CAUTION: Woman In Progress

I had the most wonderful dream last night. It was the kind of dream that you're actually disappointed when you wake up. Ever had one of those? It's rare for me but last night's was...well.... I dreamed that Paw-Paw Joe was back with us. We were all crowded in this big banquet hall (that I'd never seen before) and were having some sort of family reunion. I was standing around talking with my sisters, gathering things from the kitchen--you know, busy work--when all of a sudden there he was, just standing in front of me wearing a pale violet button down and khakis. (Don't know where either of those items came from because he'd never worn either in his life. He was a white or blue button down with black slacks kindda guy.) I turned to him and when I realized who it was my heart just swelled up to bursting and I reached for him and hugged him so hard that he laughed and teased me about it. I cried all over him and when he tried to pull away I just pulled him bac...

So yeah. I took off early Friday to make up for some Saturday hours I was having to work. Here's what my afternoon looked like... Efan I played at their house until time to pick Lyssa up from school. Then it was off to the fro-yo place for coffee and white chocolate (for me and Lyssa) and chocolate and dulce de leche (for Efan and Sis2). Then it was watching the fish in the pond in front of the shopping center. They're fascinated by them. Then it was back to their house to play on the swings and ride bikes. Didn't get pics of that, though. Was too busy playing. :) Fridays with kids are even happier than usual Fridays.

So...other news in my life. After yesterday's Weekend Review Rambler, I feel I need to dig deeper and talk about other stuff that's going on in JanaLand. In light of the fact that I'm hardly even awake right now (It's 8:07am when I'm starting this) I'm going to do an all day check-in-as-I-think-of-it post. Cool? Cool. Or whatever. ~8:08AM: My knees have both been feeling a lot better lately. I still have trouble with some stiffness if I've been sitting too long but for the most part they don't hurt all the time. I can get up and down from chairs without crying/groaning or praying for death. Good news, right? Right. BUT...(you knew there'd be a "but") now it's my foot that hurts all the time. *sigh* So ya'll know I'm all flat footed. No arch, whatsoever. And, unrelated to the foot pain, I recently learned that the way I walk (feet turned outward) is called "Duck Toed." That was a new on me, ya'll. I've hea...

To be as busy as I've been, there isn't a whole heckovalot to report on. Honestly, I don't know where all my time goes. It's like, I get up in the morning and come to work and then POOF! It's bed time! I hardly remember one day from the next. Except for one day last week that I'm still recovering from. *shudders* I'm on the committee that hosts our student assistant appreciation luncheon. Second year in a row we've hosted one and it wasn't any easier this year. I came in to work last Thursday and sat for maybe all of two minutes before I was dragged out to ice down coolers, set up and decorate tables, collect food, put out food, clean up food. There was perhaps an hour in there that I got to actually sit down and eat food but by then the damage to my poor feet, legs and knees was done. *sigh* I was so tired that I was almost too tired to walk to the car at 4pm to go home. lol But the "kids" were appreciative and since they work so hard f...

Ack! I did not mean to desert ya'll last week. Just...Ugh. Life and work and PMS got in the way. Fingers crossed that I'll be back tomorrow for a little weekend review and some life updates. Not that I have much to update on life. But whatever. I'll come back to ramble some nonsense anyway. Until tomorrow...

Okay, so I've had my cry for the day. My favorite line? You're lovely even with your scars. Just give a listen.

So apparently I only know how to photobomb with my tongue out? Anyway, this was taken at my birthday "party" a few weeks ago. Mama is just now getting the pictures to me, which, really for it to have been  my party, there are so very few photos of me in there. What's up with that ? Huh, Ma? Oh, and sorry it's blurry. Mama only takes photos with her iPhone now and blurry seems to be its MO. iPhone's are ruining photography. But we'll always have photobombs.

So lately I've been so darned busy/lazy--if not physically, then mentally if that makes any sense at all--that a few things happened that I didn't have time to blog about. I'm lucky I got to Easter before the 4th of July. haha Last week I... ~had to bring my car in for repairs. Again. *sigh/sob* Fortunately, it wasn't the alternator as I'd diagnosed it. Instead it was a blown fuse, a faulty wire and a weak battery. Yay. Still cost me a couple hundred smackers but it could have been worse. Honestly, though? I'm just glad to have my stereo back. :-D Oh yeah. That was the really fun part. The stereo had gone completely dark and silent. As had the interior lights. But who cares about lights when I can't rock out to Miranda Lambert on the way to town/work? Do you know how boring a 45 minute drive is without some beats blasting from my speakers? Let me tell you. It is SUPER boring. For reelz. Plus, when the radio's not blaring you have to hear all sorts ...

Sunday while we were at Granny's for Easter, Efan I were in the living room alone playing and being shy. As you may recall, Granny has a Boston Terrier (that I once mistakenly identified as a Pug before I knew better) named Penny who she adores and has thus collected a lot of Boston Terrier themed paraphernalia. One such BT themed item, is a ceramic painted plaque depicting a "Penny" jumping over the moon. Efan and I were snuggled up on the chair next to the table where the plaque is displayed and he studied the plaque for a while, marveling over the fact that Penny is jumping over the moon. He looks at me, serious as can be and says, "It's not real, though." I agreed that no, it wasn't real to which he responded, "Dogs don't jump over the moon, only cows do that." :-D

So this week has been craptasticly busy. I won't even begin to get into it because, who has time? Also, who the heck cares? Anyway, Easter happened last weekend. It was cold. It was wet. It was still fun. Mostly because of these guys... Also, my mother does not know what "photobombing" is. Or she didn't until I explained it to her. Still not sure that she actually understands what the term means. But yeah, that's me, photobombing the kids' selfies--a term that I just learned. It's hard to keep up with all this newfangled lingo, ain't it? Anyhoo, instead of narrating my Easter (because who wants a play-by-play of that?) I'll just share the photos I took. The little princess. Ain't she perty? I have no photos of Emmy in her Easter clothes because she changed clothes as soon as we got home from church. Nana's got all the photos we made at church. :-/ I love this moment with Lyssa and Nana . They look so sweet. I hope one ...

Yeah, I know I said Easter pics today but...gah. Ran out of time. Instead, here's a funny parody of Taylor Swift's song, 22. I find the parody hillariously true. Love. It. Also, I know I'm 34 now but 32 was just a couple of years ago. ;-) Enjoy!

Room's not finished but here's the cabinets in action, thanks to the my dear ol' daddy. I'd been slowly working on piecing them together all last week. Between my bum knee and the fact that I lack any powerful tools (Daddy teases me about my "manly" tools) it took me all week just to get one cabinet put mostly together. Daddy had been sick with bronchitis, though, so I swore up and down I would not ask him to help. Plus, I hate asking for help. It's a single gal thing. Probably. And I didn't ask him. Friday morning, he just rode up on his white horse truck, anyway, and saved the day. As usual. It must be exhausting being such a hero. ;-) We spent probably an hour and half hanging doors, assembling the last cabinet and cracking jokes about how unfair it was that it took me a WEEK to get one cabinet put together and it took him twenty minutes with his powerful cordless screwdriver to do the other. I marvel at how awesome it must be to be a ma...

So, one cute thing that happened Saturday... (And this is only one of many. With the two silly kiddos my middle sister let loose on this world it's always comedy central around here.) I was in "Emmy's Room" with the two little ones setting up the dinosaur movie Efan always wants to watch when they're at Nana's. While I was fussing with the television, Nana reminded the kids that it was my birthday. Efan burst into the happy birthday song and sang it all the way through in the most adorable Efan way possible. I mean, we're talking totally heart meltingly cute. BUT THEN... Of course, because he is my nephew(!) (at least that is what Sis2 always blames it on) he sang "Happy Birthday" to me again except when he got to the part toward the end where he was supposed to sing "Happy Birthday, Aunt Jana" he instead sang, "Happy Birthday, my patootie." Giggles ensued all around. :-D

I just feel like it. ;-) Another year older, not a lick wiser and full of pie. That's me. I hit the big 3-4 Saturday and brought my birthday in with a creak...of the knees. I only wish I were joking. *sigh* So I took a few days off work to, IDK, celebrate myself? Because that's what I do. It makes me less disappointed if nobody else celebrates my birthday if I do something nice for myself. So I took off work, Thursday-Monday. Thursday I came into the "city" to run some important errands. Things like, have the DP's nails clipped (aka, A Puppy Pedicure), renew my license and get my taxes done. So the whole puppy pedicure went fine. I was able to get her in early and the girl who clipped the nails was really nice and I was out of there before 9am. Cool. Dropped Libs off at Sis2's to go get my driver's license renewed and that's when...Dun, dun, DUUUUUUNNNN...I did it. I hurt myself. *whimper* The place was super busy anyway because there'...

I was just reading the comments on a blog I frequent fairly regularly. In the post, the blogger mentioned how she had to run the dishwasher three times yesterday and felt she deserved an award because she hates loading and unloading the dishwasher. In context of her post and her usual humor I thought it was cute. But the comments. Oh! The comments! All that  whining about loading and unloading the dishwasher. "Oh! What a hateful loathsome chore!" and "It's the worst ever!" If only I were a troll this is what I'd have replied to them all: "Oh, wah, wah, wah,  you bunch of big babies. I wish my life was that hard. Try washing three loads of dishes by HAND and see how much you hate loading a dishwasher then. Spoiled little brats." I'm a bitter old woman who's obviously never had the joy misfortune and convenience treachery of owning or operating a dishwasher. Actually, if I'm being honest, I think the thing I hate about most c...

So. What did I do this weekend??? Tada! Libby's newly greenified room! Plus some cabinetry I've yet to actually, you know, put together. However, since the boxes sat unopened on my front porch for four days, simply unpacking and bringing them inside is a major accomplishment if you ask me. Also a major accomplishment? All that green on them there walls. Not only is my having tackled yet another paint job an accomplishment in itself, it's a MAJOR accomplishment because the can of green paint had sat unopened in that room for...a year? Two years? I can't even remember. Let me check. I bought it the same time I bought the stain for the small chest I stained a while back...(back from checking) So apparently I never actually blogged about that whole thing. Best guess is, I bought it in the fall of 2011 so it's been at least a little over a year. A year of good intentions sitting in my floor ignored. I had hated the almost white "timid violet" paint ...

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but I'm totally into the television show Nashville . And while the storylines are good, in the interest of full disclosure I must confess that, for me, the real draw is the music. Actually, mostly just Scarlett and Gunnar. I wish the two actors who portray them would just cut their own album so that I don't have to rely on Wednesdays and Youtube to hear them. Although there is a Nashville soundtrack out there, it's full of Hayden Panatewhatsherface, too, and I could actually live without that. Anyway, here's one of my faves...LOVE. Ya'll have a great weekend. I've got big plans with...something. Let me see if ya'll can guess what's going on at my house this weekend... And no, I'm not moving. ;-)

The earth around me is certainly celebrating Spring. If I can ever drag my lazy carcass outside with my camera, I'll hafta show ya. The plum trees in my backyard are starting to bloom and the grass/weeds closest to my house are just positive that it's June. Seriously, I need to mow already. Obnoxious grass/weeds.  Even the slugs are out and about already. How do I know the slugs are out and about already? Blech. I had a first hand experience with one last night. One got stuck in Libby's hair when I took her out before bedtime last night and I didn't know it until I was rubbing/hugging her and I got slimed. Ugh. So. Gross. Now she's got this bit of matted hair from dried slug slime so poor baby's gonna need a bath. You know, I've had to do a lot of things since I got Libby that I never thought I'd ever be able to stomach.  Cleaning up vomit. Picking up poop. Scrubbing down walls after a case of explosive diarrhea (hers, not mine). And now, removing...

So, in reading backwards and commenting (finally!) on some of the past couple weeks' posts, I realized I never responded back to some "results" of things I'd blogged about. Consider this catching up post a "Weeks In Review". Sort of. My car : Thankfully, the only repairs it actually needed were new front breaks. The transmission leak that the oil change guys warned me about wasn't actually a transmission leak. Something about a rear oil pan leak that apparently isn't that big of a deal. Mechanic said (via his receptionist) that it's nothing to worry about. Total cost of the new front breaks? $170--a phenomenal blessing considering that I'd prayed  heavily that repairs wouldn't be over $200. Although, considering that $100 of that was purely labor...Yeah. I'm in the wrong field. :-/ But about the mechanic. I took my car to someplace newish for me. I'd only taken it there once before when the check engine light came on. It turne...

I think it's hilarious that when I'm working in my cubical I can hear the student assistants chattering away like magpies on the other side of the cube wall. The instant I step out of my cube and round the corner into their workspace they get deathly quiet. It's like they think if they can't see me, I can't hear them or something. haha Anyway, it's not like we've ever told them they can't chat while they work. We're not ogres. Usually. ;-)