metsakins’ Neighborhood

So, like i had nuttin to like do like Caturday, an like Metsakins din't like have anything to like do either so...

oh crap I can't keep THAT up.  Yay for meetups.  Caturday was extra speshul on so many levels.  I got to see two of my peeps in one day,  AND I got to see some cute critters and beautiful artwork to boot. 

It was hot and humid as hayle, but we survived, barely.  ;-)

First stop was the Frick Collection.  Very nice, and gave me lots of beautiful building envy.  I do so love good architecture.

The eerie part was seeing live and in person several paintings that have been LOL'd on Loltheist recently.  That was strange.  But I was good and just enjoyed the art rather than captioning it with a magic marker  ;-).

No really though there was some beautiful artwork there, not to mention (again) the building itself.  I can easily see why the Frick is Metsakins' favorite place.

After culture time it was time for us to be kids again.  So we headed off to the Central Park Zoo, another place I've never been.  It is a small zoo, and fairly inexpensive to get in, and the exhibits are VERY nice and really do give you an up close and personal feel to them, something you don't always get in larger zoos.  I got some pictures of their sweet Red Panda snoozing in a corner of his habitat.  (with OMG Paw curlage and a peek of Red panda tongue!)

These are just 2 shots, I haz many many more of this guy on my flikr page.

 

 

In the children's part of the zoo they had the requiset "petting" zoo, which is we all know really a "feeding" zoo, because if you do not have food in your hands you might as well be invivislbe.  This sweet alpaca was hangin out in the shade and just seemed like it had such a "I'm too cool for this place" teenager attitude.

 

This goat had the cutest "underbite" but would NOT stand still for me to take a pic.

 

 

 

 

Do you have any idea how hard it is to try to look like you disapprove when you're laffin' like a loon?

The heat drove us indoors for a while so we "forced" ourselves to go into FAO Schwartz (man I'm just knocking all kindsa firsts off my list today).  We walked around there for a while soaking up the A/C before braving the outside world again.

 

 

Meeting Metsakins was wonderful!!  She has such a great sense of humor and was so much fun and put up with all my antics and mad photo snapping at the zoo. 

After Metsakins and I said our goodbyes I headed off to meet my 2nd Vox/Cute Overload peep of the day.  DKN!

We hung out together for a while at her place gabbin (I'm sorry DKN I think I did most of the gabbin), before heading off with her friend Adam to my first meal in a real Irish Pub.  DKN sed we were gonna have OMGCheezburgers.  and by golly we DID!  Mine had bacon (of course) and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.  Thank you for introducing me to your friend, it was great meeting you Adam, and for sharing the sekrit of the OMGCheezburgers wit me!

I just wish that the heat and humidity hadn't made me so stupid by that point that I forgot to take any pics of my time with DKN!  Sorry dear!  I can only claim brain sweats as my excuse for not using my camera while visiting you!

Also I must note that I was in NYC from about 9 am to 10 pm.  I wore my anti-bleen shirt and toted my anti-bleen tote.

No one said a word or asked what it meant.  :-(  No one.  I whined to Metsakins about this just before we parted ways and she made an excellent point.  "Well we are in New York City."

Oh yeah!  IF I want reactions I must wear in small towns!  (silly me)

Enjoy the pics! Moar here iffen u can bear it:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/metzdarling/

 

 

Hi there, I just have to post these pictures for Laid out in Lavender. I know her favourite thing to photograph is decay and I look at this in my yard every day and think how much she would enjoy photographing it.

 

I'm sure my photos don't do it justice, but here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey all you cat ladies!

go to www.oprah.com

and download for FREE for June 26th through June 27th 2008

Susy Ormands Book

"WOMEN & MONEY

The Power to Control Your Destiny."

Oprah is giving it to all her viewers for Free for one day!

Take advantage! you know you can't catch Mice to take care of yourself like I can. Do this for yourself, because you are purrfectly wonderful.. besides who is gonna read MY blog about my feats of adventure if you don't take care of yourself.

 

Purrs... ankle rubs and mews

Magneato!

I actually half did this at 7pm last night as I was sitting in my deserted office, waiting for my husband and getting in the way of the cleaner. I was rather grumpy, as you can imagine, so I’m not going to update my answers, because they are too funny. By the way, number 2 – TOTALLY happened this morning! HEE HEE. 

Each player answers these questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 peeps and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. You should let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

 

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Let's see, I was 19. Some crappy job. Maybe a play.

 

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for tomorrow (on account of today being almost over?

Get up on time

Get ready in a hurry when I don't get up on time so I can catch the train

Text my boss when I miss the train to say I'll be late

Get a coffee

Bash head against brick wall for 10 hours

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Prawns (that's shrimps for you American types), Creamy pasta with mushrooms and chicken.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Stop stressing about money

5. Places I have lived:

Many suburbs of Brisbane & Ipswich which won’t mean anything to anybody so I won’t bother naming them out.

6. Jobs I have had:

In chronological order: Office junior, drafter of houses, Drafter of services for office fitouts (ie fire services, lighting, electrical etc), architectural drafter drafting bank fitouts, technical clerk, document controller, owner of own business – I designed and drafted complex reticulated pay TV & FTA systems for mutli-storey buildings (ie high-rises), document controller, senior document controller, Corporate document controller & 2IC to state DC manager for big hated US company (I didn’t do it, don’t blame me)

7. Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

No.

Hi neighbors! I remember reading on one of your blogs about ants
sneaking into the house, especially in the summer. And a bunch of you
commented that you had the same problem!

Well, I just opened my new (July) issue of Good Housekeeping and found
some "hints from Heloise" for you (on pg. 32):

"Sponge shelves with white vinegar.This wipes away the scent trail
that the bugs left for their buddies to follow. Transfer your pantry
items into airtight glass jars or heavy duty sealable plastic bags.

"THEN I prepare my favorite deterrent: cotton pads dabbed in
peppermint or spearmint essential oil. Stuff these into shelf
corners.

If that doesn't work, mix 1 Tablespoon of boric acid powder with 1/4
cup of sugar (sugar? Really? That's what she says!) - similar to the
mix used in commercial ant baits - and place it around the pantry in
small lidded jars with holes punched in the tops.

"The ants nibble the grains & take some back to the nest; if the
queen eats the mixture it can wipe out the whole colony. But beware:
The powder is toxic if ingested, so keep it out of reach of kids &
pets."

Heloise has a weekly podcast with more tips at goodhousekeeping.com/hearheloise

Let me know if this works for you! I've used the boric acid powder
before, when I lived in Hawaii & all manner of creepy crawlies try to
come visiting, & it worked! Fortunately the cute little geckos didn't
find it! They were a free resource for bug control. *schluuuuurpp!!
Ahhhhh!!* ;-)

My kittehs have been very uncooperative lately when trying to take pictures so I was forced to make do with an old one.

I made this LOL in response to the rash of Jesus spotting in various objects lately.

http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/03/27/how-much-is-that-jesus-in-the-window/

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/usworld/news-article.aspx?storyid=28783

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/11/20/State/Flapjack_Jesus_flips_.shtml

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22224584-2,00.html

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/9724051/detail.html

and I could go on and on, just google Jesus Image Ebay and you'll see.

This is what sent me over the edge into making this LOL though.

http://wsfltv.sun-sentinel.com/features/stv-jesus-french-fry-sacramento,0,6840349.story

 

moar funny pictures

 

I WAS trying to get a pic of the cats together with one looking at the other, I thought that it would be perfect to caption, "Hmmm, move a bit to the left, hmmm, nope, sorries can't see Jebus (or Ceiling Cat) in your stripes."

But of course they moved by the time the digital camera decided to actually TAKE the picture after I'd pressed the button.  So i got a nice shot of an empty chair and the tips of their tails as they disappeared.

Hmm, mebbe I could put that picture up on Ebay claiming Jesus appeared in it.

You know what, I have absolutely NO problem with someone who really needs it and needs to believe having such an image appear to them in their life.  But to sell it to Ebay to the highest bidder?  Seems kinda crass and insulting to the people who are truly faithful.

Just to show that I'm not a TOTAL gloomy gus, here's the same pic LOL'd a different way.

moar funny pictures

 

I've been having trouble with the ICHC pics uploading right here so here's the link to both just in case.

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=1383243

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=1383150

I feel guilty because I haven't checked out anyone else's blog in weeks. I have no idea how Py is doing, no clue if Carlisa is as jovial as ever, or whether or not Annie's animals are happy and here I am posting a meme. I am a terrible neighbor, but Metz tagged me, and so I must obey. It's that middle-management whip you wield darlink, it scares me.So here it is:

 The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago, I was living in a tiny townhouse, raising a kindergartener, a three year old, and had a newborn baby. The newest addition to the family had colic and screamed 24/7 for over a year. He never slept for longer than 20 minutes at a time. My husband and I would take turns trying to get some rest. He would come home from work, see the state I was in, and order me to bed. We watched a lot of TV that year, while we walked the floors. Mr.Krista in particular got fond of Nick at Night, and watched a lot of Pokemon in the middle of the night, because that was all that was on. I remember this because we didn't let our kids watch it, and he got caught once by the oldest child and she was really mad. The rest of that whole year is kind of a blur for me, I didn't do much except walk that boy around and stress out. He had to have a scope stuck down his tubeage trying to grok what was wrong with him. We never did find out, but he is sensitive to a lot of foods, and I suspect he probably has had celiac's from day one.

What are 5 things on my to do list for today?

1. Pack to go camping on Monday.
2. Drill holes in all of the sweet altered art charms I made out of printable shrinky dinks for the girls at camp. I will try and post a picture, they turned out so cool.
3. Clean up my altered charm making mess so my friend Shelley can come over and I can help her screen print her t-shirt for camp.
4. Go to the store and buy my girly a new swimsuit (since she inexplicably is shaped like an adult instead of a child now)  rabbit food, and water softener salt among other random things.
5. Read some of the New Testament, and go over some of my teaching materials for seminary.

Snacks I enjoy:

I will pretty much eat anything, but I love Neopolitan Dynamite Ben and Jerry's, Dark chocolate (the kind that doesn't even taste good, the darker the better), and Root beer floats. I am also a big fan of anything in the Itos family: Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, etc. Since most of the people in my family can't eat any of this stuff though, I barely ever have it in the house, and we tend to eat stuff like homemade salsa and hummus on tiny pita chips. I am a sucker for the fancy junk food at the health food store too- All of the mixes in the bulk bins that are anything but good for you, sesame sticks and my favorite: pecans covered in maple sugar covered in dark chocolate. Those things set your brains to vibrate for the rest of the day after eating like 5 of them.

Things I would do if I was a billionaire

This is an interesting question, because if you are a billionaire, it stands to reason that you could do lots of good for others and still do whatever you wanted. So after the donations to cure autism, and paying off everyone's everything, college for the kids, giving tons of it away, all that jazz, I think I would first acquire a very eclectic wardrobe. I love clothes, but what I really love are quirky, one of a kind clothes, so that would happen first, I bet. And I am afraid I would probably buy a lot of shoes.  I would also build an art studio tree house in the woods, somewhere with a view of the water, where it never snows, and I would indulge in making art all day long.  I would pay someone else to do all of the tedious shopping and  cleaning and cooking I normally have to do, and I would spend all of the not making art time with my children, reading them books, and playing with them.  And of course, Mr.Krista could have his barn full of animals that he has always wanted, and could cease being a pasty faced office worker bee. We would probably travel, but since we are homebodies, we would probably live somewhere that was like being on vacation all the time, like Hawaii. And as for charity, I don't think I would give to big charities. I would ask the Bishop in my local church who needed help, and I would anonymously buy them a house or something. That would be fun to do. Really change the world, one family at a time. And If it was possible, I would pay for  Mr. Krista to go into space, because he always wanted to be an astronaut, but couldn't because he has glasses. Off to the moon with you, CBD!

Places I have lived:

Born In Salt Lake City, Utah
Moved to North Ridgeville, Ohio When I was in 1st grade
Moved to Carmel, New York, 6 months later, to live down the street from Metsakins, although we were unaware. I lived in a house with huge windows and beautiful wood floors, In the middle of a grove of trees. In front there was a rock wall that dated back to the civil war, that we would climb on. The backyard had a huge glacial boulder, right next to an apple tree that was covered in huge grape vines. We would rake the leaves into a huge pile at the base of the tree, climb the tree and swing on the vines like Tarzan into the pile of leaves. We played kick the can and jailbreak with the neighborhood kids late into the night in the summer. Where were our parents? Who knows. I loved that house.
Then we moved when I was in 5th grade to Avon Lake, Ohio. The kids picked on my New York accent, and were generally not very nice.  The house is one of those "modern" homes from the seventies with stained wood siding and exciting chunky bits that just look dated now. My parents still live there. The people who lived there before us had hideous taste, and every room was covered in the most horrific wallpaper you have ever seen. It took my mom about 10 years to get rid of most of it, and a lot of it is still up. But the backyard made up for the house- outside we had woods, with bike trails in them, and a creek where we could wade and go fishing. I spent a lot of happy hours getting poison Ivy back there. I went to high school in that town, met my husband there, and visit it often to see our parents. I guess it would be "home" in the traditional sense.
After Graduation I left to go to BYU, in Provo, Utah. I loved going to BYU, but I didn't last long because I got married and started having babies. We lived in Oxford, Ohio, where Mr.Krista was going to school at Miami, and then we moved to Stow, Ohio, when he got his first job, the same one he has now. We moved to Aurora a few years ago to be closer to his job and because the schools are really good here. Who knows where we will go next?

Jobs I have had:

I have had many jobs watching/teaching children over the years. I have worked in daycares and babysat, and while they haven't been paid positions, I have had many volunteer positions at my church. I was Primary President for several years, where I was in charge of running the programs for about 40 kids between the ages of 18 months to 12 years. They had Sunday classes that needed to be taught, and cub scouts and achievement programs to run. I also was in charge of the nursery for the littlest ones, and we had big activities quarterly. The children would perform a big program with singing performances and speaking parts once a year. It was a big job. Since then I have had lots of littler positions in Primary, nursery leader and I have taught classes. Right now I teach my 5 year old son's Primary class on the New Testament every Sunday. I was also Young  Women's President for a while, over the teenaged girls, and my favorite volunteer job was running a craft thing once a month for all the ladies in our ward.

I also teach Seminary, which is a class held every morning before school for teenagers aged 14-18. (Yes, it is at 6 am and they do come. I have about a dozen students every day.) This next year I will be teaching the New Testament as well. I really love teaching Seminary, it is the best part of my day. I am on break now, but I just received my teaching materials for next year and am excited to get started.

Other jobs I have had:
I worked as a receptionist at my Dad's office, when I was younger, and then again at a large company in downtown  Cleveland. I ran a switchboard at that one, and had fun saying sweetly to people, could you hold please? And then putting them on perma-hold. Apparently I have a sexy phone voice, or so I have been told. My voice is quite deep for a woman's, and I always thought I sounded like a guy, but whatever.

In college I had a job working in the cafeteria where the BYU football team would eat before every game. I have never seen human beings that could eat so much in my whole life. We would make up those little bowls of pudding that you only see in institutional type food services, the kind where you have a splodge of pudding with a tiny flowerette of whipped cream on the top? Well, these guys would take a tray, and fill those up with pudding bowls and eat them all. We could never make bowls-a-puddin fast enough. My main job when I worked there was to cut up fruits and vegetables for the cooks. They would bring over a huge wagon of watermelons, there would be around forty of them, and we would have to have them deseeded and cubed in an hour. I learned tricks for cutting up just about everything- Like mangoes and pineapple- things that other people have trouble figuring out how to chop- well I am a ninja. It really is the most valuable thing I learned at college, to this day. Also, when I first got married, I worked briefly at a Burger King. That was a horrible job. It was hot and the people were morons.  Not because they worked there, it was just that particular crew were awful to work with, because there was no one interesting to talk to. We were the only place open after the bars would close (this was at Miami U.) They ran this special there , 2 burgers 2 fries 2 bucks, and it would go for a couple of weeks, and then they would end it. But every night the drunk kids would come in and wave around their last two dollars, and demand 2 burgers and two fries. There was no explaining to them that they couldn't have them. I hated that place.

The only other job I have had was I worked for a while as a videoette. At least that was what we jokingly called ourselves- I worked as the girl that checks out your videos at the local video rental place. That was a very weird job, because they also rented porn, but there were all of these rules about it. We kept the vids in plain brown boxes, and all of the titles were in this black folder. The perps would come in, and ask to see The Folder, and would go into a corner to slaver and read descriptions. When they had picked their vid, they had to ask for it by number. If they didn't, and were creepy in any way, we were supposed to tell them we didn't rent that kind of thing any more. I have to say it was never the college guys who rented this stuff- it was always creepy fat old guys. There was this one regular who would always call and ask if we had any new titles. He gave me the jibblies. I hated touching those brown boxes and always wanted to go scrub up afterwards. One of the funniest things that happened there was someone came in and seruptitiously put stickers on tons of the videos that said "do not rent this movie, it is degrading to women" on all of the soft porny hot tub type crap that they rented there. The boss lady was furious that we hadn't noticed, and made us reshrink wrap all of the boxes.  I thought it was hilarious, but thought it was too bad they didn't put them on all of the "Disney Princess" movies.

Well that's all folks. I tag any and all who want to play. Have fun peeps!

 

Tagged by W.B. Mook, dastardly!  The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Hmm, kinda boring in a sort of way.  I was a new mom, still getting used to my then 6 month old baby girl.  Every day was a source of new information and discoveries. //Hmmm, dancing and bouncing Gabby right after a jar of peas and sweet potatos was not such a good idea.  Gabby is ticklish under her chin.  Saying the alphabet and counting to 20 in super slowmotion is a sure fire laugh producer, and an excellent way to get her to hold still during diaper changes.  //

I was working at an architect's office as his secretary/office manager/gopher.  I haven't worked for him in over 8 years now and to this day I still say, "Hey!  We did that place!"  whenever I see a building he did plans for.  I learned a lot from that place, things I can still use to this day:

*  How to obtain building permits  :: this has come in use in knowing how to look for and understand town building codes with regards to our family home and any improvements we make.

*  How to wait in line for hours in an attempt to obtain said building permits  ::  Patience.  Use it every day, some days longer lasting than others.

 

*     How to operate an ancient blueprint machine  ::  To not be afraid to attempt to use unfamiliar objects/machinery.  If I can handle that dinosaur I can handle anything. 

 

*     How to breath ammonia fumes in a less than well ventilated area  ::  Hey, ever change a baby's diaper?  LOL  not to mention cleaning up the cat box and/or dog poo.  ;-)

 

*  How to interpret the architect's mumbling instructions  :: A clever technique used by bosses everywhere, when in doubt yourself about what to do, mumble some instructions to your employee, then if you're wrong you can blame it on the employee by saying, "No!  that's not what I said to do, I said to put the files in mmmmbbbb".

*    How to chase clients down via the phone in attempts to get them to pay  :: this has prepared me for tussles with my insurance company over treatment for my children and at times even myself.  Insurance companies want to pay about as much as those former clients did.

 

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today tomorrow (on account of today being almost over)?

1. Get to work on time.  One of my biggest faults.
2. Catch up on the work piled up in my 2 day absence.  (I was out sick with an allergy attack).
3. Return some books on CD to the library and get some new books to read and listen to.
4. Listen to my husband rave about how great the Spore Creature maker is and try to figure out a way to get a chance at checking it out for myself.
5. Cross off another day on the calendar in my countdown until the new season of Heroes.  (yes I am that pathetic LOL)
   

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Baby carrots with peanut butter, Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn, Code Red Mt. Dew & Vanilla Ice cream soda, and Ruffles potato chips with jalapeno cheddar dip.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Pay off mortgages of my MIL, Parents, and Grandparents.  Large portions into trust funds for my children and neices for their educations.  Buy a house with lots of land in Michigan near my family and raise horses and have a sort of petting zoo for local kids and my own cute enjoyment.  Be socially responsible and help as many people as I can while still providing for my family (but not in the jetsetting sort of way lol). 

5) Places I have lived:

Three Rivers, MI Born & Raised.

Grand Rapids, MI

Kalamazoo, MI (yes, there is really!)

Allegan, MI

Virginia Beach, VA

Long Beach, CA

San Diego, CA

Long Island, NY

6) Jobs I have had:

Grocery store bagger, cashier, service clerk, & assistant manager.  Bed Bath & Beyond, towel folder/stocker.  OMG TOWERS OF TOWELS!  Marshalls & TJ Maxx (at different times) cashier, sales clerk.  Architect's secretary (see #1 LOL), Administrative Assitant at giant crappy computer corp, Secretary and general doormat at a video copying company, Hotel Desk Clerk & Assistant manager, Factory worker assembling aluminum vehicles for Northrup Grumman (in Sturgis MI).  And Civil Service employee at a county office.

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

Hmmm, I tag, (evil hand rubbing motions) Helene, CeeCee (u dun haz 2 iffen it gibs 2 much away dearie), Annie, Brinnann, Metsakins, kRista, Bugmom, Cyanide, Mr. Fred, Russia Moore, Oaklandcat, oh shoot, I'm just about getting all my Vox peeps.  (REALLY evil hand rubbing motions)

have fun guys! and Mook, thanks!  T'was fun!