For some reason, this picture didn’t strike me as funny till I read the caption “You are SO in my bed.”
While visiting my mom in Kentucky, Madison got an early Christmas present. She has a new collar that reads “Santa Paws” and a new peppermint striped bone (thanks to Old Navy for their cute Holiday doggie line). Sadly, the bone has already been chewed into tiny pieces. I got the picture right before total destruction occurred.
Wade and I were attempting to take pictures for our Christmas cards. We wanted Madison in them too, but that might have been asking for too much. Before we got done, Melissa and Chris had jumped in on the action. Sadly, I’m not sure any of these are quite right….
Wade and I decided not to begin our Thanksgiving drive until Thursday morning. We headed south on I-85, turned west on I-20 and promptly hit stand still traffic. We quickly found an alternate route and arrived in Memphis right on time.
Wade’s little cousins Marie and Tina were lots of fun and love to play hide-n-seek. We spent a lot of time in the backyard running around and up in Wade’s old tree house (that is until we broke the ladder). Wade’s Granny and Papa loved Madison – especially Papa. By Saturday morning when we left, Madison would just sit by Papa’s chair. Of course, he had been feeding her table scraps all weekend so that might explain a lot!
Thursday night we (Wade, Granny, Papa, Judy, Jerry, and I) gathered around the table to play Uno. I always enjoy the game, but this time was hilarious! Papa had a little trouble telling the difference between blue and green so Papa was allowed to play either and everyone else had to follow suit. Granny didn’t like this at all – she is a real card player and wants everyone to follow the same rules. In the end, Granny won three games and everyone but Wade won one. Poor Wade.
Another cool frog picture! Now I just need one with an elephant.
For years, my mom and I have picked our favorite tree during the fall season. It’s the tree with the perfect color as the tree transitions from green to yellow or red. Since we aren’t in the same town, I figured I’d show her mine with a picture.
After church today, Wade and I had lunch with some of his friends from work. They cooked an excellent lunch. We got back to Wade’s tiny apartment and all took a nap. I woke up before Wade and Madison and tried to snap a picture – they woke up just as I took it.
Madison and I got up early this morning and drove to South Carolina to visit Wade. He had wanted to spend last night working on his portfolio – and he is almost done! We toured Anderson and then drove to Greenville. They have an awesome park and downtown area. We played around and did a little shopping. We even looked at neighborhoods to see if we could possibly be happy living here.
I was surprised at the number of people that recognized Madison as a Brittany Spaniel. Most people get the spaniel part, but have never heard of a Brittany. Someone even commented on how well behaved she was – ha!
I can’t believe it’s been nine years since my summer of the Governor Scholar’s Program. Five weeks on a college campus with 349 other students. I had a blast! There were six of us – Dave, Shawn, Edie, Allison, Travis, and me – who did everything together. We hung out in a small valley – hence the name the Valley Club. Don’t we look young?
Over the years we have stayed in touch, at least mostly. I believe this was during our senior year of high school – we met up at the college campus for a small reunion. Sadly Dave and Shawn couldn’t make it.
I got an email last week telling me that Travis, his wife Emilie, and his new daughter Melilla were coming to town. I only got to see them for a little while tonight, but it was so much fun. I love reminiscing about the “good old days.”
Working in the legal department of Scientific Atlanta, we knew something was going on. Things have been crazy busy and none of the lawyers have been in the office for a couple of weeks. We had pieced a few things together and today our guesses were confirmed. Scientific Atlanta has been sold to Cisco. No one knows what this means in terms of our jobs. I’m pretty sure all the engineers are safe, but the legal department? No clue. We have a company wide meeting at 10, but I doubt that will fill in many blanks. Oh well, life goes on.
Since moving away from Midtown, I don’t see Steven as often as I used to. We do chat online quite a bit and decided to get together for dinner tonight. He recently visited Oregon for a job interview and I requested he bring me back a beaver. And he did!
After dinner, we started to play Nintendo – old school Nintendo. Bubble Bobble was the game of choice and we beat 99 levels (with the help of a few continues thrown in). The 100th level was the last and we tried and tried but didn’t quite beat it. I’m going to leave it on in the hopes that we do next time. I remember playing this game with Melissa and the help of the game genie way back when. Too bad I don’t still have that game genie.
Yeah! I finished another test in my EMT class. Now I only have the final to go, which isn’t until December 12th. I have an A in the class and hopefully I will keep it, but I am getting tired of the studying. I’d much rather play! I’ll teach Madison a new trick, watch tv, go out for dinner, cook, read, oh fun!
Evidently Madison has decided to use my blanket as her new pillow. My nice, warm, cuddly, heated blanket. As soon as we walk into the living room she hurries to curl up on top of it – guess I’ll have to be quicker or sneakier.
Madison has entered a chewing phase. She doesn’t chew on people or furniture, but she has been destroying her toys. This is a first for Madison. I have thrown away three toys in the past week, such as the bear below.
One of the best commands we taught Madison was “pillow.” The moment this word is said she runs to her pillow and lays down. It is great if she is getting into things or we have company. The pillow is hers so she often plays with it. Last week it developed a few small holes, which Wade sewed up on Sunday. I usually leave the pillow in the hallway with Madison so I did today while I was gone. This is what I came home to….. I couldn’t do anything but laugh.
Wade took Friday off from work to focus on his portfolio (so he can get a job) and drove to Atlanta Thursday night. I mentioned that I would like a way to rate and comment on books I am reading or have read. Poof! Now I have a new page added my blog. On the right under Main you will now see “Book List“.
It shows the current book I am reading and the previous nine I have read.
With my job and class, I don’t have very much time to read. I have slowed down from one book a week to one every couple of weeks. I don’t like my current book so the reading is going even more slowly than usual.
Work was a challenge today – and I didn’t get there until 11:30. I report to a particular patent lawyer, but he is not my boss. The best days are when I don’t have to work with him. I get along with most people, but something about him just isn’t right. He comes off as a very immature forty something year old man. He gets caught up in office gossip and tries to get information out of me. He tells me I shouldn’t “associate” with the admins or people will start to consider me one. However, I like the admins and I don’t care what people think. Then he comments that our boss probably doesn’t like us (meaning the admins and I) talking during the day. (My boss jokes around with us and has never mentioned us talking.) The lawyer’s office is around the corner so I know we aren’t bothering him. Maybe we should sit at our desk and never say a word to anyone? That doesn’t seem healthy.
Okay, but the real point of this is he comes across as stupid. He can be eloquent and is very good with the lawyerese, but as an engineer – I have serious doubts. We can hear the same inventor talk and he gets nothing out of it. We can talk about an invention one day and the next day I have to explain it all again. Today it took me 15 minutes to explain to him why a unicast signal would be faster than a multicast signal. It seems to me anyone who knows what the prefixes “uni” and “multi” mean could figure out the rest. How infuriating!
And since I am on a roll here. The lawyer and his admin got into it over something (beats me what) and it ended up at human resources. The lawyer made a fool of himself (face turning red, knocking over a chair, etc). When he found out he had some information wrong, he went back to HR and apologized. I was so impressed. I started thinking I had him pegged incorrectly. Then he opened his mouth not 15 minutes later. He started complaining about his neighbors. His neighbor’s kid dared to play basketball until 9 pm at night. Then he explained how his neighbors got their property line confused and planted some shrubs a foot onto his property. He made them move them – he didn’t want to maintain them or be responsible if someone got hurt working on them. I told him the story of the people deeding (at no cost) my mom 9 feet because of a misplaced fence. He laughed and said what a great idea – he could offer the foot of land to his neighbors for $100,000. Wow – what a way to miss the point.
I told my friend Steven that people at work made me mad. This was his perfect response, “Holly, I gave you that rubberband rifle for a reason. these would be the reasons.”
Now I am off to study for another test.
We reviewed our tests tonight in class and one student was successful in getting a question dropped. (This surprised me because the teacher normally doesn’t care if a question was ambiguous or had a couple of right answers.) Thankfully, I had missed the same one. I got .666 points back which was just enough to give me a 90.01 – now I have my A!!
Ah – the things that make me smile.
While I was home for Melissa’s wedding, there were all kinds of goodies in the fridge. My favorite was a chicken pasta salad, which is odd because I normally don’t like cold pasta salads. It took me a few months to get the recipe, but I just made it and it is fantastic. I prefer it with Town House Bistro Crackers. Thanks to Joyce Titsworth for the recipe!
1 and 1/2 cup bowtie pasta
1 c. frozen corn
1 c. cooked chicken
1 chopped tomato
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons pesto
1 tablespoon chicken broth or water
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh Basil
Cook and drain the pasta. Cook the corn according to directions on the box. Combine the pasta, corn, chicken, and tomato. In a sealable container, combine the oil, vinegar, pesto, broth, salt, and pepper. Shake well. Pour over the pasta and toss gently. Chill for 2-24 hours. Sprinkle with cheese and basil before serving.
My suggestions – more tomato and cut the pasta pieces in half to make it easier to put on a cracker.
I was surprised when I got the recipe and realized pesto was an ingredient. I normally don’t like pesto, but I guess there are always exceptions. I’m off to eat some now!
Nicholas sent me this yesterday. I’m hoping it will work on Wade!
It’s time for my second test in my EMT class. I have an eight hour class tomorrow and half of the day is dedicated to a written and a practical test. I’m not too worried about the written, but I haven’t done a lot of practicing for the practical – which is a run through of a patient assessment. We have a flow chart to follow and specific steps that have to be performed. Wade was a little late getting into town, but he willingly agreed to be a patient and then we didn’t give Madison much of a choice.
To get Madison to cooperate:
First, make sure she is good and tired.
Then she is extremely pliable. Here Wade is playing doctor.
And now it’s my turn. Wade and Madison as seen here have just been in a serious “leash accident.”
Update: I took the two tests. I got an 89.44 (the worst grade in the world – so close to an A) on the written and a 100 on the practical – thanks to my two patients!
I have a slight, no, make that a huge love of chocolate. I’m not even very picky about what kind of chocolate I have, but I’ll admit dark chocolate is my favorite. Back in the spring I overheard a coworker talking about dark chocolate m&ms. I thought “what a wonderful idea” and immediately searched the stores. Wow – they were excellent. I bought a few bags and kept them in my desk at work. Sadly, the dark chocolate was part of M&M’s Star Wars theme and were a limited edition.
Then we got a Halloween box from Wade’s mom. It had dark chocolate M&Ms in it!! I searched the M&M website and found that the dark chocolate m&ms were brought back for Halloween in select stores. One of those stores was my local grocery store, Kroger. I stopped on my way home from work and found four bags in the “cheap-let’s-get-rid-of-it-after-Halloween-candy”. Happiness! At least until I eat them all…
(If you see any at your local Target, Wal-Mart, or Kroger you should buy them for me and I will be forever indebted.)
The biggest change I have noticed in airport security since 9/11 is the need to undress. First it was the need to take off more of the metal jewelry or belts. Then it was the need to take of shoes with metal shanks. Now I have to take off any outer layers and all shoes. What the heck? This summer the guards asked me to take of my flip-flops!
My favorite was this past weekend when we were flying out of DCA. I took off my jacket (my thin, cotton hoodie), but not my shoes. It was cold and I knew my shoes hadn’t set off the detectors in Atlanta. The TSA woman demanded that I take off my shoes. I told her they didn’t set of the detectors in Atlanta and she said it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about setting off the detectors, it was about meeting certain criteria.
So if most of my clothes have to come off, why on earth do I have to walk through the metal detector? And why hasn’t someone invented metal detectors that are smart enough to figure out if my shoes or jacket are dangerous without taking them off? I don’t feel a bit safer, but I am a lot more annoyed….
Melissa and Chris bought a house in Nashville this weekend! I’m excited for them and definitely jealous. Wade and I can’t talk about buying a house till we know where we are going to be for more than six months. Hopefully soon we can join the ranks of home owners!
