Still Winterizing

Woodpile Squirrel
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

Vic & I had another productive weekend ~ this is starting to become a refreshing trend. We seem to have a lot of nit-picky little things to do around the house before the snow starts falling and I've been trying to assign at least 3 or 4 tasks each weekend so we won't get all bogged down on any one particular Saturday or Sunday. So far it's been working out pretty well. This past weekend we completed a few minor repairs inside the house (including fixing the towl rack that I yanked out of the wall), stored away a few things for winter and got a buttload of wood stacked outside. And since Vic is still in her training class, we both got some studying done, too! My speech midterm is Thursday and I'm just a tooch worried about it. I've been doing pretty well in the class as far as speech giving is concerned, but we haven't had any quizzes or tests yet, so I'm not really sure how I'm going to fair on the one this week. Fortunately, I have plenty of time to study at work, so I think I should be okay.

A Very Long Season

Next Year
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

What a bummer. I really wanted the Tigers to win the World Series, especially since I watched almost every one of the 160+ games this past season. I'm really proud of how well they did, though. They haven't had a winning season in years, so to be able to make it this far is really a huge accomplishment. But, win or lose, I'm kinda glad the baseball season is over. For now, anyway. It was all very taxing ~ the watching and yelling at the TV and stressing out about errors made and upcoming teams we were going to play. Geez, it really takes a lot out of you! I'm actually looking forward to watching regular TV and catching up on some movies I've been wanting to see. And scrapbooking. I've really got to get back to working on our London book. I've got some cool ideas I want to try out, but never seem to have the time to actually sit down long enough to attempt them. I did put together a scrapbook page for my demonstrational speech the other night (the Sweet Baboo playing in the snow at the park) and that went over really well, but I've got to get into that craft room and just lock myself in there!

Busy, Busy, Busy

This week marks the half-way point in the academic quarter and I'm really looking forward to having a few weeks off before the next one starts. I've really been quite lax in my cross-stitching, scrapbooking and reading. School and work are really interfering with my Casey time. I just don't have enough hours in the day. It seems like I'm always so busy. I'd really like to be a full-time student, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

The upcoming weekend is going to be "small projects" weekend. We've got a lot of little things we need to do around the house and I'm hoping we can get most of them done. Most involve winterizing of some sort. I've already loaded up the Jeep with my ice scraper and emergency blanket. (It's a Daffy Duck blankie.) Now we need to work on the house, both inside and out. Should be a busy weekend. We'll see.

Feast One Hundred & Seventeen

Appetizer
Create a new candle scent.
Kiwi-Strawberry Snapple

Soup
Name one way you show affection to others.
Shannon & I often rub noses

Salad
What is your favorite writing instrument?
The black pen I keep on the computer desk that I can't find, Vickie.

Main Course
If you were given $25 to spend anywhere online, from which site would you buy?
Probably Amazon ~ they always have pretty good stuff

Dessert
Are you dressing up for Halloween? If so, what are you going to be?
This year I will be dressed as "college student who left class early to come home & hand out candy with her girlfriend"

A-Twitter

Tomkat
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

I'm all a-twitter at the news of Tomkat's upcoming nuptials! And, joy oh joy, the blessed event will be on a Saturday which won't conflict with either of my classes! November 18th is the date ~ I've already marked it on my calendar (with a big pink heart!) and will ask to be off the Friday night before in case Katie wants to partake in a pre-wedding splash about Beverly Hills with some gal-pals. It's all just so exciting, don't you think? I just cleaned out my closet yesterday and I didn't see anything really appropriate for a Tomkat wedding, so I'll probably head out to JCPenney or the Dress Barn this weekend to pick something up (before the Tigers game, of course). I'll have to make sure I don't get anything too flashy, though. I don't want to show up Katie on her big day! And Vic & I just bought some really nice new shoes at KMart this past weekend. They were regularly $16.99 and we got them on sale for $8.99! Now if that isn't an omen, I don't know what is! I think I'll be quite the fashionista! Now about a gift... I saw a really nice toaster at WalMart last week ~ four slots for the thick pieces of bread! It comes in either white or black - I'll have to find out the color scheme of their kitchen. Okay, I think I've got all the bases covered, now I just need to get that invitation. We've got a really grumpy mailman, so it may be delayed a day or two. I wonder if I can bring a guest? This may be an intimate affair, so maybe I shouldn't mention anything to Vic just yet. Although, we did buy two pairs of shoes (blue & black), so I think we'll be all set in case she does get the nod. How gloriously exciting it all is! I'm going to check the mail!

Great & Relaxing

Friday ~ Vic & I left 3 hours early Friday night to give ourselves plenty of time to get to Ann Arbor for the indigo girls concert and leave us some time to explore the area before the girls took the stage. Well...our one hour trip took two hours due to all the traffic and construction the entire way to Ann Arbor! We got there with about 45 mins to spare, so we just explored the block instead of the city. I did happen into a perfume store that carries my perfume (we can't seem to find it anywhere-not even on the internet!), so I scooped up a couple bottle of Nicole Miller. The concert was great and the venue was just the right size to accomodate their voices. We had a quick sandwich afterwards, to let the traffic thin out some, and watched all the college kids act like, well, college kids. It was a great night!

Saturday ~ We slept in late and then rearranged the whole upstairs. What a huge pain moving heavy furniture upstairs and across rooms, but the new look is great. We also watched the Tigers lose the first game of the World Series, but it's the best out of seven, so I'm not worried. Yet.

Sunday ~ Another great day. After grocery shopping, Vic took a nap on the couch and Shannon laid down in front of the fireplace (she looked so peaceful) and I turned on some quiet music and studied a bit before the game. It was a very peaceful afternoon. Outside I could hear the rain and wind, but inside it was nice & toasty. Every once in a while the fire would crackle and I'd toss another log into the stove, the house was quiet and I finally got some studying done. It was a really wonderful way to spend the day. And then the Tigers won game 2 of the series, so that was just icing on the cake! We had another great weekend!

Feasting At My House

Happy Pumpkin
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

This morning, on my way home from work, I spotted a sign announcing "pumpkins for sale." For some reason this just struck me wrong. It's the 21st century for goblins sake! Are we still oppressing the Orange Americans by selling them on the streets to the highes bidder like their forefathers before them? Poor little defenseless Halloween slaves. My god, they don't even have arms to defend themselves. Even the snowmen have twigs! The lucky pumpkins are the ones without faces - at least they can't see it coming! When will this madness end?! Free the pumpkins, I say! Halloween pumpkin indentured servitude no more! (Gourd slavery is ok. We have a little basket by our fireplace filled with a couple of the cute little mishapen fellas.)

The Friday Feast for this week was a repeat, so I thought I would create my own feast. Hope you enjoy and feel free to take home a to-go box to your own blog!

Appetizer
When was the last time you were required to wear a uniform and what was it?
I wear a uniform daily for work...light blue shirt & dark blue pants. I think I look like a goob.

Soup
What was the last frivolous thing you purchased?
I recently bought fuzzy socks to wear around the house on chilly nights.

Salad
What is one accessory you'd like to add to your vehicle?
I'd like either a sunroof or a remote starter to warm it up on cold mornings.

Dinner
What do you keep your loose change in?
I have a half gallon bottle from the Great Baraboo Brewing Co., a little pink pig with my name on it (Casey) and a little red London telephone booth.

Dessert
What color shirt are you wearing on your driver's license?
Red. This was a really poor choice considering most of the license is blue and the red shirt really clashes. The DMV should really give people the heads up before coming in so we can avoid little fashion faux pas like this.

wednesdays

Wednesdays have become my new favorite day of the week. Tuesday and Thursday nights I have class, Monday sucks because it's the beginning of the work week and by Friday I'm tired and have to struggle to get thru that last day of work. But lately I've been really looking forward to Wednesdays. No class and it's only the middle of the work week, so I'm not quite fully disgusted yet.

School - I'm almost at the half-way point in this quarter and I think so far I'm doing pretty good in both of my classes. The Medical Terminology class is such a colossal waste of time, though. Since it's all memorization, I do all of the work at home. This is really a great way to waste a Tuesday night.

Vic - She seems to be feeling a little bit better every day, but we both think she probably should've waited at least another week before returning to work. She gets tired easily and her neck still aches from time to time. We usually make up for it, though, by laying around the house all day on the weekends.

Trip - This Friday we are going to Ann Arbor to see the indigo girls in concert. This will be our first real outing since Vic had her surgery, so we're both really looking forward to it! Neither of us has been to Ann Arbor (about an hour SW of us), so we're going to leave as early as we can so we can spend some time exploring a little before the concert. I'm hoping it doesn't rain this weekend!

Hot & Real

AL Champs
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

This may have been the first weekend in the history of Case & Vic that we actually accomplished the weekend tasks we had planned. Usually what happens is that sometime around the middle of the week Vic and I will discuss some project or other that needs to be done for the upcoming week, I make a list, we plan out exactly how and what we'll do and then we sleep in on Saturday and go do some park-y festival kinda thing on Sunday. But not this past weekend! We got the living room rearranged so that we could make fires (and we did all weekend!), located our nose mittens, bought new bathroom towels and started working on organizing our many books. Not really a huge task, but certainly a huge accomplishment!

Of course we also made time to watch the Tigers become the AL Champs and advance to the World Series. I'm really glad the series doesn't start until Saturday because I need to concentrate a little more on schoolwork and a little less on baseball. And as much as we'd like to, Vic & I will not be attending any of the games in person. The ticket prices are just out of this world, so we'll watch the games from the comfort of our newly arranged living room with cheaper food and easier bathroom access.

One last thing Detroit-related...Flavor Flav made his final decision on picking his woman and she is from Detroit. Needless to say, all of us here in the "313" are just tickled pink with pride. Deelishis (not her real name) says that she and Flav are just trying to keep it "hot and real." That's my new credo. I'm just going to try to keep everything hot & real from now on!

really freaking cold

Winterize is going to be the word for the weekend. It's gotten really cold really soon, so Vic & I are going to have to get out our gloves and nose mittens this weekend. We've already brought in the outside plants and started putting away our patio furniture. We also need to re-arrange the living room so that we can start a fire in our wood-burning stove. Right now the computer desk is a bit too close to the stove, so we've got a lot of heavy moving to do. We had a chimney sweep come out a few weeks ago to clean our chimney, we replaced the cracked glass on the stove door and we've got a lot of nice wood stacked up outside, so we're both anxious to start a few nice room-warming fires. All in all, it should be a busy, but relaxing weekend.

Feast One Hundred & Fifteen
Appetizer
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend reading other blogs?
Nobody but Shawn ever blogs anymore, so I'd probably have to say less than 1 hour per week. Shame on all of you (except you, Shawn).

Soup
Your community wants everyone to give one thing to put into a time capsule. What item would you choose to include?
My new Tigers "terrible towel" that Vic got for me today. It's a very terrorizing color of orange with a big "D" on the front.

Salad
What is the most interesting tourist attraction you've ever visited?
Everything in DC. It was great getting to actually live there for a couple of years because I got the chance to see a lot and never felt rushed. Lots of history there.

Main Course
If you could give an award to anyone for anything, who would it be and what would the award be titled?
"Biggest Dork When Seeing the First Snowflakes of the Season" and I'd give it to Vickie.

Dessert
What do you think your favorite color reveals about your personality?
My favorite colors are blue and green and I guess they reveal that I like being outside exploring new places. (Blue for the sky, green for the grass.)

Autumn? What Autumn??

Snowy Baboo
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

As you can see in this lovely picture of the sweet Baboo, we had our first snowflakes of the season today. Not really "snowman making" flakes, more like "pain in the ass to drive in" flakes. So what the heck happened to my Autumn and all its beautiful colors?! I've been robbed by Mother Nature! She came up behind me wearing a grey hoody and blue jeans (all our robbers wear grey hoodies and blue jeans around here), whacked me over the head with a dead tree limb and stole my Autumn! Hopefully this snowy weather will pass and we'll have a few more weeks of red and orange leaves. Vic and I haven't even made it out to the cider mills yet! This is most distressing to me. Of course Shannon and Vic are both loving it, but they can write about it in their own blogs. This is my blog and I'm a little bit pissed. And wet. I was flaked by a large woman in a grey hoody who was last seen running toward Detroit (they always run toward Detroit around here). I was a victim of a drive-by flaking. I think I'll go call 911 now.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

On this early Tuesday morning at work, I though I'd share some thoughts that are swimming around in my head right now:

- On my desk at work I have 7 computer screens, 4 TV screens, 3 keyboards, 4 mice, 4 bottles of white out, 2 yellow highlighters and a box of kleenex. I have a large desk.
- I'm wearing a new blue sweater.
- Ecchymosis is the escape of blood into the tissues, causing superficial discoloration; a black and blue mark. So then why not just call it a black & blue mark??
- I'd rather be watching BBC programs at home with Vic.
- I'm really worried the Tigers won't make it to the World Series. I would be very disappointed.
- We really need a new monitor for our home computer.
- How can we get rid of those darn pigeons without driving away the little birds?
- When Vickie wears her socks with the toe part flapping, it drives me insane! (She does it quite often.)
- I drink a lot of Diet Pepsi. I used to drink a lot of Dr. Pepper, but I haven't touched the stuff in over a year! A couple of weeks ago, the waitress gave me a refill of Dr. Pepper by accident and I nearly wet my panties.
- I don't normally carry an extra pair of panties with me when I go out to eat.

Busy Weekend

Bathroom After
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

This weekend Vic & I kept pretty busy. We finally finished the bathroom ~ yea!! I couldn't figure out how to load before & after pics on Blogger and got really frustrated with the whole thing, so if you'd like to see a before picture, just click on the after one and it'll take you to Flickr where you can see the ugly yellow walls we used to have. What the hell were they thinking when they picked out that paint?! The bathroom is now a lovely shade of Bali Sand and before we painted we texturized the walls with sheetrock mud to give it that Mexican restaurant faux adobe feeling. We both really like it and hope that if you come over to pee that you'll like it, too!

We also (finally) put up the moulding around the back door. We installed that door only about a year ago, so I think we procrastinated long enough before actually completing the job. And since we are planning on painting the living room (sometime before the new millenium), we are going to wait to paint the moulding, too.

Of course Saturday afternoon was Tigers, Tigers, Tigers. We moved on to the next round of the playoffs and will meet the Oakland A's on Tuesday night. There was a lot of whooping and jumping up & down in our living room (as I'm sure there was in yours). Go Tigers!

Hey! That's my name, too!

Hey! That's my name, too!
Originally uploaded by wahoo1265.

Sucks to be a Yankee! The Tigers managed to pull out a win in the the very intimidating Yankee Stadium on Thursday afternoon and now both teams will play Friday night in the even more intimidating city of Detroit. Yea for the good guys!

I gave my first speach in my Public Speaking class Thursday night and I think I did really well. I'm still not real wild about the class, but it's nice to do well.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Hopefully the rain will hold off long enough for me to get the grass cut and maybe change the oil in my Jeep. I think Vic & I are going to attempt to rearrange the bedroom or living room...or both. I'm just looking forward to mid-afternoon naps on chilly days. And chili. Chili always tastes better when it's cold out!

Feast One Hundred & Fourteen

Appetizer
Name a song you know by heart.
"Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen

Soup
What will you absolutely not do in front of another person?
Pick my nose.

Salad
How often do you use mouthwash and what kind do you like?
I like the blue Listerine. I go in spurts where I'll use it every day and then not use for a while.

Main Course
Finish this sentence: I am embarrassed when...
Someone sees me pick my nose.

Dessert
What was the last food you craved?
Chips & chip dip. And Mexicans.

Tuesday & Wednesday

I woke up Tuesday afternoon to discover that someone had finally painted our bathroom. Yea! I've just been dreading painting anything, so you can imagine my delight in finding our bathroom painted. And it looks great! Vic did a really great job of it! I'll include pics soon. She's been home about 7 weeks now and is scheduled to return to work on Thursday. I'll miss having her around all the time, but I know she's going stir crazy and really looking forward to getting back. I just can't imagine rather going to work than staying home. I can think of at least a dozen things I'd rather be doing at the house whenever I'm at work. But then Vic really enjoys her job and I think of my work as, well, work. Who wants to go to work when they can go to fun instead? I'm all for fun any day!

Well, the good news is that the Tigers didn't lose Wednesday night. Yea!! Of course, they also didn't play Wednesday night, but that's really besides the point, don't you think? I'm trying to think positive thoughts for the Tigers cuz I really don't think they have a chance. They're just playing like crap lately! Go Tigers!!

Non-Current Events

Things that did not happen this weekend:
- the bathroom getting painted
- the grass being cut
- the living room furniture being rearranged
- the Tigers clinching the AL Central Division due in part to the fact that they lost the last five games of the regular season thus relinquishing first place for the first time since the middle of May to the Minnesota Twins who were in first place for exactly one day and were then granted the AL Central Division crown

Things that did happen this weekend:
- lots of swearing at the TV

I've been watching the Tigers every night for 6 months and I'm just a little disappointed in their performance over the last week or so. We start a best of 5 game series tonight against the Yankees and I predict my beloved Tigers will be swept in 3. I've just lost all faith in my boys. I think if the season had ended in August, I'd be wearing World Series Champs t-shirts, but unfortunately, it's not to be. I think the Tigers just ran out of steam. I'm actually looking forward to not watching TV (once the playoffs are thru). I need to concentrate more on school work and scrapbooking. And maybe I can actually get the bathroom painted!