…because of darn this old van! $1300 to fix it all. I think repairs that have to do with brakes and air conditioning are important and that seems to be the majority of problems with the popping, grinding and humming. The day we were at my mom’s a few weeks ago was miserable as it was in the high 80s and the air wouldn’t work properly-it heats up the second seat where I was sitting! I’m trying to get a hold of Brian to tell him the ‘good news’. Last night we had 3 of the 5 numbers in the powerball-wow-$7!! If only. Since I don’t see us purchasing another vehicle for me in the near future, I would recommend us getting all the repairs. We have the home equity loan and I need a car. Peace of mind so be it.
Blogger won’t let me upload photos. I don’t know what it’s problem is.
It is a nice day before the heat is suppose to hit tomorrow. Sean said he’ll cut the grass. So maybe I’ll settle on the lounge chair with my book and stitching and stop worrying about things-for at least a little while.
~Update-blogger didn’t publish this earlier. I talked to my brother the mechanic and Bri and they said to stick with the brake repair and the a/c. Not sure if that will bring the cost down that much.
I tried to sit outside and the bugs were bothering me. I’ll find something else relaxing to do.

I just got finished watching the 3-hour long ‘most inspirational’ top 100 movies of all time as rated by the American Film Institute. Now I must be daft or my brain is water-logged because I didn’t even think about ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ being voted as #1. It certainly is one of my top 10 favorites as is Jimmy Stewart, a fellow Pennsylvanian definitely is one of my favorite actors of all time. I do have a few ‘collectables’ from the movie-a IAWL cookbook written by Karolyn Grimes, the actress who played ‘Zuzu’ Susan Bailey in the movie. And I also have the Zuzu porcelain doll (I was into dolls a while back) and the trading cards too.
I’m glad to see ‘Rocky’ in the top 10. I’m wondering if I’ve ever seen ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ as it was #2 in this list and #1 about a year ago in another AFI special. I’ll have to make a mental note to buy that one.
Not much is new. Brian’s car is home and repaired at a tune of almost $800! I decided to leave my van to get the air conditioning checked out and a few mystery noises hopefully figured out. My brother the mechanic has tried in the past to do this. I call my van ‘the red firecracker’ because as soon as it warms up outside, I get a popping noise when I turn the steering wheel left or right. We also have some grinding and humming noises. I think when Sean was learning to drive, he was backing up and really went over a curve bad enough to give me a bubble in the rear right tire that needed to be replaced. I think it’s out of alignment. I want to have a vehicle I am not apprehensive to drive.
We went to Carrabbas for dinner (across from car dealership) and came out to torrential downpour.
I spent the evening watching the above show and worked on my ‘A Walk in the Woods’ cross stitch piece.
BTW, I added a link to Make A Child Smile in my sidebar. It’s an web based organization where you are only asked to send 3 sick kids a greeting card each every month. I’ve been sending the cards to the different children for almost 8 years now. I’ve come to know many them, lately little Joanna whose mom Lorie sends me email and photos. What a precious child Joanna is.

I’ve gotten the following photos in email, so I don’t know who to credit for these, but aren’t they fascinating?

According to Wikipedia: Many animals with albinism, however, lose their protective camouflage and are unable to conceal themselves from their predators or prey. The survivability rate of animals with albinism in the wild is usually quite low.
As albinism is a recessive gene, the chance of offspring with albinism resulting from the pairing of a creature with albinism with a creature without albinism is very low.

I’m also interested in albinism as we have a mostly white robin (he’s rather mottled in appearance), living around here. I’d love to get a photo of him sometime to share.

I had to get up yesterday and make a number of phone calls-not my favorite way to start the day. The countertop guy called at 8:15 am and Brian forgot to hang up the phone the night before, so he was the first one I called. They are coming today to glue a piece of wood to the underside of the countertop where the dishwasher mounts will be attached. I then had to call for Brian’s car to get repaired and inspected. A spring in the back went and he has a recall for the ones in the front. He got new tires Sunday and the guy put on the incorrect size and the broken spring gave him a blow out about half a mile down the road! Needless to say, he turned around and got all new tires in the correct size.
I said I’d make up two flower containers for Bri’s dad’s upcoming birthday on the 23rd. I haven’t seen the man since Dec. 28th and he hasn’t been here either. I’m not holding a grudge, I just feel uncomfortable going to his house because I don’t want to say anything that will set him off like I did in December. My mom said not to go there again. Him getting as angry as did was so uncalled for and what he said was mean too. Sean is still hurt by this episode. He says he’ll never forget it. I really don’t mind if Sean says this because that taught him that is not how you treat someone who is kind to you, brings you food, helps you paint your porch and programs your cellphone that you still don’t use properly (he tries to use it on the casino bus or inside the casino-can we say interference?)
Sean and I went to one of our favorite greenhouses and I carefully picked out a nice array of white, oranges, yellow and green(asparagus fern). We ran to the home center and I got two plastic pots for the flowers that I planted when I got home. They are really lovely! I’ll take some photos tomorrow.
I just cut most of the leaves off my poor hollyhock. It’s blooming the prettiest salmon/pink too. Bummer.
Sean got a phone call for an interview at Big Lots, the local discount store. He’s going today at 1:30 for an interview. Now he has two options. He doesn’t have to dress up here and there are guys his age to talk to-not at Peebles. We are worried about his lifting heavy boxes too. It’s up to him.
After dinner we had to follow Brian (Sean drove his own car) to the dealership to drop off his car. We decided to go to Borders. I bought 3 magazines-two cooking ones-one from Italian and one that deals just with veggies. I got a polymer clay magazine too as I like to fiddle with clay and really haven’t gotten into this. I think it would be cool to do people and pets in clay.
We were naughty and went to Baskin Robbins (we had a low cal pork roast and wild rice dinner).
Yum!
I decided to watch a documentary on Bravo called ‘Three of Hearts’ about a tri-relationship between two bisexual guys and a woman. The one guy married her, but they were all in a relationship for 13 years and each fathered a child. I found this interesting, but very risky. If you decide to watch this 8 yr documentary, you’ll see what happens. The guy the woman actually was married to reminded me in a way of Richard Simmons!

No snake was harmed in the writing of this post. : )

Brian was tying up the tomatoes yesterday and found this guy under a pile of leaves out in the veggie patch. We are taking down an old fence and there are probably plenty of snake hideaways. Brian just had to show me knowing how much I love snakes. Behind ‘them’ is the doomed hollyhock.

I spent the entire afternoon grouting the tiles. It took a good 3 hours to grout the two walls and then a while to clean up all the dust doing it created. All this while in the pangs of a tummyache. Sean didn’t feel good all day yesterday, so I wonder if he had something or I am just PMSing? I ate some yogurt and had ginger tea and feel better. Anyway, I have to let the grout cure for 48 hours and then clean off the surface to remove grout residue and to make them all shiny again. They I seal them. These probably look a bit hazy if you click to enlarge.
BTW, Lee asked me if I was a leftie and I am.

The last two days I’ve been trying to finish up planting things, etc. Brian put up that new piece of chicken wire fencing and he kept needling me about putting in the green beans. I went out there yesterday and because Bri decided to plant more peppers, I could only put in about 4-5 foot rows of beans. It looks like a garden for little people because they could surely move around in it better than me!
I got quite warm and since it was close to dinner time, I came in to try one of Rachael Ray’s recipes from her magazine I had purchased recently. I chose a simple lemony pasta dish created because Rachael’s mom Elsa loves lemons- Mamacella. I had to improvise a few ingredients- I had to use sour cream instead of heavy cream. I had the white wine with no corkscrew, so I had to leave that out. But I was able to put in fresh basil from my herb bed and I had to cut up the lemon as my grater was missing too (I so need to unpack the rest of my kitchenware stored in the basement). We all enjoyed the pasta, esp since half of the pasta I used was lemon pepper flavored.
After dinner I went to load the dishwasher and it really tilted out. That was it! I got on the phone and left a message with the kitchen installer. He called me this morning and said he couldn’t do anything unless the countertop installer come back and but the inserts into the granite. I had to call them this morning and am now waiting for them to call me back to schedule an appointment.
Brian just told me my cousins’ furniture store Dane Decor was in a 5 alarm fire that caused over 2 million dollars damage. This is so sad to hear. My cousin Gloria started the business in the 70s. I was telling my mom what a great thing this was as it has provided employment for her children and grandchildren it is such a popular establishment. I have a teak tea cart Gloria gave Brian and me as a wedding gift. I read that the family is rebuilding and I wish them lots of luck.
~Update-I don’t know if any of you clicked through the above link, but the fire happened late at night, so the store was closed and no one was there. Also, my cousin Gloria passed on a while back. We don’t really keep in touch with her kids, though her son Drew was doing a search and happened upon a blog entry of mine where I mentioned his mom. He wrote me a comment about trying to remember who I was.

My guy Sean just got a call back up from a local clothing (and a few home furnishings) store called Peebles. He starts next Wednesday night with 3 hours of training. He has to wear dress clothes which he doesn’t have a lot of. Lucky for him he found a good sale at Macy’s yesterday and got three shirts and a tie. He got some really nice referrals from a family friend and a high school friend who goes to Cornell. Sean could roll out of bed and be to work in about half an hour as the store is about 2 minutes and 1/2 mile from here. How lucky is he with the price of gas! He’s worried about being bored as it’s not a jumpin’ store like say a Wally World. I told him not to worry as they’ll find stuff for him to do! I worked retail as one of my first jobs and it really helped me get over some shyness. I’m sure it will help him too. : )