More stuff to thrill and bless Rhonda

Here's what they did...

Here's what I did....

.... Because Mennonites aren't supposed to leave the kitchen. Actually, I preferred the kitchen this morning to raking leaves. So they raked and I made some food and used my tablecloth from Madagascar which I thought Rhonda might like to see. I guess that's all for now.

alarm clocks, cranky restaurant patrons, and other items that will thrill and bless you

Okay, now I shall tell you why my new alarm clock is indeed a dream machine just like it states on the front. 2 things - first of all, it KNOWS things. I plugged it in for the first time and voila!! the exact and correct time is displayed! I let out a startled yelp. Okay, I was pleasantly surprised. The other exciting feature - well, you know when you are setting your alarm - if you want to get up 15 minutes earlier than the morning before, you have to go through the whole 60 number (or I guess 45) to get back to 15 minutes earlier. And when setting my alarm, I frequently go one hour or a few minutes past where I want to be and then have to sit there and go through the whole thing again. Sometimes several times on a bad day. I'm sure I've wasted hours of my life doing that. Well, this new little friend of mine has this fancy shmancy dial like button - one way is forward, one way is backward, and there you have it. It takes seconds to correct accidentally jumping ahead too far. I'm sure it's not nearly as exciting reading about it as it is actually experiencing it. But lest you think the new little guy is completely angelic, let me tell you, he does have a bit of a mean streak. It will randomly throughout the night and early morning hours, burst into this very highly annoying static noise. So we're going to have a little chat about that and then hopefully moving the cell phone will help that as well. Okay, that's my pilgrimage with my new alarm clock.

So, tonight I went out to eat with my wonderful friend Patti and it was quite theatrical. I'll just give you the highlights. So, apparently the restaurant had just been busier than it had been in months, and frankly, they just weren't prepared (as overheard by manager to patron). So there was this couple sitting close by and when there food came - oh my - the displeasure was readily apparent and quite venomous. He stated that they had waited an hour and the food was not what they ordered and he wasn't about to eat it, etc. etc. Someone came out to talk to them, followed shortly thereafter by the manager. I think in the end they got the food for free and ate it in somber contemplation of the fact that life here on earth is not as it should be. What followed was the manager perusing about the restaurant apologizing for the terrible service and handing out free stuff. Now, can I just say, I realise when you go out to eat you are paying for a service and have some expectation of what that service should look like. And I can see having a civilized discussion with the powers that be if that service is excessively flawed. But there is something that really gets on my nerves about people who are really cranky and obnoxious about restaurant food and service. I mean, for Pete's sake - it's FOOD people. Here in North America there isn't exactly a shortage. In light of eternity, will it really matter if you didn't eat exactly what you wanted or had to wait a little longer than planned. In 5 years will it matter? Will it matter tomorrow? I mean, there are some things in this world worth getting all bent out of shape over, but in my very humble estimation, this is not one of them. But I'm sure you will be happy to correct me if I'm wrong. What do you think? Oh, I almost forgot. So when we were paying and preparing to leave, the waitress brought back the little book thing with the bill and my credit card was um, NOT there - not at all even a little bit. So we got her attention and told her and she started frantically searching all her waitress pockets. And it wasn't there either. And the kid close by cleaning tables was amused by all the drama. So she goes to the back to look for my credit card. The kid comes back and starts asking if she found it and saying how bad it would be if she lost it and he didn't see it back there anywhere. Fun stuff. Then she eventually comes back with it and tell me she dropped it on the floor in the back and someone picked it up. I can't say that's ever happened to be before in a restaurant.

In other news - I'm so glad it's Friday and I'm looking forward to the fact that I don't have a lot to do tomorrow. Last weekend I was all excited about the 3 day weekend, but I just ran around like a chicken the whole time. Or talked on the phone. To my sister. Anyway, this weekend I don't have as much to do and that makes me happy. I've been compulsively making lists and running around madly for what seems like a long time so tomorrow I think I'm going to find a spot on the ceiling and stare at it for a long long time. Okay, well, I think I'm going to provide you some relief from my boring thoughts and go to bed or something. Hope your weekends are off to a wonderful start!

some random tid bits

So, my alarm clock has finally given up the ghost. It's let me down the last 2 mornings. That's when I started getting suspicious. Oh well, the thing really didn't keep good time anyway - it would get over eager and within a day or week or so of setting it, it would usually be about 10 minutes fast. I don't know how love I've had it, but I think the one I had before it was pink and white. I bought its successor tonight at Kmart (not Walmart, Sheldon). sniff.

Today I went to a visit and they weren't home and I stood outside in the pouring rain and got completely and utterly drenched. That probably was not interesting at all, but I told you anyway.

This week is much less frantic at work. That's nice. So I actually have a free evening and I'm sitting at the computer dwindling my life away...

I thought I had more exciting news, but I really don't. Oh, here's an update. I think in my last post I was all excited because I had Friday off and I had a long list and I was going to get my list all done on Friday and then have the rest of the weekend to relax? Yeah, well, you know when I actually got my list done? At about 1:30 Saturday morning. That's right. But there's no way I was going to leave cleaning till Sunday so I was cleaning the bathroom at 1 in the morning. Oh well, I did get a lot accomplished this weekend. My room is more organized than its been in years. Okay, I'm feeling boring now so I'm going to go. Hope you are all having a fabulous start to your week!

Happy Fall!

This last picture was my attempt at being artsy - Anyway, thought I'd drop by and say Hello. Myself and a couple friends went to Ohio last weekend to visit friends who used to live in town. We had a great time (I realize that was a terribly uncreative sentence, but I'm very very tired so don't expect much). Saturday afternoon we went biking on this trail and the scenery was quite pretty. The only thing that wasn't pretty was that one of our bikes had very little air in the tire and was a bit large for any of us to successfully maneuver without a great deal of physical exertion. So we rotated that bike and it was sort of like circuit training or something. On the way home, there were these cop cars with lights flashing in the middle of the road. So can I just say - animals are SOOOOOOOO DUMB!! Anyway, we get up to all the excitement and here there was a deer sitting on all fours in the middle of the road. Then the poor (but very dumb) animal tries to move and here all 4 legs are broken and he's shuffling alone but can't stand up at all! Now I think animals who chase moving vehicles are really dumb, but at the same time, it was quite a pathetic sight. There was a very beat up looking vehicle and a girl watching the deer and crying... just like a scene out of ... I guess I'm not sure. Anyway, while I'm on the subject of dumb animals, yesterday I so nearly hit a cat while I was driving about. The thing was just barreling for my tires. HELLLLLO!!! What is with these mammals? It's like they stop and ponder, "I've lived a good life, I'd make a tasty stew, yeah, lets go for it!" I slammed on my breaks, closed my eyes, and waited for the thud, but the stupid thing must have missed my tire by inches. Okay, that is all my animal stories. In other news, I worked enough overtime on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week to take tomorrow completely off and I can't describe to you how happy that makes me. Tuesday I worked about 12.5 hours and that's just a little long in my humble opinion. I think that's all for now.