Woot woot!

I' m on staycation, I'm on staycation! Yay. My first entire week off in 4 years. Good grief, there's just no reason for that.

Today, Chucks daughter and I are going to Nashville, IN for the day. Can't wait!!

Tomorrow is the local art fair, Sunday is another fun afternoon at Wine and Canvas and the rest of the week will be spent on a DIY home improvement project. I'll be the foreman and the helper :-)
We're going to expand our bedroom and build a walk in closet. I have complete confidence in us.
(Keep your fingers crossed)

a brotherhood

It’s interesting to me, how a certain proffession or activity can create this special, close knit group of people. Like the Armed Forces. They all have a common interest and that gives them a special bond to one another. Cops have their own brotherhood. So do firefighters.

I was thinking about this because in our city, a police officer was shot and killed last week while trying to protect a woman involved in a domestic dispute. The suspect was also shot and killed. Today they are holding the funeral service for him and it’s a big deal. Not to dimish his sacrafice, but you would think a local dignatary was being buried. There are a couple schools closed today because they are on the procession route. The local news has been covering it since 6:00AM this morning and will continue to do so until this evenning. I’m pretty sure it’s not like this in a ‘big’ city. Anyway, I was thinking about the brotherhood of police officers. There will be thousands of them downtown today, to pay their respects. Isn’t that amazing to you? Think about it, all these men and women who truly care about the life of a co-worker.

Why isn’t everybody like that? Why aren’t we, as regular people, a brotherhood? Why don’t we care about our fellow humans just because they’re a fellow human? It made me think of John Lennon’s song, Imagine. If you haven’t heard it in awhile, go listen to it.
It kind of made me sad today.

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Fees

Don't you get tired of all the extra fees tacked onto things!?

I hate it when you buy tickets to a show or concert and they SAY tickets start at $40. But when you buy that ticket, it ends up being $58! So now, that $80/$90 I budgeted for, turned into $120!  I wish they would just add the fee into the price of the ticket and be done with it. Because honestly, it really pisses me off when I see the breakdown and how much the fees are.

A couple weeks ago I ordered some paper strips online, for quilling. Actually, I ordered a lot of paper. (It was on saleJ) Anyway, it came to something like $30. But when I got to the checkout page, the total was almost $45 dollars! Shipping was $11. What?! People must not pay attention to those things when they purchase things online. Otherwise, company’s wouldn’t think they could get away with that, right? I wasn’t about to pay that for shipping…so I just went somewhere else, where I ordered MORE paper strips for the same amount and only paid $3.60 for shipping. Yes, I should have shopped around first, but that’s not the point!

Then there’s that annoying “hospitality” fee. The definition of hospitality is;

1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.

2. the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.

Is there anything friendly or warm about treating guests to an extra fee or tax? I ask you! They should have called it a bendover fee.

Oh, and luggage fees? Seriously? Just raise the price of the ticket dag-nabit! Geez. It’s so, in your face, to say they’re going to charge you to bring your clothes with you. It’s stupid.

sigh

Just remember...it's MY blog :-)

Hooray for life!

HOORAY!
Bill just passed his 3 year check up, cancer free!
His fantastic doctor was a little (happily) surprised, which didn’t really make Bill feel better. But then he told Bill that considering the amount of cancerous cells in his biopsies, he was pleasantly surprised that his tests are still coming back negative – but since they are, he doesn’t anticipate any more issues. Nice!

He gets on my last nerve sometimes but I’m glad I get to keep him  xoxoxoxoxo

Road weary

Do you ever get road weary?

Maybe it’s just because I have an hour commute twice a day. Maybe it’s just rudeness run rampant. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience I used to. In my corner of the world, we have this great little shopping mecca up the road a ways. It has a Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Best Buy, Kohl’s, Marsh, Payless, Lowe’s, Target, Hallmark, etc. Really, everything you would need. Since it was built, the residential areas around it have exploded! Now, naturally, there’s A LOT of traffic. So they’ve started widening the streets, building roundabouts and overpasses. I’ve seen the plans and even though I’m totally willing to give a chance, I’m not a fan of a couple of the changes. Anyway, they’re in the middle of building an overpass and frontage street right now so ½ of the highway is closed. Plus, you can’t turn into the west side at all so you have to go WAY around the back way. Over the weekend I needed to run up to Michael's and PetSmart. Pretty simple you would think. A normally 20/30 minute excursion turned into well over an hour. I WAS SO PISSED OFF by the time we left I just wanted to cry. Instead, I proclaimed, “I’m not coming back up here until all this !@3J&*l(#& is done! It could be months…I don’t care. I’m done.

All of that made me think of all the stupid crap I see almost every day, and my list of bad driver pet peeves;
1. Don’t STOP in the lane you’re in, waiting for someone to let you into the lane you wish you were in!
2. Don’t drive into the intersection when the light turns yellow if the cars in front of you aren’t moving!
3. Don’t block the intersection.
4. Tailgating me only stresses YOU out, not me. I’m not the one who’s late.
5. When you are in the right, right turn lane, you’re supposed to stay in the right lane. Don’t turn from the right lane to the left lane!
6. STOP TEXTING WHILE YOU’RE DRIVING! I can’t tell you how many extra lights I’ve had to sit through because someone wasn’t paying attention! Not to mention all the times I’ve had to tap my brakes because someone was ‘drifting’.
7. Would it kill you to acknowledge my kindness when I let you cut in front of me? And don’t give me the stink eye when I don’t – I don’t have to you know.

I’ll probably have to come back and revise this list later!

Thank heavens for hobbies!

Cancer SUCKS! Bill is in the process of his next quarterly blood draw and test. Being a 1/2 empty kind of guy, he spends the week before the blood draw, worrying about having cancer. Then he spends the week between the blood draw and the results visit, convincing himself that he has cancer and will most likely parish. Which throws his emotional state into a complete tizzy! I don't mind the lovey dovey emotional outburst but the 'I'll probably die', defeated, my life sucks, emotions are pretty hard to take. Granted, I can't relate to how it feels to have cancer but come on! I'm happy to be back at work and to have a really great hobby!!!

This is the other one I started on; 

9/11

I wasn’t there. I don’t know anyone personally who was there. I didn’t lose anyone on that day.
Like millions of other Americans though, my heart breaks today. 12 years ago today, we were changed forever. We watched in horror as over 3000 people died. Some of them fell from the buildings. Some of them jumped. Some of them were killed in an instant. Most were crushed when the buildings crumbled to the ground. We wept. We didn’t sleep well. We were glued to our TV’s and radios and computers. The sorrow was immense. The loss of all those lives seemed unreal. How could this be? How many people lost someone they loved that day? A brother, a sister, a parent, a spouse, a child. That loss, even though it wasn’t mine directly, still makes me cry.

Poser

She's such a poser!

ads and commercials

Truthfully, most of the ads I know about, are on the radio. I don’t pay that much attention to TV ads or commercials. And most of them SUCK! If I do look up when a commercial comes on, I almost always think “you paid somebody a lot of money for THAT?!”

I like a few of them though. As a matter of fact, I LOVE the new Sherwin Williams commercials with the Chameleons! Those are fantastic – visually. I also love the Jimmy Dean commercials with the Sun. They always make me smile. I like the Sun. Oh, and on cable, I love the Purina commercials that show how great dogs are! Especially the one with the montage of clips from videos sent in by dog owners/lovers. Super cute!

On the radio, I like the voice of the dude that does the Walgreen's commercials. He’s not your typical “radio voice”. It’s just a nice friendly voice. He should do audio kids books. And I really love all the Pure Michigan ads. Not so much the guys voice, (although it’s a good one) just the ads themselves are great. They make me want to go to Michigan. Yeah, I know that’s the point and their department of tourism must be thrilled with that campaign! Really, they’re so good that other states spoof them! They’re jealous. If you aren’t from around here, you can find some of the TV versions on YouTube.

In regards to shitty ads and commercials, I saw one this morning that just made me shake my head. It was an ad for an episode of Dr. Phil. It’s going to be about that young woman from some reality TV show that recently committed suicide. What made me shake my head was people will tune in and watch someone else’s grief. AND that those grief stricken family members don’t mind showing their grief to the world. I don’t get it.

random things...

Did you know that you can tell what side your gas tank is on by looking at your gas gauge?

See the little gas pump? See that little arrow thingy on the left? That means the gas tank is on the left.
Who knew?! LOL

I'm sure you've seen this next picture;

It's called Fly Geyser. I had to look it up because in my head, I said "photoshoped" I was wrong. That's wild!!

I also looked this one up because it was so cool!

Chand Baori, in the village of Abhaneri near Bandikui, Rajasthan, is a famous stepwell. The well is located opposite Harshat Mata Temple. It was built in the 9th century by King Chanda of the Nikumbha Dynasty and has 3,500 narrow steps in 13 stories and is 100 feet deep.
As the green water at the base attests, the Chand Baori well is no longer in use, but it makes for an interesting stop-over to an architecturally impressive structure.
That's incredible! Do you ever really think about the people who did these things, centuries ago? As I've grown older I find that I appreciate the time, pride, craftsmanship and knowledge it took to create things. To build structures. To sculpt statues. To sew/weave clothing and rugs and blankets. Everything done by hand. From sun up to sun down. Willingly or not. A few years ago, we had a chance to see the King Tut Exhibit. I was really taken aback by the time it must have taken to create a pair of beaded slippers. It's not like they could go to Hobby Lobby and buy the beads they needed or thread or the right size needle. Over three THOUSAND years ago!

I don't feel very accomplished right now. 

painting

You know, Mom and I really like Wine And Canvas. It's a fun way to spend the evening. Plus, when you're done you have your own art to take home. But we don't always want to go to a class. Sooooo, we decided to do our own over the weekend! Only we drank rum instead of wine :-) And this is what we painted;

We think we did a pretty good job considering we were 'on our own'!

yummmm

Once, a long time ago, Mom was reading an article in the paper about Bill Gates new home and some of its cool features. She asked me, if money was no object, what would you want your home to have. Interestingly enough, neither of us could come up with anything really opulent or luxurious. I would like a flower garden, with a gardener, so I could have fresh flowers in the house all the time. I want a library. I think we both said we would want a gourmet kitchen but we couldn't really come up with anything super duper cool or different that we would put in it. Well, I thought of something...You know those candy dispensers in a big candy store? I want those!!!

I miss gum

I REALLY miss gum. Several times a day, I miss gum. I miss chewing gum more than I miss cigarettes!

Now I have a confession...every since I stopped chewing gum, my headaches went away. Seriously! I use to have a headache almost every day! Stoopid TMJ :-(

But, even though there's proof, I still miss gum.

And would YOU want to wear THIS thing every day???? Look at it! It has metal in it!

crazy, silly, interesting, dumb, nice, weird stuff...

I keep a folder full of things I think I want to say something about. Today I'm cleaning out the folder so this will seem really random. Oh, it IS really random! Here goes;

Have you seen this photo? It went "viral" a couple years ago;

It's such a sweet photo, don't you think? Here's the story, in case you don't know it;

6/19/13

The original image, captured by photographer Hannah Stonehouse Hudson, featured the dog and his owner, John Unger, sharing a peaceful moment in Lake Superior. As the Pioneer Press reports, Unger, of Bayfield, Wisc., began taking his then 19-year-old pet into the water to help soothe the dog’s joint pain from arthritis. The buoyancy of the water, he found, helped lull Schoep to sleep. Unger’s friend Hudson, who wanted to capture the pair’s relationship, snapped the now-famous photo one evening and posted it on Facebook. The touching image soon swept across the web, turning Schoep into a canine celebrity. The original photo has been shared more than 214,000 times over the past year and helped raise funds for the elderly dog’s care. Animal lovers from across the globe donated more than $25,000 to cover veterinary bills, laser eye treatments and medications not just for Schoep, but for other aging dogs from low-income families in need of special care as well.

 

How about this crazy story;

Jury awards $37.5M to family of Florida smoker

Updated: Aug 02, 2013 6:36 AM EDT

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA -

R.J. Reynolds says it will appeal a Florida jury's decision to award $37.5 million in damages to the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1995. 

Laura Grossman of South Florida died at age 38. 

Attorneys for the Grossman family argued that as a teenager, Grossman was targeted by tobacco companies. 

R.J. Reynolds' lawyers said Grossman knew the dangers of smoking because cigarettes had warning labels when she started. 

The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 tossed out a $145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families needed only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.

Wow! This is a nightmare! You know it's not going to go anywhere but no wonder our legal system is so clogged up.
 

This next blurb falls into the "whaaat!" category. This guy is writing a series of articles for the local paper called, 25 Things I Love About _______" , and he's picking different communities/towns/cities to write about. This was the beginning of one of the essays;

Opinion editor Tim Swarens, in the fourth entry in our series of photo essays about things we cherish in Central Indiana, celebrates the diversity, community spirit and, of course, the food that make Lafayette Square one of the most entertaining and enlightening neighborhoods in Indy. Yes, the area has far too much concrete, too much crime and too many empty strip malls. But business owners and residents are working hard to change that.
In the meantime, an afternoon in Lafayette Square offers the fun and adventure that come with exploring other cultures.
Swarens, a Far Westside resident for the past 16 years, shares 25 things he loves about Lafayette Square.

Note the highlighted line. Yeah, I want to spend the day there!! Right.

 

Also locally, this drives me NUTS!

…first of all, isn’t it interesting that it’s name changed to “summer celebration” from "Black Expo"?  Also, (you know I’m not that observant) I just noticed for the first time this year that the outline of the state of Indiana has an outline of Africa in it. NONE of the people that went to the “summer celebration” are from Africa. Good grief!

And last but not least, as if I wasn't already feeling older...here are some highlights from the annual Beloit College Mindset;

When the Class of 2017 arrives on campus this fall, these digital natives will already be well-connected to each other. They are more likely to have borrowed money for college than their Boomer parents were, and while their parents foresee four years of school, the students are pretty sure it will be longer than that.  Members of this year’s first year class, most of them born in 1995, will search for the academic majors reported to lead to good-paying jobs, and most of them will take a few courses taught at a distant university by a professor they will never meet.

1.   As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen

2.   Having a chat has seldom involved talking

3.   Gaga has never been baby talk

4.   They could always get rid of their outdated toys on eBay

5.   They have known only two presidents

6.   Rites of passage have more to do with having their own cell phone and Skype accounts than with getting a driver’s license and car

7.   A tablet is no longer something you take in the morning

8.   The Pentagon and Congress have always been shocked, absolutely shocked, by reports of sexual harassment and assault in the military

9.   Thanks to Megan's Law and Amber Alerts, parents have always had community support in keeping children safe

10. With GPS, they have never needed directions to get someplace, just an address

11. Olympic fever has always erupted every two years

12. The U.S. has always imposed economic sanctions against Iran

13. They have never attended a concert in a smoke-filled arena

14. As they slept safely in their cribs, the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber were doing their deadly work

15. Their favorite feature films have always been largely, if not totally, computer generated

16. A Wiki has always been a cooperative web application rather than a shuttle bus in Hawaii

17. They have always been able to plug into USB ports

18. Washington, D.C., tour buses have never been able to drive in front of the White House

19. Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing

20. There has never been a national maximum speed on U.S. highways