Flaming hot!!

Well, I finally did it. I set the microwave on fire. On the way home from work yesterday, I got a craving for some popcorn. I looked around in the pantry when I got home and found an unopened box of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was just a tad old. The box said "Best by Nov 2010." I did some quick math and decided that 6 or 7 months overdue can't be that bad. It was not like it said "You must use by Nov 2010 or else or risk severe illness." It looked OK and did not smell funny or anything so I threw it in the microwave, set the timer for 2 minutes, and walked out onto the back patio to move the sprinkler in the yard. The next thing I knew, black smoke was coming out the back door and the bag of popcorn was flaming!!! The smell was horrible!!! Boy does burnt popcorn stink! I actually used to work with somebody who burnt her popcorn on purpose because she liked the taste. Nasty!!! We all hated her for it because the stink always clung to your hair and skin the minute she took the bag out of the oven. You could be on the other side of the building and you could still get the stink on you. She finally got summoned in by Human Resources and they had a nice long talk with her that finally put an end to it. Back to the flaming microwave..... the entire inside was scorched and it smelled so bad it took my breath away. I threw it out the back door and turned on the exhaust fan. The microwave was in one of the pantries so the smell is super concentrated in there and got onto all of our dish towels and left a scorched coating on all of the shelves and canned goods. If I have to repaint the walls in there, I am going to be super pissed. Fuck! I had to go to Sears today and buy a new microwave. $165 down the drain.

Cold and bored.....

Well, I am am not really bored, I am just cold. Us Texans are real wimps when it comes to weather. Turn down the temperature and everybody freaks out and heads to the store to buy all the necessities and hunker down. You risk life and limb to buy a gallon of milk. Elsewhere it is 5 degrees with 6 foot snow drifts and life goes on. Here in Houston it is 33 degrees with a possibility (a slight possibility mind you) for snow and ice and the whole city shuts down and declares that everybody should go home early on Thursday and that Friday is a holiday. WTH???? These people are crazy!!!!!! Oh well! It has been awhile since I have posted and I am sure you all have missed me (insert sarcasm key here.) I have just been busy doing random stuff and for some reason, the few times that I have had a moment to sit down and type something, my laptop has decided it does not like google or blogger and will not sign me on. It just freezes up and I have not been super motivated to find out the cause.

Random updates-
1. I have not had any sodas or sugary snacks for one month now and let me tell you it has been hell. Not just hell, but HELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! I kept a food diary for two weeks to check out my eating habits and I was shocked at how much sugary crap I consumed. I eat healthy meals overall but I was sneaking in a lot of pure sugary junk on the side. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am a sugaraholic and the first step to recovery is admitting it. The two hardest things to give up have been my weekly Choco-Nilla cupcake from the OohLaLa bakery and Pepsi. I am addicted to both. I mean, come on..... who admits to liking Pepsi? Apparently I do, especially with little crunchy ice like the kind you get at Sonic. Ahhhhh! Heaven!!!! I am not giving up my favorites for good though. I am going to try and limit my little sugar celebrations to once a month. One cupcake and one Pepsi are in my future.
2. I have a good friend at work that celebrated his 85th birthday today. 85!!!!! Happy Birthday Phil!!!!! He still works about 20 hours a week and does a lot of volunteer work on the side. He tells everyone that the key to his long life is keeping active, both physically and mentally. I think I will take his advice.

Got to go. I have a date with some friends and some Mexican food. Hopefully they will be wrong about the snow and ice and I can enjoy my "snow" day tomorrow.

1/1/2011

It feels a little weird writing 2011. 2010 was hard enough to remember to write correctly. I think I was writing 2009 until at least February. Maybe my brain will be a little more sharper and less cluttered this year. On with the resolutions!

1. Put more time into working on my ancestry.com family tree. -- This is something that I really got into in 2010. There is so much work to do because a lot of the research needs to be done in person at libraries, cemeteries, and courthouses. I need to go to Nebraska and Iowa to get a lot of the detail work done. I have met so many people online that have helped me with my research. One particular man from Brooklyn was especially helpful. He filled in a lot of gaps in my family tree pertaining to my paternal great grandfather and opened up so many surprising details about my family that I never knew of.

2. Be less wasteful and more mindful of where my money goes -- I don't know how much gas is going for where you live but it is right at about $3.30 per gallon for diesel here in Houston. This is about a 40 cent per gallon increase just in the last 4 months alone. Isn't it funny how when gas shot up this much several years ago, the media was all over it. HMMMM........ Prices for many things are about to go sky high. If you keep track of forecasting, you may already know about the cotton crisis that is about to hit. Prices for many things are about to skyrocket. I think we all need to be prepared. Anyways, as part of this resolution, I am going to try and eliminate any debts, save more, and eat out less often. The eating out part will be the hardest for me. I know for a fact that it is not the food that draws me out to restaurants. I am a great cook and can make my own food that tastes fantastic and is a lot less expensive. I like to go out for pure social reasons. I like to mingle, people watch, and hang out with friends. It will be hard.

3. Live life to the fullest-- I am shocked at how fast 2010 went by and I feel like I accomplished nothing outstanding. It is time to take a closer look at my "Bucket List" and get a few more things crossed off.

I hope everybody has a fantastic and blessed 2011!!!!!!!!

Twas the night before the night before Christmas.....

The week in review....

1. On my first day of vacation, I forgot to turn off my alarm and I was cheerfully greeted by blaring Christmas music at 5am. Christmas music at 5 am sucks, especially when I have been meaning to change the station for the last 3 and a half weeks but have just been too lazy. See what procrastinating does for you?
2. I have been on a total crap eating extravaganza which I foresee continuing on through at least Sunday. Truffles? Check! Banana bread? Check! Chik-fil-a? Check! Chinese food? Check! And that was just today!!!! Tis the season you know.....
3. I did not put the tree up until Sunday. I almost did not put it up at all because I have just been so busy but guilt got to me and I did. I did not get around to putting down the Christmas tree skirt or wrapping any presents, again due to being too busy, but apparently there was a reason. On Tuesday morning, I walked into the living room to find water gushing out of the hot water closet and onto the living room floor. Guess what is right next to the water gushing closet? Ding ding ding! If you guessed the Christmas tree you get 5 points!!! Thank God there were no presents under it. How badly would that have sucked?!? Home Depot got a sizable chunk of change from us that day for a new water heater.
4. I actually went into Katy Mills Mall today and survived, The new Victoria's Secret there is pretty nice by the way. I am officially done shopping except for a few stocking stuffers. Yea!!!
5. For some some strange reason, I can't get the Mickey Mouse Club theme song out of my head. It is driving me crazy!!!!!! Join the madness!!!
That about sums it all up. I am ready for Christmas but I am also looking forward to actually relaxing next week before I have to go back to work.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Crown molding was invented by the devil.

The guest bedroom is nearly completed. I have been working on it for over a year. I know, I know..... how the hell has it taken a whole year to remodel one measly room? Life has just gotten in the way. You get home from work and are just too tired, your friends/family want you to do something with them, you lose interest..... blah, blah, blah. About a month ago I forced myself to get back on track and it was time to focus, focus, focus!! A big part of the problem is that I am a perfectionist and a daydreamer so I will strive to get something 100% correct and then I will have to stop and admire my work for half and hour. Believe me, you don't get much done that way.
Now, all that is left is the crown molding and the floor. The floor will be left to the professionals but the crown molding we will do ourselves. If you have never installed crown molding, lets just compare it to solving a difficult math problem that involves power tools and carrying a long piece of wood up and down the stairs and then climbing a ladder over and over until you get the correct fit. Have I mentioned how much I suck at math? I am exhausted. The room is only half way finished and I know I went up and down those stairs 30 times. It is looking good though and is worth the effort. Hopefully I can have it pretty much finished by tomorrow. I think I will go take a nice long hot shower now.

Ponder.....

1. Why does Taylor Swift annoy the hell out of me?
2. Why did I just eat an entire jumbo cinnamon roll?
3. Why do I have so many bottles of nail polish and why do I keep buying more?
4. Why can't I find a tube of clump free smudge free mascara that can actually stay put in Houston's 99.9% humidity?
5. Why do I punish myself by continually looking at 6pm.com when I know I am on a self imposed shoe suspension?
6. Why do I bother looking at news websites? Since when is the winner of Dancing With The Stars important news????
7. Why is it so fucking hot and humid on the day before Thanksgiving? I am just not feeling the holiday spirit. The last thing I want to hear about is how one of my friends just finished putting up all 6 fully decorated Christmas trees in her house. I will be lucky to put up one.
8. Why am I so bitter?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Tivo lives on

I have always joked with family and friends about my love affair with Tivo. Seriously. I never watch live television anymore. To be honest, I don't watch that much television at all. But I do have my little "to do" list of shows that I watch religiously (commercial free of course!!) I have tried other DVRs at friends and families houses but they all annoy me. Tivo is my friend. I can operate the remote one handed and in the dark with my hand behind my back. My remote is so old that all of the writing on the keys is gone. If you don't know what the keys do...then you are just SOL. When I found out that Directv was bringing back Tivo I was ecstatic. Their current DVR system sucks big time and I refuse to purchase one. I know my ancient Tivo box has a limited life span and I have been worried about replacing it ever since it started rebooting on its own every couple of days about a month ago. Well, last night it seized up big time and for the first time ever I got the green screen of death that said "Severe Error." WTF? Severe error? That did not sound good! There was a message on the screen that said not to reboot or unplug the unit and to just leave the box on for at least 3 hours to see if the system could "repair" itself. They also included a 1-800 number to call if it did not come back to life. Of course, being my father's daughter, I did unplug and reboot the system about 4 times before I gave up and decided I was screwed. I am not ashamed to admit that I was freaking out just a little. What about America's Next Top Model? Pawn Stars? Kendra? Top Chef Just Desserts? Breathe in- Breathe out. Serenity now. I then proceeded to stay up until 1 in the morning on the computer trying to figure out what my options were. I learned that they are many, many, forums devoted to the worship of TIVO and that these people are hardcore. I basically had 4 options. First- Go without TV until next year when the new Directv Tivo launches. Not an option. Second- Buy a used system off of ebay and take my chances that it will even work. Third- Attempt to replace the hard drive in the unit with a newer shinier version. Fourth- Fork out close to $400 bucks for a reconditioned unit with a warranty from a reputable seller. All of these choices sucked. I wanted my old Tivo back!!!!!! All of my recorded shows that I had never watched were lost. I still had not gotten around to watching the first 6 episodes of Housewives of Beverly Hills. And what about Vanilla Ice? I wanted to see which room he was going to work on next. And my collection of The Antonio Project? I had been saving those for a cold rainy day. I went to bed in a daze and had horrible Tivo induced nightmares. The worst one was where I was in an operating room trying to perform a "hard drive" replacement. When I woke up in the morning I felt a little groggy and depressed. Right before I left for work I turned on the TV to write down the 1-800 just so that I could call them and verify my options before I made any rash decisions. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The green screen of death was gone and there was an infomercial on for the Abomatic or something stupid like that. I actually screamed with joy over the amazing sight of my Tivo having healed itself. It was a miracle! If only it can just keep on going until next Spring, all will be good. I am a true nerd.