“I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

Quote from “Zoolander”.  I’ve never seen the movie, but I will give you some insight as to where this came from.

My hubby has caught a cold.  Not a great time to be sick either, and I’m really hoping I don’t end up with it too.  But today he said he was feeling lousy, and I asked if he took any medicine.  When he said “no” and that he didn’t know what to take, this is parts of the conversation that followed (we were chatting back and forth via IM, since he was upstairs in the office and I really didn’t want to move from the couch at the time):

ME: what are ur symptoms?

HIM: feeling lousyness, stuffy, sinus congestion, my throat was sore, but I think that was post nasal drip from over night.  my brain feels cottony

ME: the box of red and green capsules on ur night stand, take those

ME:  that’s daytime sinus congestion medicine with some tylenol in it for ur cottony head

HIM:  merry christmas!

ME:  lol, the color of the pills?

HIM: yeah, my present from pharma clause

ME: lol, let me know if they start to help at all, cuz if not, i will see if i can find something different when i go out later

(some time later) 

ME: any effect from the medicine yet?

HIM:  I dunno

Then we began discussing some patio stuff.  The guys started today, and I was concerned about the size, location, etc. since a few changes had to be made from what the landscaper painted for the outline.  I told hubby before that I might need to go out with a tape measure later to measure everything and see for myself.  That’s just how I am with all house related repairs, additions, etc.  It takes all I have not to stand right there when things are being done so I can see and question everything – I drive myself crazy!  (Maybe I need the “crazy pills”, lol)  So this is how the convo continued from there:

ME:  the screening goes on tomorrow, that’s the sand-like stuff.  he said the black edging will go on tomorrow too, and they should be able to put down the charcoal border.  do u know about the black edging?

HIM: yes, cause I asked him my "why don't the edge bricks just fall off" question yesterday and he told me

(our patio is actually being built raised up due to the slope of our property, not dug down into the ground and made level with the rest of the grass like usual – hence the concern of the edge bricks falling apart)

ME: ok, u'll have to explain to me then, cuz i didn't know anything about that, but i nodded and smiled and said ok great

HIM: lol, "I don't know what your talking about but okay great!!!"

ME: lol, yeah, pretty much

HIM:  thanks you, you cheer me up

I then ask him if he needs anything else when I go out for other things.  Earlier for lunch, he said he wanted something else, more food.  After I told him what snacks were here, he said he wanted “chippies”.  Now, usually when we say “chippies” in this house, we mean nachos – tortilla chips covered in melted shredded cheese and bacon pieces.  So, when he said “chippies”, I immediately went to that kind, and told him we didn’t have the ingredients, to which I got the response that that’s not what he meant, but thanks to me, he now wanted that, and I was mean.  So when I asked if there was anything else he needed while I was out, this is what followed:

HIM: ingredients for chippies...

ME: and is that what u pick as ur side dish for the chicken? chippies and cucumber salad?

HIM: YES!!!  Chippies!

ME: lol, oh my

HIM: *dance dance*

ME: should i really buy real bacon or use the bacon crumbles?  and what cheese?

HIM: BACONSES!  Delicious CHEESESESES!

ME:  oh my…

HIM: What were in these christmas pills, pharma clause?!

ME: lol, y?

HIM: I feel goofy... I guess you couldn't tell.

ME: this is so getting a blog post!  lol

HIM: …I’ll need to review it before you publish it  :p

ME: lol, y?

Which brings me to the Zoolander quote:

HIM: I don't want strangers on the internet thinking I'm taking crazy pills!http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media=WAVS&type=Movies&movie=Zoolander&quote=crazypills.txt&file=crazypills.wav

I told him he’s taken these pills before, and asked if they always made him this goofy, but apparently he was just being his normal goofy self. 

So this is the story of the Christmas pills, and how I became “Pharma Clause”.

Good News! I Love My Neighbors!

First things first, we had an awesome time at our very first block party yesterday!  Unfortunately, not every single neighbor was able to be there, but we got to meet almost all of everyone else, and I like our neighbors very much!   :)   After yesterday, I am even happier about where we live now compared to a year ago.  As many issues, big or small, we’ve had with a brand new house, I love our neighborhood and am very grateful to have such nice neighbors.  I absolutely love not sharing walls with anyone anymore, and no one is obnoxious, loud, or downright crazy.  We all just got together in between a couple of the houses, grilled some hamburgers and hot dogs, everyone brought 2 additional side dishes, and we all just got to know each other and even played a game of men vs. women in volleyball.  We (women) lost, but it was still a lot of fun!  And one of my side dishes was a big hit – I made Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies, for the first time ever.  Sooo gooood!!!  All in all, a great day – we even watched some of our newest neighbors move in!  (Yes, one of the guys offered a hand, but they must have had 6 people moving 2 truckloads of stuff that no one thinks will all fit into the smallest house on the street.)  I even found out one of our neighbors is an Athletic Trainer too.  If you read my about me page, you know that’s what I went to college for, started my career life as, and decided to give up a few years ago.  It was nice to talk to someone else in the field and make a connection if I ever decide to get back into that line of work someday though.

The good news is our patio will finally get started tomorrow!  I am so excited!  We’ve been working things out, doing all the preliminary stuff, and waiting all summer long, and tomorrow is finally the day to get it all started.  Our landscaper, who is also a friend, came this evening to mark the spot off, and leave his small forklift here to be able to unload the stone tomorrow.  We’re doing an EP Henry paver patio, 15’x34’ (quite large!), with Village Square stone in pewter blend color laid in a random pattern, a Brickstone border in charcoal color, and a stone step in gray with charcoal Bullnose stones.  Once it’s completed, we already have everything to furnish it except the fire bowl.  One side of the patio will have a pergola with a canopy that we bought at Target and our dining table and chairs underneath, and the other side will be the grill area with the fire bowl and extra chairs.  I don’t know how long it will take to complete, but it looks as though I will definitely have enough of fall yet to enjoy it this year!   :)

That’s all for now – I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Scrapbook Saturday

  I created my very first digital scrapbook page!   :)   I got this free program (Sarif Digital Scrapbook Artist) from Amazon yesterday, thanks to Fab Steals and Deals (link is to post that contained the link for the free program download – I do not know if this free download is still available today), so I thought I would give it a try, since I said a long time ago that I would try to do a Scrapbook Saturday post.  So now I at least have a program to create a page digitally if I have not been able to create a paper page, and hopefully I will be able to start to make this a regular post!  This post also gives you another photo viewing of some of our vacation for hubby’s birthday.  The big picture was taken on the beach of the bay behind our hotel, and from left to right:  hubby and I on the speedboat ride, a heart hubby drew in the sand for me (awww), and hubby relaxing on the beach. 

I can’t wait to try out this program some more and really figure it out.  Hopefully I’ll be able to start creating more elaborate pages, and maybe even make myself a new blog design!   :)

We are attending our first block party today!  Hopefully you all have something fun planned too!   :)

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

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Happy Friday! This week has been a little weird – the temperature was a lot cooler, and it was so nice to open the windows, save some money get fresh air, and not sweat to death just from watering plants. But it also looked like it was going to rain a lot, most of the time it never did, but I didn’t like the gray skies and dark clouds. The heat is supposed to come back this weekend though, just in time for our first block party…

Back to the real reason for this post – here is my choice for this week:

Dusty’s giving me a look like, “I’m trying to sleep Momma – please no more pictures!”. But he’s so cute when he sleeps, and this pose especially just made me giggle at the time. He either sleeps all curled up in as tight a ball as he can, or he sprawls out by extending one or both of his front legs. In this particular shot, he almost looks like he’s about to slide head first off the edge of the bed.

You are very welcome to share with me! Grab the button above and link back to here, create your own post and leave me a comment with a link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, just leave a comment with a link to your photo as long as it’s on the web.

Some news coming up, a vacation post, a jewelry post, and a homegrown post are in store for you! :) Have a great weekend!

Catching Up

Wow, I am finally all caught up on my Google Reader for the blogs I follow!  My vacation at the end of July put me severely behind on my reading, and posting – I have finally gone from 300+ unread posts to 0! 

My weeks have either been really busy or really lazy since returning too.  The busy weeks didn’t allow me much or any time to post, and the lazy weeks were just that – LAZY!  I didn’t feel like doing anything at all, and in most instances, I didn’t.  I’m hoping to finally get back on track with things now.

I started a private dance lesson with a new student the week after coming back from vacation.  If I refer to her by “name”, it will only be “K” since this is a public blog and I do not have her parents permission to use her real name or anything else personal on here.  K lives in a not-so-great area of the city, which makes me nervous, and parking has been a real pain, but I’ve had 3 lessons with her now, and it’s been going great!  She says she has fun, she’s outgoing, and a good listener for the most part.  :)  This month I stuck to summer and Hawaiian music, and we’ve even begun a real hula dance!  It has been fun for me so far, and I look forward to hopefully continuing lessons for a long while.

My cousin also contacted me to ask if he could have a family get together here at our house (which happened on the 15th), since we all live all over the place and he was coming up from Florida that week to visit.  I agreed, as long as our backyard wasn’t under construction for our patio, since I planned to keep everyone outdoors for the entire time, or at least as many people outside for as long as possible.  My patio hasn’t been started yet, and unfortunately it rained – and poured – that day, so everyone was stuck inside.  I had spent the entire week before that cleaning my house from top to bottom.  It was time to do all the cleaning anyway, but I also care about how my house looks to other people, and I knew there would be family wanting to see it all for the first time, so I wanted it looking perfect.  I expected people in and out for the bathroom, a tour of the house, etc., but I didn’t expect to end up with 19 people crammed into 3 rooms, tracking mud, grass, and food all over my floors.  I was very stressed about the whole thing, and the only person from my cousin’s bunch that said a sincere thank you and related to how stressed I was was my other cousin’s wife.  The cousin that asked me to have it here, and his parents, brother and SIL (other cousin and wife mentioned above) showed up 2 hours late and stressed me out even more.  The cousin that asked to have it here decided it would be fun to joke around that he spilled red wine on my white carpet (he really did not, but thought it was hilarious to joke about it).  I also did not provide the wine, as I didn’t really want any alcohol here with the mix of family that came, but one of my aunt’s brought it because my cousin told people to bring whatever they wanted, never got a list of what people were bringing, and didn’t tell me that he told the rest of the family to bring stuff.  Long story shortened, I was kind of mad at that part of the family, happy to see other parts of the family, and have learned my lesson to never offer my house as the gathering location for something like that ever again!

My friend had her second baby last week and I’m excited to meet him and visit with her.  She teaches baton in the group I’m involved in too, but with having the baby and the week before having the baby, she hasn’t been at practice.  I’ve seen pictures, but I’m hoping to get to meet him in person this week and deliver her baby gifts!   :)

We haven’t gotten our patio started yet, but they have now marked the whole property where utilities are located under ground.  We are set to begin work anytime after tomorrow, so now it’s just up to the landscaper to get started – I’m very anxious for that!  I can’t wait to have that done and hopefully enjoy it as much as possible before the fall turns too cold.

So, that’s my catch up for now.  I finally took pictures of my new jewelry set I made before vacation, so I would like to do a post with those, and I definitely have more vacation fun to share.  :)

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

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It’s Friday yet again! But this week seemed to go slow for me. It was a mostly lazy week, after my week of cleaning the whole house, top to bottom, last week to prep for that family gathering on Sunday. Unfortunately for me, it rained, and everyone ended up indoors, which is not what I had planned for! So, sorry I haven’t posted again this week, but I sort of took a break from everything this week.

I have decided not to do the linky for this post anymore. At least for now. I wasn’t getting much, if any response, so I’m not going to create a linky for it as of now. I will continue to do the post, and I will continue to put the badge up there for anyone to participate in if they’d like. If you would like to participate and share your favorite feline with me or anyone else who reads my blog, then just leave a comment with a link to your own blog post or your favorite photo if it’s on the interwebs somewhere. :)

My choice for this week:

This is my parents cat, Tiny. This picture was taken around Christmas last year. I went to their house to help my mom put up and decorate their mini tree, which we were afraid she would destroy, but (at least for that day) she was more interested in it’s box than the actual tree! She’s a very interesting cat – we have no idea where she came from, since they got her from the Humane Society, and the workers there even guessed her age wrong. She is somewhere between 1-2 years old now, confirmed by her regular vet. She is super people friendly, but at the same time scrounges and scavenges for things, so we’re not sure if she was a stray and just so happened to be around a lot of people, or if she was in a home, but not taken care of and fed properly. She did cause quite a fuss this week though – my mom wanted me to come and clip her nails. My dad is perfectly capable of doing this, but somehow I became the nail clipper. When I told her I wouldn’t make a special trip just to do that on that particular day, we had a fight. That was Tuesday. My mom was at my house yesterday (Thursday) and it was the first time she talked to me since that fight (which is not like her, since she has a habit of calling every single day). I guess things are OK now, but she needs to learn and deal with the fact that I might not always be able to clip her cats nails, especially right at the moment when she asks.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a fun weekend planned! My in-laws will be here sometime today until Sunday, so I might not be posting all weekend yet again.

If you’d like to share, comment below! :)

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://stephscreativelife.blogspot.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe-niZhfEaKY6MAUwqTd_3c5MQp501sz1jPEA_seJhPXG5ie1W1Z5sDhRHez3qg8fxQ1pmHfTRhFpjhGosOx733H7zggKjzU-ITHwvDXF6GRfizjAP5E2LfAOUqKJ60KARciSZzt74vM/?imgmax=800" /></a></td></tr></table>

It’s Friday again! Hope you all had a great week and have a fun weekend planned! Welcome to my weekly Friday post. I started this post just to share my love of cats, my own kitties adorable and funny photos, or even just some others that I find amusing. I then decided to open it up with a linky, and try to get others to share as well! This is not strictly a means of getting more followers for me or those who link up (but if that happens, great!) – just a way for us all to share. So if you’d like to join in, here’s what you do:

If you have a blog of your own, grab the button above, put it in your own post, then pick one photo of your own kitty, a friend or family member’s kitty, or even one from the web that you just love. Photography skills do not matter – just a favorite picture. Put the photo in your post along with a little explanation about the photo, a story about the kitty, or just a fun cat fact. Then link up here with the linky below! Share with your friends and invite them to join as well. If you don’t have a blog of your own, but would still like to participate, you can leave a comment below with a link to your picture if it’s somewhere on the internet. I do this every Friday, so get those photos ready! :)

My choice for this week:

So, I know this isn’t a picture, and it’s not mine. I saw it on Cheezburger (see previous posts if you’ve never heard of it – I don’t feel like linking it at the moment), and it perfectly illustrated my very early morning with Jasper the other day (minus the very last part, though I’m sure if he had that he would have tried that too!). I did not sleep from 4-6am, AT ALL! This was also after going to bed kind of late, and also telling my hubby that he needed to make sure I dragged myself out of bed “early” that day. Needless to say, I did not get up when planned, since I missed 2 WHOLE HOURS of sleep, and felt exhausted, especially after being exceptionally tired since we got back from vacation. He started meowing non-stop (and he sounds very much like the kitty in this animation) at 4am…I got up, put him in the bed, since he apparently can’t jump up on it himself anymore so early in the morning (LAZY!), took him a while to get comfy, stayed for all of 2 minutes, jumped off and began his whining and getting into things again. 5am came and I finally decided maybe he wanted food (as always!), so I went down and put a little in his bowl (we measure their food for each day, since Jasper is extremely tubby and the vet told us to do so), and came back up – apparently he didn’t want food that badly, since he followed me back upstairs, and began his incessant meowing again! I don’t know what his problem was or what he wanted, but he drove me nuts for 2 hours straight! A baby or child doing that is one thing…but my cat, and for no apparent reason but to keep me awake and get my attention? Ridiculous! And we can’t even lock him out of the bedroom…been there, done that…he’s worse! He’ll meow and paw (no front claws, but he still makes quite a racket) at the door nonstop from the second it closes until someone opens it even a crack so he can push his way in. I really don’t know what to do with him at night anymore. Any suggestions???

But anyway, I thought this video was a riot, and perfectly illustrated my real life Jasper, so I thought I would share it with you.

What have your favorite kitties been up to? Share with me! :)

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Vacation (Preview)

Well, I did say I would try to at least get one post in before the regular Kitty Pic Friday post, so here it is. A photo preview of my vacation in Ocean City, MD:

Sailboats in the inlet.

Very expensive houses and condos along the inlet’s “Stinky Beach”.

View of the beach from the speed boat ride (see those impending gray clouds of doom on the right? We had to turn back and go a different time…)

Not the speed boat we took, but one I managed to snap a picture of on one of beach afternoon outings.

A hummingbird moth we caught zipping around outside in the tropical area close to the beach when we visited the Carousel Hotel. See it at the bottom next to the orange flower? Best picture I managed to get of it. I originally thought it was some sort of moth, hubby thought it was a hummingbird – then I asked what hummingbirds had yellow spots on their sides, and it turns out to have really been a hummingbird moth! Hubby looked it up.

Assateague Island from the shoreline. We did see a group of wild ponies from the boat at a distance, but my camera unfortunately died right after getting on the boat, and I forgot the extra batteries at the hotel. This is from hubby’s phone camera.

More vacation posting to come! I feel bad for neglecting my blog so much over the last couple weeks month, but it has been a busy and tiring month, and I haven’t had much time for blogging (my Google Reader currently says 207 unread items! I had it down to 75 just 2 days ago – what happened??). There’s quite a lot I haven’t had much time for recently, and I’m not even exactly sure where my time and energy have been going! I hope after Sunday’s shindig I’ll feel a little more free and clear and be able to catch up and get back into everything.

Check out Favorite Kitty Pic Friday tomorrow, and have a great weekend! :)

Sorry for my absence…

If you read my blog, thank you for sticking around in my absence! I just realized (literally 30 seconds ago) that I have only done my Favorite Kitty Pic Friday Post for the last 2 weeks. I have been extremely busy distracted by a week long vacation to Ocean City, MD, a day trip to Bethany Beach, DE for a baton performance, and starting my first private lesson student for dance. I got the call for these lessons a few days before we went on the vacation, so as soon as we got back I had to get to form creating, lesson planning, and music. I felt very frazzled last week because I had a lot to do and not enough time to do it, plus I was nervous about the lesson. The lesson turned out pretty well – the little girl said she had fun and she was enjoyable to teach. I’m not fond of the area they live in, as the city of Reading makes me very nervous, but overall it went well with no problems.

Since we got back from vacation, I have been very tired too. I haven’t felt like doing much. And if I was tired before, this week is really going to kick my butt. I created a cleaning to-do chart for myself, that I have decided to do the first week of every month in order to keep a clean, orderly house and make the cleaning less miserable of a chore, since it will be done more often. Since I didn’t accomplish that last week due the the day trip, lesson planning and jewelry making I had to get done, I will be tackling it starting tomorrow. I have a shorter to-do list for every single day of the week in order to break up the chores and make it a little less daunting. It works out that this is the cleaning week now anyway, because I will be hosting a family gathering this Sunday. My cousin called and asked if he could have a gathering here of everyone that would come from my dad’s side of the family…I said OK…what have I gotten myself into? He managed to pull off a miracle and get all the aunts and uncles to come, and already we are looking at a total of 22 people! That’s only including a couple of the cousins, so imagine if they all came with their spouses and kids, we’d probably end up having to rent a location! So, I’m feeling stressed about that. My cousin keeps telling me not to worry about things, but it’s my house, I feel like the hostess (even though he is supposed to be handling most of it), and I care about how my house and my hosting skills are presented to whoever is here. I also was asked by hubby today if it’s ok if his parents come for a visit the weekend after that, so I said ok. Normally that frazzles me and gets me in a cleaning frenzy, but luckily all of that will be done already, and I’m feeling like that will be a breeze of a visit compared to one afternoon with my dad’s side of the family.

So, I apologize again for my absence and thank you for sticking around. I do have more to share with you, such as vacation posts, my new jewelry set, and I’m sure after next Sunday there will be more, but I have been busy, distracted, tired, and stressed out, and the next week might be more of the same. I will try my best to get at least one other post in this week, if not more, but I felt the need to explain my absence a little more and ask you continue to bear with me and continue following.

Have a great week – hopefully I make it through the week and next weekend with my sanity!

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://stephscreativelife.blogspot.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe-niZhfEaKY6MAUwqTd_3c5MQp501sz1jPEA_seJhPXG5ie1W1Z5sDhRHez3qg8fxQ1pmHfTRhFpjhGosOx733H7zggKjzU-ITHwvDXF6GRfizjAP5E2LfAOUqKJ60KARciSZzt74vM/?imgmax=800" /></a></td></tr></table>

It’s Friday again! Hope you all had a great week and have a fun weekend planned! Welcome to my weekly Friday post. I started this post just to share my love of cats, my own kitties adorable and funny photos, or even just some others that I find amusing. I then decided to open it up with a linky, and try to get others to share as well! This is not strictly a means of getting more followers for me or those who link up (but if that happens, great!) – just a way for us all to share. So if you’d like to join in, here’s what you do:

If you have a blog of your own, grab the button above, put it in your own post, then pick one photo of your own kitty, a friend or family member’s kitty, or even one from the web that you just love. Photography skills do not matter – just a favorite picture. Put the photo in your post along with a little explanation about the photo, a story about the kitty, or just a fun cat fact. Then link up here with the linky below! Share with your friends and invite them to join as well. If you don’t have a blog of your own, but would still like to participate, you can leave a comment below with a link to your picture if it’s somewhere on the internet. I do this every Friday, so get those photos ready! :)

My choice for this week:

Jasper was sunbathing in the light from the patio sliding doors, and even though I don’t know much about lighting and such when it comes to photography, I thought this shot came out pretty well! He really is a beautiful cat (once you get past the pudge!).

Sorry I haven’t posted much recently. I was on vacation the whole week last week, and then this week has been kind of busy and frazzled. I went on a bus day trip with the baton twirling group to do a performance at Bethany Beach, DE yesterday, and since I came back from vacation I had to make the jewelry sets my grandmother wanted as a birthday gift for someone as well as plan my first private dance lesson. So I haven’t been on the computer much, I’m behind on my blog reading as well as my own blogging, and the week ahead won’t get much better as I have to clean my entire house, top to bottom! It’s just that time to do it, but it also works out to be just in time to have a clean house for my dad’s side of the family, who are all coming for a BBQ on the 15th (what did I get myself into??? should be interesting!!!). So bear with me as we end summer. I will try to post something, if not a few things, before next Friday’s Kitty Pic post, because I definitely have things to write about - but if you don’t read anything from me, I have either collapsed from exhaustion or all the cleaning supply fumes!

But, please share your favorite kitties with me in the meantime! :)

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