Thursday, January 29, 2015

Being Naughty...

I know, when am I not being naughty? Don't answer.
I have 73 students in the on-line class that I am teaching this semester. I'm taking a break from reading the 836 discussion posts. I think I'm getting dizzy from all of the spelling and grammatical errors! Why is it so difficult for students to understand that informal grammar and sentence structure is fine for their Facebook but not for their classwork?

Mini-vent successful. On to better things...

I finished a few mini-stitches. Don't tell Van Gogh that I threw him to the wayside for a bit.

This one is for my co-worker G-Mama. (Yes, I do have a nickname for everyone.) I think it turned our quite good. Pretty in it's simplicity.

This one is for my co-worker H-Banana. 
I have another one finished, but I just can't seem to remember to take it's picture. Blah.

I hope you are having a fabulous Thursday! The weekend is almost here!
XOXO

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

It's the brakes & a Van Gogh Update

Saturday, oh blessed Saturday. Joe and I worked on 3 vehicles. Replaced the adjustable cam arms on the Pumpkin.





Checked the brakes on Precious, my Saturn, and they were practically brand new.
And finally replaced the brakes on his F150.
 Meet Bam Bam, LOL... HE can help get the job done!
 Yup, he needed them. Good thing Joe's Guardian Angel watches over him.

I love helping Joe b/c I learn something new, he let's me do some of the work (the kind that I can't screw up), and I get to play with power tools! It makes me happy! See the Mona Lisa smile?

As for Van Gogh, I FINALLY have all of the colors I need to complete Starry Night. I ended up finding the last 5 colors at a store in another town. Because I had to make the drive, I stocked up. Especially since driving the interstate in Precious still freaks me out. I'm not used to being so small, and until now, I have never seen the underside of an 18 wheeler trailer. I find it a bit nerve wracking. Yet, at the same time I'm wondering if I'm small enough to do some drifting beneath them. Have no fear, I'm not stupid enough.

(Rambling again)

Speaking of stupid...

Enter the deet-da-dee moment. I'm trying to find the 3rd color to the "b" on my chart. As I've said before, my color legend was in black and white. (Or that's what I tricked myself into believing.) Here I am flipping through the pages of the chart and I see pg 2 and then pg 4. Ok, one more time. Pg 2 and then pg 4. Adrenaline starts pumping... how the heck did I lose pg 3?! One more time... pg 2 and Hallelujah!... pg 3 was stuck to pg 2 like it had E6000 on it. AND NOT JUST THAT!!!! Low and behold there was my color legend printed in color! Geez-o-peet! A bulb flashed in the back of my mind to 4 or so years ago when I bought the pattern. I brought it to work to show Miss Sherry. We made her a copy to take home and see if she had some of the colors I was missing. Evidently, I stuck the legend within the pattern pages... to keep it safe... and conveniently forgot I had the darn thing. I seriously screamed when I found it because, well because, I made myself believe for all these years that I didn't have it. Watch your brains, lovelies, because I think they can play tricks on you without you even realizing it! I'm such a dork sometimes. Truely.
Anyhoo... here's what I have done so far...
Slowly but surely. And who knows, maybe I won't be ninety when I finish it now.

XOXOXO



I'd go...

to therapy, but I've learned that my brain doesn't respond. (Don't ask. I won't tell... at least not today.)
This past weekend had a majorly traumatic chapter in the epic novel called My Life.
I'm b-bopping along, singing to the tunes on the radio. Driving to pick up my Girl. It's Friday. Life is good. And then... it wasn't. (I hope you're sitting down.)

You know how back country roads are... 35 mph, if you're lucky, twisty curvy spots that are all closed in by trees and the next bend is never seen. (Oh, how I miss the openness of New Mexico.)
I rounded a corner and noticed a truck pulling out of a driveway. My eyes were on the truck to make sure it was going to stop and I didn't need to brake check my "new to me" little Saturn car. (Insert missing my SUV here.) The truck stopped. The medium sized dog, that I did not see because it was on the other side of the truck, did not stop. I had no time to hit brakes. I whacked that poor baby good. I'm talking, front right passenger side took her out and ran over her with a thump and a bump and a couple of yelps. My tire came up off the road and hit back down so hard that I've been dreaming of that exact moment for the last few days. I fully expected to find a dent in the bumper, blood, dog hair and quite possible an ear stuck in my grill. (Thankfully, I didn't.)

I now know my brakes work well because I came to a sliding stop, barely missed a passing car, yanked up my emergency brake, hit the flashers and jumped out so fast that I thought I would pass out. This is where the actual fun begins.

The truck had pulled out of their drive and parked behind me. People come flying out the truck... Grandmother, Mother, Aunt and 3 kids. The aunt yelled at me: "You couldn't (insert F-bomb) stop for the d@mn dog?!?!".

Mom, Aunt, and shrieking half dressed children go running to the home they lived in because evidently I didn't kill the dog. (How did that happen?) The front door was open, but the dog wasn't in the house. They start ripping the underpinning off their home looking for the dog and yelling "Oreo."

Grandmother gets out of the car and starts talking to me at the driveway. At this point I've dropped to the ground in the middle of the road, because well I just became a dog murderer, was hyperventilating and my adrenaline rush had my entire body shaking so bad that I could barely talk much less think.

Here's the conversation as best I can remember:
Grandmother: "Honey, you need to get out of the road before someone runs you over." She's rubbing my back and arms trying to get me to calm down. (It's a little weird to say the least.)
Me: "I'm going to be sick, I can't breathe, think I may pass out."
Grandmother: "Honey, it's ok. Just move out of the road, please. I know you couldn't stop. It's the kids fault for letting the dogs of their chains. They have no reason to be upset because they have 6 more dogs. Don't worry about it."
Me: "I'm so sorry, I didn't have time to stop. Those poor babies just saw me run over their dog. What do I need to do? I'm so sorry."
Grandmother: "Honey, it's really ok. You need to calm down."

Mom and Aunt start walking back over with the youngest boy. He can't be more than 5. He's wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, his cowboy boots and is carrying a huge bag of potato chips. I couldn't help wonder where his coat was. He gives me a big huge smile and says, "It's ok, really, it's ok."

Then Grandmother looks at the Aunt and tells her she needs to apologize to me for the way she yelled and treated me because I didn't deserve that. AND... the Aunt does. (I think that's when I noticed the Aunt's half grown out bright blue hair and the hot pink streak in the Grandmother's hair. Interesting.) Then she goes off on a tangent about how the dog had really been hers and it's no big deal.

I look at the mom and apologize again because the girl, who is probably 8 or 9, is still in full melt down mode.
Mom says, "Really it's ok. It's the kids fault and they have 6 more."

I asked one more time what I needed to do. Mom said that they think Oreo ran off in to the woods behind the home and mentioned that it probably just had a broken leg or something. Grandmother starts telling the kids to get back in the truck so they could go get PawPaw and eat ice cream.

The Aunt starts rubbing my arm and asks if I've calmed down enough to drive. Then the Aunt looks at the Grandmother and asks her if she felt my coat because it was super soft. The Grandmother says, "Oh yes, it is super soft, I felt it while I was rubbing her back." Then Mom had to feel my coat. I asked ONE MORE time about the dog... needing to find it and take it to the vet. Grandmother looked at me and said, "All you need to do is calm down, drive safe so you don't have an accident, go home and relax."

I'm still shaking when I drive away. I still can't help but think (excuse the language), "WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE?!?! I just ran over one of your dogs! You blamed the kids when you are the adult! AND to top it off your feeling up my brown micro-suede pea coat!!!

What is this world coming to? I can embrace the weirdness in people, because it's what makes us unique, but these people were a little too much for me. That's saying a lot.

On a happy note... I was carded for a six-pack of Angry Orchard. The gal said I wear '78 well. (There's the silver lining to Friday.) Now I'm worn out from re-living Friday, so I will post my stitching progress later today.




Friday, January 9, 2015

Declaration of War on Vincent Van Gogh

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My holidays were a roller coaster ride. The weekend before Christmas, I made the kids and Joe some yummy in your tummy dampfnudeln that were so perfect your toes could curl. Heaven in a bowl.

Christmas Eve I stayed up  until almost 0100, with Momma. Not only did we have stockings to help Santa fill, but we spent hours creating a most scrumptious breakfast of homemade sticky buns. They were glorious! Unfortunately, I never managed to snap a pic. Just close your eyes and imagine this:
warm bubbly yeast rising, lots of cinnamon and sugar rolled into cinnamon rolls, caramel created from scratch with pecans in the bottom of the pans for the cinnamon rolls to bake up nice and golden and ewy gewy. I was worried that the rain would wreak havoc, but those sticky buns turned out simply perfect.

The day after Christmas I woke up to an empty pot of coffee... ENTER THE MONSTER. Momma said "hunny, the last cup of coffee in the pot is yours" Yeah, what cup of coffee. It would seem that someone in my family played a cruel joke which in turn triggered the beast within. It wasn't pretty.

I know that I usually write something up on New Years Eve. You know the whole "out with the old and in with the new" mumbo jumbo. I couldn't come up with anything creatively awesome this year, so I spent the evening with a pizza and a bottle of wine, in the bed, watching episodes from the 90's Charmed show. I totally live life on the edge.

Finally, before I leave you, as the title of this post reads... YES! I have declared war on Vincent Van Gogh. I have spent 6 hours this week working on Starry Night. I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED! With as small as the stitches are, you would think you could see more of an improvement than what you do. Grrrr.

Until next time....
XOXO