Happy New Year To Me!
44 years old today. My final birthday in which I will actually be getting older. I like the number 44 so that’s what I will be staying at. This is a super fast post before I go to work in half an hour. It’s my holiday to work. Boo. At least it’s double time. Let’s all hope for a fast shift and a fun day if you aren’t working! Have a drink for me. Please! These are my presents so far. Lighthouse bird feeder from the BF. LOVE IT!! Just imagine all those bird shots I will be getting now. Amanda, I am talking to you. Boring, my ass!
From my mom. These are fall decorations for my house. And I got cash. The pumpkins are in the living room now, but they will be relocated to the bathroom as soon as I get new towels and crap. Thank you mommy!!
From my sissy Noelle. Lottery tickets and a magnet. That magnet is already on my fridge. I hope I win money! Thank you! Ok Amanda and Tom, I am waiting…
I also received many internet birthday wishes and coupons from places I shop at and places I don’t. I plan on listing them all later, because some of them are pretty funny. I hope they age adjust the coupons to places I will need as I get older. That would be awesome. Although I am NOT looking forward to my first birthday wish from the “Depends” company. I really really “gotta go” hahahahahaha. Have a great day! With any luck I can spend the last 30 minutes of my birthday back at home tonight! XO to all! Lisa.
Maxima Love
That’s my big number. And we are on the way to the golden 200,000. I noticed that Maxima owners really love their car. Maybe it’s because they have been driving them for so long and for so many miles. I spend more money, and am willing to spend more money, to fix it than replace it. I have the 2004 version. (The best shape I think. Very “Maxima”.) Technically, and for full disclosure, I am not the original owner. That would be my BF. And he bought it brand spanking new. But we swapped cars a few years back, and my trade was destroyed in a terrible, totaling, highway accident (no injuries except the car) so I am claiming the Maxima as my own forever and always.
That’s the whole car. It needs some cosmetic work and it makes some strange noises, but it starts and takes me to work every day. If you love your Maxima, and have some time to burn, send me a comment, or a pic if you want. I know you are out there because I see you driving around in your Maxima, with the same look I have when I drive around in mine. For the most part. When I’m not dog-ass tired or coming home from work at 2 am. But I digress.Maxima people look at other Maxima people. Probably just to compare cars, but whatever. I’m not going to go into the whole big thing. Send me a comment!! We are so aggressive too. Just do it. Please. Anyway…
Let’s try to shake this site up today. My sister, the self-titled queen of all things interesting, decided that my site is too boring for her. So I am starting with fast cars (because that’s a huge reason for loving the Maxima in the first place–speed) and continuing with exciting, upcoming, posts such as, death. And pornography. I’m not kidding. I said death. With pictures. And porn. With pictures. Check back in a few if you are not automatically getting e-mails or following me. And if not, why not? Take the time and do it now. E-mail to the top right, or follow by clicking the link for it. Easy and one less thing to keep track of. I will come to you! Now that sounds exciting all by itself doesn’t it? But right now, I have other pressing matters to attend to that cannot wait. I must go to the local public perishables and supply institution. For long term staple items and body products. Bare bottom body products. Can I even type such scandal? Then I have to visit my pharmaceutical connection. I need to pick up some “medications” there. The good sh*t, that messes with your heart. Then I have to get ready to meet the brain trusts at the education center who will be teaching my children life-saving survival tactics for an ever changing, future based, random, potentially dangerous, world, that they have to be prepared for at all times. Their regimen includes hands on training, as well as written doctrine and instruction. Do not tell me that my life is boring. It is a daily grind to stay alive. And no one, I repeat, no one, gets out alive.
So don’t worry so much. Here’s some of that education in action. A picture that just sums it all up. Left on a note pad, on the coffee table, for us mere humans to decipher as we wish. Shake up the status quo every now and then. Analyze everything, and nothing, at the same time, and draw your own conclusions on how to proceed. Keep moving forward with as much kindness, and humor, as you can muster, and you should be just fine. Deep stuff. Random and hilarious. Like life itself. Later.
Monday Was A Good Day
Two quick pics to keep this site interesting and I am going to get ready for work. Monday was a good day for my viewing numbers–Thank you all for following me!–and it was good for life in general. I felt very good and healthy. Very glad to be alive and thankful for life and family and a job that allows me to have days off during the week. Living the dream, for realz. Haha. Anyhoo, I also managed to accomplish most of my list goals, including shop for food for the fam for the rest of the week while I am at work, and laundry. Sort of. It’s not piled up on the floor, so it counts. I had a hawk in the backyard, first thing, yesterday morning, 7 AM. A hawk. Just sitting there, on the ground, under the bird feeder, scaring away every other species of wildlife in the area. No joke. Not one other animal-like creature, be it bird, squirrel, butterfly, chipmunk, rabbit, etc…, was in my yard the entire time the hawk sat there. And it was very quiet too. No sounds. Not even bugs and insects dare make a peep when the top-of-the-food-chain predator for our little suburb decides to pop a squat after a long night of hunting or whatever it was doing. Of course I got pictures. About 100. Wait until you see them! This is the enticing, hanging story line, that I am using to bring you back tomorrow. I have to sort the pics and pick out the non-blurry ones. And I truly do not have time. As usual, I am pushing my “wasting” time into my actual “need to go” time. If it’s a good night tonight at the old general store, I will post them later, if not, then in the AM when I crawl out of bed. This is the nice time of year for weather around here so everyone enjoy and I will be back. Later.
And Just Like That, Summer Is Over
And my vacation. And the BF’s vacation. And actually summer was over on Wednesday of last week. But I really was on vacation, and I did not post one darn thing to this site! I used Facebook to track a few things we did, but I tried to stay away from the technology if I could. Quick re-cap: The kids are both settled into high school so far, schedules, practice, even homework already. The BF took his motorcycle trip to “The Tail of The Dragon” (and got rained on every single day), and he’s home again. I had a stay-cation and accomplished about half of a list of things to do. And now I have work in a few hours. The BF goes back in the AM. Just a typical pre-autumn Sunday morning. The pic above is from when we fished. I’ll post the arty stuff later. Maybe. I’m not good at follow up apparently. I did manage to consolidate all my picture folders though, so I feel good about that. Everything that I want to use is in one tidy spot. And all my closets are cleaned! I know, go crazy on vacay. I told you, it’s not always an exciting life. Sometimes you have to clean closets. And it takes a week to do them. The laundry is done too. AND the socks are matched and put away. The socks. My giant, month-long, loose basket, of 4-people socks, is gone and done. My kids didn’t even have a spot for socks anymore in their dressers because they have been wearing them straight from the basket for so long. Anyway, I have to hit the shower. I am hoping for a quick and painless night on my first day back. Luckily, Monday is my normal day off, and then I can really prepare for the work jump with the next 4 days on. At least I have the weekend! Ok. Well, thanks for staying with me, or checking here to see if anything was happening, I will start daily again. As a special surprise, I found all my street money in one of the closets and that needs to be posted asap. We found a one hundred dollar bill last year! And birds. And benches. And wildlife. Birds and benches and wildlife, on my. So you can see, the thrill-ride continues. Let me also just put those extra fishing pics here for you right now. There’s not even a lot of them. And no actual fish. We didn’t catch a thing. Later.
Benches Before Work
Trying to be quick before work today. I have been off for several days now and I am kind of dreading going back. I like staying home. But I like money too so… This is Little Red Riding Hood. It has a back too. All of the benches have backs obviously, but some of them are decorated with something extra. This is one of them.
This bench has texture and depth and it’s really kind of cool. The next one is kind of plain like the Snow White one, so it gets second tier post status. Aren’t I just Judgey McJudgey over here. My site. My opinions. This is Let Down Your Hair. The Rapunzel story.
That takes care of 2 more. We are at 6/20. Next up is our intermission pictures. There is/was a Dodge, now Fiat, dealership in the middle of town that always has something we like to take a picture of. So we wasted about 15 minutes there, looking at cars, while my girl complained that this is NOT what we came here to look at! She was right. Plus it was scorchingly hot on all that black asphalt. But I still took too long to take a photo of a Super Bee Charger. 392 Hemi. $46,000. Black as night paint. Called “Pitch Black”. I’ll just put those pics here to save time. The front. And the logo. That’s all anyone cares about anyway.
That should lead me nicely into Zoo pictures and Beach pictures. And also fishing, flowers, clouds, sky, birds, wildlife, and some landscape pictures that I teased with, but never posted. My goal in the next few days, (weeks?), is to get this “current” photo folder clear before it gets cold again, and before the kids go back to school. I haven’t even mentioned my summer slim down plan or what I am doing to achieve my goals for skinniness and less B/P medicine. Big fat nothing, that’s what. I am eating less. It’s only working a little bit. And very slowly. Cardio is the thing. At least that’s what the doctor said. It’s always cardio. Let me stop here and try and figure out the next post. I have to shower and do another load of laundry before I go. I may or may not post overnight. I have to get up early tomorrow to take my girl on her annual summer trip to my sister’s house for a week before school starts. And I desperately need my hair colored. I look old. Yucky gray roots. I miss my hair that used to grow in all the same color. Not fair. Then me and the boy are going to meet the BF for lunch at his work. Don’t we seem busy? Monday funday. Then I have to work all week. All week. Man. And the boy has his last week of football camp. Ok I think that’s enough of the list of things to do from one small woman in the world. If you are still reading, THANK YOU! I wish I had prizes or something, but it’s just this. Beep beep beep beeeep. Blast. That’s the timer. Measuring out my life in minutes. Load change. Shower up. Sprinkler switch. STOP. TYPING. !! Gotta go. Later.
New Flower Alert!
New chance to take an extreme close up with my fancy phone camera. Thank you to all who are “liking” my pictures and following along here every day! I am trying to like back and follow you too! There is so much good stuff out there in this big big world! I will try and make my words and pictures as interesting as possible. This is one small life, living. And sometimes it is just about doing laundry and taking a picture of some flower in your front yard. Simple stuff. Anywhere on Earth. That sounds like Sunday philosophy not Friday fun, so let’s get the boy’s pics up here before I go to work and bring down the whole day. One more shift and then I am off for the weekend. I am tired. But not tired enough, apparently, to stay in bed instead of walk around the outside for hours inspecting the greenery. Here’s one to start us off. Taken at Land Between The Lakes. It’s an ironic picture.
Super Service!
Seriously. We have had Verizon for a long time. Even back when my phone was the Nokia doorstop:
Remember? You could throw it across the room, run it over with your car, and drop it into a toilet and it would never break or stop working. But, those days are gone now. We all have smartphones with very breakable parts and glass fronts and malfunctions that can occur if even a splash of water gets near the phone. But we love them so much! So, my daughter has the Apple IPhone. the BF has the HTC DNA and I have the Samsung Galaxy S4. We are very hi-tech over here and not super-brand exclusive, but we bought all these phones at the above Verizon store. 4G and always connected. Basically from the same guy or guys depending on who is working. We like this store. With these people. Anyhoo, long story short, because I have to go to work and my time is ticking away as it always is, my son just got the Galaxy S4, not from this store, but from a dealer in Kentucky, via his dad and his dad’s account and contract service, and of course, yesterday morning, it decides that he if he tries to make a phone call he will not be able to hear anyone talking and we will not be able to hear him. Microphone-speaker breakdown! We drove on over to the Verizon store above, (Matteson, IL), waited for the man we always talk to, figuring he might know how to press some buttons to make the sound work again. No good. It’s a manufacturing problem. Device fluke or whatever. Phone needs to be replaced. They just swap them out. No problem. But of course there was a problem! Not with the store, but with the location the phone was originally bought at. Verizon replaces all Verizon products. Without really getting into the nitty-gritty details, which are really boring and probably not important in the scheme of things, and more time-wasting to type than I have time to waste (although explaining is also wasting time…), we just had an out-of-state, multiple account, unique-situation problem in getting the new phone. But guess what? The sales guy, our sales guy, (it’s funny how we always claim those special individuals after we see them and they help us over and over, and they are awesome) and his manager, did some computer/phone/e-mail/process magic, and presto! We walked out with the new phone all switched over and fully functioning. I am happy. My son is really happy. And I think we made a cool new friend. So, long long story short: Thank you Michael S. and Phil (the manager–don’t know his last initial–but he was great). I hope it’s OK that I put their names/your names and the store, because they really provided outstanding service and should be recognized. Shout outs from satisfied customers. That has to be a good thing. Now I have to go to work so I can pay for the next upgrade my daughter will prob need soon. Here is a random picture of pool rings underwater (Lifeproof case also recommended by the store and works perfectly. As you can see, worth the money.) I really need to go. Later.
And Meanwhile, Driving Down To Kentucky…
This was about 2 pm, Saturday, driving down, what I assume to be, I57, near the town of Mattoon. The kids are on their way to grandma’s with their dad. No one confirmed location for me, but the fastest way south is 57 from here. My daughter took this picture while it was happening. It’s a really good picture. Especially from a moving vehicle. She said it was only a funnel cloud when they saw it and she got a picture of it going back up. But I like this one. Very impressive. Then it hailed and rained so hard they couldn’t see and then it cleared. She texted, word for word, “It’s done now. Clear as a bell perfect now!” She sent a picture of the blind windshield but it’s just a grey square that kind of looks like smeary, foggy rain. This is the next picture she sent:
The girl takes good pictures. I almost feel bad that while the kids are driving through weather and tornadoes, me and the BF are at the liquor store buying all kinds of alcohol for the BBQ we are going to later, and then something for the rest of the weekend. Without children. Eh. Life. I took equally stunning pictures of the new wines I just bought to try out, and then later, post and share my opinions with you, good people. Let me end this with the last two pictures she sent me, because they are also really good, and she knows that I LOVE pictures of the sky and clouds. And you probably, secretly, like them too or you wouldn’t have kept reading! It’s OK. I thank you! Thank you thank you every day! It’s a peculiar world, this blogging, internet place; big and diverse, the way I like most things, but still managing to feel close and intimate, like we are all sharing this life through our words and images, the way we are taught that we could, if we lived in an ideal world. Hmm. Not one drop to drink yet, I swear it. Anyway, the sky…I’ll take the pics (or my daughter will), and you can look and move on. No one ever has to know. But we’ll know. Here is the first, with her comment, also word for word, “Look at that fat ass cloud.”:
And the last, below, is just one of the sky. I assume it’s off to the side. It’s very pretty for some reason. Good color/contrast and lighting I think. If I don’t get back here tonight, be careful all. Weather or not, Saturday in the summer can be tricky. Stay safe. Later.
Pictures.
I wanted the sunset. I got 50 pictures of the same 2 girls standing in front of the sunset. Or kneeling in a field. Or standing or bending or posing in some way. I totally want to do one of those multiple-picture-boxes-in-one type things, so you can see that I am not exaggerating. But according to Stevie, I don’t have the app or the time to get this together in the next 20 minutes. Bummer. I will work on that. I could probably save a lot of time posting all the pictures at one time in one big picture. And FYI, that’s the underwater pictures I have. A collage type shot. Still coming. Not forgotten. Then you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, these two are my favorites, one above, one below.
And then I threw in the only, single, un-peopled picture of the sunset taken.
And after talking to some of my cousins at the party, they requested that I post MORE flower pictures. I guess they really love them. So I will get on that for you guys! There is an entire summer of blooming beauties to be found! Thanks for all the feedback and creative input! I have to get in the shower and get out of here. But here is a shot of the flowers in front of my house to keep you busy with until I get back. Love you guys. XO. Later.
And Now For The Really Important Postings! All About Stevie!
The party on Saturday was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came out (and reads this) and represented for the family. The party was at her dad’s house, which is way out South in the cornfields of Illinois. As is illustrated by the graduation girl and the 25 pictures she took of herself in said cornfields. It was a hike for some, so the extra effort was appreciated. The rain held off out there it seems, or it was just like, forget it, we ARE not going that far down 57, because it was torrential as we were driving north at 11:30 that night. It stopped once we got near home, and it’s all good for the sod. The sod. The sod. All we can concentrate on is that grass and keeping it alive everyday. But I digress. Here is the cake:
And here’s the girl. She doesn’t like this picture, but it is the only one I have of her actually doing a party thing. So I will bury it at the bottom of this cake post. The rest of the pics are all of her in the corn and against the sunset with her cousin. I will give those the next headline post (actually above this one because that’s how they fall unless I backward time them and I’m just not) so she can look at herself if she wants to for the rest of the day when I go to work.
just shy of pretty 