It's a zoo out there!

This summer I went a little zoo crazy, I went to 4 zoo's across the country in about an 8 week time span.

John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids
Toledo Zoo
Cleveland Zoo
Pt. Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, WA

I'm still developing pictures from this summer, I had 15 rolls! but I did get some back. As I promised many blog entries ago I would share pictures. Here are some of my favorites that I have developed so far.







Hippoquarium at the Toledo Zoo:











And the whole reason I wanted to go to the Cleveland Zoo:

A few Christmas pictures

As most of ya'll know I'm not digital yet so there's always a few days or weeks delay in me showing pictures.

I don't have all of my Christmas pictures back yet but here are some of my Christmas tree and decorations in my apartment. This is the first time in two years I actually decorated for Christmas and it felt great!

My Christmas tree (notice it's a little sparse on the left there, that seems to be the main point of entry for Abbie and Willow to climb in!)



The stockings were hung by the chimney with care



My ABC Distributing Snowmen, I thought they were cute and they've held up all these years!



The presents under my tree, before some of them got mailed out that is! Notice the stuffed puppy over to the left there? Jim got me that at a Griffins game the week before Christmas, he got up to get something to drink and came back with the stuffed puppy!

Warning: Cute Alert!

Warning: Very cute kitty pictures to follow. Don't look if you are easily enabled into going out to get your own very cute kitty!

Willow is 12 weeks old now!

Merry Christmas!

Let's try this again ... Willow decided to jump on the keyboard here and hit just the right button and deleted everything I had typed. The joys of kittenhood :)

I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas no matter how you celebrated. I had a wonderful Christmas and am thankful for such great family and friends.

I'll post more later about my Christmas.

Kittens + "big sister" cat + Christmas stuff = A HUGE MESS

I was so proud of myself. All of my shopping is done, my Christmas tree is up, my stockings are up, they have items in them, all of my presents are wrapped and under the tree. All that is left is to go to the store today to get a couple of items for Christmas Eve that would have perished in the fridge had I got them last weekend and kept them in the fridge.

My tree is still up, but it's been climbed at least half a dozen times, Willow with the help of Abbie, or maybe it's Abbie with the help of Willow have taken apart the bottom 1/4 of the tree for me, apparently so I can get a jump on taking it down after Christmas.

I have a card sitting in the tree from my Mom with a Do Not Open Until Christmas note on it. The game is apparently to try and knock that card down and then chew on it because instead of a cat and kitten I apparently have large mutant fuzzy hamsters that like to shred paper.

One of the gifts I got for Jim came in a really pretty box already decorated, but they made a mistake. The packing wrap inside is paper shreds folded up like zesty strip things. I have said gift sealed but somehow the mutant hamsters have figured out a way to pull these paper shreds out and have scattered them all.over.the.living.room.

2 of the bows for presents for his family are MIA, they took down Jim's stocking from the wall above the fireplace. I think this was in an attempt to get their own stocking down because there is toys and catnip in it. I wasn't sure how they managed to do this since the stockings are pretty high for these mutant hamsters to get to. I finally saw mutant hamster Willow do it this morning. He gets on my rocking chair I have had since I was a girl that has a cute Santa Paws in it and perches on the top of it then rocks it back against the wall next to the fireplace and bats at the wall and stockings as best he can until he gets one.

Once they take the stocking down it's like beating a pinata, they have emptied the contents of his stocking all over the living room with the paper shreds.

I also found 2 presents that need some rewrapping because they've taken the edges off.

A friend of mine said that this is just their way of decorating for the holidays. *Sigh*

Merry Christmas! I hope that your mutant hamsters are behaving :)

Baby steps

I just finished reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book last night for the second time and I am ready to make this work for me.

It won't happen overnight, I am resigned to that, but I made the first step several years ago by having a plastectomy as Dave calls it (cutting up my credit cards) and never did much after that. I made the first step toward baby step 1, setting up a baby emergency fund, I don't have the full amount in it yet but I just started it tonight!

It's a small step but it's a step in the right direction and it makes me feel wonderful!

If anyone reads this and is tired of the way they are living with their finances I recommend this book, get it from the library or buy it used on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com if you are ready to make a change this book will help you do it!

Blessings

Blessings come in many ways, shapes, and forms. I am a believer in "you do good things and good things happen" and once again I am blown away by love, warmth, friendship, caring, and generosity of people.

I want to thank each of you but I don't know how to express the words and I cannot wait for the day when I can pay forward the love and generosity that has been bestowed on me. Thank you.

Christmas survey

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Usually wrapping paper, some things fit better in gift bags though, or I'll wrap something and then put it in a gift bag.

2. Real tree or artificial?
Fake. What's a real tree?

3. When do you put up the tree?
By the second week of December, the 8th this year

4. When do you take the tree down?
By New Years.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Yes but not all the time. Starbucks Eggnog Latte's are good though!

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
My Easy Bake Oven

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
No but I saw a cute one at Cracker Barrel today

8. Hardest person to buy for?
Grandma

9. Easiest person to buy for?
Mom and Jim

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Didn't do Christmas cards this year, but I am making a few photo cards for a few people that convinced me it wouldn't be stupid :)

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Mmmmm I don't think I've had a worst, but getting just new cookware and nothing else was disappointing...

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Usually start in November, this year I started earlier.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Yes

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Soft Sugar Cookies, not crunchy

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Colored

17. Favorite Christmas song?
Frosty the snowman

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
I'd like to travel home for Christmas but instead I stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
Maybe

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Star or a bow

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas morning

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
Just the ones I have gotten from friends or family, no real theme to my tree

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Something simple, this year having Pizza on Christmas Eve. Fondue last year was fun until Jean burned me :)

25. Do you have Jesus in your heart this Christmas?
Yes

26. What do you want for Christmas this year?
For everyone to like what I chose for them, oh and I want a Sizzix :) Digital Rebel too but that's not realistic.

27. Who is most likely to respond to this?
Not sure. I'm posting it on my blogspot blog so it may get case'd.

The Who

Tuesday night Jim took me and his youngest son to the The Who concert. It was funny how it all went down. We knew they were coming for several months, thought it'd be a cool concert but for $99 a ticket not *that* cool. Last Thursday there was some sort of radio sale for tickets on the floor, $23 a piece. He got a pair of tickets and invited me to go :) Then after some thought he thought his kids may like going too and got another set of tickets, not together, but one row behind and on the other aisle. His oldest decided not to go but his youngest wanted to, no biggie the 3 of us can go.

The Pretenders opened for them and they did great, and The Who was awesome too! They did alot of songs from the new album and tons of the old favorites including Pinball Wizard from Tommy, Who Are You (affectionately known amongst several of my friends as the CSI song!), My Generation, You Better You Bet, and one of my favorites Baba O'Riley ... but you may know it as Teenage Wasteland.

The concert was great and afterward I got to thinking and realize this was the 6th concert I've been to this year! 6 in 2006 :) This year I saw:

Keith Urban (Pat Green opened for him)
Kenny Chesney (Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley opened)
Foghat (gotta love free concerts!)
Eric Clapton (Robert Cray band opened)
Bob Seger (Steve Azar opened)
The Who (The Pretenders opened)

In the car on the way back Jim and I were chatting and thought it was funny that we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in July and since then have seen 4 artists or bands that are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! And ... The Who played at Woodstock back in '69! Incredible.

Have I mentioned lately I love concerts? :)

Come meet Willow

Last Friday I was able to go and pick up my new kitten from Paul's house. I went and got the kitten and brought him home to meet his new big sister, Abbie.







Abbie was not too impressed and quickly ran away after hissing a few times. I left the little guy in the carrier for awhile so he can get acclimated and then let him out to explore his new home.

The pictures tell most of the story so I won't talk much more here. He is just precious and so stinkin' cute! I'd been debating about names all week and finally Thursday night I was holding him and was trying out different names and when I got to Willow (which if you read my blog every now and then you'll know that was one of the first names I came up with before we knew if he was a boy or girl) he started to purr. So Willow it is.

Enjoy the pictures:

Replacement iPod Shuffle

I'm a bit behind on posting, been a roller coaster week this week.

I got a call on Saturday afternoon that my replacement iPod came in at the Apple store. I made an appointment for Sunday afternoon to go and in pick it up. Went and picked it up, no problem.

Got it plugged in and charged, and lo and behold, it worked! This appears to have fixed my problems I've had these last few months ... although I'm still hesitant :)

Overall my experience with the Apple store was very positive, if I had known you could go in there in person instead of dealing with online help I would have done that 6 months ago!

10 year high school reunion

My 10 year HS reunion is tonight. I am not attending. I am a bit bummed because I had always planned to for my 10 year and a good friend of mine from HS that I still keep in touch with was going to go with me and we were going to make sure that the Toby Keith song, "How do you like me now?" was played at some point in the evening *grin*

When it came around and I got info about the reunion I couldn't find a decent flight and the one I did find wanted all of my frequent flyer miles plus a few hundred dollars which I think defeats the purpose of frequent flyer miles. So I did not go home for it. I even looked at flights leaving today (day after Turkey day) to see if they were cheaper but no.

I'll try and make the next one. I know most people don't go back for their reunions and when they do are disappointed, I really wanted to go just to make that determination for myself, plus there were several people there I *did* want to see that I was great friends with and lost touch with and miss. I even had a dream about it last night. Oh well.

Thanksgiving recap

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving!

I went to Jim's parents with him for Thanksgiving this year and a great time! Everyone was so nice and welcoming to me it really made me feel at ease and part of the family! There were 11 of us sitting down to dinner (me, Jim, his 2 boys, his mom and dad, his sister and brother in law and their 3 boys) and we had so.much.food. We had a grilled turkey and it tasted great, lots of flavor and very moist.

After we ate we cleaned up a bit and the kids went to play and we sat around and chatted and digested then played Phase 10 for a long time and got into dessert. A very relaxing day and I had a wonderful time getting to know his family. I must have made a good impression because I was invited back for Christmas Eve! and next week I am making cookies with his Mom and sister!

I hope everyone else's holiday was as nice and relaxing as mine!

My appointment at the Apple store

I've not blogged about this because I do enough complaining in real life about it that I figure everyone is tired of it :)

Long story short, I bought my iPod Shuffle back in April, had problems from the start with it not updating or it finally would but by then I'd have lost several hours of time fiddling with it. I went to their online support, went through all their stuff, they said they'd send me a new Shuffle. Cool. Instead of a Shuffle I got a Shuffle docking station. Ummmm ... not what I asked for. Whatever. I kept struggling, tried their online support again only to be told "We're sorry Ms. xxx but you have used your complimentary chat with us, if you wish to purchase our Apple care plan it will be $xx.xx" Ummmm no I don't think so. I finally at this point gave up and figured I am doomed to a life of a Shuffle that doesn't work correctly.

This past weekend I had the issues again to the point where I spent 4 hours trying to get it work and got mad. Found out you can make appointments at the Genius bar at the Apple stores to get help. I made my appointment tonight.

I went in there, went off about the issues, how it won't update, it reshuffles the same 20 songs, etc. The guy looked at it, said it was working for him then before I start going off again he said he will replace it. He checked in the back and they were out of replacements so he ordered one and said it should be here Monday. He gave me back my broken Shuffle in the interim. I guess there is still good customer service out there.

I'll keep ya'll updated on what happens. I am hoping this takes care of my iPod issues.

The holiday mood

I am in the Christmas mood. The last couple of years I have not been in the Christmas mood, did not put up a tree, didn't do much of anything holiday related and then felt guilty. This year I am in the mood for the holidays, I want to put my tree up, I want to go spend money I don't have to buy presents for everyone, I even want to do Christmas cards. Correction: I want photo Christmas cards. Photo cards will not happen because I don't think it's right to send photo cards of just you :) If I were married or had kids I would be all over it but that's down the road ... hopefully!

I started some of my Christmas shopping already and I really want to put my tree up. Is it wrong to want to put up the tree on the 20th of November?