THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS COOKIES

I've found the secret to baking the PERFECT Christmas cookies!

Every year at Christmas time when I was growing up, my mom, my sisters and I baked Christmas cookies. SCADS of Christmas cookies. Not your normal, simple peanut butter or oatmeal or chocolate chip cookies, but old family recipes for pitzels, candy cane cookies, nut balls, strawberry cookies, kolachi cookies (a redundancy, linguistically speaking), and many, many others that call for old-fashioned things like "scalded milk" and "a fist full of flour". Over the years, my mom stopped baking and my sisters and I took the recipes we wanted. My favorite cookies were the kolachi cookies, and for the past 20 years or so I've been baking them at Christmas time.

This year, I had the pleasure of baking these cookies with my daughter. She's 25, lives on her own and has a professional career, so it's hard sometimes for us to get together. This week, we did it and what a wonderful time we had!

Kolachi cookies are time consuming to make. You have to make the dough, roll it, cut it, make the filling, fill the dough, bake the cookies, cool them, and sugar them. And you get at least 144 cookies per batch. As I said - time consuming, but OH SO WORTH IT!

I put John in charge of the Christmas music. He loves the holiday classics by Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Doris Day, and the likes. Our daughter is musically gifted, so she enjoys and appreciates all kinds of music (which is a good thing, or else she'd probably never want to do this again).

Well, when my daughter arrived, I had everything out and ready to go. There was a dough-rolling station, a filling station, a cookie sheet holding area and a cooling/sugaring station (I truly am that organized)! I started work making the dough. She started work making the filling. I rolled and cut the dough, she filled, folded and baked the cookies. When she realized that I was done with the dough before she was done filling, she set me up with a second rolling station so there was no idle time. How cool is that? I guess she's that organized, too.

We chatted, we laughed, we sang. All of a sudden we were done! 190 cookies - just like that. We did in 3 hours what would normally take about 4 or 5 hours. Talk about a well-oiled machine!

The interesting part is that those cookies taste better this year than they ever have before.

So you see, the secret to baking the PERFECT Christmas cookies? Do it with someone you love.

HOLIDAY SHOPPING

Today seemed like an appropriate day to get some holiday shopping done. It was a blustery day, cold and snowy, but it was sort of uplifting. Quite seasonal, actually. After all, Christmas is coming, and the sales were calling.

As I tootled around town to the first few places on my list, I caught every traffic light green and just cruised about. That NEVER happens. It was a good day, I thought.

And a good day it was, too. The people at the post office were pleasant. The guys at the
plumbing supply house (yes, I'm still dealing with plumbing, only to a decorative extent, now) were quite friendly and helpful. The ladies at the local boutique were sweet, as they always are.

And then there was MACY'S.

I went to the men's department looking for a pair of dress gloves. I found a beautiful pair - leather, cashmere lined, and 40% off, too! How cool is that?

At checkout, there were two lines and two cashiers. One line had three customers, I chose the other, which only had two. By the time it was my turn, the cashier disappeared. He just DISAPPEARED! So I waited. And waited. Finally, I went to the other line, which by this time had only two customers.

As soon as I got there, the other cashier came back and two customers raced to his line! SIGH.

The woman in front of me saw what had happened and made some supportive comments. I told the cashier in my line what had happened. She responded "He's seasonal help and he's driving me crazy".

Well, by that time, two or three other customers had lined up behind me, and I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Yep. A third cashier came and split up the line - starting with the woman BEHIND me!!!!!!!

Feeling a little perturbed, I asked our cashier if she was going to say something to the "seasonal help" guy or should I. She chuckled. Can you believe it? She just CHUCKLED.

When did this kind of behavior become acceptable? When did customer service become a bad thing?

I'd had enough. As soon as "seasonal help" guy was done with his customer, I was going to say something. I WAS NOT going to let him help yet another person before helping me.

"Excuse me, sir!" I said (I'm being polite here). "Would you mind ringing me up next. I've been waiting a long time and everyone seems to be getting service before me".

That got his attention. He took care of me right away. He even agreed to give me the additional 10% discount I asked for. Appeased, I was off to find the drapery department. SIGH.

Now, the Macy's in my area is a very large department store - 3 stories plus a lower level. Finding your way in is easy. Finding your way around - not so much. I found a sales associate on the first floor and asked her where I might find draperies. She very confidently replied, "third floor". "Thanks", I said, and continued on to find the escalators.

Third floor. Bed and Bath. I circled the floor once. I circled the floor again. I could find neither draperies nor a sales associate to direct me. So I circled a third time. Finally, I found someone and asked "where might I find draperies?" She replied "Oh, we don't have draperies".

OMG! I spent 15 minutes circling the third floor, looking for what I was told was there, only to find that it really wasn't there, that it was nowhere because they don't even carry it! Could I get any closer to exploding?

I realized it was time to go home. I was SO done shopping for the day. Maybe even for the rest of my life!

The weather was still cold and blustery when I left the store and I wasn't so lucky with the green lights, but that was okay, I was on my way home. That always makes things better.

FIRST IN LINE

Thanksgiving came and went without a hitch. John was home for a four day weekend, the food was really good (if I do say so myself), and we always enjoy the cheer and laughter when our family, small as it is, gets together.

This year, however, something very interesting happened.

Have you ever watched the news reports about the infamous BLACK FRIDAY and wondered how someone actually gets to be first in line at these electronics stores? I mean, how early do they have to get there in order to be first in line and how do they know that?

Well, this year, after Thanksgiving dinner, our son started gathering his winter weather gear and announced that he and a friend had every intention of taking advantage of those very limited BLACK FRIDAY specials. Meaning, of course, that they were going to camp out for the night to be first, or close to it, in line!

I'm a born skeptic, but I fully, 100% support my son and know what he can accomplish when he makes up his mind. After all, he's a poor college student who had his eye on some pretty cool electronic equipment for not a whole lot of money. What more motivation does one need to spend the night in the below freezing weather (I think to myself, eyes rolling).

So, caring mother that I am, I fix my son a thermos of hot chocolate, 3 turkey sandwiches, and 2 plates of pumpkin pie. Then I go to the tool room and retrieve four 12 hour hand and feet warmers, remind him to take some chairs and tell him to be careful. I always have to tell him to be careful - that's my job.

Well, I called him after a few hours. He said he was first in line and a few people had shown up about 20 minutes after he and his friend got there. More people showed up throughout the night and by the time the store opened at 8:00 am, the line contained about 1,000 people and circled around the building. BUT HE WAS FIRST!!! FIRST IN LINE!!! FIRST IN THE STORE!!!

He was damn cold and oh so tired by the time he got home, but HE WAS FIRST!!!

I no longer have to wonder who those people are that get to be first in a HUGE line. You see, my son showed me who it is (him) and how it is done (determination).

Isn't it great, the things you learn from your kids?

PLUMBING PROBLEMS Part II

MORE plumbing problems. Can you believe it?



For the past several nights, I've been hearing some interesting sounds coming from the kitchen side of our house. It sounded a lot like the ice maker on our refrigerator, so I wasn't particularly concerned or anything. Besides, this has been happening while I'm up during the wee hours of the morning, and noises seem amplified in the peace and quiet of the time. Yeah, I thought, it's just the ice maker making ice. (HaHaHaHaHaHa).

Well, by now, it shouldn't surprise you to know that .........

This morning, at about 7:30, my wonderful, morning person husband woke me up to tell me that there was water leaking in the basement underneath the refrigerator. Now, if you've read my previous post about the shelving brackets, you are quite aware of what our basement is like. So to have water dripping there is potentially DISASTROUS!!!

Equally potentially disastrous, late yesterday afternoon, I noticed that some of the hardwood planks in front of the pantry (behind the fridge) were warping ever so slightly, just enough to catch my socks as I slid over them. I didn't think too much about it because, as I said, it was only slightly uneven (HaHaHaHa).

It's now pretty obvious that water must have been trapped between the hardwood flooring and the subflooring, causing the hardwood to absorb it and warp. GREAT!

Now before he woke me up, John had already shut off the water to the refrigerator ice maker (the only possible source of the problem), moved the items below the leak, cleaned up the water puddles and placed a receptacle underneath to catch any residual water drips. He did all of this even though it made him leave for work later than he would have liked. WOW, WHAT A SAINT!

But the most interesting part of this whole PLUMBING PROBLEMS Part II situation is this:

I found a wonderful, affordable plumber to help me with the PLUMBING PROBLEMS Part I situation we recently experienced (and I recently wrote about). He was going to come back this week and fix some other little plumbing issues I had, but my schedule had been so hectic and I had been feeling so overwhelmed, that John suggested I hold off on the plumber for a week, just until things settled down a bit around here. Good idea, I thought. So I planned on calling him today to schedule time on Monday.

Do you think, on some level, John knew?

THE OBAMA FACTOR

Well, the phenomenon that I call The Obama Factor has hit home in a big way!!!

A few days after the presidential election, I was visiting my dear friend who lives just up the street from me. As always, she and I had a wonderful visit - sharing, laughing, and sincerely enjoying each other's company.

On my way home, I walked past another neighbor's house, who happened to be sitting on her front porch. So, of course, I stopped to chat with her, too. Now, this elderly woman has been my neighbor for about 20 years and John and I are two of the very few people who have not had an entanglement of some sort with her - until now that is.

We began our visit friendly enough. I asked her how she was doing and told her how nice she looked that day. Then, to my surprise, she burst forth with the following statement: "Now that Barak Obama is president, it's about time you young people have to take care of old people like me".


I asked her what she meant and she explained that she voted for Obama because he's going to make sure that we young people take care of the old folks like her who don't have much money. You know, spread the wealth.

WOW!!!!! ZAP!!!!! ZOWIE!!!!!

I advised her that I already pay for those less fortunate with my taxes. She countered that she pays taxes, too (on her Social Security).

I advised her that, as a self-employed person, I pay both the employer and employee part of Social Security and Medicaid taxes. She countered that if I didn't like doing that, perhaps I chose the wrong profession.

I advised her that since John and I are not considered underpriviliged at all, our children didn't qualify for any financial aid for college and we had to pay for it ourselves (in the amount of about $200,000). She countered that she shouldn't have to and certainly WAS NOT going to pay for our kids.

ZING!!!!! POW!!!!! KABOOM!!!!!

Yet this woman, who thinks we owe her so much, has in the recent past had major upgrades installed in her old house thanks to "interest free, pay when you sell" loans from the city. She also takes advantage of the maintenance services our city offers to its Senior citizens. Now these services are provided in large part from the property taxes we all pay (including her), but again, we pay about 3 times the amount in property taxes that she does.

Now please don't get me wrong. We are not uncaring. We are not unconcerned for those less fortunate. We always try to be good Christians. We donate faithfully to our favorite charities, both financially and materially, and have done many, many things for this neighbor and others. So can you imagine how dumbfounded I was to realize that the help we've given this woman over the years was not so much appreciated as it was expected?!?

HOW DARE SHE? How dare she, or anyone else for that matter, think that we owe them something. We have worked hard for what we have. We've earned it. John has spent a long time and a lot of effort becoming an expert in his field so he can provide nicely for his family - not so he can provide for her! Besides, she has a son only a few years older than we are who should be taking care of her. We have our own elderly parents. We have our own obligations. If she resents us for having more than she does (if we even do have more), perhaps SHE chose the wrong profession years ago. HOW DARE SHE?

Sensing that she was real close to telling me she expected me to put a check in her mailbox every week, I left. As I did, I turned to her and said "just keep your hands out of my pockets".

Spread the wealth, indeed.

My neighbor's words were quite telling. I call this new-found sense of entitlement The Obama Factor.

SNORT!!!!! GAG!!!!! PUKE!!!!!

PLUMBING PROBLEMS

PLUMBING PROBLEMS. OMG!!! Where's Joe the Plumber when you need him?

A week or so ago as I was sitting on the couch, I happened to look up (silly me) and noticed a round, soup can size mark on the living room ceiling. I showed my husband and we decided we would examine it more closely the following week because we were getting ready to entertain out of town guests for a few days. I did notice that the location of the stain was under our son's bathtub and was pretty convinced it was a plumbing leak. Cleaning house and preparing food for the weekend took up a lot of my time and I soon forgot about it. Besides, it seemed small (HAHAHAHA).

Our visit with our friends was wonderful. We went to a local art museum, drank wine, and just enjoyed the company. After they left, I spent the next few days generally relaxing, and thinking (always) about what I wanted to get accomplished during the upcoming weekend. When the following Saturday rolled around, we cleaned the garage and did some stuff in the basement, which brings us to Sunday night at about 7:00.

We were tired.

I was in the living room watching TV and remembered the stain on the ceiling. I asked John if he'd like to poke at it with me to see what was up. He said okay and grabbed a compass (the kind you use for drawing circles and yes, we have those kinds of things laying around our house). He very gently poked at the stain on the ceiling with the long, pencil shaped end of the compass.

We didn't move any pictures below it. We didn't move the stereo below it. We didn't move the big screen TV, either. Why would we? The stain, as I said before, seemed small (HAHAHAHA).

The compass end went easily through the ceiling and out poured water. I repeat - out POURED water! I grabbed the first thing I could find (a votive candle holder) to catch what water I could while John hurriedly moved everything out of the way. Then he put the kitchen wastebasket under the hole and we went upstairs to track down the source of the water.

Well, the plumbing access to our son's bathtub is in the closet of my newly redecorated office and the closet is absolutely full. It's full of wrapping paper, tax documents, shelves of office supplies, etc. It's very organized, but it is FULL. So, of course, everything had to come out of the closet into the office. Then we had to cut the wall to make the plumbing access hole large enough to expose the leak. Naturally, we couldn't do this without taking out the lower shelf and removing the support brackets from the wall. What a pain.

John looked inside the hole. Then he looked at me. Then I looked inside the hole. Then I looked at John. Down we went to cut more holes in the living room ceiling to accomodate the draining of a whole lot of water!!! The ceiling was mush. Parts of it just fell down. Apparently, the leak had been there for awhile and a lot of people taking a lot of showers over the weekend left a lot of standing water just saturating the living room ceiling.

A friend of mine once told me "water always wins". To a degree, he is right. The water went where it was going to go and did what it was going to do, leaving a destructive path.

But this time, I'm going to win. You see, I was going to redecorate the living room at some point anyway. It'll just have to be sooner rather than later.

And besides, I found out what that round, soup can sized mark on my living room ceiling was and it's not there anymore! Yep - I win (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)!!!

Manners be Damned!

Not too long ago, I visited a website where there was a discussion about manners. It was generally agreed upon that we, as parents, have the HUGE responsibility of teaching our children about manners and making them thoroughly understand the implications of displaying manners (both good and bad) throughout their lives.

This, of course, got me to thinking about my own parenting on this subject - had I done my job; now that the kids are grown, are they practicing what they should have learned; are they reaping the benefits I promised them they would; you know, second guessing myself, as we moms will FOREVER be doing. The memories that came to me had me cringing (because, you know, kids will be kids) and chuckling (because, well, kids will be kids). This one memory stands out in my mind because it had me both cringing and chuckling at the same time. I hold onto it as validation that I somehow did okay in the manners department.

Not too long ago, my family asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner. I had some Chili's Restaurant gift cards that were going to start decreasing in value before too long, so I thought we could use them up. John, our daughter, her boyfriend and I went to the restaurant, and our son joined us on his way home from work. He came in wearing his ballcap, which he wore all day working outside.

Now call me old fashioned, but I just don't approve of men wearing hats indoors. I think it has something to do with being able to look someone in the eyes and easily identifying them or something. Whatever the reason, removing one's hat indoors is one of those good manners I hoped I had successfully taught my kids.

Anyway, I turned to my son and quietly asked him if he would remove his hat.

He said "Mom, you don't want me to take my hat off".

I responded, "yes, I really do".

Now, I'll interject a pertinent fact here. You see, my son has been blessed with a wonderfully thick head of hair. It's not kinky, curly or unruly, he just has a lot of it. And although he keeps it short, it can still be pretty massive.

So, off came the hat and you know what? He was right! Wearing the ballcap all day while he was working left an indentation in his hair.

It made his head look like an HOURGLASS!!!!!

Trying to contain my laughter, I whispered, "you can put your hat back on".

Manners be damned, I just couldn't let my son sit in a crowded restaurant with a head shaped like an hourglass, even thought he seemed quite content to do so.

Now, I realized several things about my son that evening. One of them was that he is a very confident young man - willing to be seen in public looking ridiculous. And I got a pretty warm feeling knowing that he was willing to do that just for me. How cool is that?

Fortunate? Yeah, I'd say so.

TAKE MY MONEY - PLEASE!

I spent several hours over the weekend walking. I did not walk along the usual serene, tree-lined streets of my small town neighborhood and my thoughts were not of the pastoral nature I experience during those neighborhood walks.

Instead, I spent several hours walking through one of our local casinos, stopping quite frequently to make what I kept hoping would be a lucrative investment. You see, my mother always told me to listen carefully and play the slot machines that call your name.

Well, as you can guess, every single machine seemed to call my name!

After spending a significant amount of money on these “talking machines”, my thoughts were brief and decidedly NOT pleasant, but I’ll share an important one of them with you anyway: I can’t believe I actually spent good, hard earned money to be an idiot!!!

HELLO - MY NAME IS MUD

Okay. I don't even know where to begin with this one! I owe my husband, John, - THE most perfect man in the world - a very deep, sincere, heartfelt, SERIOUS apology. So he gets the idea of just how truly sorry I am and how bad I feel, I'm going to try to do it justice in this very public forum so the whole world has the opportunity to see what an ass I was.

You may know from my previous post that I am in real estate to varying degrees. One aspect of my line of work, and my favorite part, actually, involves demolishing houses to free up buildable land. If the sellers leave a bunch of stuff in a house I buy, I hold a garage sale to make a few extra bucks. After the sale, I call Habitat for Humanity to come in and take what they want (building material, fixtures, windows, etc.) to sell in their ReStores to raise money for their projects.

A few years ago, I purchased such a house. This time, John and I took a few of our own items to sell in the garage sale. One of those things was, at my husband's insistence, a box of shelving brackets - black ones, black with woodgrain ones, off-white with oak trim ones. For some reason, we didn't take any of the rods they go into or any of the shelves that go on them. Just the brackets!

Fast forward two years to the events leading up to last night.

I spent the last few weeks redecorating our home office. I painted the walls a pleasant lightish green to provide a nice contrast to the black blinds, black pottery switch coverplates and, of course, black shelves that belong to those black shelving brackets we tried to sell in the garage sale! The room was almost done. John put the blinds back up, he put the new light fixture up and not only did he hang the rods for the shelving, but he carried the shelves up from the basement, too. All we needed were the brackets - the BRACKETS!!!

John looked for them in the basement. I looked for them in the basement. I insisted they were in a pink shoebox. I knew they didn't sell in the garage sale. I also really didn't believe that I would have left them there, knowing they had matching parts. But they were nowhere - NOWHERE.

Well, John went to work the next day and I went shopping for new brackets. I went to our local hardware store, where in the past 20 years I have always, without fail, gotten what I needed. Until now, that is. They had single-slotted brackets, like I needed, but only in white, brushed brass and brushed chrome. The only black brackets they had worked in double slotted rods. Option one: I could buy all new double slotted rods and the matching black brackets; Option two: I could buy the brushed finished brackets and spray them black (this wouldn't work - I needed 12 and they only had 10); Option three: I could keep looking.

So on to Aco. They only had white and a rather industrial looking chrome. Yuck, No Thanks. On to Home Depot. And on to Lowes. And on to...................Apparantly they don't even make our brackets anymore ANYWHERE!

By this time, I was pretty frustrated. I checked the basement once more and decided, rather angrily, that we are going to spend the winter clearing out and organizing the basement because even if the brackets were down there, we wouldn't be able to find them anyway.

Just about then, John came home from work and made the mistake of asking me how my day went. I told him how I struck out at the hardware stores. I told him that I KNEW he made me leave those brackets at the house to be demolished. I told him that I couldn't believe all the things HE'S allowed to keep in the basement yet he MADE ME get rid of those brackets. I went on and on and on, well you get the very ugly picture.

Now, John is a very patient, introspective man. So he listened to me rant, and rant I did. Then he went to the basement and looked through every box, checked every miscellaneous hardware pile and literally searched every square inch looking for those brackets.

Well, guess what he found? Yep - the brackets. ALL OF THEM.

I was so excited.

Then I felt so bad. I had said some horrible things. I was so totally wrong. I will be going to hell over this, I just know it.

We started discussing how I could make it up to him. His ideas were simple, primal really, and I was humbled. I asked him if he could ever forgive me for being so mean to him. Of course he said yes, because he is, as I've said before, just a saint, but he wasn't opposed to me continuing to try to make it up to him. I honeyed up to him like I haven't in a long time.


-----Insert the hottest part of your favorite romance novel here-----


Afterwards, as we were lying there in the dark, I said, sheepishly:

"I'll be feeling bad about this til the day I die. Do you forgive me?"

John: "Yes I forgive you. I already told you I did."

Then he grinned and said: "Would you like to yell at me again tomorrow?"

Fortunate doesn't even begin to explain my life.

BEEP BEEP - "NICE ASS"

Sometimes I enjoy lying in bed in the morning and just thinking - about things I have to do that day, how I'm feeling, things that make me chuckle or otherwise feel good. If I find myself thinking negative thoughts, I can usually change that line of thinking if I doze off again for a few minutes. (That somehow changes the energy or something).

One morning not so long ago, I began thinking about the very productive and profitable run I had as a licensed Residential Builder. As a woman, it was quite a challenge to break into the man's world of home building. You see, I'm a petite woman, and therefore limited in physical abilities compared to my male counterparts. For this reason, and others I'm sure, I was sometimes an easy mark for the brawny, macho guys I often encountered (I could tell you LOTS of stories). But after finding some really nice and quite helpful people to show me the ropes, I spent the past 7 years building (and selling) enough houses to pay for college at Big Ten Universities for our two children.

Anyway, on this one particular morning, my thoughts went to the day I was doing a final walk-through on a house I was set to close on the next day. As I was inspecting the property, I noticed that the bulb in the front porch light was burned out. I went to my car and got a spare bulb, but all I had to stand on was a small 1 gallon bucket of drywall mud (about the size of a paint can maybe).

Now the house was on a very busy main road and a lot of people saw me teetering on the small bucket, reaching up as far as I could to change the light bulb. As I was struggling, two guys in a pick-up truck drove by and I heard BEEP BEEP "NICE ASS"!

As a mature woman, my first thoughts were "Oh Grow Up!!!".

Then I thought: 50 + years old - nice ass - YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

After that, I hopped off of the mud bucket and finished my walk-through with a smile on my face and a more confident bounce in my step.

Boy, when you reach a certain age, it doesn't take much, does it?

MICRO CENTER - Customer Service Alive and Well!

When I decided to start blogging about my life experiences as a wife, mom, etc., etc., I made assurances to myself that I would not become a whore with regard to products, facilities, services and the like. So not too long ago, when I wrote about my less than desirable experience shopping at all of our local computer stores, I had no expectations, no ulterior motives; like Sgt. Friday would say, "Just the facts".

Well, interestingly enough, of all the stores I visited that day, and thus mentioned in my writings, Micro Center contacted me to offer their help in my dilemma of "the software I couldn't use". Now let me emphasize - THEY CONTACTED ME. I WASN'T UPSET WITH THEM. I DIDN'T COMPLAIN TO THEM. THEY SEARCHED FOR ME. THEY FOUND ME !!!!!

After only a few e-mails, Albert, from Customer Relations, figured out what equipment I needed to run the software I purchased and made sure I received it. No muss, no fuss. Just good old-fashioned customer service. It's hard to remember the last time I received good old-fashioned customer service.

Of the millions of people out there, I WAS IMPORTANT!!!!! That's how Albert made me feel - like all that mattered to Micro Center, and him, was that I receive the product compatible with my needs. So again I have to ask, how fortunate am I? And at the risk of sounding like a product whore, how fortunate all of you out there could be by shopping at Micro Center. Instead of being the ultimate computer store, its motto should be "ultimate computing - ultimate customer service".

Thanks again Albert. Thanks again Micro Center.

23 Year Old FUNGUS

While having lunch with my husband recently at our local diner, I overheard a waitress ask a customer at the counter how his son was doing. He answered her, saying "He's 23 and living in my basement - like a FUNGUS". Now, I normally don't eavesdrop, but this reply was just too funny! You see, we, too, have a 23 year old son living in our home.

Before you pass judgement, let it be very well known that he lives at home for all the right reasons. You see, he is a full time college student and works part time as a research assistant at the University. He is a member of the National Honor's Society and was just offered a full scholarship to graduate school, which probably means he'll be here for at least a few more years (presumably to save money). While we don't consider him a FUNGUS, I am reasonably certain that if I dug deep enough in his bedroom, I'd probably find something resembling it.

About his bedroom: One day, he decided that his DESK was just too small for his desktop, laptop, school books, etc., and drew up plans to build himself something more substantial. After a trip to the HOME DEPOT, he came home with some pretty raw lumber - 2 x 4's, particle board, 2" deck screws. After a few hours of power tool operation, he built the sort of DESK that, shall we say, only a mother could love. This thing was large (it had to be assembled in the room and will have to be disassembled to remove it), well-built and quite adequate for his needs. I was impressed!

Our son has always been extremely creative, so when he realized we just weren't going to let him increase his living space by opening up the wall between his bedroom and the one next to it, he decided that he needed to design and build a BED that he could fold up against the wall when he wasn't using it. After much thought, he drew up plans for such a BED.

Another trip to HOME DEPOT brought us a load of rough lumber consisting of 2 x 4's and 2 x 12's! More power tool noises, grunting, swearing, well you get the picture. Finally, after watching him screw the frame of this BED to the floor (yikes!), I have to admit that I was yet again impressed, especially after seeing him fold the whole thing up against the wall, freeing up half the floor space in his room. Well-built. Functional. Just as he had designed it to be.

Okay, that's it, I thought.

Well, silly me. He decided that his DRESSER was taking up too much space and impeding his view of his TV. So, you guessed it, he raised the rod in his closet and built several tiers of U-shaped SHELVES below it, eliminating the need for a DRESSER. Nevermind the fact that I can no longer reach the closet rod to hang anything up for him. But that's okay, because these SHELVES, like the furniture he made before them, suit his needs, are extremely well-built and will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

So now our basement has become a giant receptacle for all of his discarded furniture. But I'm really okay with this because, as a mother, I know that when he starts his career and moves out on his own, I will miss these surprises, these OMG moments that cause me to shake my head in wonder, awe and surrender all at the same time.

As I said before, our son is 23 and lives at home, but for all the right reasons. Besides, if we ever have to take cover during a national DISASTER or anything, I'll know just where to go!!!

Fortunate Yet Again

My husband John is a wonderful orator, and that is an understatement. So I thought it would be a great idea for him to record his lectures, recitations and general rantings and put them on a blog. The plan on this day was to buy him a digital recording device so all he had to do was talk and I would later transcribe his words into text. I called him at work to tell him my idea. He was okay with it as long as the device was small and easy to use. As I said, I thought it would be a great idea!!!


My quest for a voice recorder began at Radio Shack. Now, I remember a time when Radio Shack was the ABSOLUTE BEST place to go for all your gadgets and gizmos. Hell, you could even get leather stuff there (you know, hippie stuff). Apparently times have changed. I was greeted by a rather large, look-down-his-nose-at-me sort of guy whose help consisted of unlocking the rack so I could read the packages.

Next stop - Best Buy. The young man there was a little more helpful, but he was talking to someone else on the other end of his communication device at the same time I was trying to ask him questions. When I inquired about transcription software, he pointed to an aisle and was on his way - seemed he couldn't get away fast enough.

Off to Circuit City. This was an interesting visit. I was greeted by a very personable and helpful young lady and she accurately guided me to the voice recorders. I found one I liked and when I went to search for a microphone/earphone set, I couldn't find any. I got significant ATTITUDE when I tried to ask the girl behind the Verizon counter about the accessories so I quickly bought the voice recorder (it cost less here than the other places I had been) and was off to Micro Center.

Well, what an experience! Now, please keep in mind that I never, EVER pretend to know anything about technology when I go shopping for the stuff, and I make it perfectly clear that I have to trust the salesperson to give me what I need. So here, at Micro Center, the nice man explains the virtues of a specific microphone/earphone set and I'm happy. He slaps his little "satisfaction" sticker on the product and sends me on my way. On the way, however, I decide to stop and price speech recognition software, which I learned would eliminate a whole step in the process of publishing my husband's recordings. How cool is that!!!

A different young man spent a lot of time explaining the different software options and we determined that I could buy a highly rated package for $200 ($250 and a $50 rebate) that had everything - recorder, headset, software, EVERYTHING. The recorder didn't have quite the features as the one I already bought, but hey, I was going to save a lot of money. I was so excited.

As I checked out, I received a rebate receipt and went to the kiosk to get my rebate form. Funny, but the SKU didn't register a rebate. Upon further inspection, I found that the rebate was only for those purchasing the package as an upgrade. Thinking, okay, now I'm really ready to go home, I work things out with the manager, I'm happy, and now on my way back to Circuit City to return the recorder I bought there. As I said before - I was so excited.

When my husband got home from work, I showed him his present. He was excited until he tried to install the software on our computer. You see, we don't have a DVD player on our computer, so we couldn't install the program. Now I ask you, why did that nice young man sell me something I couldn't use?

We spent a lot of time researching new computers, which would really solve this problem. Realizing that in the course of solving one problem, purchasing a new computer would most definitely create others, we searched (unseccessfully) for a DVD thing to buy for our computer.

At this point, my dear saint-of-a-husband asked me how I went from wanting to buy him a simple voice recording device to buying software (which again, is something I know nothing about)? It all made perfect sense while it was happening, but now, I had no answer - all I had was a $200 not-so-great recording device. I was a beaten woman.

Then I said, with my head hung low, "What a waste."

John: "What do you mean? I now have a digital voice recorder."

Me: "But I was so excited!"

John: "Then it was worth the money, wasn't it?"

How fortunate am I?

Lipstick on a Pig???

Now, I grew up in a pretty small, rural midwest town and have heard my share of, shall we say, ODD sayings. Things went "caddywampus", we lived "caddycorner" from the store, you could get so mad you'd "spit nickles", you "can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear", and it even rained "pitchforks and hammer handles" at times. Of all the phrases, sayings and generally funny words that I've heard in my many years of life in the midwest (from where Barak Obama hails) and elsewhere, I can honestly say that I've NEVER, EVER heard ANYTHING about putting lipstick on a pig.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not insulted by what Obama said. Apparantly he's just not a very sensitive or even considerate person. I am, however, EXTREMELY insulted that he thinks I'm so stupid as to believe him when he says his comments were directed toward John McCain - er toward John McCain's campaign - er wait ----- (stay tuned for the next excuse).

Mr. Obama, we are not so stupid that we believe everything you say. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. An apology is in order!!!!!

Just the Beginning

Hello everyone! I have been blissfully married to the most perfect man in the world for going on 26 years now, and I am, as my blog title shows, a very Fortunate Woman. Life hasn't always been easy, but sharing ALL the times (both good and bad) with someone you truly love makes it worthwhile enough to feel that you'd do it all over again, even knowing then what you know now.

My husband and I got married only 2 months from the day of our first date. Since our families were skeptical and not very happy (especially his) about our impulsivity, we were pretty much on our own. We moved around the country alot with my husband's job and decided to start a family.

As all good parents, we did the usual scouts/PTA/sports/cultural arts routine and successfully raised a beautiful, talented, smart, witty, college educated, now professional, young woman and a handsome, talented, smart, witty, college educated, soon to be professional, young man.

Now that the children are grown (for the most part), and I actually have some time on my hands, I find myself feeling very fortunate for many of the things I previously, in my haste to move forward in life, took for granted. Even when really frustrating, irritating or challenging situations occur in my life, and they do all the time, I have to sit back and feel grateful that not only do I have the ability, stability, and general true grit to face life head on, but I have a wonderful husband to share everything with - a man whose main purpose in life seems to be to make me happy. (what a saint he is).

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I found out about you, people of the world, and how I can share these life-events with you, too.

Here's to life and all it has to offer!!!