Nothing Better than Family

I was blessed to have all of my brothers and sisters around me this past week. Shawn Carlton was in town from Washington for General Conference. His family is so great. We miss them so much! Several years ago, the loser packed up his family and moved to the Pacific Northwest without any of our persmission. So rude! It has been bittersweet to spend time with them this week. Of course it's wonderful, but also a little sad that I barely know their kids. I have only met little Dougie like three times in his little life. Isn't he the most gorgeous boy!

We had a big party at Beano's house Sunday, but the best time was mid-week when just the four kids were together shooting the breeze. It was therapeutic! I have been without a good fart discussion for far too long! Poor JC Knud was struggling to enjoy the overwhelmingly funny fart talk because of his recently broken hip. Dumb guy, fell off a ladder. Hang in there Jase, you'll be back to normal in no time, or back to abnormal as the case may be.

When the stress of the world waits outside the door and you get to just hang with family, life begins to make more sense. Family is what it's all about. My children may not realize it yet, but they are so very blessed to have so many wonderful cousins! I was always stuck at the in-between age of my cousins and second cousins, so for all intents and purposes, I never had cousins. Look at this clan! Can you believe it? Grammalee was in pig heaven! 14 grandbabies, 14 haircuts, and one amazing photo opp!

Unbelievable all those kidlets came from these four! We're pretty cool! We know.

Tales of Irony

Really, that's an ironic title in and of itself because I've pretty much forgotten the ironic tales I was going to report. I'm sure as I babble along here, they'll come back to me. I'm very disappointed in myself for neglecting this blog for so long. I blame, well, anyone and everyone else besides myself for that. It's never fun to admit that I'm just that lazy. What does it take, like 7 minutes of my day to log on and spout off about useless nonsense.

It's been a very strange week. I can only assume it was the pull of the full moon. Work created many situations that, by the end of the week, had me grasping at the "end of my rapidly fraying rope." (What movie is that from? Anyone?) A fainting, a heart attack, an isidious affair, teen-agers who can't operate the internet, phone cables being cut and knocking out phone/internet/cell service to an entire city for a day, and the never-ending bagel drama! One of the ironies this week came as I was driving home from work, thrilled to be done with it for the day, and listening to Sugarland sing about "Working Vacation". The song implies a working woman trying to take a vacation, but the office won't leave her alone. As I was singing along, my phone rang and it was my office. Nice!

Another weird thing......I was talking with a friend at work and noticed she was wearing an Eeyore watch. We spoke of our shared adoration of the Pooh clan and I asked her if she'd seen my Eeyore sticker on my car. I told her it was one of a kind because Papa Dale had made it for me myself. An hour later, I was driving to lunch when, lo and behold, there's a car in front of me with my very same Eeyore sticker in the window. In the three years I've had my Eeyore friend in my window, I've never seen another one, and the minute I talk about it, one pops up. Spooky.

Well, the girls are gone this weekend. I'm very lonely. But I'm also very happy to lonely. I never realized how beautiful the quiet is. Squid and the Bear are with family in Tropic working the farm. They are feeding baby goats, riding horses, 4-wheeling, jumping on hay bales, and I'm sure driving Aunt Kellie and Uncle Roger bonkers!!! They left Wednesday night and won't be home until Monday night. Oh the joy for me! But also, the frustration. I mean, there's nobody here to fetch me things when I call for them. My butt might actually be getting smaller having to get off it and retrieve my own crap.

Stretch is doing awesome these days. He is tucked safely away at a base overseas where he (cross your fingers, knock on wood) won't be in combat. We get to talk every day thanks to the Magic Jack! And web-cam dates on Saturdays reveal he is still as hot as ever! Love that boy!
Okay, now some gratuitous photos that have nothing to do with anything:

The Bear and a Chicken. Don't ask, I don't know.

Squid's new violin.

And, the extra long bunny food.

This is our life. Simple minds, simple pleasures.

It's Time to Just Ramble!

I can hear the groans from the audience now! "Isn't that all she does anyway? Just ramble?!" True, true. But it's in the headline of the blog, what did you expect? Now that Steffi has some lonely time, clickity-clacking out rants and raves on the keyboard is very therapeutic. Tons easier than waiting for the Tricare insurance to kick in and hoping the phone rep is perceptive enough in pegging my mental health needs to assign me to a PCM that is equally as intuitive as to my psychological well being to refer me to a therapist who might acutally be able to sit and listen to these diatribes without bolting out of the room. Might that therapist also be grammatically trained to combat my incessant need to use run-on sentences?
When one finds themself with a lot of thinking time, and one just happens to be a giant ball of stress and insecurity, one can really get themself down! Well, I'm glad I'm not one of thoooose people! But, if I were, I would maybe on a random Thursday night, while watching the most hilarious show, Kath & Kim, sit and type out my thoughts and tell myself that, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone-it, people like me!" Ya, that's what I'd do.
I wish I could tell you the stories from my work. The Office is on now, and those stories have nothing on my real-life experiences. You would be entertained for days on end. The thing about that is, I really like shopping at Old Navy, and I have this absurd purse/bag obession, therefore I need my income. If the aforementioned therapist could cure the purse fettish (and generously pay my mortgage), I could quit my job and then tell you the fabulous soap opera storylines that, sadly enough, are all true! Watch for the book. It's scheduled for release sometime around September 2041. It's going to be a good Christmas in 2041.
I kind of enjoy not adding photos to the blog these days. It's far too labor intensive. Clicking that dang upload button is just so taxing.
I have just witnessed the height of patheticity (and I don't mean making up your own words such as, hmmm, let's say: patheticity). If you find yourself chuckling at an Old Navy Supermodelquins commercial, you must put down the remote, slowly back away from the TV and quickly go do community service to contribute to society in a more productive way. That does not mean quit shopping at Old Navy. It's a wacky, ironic world.
Remember stirrup pants? Add some leg warmers and you've got yourself a runway fashion show.
The Squid dragged me to parent-teacher conference tonight. What a little attention seeker. She only dragged me so she could show off her straight A's! The teachers just stare at me when I sit down like, "I'm sorry, did you need something?" No, not really. I just wanted you to see my cool new purse.
The Bear, on the other hand, was instructed to stay home and pick up every single thing that was on the floor in the whole house. I guess she thought I said everything except: the Diet Coke box, the book bag from church 5 days ago, the jacket she wore to school today, the piano books, the dirty clothes in front of the washing machine, and the trail of shoes that marks the way to finding Bear when she's lost.
What a life!

Back from the Dead

You would think someone as obsessed with photos and scrapbooks as I am would back up their computer files with a bit more frequency than I do. Why do I bring this up? You may notice the conspicuous lack of new photos in this post. That is thanks to the recent computer crash I just endured. Yes, one day the screen just went black and that's all she wrote!

I called HP and asked for help. The only good thing about that was the guy wasn't in India, or he was, but he spoke perfect English with a snobby 'back-east-holier-than-thou' accent. My pathetic computer crash was the least of his worries. At one point, when the computer didn't respond (for the sixth time), he actually said, "That's strange. It's not supposed to do that." Ummmm, dude, you're lucky you're not sitting in my office in person, or that Ruger .9mm in the safe might become suddenly useful! Could that maybe be why I'm calling, pinhead?!!? I guess he would rather be getting calls from people saying, "My computer just turned on successfully and I'm now happily surfing the web. Thank you for your fine product."

I decided to just see what I could figure out on my own. I managed to get the computer to create a backup of everything and then wipe out the system and start from scratch. And that is where we sit today. No software, no files, just a single lifeline I'm calling "the internet plug." The backup disc seems to contain whatever monstrous file destroyed the computer in the first place, because when I tried to run the recovery, it crashed again. So, somewhere on the 5 discs of backup data, sits six months of photos and files. I'm sure they are safely tucked away just waiting for someone smarter than me to unearth them.

So, if anyone knows a good computer whiz, send them my way.

On another note, I taught my first Relief Society lesson today! Yes, someone as brilliant as the HP guy thought that was a good idea. Ha! Just kidding. I love those sisters in the RS presidency. They are incredible, inspiring people. Ironically enough, well, actually, exactly as it should be, the lesson was about enduring hardships and trials in life. Boy, was I ever cut out to teach that lesson! I used a scrapbook page I once made as the opener. It contained a story about a single month back in 2003 where every single thing that could go wrong did. Stretch was in Iraq at the time and we simply could not catch a break. The story recapped events such as the many many many appliances that took a dump while he was gone. Today seems eerily similar to that considering he has just left for another deployment and we've already had a computer crash.

What's next? I know, let's start a pool, you know like guessing the date and time of a baby's birth. What will crap out at my house next? And how much will I have to spend to get it fixed?

Celebrating Philo T. Farnsworth

What is up? Nothing? Ya, me neither. But it's long past time to update this dang blog. Hmmmmm, what has gone on this past week since last we spoke? Oh yes, I know. There has been A LOT of TV viewed. Some laundry was done, but mostly TV. Why? I've been able to come up with only two reasons: #1: I'm soaking up the freedom of having absolutely nothing better to do since Stretch left, and #2: .................

No, you have not died and gone to heaven. I know, I asked around. This is however, a very generous gift from heaven: the fine male speciman known as Brad Pitt.

One night this past week provided no other options than to channel surf. As it turns out, channel surfing paid off. We stumbled across some random channel airing Legends of the Fall. If you have not seen this movie, grab yourself some tissue (you'll cry, but love it), a defibrillator (you'll need this a few times after some choice Brad Pitt scenes to restore your heart's normal rythm), and some chocolate (this just makes good sense) and indulge in this outstanding piece of cinema!

No I will not apologize for drooling over Brad. I'm lonely, I'm allowed! So there!

A movie on Friday night.....that doesn't sound too malign, but when you follow it up with hours and hours and hours on end of Food Network Challenges, CMT Top 20, and America's Next Top Model marathons, muscle atrophy begins to set in. By about Sunday night at midnight I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, I need to get a life! That life, however, will continue to include marathons of America's Next Top Model. Come on, you watch it and try to tear yourself away! I dare you!

The best part of my boring week, YOU got sucked in to hearing all about it. Nah na nah na na na. Boy, if you're that easy to sucker in, I'll start telling work stories! No, not really. You might be gullible enough to stick around for a tale or two from my workday, but I'm not! See ya!

That's a Six Pack!

I'm surfing around on the web tonight, and I really feel like buying something. Shopping soothes me; fills that void left by a deployed soldier hubby. So what should I buy tonight? Hmmmmmm, oh ya...... I KNOW..............

In case you can't see these teeny-tiny images, this is apparel from the NFL shop commemorating the Pittsburgh Steelers' SIXTH SUPERBOWL WIN!!!!! Yup, this stuff is on the way to the house now. Ain't technology great?

To further sing the praises of technology, texting is a great way to pretend you're watching the Steelers' Eight Superbowl appearance alongside the Biggest Steelers Fan in Utah. If we can't be together, at least we can send notes back and forth. Kind of like junior high, but with a lot less paper folding. I remember one time a friend sent me a scroll note. It was 1/4 inch thick and at least 6 feet long. That sucked to open. Okay, where was I? Oh yes, the Superbowl.

Turns out that Stretch's Commander is from Arizona, so I'm sure the pre-game talk through the unit was populated with a few "It's ON, like Donkey Kong!!! " After the Steelers clinched Superbowl XLIII, Stretch was grabbed by the Commander and thrown in the pool! Oh, I wish I could have been there! Small price to pay to see your team make football history!

Congrats to Big Ben, Holmes, Harrison (the big playmakers tonight) and to this little boy in his Steelers shirt 25+ years ago......and to these two little girls and their hero Dad!

Steelers Nation, Baby!!!

Goodnight all. I'm off to work on my next craft project!

Oliver Wood: Monster Cat

I know I promised to scale back on the cat talk, but there is a breaking feline development which requires addressing.

That development is Oliver, who evidently took his development to new heights, or weights if you will.

This creature belongs to my mom and her hubby. They got him at a shelter that places "senior cats" with "seniors". I'm sure my mom just loves qualifying as a "senior", but she got a free cat out of it. Little Bear could barely pick up the fat lard. But that didn't stop her from doing it repeatedly. I would say the cat was opposed to the constant mauling, but this animal is so freaking huge, he could totally take out both my kids, and half the Steelers' defensive line if he wanted, so I guess he didn't really mind the attention.

Oliver is very very lovey. He just jumps up on anyone and makes himself at home. He will "knead" with his paws, which Bill calls "fat paws." Here, Oliver has just given me fat paws, and is chillin' like a villian.

These pictures barely represent the enormity of this dude. But trust me, he's giant. I don't have an official count on his weight, but it has been confirmed that he weighs as much as my nearly 2-year-old nephew.

Good luck, Grammalee, keeping this guy fed!