You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2008.
Yesterday, we got the wonderful news from Chris and Maria that her immigration application was APPROVED and now our friends/who are our family, are going to permanently put down roots and stay here! We are so very happy of this as we’ve become rather close to them and I am delighted beyond all words. Congratulations and whenever there’s a celebration…let us know! We love you both!
Today is a wonderful day for Thanks and Giving, delicious turkey and all the trimmings, family and most importantly for this chick…EASTON/P’BURG FOOTBALL! This year marks the 102 annual game and each year I’m rabid for my alma mater, Easton Red Rovers to ROCK, ROCK, ROCK! Unfortunately, I’ve had to wait until the end of the game each year since I moved to Tennessee to find out if Easton delivered even though I’ve always scanned the internet to see if there was a live feed or anything and today, my wish was granted. Lehigh Valley Live is doing a live blog feed of the game play-by-play!!!! Woohoo…so far, it’s Easton 28 and P’burg is ZERO! Whoohoo! FINAL SCORE: EASTON 35, P’BURG 14 – YIPPIE, YIPPIE, YEA, YEA!
Still Thanksgiving this year was really wonderful. We all woke up late so we unfortunately missed most of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where apparently Macy’s Rick-rolled the entire country by having that Rick Astley (aka Bob’s Big Boy Haircut Man), sing his dubious hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” (the Jim’s a
huge fan), atop a float. Nice. We dressed and headed out to Cookeville for a tradition of meeting up with the Jim’s Mom at Shoney’s for the Turkey Day Buffet. I was a good girl and stuck with the meal who’s points I know how to count 
. Then a quick walk around Wal-Mart in preparation for the Jim’s attempt to wake up on Black Friday at 3 AM to score one of the Blu-Ray players on sale for $138.00 or something like that. Always good to see the Jim’s Mom and I so have to take a picture of her new hair-do…it’s so cute!
Then we returned home popped our Turkey (whom I named Fred), into the oven at 7 PM, called some family and ate our slices of Turkey at 11:00 pm before heading to bed. We also added a new tradition…Mag-Pies Pumpkin Cheesecake which was sinfully good and I highly recommend. YUM. All in all, a subdued day filled with family and that, my dear friends, is something I am sincerely Thankful For.
You know…I’m thankful for a lot of things. I truly am. So here, in no particular order and not nearly exhaustive list of things I’m thankful for.
A job that I LOVE more than any other job I’ve ever done. When you have a calling and you’re finally doing that…it’s just a match made in heaven.
A loving husband, four wonderful four-legged children, amazing immediate family, the knowledge that I still have some distant family and friends who are more like family than I ever thought could be humanly possible, especially those who live nearby and my long-time friends.
My health. Creaks and all. Pudge and all. Somehow, I still seem to keep on ticking.
The possibility of a positive change in our country…come on January! Although, it feels like he’s got to work rather quickly and has done more than the current president has in his first 3 months.
A house that I love (plaster walls and all). A car that runs. Food in the kitchen and a sense of peace when I get home each night.
Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets…and an ability to budget my money so I can get some. To borrow a phrase from Kip Dynamite, “Oh, I love technology”.
My relationship with God, cause it’s getting a lot better and the Jim’s ability to not think I’m crazy simply because our religious beliefs are so divergent.
DVRs, because I watch TV more wisely and feel like I run my own station that always plays what I want to watch.
A new day and new dawn brewing in North Knoxville…Mag-Pies, The Glowing Body Yoga Studio, The Co-Op, you name it it’s becoming awesome in my neighborhood. I love it so much.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg folks, but my hope is that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with fabulous food, peace, love and hope. Eat some pumpkin pie for me okay?!
It seems you cannot avoid the situation our country is in these days. I wake up every morning to hear that more people have lost their jobs, even a few close to me; and you start to prepare for ‘anything’. I mean, I’m not sure, but can things get better? I really hope so, but I don’t know anymore. I’m saddened because a lot of the situation that we’re in is due to the greed of many at the top and the reality that trickle-down only really works if those at the top (responsible for the trickle down), are benevolent people…not capitalism cheerleaders where it’s survival of the fittest or I’ll get mine and leave you behind. The Jim and I are working to scale down a lot of things this year and be more “frugal” indeed, although I worry because if we all do that then the situation continues to just worsen on many levels. Yes, I do think that the big 3 car companies need help, but why can’t some of the excess be cut out at the top levels rather than those who actually build the cars? Add to that, the continuing new influx of posturing from Russia, Iran and any other country who’s not a big fan of ours these days and it makes you feel like the kid on the playground who’s obviously dealing with their status as underdog. If anything positive can come out of this situation, I hope that it’s people becoming more community focused…more conscious of others…more delight found in simple things like time spent with friends, doing things that are not focused on spending a lot but rebuilding connection. In the meantime, I suppose all we can do is be vigilant, trying to keep our collective chins up, and hoping…just hoping that things will get better.
This post is brought to you by WTMI (What? Too Much Information!). Okay, my father is coming for his annual Thanksgiving visit so we had to high-tail it on getting the guest room back in shape and up to par. You see. It’s been storage for a little while and that’s not a good thing. On top of that, it’s taken on an odor that makes us worrisome that our little cat Kira, with the pee problem has been using that room as a personal potty parlor. So today, we rented a Rug Doctor because, as you know it’s “steaming mad at dirt” in a valiant effort to fix the odiferous problem AND to clean the carpet since it’s one of the few rooms in our home now that actually has carpet. We pre-treated the carpet with pet stuff, and decided that we needed to check under the bed to see if the problem was more rank than we had anticipated. It was. Petrified from Kira and the days that Ginny was a houseguest. So….note to self. Check under the bed if you suspect odiferous issues in a room…there might be a present or two or multiple waiting for you. In the meantime, we’re looking forward to a crystal clean room later tonight.
EWWWWWWW!
Courtesy Wikipedia
There’s an festering annoyance in my house that comes up every time the Jim discusses avant garde musical instruments and I wanted to state my case right now for two items that I pray will NEVER make their way into our home.
One item is a little number that Please Feed the Monkeys and the Jim located at a past NAMM convention, and is rumored to be residing in our home at this very moment, but I can’t seem to find it. The nasty item is the ZYDECO TIE. Look, I’m not a big fan of zydeco or bluegrass (sorry, sorry), but this just seems tacky to me. I mean, it’s bad enough to bring a washboard on stage with you but to ramp up your fashion sense, you choose to add a metal necktie to your zydeco-wonderment? Ewww.
The other item is as bad as a piano key necktie, and instills fear deep within me. I despise the KEYTAR, with all senseless reasoning. I mean, what better way to show that you’re not as “cool” as the lead guitarist other than to strap-on a keyboard and go to town! Seriously. I hate this tech-mod-monster. Even Justin Timberlake’s really well done concert recently featured it. Look, I love the 80s, but could we please keep this in the closet?
I don’t know why I hate these things, but I do and I say this because I’m heading to VIBE salon and they play fabulous music videos…where no doubt the evil Keytar occasionally shows up. Wish me luck.
If you don’t know…our house was built in 1945 and we’re in a historic section of North Knoxville (not THE historic section, but close). The Jim and I are the first people to tell you and anyone else for that matter that we LOVE OUR HOME. We do! We honestly do! Even with the tacky wall-papered mural of a pastoral scene in the dining room. Even with the plaster walls that take more effort to fix or require planning to hang a picture (any picture). Even with the scary “panic room” space under the house that for goodness sake, I would seriously have to be facing nuclear annihilation to actually go into (it’s scary folks). However, we are now coming to a “matter of deduction” one one of our regular stressors.
Downstairs, we have a finished basement (see flood post from while back). A few times each year, the carpet by the back door gets saturated. We first thought it was rain coming through the door. No. We then thought it might be the pipe that connects to the outdoor hose. No. I think we’ve figured it out. We have a sump-pump by the back door that decided that it was just done working. So it fills up with water and apparently seeps into our lives filling the air with that dank, musty, oh-so-not-filtered water smell and a soaking wet carpet (which, as most of you know, if you don’t rectify turns into dank-musty-moldy-nightmares). So, we bought a new sump-pump yesterday (and those suckers ain’t cheap – try almost $100.00), and the Jim went about the business of installing it. In an older home, and anyone who shares this joy of homeownership knows…it takes more effort to fix anything, and often the process is rarely simple. Of course, it’s scheduled to rain big this weekend. Unfortunately, he needs to go to Lowes today to buy a new pipe too, so he really didn’t install it last night. Which means, water table rose during the night, carpet got wetter, smell got worse and Anna got more frustrated. Blessings exist these days in things like wet/dry shop vacs and Yankee candle tart burners. Hopefully today, we’ll get the problem rectified and the new sump-pump installed and working. All this and my father is scheduled to get here in a week and a half. Ah well…not much more do at this point other than hope that the Jim does a good job with his stint as home handyman.
Hello, I’m Anna and I have a confession to make. Do you know me? I’m the person that they apparently create infomercials for. You see, I’m up around the same time every morning (7:30 AM), even on the weekends. The problem with that is that Saturday and Sunday mornings are ripe with nuggets of “paid programming” delights. Anything and everything from why you should own an Oreck Bagged vacuum, to why you NEED a Shark VX3 (which I’ll complain about soon, give me time), or why you might want to consider switching from Bare Minerals to “Sheer”-whatever (which I am NOT switching). Well, I’m hooked. It’s a problem, so a lot of times I clear things with the Jim before I go online and decide to try the latest thing. This past week, we succumbed to the wonders of SHAMWOW! I mean, I dare you not to watch it and want it…after all, they’re made in “Germany” and you gotta have that! They still haven’t arrived yet, but we’re darn well excited nonetheless. I also purchased the only workout set endorsed by Mary Murphy, Len Goodman, Tony Dovalani and other ballroom giants: CORE RHYTHMS. The Jim is pretty much sure I could open up my own fitness boutique if I would just do the darn workouts. Needless to say, I have got to find a good cure for the informercial influenza that I get each Saturday…or we’ll be indigent before too long.
I so need to post about how fabulous our weekend was…but I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had the chance. Let me just say, the report is coming soon so stay tuned.
We all searched for the SNL clips that pushed the political satire up a notch (since I don’t know anyone in my close friends who still watches the whole SNL show each Saturday), but politics is funny, folks. I guess it has to be, right? I mean, if we can’t laugh about it…I suppose we’d cry. Daily. So, the Jim and I found it interesting that the senate race in Minnesota is headed to a recount because of how close it is. It’s not interesting of course because it’s never happened before…but apparently Al Frankin is now the next in line to pursue a run for Washington joining the noble ranks of Fred Grandy (Former House of Representatives Member), and Ben Jones (Former Virginia and Georgia House of Representatives Member). Can Bill Maher not be far behind? Who knows…but I’m sure they can tell some good jokes during fillibustering right?
Notice I didn’t remark on Jesse Ventura. (Not that he’s run for Washington office, but check the site). You see, while some might find “professional wrestling” funny (and it is, as the only way I can watch it if I am absolutely forced to do so)…but I didn’t think he counts.
Okay, so it sounds more elaborate than it really is right? This is our little slice of internet nonsense, which basically is our on-going effort to keep our friends and family up-to-date on our lives, our love and our continuing pursuit of pomegranates. In this modern age of movement, we’ve realized that distance is not an excuse to not keep everyone posted, so please - stop by anytime - in person or internet-ly and know that you are all never far from our thoughts.
