Swap Spat

I have talked about my membership in a certain book swapping club in the past. It is a wonderful site that has saved me gobs of money. In the almost two years I have participated I have not had any major problems until today.

A few days ago the book i asked for came in with a problem. The bottom of the cover and first 22 pages had been gnawed on by an animal. As this is against the rules for swapping I alerted the person who sent it to me. She was not happy with me for that. She returned my credit per my request and asked that I never ask for anything from her again. That ticked me off. I hate it when I get blamed for someone else's snafu. If you screwed up, own it! I am sorry that you were okay with the book the way it was. I don't like trying to read through confetti edged pages. It boils down to this, the club gives us guidelines to follow. If you choose not to follow them and get called on it, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I feel like I am back in 9th grade homeroom.

Twitter about Twilight

Aunt T, Mac, and I went to see Twilight last Friday evening. Never fear, you will find NO SPOILERS HERE!!!

We knew that it was going to be madness. I actually bought the tickets off fandango a week in advance. When I purchased them the first showing on Thursday at midnight was already sold out. I have not seen that kind of ticket vanishing since Harry Potter! The original plan was Aunt T, Me and J were going to go leaving the kids down at Mac's house. Lorelei caught the sniffles so she was not really up to spending time with anyone besides mom and dad. Since I already had the ticket I called Mac and asked her instead of babysitting how about going to the movies?

We got there at 6:35PM for the 7 PM showing. After standing in the wrong line for thirty minutes we made it into the theater. Of course by now there were no seats except at the very top. I mean lean your head back against the wall top of the theater. We made our way up where six seats were available. On either side of the seat were teenagers (go figure, right?). They politely informed us that the seats were saved. I politely informed the usher that I didn't think saving seats was allowed. She called her manager to check, even if she did agree with me. Both Manager came over and this is when it got really good.

Managers tell me that "If they paid for the seats then we can't do anything."
Follow my logic here. The people who the seats were being saved for had to have tickets in hand to get past the usher. So while they did have tickets they were not officially ripped so I am already a step ahead. I told Manager that I paid for my seats too. Plus the Movie was already into the fourth preview so how long am I supposed to wait for the phantom friends? Managers appeared clueless and kind of walked off. The usher I originally talked to walked up and asked the girls if the seats were taken. Out of six seats only two were needed. They just didn't want to have to sit next to strangers. Scoot over girls, here I come. They proceeded to pout. Oh well, i wasn't hurt by that.


The movie was good. Not Oscar worthy but who are you kidding if you thought it would be. So many of the girls in the theater were just a mess. Sobbing, huddled in the seats, basket cases over the Edward character. I do not miss the emotional instability of my extreme youth. I read all the books. I really enjoyed them. I did not want to get into this series. Books about teenagers and vampires in high school? Sounded like a tragic waste of my time. I am a big girl who can admit when she is wrong. I own all four books in hardback. They are proudly displayed on my bookshelf.

The film made a killing opening weekend. No surprise they have announced the plans to go ahead with the sequels. I will be there. I might take a flyswatter with me though to keep the Hannah Montana generation in line.

Playing Tourist

Recently we had J's Mom and Stepdad in town fro a visit. They could only stay for two days so we decided to do the quick tourist spots St. Louis style. We hit up the Arch, Anheiser Busch Brewery, & Union Station.

The best part was just watching the kids with thier Nana and Pap Pap. It was the first time Lorelei had met either of them.

----------------------------------------> My artsy Arch pic.


The Horse we saw at the arch. He was a very large specimen of horsey.
The stairs were not good enough for my man. Stairs are for wimps. He prefers the steep hill with a 25 pound boy on one arm, towing his daughter behind him.
Lorelei was not thrilled with her hill adventure. It was also cold and windy. Not her favorite weather.
Standing on the grates that house the massive lights for the arch. It was scary because the ground is a looong way down under the grate. Rory was a little nervous.
Escalator at Union Station. Rory could do the escalator 24/7.
Me and Lorelei getting ready to take Daddy out for his birthday.

I tried to get as much of the arch in a picture as i could. I was later told by a photographer friend of mine that it is pretty impossible without a super pricey camera.

Washed Out Photos Updates

Pictures as promised from my hair adventure. We managed to get the red out so I could return to my brunette roots.

After the bleaching agent was washed off we were left with this. Not attractive with my pale skin color. Trust me.

After applying the hair color we matched to Lorelei's hair at the beauty shop.

washed out

I am currently sitting here waiting for my hair color to fade. I have a color stripper on. The idea is to get back to a clean palette free of red and get back to my roots. The ones I had when I was all natural. I took Lorelei in as my model for the color I am supposed to have. We matched it pretty well I think. My eyebrows will look the same as the rest of my hair now. What a novel idea. I will post a picture when I get the whole process done. Man I hope this does not turn into s hair nightmare where I end up bald...

Stuck on band aids

I have always said that strange ouchies curse my family. Today's was mine in the form of a missing top half of the nail on my pinkie (left hand). How did I loose it? With a razor while shaving. It's a gift I know. I am just that talented. You do not realize how much you use the pinkie until it causes searing pain to shoot up your arm. I have a new found appreciation.

Today is J's birthday. Not the best day for his computer monitor to go bust. For a tech freak that is a disaster. It would be like the dog eating my copy of, well any book I own. *Shudder.
Tonight I plan to take him to dinner, buy him a new pair of snazzy Nike's, and just treat him like my knight in shining armor. Silently chanting to myself "Must not nag..." He does get today and fathers day off. Plenty of other days to drive him nutty.

where do I come up with this crap?

Caution: this post is a little off course...

I think we all know that whether we want to admit it or not we have gone into a public restroom with the intent of leaving extreme toxic material. Your shopping, eating at a restaurant, etc and it hits you.
You. will. not. make. it. home.
Bathroom is located and if your lucky empty of all other people. You sit down and someone walks in. Embarrassed, you pray that the person in the stall next to you is hard of hearing with no sense of smell. This is the part I do not get. You are in a bathroom for crying out loud. It should be okay to do what you have to do. One of the bestselling potty training books today is everybody poops.

I get that it is taboo to talk about such things in polite company. But in the bathroom? Try to relax and not worry about the other people in public bathroom. After all they are there for the same reason you are.

added after the fact: Aunt T says she hates when someone walks in and says "OMG it stinks in here!" To me this is like walking into a lake and saying, "My legs are wet."

Raising Hell about Hellraiser

As a kid I was never allowed to watch horror flicks. this probably attributes to my obsession with them as an adult. I was almost 17 before I finally got to bring them into the house. Hellraiser debuted in 1978 and I did not get around to it until after 2000. Most of the effects and scares were dated compared to the current films of the day but it still maintained the intended purpose of scaring me senseless. The character Pinhead is so perfectly evil. You only see him for the last few minutes of the movie and he is what everyone remembers. Frank and Julia are nasty villains and you want them to get theirs but you can't help but feel a bit uneasy when you meet the escort sent to collect them. Makes you want to straighten up and fly right. Any one for church on Sunday?

I was excited to try out the sequels but quickly found out how far mighty Pinhead had fallen. Personally I think it is because the first is the only one directed by Clive Barker who wrote it and therefore truly knows how the story should be presented. Each new chapter Hollywood turned out was painfully worse than the one before.

Here is what they should have written on the back to warn off viewers:

Hellraiser 2: hellbound

Christy tries to convince people she isn't nutso so stupid opens the box because things went so well the first time.

Hellraiser 3: Hell on earth

Reporter stick her nose into the business of sadistic club owner and permanent victim girlfriend who have a lovely statue that just happens to be pinhead.

Hellraiser: Bloodline

Cenobites in space. Do I have to say more?

Hellraiser:Inferno

Crooked cop gets to relive crappy day for eternity. Pretty tame compared to what Pinhead usually doles out. This marks the turning point in the franchise where they begin to try and portray Pinhead as some sort of avenging angel punishing the bad people of the world. Nice thought if he didn't really love his day job.

Hellraiser:Hellseeker

I actually have not seen this one. *gasp*! It is on my blockbuster list of movies to be watched. It features the return of Christy Cotton from the movies 1 & 2.

Hellraiser: Deader

Dumb reporter part 2. Pinhead comes to punish 20 somethings trying to cheat death. He is just that kind of upstanding guy.

Hellraiser:HellWorld

Pinhead is not even the bad guy! It was all a hallucination. Pinhead pops out for maybe 45 seconds. This should not even be a Hellraiser movie.

A remake of the first is in the works with Clive Barker so maybe it will be good. I imagine he had to come back to fix what had become of his masterpiece. He cannot be any worse than the directors of films 2-8.

The original film is based on the novella "The Hellbound Heart" written by Clive Barker

Film Series

• 1.1 Hellraiser (1987)
• 1.2 Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
• 1.3 Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
• 1.4 Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
• 1.5 Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)
• 1.6 Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)
• 1.7 Hellraiser: Deader (2005)
• 1.8 Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)
• 1.9 Clive Barker Presents: Hellraiser (2009)

High on pine sole...I mean Life!

The house looks faboo. Aunt T really pitched in for me today. The house really need this once over for a long time now. I am glad it is behind me. So I can move on to tackling the more scary parts of my house. Like my bedroom.

I took Aunt T to the 54th street grill for lunch to say thank you for all her help. We had these sandwiches called a five four club. It has ham, brisket, and BBQ in a traditional club sandwich. It was so tasty. We finished up with a strawberry shortcake for her and a house chocolate cake with ice cream for me. Rory split my dessert with me. Lorelei was out of luck as usual. She will be so happy when she can eat all the big people food.

One last floor to mop and I can hang up my dust rag for the night. Hi-ho, hi-ho, its back to ...oh never mind.

Progress makes perfect

I got something done today! I have a nice load of boxes and junk for the storage shed. J gets to help me take it out when he gets home from his long day at work. He will be so pleased. These items out of my house will make the room I need. Still a lot to be taken out and stowed away but I will wait until after my MIL visits to tackle that. Right now we are striving for presentable house, not project completed. I like to realistic with my cleaning and organization goals. Lets face it, if I get a 10th of what I want done I am doing spectacular.

I promise my house is not as bad as all that. I am my worst critic though and I live with an OCD neat freak. The pressure is always on around here.

Aunt T is off work tomorrow and she promises to help me. Help is always appreciated and never turned away. Don't know where something goes? Find a place it will look nice and stick it there. I'm not picky. I loose things when I put them in the correct places so this way I can feel a little less dense when something goes missing.

Lorelei is doing. I think she still feels a little under the weather. She is a whole lot spoiled so cranky is the name of the game now that she is getting less of the "poor baby is sick" attention.

A spoonful of sugar?

The duck under the lawn mower belonged to Linus, our golden retriever. We think Inigo might have murdered him out of jealousy. Mr Duck got a lot of attention from Linus. Maybe Mr Duck just had enough after his quacker was finally ripped out and decided to end it. Murder? Suicide? You pick. Either way this is how we found him.

I should be cleaning my house and being productive. My MIL will be here on Saturday. It would be nice if the house was clean. It would be nice if the house was clean just for the sake of being clean but that is unlikely to ever happen. I have this funk that I cannot shake. Add that to the fact that I am lazy by nature and prone to procrastination. Not much getting done. I am not being a total waste of skin. The dishes are washing, i cleaned the litter pans, picked up some of the clutter. I know what part of my problem is. I have a cold along with the rest of my family. Lorelei has a double ear infection to go with her cold. Poor baby girl.

Close up of the crime scene.

I need some of whatever Mary Poppins was on. I still have tomorrow and Friday to get the house up to snuff. That will leave less time for all of us to destroy it before MIL gets here. What housewife does not feel like they work in vain?
You cook, clean, etc.
The food gets eaten, clean becomes dirty, etc morphs into a mountain of laundry and everyone needs something done before sunrise tomorrow. I don't even get to complain to much because I am in on the destruction. Does that make me a masochist?

Non election day post

November is a busy month for us. We hit it hard the night before with Halloween and then enter the new month in grand style with a birthday party. Rory's birthday! Our boy entered the world on November 1, 2005.
We get to rest for two days and then on the fourth is our wedding anniversary. J and I were married on November 4, 2003. That day was our dating anniversary and we wanted to keep it. We have been together for 10 years.
Onto the 12th when we celebrate J's birthday. He isn't really one for celebrating but he married me so he is out of luck. J does not like cake so we usually get him a cheesecake or an ice cream cake.
Thanksgiving rounds out the month sprinkled with Christmas shopping all done BEFORE turkey day. I refuse to do any shopping after that date. People ruin my Christmas spirit if I try to compete for parking and presents with the general public.

Here is Rory on his first Halloween. The ears were the only costume he would allow us to put on him for any period of time.

And this is from 2008! My baby boy is getting to big. Still won't do the traditional costume. He wore a black T-Shirt with a glow in the dark jack o lantern on the front. He insisted the ears come off before we left the house.
Lorelei got to try them on too. She was a little unsure of what was on her head and would have preferred it in her mouth.
This is how Lorelei and I got around for trick or treating. She couldn't eat any of the candy but her Daddy told me she was gathering it for her parents. Isn't she thoughtful for such a little girl?

Happy Birthday to Rory!
The cake earned a thumbs up. It was given the big boy seal of approval.
Lorelei was eager to get at it herself! She got a little icing but that was all Mommy would let her sample.