A Quiet Night Around The Fire

Guess who's home this weekend... Yup, heee's baaaaack.

Lenny came home for Thanksgiving and is here through the weekend. It's always fun to have him here... mostly. It's the little things that get to be very annoying. Like the kitchen sink that is currently full of raw chicken carnage from last night's beer-can chicken.
Yes, he cooked dinner. But is the aftermath worth it? That is the question. But that is just a small example. I'll leave it at that.

Because there was no wind last night, he made a fire. Great, I love sitting by the fire on a clear night, Dixie running around sniffing every corner of the yard (both the ground and the air) and listening to music or catching up or just enjoying the flames in silence.
Let's see... nice fire - check; clear night - eh, can't have everything; Dixie being her happy K-9 self, check; music - nope; catching up - kinda; silence - Hah!

Again, I say, I love when he comes home. The bigger the break between his visits, however... how shall I put it?
Having a fire is always nice - that's a given.
Catching up - nice when it's a dialog, not a monologue.
When the conversations are driven by spirits, it's a whole 'nother ball game.

It's quite comedic, for lack of a better term. He tells a funny story, then a semi-funny story. By the end of the night, those same stories have been heard dozens of times. So what appears to be a night full of tales and such is actually about 7 minutes of conversation on a loop. Another part of the comedy is the stance.
In the beginning he stands with drink-hand resting comfortably on his tummy, looking to you for confirmation or comprehension of whatever he's talking about. Later the stand becomes a swaggering walk with the drink hand now gesturing parts of the story. Finally, the walk ends with what seems like an impossible feat: he stands in one spot, feet planted, with body swaying to and fro, hither and yon and the drink hand now rests in a lowered position, close to the thigh, occasionally losing some of its treasured content.

Admittedly, the show that he inadvertently puts on can be quite entertaining, I just wish there was a mute button.

I Need Some Color

Hi, I'm just going to pretend no time has passed since my last post. Why not? What'll happen... someone will leave me a comment asking what the heck happened to me over the past few months! I think not.
I found out that a local Ace Hardware is going out of business and Everything Must Go. Excellent news to someone who has a whole house to fix. I've always thought Ace to be pricier than most chains (of course) and didn't find any extra customer service that I found at Menards, Lowes or Home Depot. But at $10 for a gallon of paint, color me pleased as peas to be a new customer. I need:
2 quarts grey matte
1 gallon ceiling white
1 gallon yellow satin
1 quart yellow satin
2 gallons sky blue (one satin, one ???)
1 gallon bright white satin
2 quarts light oak (or was it pecan) stain
2 quarts polyurethane
1 box of "sandy" additive
1 wide (5? 6?) inch brush
1 high quality 4" brush
40-60 grit sanding sheets for a "mouse" or corner sander
220 grit sanding sheets for a "mouse" or corner sander
a new sander
make it two (one belt, one mouse/corner)
window cling (you know, the kind for blocking wind)
3-way light bulbs
re-chargeable batteries (AA, AAA, 9V)
throw in some picture hangers and I think that'll do it.

Why are you still reading? Head on over before everything's all gone!

Nope, still not ready.

March Madness

It feels like spring outside. Yesterday's temps reached a remarkable 65 degrees. Not even a breeze. Go figure... where were the March winds? No matter.

School's going great! This is my planned month from h-e-!-! Just get through 3 more weeks and back to a normal school schedule. My goal is to get through March with all my nerves intact. Let's see: receive sensory input... check; make it make sense... check. Well, 98% check. (I can do a partial check, it's my checklist.) Arrange that input and output it into my homework and exams. (I can use output as a verb. It's my blog.)

I'm going now. Far, far away...  to another window so I can get started on my work.

Buh-bye

All My Pictures

New year. New me.

Just kidding. I have never been one for resolutions. Make none, brake none.
How's that for logic!   :~)

Anywho- like I mentioned in a previous post, I will start uploading my pictures beginning from August 2011. What I think will be easiest is to use pages: easy for me to organize and post, easy for you to find. Win-win.

If you look to the left, under my picture is a column titled "Pages". Click on any of those links to get you to what you are looking for. A list of my Picture Pages is below detailing what each page will show you. Have fun!
And thanks for spending a little time here with me   :~D

A List of My Picture Pages:

1. Home - So, Miss Angela Said... main page
2. Worth A Thousand Words - this page will soon be deleted
3. Food, Glorious Food - my creative cuisine creations, and those from other kitchens than my own
4. Everyday - everyday is worth celebrating
5. It's A Family Affair - mom n dad n al n kindel n ant n Luke... yes the cat, furry family counts, too
6. House... not the Dr. - a one stop shop for progress on the glass barn

Happy New Year !

My next project, like I mentioned in a recent post, to get as many pics off my camera as possible...  starting with Halloween.
If you think about it in quarters, I am not so far behind. Many businesses are closing out their Q4 transactions.

My world according to Pooh

It's almost here, it's almost here!

No, not the stuff I ordered from amazon.com & walmart.com. No, not Ed McMahon with my multi-million dollar check. And no, not the new year. I am patiently awaiting the return of my sanity and I'm pretty sure its arrival is right around the corner.

I've been doing some work on myself and my outlook on current situations is not as bleak as they once were. Simple task, you say. Sure. For some. Yet for the rest of us, it takes a little more effort to get back to that happy place we all have somewhere inside us.

With a little help from surprising places, I suspect I will not feel so crazed and out of sorts, any day now. Winnie the Pooh (one of the surprising places) came around to remind me of how simple life really is. He & I, like many, many others, have been friends since I was but a child. And with the remake of the classic movie released this year, I was able to rekindle our relationship, so-to-speak.

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. 
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."
winnie the pooh

I Think I Am In Love!

I have gone and put my foot in it. Dammit!

Like so many others, I have gone online to look for friendship, companionship, and if I played my cards right, love. I guess I should not be surprised that I found what I was looking for. But the problem, if not already obvious, is that I already have someone to love. My dilemma now: what to do with these two.

Do I introduce them to each other? Frightening.
Do I keep the old and forget the new? Possible, but what would I be giving up? The possibilities of new found love are too enticing to just throw away.
Do I get rid of the old? No. Definitely not. We have years together already and what, I am just supposed to throw him out on the street?

What to do? What to do? I thought writing it out would help to clear things up but I am still quite confused on which path to take.


Here, the current love of my life:

Keeping warm in the office

His oh, so special, weird eye

He & his sister, Bo, were eleven when I adopted them from the humane society.

A better view of the weird eye. I was told from an infection he probably had in his youth.

He is now about 17 years old and his sissy died this past February (2011).

Here, my new found love:

She is a four year old girl weighing in at just over eleven pounds. I love a nice sturdy cat. Not fat. Just able to hold their own when puppies come over.

http://www.wihumane.org/animals/animal.aspx?id=5844243

Oh what a pickle!

Prudent and Un-Personalized or Rebelliously Recognizable?

I need new plates. My favorite (and only) license plate, the one given to me when I officially claimed to be a Wisconsinite many, many moons ago, reads: Everyone's Favorite Hottie. Yup. That is what the state issued to me. How did they know? Who told them? I have no idea but I drove around with EFH in my plates for the last ten years.

Now it is time for a new plate. My mother told me back in high school that I should never get a personalized license plate because people would always know where I was. Paranoia, you ask? No. Just a small town mom who now lived in the big city and was cautious of too much attention, thus becoming a victim of crime or other misdeeds.

So, it never crossed my mind. Having an automatic issue plate was what one did. But now, I wonder. Should I throw caution to the wind and let everyone know that NUMBER ONE BEAR FAN is at Pic N' Save? Should I be a rebel and say that CHICAGO LOVER is at Home Depot? Or should I keep my dealings clandestine? Should I not stray from mom's advice and just be another 678KLH in miscellaneous parking lots?

Hmmm...... what to do, what to do?
The time is here. Within the next week (or so) I will be paying Wisconsin Fee Trust (?) either $75 dollars to be anonymous or $90 to be super special and recognizable.

Food, glorious food. Hot sausage and mustard!

I cannot stop eating. Period.

And although I do not eat hot sausage, mustard and I are friends. But more than mustard, I like carbs. What woman doesn't?

And this love has gotten me to where I am now. Carbs and a little loneliness and a dab of depression. And maybe a wee bit of woe.

Now that I have lost some depression & woe, I have to lose the poundage. Exactly 16 pounds. Day one of my quest begins tomorrow. Seriously, tomorrow. Not the figurative "tomorrow."

While I do not believe in diets, only changing eating habits, when I rise tomorrow, I will begin to make a conscious effort at each and every meal to make smart choices.


Did I fail to mention that I am trying a fiber & calcium supplement to help ward off hunger? Not diet pills.