Storm Damage

Doug and I covered our patio furniture over the weekend; luckily it wasn’t raining over the weekend so we could get everything ready for the winter.

I took a couple pictures of the damage caused by these crazy storms that are moving into the area.  Grab some tissues; these pictures are so terrible that you might cry….from laughter :)

Really, what a gnarly storm!!  It blew our trashcan over and blew leaves out of the trees.  OH NO!!!!

The news stations kept talking about the wind and rain that was going to cause possible flooding, blah blah blah.  I had to laugh and take those pictures.  Stupid overreacting news stations….

Then Friday morning came.  OHHHHH, that’s the storm they were talking about!!!  I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning because the wind and rain was too loud to sleep through.  The Weather Channel said the wind was 20-40mph with gusts up to 60mph  I got up to check on our plants, trees and covers in the backyard.  The wind knocked over our mandarin tree that is in a pot, so I carried it over to our table to hide it from the wind a little more.  I put rocks on top of our fire pit cover because it was trying to blow away.  Here’s a screenshot of the storm from the Weather Channel app: 

I was cold and wet, so I crawled back under the heater blanket to try to get more sleep.  No luck.  I’m super tired today!

Doug’s Reward

Doug picked up his new gun earlier this week.  I kept my promise that when we got out of debt he could get another gun.  Not that he needs my permission to buy things, but it’s nice to know we can work together to get rid of our debt before we make a larger than normal purchase. 

We’ve been working hard to pay off the $3000 car repairs we put on a credit card and the final payment comes out today!!! I’m so excited!! 

Here is Doug’s new gun – the picture is poor quality on purpose; he said there are some things you don’t need a picture of…ummmm ….Of course I need a picture!

Thanksgiving

Wednesday goodies:

These gourmet donuts were a very yummy start to what ended up being a very crappy day.  There was maple bacon, vanilla, crème de leche, café, peanut butter and jelly, chocolate pistachio, and I can't remember the rest.  I ate a vanilla donut and I tried the maple bacon.  Too bad the rest of the day before a 4 day weekend had to be so crazy.  And I'm sure the same mess will be there Monday afternoon because some of the information I needed wasn't available so it will need to be redone.  Enough of that silliness....on to the long weekend!!

We really had it easy this holiday.  The only thing we had to make/bring was dinner rolls (we brought sparkling juices too).  I planned on making them from scratch since I didn't have more to do, but I ran out of time and bought them from Safeway.  PS people, don't run to the grocery store the day before a holiday thinking it will relieve a little work stress by getting out of the office for a few minutes.  Yeah right!  I was in and out of the store pretty quickly, but it was a mad house as you can imagine.

Doug and I relaxed until it was time to get ready to leave for my grandma's house for Thanksgiving.  When we got there Jazmin was ready to greet us.  She's so cute and friendly!

Our delicious Thanksgiving meal:

Jazmin provided a lot of entertainment, but she got cold and sleepy (and she peed on me because she got so excited after a quick nap):

Doug chatting with my mom while watching the football game:

More of the family hanging out after our meal:

We left so we could spend time with Doug's family for the holiday too.  When we got there some of them were just finishing eating.  It was really good timing because I didn't want to get there too early and interrupt their dinner or get there too late and miss having dessert with them.  There were 3 desserts:  Thanksgiving dessert, Paige's birthday dessert and Jaren's birthday dessert.  We ate desserts and looked through the Black Friday ads; I didn't find anything great enough to leave the house and deal with the madness.
(Check out Kevin's goofy face)

We planned on taking our nephews and niece so Bonnie could do some holiday shopping when the outlets opened at 9pm.  Lydia asked me to wear my footie p.j.'s because she brought hers.  Of course I will!  We watched a quick holiday movie and went to bed - it was way past their bedtime and we were tired too.

(I just noticed how small my feet look because the pajamas are too short for me, so when I sit down they become taut and pull on my feet and shoulders.)

Doug had to go to work early the next morning, so the kids and I watched some cartoons, played Super Mario on the Wii, Lydia colored a few pictures for us, we baked a pizza and then it was time to take the kids home.  We baked a huge pizza and I wanted to meet up with Doug to give him some - it was a madhouse!  We met him at a restaurant near the mall and although it was after noon, it was still crazy.  I don't know how people deal with the madness that is Black Friday.

A Good Day

HA.HA. Blogger!! I found a way around your stinky limits! :)  I'm posting using Doug's email now.  I still need to make sure I'm posting smaller pictures until I can get this figured out.  Apparently pictures under 800megapixels don't count against the storage amount.

Last Tuesday I pulled into the parking lot at work and saw this straight ahead - you know it's going to be a good day when you're greeted by a rainbow!:

It turned out to be a really good day because I forgot that I had the afternoon off.  I left work and planned on going home to catch up on a few chores like folding laundry.  I forgot that a garden store was going out of business until I saw the sign on the way home.  I stopped to see if there was anything we could use.  All plants were 50% off and everything else was 40% off.  I felt like I had to buy a plant of some kind so I could save it.  I almost bought a couple rose bushes, but I'm glad I didn't.  They ended up being a different kind of rose, not the typical kind that comes in a bouquet.  Look at the sad bloom saying, "Please buy me and save me!!":

Then I stopped at a fountain/pottery store and got some great ideas for our backyard.  Holy smokes this stuff is expensive though!!  These slate pots were really neat, but the one on the left was about $380!!

Slate benches that would look neat around our fire pit: (again, wayyyy to expensive!)

I really want a fountain for our backyard to attract frogs to eat some of the bugs, but this little one was about $200:

Fun turtles - one with a shell made of seashells and the other was rocks:

Swinging ants made of rocks and metal:

After the pottery store I hurried home to plant my purchases.  I ended up buying mustard greens, cabbage and romaine lettuce.  They didn't look great, but I think I can save most of them.  Fingers crossed!  Here is the mustard lettuce:

 Cabbage:

Romaine lettuce - this one looks the worst, but it only cost $0.50.  I hope 3 of the 6 plants will survive:

I was putting the new plants on the table where they will get sunshine during the day and I noticed how big our aloe plants are getting - they look twice the size they were 2 months ago:

What to do...

I have posts to put up, but I don't have any more storage for pictures.  Sigh.  Hopefully I'll get it going ASAP...  My dilemma is to pay a monthly fee for storage, print the blog(s), delete blogs, delete posts....  I will be deleting the Remembering Brian blog after I get it printed into a book, but that's only a temporary fix. 

Rain Wash

Becky has mentioned for some time that she takes her wash mitt and soap and washes her car in the rain.  It was raining quite a bit on Saturday night, so I gave it a try!  It’s fantastic!!!

Scrubbing the dirty car:

Letting the rain wash the soap away for a few minutes:

Pull the car in the garage and dry it off.  DONE!:

Spider Funny

I’m sent funny spider things occasionally.  Some have spiders in the pictures and I freak out, usually drop my phone and then tell the sender they’re a jerk.  The picture I got this morning was really funny:

Here are some other really funny things (not all spider related) I’ve been sent:

Harvest Festival

***I added a PS at the bottom***

 

I’m not sure why they call it a “Harvest Festival”, it’s a craft fair; I guess that doesn’t sound as fancy.  Doug and I dropped my ring off at the jeweler’s so they could smooth the prongs and while we were waiting we went to the Harvest Festival.  We went with every intention of buying Christmas gifts for other people – we ended up only buying a few things and they were all for us.

On our way to the Harvest Festival we saw this sign.  I found it funny because they just announced Hostess is shutting their doors for good:

First and foremost, we had to stop and get Doug some kettle corn.  The bag wasn’t as big as our previous popcorn bag and it wasn’t as good, but the price was the same.  Do you like that Doug can't stand up under their tent??  HAHA:

 

While I was buying something a short while later, a female officer stopped us for a second and said, “Now that’s a smart lady!  Buy him some food to keep him entertained while you spend money!!”  It was pretty funny!

I found some miniatures for my collection.  I was so excited that I ended up buying a few that aren’t what I normally collect.  We found a goat and a bull!! A goat, people!!  I also got an aquarium and a couple flowers.  Years ago my mom and I went to the same place for a craft fair and she bought me the taller lilies because they were so small and now they’re even smaller!  (I put a dime in each picture so you can compare the sizes):

 

Here are all the miniature porcelain figurines - these are what I collect, but I've had to branch out a little:

 

And here are all the glass miniatures:

 

Clay miniatures:

 

And some other random miniatures I have.  Some are way too big, but quite a while ago people would try to add to my collection; they were never small enough.  I found some smallish Disney figures earlier this year; they were in a bag I couldn't see through and I couldn’t choose the figures I got – it was a crap-shoot, I didn’t do too badly though:

 My whole collection:

 

We also got a Christmas decoration for our house.  This reindeer comes apart for easy storage!  Yay!:

P.S.  On our way back to the jewelry store we were sitting at a red light in a pretty shady neighborhood.  I noticed a guy riding a bike across the street and a woman running behind him.  I just thought she was trying to beat the light, but I quickly noticed she was yelling.  I cracked the windown down and heard her yelling, "GIMME BACK MY BIKE!!! GIMME BACK MY BIKE!!!"  She kept yelling as she was running and we were sitting at the light for a few seconds trying to figure out what to do.  The light across from us turned green and a driver in an SUV made a U-turn, stopped to pick up the woman and they chased after the guy on the bike.  Our light turned green and we caught up to the SUV; we saw them turn down a side street.  The SUV was pacing the guy on the bicycle - they weren't going very fast at all.  The woman was yelling at the guy on the bicycle and the guy on the bicycle was yelling some pretty colorful words back at her.  We have no idea how the situation ended, but I hope the lady got her bike back!

Pet Store

I went to the pet store to get some medication for Nurple.  He has a patch on the side of his gills and his water has been cloudy, so I’m wondering if he has issues.  Hopefully the medicine will help.  We stopped at the pet store again on Saturday because we heard they were going to have dog adoptions – we figured we could play with a few dogs and then go about our day.  Nope.  No dogs.  So, we stopped to play with the bird we have been visiting – he’s so cute, but $340!!

Here is his neighbor-bird – he’s pretty too, but not very friendly:

Changing Fruit

I ran out in the rain to get some garden pictures on Saturday.  Our fruits are changing color!!  A couple more months and we get to eat them!  Here is our lemon tree:

Orange tree:

 Some are still green:

Anastasia is blooming – I think her sunburn is healing:

And our strawberries are still producing:

Our tiny litte lime tree, hiding in the back, is still doing really well.  We are going to make sure we take extra care of it this winter so it will be even stronger when spring comes around: