Christmas Decorations

Today I spend two hours taking down the inside and outside Christmas Decorations. It was nice that I had my family to help me. The kids made the task go very fast and I think we completely finished in two hours. We even got the stuff back into the attic.

However, there was one disaster. As we picked up the stuff from the tree I found a that the carpet got burned. I think on of the lights was under the tree blanket. OMG...I cannot believe that it happened. How am I going to fix this? This imperfection in the living room is going to drive me CRAZY!

Happy Frickin New Year

I left work on Tuesday and Wednesday evening with irritated, itching, watering and painful eyes. When I was playing games with my family on Wednesday night my right eye was painful so I decided to go to CVS to get some drops. I consulted the pharmacist and she thought that I have pick eye. As if....how could I get pink eye. She gave me some over the counter homeopathic eye drops but suggested that I see a doctor the next day.

I just returned from the urgent care center at Wal Mart with an official diagnosis of Pink Eye AKA...Conjunctivitis. As an added bonus my ears were clogged with ear wax and the nurse practitioner had to torture me for fifteen minutes squirting water into them to clean them out, just so she could see my ear drum. I was able to use my insurance there and only pay the $25 co-pay as well as get a $4 prescription.

The most expensive thing is that I have to replace all of my eye make up. That sucks but it was fun to shop for more.

I will be OK. But, how did I get it? What a way to start the new year!

Inappropriate Movie

I have been spending my time in the last few months in pursuits other than watching TV. I have enjoyed reading and spending time with friends and it is becoming a secondary thought to me. Last night I realized that it had been a week since I had watched any TV and I had a movie from Netflix sitting on my dresser waiting for me to view. I decided I wanted to watch it and I asked Gwen and the children if they wanted to watch it with me. The movie was Good Luck Chuck and I thought it was a simple romantic comedy. How could I be so wrong?

Gwen told me that she had seen it before but she would watch it again. I asked her if the movie was appropriate for the children and she commented that it wasn’t too bad but maybe Melvin (the 13 year old) shouldn’t watch it. So we got Melvin set up in the other room with the Disney channel and I proceeded to watch the movie with Gwen, Heather (17), and Ronnie (15). Did I mention that the version of the movie I had was unrated. I think that this should have given me warning that perhaps this was a movie to watch by myself. It was very funny but very inappropriate. There were several graphic sex scenes that included nudity as well as sexual humor throughout the film.

Buy the end I was feeling very uncomfortable. Have I mentioned how conservative and religious Gwen is? She is a very devout Lutheran and I find her children to be very sheltered and innocent. I am not sure why she OK’ed this movie for us to watch. I could tell she was uncomfortable throughout the movie as well as when it was over. I had no idea that it was so graphic. I am also not used to having to censor what I watch, read or listen to. It is hard to have to think about those things for the length of their visit.

The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Edition (Paperback)

The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Edition (Paperback)
by Psy.D. Paul Joannides (Author), Daerick Gross Sr. (Illustrator)

I decided to get Wyatt (Lou’s 16 year old son) a peculiar gift for Christmas. It was an informational sex book called “The Guide to Getting it On”. I thought he would find it interesting and it would have much needed information for him.

This idea occurred to me about a month ago when Lou and I were driving to Wendy’s dad’s funeral. We agree that he got to listen to his IPOD on the way there and I got to listen to my IPOD on the way back. One of the things that I chose to listen to was a podcast about abstinence only sex education in America . I thought Lou and I could have a good conversation about the topic when it was over and I was right. I was VERY surprised to discover just how conservative he is. He believes in teaching his children abstinence until marriage…I just couldn’t believe he was saying that. We weren’t raised to be this conservative and in reality our parents NEVER talked to us about this at all. Never!

So, I took it into my hands to give the boy some educational materials. When I gave the book to Wyatt I pulled him away from the family into a room alone on Christmas Eve. I wish I had a camera to capture the pure shock and surprise on his face as he opened it up. I had him thumb through it and I asked him to read the contraception chapters first. Although, I do think that everything else is also important. Later, I found out that he shared the book a bit with my seventeen year old niece that night. I hope her mom doesn’t find out because I think that she is about 20 times more conservative than Lou is. His reaction to me giving it to Wyatt was more exasperation than anything else….I don’t think that he really minded.

I texted Wyatt today to see if he has read any of the book and what did he think? He replied that he has read the first eight chapters but he doesn’t get much private time to read while they are on vacation in Florida . A few minutes later he texted me and asked me if I had read the book. I didn’t expect that question and I was surprised. I replied back that I hadn’t yet but I planned to…now I need to get myself a copy of this book. I guess since I was the one to open up this topic with him I should now expect to field questions.

So what would you think if your COOL older aunt had given you this book as a Christmas present when you were sixteen? Would you have liked it? Would that have elevated her to GOD status? Would you have been embarrassed or able to overcome the embarrassment?

Holiday Fun

What a fun Christmas this year. I have never had such a full house….ever. My older brother Ron's ex wife and three children arrived on Christmas eve at 5pm for a week and a half visit. The children are 13, 15 and 17 and are fairly quiet people and enjoyable to be around. I immediately took them over to Lou's house so they all could go to Christmas Eve church services, I went back home and put together a yummy breakfast casserole for Christmas morning breakfast. When they all returned from church we had decedent appetizers for dinner and Lou's children opened a couple of gifts. The gifts just happened to be two fabulous Wii games, Guitar Hero and Disney's Sing It. I spent the rest of the evening upstairs with the boys playing the Guitar Hero game and loosing, but at least I was the only one who knew the words.

This is Wyatt and Ronnie

I am not sure why why Lou is so serious and I have that very odd expression?

We all went back to Lou's house at 7:30am on Christmas morning to participate in the mass opening of gifts. It was crazy...and exciting....and chaotic...and fun. Everyone was opening up their gifts at the same time. In the prior years each person opened one gift at one time. I think I prefer it that way because you can watch what is going on with every person in the room. The children seamed to enjoy their new gifts and couldn't wait to play with them. BTW....I received a bike rack for my car. So...when spring hits...I will be hitting up my friends to go bike riding with me around town.


We had a tasty breakfast and then played more Wii games until 11am when Gwen, her children and I returned to my house. We had the best time when we came home. We spent the entire rest of the day playing games - Rummycube and Cat-Opoly (Like Monopoly but with Cats). I enjoyed this time at home talking and laughing and spending time with the Himburg’s more than any other part of Christmas day. I am so glad that they came for a visit.


On Friday evening my sister Wendy arrived with her three children (11, 9, 6 years old) at 9pm for a weekend visit. I then had a total of ten people staying in my 1400 square foot house. I assure you we were all feeling the love for each other. I had the Himburg’s in my spare room which had one queen size bed and one queen size blow up bed on the floor. Then I had two twin size blow up beds and a full size blow up bed in the living room for my sister and two of her children and the third child was on the couch in my room. Joanne was lucky to be able to sleep in her room alone...except she has had to share her bathroom with all of these guests. Ashley was the nine year old in my room, and she talked and moaned in her sleep for a good portion of the night. I don't think that I got much sleep that night and it had nothing to do with me sitting up in bed with my laptop and book light playing on the Internet until all hours…ummm 2am.


I spent a good part of Saturday being a short order cook and preparing Breakfast, Lunch and dinner for the entire bunch. I have to say that it is allot more food than I usually have to prepare for just me. I made scrambled eggs, sausage and donuts for breakfast; I made tuna sandwiches with a orange and banana fruit salad for lunch and spaghetti, salad and garlic bread for dinner. I believe that I ran the dishwasher three times on Saturday as well doing a large load of dishes the old fashion manual way.


Did I mention that my sister also brought her large golden lab with her. Her name is Harley and she is gigantic. We had to make up a space for her in the laundry room as I didn't want her in the house upsetting my precious Mickey and Sparks . She stayed in there most of the time but I did introduce Wendy to the joys of the dog park. She got a temporary day pass to the one near my house and she took Harley there twice so she could frolic.


We had beautiful weather on Saturday and it would have been great to take my guests hiking but I had already promised them ice skating. We went to the Pepsi Coliseum at the State Fairgrounds and had a terrific time. Everyone got completely worn out and I didn't fall once. The best part was the great price. It is only $4 for adults and $3 for children with a $2 skate rental fee. So for just me it was only six dollars for two hours of fun. This is a very cheap and fun family activity. My sister and all of her children even have their own skates. They go often in Ohio to an outdoor location.


I was very stressed out the week leading up the all of my visitors but it was for no reason. I have really enjoyed having them here and getting to spend so much time with the adults as well as the children. It has been a good holiday break.

Pipes

OK…watch out…there could be extensive cursing within this posting. I am just saying that home improvements bring out that side of me.

Ok, my problem started in the fall of 2007. I decided that it was time to get a water softener unit for my home after living there for three years. I was tired of the hard water and the spots on my dishes. I received a recommendation from my brother and got an appointment for the instillation. I cleaned out the utility room and removed a cabinet to make room for the new unit. My brother was kind enough to come to my house to let the instillation person do their job. When I came home that night I discovered that they installed the unit in my garage. I never said that I wanted it in the garage. The two MEN decided that the utility room would be too crowded and I had to pay extra for them to drill holes in the wall and install the network of pipes back into the utility room where the hot water heater is located. Duh…they never listen to me.

In January of 2008 it got extremely cold and caused the pipes on the water softener to freeze and therefore I did not have water in the cold morning when I woke up. The first time that this happened I panicked because I had never had frozen pipes in the prior three years that I resided in my house. I called my brother and he was not helpful. I made the determination that the only new element in the situation was the water softener so it must be the problem. I called the emergency number and talked to a guy who told me to take my hair dryer and try to thaw out the area. The hard part is you cannot see where it is frozen as the pipes are opaque. However, the hair dryer did fix the problem and I had running water again in twenty minutes.

This event occurred a total of four times during the winter of 2008 much to my aggravation. I complained about it but that didn’t fix it. I talked to a handy guy at work who suggested that I insulate it with duck tape and egg crate foam. He had some in his truck so I went home and hillbillyed up my pipes. This did not work and they still froze up. When the water softener guy came for a repair that was unrelated to the frozen pipes he suggested that I get a space heater or place an electric blanked over the unit or insulate the pipes.

Last week I decided to try and be proactive about the water freezing up because it has been so cold. I decided to purchase a $30 twin size electric blanked. This seamed the easiest of the above solutions. I set it up and the stupid thing was defective. It never heated up. I tried to put the situation out of my head until I woke up to frozen pipes on Monday morning. I had to reenact the prior year’s morning routine of dragging my tired ass out the garage with the hair dryer and try to guess what was frozen. It was so cold in the garage that the kitties didn’t even want to come out and frolic in the garage (this is their second favorite thing to do..their first thing being escaping outside…and playing…"I know I can run faster than that giant and taunting me").

I was now serious about this home repair. I stopped at Wal Mart on my way home on Monday night to return the defective electric blanket and purchase some real pipe insulation items. I brought my new stuff home and set about this very definitive BOY task. I have no interest what so ever in doing any types of repairs at my house. I absolutely HATE IT! So with a heavy heart and bad words in my head I began the dreaded task. The first horrible part was reading the instructions. They are so boring. They always want you do follow them exactly…I don’t like that. I bought some heating tape stuff…you know the long cord that wraps around the pipes and heats up. Wrapping stuff around these pipes in the tiny little area was not fun and I usually lack a certain precision on these types of tasks. I eventually got it around them but I wouldn’t call it smooth or even or neat. The next step was to wrap the insulation around the heating tape and pipes. Duh…it was this big giant roll and it didn’t fit around the back of the pipes. So I had to cut it…the only thing I had on hand was a steak knife. It sort of worked on the job. Then I had to duck tape it all together. This was not easy as I kept getting the tape stuck on things…you know the pipe…the insulation…me. However, I did purchase some very cute hot pink tape….it added to the overall look.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I finally finished this task about an hour after I started and I was happy to be done. It didn’t look like any type of professional instillation but it was somehow less hillbilly than the egg crates taped around the pipes and then half way falling off. Guess what…my pipes didn’t freeze last night and the house didn’t catch on fire. Hurray…I believe that this was a successful home improvement project.

What do you think of my handy work? Sorry for the nose shot…it was kind of hard taking a picture of myself.

Condoms

Last week at work the accounting department played the secret Santa game. Every day we had to bring in a small present and surprise our secret Santa person. They wouldn’t know who we were until the end of the week at an Ice Cream Party when we revealed ourselves.

When I gave my Friday gift out at the ice cream party my person didn’t like it and seamed disappointed, she then re-gifted it to someone else. I felt bad about her not liking the bottle of pomegranate bath soap. She said that she only uses Dove because her skin is so sensitive and that is why she didn't keep it. I didn't want this person to be disappointed and I wanted to give her a better present or at least one she would like.



Now you are wondering why I titled this Condoms...come on be patient....wait for it....

Earlier in the week we (my secret Santa recipient and I) had a conversation that ended in us talking about her jar of colored condoms at home. I had though a couple of time it would be funny to give her some as a gag on Friday, but I thought it might be inappropriate at work. I told her this story on Friday when we exchanged our gifts and she laughed and she said I should of given her that instead of the pomegranate soap.

I decided to do it, (all the while knowing that it was inappropriate but not caring) and I stopped at CVS this morning at 8am. BTW…I was the only customer in the store and all of the employees wanted to help me due to their boredom. After I rid myself of the over helpful employee, I found the “Family Planning” section and looked over the extensive inventory. I was looking for something a little bit different to get a good laugh, but I didn’t see anything that was too weird. I chose a Trojan female pleasure product and drove to work.

When I got to work I walked over and gave it to her and she had a good long laugh. I think she really appreciated the late secret Santa gift. She said she would make good use of them. As I was walking away someone who heard us laughing asked if we were already talking about something dirty at 8:30am. I guess they could tell by our laugh.

I hope your secret Santa’s was good to you and made you laugh.