Monthly Goals- Utter Failure

So here were the July-recycled-from June goals


1. Move back into the main bedroom

2. still trying to excavate Laundry Mountain

3. clean out current bedroom

4. create order out of the 5 boxes & innumerable bags of stitch stash

5. take another box of books to Half Price Books

6. Finish the birthday card I started stitching for Uncle John LAST year so I can give it to him THIS year.

7. take 3 bags of culled wardrobe items to Goodwill



I didn't get a single damned one of them done.



Attempting a new list for August:

1. Watch Thor:Dark World

2. Get main bedroom vacuumed

3. Tidy living room

4. Watch Season one of Grimm

5. Go here: on/near my birthday

Song Lyric Wednesday, take 2

This time it's Rixton:

"Me And My Broken Heart"

[Chorus:]
All I need's a little love in my life
All I need's a little love in the dark
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart
I need a little loving tonight
Hold me so I'm not falling apart
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart

Yeah...

[Verse 1:]
Shot gun, aimed at my heart, you got one
Tear me apart and then some
How do we call this love
I try to run away but your eyes
Tell me to stay, oh why,
Why do we call this love

[Pre-Chorus:]
It seems like we've been losing control
Somebody tell me I'm not alone
When I say

[Chorus:]
All I need's a little love in my life
All I need's a little love in the dark
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart
I need a little loving tonight
Hold me so I'm not falling apart
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart

[Verse 2:]
Maybe some part of you just hates me
You pick me up and play me
How do we call this love?
One time tell me you need me tonight
To make it easy, you lie
And say it's all for love

[Pre-Chorus:]
It seems like we've been losing control
Somebody tell me I'm not alone
When I say

[Chorus:]
All I need's a little love in my life
All I need's a little love in the dark
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart
I need a little loving tonight
Hold me so I'm not falling apart
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart

[Bridge:]
Whoa oh, whoa oh
Me and my broken heart
Whoa oh, whoa oh
Me and my broken
Yeah, yeah, yeah
(Me and my broken)
Yeah, yeah, yeah
How do we call this?

It's just me
It's just me
It's just me
Me and my broken heart

[Chorus:]
All I need's a little love in my life
All I need's a little love in the dark
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart
I need a little loving tonight
Hold me so I'm not falling apart
A little but I'm hoping it might kick start
Me and my broken heart

File Under Things I Will Never Try Again

1. Mikesells Smoked Bacon flavored potato chips
They smell like bacon. They vaguely taste like bacon & fake mesquite. Then the salt from the first 5 you eat hits and you drink a gallon of water in 15 seconds.


2. Angry Orchard Hard Apple Cider
I'm not much of a drinker anyway, especially now with my assorted cocktail of medications. But I do like soft cider and have had one or two hard ciders that I thought were tasty. This was not one of them. Now I have 4 bottles left in my fridge and no clue what to do with them. The 6 pack was too expensive to just pour them down the drain. I may try adding some to homemade applesauce or something.


3. Knitting
I suck so badly at it that even one of the hand loom things can't help me.


4. Dating anyone more than 5 years younger than me. Unless it's Tom Hiddleston.
Nothing kills a mood faster than hearing a song you loved in high school on the radio and hearing your date say "I think I was 3 when that came out." (Not a recent experience, but I'm still traumatized by it)


5. Streaking
My ex-college roommate/partner in crime & I streaked around the bell tower at UNC our freshman year. Only the friends we were with saw us, thankfully, and it was an unique experience, but NOT one I will ever repeat. Especially with my 40-something body. Things jiggle a bit more.


6. Almond Oolong Tea
Got to pick a free sample with my last Teavana order. I like almonds, so I thought maybe it would be good. It wasn't. I'm guess I'm just not a flavored tea person.

Foodie Friday- Skillet Cheesy Gnocchi with Peas and Ham

I found this online somewhere and cannot take credit for the recipe, but my goodness it's tasty!


Skillet Cheesy Gnocchi with Peas and Ham
yield: 2-4 SERVINGS prep time: 10 MINUTES cook time: 20 MINUTES total time: 30 MINUTES
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound gnocchi
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1-1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/3 cup shredded Asiago cheese
1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup frozen baby peas
7 ounces small diced ham

DIRECTIONS:
Bring a medium sized pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add in gnocchi and cook until they float to the top. Drain and set aside until ready to use.
Place a large high sided skillet over medium heat and add the butter.
Once the butter is melted add in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Whisk in flour until combined.
Slowly whisk in the milk until completely combined. Whisk constantly until the mixture is smooth and starts to thicken slightly. Lower the heat to low.
Add in all the cheese, peas and ham. Stir together until the cheese is melted. Stir in gnocchi and serve warm.

Note: If the sauce becomes a little too thick simply add a bit more milk to help loosen up the mixture.

An alternate to making your own sauce would be to use a jar of store bought Alfredo sauce. I’d add extra Parmesan & Asiago to it, fresh ground black pepper, and possibly some Italian seasoning or fresh chopped herbs. Oh, yes, I almost forgot- saute chopped garlic & some finely chopped onion in butter or olive oil, the add the Alfredo!

Song Lyric Wednesday

Couldn't think of anything original to post, so here are the lyrics to a Train song that I like:

"50 Ways To Say Goodbye"

My heart is paralyzed
My head was oversized
I'll take the high road like I should
You said it's meant to be
That it's not you, it's me
You're leaving now for my own good

That's cool, but if my friends ask where you are I'm gonna say

She went down in an airplane
Fried getting suntanned
Fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She met a shark under water
Fell and no one caught her
I returned everything I ever bought her
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died

My pride still feels the sting
You were my everything
Some day I'll find a love like yours (a love like yours)
She'll think I'm Superman
Not super minivan
How could you leave on Yom Kippur?

That's cool, but if my friends ask where you are I'm gonna say

She was caught in a mudslide
Eaten by a lion
Got run over by a crappy purple Scion
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She dried up in the desert
Drowned in a hot tub
Danced to death at an east side night club
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died

I wanna live a thousand lives with you
I wanna be the one you're dying to love...
But you don't want to

That's cool, but if my friends ask where you are I'm gonna say
That's cool, but if my friends ask where you are I'm gonna say

She went down in an airplane
Fried getting suntanned
Fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She met a shark under water
Fell and no one caught her
I returned everything I ever bought her
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies

She was caught in a mudslide
Eaten by a lion
Got run over by a crappy purple Scion
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She dried up in the desert
Drowned in a hot tub
Danced to death at an east side night club
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died

If I Were To Be Interviewed By A Woman's Magazine...(as stolen from Gail Carriger) **now with corrected spelling!**

20 Questions from Marie Claire Magazine


What food is on your kitchen counter?
A partial loaf of white bread, a bottle of olive oil, and a tin of cat food

What is the best gift you've ever received?
My mother took me to London for my 32nd birthday present, and we spent the actual day on a side trip to Bath & Stonehenge

What is your fantasy vacation itinerary?
An extended tour of Great Britain & Ireland.

What can you not miss on TV?
I don't actually watch much TV. I am looking forward to seeing the new show, Gotham, when it debuts this fall, assuming my coworker actually lets me watch it. otherwise, I wait until things come out on DVD and binge watch.

What is the best advice you've ever been given?
Hmmm. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, maybe?

What movie do you think has the greatest ending?
Romancing the Stone. I love how Jack surprises Joan at the end with a scene straight out of one of her romance novels.

What is on your perennial to-do list?
Cleaning my kaza-flatching house.

What is on your bookshelf?
An inch of dust and too many books per shelf. LOL. Lots of fantasy/sci-fi, mysteries, and a TON of British themed books. Oh, and comic collections.

What is on your feet right now?
A pair of heavily worn Dr Scholl's brown leather sandals

What is you go-to karaoke song?
I don't sing in public unless everyone I'm with is too drunk to remember it. However, under those circumstances, I have been known to belt out Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places."

What is your beauty secret?
Lip balm! Lots of lip balm.

What should every woman try at least once in her lifetime?
Lord, I have no idea. Red lipstick?

Do you have a secret talent?
I can pick up just about anything with my toes.

What makes you laugh?
silly animal antics, British comedy, Improv style comedy

What makes you mad?
stupidity, passive-aggressiveness, people who try to screw me over and then play the victim.

What charities do you support?
Cancer, literacy, & animal charities. And the local food bank

What splurge is well worth it?
400+ count cotton sheets. OMG, love mine. Also, thick bath sheets.

Do you have an pet peeves?
Far too many to list. The current list toppers are people who say "I don't want to interrupt you" and then do just that, anybody who pulls out in front of me on the interstate and then slows down for no reason, and being second-guessed

How did you make your first dollar?
Babysitting, followed by being a page at my local library.

What's the one thing you wish you'd known when you were younger?
There is no such thing as financial security and you should really learn how to manage finances before going out on your own. Also, credit cards are the devil.

Rick Still Rocks!

So, Sunday night was the Rick Springfield concert. I had been looking forward to it for months, having ordered my ticket the day they went on sale. I used what pitiful amount I got of my tax refund to pay for it, and while I was tempted to order the most expensive seats (which came with the meet & greet before the concert), I restrained myself and ordered the second-tier priced ticket instead.

I got to the Louisville Palace about 30 minutes before the show was supposed to start...and discovered that my seat was in the lower part of the FREAKING BALCONY. I was NOT HAPPY. Not only did I have to climb a zillion stairs, I wasn't going to be close enough to play with Rick if he came out into the audience like he usually does. Then it got worse. My seatmates turned out to be 3 drunk/yappy-happy bimbos with entirely too much perfume on. It was so bad that I had to use my inhaler twice. After the second shot, I went to the ushers and requested that they move either me or them. The lead usher came back with me to see for himself, choked on the one girl's scent, and quickly moved me to a seat on the other side of the balcony in a largely empty area.

The opening act (unusual for Rick- the shows I've seen previously were all Rick and nothing but) was Terri Nunn with Berlin. I have to say I was pleasantly impressed. Terri Nunn has held up beautifully since the early days of her career and looked fantastic. I loved the metallic blue dress and killer black booties she wore. She won the crowd over by praising the gorgeous theater (the Palace *IS* an awesome building) and talking about how friendly everyone was in Louisville as compared to L.A. She & the band performed their best known hits as well as some songs from their new album, which I may go look for.

Brief intermission, then Rick took the stage. Whooo-hooo! One of the best things about the Palace is that there isn't a bad seat in the house as far as hearing goes, and you can pretty well see everything, even if the band looks like ants from above. I'm just resentful that I paid that much money to be stuck in the balcony....yes, I'll be harping on that for a while...

Rick put on his usual awesome show. One song that surprised me was his cover of the Katy Perry song "Roar." I thought it was an okay song when she released it, but IREALLY liked Rick's version. I hope he puts it on an album someday.

So, it was all good until close to the end of the show. Then, during "Don't Talk To Strangers", 3 more drunk chicks who were sitting near me decided that it was wrong for me to be sitting alone, so they came over to dance with me. I got groped and ground on and was considering pitching one of them over the balcony when my usher friend came to my rescue and made them go back to their seats.

The concert ended and I fought my way out of the Palace...only to discover that the bottom had dropped out of the sky. I was parked 3 blocks away at the library and didn't have an umbrella. Bracing myself, I pushed my way through the crowd under the the portico, and started walking. I was soaked through in about 4 steps. LOL. I stopped at the Brown Hotel shelter for a minute to try to clear my glasses and one of the parking valets offered me a towel. He asked if I had just been at the concert and if I had far to go to get home. Yes, I said, and no. It's only about a 10 minute drive to my house, which was why I wasn't worried about being drenched. He laughed and told me to look behind me. I looked back at the theater and saw the huge bottleneck of people milling around, unwilling to get wet. A few brave souls had followed my lead, but it looked like most of the audience was clinging to shelter. "They'll probably still be standing there when you get home!"

My last 2 laughs of the night were both work-related, oddly enough. As I went on to my car, I passed one of our homeless regulars on the corner of 4th & Broadway. He stopped and stared at me, so I said hello to him and kept going. "Hey" he yelled after me. "You can share my tent if you need a place to stay tonight!" I thanked him and said I was ok, but it was kind of him to offer.

Then, just before I got to my car, an officer pulled up beside me. "Woman, don't you have enough sense to come in out of the rain?!?" It was my friend DJ. He asked if I needed a ride, so I pointed to my car, 4 yards away. He waited until I got in and got it started before pulling off, still laughing at me.

After all that, I needed comfort food, so I went home and had a batch of chicken & noodles. And a very long hot shower.

Hopefully I can stay dry when I go see Keb Mo next month!

Squeeee!

I almost forgot that the Rick Springfield concert is Sunday night! Something to look forward to this weekend!

The Great Spencer Family Reunion

So, we were supposed to leave for NC after I got off work on the 2nd, but my parents forgot and scheduled lab work for Dad on the morning of the 3rd. So we planned to leave at 8 a.m. instead. Needless to say it was 9:30 before we actually got underway. Partly because nobody could get up & moving, and partly because I had to totally unpack & repack the damn trunk in order to get my stuff in. (We took their car)

The drive wasn't too awful to start. Traffic was tolerable, the roads were fairly clear, and we didn't hit much construction. The first hiccup came when we were entering Winston-Salem NC. Mom was driving. The exit we have to take to get to I-40 is an ugly, sharp curve with about a 6 ft merge lane and even *I* mumble prayers on it. Mom, for some reason, gunned the engine as we were getting to the sharpest point on the curve and forgot to turn the wheels, so we nearly went careening into the guard rail. Daddy squawked about it for the next 30 miles.

Second hiccup came as we got on Hwy 264 to head toward the swamp. At that point, we were racing Hurricane Arthur to the upper NC coast. I was driving into heavy sporadic bursts of rain that were totally blinding. We got to Washington (where I was going to be staying)at about 11. The sky fell apart right after we got into our rooms and I was quite grateful to be off the road. We had a couple of brief power failures, but nothing too horrible.

Next morning: Loaded the parents & some extra supplies we were asked to bring into the car and headed to Englehard. Google maps said to look for State Road X on the directions to Cousin Josephine's house. What they/we didn't know is that it has since been given a street name. My father very (un)helpfully told me that I should have turned AFTER I passed it. Sigh. We finally got there, taking a ridiculously long way around. Jo was very happy to see us and horrified that I was going to be driving back & forth to Washington every day we were there while my parents stayed with her. (it was only 90 minutes each way, LOL) I promised her I'd be fine. Her power, as most of the town's, had been knocked out by the storm. She had a generator running, so there was a/c. We had to go buy more gas for it, and get another cousin to get it running again. I could have figured it out, but Jo was insistent that "one of those useless boys" should do it for her.

We got Uncle John on the phone, only to find out that he & Cousin Henderson weren't going to arrive until Saturday. So we sang Happy Birthday to him and tried to figure out where we were going to store the sheet cake we'd ordered so the frosting wouldn't melt.

My sisters Angie & Audrey arrived with their husbands. Like me, they were staying in Washington & commuting all weekend. We sat around chatting for hours while Jo called every relative she had a number for to tell them we were there. (Quick note- Jo is about 3-5 years younger than Dad, but is his niece. It amused me to hear this elder woman call him Uncle Leonard all weekend. They were pretty much raised as siblings) The utility company got the power restored at 4 (to everyone's relief) and we found out that the local seafood restaurant that everyone loved was going to be open at 5:30, so plans were made to go there for dinner.

I have to say, the food was pretty good. I tried their fried flounder (yum!) and fried okra (even better!) and had a hush-puppy eating contest with my BIL J.R. (I won) The siblings headed back to town, while I drove the old folks back to Jo's. They made me promise not to stay too long as everyone was nervous about me driving through the swamp by myself after dark. I don't know why- even *I* know not to speed in unfamiliar territory with steep curves and flooded canals on each side of the highway, especially in a racist-run county on a holiday speed-trap weekend. I had to promise to text/call everyone when I got back to the hotel.

Decided to go to Wal-Mart when I got back to Washington, but I duly texted everyone to let them know I'd arrived safely. Wandered around for longer than I intended, so it was about 10 when I pulled into the hotel parking lot. My sibs were out in the parking lot watching the fireworks and waiting for me to get there. They'd all left their phones in their rooms, so they hadn't seen my message. Roy told me that they'd just been debating on whether or not they should go look for me. We watched the end of the fireworks and decided to call it a night.

Saturday- The festivities weren't supposed to start until 3, so I had told everyone not to expect me much before that. So, of course I got a zillion phone calls wanting to know if I was ok, if I was lost, and when I'd be arriving.

Let me tell you something about my dad's family. There are a LOT of them. Dad is the 2nd youngest of 23 kids. (only 4 are still with us) Most of them produced a large number of children, who followed the same route. There were about 150 people there Saturday and that wasn't even 1/3 of the family. Amusingly enough, to me anyway, out of all those people, there was still nobody that really looked like me. Saw lots of dopplegangers of my sibs and their kids, though! We managed to get most everyone herded over to the tent that had been set up for the cook-out and had a presentation of birthday acknowledgements for Uncle John and some cousins who'd had birthdays recently, and then they had this pastor get up to deliver a sermon/prayer.

Yeah, I'm still a heathen. And this guy was a holy roller, hell-fire & brimstone preacher. Mom swatted me for giggling several times throughout the service. At one point, he went on for 10 minutes about how all problems could be solved by "putting the blood (of Christ) on them." I bit my lip until it bled, but kept quiet until he said to tell your boss-man that "you're going to put the blood on him so he won't bring you down!" All I could think of was what the expression on my boss' face would be and how quickly he'd have me served with a mental inquest warrant if I said that in our office and I lost it. Luckily I buried my face in my hands to stifle the giggles, so all anyone saw was my shoulders shaking and feet tapping, so they all assumed I was "caught up in the spirit" and nobody was offended. When I regained my composure, I looked around and you could tell which cousins weren't exactly comfortable with that type of ministry because they were all shifting restlessly in their spots. The final straw was when the pastor began pointedly preaching about how God created MAN and WOMAN and they should remain as God created them. Kind of brassy when you realized (as many of us did over the course of the weekend) that the cousin who had spearheaded the reunion and booked this clown was Transgender. Not cool. What happened to letting God be the only judge?

Anyway, he finally put a sock in it and we got to eat. The food wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't awful. We had to all but drag Uncle John over to cut his birthday cake. He was determined not to be the center of attention and cousins Niesha, Charvella, & I were equally determined that he was. One of the sweetest moments, and I'm still kicking myself for not getting a picture of it, was when the oldest Spencer male presented the first piece of cake to the youngest Spencer boy present. Little Damarion, age 1, had no idea why we were all cheering and clapping, but he was happy to scarf down that cake!

I didn't stay for the dance that was scheduled later. I was developing a sick headache and wanted to go back to the hotel to try to sleep it off.

We were supposed to leave right after they went to church Sunday morning. I was tasked with picking up the fried chicken order for the fellowship dinner and delivering it before collecting my parents for the trip home. We didn't get back on the road until almost 4, much to my dismay. I'll spare my reader/s the details of the drive home except to say that my mother still apparently can't drive and read road signs, my father is still a pain in the butt about wrong turns and getting in/out of the car in a timely fashion, and I got a damned speeding ticket in VA. (GRRR) Oh, and we didn't get to my house until 6 a.m. Monday.

As a result of the travel stress, my CFS has flared up big time; my face has broken out; and my knees/back ache like hell. But it made Daddy & Uncle John very happy that we went, so that makes it worth all the aggravation.

Next year's reunion is tentatively scheduled for August. I'm not going. I swore that if I traveled anywhere next year, it would be to England, and I'm not giving it up for anybody!

Oy Vey

So, we're leaving for NC. At the same time a tropical storm is supposed to wash ashore. Can't reach the cousin who planned the reunion to find out if there is a contingency plan and my insane parents think we should go anyway. I'm going, but I refuse to be happy about it.

The Date That Wasn't

So, in a moment of insanity, I decided to give internet dating one final shot. I signed up on a different site than any of the ones I'd tried before, sorted through several likely looking candidates, emailed back and forth with a few of them, and finally agreed to meet one at the Barnes & Ignoble cafe on Saturday. Now, as per my earlier attempts at e-dating, I did not put a picture on my profile. I was VERY honest in my description of myself when he asked what I looked like because that's what I do. He apparently thought I was kidding or exaggerating, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Saturday rolled around and I made myself get up and get ready for this date. I didn't have really high expectations for it, but I thought it would be nice to get out and it might give me a confidence boost to try another one. That didn't happen.

I sat there in that damned cafe for 40 minutes before he showed up. He took one look at me and walked back out, not realizing that I'd seen him. I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback by that. I waited a minute or two, hoping that maybe he'd just gone back to his car to get his cell phone or something. Uh-uh. He'd left. I got a lame email excuse from him a little later that evening, which I took great glee in savagely responding to. Then I deactivated my account on that site and officially declared myself through with online dating. For real, this time.


The evening wasn't a total loss. I got myself a take-out dinner from a nice restaurant (I wasn't feeling cheery enough to sit in the place eating alone surrounded by couples on date night) and spent the rest of the night watching Tom Hiddleston movies at home.

Monthly Goals- sigh

These were the June goals:

1. Move back into the main bedroom

2. still trying to excavate Laundry Mountain

3. totally clean out my poor car

4. clean out current bedroom

5. create order out of the 5 boxes & innumerable bags of stitch stash

6. take another box of books to Half Price Books

7. Finish the birthday card I started stitching for Uncle John LAST year so I can give it to him THIS year.

8. take 3 bags of culled wardrobe items to Goodwill

9. create a packing list for the July family reunion trip (summer in the swamp...joy...)

10. get the window unit a/c re-installed in the living room.


What did I manage to accomplish? Next to nothing. I did numbers 3, 9, and 10.

So, the July goals are to work on the 7 items I didn't get done in June. And to start job hunting again.