Yep, It's Mine!

It was time to hand the keys to the Bravada over to Garret who turns 16 next month. The Brav has been good to me with all of its 225,000 miles. Anyone who knows me knows I've dreamed of having a Volvo forever. We have been car looking for probably a year on and off.... debating about getting a car or another SUV ... debating....debating.... until I couldn't think about it one more time. I told Rich to just tell me when we were going to pick something up. So what did he do? He bought me a Volvo!!! I was feeling sort of guilty, cause I may have sounded a little Veruca Salt from Willie Wonka, "I want a Volvo, and I want it now!" Only she wanted a pony of course. I really never expected it to be a possibility. My cute friend Beth asked me now that I got my dream car is it all down hill from here? Now that's just silly, this is my car dream, not a life dream. I will say it drives like "butta". I'm pretty happy, trying to keep the smile on my face to a minimum so people don't think I'm nuts. I'm pretty much trying to find excuses to drive it, so let me know if you need a ride!

Things Aren't What they Seem

This will really date me but remember when eel purses, belts, and wallets were all the rage? I remember in the 80's when my sweet husband spent his hard-earned money to buy me a beautiful burgundy eel skin purse and wallet. Yeah, I thought I was so "snap" with my big hair, shoulder pads, and eel skin accessories. Mind you when I think of the eels they use for these exotic purses, belts, and wallets I think of an ocean diver risking life and limb to capture electric eels in the depths of the ocean. Well, last night as we were watching "Dirty Jobs", Mike Rowe was off the coast of Maine fishing for eels. They pulled up thousands of eels from the depths of the ocean floor that looked like large worms that secrete this totally disgusting slime, therefore they are called "slime eels". I won't even go into detail about what exactly this slime is for, but can it ever be a good thing when slime is involved? These are sold to an Asian country where they make none other than the eel purses like I have! So not as exotic as I was thinking. Makes me wonder about my "lambskin" leather jacket, please tell me that it just feels like lambskin, and isn't really.....(gulp).

More Details Aren't Always a Bad Thing

There is definitely a difference between the details a man needs and the details a woman needs. Lauren left her car lights on yesterday while she was in class here at Messiah so she needed me to jump her car for her. Ok, I will admit that I have not actually ever done this act although I have watched it numerous times. Here's how it went down: Called Rich, located jumper cables behind the seat of the passenger rear seat (are they so valuable they need to be placed in some sort of top secret spot in the truck, but that's just me), pulled up to Lauren's passenger side, pop the hood, unlatch the thingy that holds the hood up, all proud of myself, I can actually locate the battery, Lauren pops her hood (after I told her to pop her trunk and she looked at me like I was crazy), her battery is on the other side!, remove the thingy that holds up the hood from my truck, close the hood, pull out and pull back into her driver's side, repeat earlier steps to raise hood, Rich had informed me that the cables go red/positive, black/negative (and for this detail I am appreciative as it is the only detail he provided), attach cables to her battery and the truck battery, get into truck start it up, she gets into her car, waits a minute, nothing, waits another minute, nothing, she gets out, readjusts positive cable, gets back in, wala, starts up, then we stare at each other trying to figure out if we turn the car off to remove cables, realize that would be dumb to turn her car off as it needs to charge the battery, turn off the truck, stare at each other some more, Lauren decides it's ok to remove cables while truck is on, holds them in left hand while removing the cables from the truck with her right hand, cables in left hand touch, sparks, screaming, laughing, girl in car near us staring, lauren on her way. I think Rich should have "reminded" me that the cables can't touch when the car is on although he proceeded to explain in full detail the cause of the before mentioned sparks when I told him. That's what I mean, more details would have been helpful.

Spectator Stress

I don't think this is an officially documented medical condition, but I have it. We have been fully involved in football and now basketball since August and I find that with each sports game that I go to with my boys, I reach a new level of anxiety and stress. Chad's basketball team is heading into states now and will soon be finished. What I think is so odd about this is that while I like to win as much as the next person, I realize it is just a game and really not the end of the world if we lose. I have all these little conversations in my head throughout the games, but can' t seem to stop the anxiety I feel. Maybe it's sitting so close to other fans, all the yelling, all the clapping, all the fear I have of my boys getting hurt.... but I am ready for a break from competitive sports for awhile. Garret is heading into baseball, and I think that is more my speed. I'm sure there will be some yelling at the umps for bad calls, but I really think I can take the pace of baseball right now. Give me some peanuts and cracker jacks, baseball here I come.

My Valentine

Rich looked at my blog the other week and asked why he wasn't on it anywhere so I think today is a good day to talk about him. We will be married 23 years in June and although it hasn't always been perfect there has never been one single day that I wasn't sure I married the right person. The thing that always amazes me about him is his pure enthusiasm for everything. He loves everything! The kids and I always laugh at him because at least once a day he says that something is his favorite... how can you have that many favorites? He does make me laugh and always makes sure I am taken care of. I appreciate that. I am thankful he is my Valentine.

Pillow Talk

I now have a collection of 4 new pillows that are definately not "just right" to take a quote from Goldilocks. My patient husband went pillow shopping with me yesterday and we carefully looked at a number of pillows that claim to be best for "back sleepers", "stomach sleepers", and "side sleepers". I happen to be a side sleeper and have not had a decent night's sleep in weeks and I think all I need is to find the perfect pillow but can't. I have tried the memory foam pillows, the down alternative pillows, down pillows, but still can't find the right one. They either feel like bricks, lumpy, or smooshy. I am on a quest, and will not rest, pardon the pun, until I find a pillow that me and Goldilocks can sleep on.

Chick-Fil-A

There is somewhat of a hubabaloo today because a Chick-Fil-A is opening in Mechanicburg today. There were about 100 people waiting in line for the grand opening to get a free coupon to receive a free meal for a year. Hmmmm, I can't tell if I think these people have way too much time on their hands or if I am actually jealous because I wish I had that much time on my hands. I do think that their cow commercials are very clever. You can see them at
http://www.chick-fil-a.com/#thecows. I am pretty sure that even if they opened a Nordstroms here and they were giving some kind of freebie, I would not stand in line for it to open. That just seems a little humiliating. Must be a slow news day.

February Funk

Ok, it's official, I am beginning my least favorite month, followed by my second least favorite month of March. Today the temperature is supposed to get to 64 degrees, then plummet to 24 by Saturday. That is just torture. I am so done with winter but it isn't done being winter. I'm sure there are a few more snow storms in store, just when you think you've made it past the worst of it. That's Central PA winter weather.
I am happy that the New York Giants won the Super Bowl and on the way home from church we saw a man walking a llama. Ok, tell me how many times you've seen that! So I'm fighting the funk, it won't get the best of me!