Success... more or less...

It's September 30, which means: I need one more blog post to hit my goal of eight posts for the month! So here we go...

Um, apparently I overestimated my ability to extract worthy blog material from thin air... hold on just a second...

Yep, just as I suspected -- I'm gonna have to resort to my blog topic fall back: random thoughts... really SHORT random thoughts... (sorry, it's the best I can do right now... :))

1) Is tomorrow seriously October?? This year is going by too quickly...

2) We had a fire drill at work yesterday. It felt like being in grade school again. Except for the eardrum-poppingly loud alarm in the building. Like RIDICULOUSLY loud. I guess it's to make sure no one will even ATTEMPT to stay inside the building in the case of a real fire...

3) I actually saw a commercial today for Kmart layaway -- for Christmas. Sheesh -- you could at LEAST wait until Halloween. Who starts their Christmas shopping this early, anyway?? (And if you happen to be one of those people -- just shut up. I don't want to hear about how you have everything bought and wrapped by Halloween. ;))

4) Rick and I have discovered a way to keep the cats away from the blinds at night when we're trying to sleep -- a can of compressed air. They HATE the sound it makes -- in fact, ever since we figured out how much they hate the sound of hissing air, they've barely touched the blinds. We keep the can nearby as a deterrent... they dare not anger the Threatening Overlord of Pressurized Air...

5) Hey, tomorrow is Friday!!

6) Is anyone else disturbed by the Old Navy commercials with the mannequins? There's just something really weird about totally immobile "spokespeople"...

Okay, I know it wasn't much, but I DID manage to post eight times this month. Yay me. Sort of... :) Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Very random pictures...

Random Riff!

 Random Piva!
 

 Random blurry Lisa!

 Random chocolate (this stuff is so good)!

Random fall-colored bowls!

Hmmm... I guess there wasn't much to talk about today? :)

Quick post...

Obviously I need to get writing if I'm hoping to hit my "8 posts in one month" goal... I'm such a blog slacker...

So it was about 68 degrees this morning when I left for work, which is ALMOST cool enough to convince me that tomorrow is the first day of autumn. It's funny -- when I was a kid, I definitely would've said summer was my favorite season. (I suppose EVERY kid's favorite season is summer, though. How can you not love having three whole months to sleep in, hang out with friends and forget about responsibilities??) But now, I think I actually like fall/winter more (down here they kind of meld together into one season... finter... or wall...). The oppressively hot days are finally over, television starts to get interesting again after months of reruns (although I have to admit -- I hate the end of baseball season... :)), and, perhaps most importantly, Starbucks begins rolling out its seasonal drinks -- first pumpkin lattes and cinnamon-laced ciders, and then, after an entire spring, summer and fall of waiting, the WINTER drinks. (Oh, peppermint mocha, how I love thee!!) Served, of course, in festive holiday-themed paper cups... even cappuccino tastes better when it's in a festive holiday-themed paper cup...

The danger with all these cooler-weather-inspired seasonal ingredients is that they put all sorts of baking and food ideas in my head. I'd stay in my kitchen baking frosted sugar cookies all winter if I could... but then I would emerge from my kitchen some time in the spring, looking very much like a polar bear waking from hibernation: covered in white powdered sugar and weighing 300 pounds.

No, as always, I shall do my best to attempt indulgence in moderation. I mean, it certainly wouldn't be any fun to let finter/wall pass without so much as a sip of a gingerbread latte, or a few cookies here or there. But hopefully I can balance that out with some healthy food choices and sticking with my workouts...

SOME of us, however, don't worry about what we eat... we just jump right in:

By the way, the freezer is on the bottom -- so he JUMPED up into the fridge. He's been thinking about it for weeks now, stretching as faaaaaaaar as he can, and meowing pitifully every time I open the door. And he finally went for it... I guess he doesn't care about the cold air...

And of course once you're finished eating, you want to wash it all down with some bottled water:

Ah, cats are fun... :)

More randomness...

Argh!! I logged into Blogger to begin writing my 5th post of the month (since we are now more than halfway through September and I am only halfway to my goal of 8 posts...) and I discovered that I have a total of exactly 666 posts on my blog. Evil blog... eeeeeeeviiiiil blog... I must perform a blog exorcism -- which involves writing another post so the total will be 667. It's an intricate process, but I think I can handle it...

Actually, I'm at a loss for words tonight (or maybe I'm just tired), so perhaps a few random photos? Sure, why not! :)

By the way, I have no idea who this baby is -- just a random baby on a Hawaiian beach. But it's one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken (and this baby is probably seven or eight years old by now... :)).

Five posts down, three to go!

Random randomness...

Why, oh why, does the weekend always escape my vice-like grip without so much as a struggle? It doesn't even have to try... one moment I have it, held securely between arms that have been toned and strengthened by months of P90X... and the next, it slips away like water -- as if all the power in the world means nothing to that weekend. Insolent weekend -- one day I shall capture you.

I have nothing of substance today, and you know what THAT means: random thoughts!!! :)

1) The rain has stopped and the floods are receding, and we escaped with nothing more than a small leak through one of the vents in our roof. I was slightly panicked when I saw water dripping onto the upstairs hallway floor, but after Rick intrepidly explored the attic to find the source of the leak, it was discovered that the water was NOT coming in through the roof (which was our fear), but rather through a vent, where it dripped down a metal pipe and ended up collecting by the air filter vent in our ceiling. It was probably just so much rain and wind that the vent didn't stand a chance...

2) Also, speaking of the rain... there's a park across the street with a bunch of baseball fields where little league teams play, and the entire park is underwater. It's become something of a tourist attraction, with people turning into the park entrance just to gawk at the brand-new lake. What's more upsetting than the water, though, is the trash that keeps emerging as the water recedes. Cans, bottles, boxes, random paper -- I HOPE that all of that was in garbage cans in the park and it all spilled out when it flooded... however, I know how people are, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was all tossed out by motorists in passing cars... For some reason, some people find it extremely difficult to wait five or ten minutes to get to a destination where they can throw their trash away. (And this seems to be especially true for cigarette butts...)

3) A co-worker was talking about her bad eyesight today, and it made me wonder -- how did I end up with such bad eyesight? My mom is a bit nearsighted (her eyesight has never been anywhere near as bad as mine), and my dad is farsighted. Eric has perfect eyesight, and Bob (who is eight years older than I am) has only RECENTLY needed glasses. I've needed glasses since I was 11. How did this happen?? Thank goodness for contact lenses... (and yes, Rick, I know your eyes are great since you got Lasik... I'm just not quite ready to stick my eyeball under a laser yet... :))

4) Riff was "fixed" on Friday (although how could such adorable cuteness ever be "broken"?? :)). I've read that once male cats are neutered, they calm down a little bit and act less aggressive. No more kitty testosterone to feed the craziness. Riff, however, seems to be acting the same as always -- still jumping onto Piva's back when she least suspects it, still pawing at the blinds in the bedroom when we're trying to sleep, still (sometimes literally) bouncing off the walls with energy. Sigh... maybe he'll calm down once he's older... which I hope happens soon -- we need a good night's sleep. :)

5) I made "African sweet potato soup" for dinner -- a recipe out of Shape magazine (or was it Fitness??). It was nice and simple -- garlic and onion, cubed potato and sweet potato, some chicken broth, some canned diced tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin, curry, salt, and... the secret ingredient (okay, it wasn't literally "secret" since it was listed in the recipe -- but it's one of those things you wouldn't think of adding), a dollop of chunky peanut butter. It was soooooo good. I love recipes that call for throwing everything into a single pot and just simmering until done. Another recipe to add to my repertoire...

I guess that's about it for now -- it's almost 8 o'clock... my brain is about to shut down for the night. :) Hope everyone is having a good week!

Building an ark...

So we've had a deluge of rain over the last couple days, thanks to tropical storm Hermine (Hermine?? What kind of a name is that? I actually thought it was "Hermione" at first, and was chuckling at the thought of a Harry Potter-reading meteorology nerd gleefully naming all the storms -- did I miss tropical storm Dumbledore?? -- but then I realized there was no "o" in the name. Hermine. Her. Mine. Ooookay, whatever...)

Anyway, my morning commute has taken me twice as long as usual, and I've felt quite unsafe on the roads more than once. I couldn't even SEE the road half of the time I was on it yesterday -- it was raining so hard that all I could make out were other cars' taillights. The only way I was able to drive was by following them... and I could only hope that none of THEM drove off the road, because I probably would've just lemming'd my car right along with them. (Ha! Like my made-up word? Lemming'd... I tried out "lemminged" first, but the "e" was bothering me... plus, "lemming'd" looks more street wise and tough -- "yo, dude, you just got lemming'd!" I should probably mention that I'm tired... :))

The crazy amount of rain has caused all kinds of flooding (I even heard that a school district north of here actually had a "rain day" today, as opposed to the snow days we used to have in New Jersey...). This is Brushy Creek right outside our neighborhood, which usually really IS just a creek:

If you've never seen it before, it's hard to understand just how high this water is. So, with the magic of Photoshop, I shall attempt to manipulate this photo so that it looks exactly as it might look on a clear, sunny day:

Okay, I may not actually have Photoshop... but that's pretty accurate. Really.

Hopefully the rest of the week will be sunnier -- my ark-building skills are about as good as my drawing skills... ;)

Raise a pint (of ice cream)...

I was looking at my perpetual calendar today (a gift from Rick's mom to help us remember birthdays and anniversaries... and yet somehow we STILL manage to forget far too often... :)) and I realized that today would've been Aimee's 41st birthday. There've been many times over the last eight years when I've wished for a big sister's advice or listening ear (although I have to admit, little brothers are pretty freaking awesome, too... and I don't throw the word "freaking" around in a casual manner, so you know I'm serious... :)). It does make me sad to think of how things COULD have been, if only we'd had more time with her...

In case you've just joined me here in Blogland, the super-short truncated version of Aimee's story is this: she was my half-sister, who, as a result of some horrible, unfortunate circumstances, was not in our lives until she was 29 years old. We all knew she was out there, we just didn't know WHERE. And happily, SHE managed to find US. We had three years to get to know her, and she immediately became a part of the family (the picture above is Aimee and her husband Allan, when we were on a family cruise in Alaska).

But UNhappily, Aimee suffered from a seizure disorder, the cause of which was never found. She had a seizure one night and fell down a flight of stairs, and no one was able to revive her. The rest of us were on another cruise in the Mediterranean -- I still remember when Eric knocked on my cabin door, and when I opened it he said, "Aimee died." And my first thought was, "Aimee who? The only Aimee I know is..." and then it hit me that he WAS talking about our sister.

We went from Mediterranean cruise to burial service in New Orleans -- it was a very surreal week. But I've always maintained the belief that it was better to have had three years to get to know Aimee than to have never met her. What if she had never managed to find us? We never would've known that she was an artist and she loved to read and liked watching soccer and spent time living in Austria and looked EXACTLY like my grandmother's 19-year-old self. And she never would've sent me the little curled-up wooden cat that sits in front of my fireplace, a constant reminder of the thoughtful sender. If she was here, I would pull out a pint of Moose Tracks ice cream (her favorite) and offer a frozen toast to her 41st year...

Actually, I should've done that anyway. I'm sure Aimee would've approved. :)

8 in the 9th...

I was looking at my post counts for each month this year, and I noticed that I haven't posted more than seven times in one month. And since I really miss blogging more often, I've decided to make it a goal to post at least EIGHT times in September. (And then perhaps NINE times in October?? No, no... I shouldn't get ahead of myself... :))

I must point out one very important fact: THREE DAY WEEKEND!!!! Wait, I'm going to try something...


THREE DAY WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There we go. Much more festive.

My plans for this weekend include sleeping, watching UT football, sleeping, watching Yankee baseball, sleeping, and maybe watching a movie or two. (Wow... I sound really lazy all of a sudden... I'd better throw in a couple workouts...) You will notice that "sleeping" is high on my priority list -- I don't think I've had one good night's sleep this week, so I'm really hoping to remedy that...

And speaking of sleep, I'm already tired, so a short post will have to do tonight. But I'll leave you with this:

"Heeeeeey... how you doin'?" (is what I imagine he's thinking in this picture...) He can be so cute when he's not attacking my head in the middle of the night... :)