Happy Birthday to my Baby 2-yr old!!

She was so happy to have a party and Minnie Mouse ears!! She wore them at least 2 hours straight! I figured between 5 Christmases, why not cram in Ellie's New Year's Eve birthday party too! Followed by the 5th of 5 Christmases. Too parties at my house on the same day? SURE! Tacos for one, chili for the other. Tacos were a hit. I highly recommend it for birthday party fare. Along with Alton Brown of The Food Network's guacamole recipe - YUM!

Happy Birthday, my baby dolly - you're the happiest, cutest girl I know!

The 4-year old mind

The 4-year old mind really cracks me up sometimes. Over the weekend, we had Grandma come over and watch the kids so we could go out to dinner. Now, we haven't been out much without the kids for quite a while, so Matthew was sad we were leaving. Or so we thought.
We had hashed out the details, why parents need to go on dates, why kids can't ALWAYS come, etc. I thought it was a resolved issue.

After we left, apparently Matthew was grilling Grandma about where we went, why we went, and why kids couldn't go, and Grandma explained that's why it's called a date. Then she asked "are you disappointed you didn't get to go too?," and Matthew says "no, I'm disappointed I didn't get a donut." The background? We had gone to the apple orchard and bought donuts which were sitting out on the counter. Matthew had been eating dinner and decided he was too full to finish. So I struck a deal to get him to eat half his spaghetti, which he did, and proceeded to ask for a donut. This was right before we were going to leave for our date, and I turned into total Mom and said "if you're too full to finish your spaghetti you don't get a donut."

I can't believe we thought he was sad we were leaving him, and it turns out that he's just sad he didn't get a donut. And that's the way of the 4-year old. He sure gave the adults the giggles!

Inside a giant corn maze at the apple orchard

Let's take a journey

Has anyone else noticed a resurgence of Journey lately? Or is that just me? Is there something I'm missing which would indicate a reason for the resurgence? Don't get me wrong. I love, love, LOVE Journey. Somebody help me out on this!!!

Express Lane

Am I supposed to be excited that I now have the opportunity to use the newly opened express lane, in which I can pay a ridiculous amount of money to drive to work in a lane that, if it was a normal lane, would make traffic flow normally? Am I the only one seeing a flaw here? And what do I make of the fluctuating rate, which seems to depend on traffic? If traffic is worse, I can spend double. Yippee. Then, if someone screws up or thinks they can beat the system, the cops are hiding out nearby to nab them. So not only is there this express lane with no one in it while the rest of us putter through in the other TWO lanes, but now there are cops to pull offenders over, causing even more traffic for the rest of us in our measily TWO lanes. What sense does an express lane make if there are only three lanes?

I'm feeling I needed to rant about this. I'm feeling we've all been wronged since Jesse "the Gov" Ventura brought us our multi-billion dollar light rail system that is useful to 2% of the metro area. (I hope I'm exaggerating).

So for now, I'll be the one enjoying watching the handful of people that have been suckered into paying for their commute fly by me at irregular intervals, from my traffic infested TWO lanes.

To all I say, have a good Friday. Don't be put off. I'm really not this negative, only towards governmental agendas like punishing me for driving my car.

Back to the drawing board

No more quandary. However, we're back to the drawing board on the job front. The hubs decided AGAINST the job, after receiving an icky phone call from the owner saying the actual salary would probably be even lower than she had previously said, and an even-though-I-asked-you-when-you'd-make-your-decision-the-job-isn't-neccessarily-yours puzzler. What? How do you offer someone a job and a salary, and then renege on both? Sounds like a classic case of them not knowing what it is they want in the position they're hiring for. Or trying to put too much into one position and not being willing to pay for it.

In other words, that salary is SO 3 jobs ago. Unacceptable. I'll admit, I'm in some agony over this one, but I believe the hubs made the right decision.

Since we've been close twice now, does that mean the 3rd time's a charm? Let's hope and pray so. And let's hope and pray for no gap in employment. Gulp. Go baby go!!

A job for less

Quandary. There's a word.

Let's say a guy is 1 month from unemployment. Let's say he's married to me and has 2 kids. Let's say he has been offered a job, which includes a substantial pay cut, but includes the cost of obtaining certain I.T. certifications that would be helpful to the career. What does the guy decide to do? This is a TOUGH decision. Oh, it's also much closer to home, decent hours, and he would have accepted it on the spot had they offered a better price tag.

I'm accepting input, pearly words of wisdom, and the like.

Bad luck list

It seems in my so-far 30 year existence, or maybe just since living on my own, that there are certain areas in which a family or person will have bad luck. I'm not talking life-or-death issues here, either. Just the stupid, normal day-to-day kind of thing. You could go 12,472 days without ever spilling your coffee, for instance, or you could drench yourself in it every 1 in 4 days. Maybe spilling coffee is just your thing. I have a couple coworkers coming to mind. Or maybe you can make it through life without ever losing a muffler, but can't seem to keep your alternator belt intact.
This particular bad luck list I'm about to create today, is inspired by my lunch-break trip to a certain toy selling superstore I HATE with a passion - not to name names, but Toys R Us, where are your manners? I swear that place is personally designed to torture me.
Making an appearance in my personal/familial areas of bad luck:

• Toys R Us - will you ever come right out and say what you mean? Always at it with the fine print, I tells ya
• Squirrels - why do you enjoy my homes so much?
• Drive-thru - inherited through marriage, can I count how many times they screw up my orders? It's a rare occurrence that what we order is actually what we're given
• Neighbors, oh neighbors - will you always be 4-wheel driving, loud, messy yarded, dangerous dog breed owning smoking fiends?
• AJ, my dear cat, why do you feel the need for pleasure? I think you're broken. Your neutering has gone awry somewhere along the lines... Ew, you're gross.

See what I mean? Not life-or-death by any means. Nothing a few verbal lashings and cats thrown across rooms can't handle. Do you have a history of bad luck with any particular things? I always think it's funny to discover what people have historical bad luck with. Humor me.