Girls Night Out

Oh man, the Girls Night Out finally happened, and it happened with a vengeance.

Totally.

I wish I had more blackmail pictures to show, but the crap camera ran out of batteries and besides, it was a little too much fun to keep taking pictures.

But I did get a few.

Here’s the girls, just starting out. Lets see, starting on the right and going clockwise is Lynn, Jenna, me, Sara (the other Sara), Mary, Sue, and Betsy. No idea who the person walking around and getting into the picture is, but she’s very happy about it.

Here we are again. A little later, a little happier, a litte blurrier. Found the Spotted Cow. Gotta love Wisconsin. Again, no idea about that person lurking around the bathroom. And sorry about the blur. It was Jenna’s phone this time.

Then, because of the uncontrollable girls we are, we decided we had to go dancing. And dance we did.

Taking pictures of people dancing around in a darkened bar area has to be some sort of sobriety test, and I was failing badly. But either way I captured Lynn, Sara, and Mary until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I let Lynn throw me around on the dance floor unmercifully. She is a pretty dang good dancer when it comes to spins and twirls. The band was fab and played songs we could all sing to. Sweet.

We ended up back at the Frog in Fountain City-the gruesome threesome.

Really?

Yes Really. I think these girls should be cut off.

(Don’t worry, we had a designated driver and a brand new van. Nothing could be sweeter. Out of the goodness of our hearts, we didn’t even throw up in it)

We stayed at the most beautiful lodge out side of Fountain City, way up on the bluffs (which could have been dangerous had we been able to wander outside after arriving, which we couldn’t. I couldn’t even figure out the radio)

Here’s our view if it were summer-

But it wasn’t

It’s winter but still fantastic. Even the morning after. Which is saying something. (Click the link above-the rest of the house was just as fab)

Staggered home and managed to get to knitting group. I felt kind of like this

Just a wee bit crispy……

and this didn’t help either-

Sigh.

But since that day I have recovered and decided that Girls Night Out was the best time I’ve had in months.

Thanks Girls!

 

The Paradox

Dave’s birthday was last week, although it seems like several weeks ago. Although that might be the beer talking.

He was on vacation which explains the not shaving for two weeks. However, now that he’s an NFL owner-who cares?

He also got a Blu Ray player and we now have Netflix. Dang but that is a sweet deal. We watched Better Off Ted, and some Girl With….movies and the documentary Babies. We also watched all of Season One of Downton Abbey-twice. We will never be without it again.

There was cake, and I just noticed we had some difficulty with the “day” in birthday. That’s hilarious.

There were also crazy people.

Do NOT make that bigger.  Somehow, every time I take a self portrait with Dave, he makes me laugh so hard I look stupid. Which I am starting to think takes the looking stupid pressure off of him.

That also could have been the beer. Or not.

A good time was had by all.

I think.

 

I got all sorts of pictures this week. Laura finally sent the cow pictures, some of which had to be censored. But these were cute.

 

Seriously, what could not be cuter than a little cow with it’s mommy? I ask you-what?

Well, perhaps not the birth of the little cow with it’s mommy-

Laura did send the actual little cow shooting out of the big cow, but I don’t want to lose the other 3 readers of my blog by showing the actual graphics. Although I may sneak them in one of these days, ‘cause that’ll teach people who don’t blog to make fun of my blog. And I have yet to see a picture of hooves coming out of a cow’s backside on any of the other blogs I admire. Touche Sassy Redhead!

My sister Martha also sent me a picture of her cat Daisy-

Come on now. That’s a cute cat eh? But, is it in the bathtub or something? Is that a common cat theme in the blog? Cats in bathtubs? Cats in sacks? Cats in prison?

Or cats in boxes?

I believe he’s alive. Or…is he?

Happy Happy New Year

Hello and happiest of New Years. (Does that have an apostrophe? Like New Year’s?)

We have been a bit busy here. First of all, I have watched all of Downton Abbey, season 1, twice. Bring it Season Two. In a way, I am sort of glad I didn’t watch it last year because I would have gone ca-razy waiting for season two, which conveniently starts next week. So, please Bates, get together with Anna, Mary and Matthew-come ON, and Thomas, ohhhh, I hope you get yours. Sigh.

Cody and Blane were here all last week. This is Christmas-

(As a little preface, crap camera doesn’t have a remote, only timer which was problematic at best-)

Wait, that didn’t work (I call this one the missing man formation)

No, that’s not it either

Better. And yes, Cody has some weird Mohawk going on. Did you notice too, how Blane doesn’t change much between pictures. If I didn’t risk complete boredom, I’d post the bunch of pictures we suffered through took and he would look the same in every one, while the rest of us (ok, me) are all looking the other way and blurry and talking to each other. Now that I look at it, once Cody got ready, he didn’t change much either.

Moving on.

We had the slightest decoration fail.

Yeah, that’s a problem. Actually, this was the problem.

 

And we had a tree-

which Blane put up and decorated.

We had a sort of tree at work too-plus some other crazy decorating. Which I also didn’t do.

 

I fell down in the decorating dept. It was all I could do to organize myself. (Hoping to get some sort of card out by April)

During this time, while I was not not decorating, I was finishing the shop quilt

Had fun with the Jack cam.

 

Went to a Christmas party  which the crap camera took an blurry picture of.

And finally, ended it all with Cody leaving on Saturday, New Year’s Eve.

I rocked it on the boy department.

Lastly, on New Year’s Day (using apostrophe) I ran a little race sponsored by the Running Room called the Resolution Run.

Barb and Angela and Susan and Lorna were all there too, and we totally killed it. There was a ton of ice so the goal was not so much to run fast-but to stay upright.

 

 

Barb’s big finish of her first 5K!

She was sporting a knitted cowl, representing our knitting group with good taste.

While I was at Barb’s, after the run and sipping a delicious Bloody Mary, I took a picture of her cat in a basket, which I found amusing.

Pictures I don’t have to show you-Laura was at the farm and took pictures of all the cows/calves in the barn AND a cow actually having a calf. It took all of Laura’s strength to take these pictures and I can hardly keep asking her for them because she gets that “talking about the farm look” which can be a wee bit scary. But if I had those pictures they’d totally get top billing. Except for maybe calving ones. They probably have to have a disclaimer-“these pictures may be disturbing to some viewers”.

And that, my friends, starts off a whole new year of blogging.

Here’s to 2012. Let’s see what happens now.

Merry Holidays

Good Lord, I forgot it was Monday and my usual blog day. If Dave had the TV on to Monday night football I would know it’s Monday. But he doesn’t because he is playing Diablo on his computer.

Manliness 1, Dave 0.

Anyway, Happy Holidays and all that. I have a few hilarious family photos to share, which are always good for a laugh. I love the missing man formation (where I, the picture taker, am not actually in the picture) or the fact that we sat in front of the camera for up to two minutes before deciding that the timer mechanism was probably not working correctly. Good times, people, good times.

So, by this time next week I will have my pictures posted and live video of Jack on a quilt. Because that’s what everyone waits for.

In the meantime, I am going to rest my bloat on the couch and enjoy some football before Christmas vacation is over, and I start looking forward to New Years.

I hope you, dear reader(s) (in case there are more than one of you) have had a wonderful Christmas holiday.

 

Is there such a thing as Blogerism?

Really. I am so over the top with the Blogess again. I swear it. If I could select all, copy her blog, paste it here and call it mine I would so do it.

But I somehow think that breaks at least 6 or 7 laws, or statutes or ticks off the APA nazi’s, or get’s me a ticket from Blogspot. Something.

I have to copy one thing though, because when I saw the commercial for Barbara Walter’s 10 most fascinating people (Baba Wawa) I said the exact same thing. EXACTLY-

“ I don’t like to criticize, but if your list of the ten most fascinating people includes three Kardashians then you’re doing it wrong.”

Absolutely no shit. The best part of the interviews was where Barbara says to the Kardashians “You don’t sing, you don’t dance…..um, you have no talent”. I will say that Blane likes the Kardashians. In a Friday night hooker sort of way.

We are in the final countdown to Christmas. It seems like I have hardly even seen all the Hallmark/Lifetime movies yet. Although there is an especially bad one playing tonight.

Cody took off for his cruise and called me this AM to tell me he flew the red eye. Literally. He was completely hung over and irritated fellow passengers by getting up to go to the bathroom and disturbing his sleeping seat mates. Then, in his words, making the returning veterans who were sitting around him, who have already suffered the horrors of Afghanistan, suffer through his “heinous gas”. My son is why I hate to fly.

There are a couple of convos (short for conversation, sort of in the same vein as whatev) I have to relate that actually happened in my house.

The first one just happened-JUST HAPPENED!

Dave is changing the channel (incessantly)

Sarah-(listening to bad Christmas movie with Billy Ray Cyrus and even worse child actor who I think played the childhood Shawn in Psych-and my God that was a long intro) What is this? Is this football?

Dave-Yes, this is Thursday night Football on Saturday.

Sarah-Oh, so this game has already been played.

Dave-No, it’s Thursday night football on Saturday.

Sarah-So, the game was played on Thursday and they are showing it on Saturday.

Dave-No, it’s Thursday night football on Saturday.

This is like one of those mirrors that are opposite each other where you see yourself to infinity. (And it was a new football game, being played on Saturday night but being billed as Thursday night football, and no, there is no logical explanation)

The other thing that happened happened a while ago and was so ridiculous it took me a while to even be able to blog it.

Sarah in bed reading a book-Dave picking up a shirt off the bed that we have been moving around on the bed for several days now because neither one of us wants to face the inevitable-

Dave-this is not my shirt.

Sarah-Well then it’s Blane’s, go throw it on his bed

Dave-(insert foot stomp here) I don’t want to-I want to go to bed.

Sarah-Seriously? It’s less than 15 feet away.

Next day red shirt is on dining room table which is 2 feet from the doorway where the shirt could be tossed on the bed. Really? Really Dave?

Now, I know that walking across the house was equated, by Dave, to the Bataan Death March, but I could not get behind that at all.

But, if I were Mrs. William Windsor Duke of Cambridge, I could probably understand and might even sympathize if this sort of thing went on

William-Bugger off-this is not my shirt

Kate-That’s bugger off your highness, thank you very much, and the maid’s valet probably mixed up Harry’s  with yours, so go throw it on his bed.

William-What? Do you have any idea what that entails?

Kate-Seriously Wills, it’s only down the hallway.

See? That’s a convo I could jolly well see as reasonable. Because, those people live here-and it’s a long way down the hall.

 

Laura has a bun…

Last weekend I went to Minneapolis for the long awaited yarn dyeing weekend with my friend Jill.

Jill had, long ago, ordered up a cone of fingering wt wool, bare and ready to dye.

After some thought, we decided to use a Kool Aide dyeing method. It’s non toxic, easy to do, and makes some nice colors.

I got there on Friday, knitted, watched some TV and made a list of necessities for the next day-things like tape and seran wrap, and, of course, some Kool Aide. Woo Hoo.

We decided on one more important stop-Lila and Claudines to bask in the fibery ambiance. And, I hadn’t seen the expansion, which lived up to it’s hype, and then some.

I bought some sock weight yarn to dye. It was my understanding that to do Kool Aide dyeing the fiber had to be all natural, and my sock yarn had 20% nylon. I was kinda scared.

So we set up. Jill had made some sweet little books for us to document our experimentations, and laminated some instructions.

Oh, I forgot. The other thing we bought was a scale to weigh yarn. We wanted to dye in 100 gm hanks. It was a precise operation.

Jill labeled the glasses for the dye and off we went. Here’s a little pictorial for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

 

 

See? The yarn really isn’t as shiny as it looks in the picture. It’s just the crap camera, and, well, you know. And, my yarn took up the dye, even with the nylon. Good to know.

I am planning on dyeing the rest of mine very soon.

Thanks to Jill for being the hostess with the mostess-and for making me a scarf that I don’t have a picture of yet. But I will soon, very soon.

Oh yeah, Laura and her bun. That was my teaser to make people stick with the parts that only interested Jill and me.

I figure if people got sick of reading and looking at my dyeing experience and couldn’t get to the Laura part-well, then that’s how rumors get started.

Laura came to the upper eschalon of the 2100 and this is what happened-in real time

Laura-I have a bun.

Sarah-Oh.

Laura-Here let me show you (turning around slowly). I can’t make this work.

Sarah-Well, you need to stick a pencil in it. That always makes it work.

Laura-Where’s a pencil?

Sarah-Here, let me get it good and sharp.

Laura-Ah Ha! that works! Let me show you-

Sarah-Sweet. Wait. I must have a photograph.

 

And, sadly my friends, that is one of the more thoughtful and intelligent of our conversations last week. It was a long week.

But when all was said and done, we did a little reveling, alien style.

 

I need a rider.

Dear Home and Auto Owners Insurance Company:

Yesterday my husband freaking lost his mind pointed out that I have a crazy bat-sh*t amount several sewing machines in my basement.

I went over and stood in front of his bigger than any of my machines plasma flat screen TV and said “Four. I have four sewing machines. Each serving a different purpose. And you should be happy I added another one

because now you don’t have to lug the 40+ pound work horse upstairs anymore”.

He was somewhat pleased about that, but wondered what the others are for.

I told him the little one is for being here when I need it and the 4th is actually a Serger.

Although he was a little distracted by the football game so the conversation actually went something like this:

Dave-Surgeon? Like I don’t work at Mayo and we can get one of those covered by insurance?

Me-Not surgeon, SERGER. Like a cutting/finishing machine.

Dave-Cutting fish? I won’t eat a sturgeon and you can’t make me.

After that, it deteriorated to juvenile name calling and various one-up-manships that aren’t important to this communication.

What is important is that the machines are worth a chunk of change, and, as my husband said quietly through gritted teeth suggested I might need to tell you, sweet insurance company that fixed my new car when I hit the deer and rebuilt half my house when it burned down, I have some expensive equipment that I can’t live without.  I need to know that you will happily (meaning you won’t give me any double talk and crap) replace said equipment without complaint, if I tell you honestly that I have it and it should, heaven forbid, be mortally injured by an act of God.

Thank you so much for your time, and please don’t raise my rates just because you think I’m crazy and won’t notice. Because I will, and so will my husband.

Sincerely,

Sewing Machine Lady

PS. If you are worried about me affording all this high end equipment, never fear. I work for the person who sold it to me. And to make ends meet, she has let me and a few others put some extra time in her sweatshop store. And next time, she said she’d even turn the heat on.

 

LiveJournal Tags: sewing machines,Bernina