It’s really sweet that I don’t have to have my thermostat set 8 degrees higher than the actual temperature in the house.

RetroFoam

Wayne is Warren’s brother & he was also my first boss.

Who’s your valentine? Bring your baby, bff, pet, ? use your imagination. Receive professional sitting, 2-4×6′s & 4 wallets only 29.95. One Day Only! Thursday, Feb. 2nd. An appointment is necessary.

I had to make an appointment. This package would cost $55.

The studio running the special is also where I had my senior portraits done … over a quarter decade ago & when I lived 3 hours away.

The appointments were 30 minutes. At least half of that was chasing down Suzzie because she wanted to check out everything in the studio and settling Della down. They were really speedy with the proofs (26 of them!)… our appointment was at 4:30pm yesterday & I got the link for the proofs just before 11am today.

My favorites:

The proof that makes me LOL every time I look at it because of Della’s expression:

I was the only one at the store parking lot at the time besides  a guy in a Liberty Tax getup. He ran & hid when I pulled in.

In the store another guy in a LTax costume was at the counter. I recognized him from this past Christmas and he was a Salvation Army bell ringer & we chatted about being a bell ringer.

The worst ever experience in my life was being a volunteer Salvation Army bell ringer outside the stores at Christmas. I’ve never seen such selfish & rude & obnoxious people in my life. I just stood there & ringed the bell & smiled. So many rude comments were hurled at me. I went home crying after every shift. I wasn’t homeless or unemployed… just wanted to help.

So I asked the guy in the getup how it’s been since Christmas. He said, “you think rude people come out at Christmas … tax time is worse!”

The 1st & 2nd days of 2012 I got to spend with my best friend. He’s an avid Lions fan. We met in Green Bay for the Lions @ Packers game. It was funny when we showed up dress in matchy-matchy winter wear … plus the hats we were wearing is what we bought each other for Christmas. That was not at all planned.

The next day was his birthday. I kept the tradition going of “forgetting” to wish him a happy birthday until he reminded me. We spent the morning clothes shopping for me. In case you didn’t know, he’s my personal shopper. I can never find clothes I like or fit well unless he’s with me. Bonus: he is remarkable at finding great deals. Our shopping excursion resulted in getting $390 worth of regular-priced clothes for $110. We parted just before lunchtime because he wanted to be home to watch some college football game … Michigan, I think.

The next 3 days of the year … I spent a lot of time in hospitals and driving. My brother’s ongoing health problems made him go to the local ER on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon we were on our way to the regional hospital 70 miles away where he could see specialists. He looked like death warmed over that day. All I could do was pray… for him … and for me to keep my vehicle on the road. Not only was I an emotional wreck, but drive to the hospital was horrible due to a snowstorm the previous days. One of my sisters is also on dialysis and happened to be in the middle of one of her  appointments when she got the news that LilBro was on his way to that hospital. She met us in his room when she was done. After his evaluations, he would meet with a kidney specialist (YAY! the same doc my sis has) the next morning. In the meantime he needed the following: a CAT scan, a transfusion of 3 bags of blood, numerous more labs, and a bladder catheter. I drove back home (on horrible roads) because my dogs needed to be let out then fed in the morning… only to return (on still horrible roads) the next morning to see the kidney doc between 7 & 8 am. After meeting with a flurry of doctors & nurses on Wednesday morning, we were told the news: he has full kidney failure & has to go on dialysis. He had a permacath put in that afternoon and went on dialysis immediately after. Two of my other sisters were going to be there with him at that time so I returned home again… this time on good roads.  On Thursday morning, it was another trip to back up hospital. When I got there, he was midway through his second dialysis and said that he might have to stay another night. It was early evening that he finally got the clearance to go home & then another 3 hours before we actually got to leave the hospital.

Friday morning, I returned to work on 12 hours of sleep in three days and having put nearly 600 miles on my truck. That was horrible … I was being bombarded with petty things that had to be taken care of immediately. I was only gone 2-1/2 days from work. I had to remind my boss & secretary that they went through similar family situations traveling back forth from that hospital. In both situations they were gone for a couple of weeks. I must have been a wee bit bitchy because they both took the afternoon off.

I’m embarking on my new year with Shaffer’s cheers for me.

And my planned vacation to someplace warm is going to be changed to head to downstate to meet Jess & her family.

Jim & I have a lot of friendly, teasing banter that happens on facebook  … so I had to ask if he was serious when I saw the off-topic comment:

I told him I didn’t have a guest house or an extra bedroom, but he could sleep on the couch.

So a bunch of messages later & him trying to figure out if he has a 6-1/4″ hole saw, I am going to have a boarder for 3 weeks in January, a little bit of carpenter help, … and dinner every night after work!

He does adore pugs. I am going to have to do a headcount to make sure Annie & Suzzie are still here when he goes home on weekends.

A lot of people thought I was nuts to get them done for the cost of $600.

That $600 lasted for 12 years. Three dogs added to the wear and tear.

Now:  They are embedded with dog hair. One cushion has a huge hole in it (Della lost her tennis ball). The bottom of the sofa is shredded (Della lost her golf ball). The back of the couch has an indent of Annie’s butt where she sits all day (when not sleeping) watching out her lookout window. One arm of the loveseat is worn because that’s where LilBro rests his arm while watching the weather channel for hours on end. The cushions weren’t in good shape when I acquired it & they are even worse now.

I’ve been looking around for new furniture for about 3 years. I’ve just never found anything I’ve been happy with. If I’m gonna sink $2000 into a couple of pieces of furniture, I definitely want it to fit my space and my life.

So, I called a reupholster. Then sent him pictures and story of the existing pieces & my inspiration picture & talked on the phone with him about my likes and dislikes.

Like: the shape and size of the pieces, the basic color. Dislikes: separate butt cushions, buttons. I would also like to be able to wash the cushion covers.

Considering I am getting completely new one-piece butt cushions, 3 new pillow cushions on the loveseat, 5 new pillow cushions on the sofa, (all the same fabric so I can slipcover), and the backs will be padded and covered so that if a pillow slips you aren’t meeting body-to-framing and still look okay … I am damn happy that the total price is $2200.

The only thing that sucks is that I am gonna be with out that furniture for 2-3 weeks. That’s funny because I have a boarder that will be here at the same time & I told him that he’ll have to sleep on the couch. (More story on the boarder in a future post.)

A lot of class photos were posted in the year up to the reunion (July 2010). A few more showed up yesterday with a lot more classmates tagged in them.

It made me LOL when my little sister said, “I find it highly amusing that you haven’t changed a bit since Kindergarten.
Exact crazy hair, same cute face, just as short.” Awwww … thanks sis. I think I did grow maybe a foot.

My 5th grade class pic is blog worthy:

We were arranged for the picture from tallest to shortest – left to right – top to bottom.

That was my favorite outfit to wear that year. The little pocket on the sleeve was where I’d put notes to pass to friends in class. I’d just point at the pocket to the note recipient & walk close by them. Pretty sneaky, huh?

I’ll give you a closeup of it:

Wow! I was working it … foot back, knee bent, hip & head tilt.

Billy, the guy in the upper left, was my crush that year. He would never answer my notes that said, “Do you like me?”

One day that I was wearing that outfit, the conversation on the playground went like this (the whole class was watching):

Billy: Why do you always zip the zipper up all the way to the top?

Me: Because I like to. Do you want to see what’s under it?

Billy (grinning): Yes!

I pulled the zipper down & said “HAH! Fooled you, didn’t I!” I always wore a matching t-shirt under the top. He turned every shade of red while everyone laughed at him. He wasn’t my crush anymore.

When I first saw this pin on Pinterest, I knew it was something I really wanted to do. Procrastination & me are best friends … but, hey, I finished it before the family dinner on the 23rd.

I had scanned prints of the fabric made into a PDF file & then printed it out at work on a color laser copier. I used a fantastic 2″ circle punch that I got for 50% off to cut the circles. I whipped out 225 (15 pages of print @ 15 circles per page) in no time at all. I only used about 1/2 of them to make 3 trees. Instead of hot-gluing I chose to to go paper mache’ since I rock at that. I simply wrapped & glued the cone form in a scrap piece of rosin paper I had laying around, watered down a bottle of dollar store white glue (50/50), & then started pasting on the pieces.

Now I’ve got to figure out what to do with those other 100-ish 2″ circles…