My Thriftiness....12-07-2007

Those of you who know me well know that I am a very thrifty person. Well, at least I like to think that I am a thrifty person. My mother was thrifty, and her mother before her. So, it is in the genes, so to speak.

Now, thrifty does not mean cheap or chintzy (although I have been that upon occasion as well --- just happens sometimes throughout 40 years of life).No, what I am talking about is getting the full use out of an item. I also look at this as way of being a good steward of the earth and our natural resources.

Popo (my grandmother) used to make quilts out of clothes that the kids and adults outgrew. She would cut the clothing up into usable squares and make lightweight quilts. I was fortunate to receive one a couple of years prior to her death - and I cherish it and the remarkable woman who made it.

Because of this, and my friend of the earth motto, I have an interest in using old clothing and scrap material to make usable items -quilts and blankets. Recently, my mother in law, who is a quilter, showed me a wonderful 'crazy' quilt. She doesn't use a pattern - just sews scraps of material on a 8" x 8" piece of paper. After about 100 of these blocks, she sews them together, quilts and binds them and... a quilt appears!! I loved the idea of doing this.

After my visit to my MIL, I pulled out my mom's old kenmore machine, cranked it up, and started sewing. I rummaged around and found scraps of material, cut up some old hawaiian print shirts, and off I went - making a quilt, being a friend of the earth, being "thrifty". I felt smug.

Then it happened.

I realized that the old kenmore wasn't quite as efficient as new machines. And I started browsing on the internet... just to be thrifty, you know.

I meandered to the Overstock.com site... just to nose around. Still feeling smug and thrifty-like. And whatdoyouknow! They carry sewing machines! And at huge discounts! Really thrifty! AND they carry a sewing/embroidery machine - normally $1200 -- but marked down to $299.99!!! The machine is refurbished. Cool! A $900 savings! Now I'm really being thrifty! (Not to mention my increased smugness because it is a refurbished machine and I have single handedly saved another item from going into the landfill...) Heh... just $300 + tax (shipping is included!) and I'm on my way to being thrifty!!

Now I'm really excited! But, I realize that I will need a cabinet in which to put said machine. A cabinet with lots of drawers and nooks for sewing notions. A cabinet with an airlift shelf on which to mount the new sewing machine. A cabinet like this (I found this info on the internet) will run anywhere between $450 and $1000!! Well, darn it – I really need one. I need one in order to be thrifty.

So I go to the sewing/ fabric store to look at cabinets. And I find the perfect cabinet! I know that I really need this one to hold the new, refurbished machine so, I buy it. Hmmm….

And as I wander in the fabric store, I spy many new and lovely patterns and fabrics. And I know that making the fleece jacket that Maegan wanted for Christmas will be thrifty. And I also spy the fleece with Gary’s favorite f-ball team logo… won’t that make really
cozy pjs?!? Oh, and it won’t be too difficult to make gouchos for myself for work….

Hmmm…

new machine… $300
Cabinet… $600
Fabric, patterns
And notions… $150

Being thrifty??? Priceless…

Amazing tricks with Liver 10/14/07

In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about my friend who is very, very ill. At the time that I wrote that, things didn't look good - she was taking care of her burial arrangements and getting her affairs in order.

However.....

the doctors finally figured out what is causing the problems in her liver (which causes the scarring). It is a combination of many different things culminating in scarring in her liver. Now that they have figured it out, she is a candidate for a liver transplant. Yeaaa!!

I never thought I'd be excited that someone close to me would be on the liver donor list.... but perspectives do shift!

The next step is to find a live liver donor. And we know of several possibilities.... (Anyone wanna lose 2 lbs really fast??!!) heh..

Harvest Fair

Where can you go and sample over 500 wines from in and around Sonoma County without spending a small fortune??? The yearly Sonoma County Harvest Fair! Mr. & Mrs. Diane invited us to attend with them this year. And Gary and I had a blast! It was a low stress type of day - Gary and I visited the Bottle Barn before picking D & T up. The visit to the BB is in and of itself reason to go to Santa Rosa. I had purchased a bottle of Caymus there a couple of months previously... when I got it home, I noticed that the wine had seeped out of the cork. Bad news. Especially for such an expensive bottle of wine. BB took it back and replaced it with no questions asked. And Gary and I shopped and shopped.... He couldn't believe the wonderful selection of beer and single malt scotch. I immersed myself in the wines.... mmmmm... big cabs, buttery chardonnays.... mmmmmm.... We did manage some Christmas shopping while we were there - a couple of nice bottles of cabs for Gary's sister in Kansas (Caymus and Silver Oaks) and a variety of wines for his mom. Oh and maybe a bottle or two for us... After the BB, we picked up D&T and headed to the Harvest Fair. I don't know what I was expecting -- but I had no idea that it would be this big! We walked in and I was overwhelmed with all of the stuff going on... racing pigs, drumming, free jazz, hayrides, livestock displays, floral displays... it was sensory overload (in a good way)! The wall of apples was impressive -- an HUGE display of all of the types of apples grown in the area -- it was much more than the standard red and gold delicious, you can be sure! And of course the wine. We headed there first - met another friend, bought our tix and entered a warehouse full of rows of wine vendors pouring their best. I tried zippy zins, fruity sparkling wines, and petite syrahs... 550 wines were being poured and I had to stop tasting after 5 or 6.... heh... And then there was the grape stomp - all I can say is .... look out next year!! We left the Harvest Fair and all met up at D&T's place for drinks and dinner. Okay, if you EVER get an invite from D for dinner, you should take her up on it. Seriously! She is an amazing cook. Turkey bolognese.... mmmmmm.... it was amazing good. And they sent leftovers home with us too! (Hello lunchbox!) All in all, it was a wonderful day. Thank you D and T for the invite to join in the fun... can't wait until next year!!

Hunting 9/21/07

My husband is a hunter.

hat is what he told me when we were dating. What he didn’t tell me is that he likes hunting nekked. I discovered this last weekend in a very unusual way…

Friday night – sometime in the middle of the night: Missy Booness has to go peepees and decides to wake me out of a dead sleep to let her out. Okay, okay. So I get up, walk her to the back of the house, open the door to the garage and the door leading outside, and let her out. Then I prop all doors open and return to bed. Just as get to the bed I hear Booboo barking and then some type of fighting (growling, barking, grring, thashing, thumping).

Great – just great. I bet the pit bull from next door got out again.

I run to the garage and flip on the light. What I see in the garage is not a pit bull chewing on my Booboo, but a raccoon!

Screaming, “Gary” at the top of my lungs, I figured the coon would run out… light, noise, human. But no, that big, fat, overgrown rat is still fighting by sweet baby. Scanning the garage (which is full of junk), my eyes alight on something that might work as a weapon - A full sprayer (gallon variety) of bug poison. I grab it, raise it high over my head, and bring it down hard onto the coon.

I guess that gave Booboo the out that she needed because before I knew it, she was behind me and I was between her and the crazy coon. Just as I prepared to swing the sprayer again, Gary grabbed the back of my nightie and pulled me out of the way. He got in between me and the crazy coon (which by the way was the biggest varmint that I’ve seen. It was about half the size of Booboo --- easily 25-30 lbs).

And Gary screamed at the coon, stomped his feet, and shook the paint brush extender (pole) that he had managed to grab. I guess it was just too much for the crazy coon – first getting smashed by a bug poison sprayer, then yelled at by a nekked hunter.

The coon ran.

Then nekked hunter chased it outside and into the back yard.

Still nekked…

That’s my hubby – protector of all that is dear to him. Chasing a coon outside in the middle of the night – nekked.

Heh… he is kinda cute at that!

The Witching Hour 9/4/07

My witching hour occurs somewhere between 1:30 am and 4:00 am - smack dab in the middle of REM sleep. I guess it isn't really a witching hour -- it is the time of the day when all lies and denials are rendered helpless and the truth won't let me sleep.

Yesterday, one of my best friends called to let me know the results of her biopsy. The results weren't good - end-stage cirrhosis of the liver. Funny thing - she hardly drinks and has never had hepatitis B or C. They don't know why her liver is failing - but it is. And she is failing. A liver transplant is one of her few options (the other option is that they figure out what is doing this to her liver and stop it).

I hardly batted an eye when she told me.

Because I decided that denial would be my course of action. Yup - even thought all of the test results were dismal, I would just pretend that it wasn't going to really happen - at least not for 10 or 15 years.

Unfortunately, I forgot to program myself all the way through the night... and somewhere around 1:30 am, I woke crying. It finally hit. And I couldn't pull the wool back over my eyes - at least not quickly enough to glimpse a world without Shay. And I didn't like that world very much.

So I began with the what ifs... what if they won't approve a live donor transplant? What if Kaiser screws this up too? What if we can't find a tissue match? What if she isn't a good candidate for a transplant? What if the Mayo Clinic doesn't accept her? What if, what if, what if...

What if this is really it... and there are no alternatives?

I don't like that option. I am so used to always looking for solutions that I don't know how not to. And what if the solution is that she is not going to recover from this?

This isn't about me. But here I am, feeling very scared an vulnerable. I'm 43 years old and I feel as scared as a child. I can't do anything to help. I can keep up the facade during the day - but the witching hour comes and at least during that time, I can't pretend.

A most excellent day! 7/25/05

Today started off less than perfect... It took Gary and me over 2 hours to drive back from Concord to San Jose last night. That meant that I would have to turn around and head back to Concord at midnight! (Ugly big-rig accident on 680...) So, I spent the night with the intention of getting up at 4AM and driving home ahead of the traffic.

Gary woke me at 4:40... the alarm didn't go off... hmmmm... okay. So, I drug myself out of bed, kissed him and the doggie, and headed out the door.

That was the only bad part of the day - oversleeping and having to say goodbye to my boyfriend and the doggie until next weekend.

After that, my day was TOTALLY AWESOME!

I got home in time to catch a little more sleep, overslept, stopped at Starbucks for my vente americano - with an extra shot and got into the office at 7:30. Wow, impressive!!
Then, in my morning meeting with my boss, we spent the first ten minutes discussing the latest Harry Potter book. The next ten minutes were spent talking about Johnny Depp and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Cool beans!

I didn't have any meetings, I finished the memo that I have been trying to get published for the last three days, sent out a mailer to our CBOs, put together packets of specialized information for a couple of different groups of folks, hooked up with numerous people and got answers that I have been trying to nail down for weeks, AND left the office at 4:45 PM!!!

Whew! If that wasn't enough, I came home to find that my daughter had finished the grocery shopping, picked up Booboo's food from the vet's and was working on dinner. So, I had a nap, took Booboo for a nice walk, didn't see that wierd guy, hung out with Meg and her friends, and checked out my email (that I haven't touched in about a week!).

Wow, this has been one of the best days ever. Nothing particularly spectacular - just the nice feeling of satisfaction of doing a good job, raising a great kid, and being quite a bit lucky.

Back from Hawaii - 7/6/07

We visited momma and daddy last week in Hawaii and had a great time. Mostly, we hung out, rested, napped, ate, and visited with family. We did get in one day of tourist stuff --- going to the Polynesian Cultural Center on the North Shore. I wish that we had known how much cool stuff they had going on over there! We could have spent two days visiting the villages and watching all of the demonstrations.

Then we came home - Gary came home a week ago Tuesday and I got home late Saturday night. Here I am the following Friday and I'm finally feeling like I have some energy. I was sooo ready for a vacation!

The photo was taken at the PCC - Gary and daddy were comparing their bellies with the belly of the statue!

Passport weekend Amazing! - May 22, 2007

A couple of weekends ago, Gary and I joined our friends for a weekend in the wine country - Dry Creek Valley, to be exact. ShannonandMike managed to score a couple of extra passports for the region's Passport weekend and hooked us up!

Passport weekend in the Dry Creek Valley consists of about 45 wineries, closed to the general public and open only to passport carriers, and hundreds of hungry and thirsty visitors! Each winery has food available for the public - mostly paired specifically to their wines - and wine tastings galore. And there is no shortage of either food or drink!

Some of the highlights:

A. Rafanelli winery - http://www.arafanelliwinery.com/
This place was amazing... the line for the tasting was down the driveway - about 100 yards. We wondered what was so great about this place - until we saw the owner of the winery walking down the hill, pouring wine into everyone's glasses! When we finally made it up to the winery and tasting, we found what everyone raved about - the wine was great, they were free-pouring AND the food was freaking fantastic! They had pork loin, lamb, beef, tortellini, salad, grilled asparagus, melon wrapped in prosciutto, an assortment of cheese and olives, mushroom risotto and some other savory dishes. Then they had an assortment of desserts - dulce de leche cheesecake, chocolates, truffles, truffle pots topped with raspberries, fresh monster strawberries dipped in chocolate, and many, many other desserts! Oh, and did I mention the wine being good.... it was awesome! The zin went so well with the savory dishes -- and the cab was paired perfectly with the chocolates. And yes, we bought quite a bit of wine from this winery. It is hard to find anywhere else.

Bella Vineyards & wine caves - http://www.bellawinery.com/
This place was fun. The theme was summer camp - and they had burgers and smore-ish dessert. The wine tastings were held in the wine cave - a very large underground cave where the wine is stored and aged. The cool air there was a relief after being outside in the hot, hot sun. This is the winery where Gary discovered that he actually liked zins. They also poured a rose that was very pleasant on such a hot day. We got out of there with only a couple of bottles under our arms. We should have purchased more --- it is difficult to find their wines as well.

Fritz Winery - http://www.fritzwinery.com/fritz/index.jsp
This place is very small and tucked away. And full of personality and good wines! The food that was paired with the cab and the zin was perfect. Steak and blue cheese for the cab and pork for the zin. I fell in love with their last harvest zin and the brownies that were made with it!! I never knew that late harvest was so different.... I'm learning little by little! I told my friend, D*, who lives in Sonoma County about this winery. Come to find out, it is her and her hubby's favorite winery too! And we both agree on the brownies.... to die for!

Armida Wineries - www.armida.com
this was the most picturesque winery, IMHO, in the entire valley. We landed here as our final stop of the weekend --- and it was the perfect place. They were serving oysters on the half shell, tri tip, potato salad, oyster shooters and salad. I am sure they also had sweets, but I was too full to worry about it by now. The cool thing about this winery besides the view was their attitude! The logo is a skull and crossbones for their Poizon Zin - the wine to die for! Their tasting was set up into two separate areas - the first area was all white, served by an angel with blue eyes and blond hair.... serving a chardonnay from the barrel. The second tasting was set up as the opposite - black with black lights, a coffin, and barrel tastings from their Poizon zin. Heaven and hell - what a great idea!

Those were the highlights. We visited many more and tasted so many wines.... And we can't wait to go back!
Tags: passportweekend, drycreekvalley, wine, tastings |

Entry for 4/8/07

Today is Easter and the most meaningful celebration for Christians. Yes, Christmas is big but Easter is what makes Christianity what it is – it is the story of ultimate love and sacrifice – and the resulting resurrection of the sacrifice.

I don’t think about this every day – what love is – but because of today being Easter, I asked myself what love is. And this is what I came up with:

Recently, my beehive was disturbed in the middle of the night. I think that a raccoon tried to climb on it and ended up knocking it over. At 2AM Gary and I were awoken by a loud thud. We couldn’t figure it out for awhile… and then I looked outside my window and saw the beehive on the ground – boxes askew and bees everywhere. I didn’t want to take care of them – I had taken some sleep aids earlier to help me sleep through the night and was very groggy. But I couldn’t leave the bees like that – it was cold and they would die. So, I got up, put on some long sleeves and long pants, found my gloves and bee bonnet and went outside to figure out what to do.

It was a mess. The bees were swarming all over the boxes. There wasn’t a spot on the outside of the boxes that wasn’t covered in bees. And they were angry – I could hear their high-pitched buzzing as I approached.

Sigh…

I tried to straighten the boxes and turn them right-side up but the boxes were full of bees and honey and were too heavy – I was trying to man-handle 200 lbs of angry bees…. And it wasn’t working. I did the best I could and took a break. Unfortunately, in my groggy state, I hadn’t suited up properly and a bee made her mark on my lower spine – in the small of my back. Ow…

I went back inside and just sat on the bed. I was so disheartened, groggy, and now sick to my stomach. I was ready to cover the hive and introduce a can of Raid to the situation…

Gary got out of bed and started putting on his jeans and a sweatshirt.

Now, Gary and I have an agreement – the bees are mine. He helps with heavy lifting but that is it. He likes honey, and isn’t afraid of bees, but he isn’t excited about being up close and personal with them. But here he was, suiting up.

We returned to the bees and tried to figure out how to set the boxes upright. They had fallen completely over and the floor of the hive, which isn’t connected anyway, was completely open, exposing the queen and all of the eggs and baby bees to the cold air. The bees were swarming over the openings in order to keep the heat in and to protect their hive. And they were mad… worse than any case of PMS. Gary and I tried several different approaches. Each move made the bees angrier and angrier. They were now actively attacking us.

There is a very primal response to the sound of a swarm of angry bees --- something that is buried deep in the recesses of the brain. It was dark (light makes it worse for the bees), we were tired, and the whine of angry bees got louder and higher pitched. At some point I finally had to walk away. The adrenaline was pumping and my brain was screaming, “RUN, RUN”! I just couldn’t continue to stand in the middle of that angry swarm of attacking bees. So I told Gary that I needed a break.

We walked away and I spent quite awhile getting the bees off of me. My back was hurting where the first sting had occurred on my spine, I was groggy, and adrenaline had made me queasy. I went into the house (safe finally!) and waited for Gary. Taking up a post to observe the bees through the window, I realized that Gary had returned to the hive. I thought that he had simply decided to look at it again and try to figure out how to right the boxes. To my utter amazement, and complete horror, I watched him grab each box and jerk and twist them so that they were somewhat aligned. The bees were swarming around him and were stinging him. I could tell this by the way he was reacting. Instead of leaving, and probably letting the boxes fall again and open up completely, he put his gloved hands into the middle of the swarm of bees, found the side of the boxes, and with brute strength, pushed the boxes upright. The bees were screaming and were all over him. He couldn’t quite keep the boxes upright and was finally able to wedge them up with a piece of the broken fence.

I watched and couldn’t utter a sound. I didn’t want to break his concentration so bit my tongue instead. And then he ran… and began hollering for me to come and help him. I quickly put my gloves back on, forgot the bonnet and found him in the middle of the courtyard, frantically pawing at his bonnet. He had many bees stuck to him – and even more flying around him. After several frantic minutes, we managed to get most of the bees off him; he tore his bonnet off and pulled off his shirt. Luckily he had returned to our secluded front stoop before pulling his jeans off and going inside the house in his skivvies.
Yes, he had been stung. I think our final count was only seven. That doesn’t sound like a lot – but it is.

Once things had calmed down, he showered in cool water, I fixed him some herb tea, and applied meat tenderizer to all of his stings (one was on his upper thigh – ouch!) I sat on the couch facing him. He had Mijo in his arms and his eyes were closed. And I realized that I what I had witnessed was love – pure and simple. This man loved me enough to walk into a swarm of angry, pissed off bees. This man loved me enough to take care of the bees when his primal brain screamed at him to run. This man loved me enough to know that I couldn’t physically do what needed to be done. And he faced the fear, the instinct to run. He faced it head on and took care of me.

That, my friends, is love.

Can't Sleep!! 3/31/2007

I've been up for awhile - can't sleep. I don't know why I can't sleep. It isn't like I have a lot of stress in my life.

Well, I do have a new job - with more responsibility than I've had in a long time. And I think a lot about that stuff... not worrying - just thinking.

I should do something productive with this time... instead I wish that I could just go back to sleep.

Momma sent some photos to me with instructions that I crop, edit, and copy for her. Heh, she's so funny. And still so bossy! I sure miss her.

Yup, still not sleepy. I am tired - but not sleepy.

This is probably not a good time to go shopping online -because who cares how much I spend at 4:27 AM in the fracking morning!

And nothing good on TV... not surprised.

Gary suggested that I read romance novels to put me to sleep. I can't - they just make me sick - so stupid and canned. Maybe that is why it puts people to sleep - nothing to think about and they just have a workout for their eyes , moving their eyes back and forth across the page.

I could work on the honeymoon photos I guess. I'm putting them in a scrapbook - well, not all cutsie like those 'scrapbook fiends' - just cropped and arranged. It takes a long time to do even one page. My dining room table has been covered in that stuff for weeks....

sigh...

Monterey Trip March 18, 2007

Gary and I took a day trip to Monterey on my birthday last month. I tried to upload the photos (finally) to my yahoo and flikr accts....

Wedding photos are here! 3-6-2007

The wedding photos arrived! Whoo-hoo! My photographer, BJ, took pity on me and did a final cut of the photos that I liked. It was a bit of a daunting task - deciding amongst 780+ photos! I put all 700 photos on my computer, turned it into a slideshow (gotta love a Mac) and get to re-live one of the most wonderful days in my life.

Okay, so next time you see me I'll have a box in my hand... don't run - just resign yourself to oohing and aahing for five minutes.....

50 Years Strong 1-19-2007

How do couples do it? Stay married, that is.


Momma and Daddy celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary last December and the family got together for a celebration a couple of weekends ago.


I’m a little envious of them. I’m recently married to a wonderful man. But chances are that we won’t see our 50th wedding anniversary… married at 42… 50 years makes us 92, (okay – Gary’d be only 90!) Most likely won’t happen.


Momma and Daddy were married when they were in their early 20s… Momma was 20 and Daddy was 22. I’ve looked through photos of them … and the older I get, the younger they look in the photos!


Their first date was a Billy Graham revival. And every weekend included attending church together on Sunday. They were married in Texas – not Hawaii where my mother’s family lived. Momma flew from Honolulu to Texas – a 20-hour flight in those days. Daddy met momma at the airport and told her that he had everything set for a wedding at the justice of the peace the next day. That wasn’t acceptable to momma, however. She told him, “Virgil, I’m not that kind of a girl. We get married today or I’m going back to Hawaii”!


And they did… get married that same day. Daddy and momma went to daddy’s pastor’s house, interrupted their supper, and got married. The pastor’s wife was one of the witnesses.


What an interesting way to start a marriage. Looking back, I realize how independent and gutsy my parents were. My mom left her large and protective family to be with the man that she loved. And she trusted him to live up to his promises. She had no money and if my dad had been a different sort of man, she would have been in a very bad situation. My dad, on the other hand, was willing to marry the woman that he loved who was of a race that wasn’t considered acceptable in some areas of the south. They started out poor and didn’t expect nor receive any financial help from their families. But they had something solid. And they weathered a lot of very bad storms. And here they are in their golden years, still together.