A Very Interesting Man

Yard trimmers oughta do the trick!

     My Uncle Glen is arguably the most interesting man I know.  He is a Professor of Finance, an Engineer, a golfer, a wine and cigar connoisseur. Now all that might make one think that Uncle Glen is snooty or boring, but he is far from it.  The first thing he said to me when I walked in at Christmas was, "How's your car? Do you need your uncle to look at anything? Change the oil?"  He is handy, that Uncle Glen (see the photo exhibit of the not-so-deep fried turkey Thanksgiving 2008.)  At my dad's 60th Birthday, I think he had three flashlights on his person.  Why?  He told me he had a new flashlight fetish. 
       On Christmas Day, I brought a scratch off lottery ticket for each person attending dinner and provided the pennies for revealing our winnings.  I made everyone agree that would we split any winnings.  We scratched our way to $13. I spent $8 to get them, so we won a whopping $5 (this was reinvested into MegaMillions and Hoosier Lotto tickets that I have yet to check if we won last night.)  The pennies were intended to be part of my gift, but apparently no one wanted them. I discovered the pile of pennies as we put on our coats and started the parade of good-bye hugs and kisses.  "Excuse me but does no one want these copper gifts?"  Uncle Glen said, "Here give them to me, I will wash them."  And that's exactly what he did.  He had some sort of handy dandy cleaner and brush right there at the sink and started to soak and scrub.  Then he dropped one down the sink and said, "Does anyone have a flashlight?"




***MOOSE UPDATE*** Good Boy! This is his most favoritest time of the year because he likes to harvest ice in the yard...for real. (I wrote this before the warm rains came and washed it all away.)

Bad Blogger, Bad!

I know I have been inconsistently posting the last couple of weeks. My commitment to this blog remains.  I have three hundred and seventy-four excuses.  I have been ill (truish.) I am working two jobs and am exhausted (very true.) The holidays are stressful (not really true.) Moose ate my posts (he ate lots of other stuff, but this is not true.) I broke a fingernail (true...grrr.) I am mentally and emotionally zapped from work (true.) 


I wrote something tonight but then I stopped before posting.  Am I supposed to ask permission to talk about people in my life on here? My mom already told me "to leave her out of the blog," but I have not heeded her warning.  I guess it is the polite thing to do and since I have no intentions of slander to anyone, I guess it wouldn't hurt.  Stay tuned.  

Favorite Holiday Images...so far

This is the cutest damn cheese ball I've ever seen

This is Lori.

This is Sis, Lori's dog.

I attended an early holiday gathering on the 11th with some of the loveliest ladies I know.

 So many exciting things occurred on the night Erin and I BEDAZZLED our REAL Christmas tree - the angel appearance, the dog photo shoot, and Erin's ornaments and my tree topper melding together to make a stunning tree despite the flipping tinsel. 

 The photo above displays a radio antenna.   These are used often to dial in radio waves to an exact station.  I had not used one of these in quite some time and spent 15 minutes tonight trying to stop Led Zeppelin from running interference on Bing Crosby.  Once I conquered that challenge, it was onto rocking around the Christmas tree and wrapping the gifts that I bought today while shopping with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jenn.

Wrapping is not my forte.  Compare Erin's sharp, pointed corners to my, well, not so sharp.

Now, decorating the packages is where I spend a little more time as to distract the recipient from my wreckless wrapping.  The next comparison I like to call "Mullet Wrapping" - all business in the front and a party in the back.

horrible corners...ahhh...pretty bow!

um, eeh, ah, geez, hoping you wouldn't notice.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to my 30 "followers" and who knows how many "readers."  Blogging about my Random Thoughts amidst the Hoosier Corn Stalks, and you actually reading, has been the best gift.  Thank you for being here!

Santa Paws

As mentioned last week, Erin and I subjected the dogs to a long photo shoot (like 5 minutes, which is very long for two independent pups.)  As you can see in the right corner of the first shot, Erin's hand full of treats made this all possible.  

"Who's alpha now?" Lilli

That's the pose...hold it...stay!

Humans Galore

If I had to guess, which I do, I checked out at least 150 guests on Saturday at Tarjay and another 100 on Sunday.  That is an awful lot of human interaction in one weekend.  That's not including all the people I mingled with at a holiday party Saturday night and the chit chat with my co-workers.  The diversity of the shoppers at our store impresses me - older folks, college students, all ethnicities and races,varied income levels, jumbled family status.  I almost feel like I took a trip around the world...almost..mostly due to the accents of two Spaniards who  graced my lane.  I recognized their accents and got to practice a little español. 


"Yo estudie en Madrid...now please don't speak to me in Spanish because I will panic.  Llevo diez años sin hablar español." That is my rehearsed line to let people know that I once studied abroad but I have not practiced the language and can't really have this conversation anymore...thanks...love your country.


All in all, the holiday Tarjay gig hasn't been too bad despite the literal pains in the neck...back, feet, shoulders, hands. Experiencing 250ish humans in one weekend makes up for all of that.

Angels we have heard on high

Erin and I decorated the Christmas tree the other night and are quite proud of our bedazzled evergreen.  It wasn't all joy and bliss to start.  Erin's insistence on adding tinsel to the tree irked me a bit.  That stuff gets all over the place and we'll be finding it for weeks after the tree comes down.  I conceded because in all honesty the tree trimmings aren't a hot issue for me and she seemed pretty attached to the tinsel idea.  Erin kept telling stories about how her mother, Joan, directed every single ornament hanging on her last Christmas before she passed away.  I was cracking up at her impersonations of her mom and truly felt blessed to hear the stories while we decorated on our tree with her old ornaments and new ones.  


We delighted in our completed task by taking an excessive amount of photographs (just wait till you see the ones of Moose and Lilli posing.) One of the first shots I got with my cell phone had Joan in it...I swear...if you think you know something about lighting/exposure and want to ruin this miracle for me...GO AWAY!  I believe the swoopy, white thing on the left of this picture is Joan's angel wing...and I am sticking to it!  She oversaw our tree trimming and nothing anyone says can change that!

BEDAZZLED!

***MOOSE UPDATE***

Went to a new vet closer to the house yesterday (we still love Dr. Bundy the most.)  They loved him and kept saying how handsome he was. He weighed 84.3 lbs.  GOOD BOY!

I got nothing

My head is empty, so enjoy this weird, cute, creepy, video.