Mobile Test.

This posting is a test to see how well I can blog mobile. So there will be random pictures and I'm also testing to see how well the speech to text feature works so I can talk my blogs to you. 

now for some random photos.

this is a sock monkey. He used to be young. But then according to Padric, he got old and fat.

okay so once I add the pictures it automatically centers my text. And unless I complete a sentence and add a period it doesn't like to capitalize the first letter of the first word of what I speak. It also doesn't like to use the word period. 

time for another cute picture.

Oooo scratch that. How about a video of Seamus playing fetch!

well, that's not going to happen I think it might be too long but I will keep playing with it.

time to post office and see if it is a success or a failure. thank you for taking part in my little experiment.

Long Overdue!

OK.  I know I've been slacking in the blog department.  OK! OK! slacking is being too generous.  I dropped off the face of the earth.  I have to say that it's not just my fault.  My yahoo account was virused, so I stopped using it, then when I tried to blog here on blogger I couldn't link the two accounts and it just seemed like way too much work and I said "eh, fuck it".  I realized that I've been depriving all of my family the joy of laughing at *with* me as I try to raise these kids of mine.

It's been so long since I've blogged that I'm not going to catch anyone up.  If I know you, you know what kind of shenanigans the boys have been up to. If I don't know you, my boys are 11, 9, and 7.  Do I really need to explain?

There's been a lot going on with my knitting.  I've been posting most of that on Facebook and I've updated all my projects and stash on Ravelry as well.  I'm considering starting a blog for my knitting but I think Facebook and Ravelry will suffice for now.

Chris and I have decided to renovate the kitchen.  Yes, I will be blogging that.  I will make sure to post pictures of the before, after and everything in between.  We've ordered appliances, picked cabinets and counter tops.  We have a color palate but haven't decided on the flooring, back splash, or paint.  Then as if that wasn't enough chaos in our little house, we're getting a dog.

Yes, you heard me right, we're getting a dog.  If you've looked at my profile pic, you can see my buddy, Seamus.  He's 1 of 2 cats we have.  Both were rescues.  Dublin is a very handsome long hair that we have lovingly renamed "fuzzy death".  He hates me.  No, I mean it.  Every morning when I come downstairs he looks at me as if to say "why are you still breathing my air?"  He is Ed's cat.  He follows that man around from the time he gets home from work until he goes to bed at night.  Seamus (the one in my pic) is my cat.  He plays fetch.  No, really, he plays fetch.  I will post video soon.  He has a puppy kong.  If you throw it, he will fetch it, bring it back, and if he really likes you, he will drop it in your hand or lap.

But, I digress.  We are getting a dog.  He is an almost 2 year old Belgian Shepherd, also known as a Malinois.  They are good working dogs.  The only reason we are bringing him into the house, well besides the fact that I love him, is I have a friend who is a professional dog trainer and is going to work with us to keep him trained.  This breed is high energy and doesn't usually do well in a "pet" home.  Meaning, they don't like to just hang around the house and do nothing all day.  Don't get me wrong, he will hang out, but he will be much happier getting me off my fat ass and out for a walk or for some training work.  And yes, I will post pics of him when he comes home tomorrow night.  The boys don't know so, Shhhhhhhh! don't tell.

I do solemnly swear that I am up to no good...... oh wait that's how to open the Marauder's Map.  What I mean to say is that I promise to keep posting here.

"How do I love thee......" Yeah Right!

If you remember or have the time to go back and read my post from February of 2009 you will recall that I had a short list of the "gifts" my husband has given me over the years for our anniversary.  Well, he loves me so much that he decided to start celebrating our 10th anniversary about 2 months early.  Yes, folks in keeping with tradition, he gave me the gift that makes me give back.  But, this year he was a little lost as to what to give me so he re gifted from a few years back, thinking I wouldn't remember he'd already given me a broken turn signal arm for the civic. 

Well, enough about how much my husband loves me.  Seriously, it was an accident and I just have to bust his chops about it.

The boys are doing very well!  Joe is amassing quite a collection of guitars and enjoys playing very much.  Deg is loving first grade and loves his teacher.  Ricky loves playing with his friends at preschool and is growing up way too fast. 

I started working the overnight stock shift at the Target in Oak Lawn for the holiday season and hope that they keep me on after the holidays are over.  I am still working as a CPR Instructor and Chris is still working at Verizon.  He is now at the 79th and Cicero location (right next to Mabenka's in the old Pearl Vision building,for those of you that are local).

I hope this finds you all well and I promise to post some pictures and write a proper post within the next month.

Cowards float

OK.  I know I haven't posted in a good long while and I need to catch y'all up and post pictures but I had to tell this quick story.

I promise just read the whole paragraph below and you will laugh!

The boys are now into the show Avatar the last air bender.  So quick sum up.... there are 4 nations: earth, air, fire and water.  Certain people in each nation can "bend" their element or move it the way they want.  The fire nation has tried to take over the other 3 nations and are pretty ruthless about it.  Ang is an air bender and is the Avatar, the one person that can learn how to bend all 4 elements and stop the fire nation.  Long story short Ang and his friends are helping some earth benders escape from a fire nation prison ship.  The earth bender has the fire nation warriors hovering over the ocean and the commanding officer says "Please, no I can't swim!"  The earth bender says "That's alright I hear cowards float."  Chris and I start laughing about the good cover up, ("That's alright, I hear shit floats" is the saying) and Deaglan pipes up with "Yeah, I can float so he should be able to float."  I couldn't stop laughing and decided you all needed to laugh too.  I promise to post pics and video soon. 

"I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!"

Aren't they handsome! My boys are so amazing, all 4 of them! Chris just transferred to 79th and Cicero in Burbank, so he is much closer to home and can spend more time with us, Joe is growing up so fast, Deg can finally read and Padric is full of piss and vinegar.


Santa gave Joe a guitar for Christmas and we finally got around to getting him lessons. He's had 2 lessons so far and he's doing well.

So what's with the title of this installment? Last Tuesday, Joe was supposed to be getting ready for his second guitar lesson, but I sent him downstairs to keep Deg, Ricky, and the 2 kids I babysit out of my hair. At about 5:30 Joe comes running upstairs hollering "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!" So I say "Oh holy hell, Joe, what did you do now?" I've been getting conflicting stories from Deg and Joe but the end result is the same..... Joe's face hit the concrete floor in the basement and he bit through his top lip. So we're standing at the sink and I've got him holding a cool wet paper towel on it so to slow the bleeding so I can asses the damage. Chris happened to get home right before it happened so he and i checked Joe out and decided to take him to the ER. So while we were sitting in the waiting room Chris called Joe's guitar teacher and let him know we wouldn't be able to make it to the lesson. After 2 and a half hours in the ER, some lidocaine and 3 stitches, this is what Joe looked like....
And this was the next day..... This was Saturday.... And today (Monday) we went to the doctor's office and had them removed... He's gonna have a little scar and I told him that "Chicks dig scars, you'll understand when you get older"

Back to the guitar lessons... So Wednesday Jerry, Joe's teacher, called to check on him and see if we wanted to make up Tuesday's lesson on Thursday. I told him yes and thanks. So while Chris was tuning the guitar one of the strings broke. I called a shop on 111th in Worth called Player's Guitars to get the string replaced. Mike was really helpful. I walked in with Joe's 30" (which is about 3/4 the size of a regular guitar) and there were 2 older gentlemen in the shop. They both oozed blues if you know what I mean, looking at them made me think of Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. One of them looked at me and said "What's that, a ukulele?" I laughed and said "It's my son's guitar, he's 8." Mike took it out of the bag and started to replace the broken string. The same guy looked at the guitar and asked if I had a picture of him playing it, so I took out my phone and showed this picture He and his friend both chuckled and he said "Get out! Look at that Cat play!"

Sunday we went to China Town for dim sum at Three Happiness with some friends and their kids and then we went to Home Depot to buy a new faucet for the kitchen sink. Isn't it pretty? It's a Moen, I really like it! I helped Chris put it in.

LEGOs, LEGOs,Everywhere!

Got a flier from the Oak Lawn Library the other day, Chris brought it home. The NILTC (Northern Illinois Lego Train Club) was going to have a set-up for 2 days at the library. So we (Ed and I, Chris had to work) took the boys. WOW! All I can do is post the pics and give little comments about them because words can't describe how cool this was. They will be there from 1-4 on Sunday and then they move on. You can go visit them tomorrow (Sunday) or you can visit their website http://www.niltc.org/ and find out where they will be next. I hope you enjoy the pics and get a chance to see their work.



I didn't catch all their names, but these are some of the very helpful builders of this set up. In the second picture the guy making the funny face is Kevin and the guy in the hat is Adam. They all answered every question asked not matter how many times they were asked. They were all very, very kind and happy to answer questions from even the smallest future builder.

This is
the first building I saw when I walked into the room, and a closer look at the street level of the same building.

The was a truck accident! It looks like it was pretty bad, and that the entire police force was called in. I wonder if it was a bus load of prisoners. Oh, wait it looks like two delivery trucks. I see why the entire police force was called in can you? Anybody got any coffee or a nice cold glass of milk to go with all these doughnuts?

Yep, you're looking at the Ecto-1. Who ya gonna call? LOL! right in the middle of the second picture you can see the Amazing Spiderman and in the third, The Green Goblin. I didn't get a picture of Doctor Octopus, but he was there. There were some rooftop sentries and a little further down, a rooftop party.




We all knew that White Castles needed help. LOL! Do you think they have it right for the future of gas prices? Ah, here we see a productive LEGO employee..... Oh, wait, she's xeroxing her butt! Look! It's a gunfight! "He lives in a pineapple under the see, it Spongebob Squarepants", Patrick Star, Squidward Tenticles and, Mr, Eugen Krabs of the famous Krusty Krab.

Looks like there's something going on down there. AHHHH! I see zombies and skeletons! It's a haunted house! Why are these people picnicking in front of the haunted house? Do they want to be zombie food?

Right next to the haunted house was an old time toll booth. Then there was another great movie tribute.... The Palace Hotel. (C'mon..... you all know what movie that was from right?) And to keep up the tribute there's the Good Ol' Boys tour bus. (Did you figure out what movie yet?) Then there was the Millennium Falcon! Can you imagine having to build that? If you look closely there's a shout out to the Olympics as well. It looks like the Canadian Curling team against Hogwarts. I wonder if magic is allowed?

This was just about half of what we saw! I'll blog the other half tomorrow.

Museum Docent..... What????

For any of you that don't know yet, I am currently a Volunteer (or Docent as I was called the last time I was there) at the Museum of Science and Industry. I've been volunteering since November of last year. It is turning out to be a perfect outlet for all of the useless knowledge crammed into my melon, and anyone that knows me knows that that is alot!

I decided to take some pictures of the cool things that I have to pass to get to my area in the Imaging Lab and of some of the things that I use on my Science Connections cart. I pass the Race Cars Exhibit on my way to the Imaging Lab.

I pass the 1914 Ford Model T, 1929 Rolls-Royce New Phaeton, 1930 Franklin Pirate Phaeton, and the 1971 Aston Martin Lagonda Limited. All pretty amazing automobiles if you ask me.

My area of "expertise" is Microscopy, or microscopes. On the cart I have (usually) 6 20X dissection microscopes.

This is my cart from a distance and up close. Since our microscopes don't have a platform light, one of the other volunteers put together this neat set up. Most people ask how the light set up works and how the Altoids power the lights and I usually tell them "Well, they are curiously strong mints." Then I tell them to open the tin to see the battery set up.

The first thing I do is help people get the hang of finding what they are trying to look at and using the focusing knobs by asking if they can find Lincoln on the back of the penny. Yes, he's there if you know where to look.

Go ahead get a penny...... now look at the back right in the center of the Lincoln Memorial you can see him sitting there with the naked eye. Under the microscope you can see him a little more clearly. Then if they are still interested we move on to some other slides. We have bee parts, butterfly wings, dot matrix color printing, sand, differnt kinds of cloth... the list goes on. It's really pretty cool.