What Would Jen Do

Archive for September, 2008

oh noes, voo was attacked by a leopard

it’s taken him down!!!

slowly slowly killing him……………..

he’s given up

mojo to the rescue!

Don’t worry, I will save you Voodoo

I got a package in the mail yesterday from my Grandmother.  I told my mom to tell her that since she’s in the mood to send things she currently owns to family, I’d take an old cookbook.  And not a 1970′s cookbook, I wanted something mucholder.  And that’s exactly what I got.  It’s from 1942 and the recipes are so simple.   She got this book about the time she married my grandfather

for good measure she sent a couple of aprons, an old pot holder and cookie cutters.  All of which we used together when we baked cookies when I was a tiny jennifer

This reminded me of something else tiny jennifer had, which was a quilt my great grandmother made me.  I LOVE quilts.  This one, made in 1974 is badly damaged, it just shows use over the years.   My mom gave me some liquid sew which I used to make some repairs on it this morning.  Some of the damage is quite extensive, so I’m just going to let those spots go.   And I’m going to start using it again instead of hiding it away so it won’t suffer any more abuse.

and the corner of my living room has suddenly exploded with some fall decorations that I was too tired to even take the tags off of.

Yesterday was our two month anniversary (YAY) and also started the one month countdown to our honeymoon.   I compulsively price things, and found out that the plane tickets we have went up $1,000 a few weeks after we bought ours.  We got VERY lucky.  I can’t even tell you how upset I would be if we had waited to buy them.

Today I spent way too much money on Fall decorations, but I really can’t help it.  I love decorating (tiny pumpkins) for fall, actually I like keeping those things out year round.  Right now I have a corner full of orange and yellow flowers, tiny pumpkins and wooden jacko lanterns.

And then I ran into Cat AGAIN at sprouts, maybe we should just start shopping there together.     Since I shopped all day long I haven’t had time to do anything else around here, but i’m pooped. 

I don’t know what you guys do all day at work, but I make paper chains to countdown the days until my honeymoon

yesterday was apparently craft day at work.  See, i even had work in my in bin, but i don’t care.   each link also has a number on it that corresponds to how many days are left until I get to go away and lay on a beach for  5 days.

Tuesday Icey looked up and saw a wee scorpion on our ceiling/wall, but it was hanging out on the tip top of the vaulted ceiling.  So 2nd story level on an area that has no actual 2nd story floor.   damn vaulted ceilings, they are really good for nothing, don’t buy a house with them.

i kept my eye on him for hours hoping he’d come down far enough so that i could kill him and he never did.  he did manage to disappear twice on me and then magically reappear later, right back into his hanging out spot.  pissing me off.  

i was so stressed out by him, because A i’m worried he’ll come down and get my dogs and B the section of wall he’s on will lead him directly INTO MY BEDROOM if he decides to go on a trip.   i woke up wednesday morning and of course the bastard was gone, he reappeared for icey later that morning and then disappeared again.   where is he going?????

i was supposed to go to the gym after work yesterday but i was so stressed out about it that i had to go straight home and make sure everyone was alive, this is all completely irrational, i know.  and that damn scorpion was back in his spot.  he didn’t move again until the sun went down when suddenly he’s making a beeline FOR MY BEDROOM!!!!

Icey went upstairs to wait for him and believe me, I think the scorpion knew what was up because he slowed down and took his time getting to a spot where he could be killed.   but when he finally got there, he was greeted with a mallet and flattened perfectly to the wall.  you still can’t touch them even when they are dead because their tails are wiley.  So icey got tweezer and peeled him off the wall, he came off in one piece and was promptly flushed down the toilet.  

I didn’t realize how freaked out I was by them, even dead, until he held it up near me so i could examine it and i nearly had a heart attack.   I see it suddenly coming to life and getting me and running around my house.

anyway, after shaking my fist at it a few times, I felt a huge wave of relief.  It’s very stressful to know that something like that is walking around your house, just out of reach, taunting you.  We’ve been very lucky this year and I think that was only the 2nd one in our house.   There was one in the garage, but isn’t there always??

Cat and Skrappy bought the house they’ve been renting.  Welcome to home ownership!  now you get to make all the repairs yourself! The upside to that is now you can do anything you want to the house.   Give and take I guess.

Around the time we got the Voo, so about 5 years ago, I bought this tiny little plant that looked like a mini palm tree on sale at Lowe’s for $9.   It was about a foot and a half tall and lived in the corner of our living room.  You can see it behind the voo here.  and while you are at it, check the living room from 2004. (click to enlarge)

over the years I had to keep re-potting it as it would outgrow every pot I could find.   this one is from voo’s b-day 2005and the living room changed just a little bit again.

and this one is from 2006, it’s the before picture from when we got our new couch.

anyhow, the thing was out of control, it was taller than that lamp and took up the entire corner.  I couldn’t even reach the light switch anymore and forget seeing anything you put on the far left of that fabulous mantle my husband made with his own two hands.  so i moved it into the front room, which took me an hour to figure out where it would possibly fit in there.

the picture makes that room look very tiny and cluttered.

and good news for me, the console table I wanted to match all the furniture in that room finally went up for free shipping!

and now our living room corner looks like this.  You would not believe how much brighter the room became once that plant was moved out.

this spider guy hung around over the stove for over a day, he didn’t move for 24 hours and Icey even cooked dinner and the thing didn’t move. When I came home from work Friday, he was gone.

I have had quite the productive day, after rearranging two rooms i did 5 loads of laundry, vacuumed out my car, baked cookies and banana bread/muffins and cleaned various rooms.  Icey made a fantastic stew that we had for an early dinner, that’s the good thing about marrying someone who can cook and doesn’t mind indulging you when you say ‘i need stew’.  I have a few more things to do and then I’m taking a bath and watching something law and order related while in there.

It’s been about a week and a half but I am finally feeling better.   My ‘allergies’ seem to have finally gone away.   Whatever it is, is making the rounds at work, and I’m just hoping that it doesn’t find its way back to me.   While I was home I renewed my love of CSI and Law and Orders ( i mean they only come on 20 times a day) and found a new show to watch on netflix called Conviction that was a LnO spin off that unfortunately only lasted one season.     What’s funny is that two of the main characters in that show played detectives on law and orders!  They look much more glamorous on Conviction.

anyway……… i’m taking the rest of this week to be a blob and then next week it’s back to business as usual.  Which means working out, making real dinners and doing some major cleaning around here.  I want to bake cookies!!!

HBO’s new vampire show started this past weekend and lucky me, I can watch it OnDemand, so while I’m waiting for all my regular shows to come back on (thankfully they start this month) I’m going to give True Blood a try.

I am seriously counting down the days to our honeymoon.  I bought a hat a beach bag and a $3 swimsuit! I even bought some sundresses.   It has been far too long since we’ve taken a real vacation and I think i’m starting to go a little crazy.     What I really want to do is take an extended vacation from work.  I don’t think i was born to work outside of the home, i only do it because it’s a necessity.  So, I put my name into the hat for a “work from home a few days a week” pilot program at work,  and fingers crossed that they pick me out of 100 people.    I don’t usually have that kind of good luck at work, but we’ll see.  I’m actually a great candidate for that, but there’s a lot of competition.    And I have the feeling that i may be considered ‘too important’ to not have in the office, and that’s not me tooting my own horn (at least loudly).

sad to say that it’s not far off from what my hair actually looked like in the 90′s.

oh man, there are a lot of people at my work that are sick with ‘allergies’.  it’s awful how that just spread around and how many people are staying home because their ‘allergies’ are killing them.    i keep trying to tell them they aren’t really sick, they just have a bad case of allergies, on account of the monsoons.   But they keep insisting they are sick.  Silly people.

yeah so apparently i’m NOT sick.  I’ve just been fake sick for a week now.  I went to the Dr. today because things just seem to be getting worse instead of better and she tells me i’ve got allergies.  and then gives me a sample for asthma medication.    I don’t want to say she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but I know what allergies are like and allergies have never put me down for a week.   I have never missed work because of allergies.   I have taken allergy medication and it’s not touched these ‘allergies’.    Then she goes, well maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a cold, but let’s treat you for allergies (and apparently asthma too)  because everyone else has allergies.    I’m just mad, had I known I wasn’t actually sick I would not have missed three days of work and ruined my entire 3 day weekend as well.  HOOORAY!