San Antonio

Day 1--Left house at 5:10 a.m. for 30 minute drive to get on airport shuttle--2 1/2 hour drive to airport to catch plane
FEAR of flying--took half a xanax--2 1/2 hour flight to LAX--2 hour layover--took other half of xanax--got to end of runway and one engine died--towed back to terminal to wait an hour for another plane, with hopefully good engines--took half a xanax--3 hour flight to San Antonio. No Mr. Right on either flight.
Finally made it to Kari and Kevin's around midnight. Seemed to have developed HUGE cankles during flight. Lovely.

Day 2--Slept great--still have cankles. Went toobing down river, with a few little rapids. Great fun and saw a lot of turtles swimming along with us. Took 2 strong Hispanic men to haul me out of toob at get-out point. Thank God no one had a camera for that one. If those guys hadn't been there I would probably be in the Gulf of Mexico by now. Cankles down slightly.

Day 3--Almost cankle-less. Went to Mama Mia. Loved it! Then SHOPPING! Bought 5 new tops. Score. Would have bought more but ran out of time. Slight canklege.

Day 4--Took a barge tour downtown through the river walk. Beautiful, but VERY hot and humid. Mi Tierra for lunch. Yum! There was a fantastic mariachi band playing the whole time. I got their CD. Roamed around the market place and saw Miss San Antonio do some Flamenco dancing. She had nice slender ankles. Jealous. Still can't see my ankle bones.

Kari dropped me off at her house and went to pick up Kevin at work. I took a nap. Woke to the sound of a horrendus thunder storm. I have never seen it rain so hard. The streets were flooded with water. A while later after the storm Kari and I were on her back deck and I said
"Oh, you can see the river from here". Kari "No, we are not near a river." Me, looking again "I can see it through the trees." Kari looks up at this point "oh my God! Kevin!" It was a flash flood! Fortunately, we were in no danger, as her house and the others are quite a bit higher than the "river". We walked down a little later to take a look. It was pretty incredible. Sorry, I haven't downloaded the pics yet. Will post later. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes down by the "river" so we left. I am still scratching at those dang bites.

Day 5--Time to go home. Kari dropped me off at the airport. Took a WHOLE xanax. Lovely flight to LAX. In my drugged state I accidently went to baggage claim instead of catching shuttle to next terminal and then had to walk to the terminal and go back through security. Took half a xanax and had another pleasant flight to Seattle. Very important to take proper dosage of xanax.

Two plus hour shuttle from Seattle to Bellingham--Obnoxious couple with 2 obnoxious small children sat right behind and would wake me up every time I nodded off. The mother repeated EVERY word her kids said and kept telling them how smart they were. At the first stop when a few people got off I was able to move away from them. It wasn't just me, everyone else sitting close to them moved too. I think they got the hint because they toned it down after that. No
Mr. Right on either of those flights either.

Big time cankles, especially on the left. On my flights I did the foot and leg exercises, drank lots of water and got up at least twice on each flight to the bathroom. Problems with them all week. Within a few hours of coming home from work they go down significantly and no problem at all this weekend. Maybe the way I am sitting at work. I took an extra "water" pill, but that did not seem to help. I guess I need to go to doc. Looks almost like a bruise where the left cankle was the puffiest.

Aren't you supposed to ENJOY a pedicure?

Now, I haven't really had a lot of pedicures, BUT, they shouldn't be painful! I was all ready for a day of pampering. I had my haircut and was very happy with it. I called my friend Kari after the haircut all bubbly and cheerful and told her I was on the way for the mani/pedi. Haircut and a mani/pedi are kind of my prevacation ritual. Along with a little self-tanning. I am heading to San Antonio on Thursday for a long weekend with my BFF Kari and you never know when
Mr. Right might be in the seat next to you on the plane.

I show up right on time for mani/pedi, pick out my color, plop my butt in pedi chair, grab a smutty magazine and get ready to relax. WRONG!!!! This gal was rough. She had these long talon-like fingernails that came to a point and the edges were sharpened like a ginsu knife. She kept running the edge of her talon along the edge between my nail and the skin. It felt like a razor blade. At one point, it hurt so much I instictively yanked my foot back, which caused her to paint the whole side of my big toe red. I told her "that hurts". To which she gave me a blank stare. Her coworker at the next seat looked over and they said a few words to each other in Thai and gave me dirty looks. I asked the other one if she spoke English? Again the stare. I said "she is hurting me". To which she finally responded, "you want shorter?". NO! IT HURTS! Tried some sign language of touching my fingernail and saying SHARP....HURTS. They exchanged a few more words and ignored me. It was still uncomfortable, but not as bad as before.

I almost walked out of there before she was done. Then I thought maybe this was one of those sweat shops and they would beat the girl if she displeased a customer, so I gritted my teeth and got through it. Hopefully, someone else would do my manicure, which is what they usually do.
NOPE, not so lucky.

Crap. So here we go. She asked "you want cut?" pointing to my fingernails. HELL NO, not after the clipping my toenails down to the quick. She was rough, but she did not use her razor talon on me again. Usually they have you take off watches and bracelets so they can massage your hands and lower arms. I forgot to take off my watch, so when she got done with my nonwatch arm I said I would take off my watch. She said "NO!" and just lotioned and massaged my hand.

My nails on my right hand look like they were filed on an angle, one side shorter than the other, if you know what I mean. My big toe on my right foot is the same way.

I went up to pay the slavemaster (man) with my debit card. He gave me the reciept to sign and I put zero under tip. When she did a half-assed massage and filed my nails on an angle she sealed her fate on the damn tip. Heck, I wanted to slap her! He looked at my reciept and he and talon lady exchanged a few words. I ran out of there. Anyone know of a good place to go for a mani/pedi?

Happy Birthday Boys and What was I thinking!!

Brooke's Kung Fu Panda cupcakes.

The Birthday boys, Dane and Davis

The Melting Pandas

Last night we celebrated Davis and Dane's birthdays. Brooke make adorable Kung Fu Panda cupcakes and because I think every kid should his or her own cake for their birthday volunteered to make cakes. So on the hottest day of the year I came up with the brilliant idea of ice cream cakes. I didn't want to heat up the kitchen any more than it was (90 degrees) with the oven. Not thinking about the fact that I couldn't have the "cakes" out of the freezer for longer than 60 seconds before everything started sliding off.

Needless to say, decorating them was a nightmare. At one point I actually had the cake in the freezer along with my arms and head. How does Dairy Queen do it? HA! They probably have air conditioning. Then.....I had to drive two miles to Brooke's house. My car air conditioner was just eeking out lukewarm air on high. Fortunately I made all the lights (two), while I kept an eye on the rapidly liquifying cakes.

I whipped in the driveway and ran them to the freezer. Then we forgot them until people were starting to leave! Oops. By then the kids really didn't care, they were full of pizza and Panda cupcakes.

Most important, the kids all seemed to have a great time and those boys made a haul on the toys.

Millie the Monkey

Well, it didn't turn out very well. Lots of little issues. I will not be giving this little monkey to anyone. I think I might try enlarging the pattern a bit. It is much smaller than I had anticipated before I got the pattern. Millie's arm are about as big around as my little finger. Very hard to stuff and sew. You can't really see in the picture, but one arm is not completely attached.
It said to use felt on the face, but I really don't care for it. I think a couple of washings and it would disintegrate. Good trial one though.

30 Minutes of Organization!

Before

After

Before

After

Amazing!!! Everything that was on the tables in the before pictures is STILL on the tables. You can't believe how long I have been putting this off. I can't wait to start sewing. Next on the agenda is Millie the Monkey from a pattern I bought on Etsy.com.