Red Hot

In an attempt to feel young, my hubby and I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers last week. Actually, I had wanted to see the Chili Peppers for a long time so I got my wish.

The concert was fantastic. I could have done without the opener, who I thought was absolutely terrible. So terrible, I can't even remember the name of them! Anyhoo, the Chili Peppers played a good variety of hits from today and "yesteryear" including Under the Bridge and Give It Away in their encore. I really was just blown away by their musical talent. I always new they were good, but I have a whole new respect for them musically after seeing them live.

There were a couple of notable "fan" moments from the stands. Firstly, we had an absolute flailing, wanna-be-band member sitting next to us and his freakishly off beat date. He even brought his air-guitar with him. I'm surprised that my hubby didn't end up with bruises from the amount of limbs flinging about.

Another notable fan moment was when the lead screecher from the opening band decided to mess with the crowd. He went down into the crowd and was knocking people's beer out of their hands and up into the air. I would have been pissed if it was me...and I could tell much of the crowd in the floor seat were pissed.

I only witnessed one joint being lit up in the arena, which of course amazed me that it was only one...it also amazed the young, naive girl sitting next to me who didn't seem to understand what the "weird smell" was. Her boyfriend on the other hand wanted to know where it was coming from.

All in all, it was an excellent show.

Hope

I'm not a huge country music fan. I do like the Dixie Chicks' latest album. I'm not gonna comment on their politics or anything in the past, but I would like to post the lyrics to one song that I really like.

I Hope

Sunday morning, I heard the preacher say

Thou shall not kill

I don't wanna hear nothing else about killing

And that it's God's will

'Cause our children are watching us

They put their trust in us

They're gonna be like us

So let's learn from our history

And do it differently

I hope, for more love, more joy and laughter

I hope, we'll have more than we'll ever need

I hope, we'll have more happy ever after

I hope, we can all live more fearlessly

And we can lose all the pain and misery

I hope, I hope

Oh, Rosie, her man gets too rough

All she can say, is he's a good man

He don't mean no harm

He was just brought up that way

But our children are watching us

They put their trust in us

They're gonna be like us

It's okay for us to disagree

We can work it out lovingly

I hope, for more love, more joy and laughter
I hope, we'll have more than we'll ever need
I hope, we'll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hope

There must be a way to change what's going on

No I don't have all the answers

I hope, for more love, more joy and laughter
I hope, we'll have more than we'll ever need
I hope, we'll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hope

WMU MAC Champs

Let me preface this by saying I'm a gymnastics junkie. I was a competitive gymnast for many, many years and the love of the sport has never left my blood. Although I did not compete in college, it is still something I love to watch. I make an effort every year, even during tax season to get to at least one college meet every year.

This past weekend I was able to attend the MAC Championships for gymnastics at my alma mater, Western Michigan University. It was exciting to watch. Western hasn't won the MAC's since 1987. Competing on that 1987 team was their now coach Terry. She's a wonderful lady. I have had the pleasure of working with her before.

Anyways, the competition was exciting. Central Michigan looked good. Western looked better. Western had one less fall on beam then Central.

At the end, I knew the numbers were going to be close. But Western pulled through. It was awesome.

Lack of Time

Short on time seems to be my theme lately. You see it's tax season and I work in an accounting office. I don't know that I will have much time to post between now and April. I will certainly try, but the long days and weekends leave me little time for errands, laundry, sleeping and eating. Don't worry. I'll be back eventually.

Quick Pics

This weekend I awoke to freshly fallen snow. It was so beautiful I had to take some pictures. This is the house, our street and some of the neighborhood. It was really cool because it was sunny out too.

Need Some Sunshine?

YES! YES! YES!!

I am in desparate need of a little sunshine. It appears that the sun is skipping our area right now. We had 15 days in a row with no recordable sunshine. None. Zip. Zilch. I know what your are probably thinking, "It's Michigan in the winter, what do you expect." I expect a handfull of sunny days with snow. Bright-light days. Days where there's snow and sun and it hurts your eyes it's so bright. We haven't had those.

We have also recorded 50 days in a row of some recordable precipitation. Yes folks 50 days. That's SMASHED the previous record of 35. Precipitation can be snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain...and we've had all of that in the last 50 days. And there doesn't seem to be an end to it.

And it's been unusually warm the last week or so. The weather people said it could reach 50 degrees. 50 degrees in Michigan in January. Who would have thought? Maybe there is something to this global warming thing.

Gloom and rain lately. I'm contemplating sun therapy. I saw it on the new last night. Supposively 40 minutes with this special lamp and all your winter blues should be cured...ha, ha, ha.

So all you people living in the sunny regions...please send some my way. I need it. Really.

Holiday Stress

The Holidays have been very stressful for me the last few days. I am still trying to figure out how I will get everything done. I'm hoping that I'll at least be able to relax enough to enjoy them.

My court case was settled the day before court incase you were wondering. I did not have to skip work or fly out to Cali for the ordeal. The lawyer worked her magic somehow. It was a horrible ordeal though to go through and I'm glad it's over.

Now for the weekend ahead. Tomorrow night at the out-laws after working a full day. Saturday a drive into my hometown to Hubby's Aunt's house for the Christmas eve celebration...then visit with friends that evening, and hopefully, sleep for a couple of hours before heading down to my Grandparents in Indiana for Christmas day. If we get home in time...more visiting with my hubby's friends. It's a lot to cram into a short period. Yes, it has me a little stressed out.

So wish me luck that I don't lose my sanity along the way. Merry Christmas to everyone.

Mood Boost

I haven't had anything profound or even really all that interesting in my life other than the law suit which has put a damper on everything lately. I usually LOVE Thanksgiving, but even that was not as festive as it usually is (the weather didn't help either). So to put things in perspective and give my mood a boost, I've created a short list of things I feel really grateful for right now.

1. My Hubby. He's cute, he's funny, he's attentive. And he gives me fabulous gifts for my birthday (just an added bonus).
2. My family. Without my family I really think I'd need to be committed to a mental institution. They always seem to know right when you need a little extra love.
3. My friends. They keep me grounded. They keep me laughing. They keep things in perspective
4. My Grandma. She's still here dispite "coding" while having surgery. Miracle of Miracles! I am so happy that she'll be around for another Christmas.
5. My hubby's Grandma. She had a REALLY rough year with a battle with cancer at the age of 80!! She came through like a champ. She's cancer free and for that I'm extremely grateful.
6. I have a job. Many around here don't. Not only do I have a job, I have a job I don't have commute to.
7. My niece. Natalie brings me such joy. I love the pictures I get on a daily basis (thank God for digital pics!). They make a bad day seem better.
8. My kitties. I love them and they keep me warm at night.

So that's my short list. I could go on and on. You might think this is a kiss-up attempt at the holidays. For those who might think that, you don't know me very well. I truely mean the things I said here.

Happy Freakin' Birthday to Me

Monday was my twenty-ninth birthday. I welcomed the day in with open arms looking forward to not only what the day might bring but this coming year. My husband started the day off by giving the most beautiful necklace. (us girls love a pretty trinket!) Work was nice. Lunch and cake were brought in and funny card.

But that is where the pleasant day ended. Things got ugly. Real quick.

I was notified by my car insurance company that I was being sued in small claims court for bodily injury for an accident that occurred two years ago. TWO YEARS AGO. Let me repeat. TWO YEARS AGO. I can barely remember what happened last week let alone two years ago!!!

This sleezy lawyer-brother of hers has been trying to locate me by calling my friends and family posing as a long lost friend of mine from highschool. The ends that people will go to just amazes me. He has to locate me before he can serve me with the papers to appear in court.

This whole ordeal has me entirely stressed out. I don't have the means to fly back to California, pay for a hotel, a car, etc. because someone is angry about an accident that happened TWO YEARS AGO. Let me repeat TWO YEARS AGO. Not to mention that I don't have any vacation time at my new job so all this would be unpaid time off. It's crap.

There are some things about "the case" that have me realing in anger. I won't get into them but basically this lady is a liar. There is nothing in the world that crawls under my skin more than a freakin' liar. Makes me want to fight harder to prove her wrong because A) all the grief that they are putting me through, B) the lies being told to my friends and family, and C) she's lying about what happened to begin with. MONEY GRUBBING WHORES.

People wonder why their car insurance costs so much. It's people like this. People that abuse the system. People who try to get something from nothing when it shouldn't be theirs to begin with.

The only positive part is that no matter what the verdict is in court, the insurance company has to pay in the long run. So I may be out my travel, but at least I'm not out $5,000. (that's the max in Cali until the end of the year that you can get in small claims...but watch out, it's been signed in to law that the new amount will be $7,500!)

I'll let you know how this unfolds. For now I'm not going to devulge much more for fear of the wrong people reading this.

College for Everyone

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/stories/news/20051110_kz_tuition.html

Last night it was announced on the news that every child that attends a Kalamazoo Public School will have the chance to go to college with all or part of her/his tuition paid for. Do you know how amazing this announcement is?

Yes there are some stipulations. If you only attend a Kalamazoo Public school for 2 years, then only a portion of your tuition will be paid for. The college they attend can be any state school in Michigan either 2 year or 4 year.

I really am in awe of this. This could really change the dynamic of the community forever. Public education will change with the thought of every child having an opportunity. The focus doesn't have to be on testing for state funding, but rather getting every child college prep bound. The opportunity set before these children truly is one where you can say anything is possible and reach for the stars.

Not only the schools themselves, but the community. It will be changed forever. It will be a desirable place to live again. People will want to live within the Kalamazoo Public School district.

For the past few years, industry in Kalamazoo has dwindled. Businesses have pulled out and Kalamazoo was looked at as a dying community. People who were moving to the area where moving outside the district to more desirable communities such as Comstock, Mattawan and Portage.

The pure generosity of these donors is pretty wicked-cool. They wish to remain anonymous which also is very cool. They want none of the joy associated with this other than the satisfaction of knowing that children are taking this opportunity and running with it.

Inappropriate Behavior in the Workplace

**Let me preface this with the word porn will be used in this post, but no porn will actually be shown**

I work in a pretty conservative office. It is predominately women. We have two men in the office. And it is an accounting firm...nuff said on the conservative nature of my office. You get the picture.

Today Ms. L came over to me and said "You've got to go see what is on the printer. Mr. J printed porn out. I can't believe it."

So I immediately walk to the PUBLIC printer and pull off what is on top. Sure enough a naked woman is staring at me in all her double DD glory. I really couldn't believe it. This was the work place. What the hell was he thinking.

Anyways, I tattled as did Ms. L.

Did Mr. J really think he could get away with this? It was like he was asking to get caught just to see what would happen. Why would you print to a public printer. And why wasn't he wasn't standing next to the printer to grab it/her.

Well he knew he was caught before the boss said anything to him. He approached her with it and promptly left the building saying he was embarrassed. Hell yeah you better be embarrassed!!! You were looking at porn at work. What were you thinkin'!?!

I'm curious to see if he apologizes to the two of us for scalding our eyes with that horrible picture.

Porn has it's place just not in our workplace.

Tricks or Treats

Halloween. One of my most favorite times of the year. I love handing out treats to all the little goblins that come to the door. I love the costumes. I love the smell of leaves in the air. I love the anticipation of the kids as they come to door wondering what kind of goodies they will get. Yes, Halloween.

We had a slight drizzle here in Holland but the air was warm for the end of October. I can remember many Halloweens where it was down right bitter out. The air smelled amazing outside.

This year we had a TON of tricker-or-treaters. I bought bags and bags of candy (7 big bags). I was stingey handing it out. One piece = one child. Last year I ran out and I didn't want to have that happen again. I had one rude highschooler call me out on my stinginess telling me "Only one piece, you should by more candy lady so you aren't so stingy." Nice. I of course didn't say anything to the kid as he was walking away for fear of getting T-P'd or something since it is the day for tricks to be played. I wanted to tell him "I didn't HAVE to give you anything at all you spoiled little brat. Didn't your mama teach you any manners?." Anyhoo....

For the most part the kids were polite, said thank you and looked great in their costumes. I'm sad that the day has passed already.

I lied

I lied. Our problems with SBC aren't over yet. More to come one that...

Our problem appears to be sporadic at best, which for DSL isn't suppose to happen because you don't share your bandwidth like you do with cable. But apparently something is wrong. They are coming out to test the line on Friday, hopefully.

I'll try to post when I can. Until then...

Check out my Mom's blog KazooHoosier. There's a link on the right.

Contemplating the Past

So I have a new job. I've been working there for 3 weeks now. So far, so good. Today I started on the monsterous task of organizing my tax season work load. You see, we do 3000+ tax returns. That's a lot.

As I'm inputting some data I came across a familiar name. I will use the his made up nickname, BCR. Good ole BCR.

I started to panic when I saw his name on this list. Could it be? I hope not, but it could be. This is one person I really hope I'd never see again.

I had to do a little investigating about this. I opened up the tax return to look at the birthdate. Yahoooo! Not BCR! Some old man. Yippeee.

It still amazes me that seeing his name sent me into a bit a panic. He isn't someone I want to see. Our relationship (if you can call it that) was anything but fun. We yelled, we fought, we screamed. We were in college and we were young. He had a temper and a "wandering eyes."...

Funny how after all these years, little things like this can cause a response you'd never expect?

I'm back!

After a week of my husband trying to figure out what was wrong with our internet, we seem to be back up and running. I think my husband ended up replacing our dsl modem, but I'm not really sure. I'm just glad to be back at full force.

I tried to write a couple of crafty posts last week but the darn thing kept timing out. It's frustrating when you think you have a post just how you like it and your computer/internet doesn't cooperate with you.

Needless to say, nothing too exciting happening over here. My life hasn't changed much.

We are experiencing fall in full affect now. I love it. The colors are awesome. I'm hoping to get some pics this coming weekend because we are just about at "peak color" according to the news report. Peak color. How awesome. Unfortunately after "peak color" we get the shower of leaves in the yard. Much raking and leaf blowing to come. Last year we had soooooo many bags of leaves. I couldn't believe it. This year we are staying on top of it so far. So hopefully that will help.

(okay I'm gonna have to post this now--my cat is licking the computer monitor! Yikes!)

Internet Probs

Damn that SBC!! We've been having internet problems. Sorry for my absence. Once it is cleared up I will write again. Until then, I'm not comfortable posting from work.

I'll write soon.

Cards Anyone?

I've been away from blogging for a bit. Life has been going fast. Every weekend there has been something to do. People to see. Places to go. Cards to play.

This past weekend we had a wonderful Saturday celebrating a friends birthday. We had a delicious meal at one of Kalamazoo's finer dining establishments and a couple of delicious drinks. Nobody seemed to be up for the raucous times we usually are so we went back to the birthday boy's abode to play Euchre.

Euchre is my favorite card game. I am a highly competitive person and this game is usually fast and competitive. I wasted many a college night playing cards instead of studying. I think it is essential to learn this game if going to school Michigan.

We laid the ground the rules as screw the dealer and no bottoms. (you would understand this if you have played Euchre) Anyways, birthday boy and his lady skunked hubby and I in the first game. It was embarrassing. Birthday boy really started with the table talk after that. He thought he was all that and more...until we won the second game. Now the true competitiveness came out. The game wasn't going fast enough for me. I was thinking too much...I made a couple of mistakes. The score was tied up. Birthday boy was talking trash. Whomever won the hand won the game...and the tournament (so to speak). Thankfully, the gods were in our favor.

I love a good game of cards. Anyone want to play?

Seasons-They Are a Changin'

Eventhough today felt like a warm summer day, the trees are telling me that the autumn weather is on its way. At lunch today I drove down to Lake Michigan to watch the waves crash in and catch that last little bit of summer.

I was pleasantly surprised that on the way home today there was a beautiful red, orange, yellow and green canopy over the roads. Fall is the most gorgeous time of year here. At least I think it is.

With the change in the weather also comes change in my life. Last week I accepted a new job and gave notice at my old one. Today was actually my last day of work there. It feels kind of weird. I'm excited to start my new job. I went from a 40 minute commute to a 5 minute. Can't beat that with a stick. Yes, the work is similar to what I was doing before, but I will have more responsibility and a fancy-shmanzy job title. Plus, hardly any miles put on the new car...or gas for that matter. I figure I'm saving in gas alone damn near $200 a month...that's a lot of $$$$.

So times, they are a changin'. Right along with the seasons.

Mixed Emotions

I'm very saddened over hurricane Katrina and what it has done to our country right now. Not only am I saddened for the victums, those poor innocent people who were completely devasted by this storm, but I'm saddened by our government.

I really don't care who's to blame for the relief effort not happening fast enough. Finger pointing should come later, much later. Let's help people first and figure out who's to blame once these cities are rebuilt. That's the time to learn from this. Right now. Help. Help. Help.

I was saddened to see that this was our Prez's first visit on the ground of this diaster. He should be inspiring people by getting in the thick of it; not cowering away.

I am happy to see how much money the Red Cross and other organizations have raised to help the people of the gulf region. We are a generous folk when it comes to helping our own. I have two to three bags of clothes to donate if they'll take them. I just have to figure out where to drop them off at.

Anyways, I do hope that we rebuild the Gulf region and are stronger because of it. I hope we learn from our mistakes and that the next time a natural disaster is on the way that we are more proactive. I hope that all those families find their love ones. I pray for us.

Fun, Sun, & Family

I had an absolutely wonderful time with my family this weekend at the lake. My parents, my sister, her husband and my niece all came up to the outlaws' beach house for some fun in the sun.

It was the first time (and probably the last this year) that my fam was able to enjoy Lake Michigan this year. We had a beautiful day. The water was a bit chilly, but by Lake Michigan standards it was pretty warm.

After the day in the sun we did some burgers and stuff for din-din. I'm so glad I moved closer to my family so I can have moments like these.

Here's a pic of my niece from the weekend sporting her new shades.