Heeey Geeky laaa-day!

So for the last few months my inner geek has been going crazy loving all this stuff that I had forgotten that I really enjoyed. I have added some new links in my reading list as it is often where you can assume I'm occupying my straying mind when it's not working. The hubster has been trying to get me into Doctor Who the past oh... 10+ years and I've resisted, until this season, and the consensus is that I really like it. I did watch  some of the previous doctor also and thought, well this is weird.. but it grew on me and is just pretty damn cool.

I have been more active on Twitter, which I have found to be quite enjoyable! There is a button on the right side of your screen if you want to follow me. I follow a bunch of celebrities, and famous geeky people. Mostly I retweet awesome things hey share but sometimes I come up with my own things.


I have been wasting time watching YouTube, specially on channels such as Geek and Sundry and The Nerdist. There is some seriously funny shit there, people. Felicia Day (@feliciaday), Wil Wheaton (@wilw), and Chris Hardwick (@nerdist). Need I say more? The Guild, TableTop, All-Star Celebrity Bowling are just some of these guys current work, and some of my favorite ways to waste spend time. They do a TON of other stuff too, but I only wanted to share a few things.

(subscribe to Geek and Sundry here)

Make everything cute OR creepy!

My favorite shopping website to browse is Think Geek and recently I have discovered Archie McPhee where you too, can purchase your very own VandalEyes starter kit. Where if you need some ideas go to VandalEyes.net. This is an activity made famous by Anne Wheaton, (Wil's wife) and I am thinking I may need to start participating, but it's hard to find stick on eyes and then this happened.... so.. it might happen..

I've been really into techy news lately and thought the other day my next job could be some company's social media maven.. These positions do exist- I just need to find one

so much awesome in one day is awesome

So first THIS happened:




do you see ME?! I'm there, and I get to talk with one of my favorite authors and it was AWESOME!

And then while that was happening, I had a tweet get retweeteed on Twitter by Jenny Lawson... which is just awesome. Because she is also famous.. maybe not to most, but she is to me.. and I am just all excited now!

 

It's your birthday?! here! have a broken arm!

Friday... could've been better. Liam and I raced off to North Adams (a 1.5 hr drive) to rescue some friends whose car died 2 days prior (as in the water pump exploded and bore a 1/2 inch whole in the engine where it is) because it was the closest hospital that accepted their insurance to pull out my friend's husbands' teeth- got them all taken out. poor guy :(

so I'm on my way, and I get a call from my friend where Evan was supposed to be sepnding the night because it was Evan's friends birthday party. He hurt his arm. CRAP. And he is screaming bloody murder. The boys were playing and Ev tripped and fell and landed poorly on his arm. awesome. We didn't know it was broken at this point. I tell her Jason is on his way home from the eye doctor which was running late, and he will be there in a few minutes. Evan insists that Jason take him straight to the ER.. I get a call some time later on my ride home with my rides that he broke his arm. *sigh* 

Here are pictures from the last few days. The first one is from Weds, I think, after he got his first birthday present, in the mail, from his Gram. Right now it's happily residing among the clutter on the coffee table. Then we have a couple from the ER while the X-Ray technician was trying to get an xray.   oh! and a picture of initial plaster cast.And we have a couple from the party on Sunday when Evan was still in a good mood. and the final in the series was taken today, just a little bit ago. I finally got him to put a shirt on normally AND he is now able to handle the XBOX controller on his own!! yay!

Santa talk...

As posted by my husband at http://altonfreth.wordpress.com/

So my wife and I decided it was time to have the Santa talk with the nine year old because he had been hinting that he doesn’t believe anymore. So on our way to Staples I decides was time. Here is how the conversation went.

Dad: so what do you think about Santa?
Boy: He’s real.
Dad: Even though your friends told you he isn’t?
Boy: yup
Dad: what if I told you he isn’t?
Boy:  I would still believe.
Dad: why?
Boy: because my presents always say from Santa.
Dad: what if I told you that mom and dad just write that?
Boy: well, the presents are still wrapped in Santa’s special wrapping paper. It has his picture on it.
Dad: what if I told you mom and dad buy that too?
Boy:  Well there is still the video on the computer.
Dad: what if I said that was mom and dad too.
Boy: I would still believe.
We enter staples and he sits down.
Dad: So let me get this straight. I am telling you there is no Santa, but you will still get presents and you are saying that you don’t care what I say, you still believe?
Boy: yup
Dad: and your not upset?
Boy: nope.

We then discussed what Santa means and why parents pretend he is real and he is now playing with friends like we just talked about his homework. I was expecting tears or the "no crap, dad I knew that a long time ago. "This was one of the strangest conversations I have ever had with my son. I was afraid to upset him but I guess there was no need to worry

Timey Wimey & Robots

Here we are at the Downtown Trick or Treat last night. We had a pretty good time! Can you guess the costumes? My attempt is quite poor, but if you get Evan, you can use the power of deduction to figure out my costume. The people that got Evan's were very pleased, but he did have to explain it a few times. Every seemed to love Liam's outfit (yay!) Lots of work went into it Mon and Tues night. No better way to spend a hurricane, than to make a costume, right?

A key piece to Evan's costume was held up in shipping due to the storm. Thankfully it arrived at noon on Halloween so there were no meltdowns! At the end of the downtown event they do a rag shag parade and costume contest. The kids didn't want to do the parade and Liam didn't want to compete (rats!) I bet he had a good chance in winning too. Trick or treater volume at the house was light too, probably because the downtown thing was on the same night, normally it's not.. But that's cool because now I have my own pot of candy to munch. nom nom nom.... 

battening down the hatches!

Please oh please Mother Nature, don't force our town to CANCEL Halloween..... AGAIN.... 2 YEARS IN A ROW. I mean is that really too much to ask???

This time last year we were preparing for a SNOW STORM. Yes a snow storm.... we still had leaves on the trees and the temps were on the warm side for snow so it was heavy and wet... and we got over a foot of it. It stuck to the trees, and then they all broke taking down power lines with them. Much of our REGION was without power for WEEKS. We were extremely lucky to be only without power for 3 hours... I am not sure why this happened. Schools closed and they canceled Halloween. Well technically the postponed it to the following week, in which many people still didn't have power and crews were still doing clean up. It was weird, and we had to trick or treat early because we had to be somewhere at 6.

(Whoops... totally walked away from this post last night unintentionally)

My husband has been in Washington DC since Friday with a group of teenagers from his school. Due to the storm they left a day early. Winds here have started and aren't strong.... yet...

The first bad hurricane I remember going through was Hurricane Bob back in '91. I was 11. At the time I was living at the Cape and it hit us at a category 3. We moved "inland" to our friends place in the western part of town and spent the storm there. Arriving back home was crazy. Here is a picture of where I grew up.

The south end of the Canal is on the right side of this picture. Clearly this is a beach community. Some people decided they didn't care if their boats roughed out the storm in the water. What they didn't expect was to find said boats IN PEOPLE'S FRONT YARDS trapped on dry land after the water receded. Low lying areas still were sort of flooded, and on our house a piece of the vinyl siding was hanging off under the window. We were very lucky in that we lived on a small hill and the water only came to the bottom of our street. Other houses were not so lucky- They were swept away, or completely flooded as whole sections of our little village are low lying and/or very close to old cranberry bogs. In order for these houses to rebuild they had to be built on stilts.

So when Hurricane Irene hit last year...

(and... I walked away again, but this time I blame my sister who called me on the phone. Now it's the next day, again.)

Where was I? oh yes! Hurricane Irene...
So when it was approaching I got all panicky because of the way I remembered Bob being to violent.What happened instead was that it was a bit breezy, and not rainy at all. So even though I was still anxious about the weather I drove south for 15 minutes to attend a baby shower for a friend. I was a good time and everything was going great... that is until I was headed home... pretty much all roads north were closed because the rivers were flooding and other roads because trees were down. It took me 4 different tries before I found a road to which I could get to Greenfield.. it took me over an hour to get home. What ended up happening was that a crap ton of water flooded our region. Roads and bridges got washed out and people were stranded... MANY without power for a long time. My friend lost her house. Remember how I was at a baby shower. It was that friend who lost a house. Over a year later they haven't been able to rebuild because the flood insurance people said they won't cover their house loss FROM A FLOOD! Those f*ckers. some areas in Vermont are still recovering... It's crazy

And here we are in the midst of another hurricane. They are a way of life in in New England along with Snow storms and 4 distinct seasons. Given the choice of tornadoes or hurricanes, I would most certainly choose hurricanes. These guys we can prepare for, relocate from and most importantly we know they are coming- all of this not really possible for a tornado.

I am not nearly as anxious about this storm as I was about Irene, I am not sure why. But I'm glad for it. I hope everyone stays dry and safe during the storm and that Halloween goes on as planned!

#FirstWorldProblem

I broke my phone. It died prematurely and I blame the black top. Yes it was a smartphone. No not an iPhone or even an Android. It was a Windows Phone. It wasn't the best model as it was one of the first to come out, but I loved it.

But then I dropped it. And it was FINE... until I pushed the power button to kick on the screen. I used it and it was fine, but somehow the power button broke.. and now I can't use my phone. :( Of course I could go pick up a new phone. I was well beyond my contract period for it but I have been anxiously waiting for this one: 

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone with PureView Camera - Nokia  <--link a="a" p="p" to="to" video="video">
The camera on this looks phenomenal and seeing as how my phone is my primary camera, a good camera is essential for my next phone. While I would probably be happy with the next model down- except that it doesn't have as much storage as I would like, and the camera isn't as good, this one.. is my goal! Only thing is, is that it's not available yet. Windows phone will be upgrading the operating system this quarter, and official dates and prices are not available yet, so I want to wait. Until then I am using my husbands old phone (he recently upgraded) and I am grateful, but I am not a fan of it. It's an Android- Samsung Galaxy S. I think if I chose to switch operating systems on my own my attitude would be different, but it's not and I'm almost tempted to just get a new phone now the Lumia 900.. which is cheap right now... and will still be supported after the upgrade...

I can't decide what to do

an open letter to men trying to pick up women:

Dear men,
It appears as though you need help with picking up women because twice in one week I experienced 2 instances of men epically failing to pick up women, (one was myself and the other a friend at our most recent book group meeting) so I thought I'd share a few pointers.

1. Make sure the woman isn't already married. A simple way to figure this out is to look at her hands. Is she wearing a ring on her left hand ring finger? If yes then WALK AWAY NOW. If not, then she's fair game until she says she is not single.
2. When you say, "you look like you enjoy a good beer, what do you like?" and she responds with " Oh I don't really drink beer, but I do enjoy a good cider" don't follow up with, " so you like Bud?" and when she says, "eww, no. I do microbrews if any" don't name anything with Bud in the name. You don't know what you are talking about and just need to shut your trap.
3. When you say, "it looks like blue eyes run in your family"and she says, "oh yeah everyone in my family has them... The harder gene to keep going the blonde hair..." do NOT say, "usually chicks with blonde hair and blue eyes are bombshells" for you will hear crickets chirping or get slapped.
4. When you sit at a table with a book club and they are discussing books, don't say "f#$% books I hate them" you are not impressing anyone.
5. Also don't go on a tirade on about plastic hardware after you interrept a woman's story about home depot. We  could care less. We're out without the kids or husband let us drink and be merry.
6. And when you leave, don't walk away in a huff because you failed so miserably in your moment of trying to impress, because your attempt was just so awful.

Thanks for the laughs gentlemen! I hope you found these tips helpful and cleared up any confusing areas for you.

With that said, its sweet of you to flatter us with your attempts at flirting. Brownie points to you for trying. Unless you're a dumbass.

Semi-Staycation is done

It was vacation week over in the Burns' household. It wasn't as originally planned but it was nice all the same. Last week I was in Cohasset working hard- 12+ hours a day heavy lifting, on my feet, waking up at 5 am and being careful around poison ivy (which I got anyway). Came home Friday night and woke up at 5 again to go to a Pampered Chef meeting hosted by Home Office, and it was a blast! And from there Jason and the kids picked me up and we went to NYC for a couple of days. We saw the Statue of Liberty, went bowling, went to the Met and had dinner at Hard Rock cafe. We also went to the USS Intrepid Museum. We had a great time. :) We had wanted to do other things locally following the NYC trip but we ran out of money as the previous week not only did Jason need to get a root canal, we had to get the oven fixed b/c when we turned it on, gas was leaking and while he was here we had him fix the dryer because it was making an awful noise. So needless to say we were sort some vacation money.

I was able to have a nice staycation at home, though. I relaxed went to the river beach and visited with my neighbors. unfortunately though I have also been suffereing from insomnia the last couple weeks and I must say that it's getting old. I have never had insomnia before and always wondered. Now that I have to work tomorrow I would like to go to sleep at a reasonable hour....

it's all lies except the part about me having a crap ton of green vegetables.....

I was recently on the street corner near my house and had two large green things in my hands. I was waving frantically with them shouting "ZUCCHINIS, CUCUMBERS!" take them- FREE!

oh Monday... *sigh*

This lunch could more enjoyable if a) I wasn't eating salad with a toddler spoon, and b) if there wasn't a rain cloud dead ahead. I picked up my things and perched in my car for a few minutes to wait it out...

I managed to dodge the rain cloud as it moved to my south and ate the salad like a champ. I go into my lunch bag to grab my bag of cherries and what do I see??

My fork laughing at me.. Dammit! Do you see it there, hiding behind my salad dressing? *sigh*

***UPDATED*** And to top off the evening I stepped on a bee who was happily working in the clover on my way to my Pampered Chef meeting tonight, and it was so happy it stung me... in the arch of my foot... oww!

spare key? yes! oh crap...

So after a FANTASTIC evening near Boston working a Pampered Chef party, I roll in around midngiht go to bed without incident.


I get into work this morning and manage to lock everything (except myself, my coffee, sunglasses and a now empty snapple bottle) in my car. Pocketbook, lunch, not 1 but 2 cell phones (mine and my work) and my audiobook... *sigh* Thankfully the husband will be able to come to my rescue sometime later... because my spare car key, is in my purse WHICH IS IN THE GOD DAMN CAR! *guzzles the damn coffee*


The best part is that I carry a spare key in my purse because I always fear that I will lock my keys in the car.. not only is this the first time I locked my keys in the car, but it's also the first time I locked my spare key in the car. Two birds with one stone. *sigh*


Story of my life.


(thankfully though, my husband was able to rescue me and come to my work to unlock my car... 2 hours later)

Just another day

Have you ever felt the urge to blog knowing that you really have nothing specific to write about? That's me.. bout nearly every day. Sometimes I am in the middle of driving somewhere and I think, " I should blog that" and then of course I forget to.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with... stuff. Same shit different day type of stuff. Except that it also included:
Building a garden bed at the younger kid's school of which I am wrapping up my run as PTO President, for the second time. That's right I ran this group when my older son attended this school too. I have since been voted in as president of the PTO at the elementary school where both boys will be attending in the fall. oy.


This is about to be a butterfly garden and to the left there we plan on adding some butterfly bushes. Due the the rain the last couple of weeks, progress is slower than expected. Rain happens it's okay.

We are also experiencing sewer line work on my street resulting in 1/2 my front lawn missing and a new walkway to be installed (silent "yay!") I drive a little Hyundai Accent, and because of the mud on the street, it looks like I took my car 4-wheeling... and I might as well have. They are starting to do finishing work as of this week, so we no longer have a dirt/mud trench down the middle of the street, and the frame it set up for pouring our new walk, hopefully on Tuesday morning. We'll see..

I also had my birthday this past week. I turned a whopping 32! *gasp* I know, I know.. "I'm just a baby" as most people tell me when they hear my age. I have taken to the habit of telling anyone who is younger than me that they are a baby and I'm the old lady... lol true story. Other people say, "you're *only* 32?!" Christ people! How old do I look?! I've also gotten carded a couple times this past month... woohoo!! I look under 30! I know that since I turned 30 I have lost my ability to guess people's ages with any accuracy.

As a result of my birthday I am throwing my annual Birthday/BBQ this weekend. We are also celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary because my husband is going to be away in Kansas City for work.. he'll be grading AP exams... all day... for an entire week.. I win!

oh! I had pictures done of the kids.. my one of my besties Melissa. You can see them here ColorsofHerHeart.com They came out pretty awesome! She also helped me design some new business cards for my Pampered Chef business. Also pretty awesome.

So now it's almost 12:30, and my brain is shutting down.. maybe next time i will share something worthy of sharing! Maybe.

unintentional

Have you ever given thought to key things about who you are and how or what made you that way? One of my favorite bloggers wrote a book about what makes her tick and how she became who she is. I have purchased her book but haven't read it yet. I will, soon too. I'm actually very excited about it, but have to finish my current book first. If you've never read her blog, you better do it.

There are several things about who I am as a grown up that are unintentional results of my childhood. I have come to these conclusions over the last several years as something triggers my recollections:

1. I don't like to throw things away that I no longer need that are still good. My husband likes to do dump runs when I'm not home, because If I were home I'd take half of it back and try to convince him to let me have a yard sale. "It's still good! Someone might want it!" is my argument. This is a result of being poor all through the first 2/3 of my life. When you work hard for the things that are yours, it can be hard to let them go even if you don't need them anymore.

2. I have an uncontrollable need to be accommodating due to an incident at girl scouts once when I was around 8 years old. I was left out of eating ice cream on root beer float night because I do not like root beer. I remember asking the troop leader if I could just have some ice cream and she said okay, only I didn't get any because they ran out and I had to WATCH everyone enjoy their floats- including the troops leaders. Scarred. For. Life.

3. I *really* love & respect great guitarists. My mother played guitar growing up and apparently had a huge impact on my musical tastes. I totally dig rock music. I get nostalgic when I hear Crosby Stills & Nash, and Foreigner

4. I am Wonder Woman. I bought an apron to help me out when I'm feeling stressed and need a boost. It makes me awesomer. I grew up in a single parent household since infancy. My mother never remarried, and barely dated. She did everything on her own, and I feel like I need to as well. But really I need to feel like I am able to do things on my own, because that's how I saw it done.

5. Major holidays included the whole wide family, and there was a feast to be had. I miss this. We are spread all over now that we are grown and don't get together nearly enough. Thanks to Facebook though we all keep in touch fairly regularly!

6. German Shepherds make me very nervous. I was 5 when I witnessed my best friend get attacked by our neighbors dog. It was on Halloween in 1985 and I remember watching my mom pry the dogs mouth off my friends face.

Tell me about you. Can you recall a specific instance in your childhood that is still with you?

and now we have Summer?!

I'm not complaining.. REALLY I'm not, but our winter was like spring with a touch of snow and now we have summer and it just became spring (technically) WTF mother nature... what's going on in your brain? It's almost like she might be an ADD blonde on crack with the weather...

that said I am LOVING this gorgeous weather! I nice reprieve here in New England after last winter's never ending wrath. This time last year we had a foot of snow on the ground with another foot on the way on April 1st.. or something. We had a crap ton of snow last winter.

The only thing I'm not loving about the weather is the wardrobe I own that goes with it. I need new warm weather stuff. My stuff is worn out and ratty and I only own a few pieces because I had to get rid of some after last summer because they were so worn out. Maybe I will buy a couple things. Even if it gets cooler again, it will be warm again.. It's New England and our motto is that if you don't like the weather wait 30 minutes, it'll change.

Damn you mother nature! *shakes fist*

Ok, it is 83 degrees in my lab right now, and I'm wearing winter attire. So I'm wicked hot, but I digress.

I do like me some snow, I know, I know, I'm weird. So I have been mentally sad that we have had no snow more than an inch deep since Halloween. However now that it's FEB 28th, now is not the time to conveniently remember that you have forgotten winter... or that you have suddenly realized that, "F*ck,  Europe isn't part of the northeastern US? Shit, now is my chance.. here have some snow, and then it'll be 50 again".

We're about to be bitch slapped and there's nothing we can do about it..

/rant

RANTS FROM MOMMYLAND: Who Doesn't Love a Cuddly Scrote?

I almost just spewed coffee at my work computer.. just for that it may not be safe for work... however you MUST read this.. it's hilarious!

RANTS FROM MOMMYLAND: Who Doesn't Love a Cuddly Scrote?: Remember how I made a video of all the toys that my precious little cupcake named things like Lionsack and Crack Rabbit and Horny? Then I ...

Day 2- "words"

Feb photo of the day contest!

A dear friend who is a professional photographer has a contest going on via her facebook page involving this:

My friend Melissa takes amazing photos! You can find and like her Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/ColorsofherHeart Don't forget to tell her I sent you. I will get brownie points :) but also check out her work here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ColorsofherHeart and while you're there buy something if you like it!

oh! so why not join in on the picture taking fun??

Here is my picture from Yesterday

My View- Work equipment waiting for more work.