Interesting Family Cont~

Awhile back I wrote a post about my cousin who is in prison. He was wrongfully accused.

I recently learned that some very famous people wanted to do a movie on his story. I don't know why, but my cousin turned them down. According to his sister, in 1994 Robert DiNiro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer all went to see him along with Michael Mann the producer.

How cool is that??

Sucky

Today approximately 30 employees were layed off from my company from our IT group. One of them is someone I really like very much. She's a wealth of information, friendly, funny, has the greatest laugh ever, helps me A LOT and has been here 14 years. I've been here 10 years. We've known each other a long time. She scrapbooks her vacations. She's a very good scrapbooker. She brings her new scrapbooks around to show us what she's done and the trip she took. She just invited me to a scrapbook convention thingy taking place in Sacramento, but it's the weekend I leave for Cabo so I can't go.

She's been crying pretty much ever since she found out this morning. She admits she had a feeling it could happen but she was still surprised and unprepared. She gets 21 weeks of severance. Even that may not be enough time to find a new job here in Silicon Valley. It's a mess out there. Just a mess.

I'm really going to miss her. :0( This is so sucky.

To top that off, my other friend here who'se been at this company 7 years is leaving for a new job she found.

It's gonna suck around here.

Stained Glass Artistry

My uncle is a stained glass artist. He's been doing it for 30 years or more. How cool is it to have talent in some artistic form. This is a photo of one of his pieces. Ain't it rockin?!

Bullet points are my life lately

I have so many things going on right now that bullet points have become my life. Below are things I'm doing, thinking about, worrying about, or need to do.

1. I'm not a millionaire. Damn it. The 24 super lotto tickets we purchased last week didn't even win $1. So much for 9/9/09 being lucky.

2. After school activities may cause my hair to fall out. Oh wait, my hair is already falling out.
I have Small child in Daisy's one a month and now cheerleading twice a week. Older child wants to do everything. Piano, basketball, volleyball, choir.
I have signed her up for church choir every Monday and now volleyball, which we don't really know the schedule yet. Once volleyball ends basketball begins. Piano is out. We don't even have a piano. Then she suggested guitar. I gave her a blank stare. Todd is worried because even in 3rd grade homework is taking longer. It should only take 30-45 minutes but he likes to separate the kids because they concentrate better alone so it's more like an hour or more. I'm not even home from work until after homework is done (smart ain't I?) so I can't help out much. We'll play this by ear and see how sports/activities impact school work, or more to the point, my marriage. Live and learn.

3. I lost another 2.5 lbs this week. I'm down in the 146 zone now. Woohoo! That's huge for me.
4 weeks until Cabo. I have got to drop another 5lbs or more. My friend who I'm going with is really pretty and skinny. It sucks to be around pretty & skinny people when you feel like a blob. Women, you know what I'm talkin' about.

4. I have a classmate from high school who is deathly ill. I'm not close to her but she's on my Facebook so I see her progress. I feel so bad for her. I really hope she recovers.

5. On Tuesday I participated on my first school board. I'm the new Secretary on our board. I had to type minutes like a mad woman. It was a little hairy at first but I found my groove. I had to go onto the Internet the next day to clarify some things I heard but didn't know how to spell. Gotta luv that Internet.

6. My husband, daughter's and my Oldest's BFF are camping right now. They had an in-service day so Todd took off work. I'll be meeting them up there after work. Traffic will SUCK. We're camping at a new campground (new to us) in the redwoods near Scotts Valley, CA. It's supposed to be a hot weekend so I'm hoping the trees and swimming pool work to our advantage. Also, this is the first time BFF has ever been camping in her whole life. I'm excited for her to be able to experience something so fun.

7. My cars brakes still need to be done. Where are the fix it gremlins when you need them? What was that movie with Jessica Lang where the little alien flying things fixed everything? I need them. Short Circuit I think.

9. I know so many people with birthday's today. New year's eve babies I think yes?

10. I wrote an anonymous letter to my neighbors about their barking little dog. It barks constantly in the AM when they leave for work. It's even woken us up. I wrote a nice letter so hopefully they take care of it. I can see into their backyard from my upstairs window. The dog runs around barking for no reason other than it's retarded. No offense to the really retarded people. Their yard is full of crap that it's like a dump back there. Some of my neighbors are totol pigs.

I'm done. Have a fantastic weekend everyone.

A quick list of my life lately

So what is going on in my life lately?

1. Rental dogs will finally be separated. The Pres of the rescue has decided that the poodle/bichon mix can go stay somewhere else. That will help me tremendously. The two rental dogs together are a team to be reckoned with. Rosie, my dog, plays with Rental dog rat terrier so we'll keep her. Only, she's the hyper one.

2. I have a Daisy meeting tonight for just the adults. Daisy's are Jr. Girl Scouts. I hope they have wine. I'm a leader on paper for the 1st grade troop. I was sort of horn-swaggled into agreeing to be a leader. I suck at that stuff. I didn't attend one meeting last year. But, if I wanted my youngest child to be a Daisy someone needed to be a leader of her troop. Thankfully the cadet troop is running the program so really, all I have to do is provide forms and crap. I can sort of do that.

3. 23 employees and myself all put in $1 for the Super Lotto Plus lottery here in CA so I got 24 quick picks today. It's up to $23M. I figured since it's 09/09/09 that maybe that brings a bit of luck. If we win the entire finance group (well, not all) will be missing tomorrow. Sweet! I hope it happens.

4. My car desperately needs the brake drums turned. They grind and the car shakes at stops. It's a Honda Odyssey and every 40K miles this happens. I already had this done once. My old boss had a Honda Pilot. They use the same chassis as the Odyssey and he had the same problem. The van now has 80k plus miles. I'm stalling.

5. Shawna went to the dentist yesterday and got a clean bill of teeth. Her lower center tooth is wiggly. Her first loose tooth!!! She can't wait for it to fall out. She even requested corn on the cob. Too funny.

6. I really need to pee right now so I'm going to end this post. Have a great one!

Labor Day Weekend Camping

I know how much my regular readers (all 1 of you) enjoy my camping stories. This past weekend my family and I went to Santa Cruz to a KOA campground. For those of you non-camping folks, KOA's are campgrounds which are usually pet friendly and located all over the Unites States. They boast about clean bathrooms, pizza delivered to your campsite, activities for kids and other fun things.

This weekend we had to bring Rental Dogs with us. We have 2 foster dogs living with us besides our own dog. Rental dogs barked and whined a hell of a lot so they spent a good amount of their time crated in the trailer. Hmmmmph.

My oldest went on a mechanical bull

My youngest rock climbed. Yes in her bathing suit. What do you rock climb in??

There was some Dead Man's Diving going on at the pool area

I enjoyed many hours inside the dog corral because as my husband referred to me, I was the Dog Whisperer. They were only quiet (and then not even) if I sat in there with them. A few men came by joking, wondering if I was in a time out or was my husband going to let me out.

Paula and I also rode banana bikes together. For $5 you can rent them for 30 minutes or $8 for an hour. Thank Gawd we only rented them for 30 minutes. See her, not even sweating?! Yeah, that was NOT me. I could barely go down the stairs of the trailer after I was done. #suckstogetold

We met some fun new friends

Lastly there was Rental Dog. He's one of two. This is one happy camper. Too bad he's not going camping with us again. In two weeks when we go camping again, he and his partner in crime are going to doggy daycare for the weekend.

Def Leppard ROCKS!

Yesterday I attended a Def Leppard concert. For those of you who are either too young, too old, or just live under a rock they're an 80's rock band. A Kick ass 80's rock band.

In the mid to late 80's I was 16. I had a power blue '66 Mustang with a kick ASS stereo system and gold Enkie rims. Guys asked me if the mustang belonged to my boyfriend. HA! I loved to play Def Leppard and blast it to annoy all the cars around me. The base in their songs is hard and so awesome.

Last night I rocked OUT. There was a small bummer because the lead singer had laryngitis. You could still hear him but his voice sounded raw. I was just thrilled he didn't cancel on us.

So, too all you Def Leppard fans I say this... Gunter glieben glauten globen