WAHOOOOOOOO

I gotta phone call from HUBBBBBBAAAANNNNDDD!

CHEERS!
WEEEE HAAWWWWW!

Can you tell they are rare? :-) >dancing around the room chirping at the kitties<

Gourmet Goodness... yet again!

Went to dinner at my internet-loving blog-queen writer friend's home tonight, and while I am currently burping, oozing, and otherwise excreting garlic from my pores, the food was SO worth it. She made some fantabulous flank steak with roasted garlic and mascarpone filling and a spinach salad with strawberries, walnuts, gorgonzola cheese and a white wine vinaigrette dressing. Top that off with HOMEMADE creme brulee... yes, HOMEMADE. It took her all day to make this meal, but BOY was it worth it. KUDOS QUEENIE! BIG HUGE GARLICKY KUDOS!

Random photo posting! Aren't they adorable? My niece Grace and nephew Jackson...

Insomnia

I am not usually an insomniac... in fact, I generally crash by around 11 pm, but for some reason when Hubband is gone I turn into a night owl. I rarely go to bed before 1 or 2 am. Sometimes, it's even later. Tonight for instance... you will notice by the time stamp that it is 4 am. I took a 2 hour nap today, and that might account for some of my wakefulness, but REALLY. FOUR in the morning and I can' t sleep? I don't want to work or clean the house, so I read a book (yes, an entire book. It was decent) and am posting in my blog. What a sorry state of affairs.

Maybe tomorrow night I'll work on my novel. Hey! That's an idea! I better go to bed so I can be awake in time to work up a good "wake" by evening...Maybe I'll take another nap tomorrow...

I wonder if I'll dream...

Dreamland

Do any of you dream? I dream all the time, awake, asleep...all kinds of dreams. Usually the sleeping ones I remember for a few hours or minutes after I wake up and then they dissipate. Sometimes, they stay around for much longer. Sometimes they are VERY weird... take as a case in point the one about being possessed by a demon. Sometimes, however, they are quite amusing. Last night I dreamed that I woke up and heard breathing in the room. Now, since Hubband is out on det right now, breathing in the room is not normal. I rolled over in the bed (not knowing I was dreaming yet) and saw that the pillow was moving. I asked it if it was breathing, and if that was what I was hearing, and my pillow nodded at me. Yes, my pillow nodded. See. That is a funny dream. I woke up laughing, and when I told my sister about it today she laughed, too! (This was good, as she had a bad day :()

Anyway, my question about dreams is this. Do you remember them? Not only that, can you figure out what CAUSED them? I mean, the demon possession dream could have been because I had been playing a demonic computer game, but what the heck made me dream my PILLOW WAS BREATHING? Am I just going nuts? Speaking of nuts, I heard once upon a time that FOOD can cause dreams... hmm. Note to self: When in need of amusement, eat Taco Bell 2-3 hours before bed.

Saturday evening post

Sittin' in the living room with C-mom watching the news and talking about Bewitched. We went for a girls night out... did Red Robin and the movie. It was cute, but not GREAT. It felt like it ended about 30-40 minutes too soon. We had a good evening though.... can't complain about lots of grease! hehe. We're pushing through the last day of our sale tomorrow. Yesterday was HORRID. We had ONE customer in 8 hours, so we shut down early. Thursday went pretty well, so we're hoping for a repeat of it tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us!

We helped C's neighbor move his fridge out of the apartment today, along with 2 desks he gave us for the sale. When I walked into his house, there were these GREAT b&w photos on the walls of Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, etc etc. These weren't your typical studio shots so I asked him about them. Turns out his wife was a bigwig photog back in the day in Beverly Hills! Was cool to see all the pics and she tried to tell us some stories about each one. She has some dementia and other disabilities though, and couldn't get the words out. It was pretty sad, but so neat to see the pictures and help them get their stuff together for a new move. They were both pretty excited about their new apartment. Then, on the way back from helping the man unload all the food into his NEW fridge at the NEW apartment, he asked if we could stop by Dairy Queen as he wanted to get his wife a cone (she had stayed behind). Isn't that just too sweet?! I hope that Hubband and I are like that in 50 years. :-)

In other news, it is now looking like we may not be able to do even the COLORADO trip! A has been told that he can have one leave setting. However, since we are doing Gracies birthday at the end of July that means only one trip. Now we have to try to find out how to fit a vacation and family visits all into one leave set. Phew. Military life.

When the rubber meets the road

Headin' to the mother-in-laws for a fun weekend of yard saleing, waffles, and movies. At least I will be getting away from the dead phone. Hopefully husband calls the cell today, realizing something is up when there is a bad message on our home phone. See, I woke up this morning and there is no dial tone. None. So Im off to portland leaving my kitties in the care of their Matt and with no phone. Im such a terrible mother.

Living the Gourmet Life

Now, I'm not saying that I actually AM a gourmet ... my kitchen is nowhere near well-enough supplied to meet that qualification. But when combined with the kitchen of my friend across town, and her brand new cookbook we were able to BE GOURMET! Well, eat it at least. Homemade gourmet pizzas with fresh mozzarella, baby corn, black olives, green olives, yellow and red tomato, fresh basil, and homegrown oregano and posy thyme. We planned for a homemade bloomin' onion, too, but were too stuffed after munching on the veggies, slices of Irish cheddar cheese, and drinking the not horrible but definitely not GREAT melon drinks we made. Wow. Long sentence entirely about supper.

In other news, heard from the husband! Hurrah! Made it through the flight and arrived at around 6 am. Slept all day and was wandering around at 1140 pm trying to find something to do. Since he IS NOT in NYC, that beloved city that never sleeps, he couldn't find anything. hehe. Now, I am sitting on my couch with the laptop and 2 kitties, having watched 4 episodes of WonderFalls I have moved on to the first season of CSI. Work is completed for the day, well, as much as necessary anyhow, and Im blogging happily to the Who.

Soon, I may try to get ahead on work, or I may just relax with television as company. After all, I have put in a hard day, eaten gourmet pizza, and talked to my husband. Who could ask for more for a Monday?!

Attempting to take a photo of ourselves... resulting in strange camera angles and even stranger expressions....

I love catching the husband off guard and taking pictures. He looks so ... cute and cuddly and annoyed and embarrassed... all at once! hehehe.

Grace and her Grandma, isn't that just an ADORABLE picture?

Congratulations to Dads and Grads

Our phone has decided to go on strike for some reason... we can't call anyone, local, long distance, nada. This means that if anything happens to us, good or bad, WE CANT SAY ANYTHING! AAAHHHHH CAN ANYONE HEAR MEEEEE????? >gulp< >tamping down panic<

Im ok. Really. And on the lack-of-a-phone front....

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!! to 2nd Dad, Daddy, Grandpa, Dad Boyd, Grandpa Burkey, Jason, Steven, Dad Sikora, Uncle Bob, Travis, and Uncle Terry.

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to Morris for graduating! WOO WOO! Shorty Thug would kick you off the couch if you were in the same state... or even the same region of the country... but since you're WAaAAAYYY on the other side of the country, I'll just ask your brother to do it for me. :-). Speaking of whom, congrats to David and Belinda!!! We're all VERY happy for you guys!

In other news (since we all know that's mostly what this site is about... news, be it interesting or no):

Andy got a bit of a reprieve in the det departure side of life... his flight was postponed by about 12 hours. 'Course, that means he won't get where he is going until the wee hours of the morning, and will still have to work all day, but at least I have him home for a bit longer! He is currently trying to figure out why his computer has completely frizzled from 3 am to 11 am... he came to bed and it was fine, he got up and it wouldn't start. Very strange. Maybe the same ghost that hit our phone lines hit his puter. BACK FREAKY THING TO THE WIRE THAT MADE YOU!
>giggle<

Yes, Im currently sleep-deprived and soon-to-be husband deprived. Deal with it. :-D

Gearing up for DET

In all its horribleness, the next det is upon us. Not only that, it is the LAST before deployment... and we STILL DONT KNOW WHAT OUR ORDERS ARE! Can you tell I do not do so well with the unknown? >sigh< Andrew leaves on Sunday for the ship, should be out for about 4 weeks. They have a port call for the 4th of July, but my friend Ronnie is coming to stay so I can't fly out to meet him. Blah blah blah. Im not in the best posting mood. Its raining (AGAIN), my husband leaves in 3 days, I haven't eaten breakfast, and... well, I can't think of anything else. hehe. Ok, enough moping!

NEWS!
We just quadrupled our viewing area... our friend Matt is going on deployment to Japan in a couple weeks and sold us his 32" tv. WAHOO! We were mesmerized by its size when we put it in our entertainment center and it was the ONLY THING THAT FITS. All the components were banned to the lower reaches of the center, behind glass doors. I now have stacks of DVDs all over the living room... time to buy more media storage!

As said above, A is leaving for the ship... and no news on orders.

You know, that's all I can think of to talk about right now. Im not in the best "posting" frame of mind. Oh, one last thing....

Thanks to the Queen for pushing my blog! Maybe I will have someone other than my family and the Queen reading this now....

Tagged by the Queen

I got tagged over at Treading Lightly on Powdered Sugar, and have already been yelled at for not doing it yet.... Here are the rules: Remove the #1 item from the following list, bump everyone up one place and add your blog's name in the #5 spot. You need to actually link to each of the blogs for the link part to kick in.
1. Thirdworldcounty
2. BTW
3. It's Raining Again
4. Treading Lightly on Powdered Sugar
5. LadyBoyd
Next, select four unsuspecting victims, list and link to them.
1. Hummingboyd
2. AshelBug
3. Julie Cohen Julie, I know you don't know me, and may not find this, but Im a writer and I love your blog! Helps me get going on things after work when Id rather just read....
4. Woodsidesprite

Now - the subject of "this Detestable Meme" is Five Things I Miss From My Childhood, so here goes:

1. My mother. This may sound odd to some, but it really is the one thing I miss most. Mama died of heart failure when I was 18. Some of the things about mama that I miss... her silly poking at electrical boxes such as the stereo when she didn't really know what the buttons did, or if she had the right button to do what she wanted to do, etc....reading out loud between my room and my sister's room when we were sick to keep us entertained, and doing all the voices....pretending to be scared when Ash and I snuck out of my room, down the porch rail, around the front of the house, and popped up under her kitchen window whooping like banshees, even though she knew the MOMENT we left my room.....her pleased embarrassment whenever Daddy kissed her in front of "company".....her silly way of unconsciously mimicking someone's accent when she talked with the natives or some of the other missionaries in Tanzania.... I could go on....

2. Ignorance. Not of the school variety (see #3), but of the stress variety. I hadn't lost my mom, had my heart broken, got into debt, etc. It was just me and my family and friends and homework and the most stressful thing that happened was when the ONE boy in my class (small town) decided he liked me and I had to tell him I didn't like him (He later [in high school as opposed to grade school] called me a *itch and Ashley gave him a black eye...). Of course, now that Im thinking about it, I also didn't know my husband then, and I wouldn't want to lose him for anything! BRING ME BACK MY LACK OF IGNORANCE!

3. School. Yes, I was one of the weirdo geeks who LOVED SCHOOL! I didn't love my grade school experience, mostly because I was kind of an outcast coming into school after living in Africa for 3 years (you'd think it would be the other way around!) and I felt very socially awkward, but I always loved the studying. I was one of those who DIDN'T wanna graduate from high school, or from college (although for other reasons I was VERY glad to leave WWC....), and I just recently told my husband that if I could, I would go back to school for the rest of my life. Homework. WOO WOO! (Don't worry, he DID know I was nuts when married me.....)

4. Family sleepovers. When I was a tween, my mother was best friends with my best friends mother, and my father with her father (although my sister and her brothers always avoided each other. >sigh<). Some Saturday nights we would all get together for a movie or something and it would escalate into a sleepover. An all family sleepover with snacks, popcorn fights, pillow fights, movies until 3 am (amazing now that I think about it, since mama and 2nd mom both were early-to-bed people....), and then a HUGE breakfast of homemade waffles the next morning, with fresh fruit, syrup, applesauce, peanut butter.... anything you can think of. Even ice cream once!

5. The holiday season: Now, this sounds weird, since the holidays still come around, but we had some traditions when I was growing up that we can't do now because of distance, etc. Every Thanksgiving, the Wickwires would come to our house (or us to them, on alternate years) for the big feast, the watching of the rose parade, and the post-dinner nap. The Saturday night following Thanksgiving, we would all congregate at the house that hadn't hosted Thanksgiving dinner (with me still?) for The Birthday Party. Usually, this party was kept rather small, celebrating only the 5 birthdays in residence at all times (Dad, 2nd dad, me, ash, 2nd mom), but occasionally we would add the extended family and then the number would jump to as many as 9.... all of the birthdays celebrated occurred within a 3 week radius of the Party. 2nd dad would make his homemade angel food cake with homemade caramel frosting and we would play Fictionary (not a typo, is a balderdash type game we made up when I was about 5), shrieking with laughter at the definitions people came up with (including my father's 16 pomeranian puppies... although I don't remember the word he was supposed to be defining)...The trend above continued through the new year....

Ok, I could have made this MUCH longer, but I figured I would stop for the eyes and head of my devoted readers... NEXT!

Paper Treasures

Today's post is a recounting of a tradition in my past... you see, today is a very dark, cloudy, blustery, and RAINY day. As I sat here working frantically to finish everything before my deadline (yes, I know, blogging isn't working. shut up.), staring out the window at the sideways rain and misty road, I had a flashback to 1993 when my friend Kristi and I started a tradition while attending a Virginia boarding school. Every rainy winter Sunday we would get town passes from our dorm (boarding school... gotta love it) and walk the 1-2 miles into downtown New Market. We would wear thick sweaters, stocking caps, and scarves, but no coats. We wanted the bluster! Our trek would take us past the 7-11 where we turned our noses up at slushies, over the railroad tracks and past Tastee Freeze, past the Johnny Appleseed restaurant... but with knowing looks because we knew omelettes and french fries would be awaiting us there shortly, and around the corner to Paper Treasures. Now Paper Treasures is a one-of-a-kind store. I honestly don't know HOW it stayed (stays?) in business in a little town like New Market, but it was a store that sold antique books, magazines, pictures, etc... anything paper.... as well as your generic secondhand books for .50 cents, etc. They also had a little antique magazines section that was such fun. We would browse for an hour or two, sometimes settling onto the floor with a book to read for a while. When our time was almost up, we would plop our caps back on our heads, wind our scarves around our faces, and tromp gleefully back out into the drizzle. Hot omelettes and big platters of french fries at Johnny Appleseed on our way back to the dorm, and we would arrive just in time for evening study hall.

I still have books from Paper Treasures, some with inscriptions in them from Kristi, and a small collection of old keys and other such miscellanea collected on our walks. We would talk about everything from "captains and kings" to our dreams of the future... even make up lyrics to blues songs and plan out intricacies for my novel...Come visit, me, Kris! I miss you, let's do it again!

Weekend Events and Mommy Tears

Our weekend was great fun! Amazingly busy, and I was sick for most of it, but still quite enjoyable. I will give a BRIEF rundown:
Friday: Drove to Portland with a snoring husband next to me. Poor guy hadn't had but 3 hours of sleep the night before. Went to the convalescent home and visited Gma Boyd, found out she was being sent home the next day so had a brief party with her to celebrate. Met Nate and Faye for dinner at the Trufflehunter and had a great, yummy time. Met up with C-Mom at her house and chatted until we fell asleep on her couch and she rolled us onto the air mattress.
Sabbath: Rolled the husband out of bed in time to make church at Hood View, where we got our first introduction to Murray, the newest member (soon to be) of the Boyd family. He's great, although some of the family have difficulty with his accent (He's from the UK). Lunch with scads of Boyds at Aunt Bunny's, off to Stacey's to help her pack up some things from the old apartment she needed for Sat night party at her new place, then hung out at the new place playing texas hold em and trivial pursuit while consuming alarming quantities of spinach dip, pizza, oreos, and smarties. I think there were chips, too, but I didn't eat any of those. Staggered home to bed (after Andy took the wrong exit he was so sleepy driving home)...
Sunday: ... and rolled him out of it again Sunday so we could visit Gma at home and show off the wedding pics before Nessa and Murray's engagement party. Mingled with scads of Boyds and Boyd-friends for a few hours before heading back to Mom's to crash on the air mattress and watch tv through blurry eyes until around 10 when we gave up and went to bed.
Monday: Crawled from the air mattress in time to shower, pack, straighten mom's living room a little bit, and get to the hospital to lunch with Robbie and Sonja before hitting the road home. Now we're home, its time for vacation!

On the Mommy side of things.... I just got a note from my Grandma saying she had found all the letters mama wrote to her while we were living in Tanzania and asked if I would like to have them. Apparently, Mama had asked her to keep them so she could someday use them as a reference to write about our time overseas. I got all sniffly just thinking about THREE YEARS worth of letters... will definitely be bittersweet. Maybe I can put together the book she wanted to write in her memory... I hope so!

Now, Im off to work. I have at LEAST 7, and more likely 14 abstracts to edit before the day is over, and husband will be home in an hour!

Creamed by the Kreme

Well. I Kremed... and am paying for it. I blame all mishaps of the day on that donut. ALL. These mishaps include, but are not limited by, the following:

• New shirt, bought Monday, suddenly no longer fits in crucial areas
• Went to library with B, so tired that am tripping over tongue... and feet
• Went wandering with B... left keys in the first store, didn't notice they were gone until the THIRD store.
• Got keys. Came home and flopped for a 10-min nap before A's scheduled arrival and.... slept for 2 hours, including straight through the FOUR times he tried to call and tell me he would be late.

So. It's all the fault of the Kreme. I swear it.

To Kreme or not to Kreme, that IS the question...

There are 8 Krispy Kreme donuts sitting serenely in their box on my kitchen island, mocking me. After all, Im trying to eat better, so KKs for breakfast really shouldn't happen. The Eggos in the fridge and calling me (whole grain, with organic pb and raspberry jam), reminding me of the consequences of Kreme-ing ... but I may yet submit! THE CALL OF THE KREME IS STRONG! Ok. >panting< This too shall pass....

So yesterday I had a fight with the garbage disposal. Not quite sure who won. The olives I pulled out of the fridge were a bit... fermented... so I dumped them down the drain and a spoon decided to dive in after them. I guess it wanted to save the olives... we'll never know. The disposal started and the spoon started hopping around and shrieking in that grindy "Im in the disposal and Im metal" way that spoons have. I fished it out and scolded it for jumping in to begin with and started the disposal again, only to have IT start shrieking at me in metalvoice! Stopped again, shoved my poor defenseless paws into the maw of the beast and found .... a random bit of metal. I think it might have come off the disposal itself. Have set it aside for husband to examine. Only then will we know the outcome of the disposal war. >cue ominous music<

On to today! The coffee is perking, the kitty purring, and the work procrastinationating (yes! my word again! HA!). Haven't got tooo much to do for the "daily grind", but the dishes are threatening to side with the garbage disposal if I dont dump them in the dishwasher TODAY, the floor needs to be vacuumed so badly its actually trying to crawl into the closet after the vacuum, and the kitties bathroom... stinks. And yet, I am planning a library outing with the Queen. Ah, the life of a stay-at-home wife with no children, 2 cats, and a full-time consulting job. :-)