I was browsing my computer this morning in a mad search for the last family photo taken when both of my parents were alive. A copy of the photo hangs on my living room wall and I know I made it from a scanned picture, but I cannot find either the original or the scan.

I did, however find another photo I love so much. It’s a counterpart to the photo I posted last month when we would dress up as elves and go Christmas caroling.

Back row: me and my cousins Donna, Jodie, & Julie
Front and center: my baby sister when she was a wee tot

I dodged all of the sickness that my sister, boss, friend, and secretary have had the past couple of months. “GO ME!”, I thought. When I woke up with a nasty cold yesterday morning, I could not figure how I snagged this virus. The only people I had been around lately was the boyfriend and the brother. Neither one of them have been sick.

Last night, the boyfriend says “You probably picked it up at Home Depot.”

It’s not like I had it rung up with the tile samples.

I cannot even explain to you how much I have been jonesin Amish Friendship Bread lately.

I haven’t told anyone about my desire.

Today in my screenporch was a ziploc bag of yeasty goo and a note from NeighborDad’s girlfriend.

I’m home a day early from SS’s (AKA Greg, AKA new boyfriend) house (3 hours from mine). They are supposed to get huge snowstorm starting tonight and lasting until Monday morning. I cannot miss work on Monday. I also do not like driving in the dark … especially in rain or snow. We made the decision that I needed to head home before the storm.

Were we happy that I was leaving a day early? No.
Did we both feel it was the best thing to do so that I got home safe? Yes.

So … more regular posting will resume … every other weekend excluded.

I’ve been looking at new crochet patterns because I need something to keep me busy since it’s been snowing for 22 days straight here in the banana belt of Upper Michigan. [The snow fact isn't made up ... it was on the news.]

Every single pattern says something like: BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GAUGE.

Yep, always in all caps. I hate being hollered at and I never check my gauge.

I have been busy for the past couple of days researching and designing my bathroom remodel thanks to the lower interest rate I got on my house payment due to the horrible state of the economy.

[How that for a runon sentence?]

My bathroom has always been a headache since I moved into this house 8ish years ago. Now that the house has been mine for 3 years, the bathroom is going to change. Layout will be similar … but with more space. Location will change so that I can put my kitchen sink close to the cooking area. Not only will this be a bathroom remodel, but the kitchen is going to get a bit of redo too.

At first, I was going with another cast iron tub to stay with the era of my house. Those are damn expensive. Then I started thinking about whirlpool tubs and resale value. My search engine is tired of looking at tubs. I have settled on a soaking tub. It’s bigger than your typical 60×32 and measures in at 60×42. I am loving a big piece of plastic instead of steel.

I am also doing a drop-in sink into a piece of antique furniture. The side table that goes with my antique bedroom set is getting a redo. I am keeping the legs of that table, but the rest is being redesigned. I’m sure there will be pics of it in the future.

The floor is going to be mini hexagons (with infloor heating) and the walls up to wainscot height are going to be subway tile. This has always been the bathroom I’ve imagined.

Most of my project is pretty affordable … except for the subway tile.

Subway tile is being the thorn in my side. I know I want to tile a lot of my bathroom in it. Have you ever priced subway tile?

This morning SS & I were laying around being lazy … him watching either news or ESPN and me looking through the new Burpee catalog that came in the mail. He wasn’t paying attention to much to when I was saying that I’ve had good luck with this or bad luck with that or this is what I usually plant. He did do a major headsnap (and distracting him away from whatever he was watching on TV) when I said something like “when this comes out of my garden, I like to cook it this way”.

I’m so screwed now … I can’t play the “I Don’t Cook” card anymore.

First, go read this. I’m not stressing about last minute Christmas sh*t this year, but I wanna play the game again and be a comment wh*re. The game goes like this: take the next letter in my comment section playing along with the theme. This post is staying at the top of the blog until all of the letters are used up.

*thinking* What should be the theme this year? *drumming fingers on desktop* AHA! An awesome Christmas song lyric … and tell me why it is awesome.

Of course, I have to start with the letter A …

A is for “All I Want For Christmas Is You” … well, because if you haven’t heard, there’s a new man involved this year.

NeighborDad called me on my cell phone yesterday wondering if I was home. He said he had something to drop off for me. I told him I was home and he could stop over any time. He said he be over in a couple of minutes.

More than a couple of minutes later, he knocked on the door. NeighborDad had a nice bag of treats that his girlfriend made with a bit of adult fermented beverage tucked into the bottom of the bag.

Now … NeighborDad and I have never exchanged any sort of gifts, but we do favors for each other year-round … mow lawn, watch house, etc. I thought maybe they were a thank you for the Packer game tickets I scored for him (thanks to my sister ::jeanne::). Homemade holiday treats and some beverage was a nice thought, but I figured the gift should be going to my sister instead of me. Then … during his brief visit it was mentioned that maybe my boyfriend and I had gone shopping for the day and he didn’t think I’d be home when he called. I never mentioned the boyfriend to him, but I was now sure LilBro did.

I think the treat bag was a ploy to meet the boyfriend.

Later, SS (the boyfriend) and I were checking out the treats. There was some chocolate-covered meringue cookies, toffee, and caramels … all homemade. SS tried one of the meringue cookies and I swear he went to cookie heaven. It was then when he said, “Your brother doesn’t know about these yet. Does he have to? Can they be all mine?”

I let him hide them in my bedroom to keep them all for himself.

“she hasn’t been online and she hasn’t blogged, he must be in town”

Yes, he is. He = my new boyfriend = SS I’ve mentioned in my tweets. He would have went home early this morning to attend his church services, but the snow prevented that.

There must be something about snowstorms hitting when we visit each other’s place for the first time. Two weeks ago when I went to his place and got snowed in for an extra day.

Right now him and LilBro are gone to the grocery store to get food. I am enjoying a few moments of no testosterone in the house and seeing the toilet seat down.

My cell number changed a long time ago and ever since then I have been wanting to get new business cards because I hate crossing out the old and putting on the new.

The move to our new office building has changed everything. Not only am I getting a direct line, but our department is getting a new phone number. There was some wonky stuff going on and the IT dude explained it to me and I processed it as “your analog phone number can’t be ported to the fiber optic system because someone already has that last 4 digit number”. So … the phone number that has been our department for a bajillion years is going to be changed.

ITdude & I were talking about changing the phone number issues while I was on my cell with BossMan trying to explain a problem that was way above my head to someone that is totally clueless. I lied when I told ITdude that BossMan approved the change of our department’s phone number.

ITdude did ask me if I put in the order for new business cards yet … and I further explained not to do it … yet. We not only have a new department phone number, but I have a direct line … then there’s the fax and cell numbers and e-mail addy that need to be on there. Everything can change before now & then.

Once we are all settled and I get a new biz card, I need a new design. My biz card is too busy. I happened upon ExBoyD’s biz card this morning. He has a lot of shit on that card and it doesn’t look too busy. I’m going with a similar design.

I will keep repeating that in my head all day long otherwise I will forget it. Remembering what the date is has been a challenge for me this week … and it’s only Wednesday. (I did double check that before typing it.)

Yesterday was a blurry whirlwind resulting from a house fire in one of our rentals the night before. The fire started when a 3-year-old knocked over a burning candle. The family got out safely. The interior of the house is a total loss. We are working as quickly as we can to get the family back into the house so I already contacted our material suppliers to get quotes. We completed construction of the house on November 25, 2003. Back in 2003 the windows for that house cost under $4000. The quote I received yesterday to replace them is $6600. I don’t know why that difference shocked me. Price increases happen all of the time. Maybe it’s because I see them incrementally from year to year … and not a direct comparison of the exact same order 5 years apart.

FYI: Someone from one of the 3 fire departments … with 5 trucks … thinks the whole house is a total loss and we’ll have to knock it down to the foundation. I don’t agree with that opinion. After all, it was nearly 1am when the fire was out and he looked at the building. Plus, he had been pumping ice-cold water into a burning house in -20 degree wind chills. His judgment was probably at little off. I walked through it yesterday and the fire never escaped the interior. None of the super-structure was damaged. I think we can strip it down to the studs and the shell of the building can remain intact. Then again, this all depends on how much water damage there was to the floor.

Another FYI: The fire wasn’t big enough to warrant 3 fire departments and 5 trucks. We happen to be in close proximity to all of them and when the call went out, they all responded. Kudos to those volunteer firefighters.

Today we are I am meeting with the insurance adjuster. There’s no way I’m letting wussy BossMan handle this and have the insurance company recommend remediation instead of replacement. This claim is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what we pay in premiums for our 150ish rentals.

Today is also OfficeMovingDay … at least for me anyway. I am going into work early to complete timesheets then shut down my computer and get the clutter off my desk so that the crew can move me 1st thing this morning.

In summary: insurance adjuster, fire damage investigation, moving, dusting, arranging, and hanging pictures will consume my day … Wednesday the 17th of December.

Five years ago, we started a family project to make Christmas stockings out of the material from my Mom’s formal dresses that my sister kept after mom passed away. The stockings are done crazy quilt style and my holiday decorations are centered around the colors in the stockings. (I wanted to link to the original entries, but I am having a difficult time getting my subdomains to play nice with me since I made the HostSwitch08 and I can’t link to the original entries or photographs.)

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