Dad had his on 68 when we were there (I think)? Which was a little cool for me... I wonder though what other people typically set theirs to?

Well 80 is certainly better than Monday's forecast high: 95F
And Tuesday's forecast high: 96F

By the way, DD is eating chicken legs right now and "Q-ee alert" is set to "high".

The end.

Monkey Farts

I visit a lot of blogs. And a lot of blogs have contests and giveaways, and usually the way to enter is to write a post on your own blog about the contest, and/or put a button or a blinkie on your site to promote them, or put a link on your blog back to them, yada, yada. Although often I'd like to enter these contests, this blog could easily turn into Carole's Thoughtful Spot of Sites to Go Enter Contests, so I use self control and I don't do it. Except this time. This woman from a blog I visit has started a candle shop - Happy Thoughts Candles - and she's having a contest to promote her candles. By blogging about it here, I get one entry. The winner gets a candle of their choice and one of the scents is "Monkey Farts". And surprisingly, those candles are pink. (Silly me, I would've thought they'd have been yellow from all those bananas they eat.) I'm so intrigued. Can you imagine someone walks into your house and says, "Oh it smells so nice in here! What kind of candle are you burning?" Wouldn't it be great to be able to say, "Oh thank you, it's Monkey Farts!"

If don't win, I may have to break down and buy one!

And, NO - I haven't turned on the A/C yet! Me and DH and DD are all sitting in the livingroom under the ceiling fan, not moving. In fact, DH is trying to stay as cool as possible, and so as to not make an unnecessary movements, he's forced himself to take a nap. What a trooper!

The End.

It's 11:40 and I haven't put the A/C on yet!

I do not like looking at the weather forecast and seeing a sun with a cactus.

This is the graphic on the weather forecast for tomorrow (it's going to be almost as hot today but the graphic had clouds in it for potential showers later). Now if I lived in Texas, I'd expect something like that. But I live in New York. And I am highly intolerant of hot weather. I'm actually PROUD of myself for not turning on the A/C yet.

Last night we went out for dinner and on our way there every time I saw someone jogging or biking along the road I said, "Better do that now, gonna be too hot on the weekend!" I even said it about the lady waiting for the bus.

We (DH and I) have already talked about trying to conserve energy as much as possible in the name of saving money. Easy for him to say - hot weather doesn't bother him much at all. But even Mr. Frugality admitted he couldn't stand in the way of turning on the A/C for this kind of weather. There's actually a chance our A/C may not even work. For the first few years we lived here, every fall and spring when we'd go to turn on either the heat or the A/C it wouldn't work and we'd have to call the heat & A/C guys (who put it in when our house was built only 6 years ago) to get it working. They had some explanation for what was happening (had something do do with trapped hot air, or cold air, or something). Finally a couple of years ago they came and installed something that would remedy that. Since then, it's worked. So I'm PRESUMING it will work when I inevitably switch in on this year. That'll be an exciting moment. It would definitely be a BAD time not to work. Ya know, on a WEEKEND at the start of a HEAT WAVE...

So we'll see how long I can last without turning on the A/C. If I just sit here and don't move it's fine. It's the moving around that kills ya. I'll try to make note of the time I turn it on. Place your bets now!

Oh, and thankfully I mowed the lawn YESTERDAY.

And I know you want to know....

First pull, baby!

(In case you're wondering what I'm talking about see the Lawnmower Saga)

The end.

My Cat is a Cat Jerk

This is Q-ee (pronounced Cue-ee). He's a jerk. Don't get me wrong. We love him to death. But he's a jerk.

Now we have a bit of a strange dynamic going on at my house. We have two cats and one dog. We got a cat first. Then added the dog. The original cat didn't like the dog too much at first, but now they're friends. Then we got Q-ee. Now he wants to be friends with the old cat (Basil), but she won't be friends with him. (Sometimes I think Basil needs a throat lozenge for all the hissing she does at him.) On the other hand, our dog (Tex) WOULD like to be friends with Q-ee, but just to make everything difficult, Q-ee wants no part of Tex. In fact, Tex is somewhat afraid of Q-ee. Q-ee will actually GO AFTER Tex just to try to swipe him (oh and by the way, Tex is a big black 65lb. german shepherd/husky mix). Although, to his credit, every now and then Tex gets to the point where he's had enough and he makes a big show of growling and barking and he'll corner Q-ee and then Q-ee leaves him alone for a few days. But then he goes right back to antagonizing Tex. And I don't think any of this discord bothers Q-ee in the slightest. In fact yesterday, he walked right up to Basil and plopped himself down. She starts hissing at him. You know what he does? He yawns. Then he sticks his leg out, pauses, then starts cleaning his leg. You might think that maybe he's deaf and doesn't hear all that hissing. Believe me, this cat is not deaf. He can hear a can of cat food being opened from any location in this house. This cat lives for food. In fact, we've trained him to come when we call by rewarding him with treats. Kinda funny how we call him though. I don't know why or how we started doing this, but if you know the 50s song "Sea Cruise" the end part of the chorus goes, "Woo-ee, woo-ee baby, won't you let me take you on a Sea Cruise". Well we sing it with, "Q-ee, Q-ee baby..." instead. So whenever we want to call him, we sing that chorus. Silly, I know. And he always comes a runnin' 'cause he knows that's his song and it always ends with something yummy to eat. The bad part of this, is that guess what I had to sing around my neighborhood when he escaped one day? Yep. There's me, singin' "Q-ee, Q-ee baby..." at the top of my lungs up and down the street. Bad Idea Jeans on that one.

Anyway, what prompted this post was not the normal jerky things he does (drink out of our cups, sit on our laptops (while we're using them), stealing chicken drumsticks right out of DD's hand (he actually did that once - now DD knows to hold on tighter, ha ha)), but yesterday I was sitting in our sunroom, where incidentally our dog loves to park himself. Tex wasn't in there though for some reason. Q-ee was sitting with me. All of a sudden I hear the jingle of his collar and I hear him coming downstairs. So you know what Q-ee does? He gets up off the couch, moseys over, and sits right smack dab in the middle of the sunroom doorway. So the dog won't come in. There's poor Tex on the other side, wagging his tail, looking at me. Whining. Q-ee, not movin. HE IS SUCH A CAT JERK!

(Yes, I made Q-ee move so Tex could come in.)

The end.

In the Immortal Words of Susan and Bob...

So I'm watching Larry King last night (whom I don't particularly care for, but he comes on after Anderson Cooper, whom, if you remember, I do care for (yes I know he's gay)) and he's got a 3 way split screen panel talking about the election and Hillary getting out, yada, yada. He's got Gov. Bill Richardson, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and... Gov. Jesse Ventura. Immediately the Sesame Street Song starts going through my head, "One of these things is not like the others...." I'm sure he's a fine governor, but to me he'll always be Jesse "The Body" Ventura...




If you have time and are a lover of Sesame Street, take a few minutes and search YouTube - there's tons of clips on there. Remember the Twiddlebugs? The Big Hamburger Skit? Monsterpiece Theater? Snuffleupagus? Tell me your favorite Sesame Street clip!

Thoughts on my blog...

So, I've been blogging since March. I've also made a concerted effort to READ a lot of blogs, to get ideas, inspiration, and try to figure out what makes a good blog.

My observations:

• There's a LOT of lame blogs out there. I was surprised it took a lot more hunting than I thought to find some good blogs.

• There are SOME really GOOD blogs out there! I spend waaaay too much time sometimes reading them...

• I notice there are quite a bit of blogs that do the pay-per-post thing. I don't hate it, but it's kinda weird - like a commercial in a blog. I know they're written so that they don't sound like a commercial, but you can still tell... I wonder how much money can be made by doing this? I haven't investigated it.

• A lot of blogs have all sorts of little awards and nominations and blinkies and such in their sidebars. I have none of that (other than my attempts at blog traffic with Entrecard and BlogUpp). Am I lame, or does anyone really care about that? Do people come to my blog and say, "Oh, she wasn't nominated for "Coolest Blog With a Cow" and she's not a "Posh Mommy" so this blog CAN'T possibly be any good"? I know I could download some of them myself, although I think I'd need to turn this into a 3 column blog to make room. I wonder would I have more credibility if I did that?

• Quite a few blogs I visit do giveaways. That seems kinda fun. Maybe I'll try that sometime. Not sure what I'd give away though?
  

• No one's tagged me with a Meme yet. I'm a tiny bit sad about that. Maybe someday. Maybe if I had blinkies and awards? Sigh.

• Lastly, quite a few blogs I visit have very long posts. Admittedly though, they don't usually post each day. Whereas I post (usually) shorter posts, but I do post nearly every day. Is one better than another? A few long, thought out and profound posts a week, or nice short inane ones every day?

Speaking of inane, I've rambled on long enough. If anyone has any constructive criticism or thoughts to share, go for it.

The end.

A Blog I Like

I read a lot of blogs, but here's one that's kinda unique and entertaining that I want to share. It's called Hot Rods in the Hudson Valley. Now certainly I am no expert on cars, BUT, this guy has a very interesting project going - he's documenting his conversion of a 1955 Ford F100 into an Electric Vehicle. How cool is that?? And even though I don't know much more about cars beyond how to pump gas into it and how to dial the number of the dealership when it needs service, John (the blog author) somehow manages to explain what he's doing in such a way that even *I* can understand it. He also includes his mistakes, thoughts and witty commentary, and some interesting side notes as well. For example in this post, he explains how he modified a child's bike into a "glider" (bike with no pedals for little kids) - so cute, and what a GREAT idea! (He has a little girl himself.) He's got another post called Please Don't Take Your Cars Apart People and it shows a photo of a car with all it's parts out spread on the floor so you can see just how many parts are in a car! So if you're not into cars, check it out anyway - it's really interesting, and sometimes very funny. If you ARE into cars, you probably already clicked away from my blog to go check it out...

While I'm writing this, I'm sitting here drinking coffee (8 o'clock French Vanilla brand) and eating a new kind of cereal bar I got at the store yesterday (I had a coupon!). It's Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Peanut Crunch. OMG. It tastes like peanut brittle! Super yummy! If you like peanut brittle for breakfast, I mean. Which I do. I place no restrictions on what time of I day I can have peanut brittle.

The End.

Arm and Hammer Odor Alert Cat Litter

So the other day I'm shopping for cat litter. Usually I use Arm & Hammer brand. When I looked at the shelf, there were a few "varieties" of this brand of litter. This one caught my eye.

Arm & Hammer Odor Alert Clumping Cat Litter
See the Odor Before You Smell It!

Number one, I have no need whatsoever to SEE the odor before I smell it. Smelling it is enough of an alert for me. I already clean the box once a day; I'm not going to run in throughout the day looking for blue crystals to see if any new odor has developed. I have other more important things to do like eat bon bons and watch soap operas.

Number two, you don't need to alert me with color to tell me there's an odor - call me crazy, but I usually use my nose for detecting odors.

Number three, how about we use our technology to find alternate sources of fuel so we don't all go broke, rather than trying to go high tech with kitty litter? Is this really a good use of time and resources?

However, if you're the type of person that likes to keep close tabs on your household odors, maybe this is for you.

Good grief.

Blogger Trouble...

I have a post ready but Blogger is having some major problems today, I can't even upload my photo and it took me forever just to get in to make this post... I'll try again later, sorry! :-)