Thursday, September 20, 2012

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

happy-birthday

Can it really be thirty-seven years ago today I gave birth to Ryan?  I have such wonderful memories of his baby/childhood.  Oh, what a little sweetheart he was and still is. Even though he’s thirty-seven, he’ll always be my baby.  We’re off to visit his family tomorrow, time to celebrate!

A great weekend ahead for us and I get to snuggle those grandkids!!!!!!  Life is good!!!

Vintage Comic Book Ad for Miniature Dog

miniature-dog

As a child of the 50’s/60’s, I spent my days after school in the local drugstore, where mother worked.  As a result, I read every comic book, Hollywood magazine, etc. that was available.  There was a huge rack of comics and magazines, and I just sat in a booth, drinking mother’s hand shaved iced fountain cherry cokes, eating Fritos and reading.

I would see these ads for miniature “teacup” dogs in comic books and just drool.  Oh, I thought they were just wonderful.  As a result, I did have a 10 lb. “chihuahua” I named Speedy Gonzales, who wasn’t exactly teacup size, but it was the best mother could do.

And this morning, here I sit, with sweet Maggie sleeping in my lap.  She may not be teacup, but she’s only five pounds, and to me that’s just perfect.

I also wanted a horse badly when I was growing up, but I gave up on that dream a few years ago.  But there is a pasture in front of our condo with horses in it, and l, I can gaze at them out my window or walk over and give them an apple or a carrot,  I do enjoy that.  And so I’ve learned, life is about compromise, sometimes the childhood dreams we have aren’t a reality, but we can adjust them a bit and it’s good enough.

Now wasn’t that profound???

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I’m on a rant this morning about consumer products, or lack thereof!

Why do manufacturers have to mess with products, quit making good products, alter products, why???  The newer generations doesn’t even know about the good stuff we’ve used all the years, they’re too busy buying into the hype of trying all kinds of new products. I’m old enough now that I’ve seen a lot of change, and I’m not happy about it either! 

safeguardMy favorite Safeguard Soap is nowhere to be found, They quit carrying it in the mainstream stores, but I could still find it at Dollar Tree, but now even they have stopped stocking it.  It was the best, had the greatest smell, but of course something newer and better came along and it got left in the dust.

joyAnd then there is dishwashing detergent.  I’m a lemon girl, I don’t want to smell apples, or mountain breezes, or Dawn anything, when I use dishwashing detergent, I want a blast of fresh lemon smell.  Well, back in the day Joy was the big guy on the block.  Now the stores stock about five bottles of it, and it doesn’t smell like it used to.

But I did try Gain Lemon this past week, and I love it, finally a nice fresh, strong lemon smell.  Just thought I would tell you all about it.

gain

I’m also upset about ketchup.  I grew up eating Brooks Ketchup.  Oh, it was so spicy, so wonderfully tangy, it had a little heat, it was amazing.  Same problem, you can’t find it and if you do, the taste is watered down.  Why???

brooks

Just look at this vintage picture of Brooks Catsup, isn’t it awesome, isn’t it wonderful?  Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a bottle of this again.  But of course, they’ve not only screwed up the recipe, but they’ve changed the bottle, if you do happen to find Brooks Catsup, it doesn’t look like it used to anymore, now it looks like this!

brooks2

This looks wrong, people, wrong!  Gone is the neat looking bottle, replaced with this generic looking one, no wonder nobody buys the stuff anymore.  It just frosts my cake, seriously!

Even apples haven’t stayed the same.  A few years ago everybody jumped on the Granny Smith bandwagon.  They were so hyped, everybody was using Granny Smith apples to cook with.  I’ve never been a fan of the sour, tart Granny Smith’s, I don’t like cooking with them, I don’t even like the way they look, they’re unnatural!  And now, there are all of the designer varieties of apples, Honey Crisp, Gala, Fuji, JonaGold, JonaMac, so many choices it makes your head spin.

goldendeliciouspage

What’s wrong with the old ones? My very favorite are Golden Delicious, or Jonathan or Winesap or Rome.  I still like these best.  But Red Delicious, I hate!  They’re even worse than Granny Smith.  Sure they’re pretty, but they’re mealy and tasteless!  Why don’t they get rid of those, but oh no, every convenience store in America has Red Delicious apples by the checkout counter.  Why???

Wow, I sure have issues this morning, don’t I?  Well, it just honks me off!  I think I’m going to fire off some emails to companies.  But that’s useless, too!  I have, after all, been emailing Trader Joes monthly for years now begging them to come to Heavensville, and they haven’t!  They don’t even respond to my emails.  TRAITOR JOES!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Law-dee, just look at these temps!

weather

 

 

 

 

 

I celebrated this weather forecast by making a big pot of chili.  And no, I didn't make a pie, but I wanted to!  And I might add, since the down comforter is back on the bed, I'm sleeping much better.

Aren't you all glad? 

Brrrr, it's downright chilly tonight, Sleeping half-moonmaybe I'll even pull out a long-sleeved sleep shirt.

Jan here, seizing the moment...

My computer screen turned pink!

pink-screen

Has yours ever done this?  Let's hope not, but in case it has, here's what worked for me.

Krista was here this morning, cleaning, so hubby and I left for breakfast, ran some errands, came home, I came into the sunroom, and the screen on my PC looked just like this!  (This isn't the actual picture, I grabbed this one from the web, but it was the same look).

I was in a panic, convinced that it was either my monitor going bad, or the video card on my computer.  I called Jean right away, I always call her when I have a technical issue, she had never had a pink screen before either.  So then I Googled it, and it said that maybe the VGA cord wasn't connected securely.  Well, I was sure that wasn't the problem, but LC unplugged it and plugged it back in, and sure enough that was it.   She probably was dusting behind the computer and jiggled the cord.

So, I'm just passing this along in case any of you have a similar issue.  I was just so glad that I didn't have to cough up $$$ for a new monitor or video card.

Whew, that was a close one...

Monday, September 17, 2012

We all think our grandchildren are gifted, and they ARE!

doodler
Ryan sent me this yesterday.  He wasn’t paying attention to what Abby was doing, looked down and she had drawn this on her Doodler by herself.

Now the child isn’t quite three yet, Grammie think’s she’s amazing.  Especially since Grammie still draws stick figures and she’s not quite sixty-three yet.Embarrassed smile

My mother was always so proud of what my boys accomplished at an early age, I don’t think I really appreciated it at the time, but now I get it...

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sometimes you just gotta have your way…

I’m always tweaking the setup in my sunroom.  Why???  Because it’s where I spend my days, with Maggie on my lap, working playing on my computers, looking out the window at the birds, contemplating life.  So I’m always driving poor hubby crr-azy with ideas that I want to implement to make it even better.

For years now I’ve had a media card in my PC that allowed me to watch tv on the computer.  But it was a pain, I had to make the screen really, really small, and it interfered with whatever I was doing, and the quality was not good, so I decided that what I really needed was a television behind my computer desk.

This has been going on for several months, trying to figure out how to accomplish this.  At first I was going to put this great big honkin’ screen on the wall where I put my bulletin board.  But then I decided I really wanted that bulletin board, so then I was going to put a small television inside the bulletin board, but that was kind of stupid, so then I came up with the idea to suspend a television from the ceiling, which would entail John, who always does my tv hookups, crawling thru the attic, and dropping a line, and I didn’t know how that would look anyway, that tv dangling from the ceiling.

So LC and I were brainstorming one day, and he said, “ya know, I have a tripod in the attic, I wonder if we could mount a tv on it?”  So he had this small 15” television in the garage, he hooked it up to the tripod, put it behind the computer, and voila, it worked perfectly and looked kinda cool sitting on that tripod.  But…

photo (7)

It was too small!  (The above photo isn’t the original 15” television, I just wanted you to see how he mounted it on the tripod.)  I didn’t like that small screen, so he trekked over to Sam’s and bought me a 24” television.  I wanted it Internet ready, so I could watch Netflix, but that wasn’t an option, they don’t make 24” televisions Internet ready.  So he brought it home, hooked it up, easy setup, we already had a cable on the floor, nobody had to crawl thru the attic, it was perfect, rightWrong!  I didn’t like it, it was too small.  So we brought everybody we knew and their brother thru the sunroom, getting their opinions, and every . single . person said that it looked fine.  LC thought it looked fine too, mostly, I think because he was tired of messing with it. 

photo (5)

So I watched it and fretted and stewed, because it just wasn’t right.  It was wide and short, and I was not a happy camper.  I wanted to look up and see this big screen, and I wanted to be able to watch Netflix while I worked!  Then John and Deanna came home, I sat John at my computer desk, explained my dilemma, and sweet boy, he actually understood what I meant.  So we were off to Sams once again to get a 32” tv that was Internet ready.  But they were sold out, then we went to Best Buy, where they tried to sell us one with a Roku Box, well we already use Roku boxes on the living room and bedroom tv’s, I didn’t want another Roku box, I wanted that 32” Internet ready television!

So it’s now Labor Day morning, and John said, “You know, WalMart might have that tv, why don’t you call them.”  I did, and they had it, the guys drove over to buy it for me, and after a lot of adjustments in the garage to the back of the television refabricating something or other, they were once again able to mount it on the tripod, and this is the result!

photo (9)

I know, I know, it’s HUGE!  You’re probably thinking, why does she need that big tv, the other one looked fine!  But I didn’t like it and this one is  wonderful and it has Netflix!  Exactly what I wanted, finally!!!  And the best part?  It sits behind my desk, angled in the corner, so yours truly won’t be able to trip over it and crash the whole thing to the ground.  I can’t get to it, thank gawd, because we all know that I would somehow fall over or into the thing, ‘cause that’s just the way I roll.

Now for the moral of this story, always, always, trust your gut, it never lets you down…

Jeez, I sound like a brat, but hey, I’m an only child, remember, I like to have my way, this was really important to me, and besides, I’m old now, you gotta humor old ladies.  Thanks Johnno, for understanding, you made Yo Mama a happy lady ;o)

Oh, and hubby?  Well he does tend to sit in here and watch it, and he hasn’t said a word about it being too big, so I’m thinking Mikey might actually like it. 

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