Post Christmas ... the resumption of sanity

I am soooo tired. Christmas Eve went off without a hitch. The dinner came out alright. I strive for no complaints. This year, I didn't hear any so I guess it was OK. The leftovers were even better! My kids raked it in! I swear there wasn't anything on the kids list that they didn't get. The living room was covered in boxes and paper and ribbon and in the middle of it all was this toddler who was practically bouncing off the walls trying to figure out what to destroy first. Her grandma opened up the majority of her presents which Emily carried around and dropped in some strategic place. Her piano unfortunately, arrived damaged. The back was crushed in as if something heavy was sitting on it and Em's has to bang on the piano really hard to get any sound out of it at all. OK..That could be a blessing and believe me I know this. But, I did get on the phone with the company that I ordered it from, and they shipped one to me yesterday which I should get in the next few days. Kudo's to Sensational Beginnings for their really good customer service. I asked them if I should have the damaged piano ready for them to pick up and was told to just put it on the curb with the trash. Well cool! So there is a little plug from me for them. After the flurry of wrapping paper and fever pitch excitement about their presents, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas were spent breaking it all. For us adults, it was prime opportunity to sit on our butts and we did! And um..we drank a lot too. YUM. The next stop, NYE. Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe and detest NYE? It is the one day of the year I feel like the biggest loser! I think the whole holiday was cursed when I married my ex on NYE 1993 and it was downhill from there, hook, line and sinker! Since that fateful day, my NYE's have usually been spent getting stood up which has happened countless times, or I make plans and someone gets the flu and I wind up sitting at home with chinese food and a B movie or I get the flu and spend it in bed. Around midnight, I look back at the preceding year and say...what have I accomplished? Nothing! I'm in the same place I was last year, broke, no boyfriend, barely swimming with my head above water and one year older to boot! I am aware it is my own perceptions. I am aware I can adjust my attitude. I am aware of a lot of things. But like Melvin in the movie "Is This as Good as it Gets?" I wonder the same thing every year! IS IT? My life has one thing for sure, a whole lotta drama! All I can say is HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you and please pass the Prozac!

This could be my last chance!!!

OK .. I got this in my email today and thought I would post this because it was the best laugh I got all week!

"Hi

This is a legitimate appeal for ladies only.
If you are interested or if you want to unsuscribe email me at
togni55@land.ru


I'm an Italian guy,I live in Italy and my name is Andrea.I live in Padova.
I'm sending this message to the people because I'm bored to live in Italy,I'm
looking for a lady what could invite me in usa.I seek a millionaires american
lady who desires a young guy for marriage.
I don't seek a woman who works too much but a lady who has a lot of time
and could meet me.



I would love to find a wealthy lady who lives in one of the following places in
usa or nearby:
1) "The treasure coast",I mean north east Broward County or east Palm Beach
county(FLORIDA)
2)Honolulu (Hawaii)
3)Reno(Nevada)
4)Las Vegas(nevada)
5)Atlanta(georgia)
6)Jupiter,Stuart,Coral Springs,Jensen Beach,Boynton Beach,Deepwater,Hutchinson
Island or Miami(Florida)





Considering that I like the mature women, I'd love to find a lady of 45-60yo
age range.
I'd love to find a gentle long haired lady who lives in a swimming pool house
near the sea (as I like to swim) .
I seek a lady without young or old children,a no smoker lady who could be
widowed,separated,single ,divorced.
I would need a sugarmamma figure at the beginning .



I seek a bisexual woman that figures out of the years,looks young and feels
young :
it's not a problem if she's not beautiful because she should be beautiful inside
and most of all ,she should desire a younger soulmate.(She could be overweight
too)
The thing I desire is to fix a serious stable relationship with a lady who
gives me the opportunity to have a better life.




ABOUT ME:

I have long black hair,my weight is 65 kilos(145 lbs) and my height is about
1.80 metres(5.11)...
I'm no smoker /drinker and I'm good looking.



If you could be the kind of woman I'm looking for, write me soon please!!!!!!


Thank you very much for reading my letter .
I think there must be a woman for me out there.




Cheers

ANDREA TOGNAZZI -Italy"

Now, doesn't he sound like a prize? Ladies, if you are bisexual, rich and old, do give Andrea a call so another Anna Nicole Smith trial can make the news. In the meantime, I don't think I fit the criteria. The only swimming pool I have is the big puddle in the backyard that I get when it rains a lot. I was thinking of upgrading my swimming pool to one that is turtle shaped for Emily. Think Andrea would go for that? I'm sure he's about Emily's age anyhow.

Darn! I wish I had replied to that Swiss Lotto win, then I could afford this Italian Stallion!

Peace!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Greetings to all of you! I am preparing to shut this sucker down for the day so I can focus on creating our Christmas Eve Feast!

On the menu tonight:
Garlic and basil shrimp with Sundried tomatoes over Fettucini.
Salad with Tarragon vinagrette
Steamed cauliflour and Broccoli with mustard sauce.
White wine
Assorted desserts

I am also serving as a pre dinner munchies
Vidalia Onion dip for crackers
Shrimp cocktail
Scallops sauteed in butter and garlic
Vegetable pizza.

Tomorrow, we eat leftovers and get over the hangover.
Do have a wonderful holiday! Hope Santa is good to all of you. I know Santa mom went way over budget this year in this house! Oh well..it's only money right?

Leaving with one of my favorite quotes of all time

Do good anyway...

"In the Final Analysis"

by Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered...
forgive them anyway


If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives...
be kind anyway


If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies...
succeed anyway


If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you...
be honest and frank anyway


What you may spend years building, someone may destroy overnight...
build anyway


If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous...
be happy anyway


The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow...
do good anyway


Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough...
give the world the best you have anyway


You see, in the final analysis, it's all between you and God...
it was never between you and them anyway

Have a Merry

I have no idea what kind of time I am going to have now so I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Hannukah and Kwanza and Boxing Day and.....

I don't have very good luck with cards ie remembering to send them or even write them. In the past, I've always felt the need to write a personal note in all my cards. Then I saw this episode on "Everybody Loves Raymond" where the gang was sitting around feeling all down about some of the Christmas letters they got. You know the ones I'm sure. The ones that go like this:

Hi Everyone,
The past year has been a great one for the BLAH BLAH clan. Our son got a 100% full scholarship to Harvard Law School. He's going to be the next Johnny Cochran I'm sure. We are so proud! My husband got a wonderful promotion so now we have finally been able to realize our dream of owning our own Swiss Chalet! Our daughter has announced her planned nuptials to the son of none other than DONALD TRUMP! OH MY! We can scarcely believe it. We have all had such great health and we are so blessed! May this season bring you wonderful blessings!

Love the Blah Blah family!

OH BARF! We have all gotten letters like that. OK seriously, you want to gag right? Especially when your year has been like MINE.

My Christmas letter:
Dear Friends and Family,
This year has really SUCKED! It started out with mass layoffs for my company. Somehow I was spared which I suppose is lucky on my part but, due to horrible mismanagement, I spent 12 hours a day in front of my computer, haven't taken a vacation since 2002 and have noticed my hair turning a nice shade of gray. I was sick all last winter with the stress, physically and emotionally. I've dealt with $2000 in car repairs, a broken furnace in the winter, a broken AC in the summer, a broken, washer, dishwasher, computer, vacuum and dryer. Then to really add insult to injury, we needed to raise the well at the cabin to the tune of $2500. We put our cat to sleep over the summer much to the devastation of the kids. After all these repairs, I've lived with $2 in my checking account for a week and my credit card magnetic strips are all totally worn out. Then to REALLY add insult to injury, the DNA donor to Emily who cheated on me with the bosses daughter and left me alone and pregnant is taking ME to court. Isn't that a hoot? It's been so much fun, I can hardly stand it. August brought the return of another blight. Kyle called out of nowhere and threatened to take me to court too if I didn't let him see his children. Well, he can just take a number! So, here I sit...Christmas is bought but not paid for. I'm in debt up to my eyeballs and just got slapped with a $3000 lawyer bill. But folks...I AM BLESSED!! BLESSED! DAMMIT! Have a rockin Christmas..I'm sure I made you all feel better with this letter. At least you know someone elses life is shittier than yours.

Peace,
Kathy

At the end of the Everyone Loves Raymond episode, Deborah, Ray, Frank and Marie were all sitting there laughing at everyones life is wonderful letters and happily tossing them into the fire. Frame mine..you may need it when you're feeling really low on life.

Now, from the bottom of my heart, I hope your holidays are wonderful. I hope that next year is better for all of us. That we all are blessed with good health. That your house isn't falling apart, your children mind you, your job rocks and your bad mistakes don't take you court.

Love to all of you and the party is at my house New Years Eve!

Whoa!

I woke up this morning and looked around the house. WHOA! IS IT A PIT TODAY! I'll have to get my little slaves working and crack that whip. I got a brand new vac!! WOOHOOO...THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY WEEK IS A NEW APPLIANCE!! What a life! But it's not any vac. It's a "Household cleaning system." I can massage my scalp with this thing too. NO LIE..it comes with a massager! It comes with an attachment for EVERYTHING, crevices, mattresses, hard wood floors, molding, ceiling fan blades, upholstery. It even de-fleas your cat if you want! It's so complicated, you have to watch a video to learn how to work it. Nope! Can't just press a button and vacuum. You have to adjust the suction for your carpet and decide if you want it on manual or drive. I've kinda hard luck with the vac's lately as I have with just about all my household appliances. I bought a supper deeee duper vac via an EBAY wholesaler but had not yet received it. SO, I'd been using my grandmothers Panasonic. Well last week, the Panasonic bit the dust or spit the dust, whichever you prefer. It started acting like a Munster vac and after pulling it apart and not finding any reason why, we had a Panasonic funeral. Of course, that left us without a vacuum cleaner and we really needed one. So Joe and I went halfsies on a temporary until the "Household cleaning system" arrived via brownshirted santa. He came back with a Dirt Devil cannister vac where you could actually SEE the dirt it was pulling up from the carpet. How profoundly COOL! It was like watching laundry spin. LOOK AT ALL THAT MUCK!!! WHOA! Check out the cat hair!! Joe did the first ceremonial dumping of the cannister in the garbage and all was good until Kristopher wanted to vacuum his room and see how much dirt he could suck up out of his carpet. Not more than one hour after buying a new "temporary" vac, a burning rubber smell wafted from Kris's room. I heard the vac go off and I went running towards the boys room. WHAT HAPPENED???? Kris was bent over the vac trying to unwedge something from the power head. My little Einstein vacuumed the power cord and it got stuck in the power head and he broke the rubber casing around the cord and it was burning and I yelled at him for being a huge dufus and not watching what he was doing and a scene ensued and Joe yelled at him and Kris spent the night pouting and telling us it wasn't his fault. The power cord must have tried to sabotage the vac. Now I have issues. Should I let him touch the new machine which cost me more than I care to admit? The thing is supposedly built like a tank but can it withstand the most destructive force since Hurricane Katrina????

In other news, the band concert was fabulous. The band and Orchestra sounded great! The kids did a combo Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza deal of course. Just wondering, has anyone ever met one person that celebrates Kwanza?? Cassie got a good grade on her Saturn paper after the corrections of course. And work was just as annoying as ever! I have 3 whole days off next week and I just can't wait! Even though it will be spent here getting things ready for Christmas , the new C word. Any day away from AT&T is a day in bliss! I was looking on my favorite recipe site for a nice and easy Shrimp dish for our festivities and creating my shopping list. I have ONE MORE PRESENT TO BUY and I am done!

My pit awaits me! I wish myself good Vac Karma!

Tuesday Ramblings

Soo...how much bubble wrap have you popped? Remember Therapy is expensive. Bubble wrap is the cheap way to reduce your holiday stress. It's 2 weeks to Christmas and I have yelled at Emmie 1000 times to get out of the Christmas Tree, dodges 1000's of charity calls, spent my last dime and am still not done yet, have not baked a single cookie and have just decided that sometimes this season is a HO HO HEMMOROID! Not to mention that LIFE has dumped an attorney bill on me and I still need a new washer/dryer/vacuum/garage door. I LOVE IT! BRING IT ON. The funny farm is definitely where I'd rather stay. I get allergic smelling hard cold reality.

I was told to create a huge order for a client which I spent 2 hours on. Then this morning, I was told that the account codes they gave me are wrong and I need to withdraw them. THEN I got 10 emails about how the order needed to be submitted by 5pm BUT, they hadn't created the correct account codes yet. Then they created the account codes and I was told to re create the huge order. As I was going to submit it, I was told not to because the client was waffling about whether they wanted to spend this amount of money before the new year. Then an hour later, they told me to go ahead. I deal with that on a daily basis. And they say WOMEN can't make up their minds. Do you want me to order this or not??? I am being told we will have a nice bonus this year and we rightfully deserve it. AT&T is like a schizophrenic parent.

My son's HOLIDAY band concert is tonight. He goes to Public school so we can't say Christmas. Actually, I'm not 100% sure they will play any Christmas songs. As the PC world progresses, we hear more stupid songs about snowmen coming to life or melting, Rudolf's nose, Santa, and snow. So we shall see what this concert brings.

Cass had to write a paper on Saturn. I am presenting to you some of the sentences she wrote in her report before the editing.

"Saturn is interesting because it has many facts."

"From what I know, there is 31 moons, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Pan and Atlas and a lot more. If you know them, tell me."

"You know Saturn is the 6th planet because of the sentence "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." (I'm sure that's how Galileo remembered it I'm sure)

That's all folks. Have a sane night.

Something from my inbox

I'm posting this because I remember a recent dinner discussion with my kids about this very subject. Summer comes. Summer goes. Where I used to be outside, my children are inside playing SIMS. They are always bored. Back in the old neighborhood, I taught the children how to play Ghost in the Graveyard. Can you believe not ONE child had ever played it or even heard of it???? What happened to Mother May I? Kick the Can? Tag? StatueMaker? Simon Says? Gone the way of the Dodo...How things have changed. And we as a society blame McDonald's for childhood obesity. Watching my own kids, I can tell you, it's not McDonalds. IT's SIMS. IT's Star Wars Battlefront, Instant messenger, email, internet games, and 007 James Bond. IT's a lack of imagination. I remember being outside playing with my friends from around noon to dinner time and then went out again. My friends and I chased Lightning bugs. We played tag. We rode bikes. explored a corn field that was down the block (which is now an apartment complex and sofball field), caught tadpoles, built Motocross trails in open fields for our bikes, climbed trees, played barbies in the garage, played in the sandbox, ran through the sprinkler because only one person in the whole neighborhood even had a pool, played on the swingset and rode bikes to the 7-11 for a Coca Cola Slurpee. My mom usually kicked me out after lunch and I can honestly say, I rarely watched TV indoors in the Summer. Of course I WANTED to but my first neighborhood was loaded with kids and my best friend and I across the street rarely spent time inside. It didn't take long before I would forget about cartoons on Channel 32. So Kris, Cass Joe and I talked over dinner about what it was like to be a kid in the 70's and 80's. And below, in nicer words of course, is what was said. Enjoy!

Subject: Over 30 reality....
IF you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what
with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill -
BOTH ways.

yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew
up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like
that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that...
I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and
notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared
to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but
you kids today... you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when
I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know
something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves,
in the card catalog!! There was no email! We had to actually write
somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way
across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a
week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had
to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or
you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd
usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! And talk of about
hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from
your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of
"Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options! We didn't have fancy
crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else
called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy
Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it
was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your
bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!!
You
had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with
high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like
"Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy
was a little square!

You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple
levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could
never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster
and faster until you
died! ... Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium
seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad
with a
hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15
channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You
had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off
your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was
no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday
Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for
cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards! And we didn't have
microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove
or go build a frigging fire ...Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we
had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove
forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You
kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,

-The over 30 Something crowd!

Merry Christmas Dammit

GAH! More snow. It's supposed to snow all weekend. What fun! Going out and scraping my car is such a joy. I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming up. IS anyone done shopping? It's been such a busy few weeks, I can't even find time to do ONLINE shopping. I brought the kids to get their portraits taken. It's always a good time especially when your precocious toddler won't sit for the portraits, kicks, screams and causes a ruckus. But, it all came out well in the end. Once she realized that people applauded her when she sat still, I couldn't get her out of there. She was posing like a model after awhile. Last weekend saw Cassie's 11th birthday on top of it all. We had a nice weekend planned for her which included theater tickets to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and of course, it was snowing. Any good Chicagoan knows that when it snows, people drive reallllllyyyy slooooowwwwwww. We sat in stop and go traffic all the way to the city. Stupid snow! The show was fun though. Darn music has been going through my head allllllll week. To top it all off, the restaurant we chose lost their liquor license. What's Italian food without a nice glass of Merlot?????? Ah well..a good time was had by all...I think. Thursday, I went to Cassie's "Holiday" play. It's OK to say Happy Kwanza and Happy Hannukah but Merry Christmas is just not acceptable in Chicago these days. So, Cassie's play was cute and oh so politically correct. Now seriously, her play covered the history of Kwanza and the miracle of the oil that gave birth to the celebration of Hannukah, why couldn't they mention that Christmas is...dare I say it...a celebration of the birth of..here goes.. JESUS! OH MY! I SAID IT! THE J WORD! TABOOOOOOOOO!!!! So sick of this I am.. Every Christmas around here it's the same garbage. No one can mention Christmas. No one can talk about anything except Santa Claus, that non denominational, holiday figure. I understand mulitculturalism but I have never been offended by anyone talking about Ramadan, Hannukah, Kwanza, Siva, Vishnu or the Buddha in my presence. It certainly didn't make me feel excluded. Nor was I going to run to the nearest Temple or Mosque and switch Religions. I am Catholic. Born Catholic. Raised Catholic and no matter what anyone says, I have never been able to stop being Catholic. Seeing a dreidle or Menorrah sure isn't going to change it either. (If I spelled those wrong, I am sorry) Nor I have never known one Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, etc. friend of mine to be offended at the mention of Christmas or a Christian friend to be offended by Hannukah. So I would like to know, WHO IS COMPLAINING? AND GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!!!!! End of rant. MERRY CHRISTMAS! Back to the play. It was politically correct. THe hightlight was when someones kid brother jumped the kid playing Santa Claus and gave him a punch in the belly. HEE HEE... An embarrassed parent did try to restrain the child to no avail. I missed getting it on video because I was focusing the camera on Cassie as if anyone wanted to see her anyway. :) Well that is all for now. I have to scrape my car, then move it off the street before the dang snowplow comes.

A Wisconsin/Arizona Snow Diary

This seemed appropriate as it is snowing outside and our first significant snowfall of the year. In looking for another tidbit online today, I came across this. I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone: the cold birds up here in the Midwest and the Snowbirds down there in the bowels of Hell..I mean Arizona.

Diary Of Wisconsin & Arizona

Dear Diary:

August 2: Moved to our new home in Wisconsin. It is so beautiful here. The forests are so serene and picturesque. Can hardly wait to see them all covered with snow. God's Country. I love it here!

October 14: Wisconsin is the most beautiful place on Earth. The leaves are turning and beginning to color. I love the bright shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through a beautiful forest and spotted some deer. They are so graceful. They are certainly the most peaceful animals on earth. This must be paradise!

November 11: Deer Season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such an elegant creature. The very symbol of peace and tranquillity. Hope it will snow soon. I really love it here!

December 2: It finally snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed in white. It looks just like a postcard. We went outside and cleared the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won) and when the snow plow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. Mother Nature in perfect harmony. I love Wisconsin.

December 12: More snow last night. I love it. The snow-plow did his trick again (that rascal). A winter wonderland, but pretty cold!

December 19: More snow last night. Couldn't even get out of the driveway to get to work this time. I'm exhausted from shoveling this stuff. Darn that old snow-plow!

December 22: More of that white shit fell last night. I've got blisters from shoveling this crap. I think the snow plow man hides around the curve and waits until I'm done shoveling the damn driveway, then he plows the fucking street, the Asshole!

December 25: "White Christmas" my busted ass! More fucking snow. If I ever get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who drives that snowplow, I swear I will castrate the stupid bastard. Why don't they use more salt on the roads to melt all this ice.

December 28: Guess what? More white shit fell last night. Been inside since Christmas fucking day except for shoveling out the driveway every time the "Snow Plow from Hell" comes by. Can't go anywhere, the car's buried in a mountain of frozen white shit. The weatherman says to expect another 10" tonight. Do you know how many shovels- full of white shit 10" is?

January 1: Happy Fucking New Year! The weatherman was wrong. We got 34" of the white shit this time. At this rate, it won't melt until the 4th of July. The snow plow got stuck up the road and the shithead driver had the balls to come to the door and ask to borrow my shovel. I told him I'd already broken 6 shovels digging out from under all the white shit he pushes back into my driveway and broke my last shovel over his God damned head.

January 4: Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food. On the way back a God damned deer ran in front of the car and I hit the fucker. Did about $3000 damage to the car. Those worthless deer shit-dropping road hazards should be exterminated. Wish the fucking hunters had killed them all last November.

May 3: Took the new car to the garage in town. Would you believe the body is rusting out from all that fucking salt they dumped on the roads all winter. My car looks like a piece of shit!

July 1: Moved to Arizona! I can't imagine why anyone on their right mind would ever move to that God Forsaken State of Wisconsin.

July 2: Saw a wonderful sunset this evening. I now understand "Purple Mountains Majesty". Why do people live anywhere but here?

July 3: A lightning storm came last night. The sky was all lit. It was truly awesome! This morning the sky is "transparent". I can see into Mexico. Arizona is a phenomenal state!

July 4: Now this is a state that knows how to live. Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. Mountains and desert blended together, what a place. Watched the fireworks at the park laying out on a blanket. It was glorious! I've finally found my home.

July 5: Really heating up, got to 100 today, not a problem, live in an air conditioned home and drive an air conditioned car. Life's full of tradeoffs. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a real sun worshipper.

July 7: Had the back yard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing for me. Another scorcher today but I love it here.

July 10: The temperature has not been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat. At least it's a dry heat. Getting used to it is taking a little longer than I expected.

July 15: Fell asleep at poolside, got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed two days work. What a dumb thing to do. I've learned my lesson! I really respect the old Sun in a climate like this.

July 20: I missed Tabby our cat sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got out to the hot car for lunch, Tabby had swollen to the size of a shopping bag and exploded over $2000 worth of leather upholstery. I told the kids she ran away. The car now smells like kibbles and shit. No more pets in this heat.

July 25: Dry Fucking Heat my Ass. Hot is hot! I'd be cooler living in my oven. The home air conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman wants $200 just to drive by and tell me he needs to order parts.

July 30: Been sleeping outside by the pool for three nights now. $1100 fucking dollar house payment and we can't even go inside. Why did I ever come here?

August 4: 117 degrees. Finally got the air conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and can only cool the house down to 90. Stupid ass Mexican repairman pissed in my pool. I hate this fucking state.

August 8: If another shithead cracks, "Hot enough for ya today", I'm going to tear his fucking throat out. Arizona is hot! By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are dripping wet with sweat and I smell like roasted fucking Garfield.

August 10: The weather report might as well be a recording. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to fuck for 2 stinking months. And the weatherman says it might really warm up this weekend. Doesn't it ever rain in the barren damn desert!

August 19: Welcome to Hell! Temperature got to 128 degrees today. Forgot to crack a window and blew the fucking windshield out of the Lincoln. The Mexican installer came to fix it, and said, "Hot enough for ya today." My wife had to spend the stinking $1100 house payment to bail me out of jail.

August 30: Hottest day of the God damn summer. I'm not even leaving the house. Water rationing has been in effect all summer so the $1700 worth of my "low maintenance" cactus in the yard just dried up and blew into the fucking pool Even a cactus can't live in this heat! I can't cool off in the pool now! The pool is full of fucking needles and every fucking time I fucking attempt to clean the fucking cactus needles out of the fucking pool filter I shred my fucking hands.
That does it, we're moving back to Wisconsin in time for deer season!

Don't hit Santa!

Elf Snowball Fight

Here's a little thing to do while you blow off your work as I am doing at this moment.. but JUST for a moment.

Merry Christmas

Wouldn't you like to do this to someone?

Snow Globe
I have been so busy! Hope you're surviving the cold and this Christmas season. It's a frigid -3 degrees here in the Chicago area. BRRRRR.