Wonderful Florida Vacation

Okay, so for the last 10 days I’ve been in Orlando with my sweetie.  We spent a lot of time at the Disney Parks, especially Epcot, because we especially went down there to see two specific  concerts, Peter Noone (from Herman’s Hermits) and Mickey Dolenz (From the Monkees.)  The performances were excellent, especially Peter Noone (who actually sang one song while sitting on a bench just one row from me, so of course I snapped his picture with my phone.)  Both performers did tributes to Davey Jones, who died unexpectedly a few months ago from a heart attack.  Davey was supposed to have done the final concert this year, and after he died Disney asked Mickey to do the concert instead.  Said Mickey, “I’m glad to have the opportunity to be here today, but truth be told I wish it was someone else. (much applause here…) I wish I were here singing a song or two WITH him.  I lost the closest thing I had to a brother.” 

Here’s and interesting tidbit:  Mickey brought his sister Cocoa along to sing with him.  She has an amazing voice!  I hadn’t heard her sing before (shoot, I didn’t even know Mickey had a sister) and she was outstanding. 

We also spent a couple of days in each of the other Disney parks (except Animal Kingdom, where we spent only one day, but it was full.)  I have to say that it would be hard to skip any of the parks, I love to visit each of them when I go to Orlando.  Each of them have their own “feel,” and each of them have things that I really love to do and see.  And it seems like each of them have at least one ride that Gary refuses to ride so I end up going on one thing alone, but that’s okay. He’s a prince of a guy to put up with my wanting to do everything multiple times, wanting to watch all the parades and fireworks all the time.  He’s very good natured.  J  All he asks in return is to ride Spaceship earth from time to time (even though I think they ruined it at the end, the beginning is sill good.)  And of course at least once every decade we have to get a “kissing picture” as we go down the long fall at Splash Mountain. 

We also had some old friends from the ward come over to the condo for dinner, the Rollins family are living in the Orlando area now so they came over this last Sunday for tacos after church.  It was really fun to see them and introduce them to those awesome “cook your own” flour tortillas (which really spoil you for ANY other flour tortillas.)  It’s amazing how much other peoples’ kids grow when you don’t get to see them very often.  Next time we go down we’ll have to get together again.  Besides, it was nice to have someone to give all our leftover food to.  J  (We can store the non-perishables, but I’d rather give the groceries to someone I know.)

There is one thing I’d like to get off my chest, though.  There is a really disturbing trend that I’ve noticed for many years that seems to be getting worse and worse with the passage of time.  I am watching the next generation of type 2 diabetics grow up.  I’m talking about the occupants of strollers.  I’ve never seen so many HUGE kids in strollers in my entire life.  I have no issue with four and five year olds in strollers at Walt Disney World.  Shoot, there’s a lot of walking to do for people of all ages, and although I think kids should walk at least part of the time, it’s a good idea to have the stroller on hand so when they get tired there’s a back up.  But the parks were FULL of strollers that were straining at their welded seams with kids who had to be at least six, seven, and eight years old, maybe even older.  And these were not slender kids either, they were kids who already had weight issues, which will most likely plague them all their lives and cause them terrible health issues and emotional problems. 

More often than not these children were snacking as their poor parents slogged along, pushing that stroller full of heavy child.  And not snacking on apples or veggies, but on chips, cotton candy, ice cream, pastries, and heavy snacks that are fine for someone who is spending the day logging in miles of walking but not so fine for a child who is being carted hither and yon.  They made me think of spoiled royalty on sedan chairs hefted around on the backs of the slaves.  A lot of the strollers were the ones that Disney rents out, and countless single kids were in double strollers intended for two occupants, but rented out for a single passenger because the rider was too big to fit in the “single-wides.”  Some of those strollers were so huge they started to look more like wheelchairs and I was wondering if I was seeing a glimpse of that child’s future because the body types of these kids are apple-shaped, totally in keeping with the type-2 diabetic.  It was really heart breaking.  At what point is it not doing a child a favor by schlepping them around like this?  And who are we really doing it for?  Are we doing this so we can stay out till all hours of the night instead of taking a tired child back to the hotel room to get some rest? 

When Bridget was 4, we went to Walt Disney World for the first time, and after some careful consideration we rented a stroller for her each morning (and she HATED it!) but I wanted to make sure we had something available for the late hours when I was pretty sure she would be too tired to walk.  Of course, in order to prove me wrong she wouldn’t go near it until she was desperate, so we probably COULD have gotten away with not having one (she was a bitty thing and had a daddy and three big brothers who probably would have been fine giving her piggy back rides till she got her second wind).  My point is, with three teenage boys, three girls and two adults, we managed to close down the parks each night and still be there nearly at opening each morning.  And Bridget felt she was MUCH too big to be in a stroller, which she thought was for a baby.  So what has happened in the last sixteen years?   And shouldn’t it  be a hint to us that if a single child is oozing out of a single-wide stroller and needs to use a double-wide that we might be pushing someone who desperately needs exercise?  Okay, off my soap box.

Other than that, it was a great trip.  I love being able to go back to my own home after a day at the park.  I love being able to cook my egg in the morning for breakfast, and I love being able to putter around and make things cozy.  Oh, as we were showing the Rollins family around the place we noticed our high chair was missing.  Gary has a call in to the management company to ask about that.  We’re kind of wondering if they sort of borrow things from one unit to the next depending on who needs what, which is NOT okay with us.  The high chair is part of our unit, it was there when we bought it lock, stock, and barrel, and I really don’t want it hauled around from place to place getting banged up.  If that’s something they consider loaning around, what’s next?  No thank you.  Anyway, hopefully that’ll be returned as soon as possible.  We didn’t need it this time, of course, but the management company didn’t know that.  Since the summer season has started we won’t be returning till at least late September or early October.  I’m not much on loving the heat, but I couldn’t resist seeing our concerts.   

Well, this post is long enough, I’d say.  J 

Redbox for free?

I saw a pin on Pinterest that said you could get free movies at Redbox so I thought I'd re-post it here.  These are the codes that always work at any kiosk, you can use them once for each credit or debit card you have:

DVDONME
BREAKROOM
REDBOX

And then these ones work at specific kiosks:

DVDATWAG (at walgreens)
DVDATKROG (at any kroger's store, which in Colorado would be King Soopers)
DVDATSONI (at Sonic drive in)

And once you've used all of those, log on to this page: redbox codes and go down a screen and a half or so and you'll see a list of the current free movie codes.  Some of the ones listed there will be the ones above, but there will also be some newer ones, ones that are time sensitive.  At any rate, they're worth a try.  All of the codes are good for one movie, one night.  If you forget to return a movie, you have to pay for the second night, of course.  There's also a place to sign up for a newsletter if you want to, but you don't have to in order to be able to use the codes.  (And if you have a better phone than I have, you can always check for those recent codes right from the kiosk.)

Anyway, hope this helps someone.  :)

Sometimes you can't tell...

Sometimes you can't tell when you get a whim and when it's a prompting.  At my job I do a LOT of event planning.  It involves making sure there's a nice room available for various programs and meals, audio visual equipment set up, making sure lecturers have all their handouts available, having spares of everything, and most of all, making sure all the catering is perfect.  I have my choice of caterers, and I have my favorites.  For lots of events I use the hospital caterer, they do a great job and they're reasonably priced.  But for special events I use Katharine's French Bakery.  They have a way of combining some really simple ingredients into delectable (but still simple) meals.  But it's not just the food, it's the really exceptional service.  Most of the time they send a man named Luis who bends over backwads to make sure everything is EXACTLY the way I want it.  And although I know I am not a difficult customer, I am no pushover.  The nice thing is, when Luis is there I know that he will be as fussy as I am when it comes to presentation, freshness, quality, and timliness; I don't have to worry because he does an outstanding job.  And on the occasions that I've gone to a location and found that someone has removed the tables that were set up, if Luis has shown up I find that he has scoured the area and found replacement tables.  Not bad considering he's not even a University employee.  But he knows what I like and he knows what good service is.

Anyway, all of this is just to say that the man has really impressed me and I've enjoyed working with him.  Well, last week I found out that he and his wife are expecting their first baby, and I had a fairly strong feeling that it would be a good thing to make them a small baby afghan. Like my title says, sometimes you can't tell if a strong feeling is just a whim or if it's a prompting, but what the heck.  I'd like to give it to him as a token of my gratitude for his hard work (and thankfully I am authorized to tip pretty generously with my company card when I pay the invoice, too.)  But we've also had a chance to chat quite a bit over the last seven or eight months as he's been the caterer that I've worked with for all of the fancier events I've planned, and I know he doesn't have a lot of extended family nearby.  I think every baby should have at least a couple of hand-made items to snuggle with, so since I had some leftover yarn this afghan was pretty quick to stitch up.  I hope they enjoy it.  My next event where I'll see him is at the end of the month, about a week and a half before their baby boy is born.

New afghan and an unrelated stupid question...

I used to take pictures of all the afghans I made and email them to myself, where I would save them in a folder in my email.  Then along came some stupid hacker who decided that it wasn't enough to just LOOK at my folder, he or she ERASED all of my personal folders.  Now I don't have any, I figured that creating anything personal was an invitation to whomever it was to come back and look for something to make a quick buck.  I had one folder named "accounts" which I'm sure the hacker thought would get him or her all kinds of riches, but it was actually just links to my favorite soap opera and Disney blogs, with my log in names.  Big whoop, I hope they've enjoyed catching up on All My Children.

Anyway, one thing that I regret is having the folder erased that had the photos of all of my afghans in it.  (Thankfully all of the photos of my grandkids had already been transferred to my little slide show here, and all of the recipes had been moved to my cookbook blog.)   So I figured that when I finished an afghan meant as a gift, meaning that it isn't likely I'll ever see it again, I'll try to remember to post a picture of it here so that I can remember what it looked like.  Especially if it's something I kind of made up or made some pretty drastic adaptations to from the original pattern.  That way when I find something that works I won't forget all about it.

This afghan is one I finished today for a woman at work who just returned from maternity leave.  It's actually the third I've made for work ladies, but one of the others was identical to the ones I've made for Jack and Isaac, except it was pink and white (theirs were blue and white and peach and white, respectively) so not having a picture of it isn't a great loss.  Unfortunately, the other was very pretty and difficult enough that it's not likely I'll do it again, so it would have been nice if I'd taken a snapshot of it.  Oh well, live and learn.

This afghan is made by creating a mesh of double crochet/chain stitch, and then weaving a doubled-over length of contrasting yarn through the mesh when you're finished.  There were actually two versions that I found patterns for, in one the yarn was single crocheted through the net but I found it was puckering the afghan way too much.  the other was just weaving the yarn through "basket weave" style, but I found it was too loose and fragile, a baby would pull that out with no effort and destroy the afghan.  I ended up doing a stitch of my own creation, sort of "sewing" the contrasting threads into place.  I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Anyway, the original also had fringe, which I think would be just irritating to a baby, so I did a border with a little texture but no frou-frou (boy baby.)  It's not a huge afghan, only about a square yard, so that it can easily be used in a car seat or stroller without getting in the way.

And now for the unrelated stupid question.  While I am crocheting I usually wear my "cheaters."  (store-bought glasses, not prescription.  My eyes aren't bad enough to need a prescription, but for close work I need a little magnification.)  Why is it that these stupid things get dirty?  Do my eyeballs sweat, for pete's sake?  I mean, the smudges aren't finger-shaped.  But every now and again I think, "Man, I must be going blind, I can hardly see a thing."  Then I'll have a brainstorm and take off my cheaters, look at the light through them, and they're COMPLETELY covered with foggy greasiness.  Where does that come from?  Are my eyes steaming out oil?  I mean, HOLY COW!  The glasses get FILTHY!  How does this happen?  You folks who wear glasses all the time, you must have theories.  Where does the glop on glasses come from?  I swear, I always through that eyes were fairly clean and that disgusting things only came from noses.  But now I think maybe eyes have their own brand of boogers.

And that's all I have to say about that.

An emotional weekend...

When Gary was bishop, he met a couple (Dave and Marti) who he found out were related to some long-time-ago friends of ours. Since Gary got to know them fairly well while he was bishop, I got to know them a little bit too. Dave is SO awesome. He looks JUST like a short Robert De Niro with less hair. Marti had cancer years ago and had a recurrence. She thought she had it beat but unfortunately it came back and it has spread. She is in the end stages now and is at home rather than in the hospital. She and Dave never married, although they’ve been together for years and Dave has asked her before. Well, on Friday he asked her again and to his surprise she said yes this time. The wedding was planned for this last Monday.

Saturday, just as we were unloading the car after a trip to Sam’s club, Gary got a call from Dave and answered it, “Hi David, how are you doing?” After a few moments he said, “I’m on my way.” I asked, “What’s up?” He said, “I don’t know, but Dave’s crying.” A couple of hours later I texted him to see if he was okay, and he texted back “yes, still breathing.” Apparently she had stopped breathing and Dave had lost it. (No wonder!) He came home about an hour after that. Sunday went fairly uneventfully, and the wedding was planned for about 5:00 on Monday. About 1:00 on Monday, Gary called to let me know the details of when to go over to Dave and Marti’s house and to see if I could go over early to help out a little and I asked him if anyone had thought to get Marti a bouquet. He said no, and I told him, “Every bride should have a bouquet.” I stopped at the supermarket on the way over (it was about 3:00 by then) to see what I could get. This was the same chain that did Carolyn’s wedding flowers so I was hopeful.

When I got to the floral counter, there wasn’t anyone there, so I was looking around a little when the floral manager came back from lunch. (She was carrying her empty Tupperware with her, with her coat over her arm.) She asked if anyone was helping me and I said no, not yet. Then she asked what I needed and I started to tell her that I had an unusual request. As I was trying to figure out how to tell her what I wanted, of course I started to get all teary-eyed. (Since I get emotional every time I see so much as a PICTURE of my grandkids, that shouldn’t be a surprise…) Anyway, I said, “Let me just tell you what’s going on.” So I explained the whole story, leaving out any identifying info of course.

By the time I finished telling her what was going on so she knew WHY I needed a bouquet with so little notice, she was obviously touched and said, “How about roses?” I said, “Roses will be perfect.” She went to the display case and selected a bunch of “rainbow roses,” a couple of bunches of baby’s breath, and came back to the counter and created a bouquet that was large enough that it was obviously a bride’s bouquet but small enough that it wasn’t going to overwhelm a sick bed. It was tied with white tulle and packaged up so I could drive to the house with them. She said, “I’m only going to charge you for the roses.” It cost $20.

When I got to the car I sat and cried and thought about how amazing it is that people seem to rise to the occasion when there is a need. And I knew that I needed to get the crying over with, because no matter how sad I was that this might be the day she died, it was also Marti's wedding day and I had to pretend that was all I was thinking about. Anyway, after I managed to get my emotions in check I drove over to the house and gave Marti her bouquet. I helped Dave clean up the house a little (bathroom, kitchen, that kind of thing) because there were quite a few people who were going to be there considering it was such a hurried affair. Dave was really grateful for the help, but I think more than that he was grateful that his beloved Marti was being treated as a bride, not a patient. Doesn’t every woman deserve that on her wedding day? It was so touching when the bishop said, “You may now kiss your bride.” Dave didn’t see a woman with a ski cap on, wearing a bathrobe, who couldn’t sit up and who barely had strength to hold her bouquet. He saw his new wife, and his kiss was as tender and sweet as it could be as he knelt by the bed. And afterward he was positively beaming, for the next hour referring to “his wife” as many times as he could work the words into his conversations with others who stopped by to wish them well. (Marty was exhausted by now and had fallen asleep.)

Before the ceremony Dave asked Gary and me to be the witnesses, so we would sign the marriage certificate. After the ceremony just as I was about to sign the certificate Gary pulled me aside and said, “I know you’d like to sign, but do you mind if I talk to Dave and see how he feels about having his cousin and Marti’s son sign instead? It’s important to have family involved in this kind of thing.” At first I thought, “Aww! I want to sign!” But then I thought, “he’s right.” For one thing, years from now Dave and his family won’t know who the heck I am, but they will always know who Marti’s son is. And Marti and her son and Dave had had some problems in the past and having him sign the certificate is a positive thing for them. So really, what does it matter to me? I had the honor of being asked, I don’t NEED to sign. One of the many things I love about Gary is that he does things for the RIGHT reason.

One thing I learned from this weekend is that I have NOTHING to complain about. I wish I didn't have to be reminded so often.

Ten Things...

Ten things you don't know about me.  This will NOT be easy because I have a big mouth so pretty much everything about me is known.  There, that's one thing that you didn't about me, right?  HAH!  Nope, doesn't count.  Okay, so I think I'll have to settle for ten things that may not necessarily be common knowlege, although there may be a few people on the planet that are aware of one or two of them.

1.  I am scared of hoarders.  Now and again I catch a glimpse of those hoarder shows and I break out into a cold sweat, get a little sick to my stomach, and I get an almost irresistable urge to declutter something.  Usually I am drawn to Gary's office at those horrible times.  This makes Gary extremely nervous.  :)

2.  I am becoming very anemic and I'm not sure how to fix that.  Iron pills haven't helped me in the past, only iron shots have and I don't really want to do that again.  :::sigh:::

3.  I like to curl my hair with socks.  Two are sufficient, which means that now that Gary's mickey mouse socks have holes in them, they are mine.  :)

4.  I have several cooking specialties that I am famous for, if only in my own mind.  :)  One of my specialties is blueberry pancakes, and anyone who has tasted them will not argue with me, they are amazing.  Feather light, and you could probably eat a dozen of them.

5.  One time Gary hurt my feelings (while I was pregnant with Carolyn) and I didn't match up his socks again for fifteen years. (However, his sock drawer was ALWAYS full of clean, unmatched socks. REALLY full.  And stirred up.)  I occasionally regret holding a grudge that long, but on the other hand, Gary has become much more careful about insulting pregnant women.

6.  I don't have a very good sense of direction, and regardless of what my policeman-son thinks, it IS possible to drive down the runway at Lowry Airforce base when you're looking for the Cherry Creek Mall.

7.  When I am really, REALLY mad I occasionally swear.  I try really hard not to, though, because it makes me feel guilty and it scares the dog.

8.  I wash my bathroom sink nearly every night.  I would probably say that this is obsessive-compulsive.  I NEED to see that shine.  I try to do it AFTER Gary has brushed his teeth.  (Althrough thankfully, he is a tidy spitter.)  Since I do it so often, I don't normally need anything harsh to clean it.

9.  Gary thinks this next one is werid, but I prefer putting away the dishes in the dishwasher right after they are clean, while the rest of the kitchen is clean too.  I absolutely HATE to put them away right before I need to put in a new load of dishes.  If I have not put them away while they're still warm, they don't feel as clean to me.  Okay, maybe that IS a little bit weird.

10.  Okay, this next one is a real secret, something I'll bet no one at all knows.  I really like going to Walt Disney World.  :)  I like to go with my husband, who is my best friend, because being there with him reminds me why I married him in the first place and shows me how easy it will be to spend the rest of my life with him. Going with my kids is great, especially back in the day when I took them one at a time so I could spend quality time with them, not easy to do with six kids.  I also love to go with my sister, because then we get to kids again ourselves.  It's also fun to go with friends and spend time reliving the past and also making new memories.  I even enjoy going by myself.  There is no bad way to go to Walt Disney World, but of course the absolute best is with my grandbabies.

Ta DA!  Ten things no one knew about me.  :) (sorta...)

Mixed feelings

So Gary and I have come to the conclusion that we probably don't need a seven-bedroom house anymore, go figure.  Since Bridget has returned home she has begun making plans to get an apartment with a friend or two and move out sometime in the next six months or so and I can't say I blame her.  I'm not going to go into the "wailing momma" mode because I understand where she's coming from.  I remember getting my first apartment with my best friend and it was a HOOT.  (Remember that, Karen?)  Some of my favorite memories to this day are of living there, so I would never begrudge that experience for Bridget.  But that'll mean that there are only the two of us rattling around in this big house, and it's ridiculous enough being THREE rattling around here.

Doesn't it just figure that once I got my bathroom remodeled I would end up moving away?

I have already begun looking at the rooms with the eyes of someone who is saying goodbye.  I look at each room and I don't see what's there now, I see what was there ten or fifteen years ago.  I see little girls playing in knee-deep piles of stuff.  I see a little dog laying on the top bunk of a doll's bed.  I see a basement with three boys, in various stages of voice-changing.  I see a room with a chinchilla named Chong, who was the softest pet ever.  (He didn't much love coming out of his cage but once he was out, he snuggled really well.)  I can also see Michael's room, which was more like a maze, really.

I look at my living room now and it's tidy but when I look through my "time vision" goggles I see gangly teenaged boys draped over all of the furniture and I literally have to count legs and divide by two to figure out how many are there and how much milk we'll need for cereal.  (The heads are all obscured by the blankets, but somehow the feet are never covered up.)   I look at the house across the street and remember neighbors long since moved away, who used to be able to tell when we were home and when we weren't because the dog slept on the kitchen table when we were away.

My family room has a nice little pot-bellied gas stove.  When that thing is turned on that room is toasty and warm and cozy.  On a snowy day there's nothing better and I remember when the girls would come home from school, cold and wet and tired.  They'd snuggle under an afghan on the couch with something or other on the TV and they'd always fall asleep for a little while.  (Getting up early for seminary meant always being sleepy enough for an afternoon nap.)  That's what I see when I look at my family room.

I look at my kitchen, at my pantry, and remember keeping it stocked up with extra goodies because I knew that I would be feeding not just my own kids but that their friends felt enough at home here that they would open the pantry door to see if there was something interesting to eat, to "tide them over" till dinner was ready. And most of the time there were extra plates on the table at dinner time.  As more and more of the kids have grown up and moved out I've found that I've cooked less often but somehow I haven't managed the art of cooking less QUANTITY, so when I cook there's always enough to feed an army. (Or to feed whomever is here for the rest of the week.)  Gary is amused about that.

I look at my coat rack, for pete's sake.  I have a sun hat hanging there and next to it is the hat Aidan wore whenever we went outside to "give the flowers a drink of water."  (Aidan usually got as wet as the flowers.)  They haven't lived here for a long time but I can't bring myself to put his hat away.

So how do you leave these memories behind?  Gary says, "Change is always hard for you."  Ya THINK??  Maybe it's because change has always meant pain.  Change always means losing something I love.  But how stupid is it to live in a house with seven bedrooms, six of which are not even being used?  We shouldn't be making a house payment like this when we could sell it and buy something perfectly acceptable, maybe three bedrooms so we would still have room for out of town family to stay. We've actually even seen a few places, one of which I liked very much and could see myself living in.  And then I come home and look at my house again and wonder how I'll live through giving it all up.

Change sucks.