Scanning and Scanning and Scanning!

In my free time, I've been scanning in old family photos. My intent is to scan them all in and then make a heratige scrapbook. I've pretty much got the scanning done, and now I've moved on to the photo editing. Looking at these pictures is really something. I thought I'd share a few today.

This is my grandpa, many, many years ago.

My mom and my grandma. Love the turqoise walls!

My sister and I in our matching outfits.

My mom's family.

My mom and dad.

Are You Kidding Me?????

Jessica Simpson Fat
Posted January 26th, 2009 by Veronica Yanco - 3,752 views

Jessica Simpson showed off some “new curves” as she performed songs from her country album Do You Know at a concert over the weekend. However, her album is being pushed aside because, all buzz is focused around Jessica’s “new curves.” Gossip sites and even others who don’t normally comment, are noting Simpson’s weight gain, and basically calling her out for looking like a fatty. Check out the photos for yourself because, unfortunately for Simpson… the photos are definitely not her most flattering by any means, she really does look fat.

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The web today is filled with stories about how Jessica Simpson is FAT. OK, help me understand this, my friends. FAT?? Seriously? Look at her. She's not a twig. She looks like a healthy woman, and I would KILL to be her size. But because she's no longer a size zero, she's FAT by media standards.

I'm so disappointed, once again, in the media. This is unbelievable. As someone who is trying desperately to drop some weight, it's like a punch in the gut to think that there are actually people out there who think THIS is fat. WOW.

Tied for First

I can't decide which is funnier: the "Taxi" episode where Jim is taking his driver's test or the Christmas episode of "Big Bang Theory." Which strikes you as funniest???




Here's a background of "Big Bang" in case you haven't seen the show. Sheldon and his friends are geniuses who all do research at a university. Sheldon is probably the smartest of them all, but he has absolutely no social skills whatsoever. Penny lives across the hall from Sheldon and his roommate, and Sheldon learned that Penny was going to get him a gift. He fretted about it because he needed to then get her a gift that was the same price range and exhibited the same level of relationship that Penny's gift exhibited. He ended up going to Bath & Body and buying every gift basket they had, thinking that once he got the gift from Penny, he'd know which gift basket to give her in return. He'd excuse himself claiming a digestive problem and then grab the appropriate gift basket. That being said, here's the clip:

Oh Baby I'm Sooooooo Tired

OK, Oprah fans, look at the title of today's post. Does it bring back any memories? :-)

Didn't get much sleep last night. I went to bed, fell asleep, and then Mr. Love came to bed which woke me up.

Went back to sleep.

Mr. Love's cell phone rang. Problem at work, so he had to get up.

Went back to sleep.

Mr. Love came back to bed, which woke me up.

Went back to sleep.

Mr. Love's cell phone rang again.

Went back to sleep.

Mr. Love returned to bed, and you know that it woke me up again.

Went back to sleep.

Alarm went off.

OK, so at least I could go back to sleep after the alarm. Poor Mr. Love had to stay up and get ready to go to work.

So, we're both tired today. I have errands to run, so that will keep me awake. It's Monday!!!!

Bloggaversary and Other Exciting Developments

I just realized that this weeks marks our bloggaversary! I started the blog 1/19/08, so it's been a year now that Mr. Love and I have been announcing to everyone just how exciting our lives really are. Thanks for sticking with us as we went through shingles, the New York sweatshirt, the front yard landscaping, my job loss, and all of our mundane reports of life!



Now on to recent developments. Last night Mr. Love attended a lecture at the Wharton Center. The speaker was Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist who has just released a book about how Pluto isn't a planet. That, I have to tell you, is the full extent of my understanding of what Mr. deGrasse Tyson knows. The rest, to me, is white noise. He was actually on "The Tonight Show" last Monday, and Mr. Love was beside himself waiting for the interview. I understood about every 8th sentence. The other guest that night was Jimmy Fallen, who sat next to Mr. deGrasse Tyson during the interview. It appeared Jimmy understood about the same amount as I, since at one point he leaned over and said, "Dude, I really want to get drunk with you." I know what he meant, because only if I were drunk would Mr. deGrasse Tyson make sense to me.

Now, Mr. Love, on the other hand, he eats this up. He couldn't wait for Thursday to get here so he could go. What a shame that they ran out of tickets so quickly that I wasn't able to get one to go along. Dangit all anyway.

Mr. Love was gone for hours, and when he came home, he couldn't even sit down he was so worked up. He said it was 600 geeks in a room, listening to this man who then opened it up for questions for hours. I really have no clue as to what they talked about, but it was so nice to see him that worked up over something. I guess that's how I look when I get back from the Novi Scrapbooking MegaMeet.

Don't you think Mr. deGrasse Tyson looks just like that guy who was on "Barney Miller" in the 70's? You be the judge:


In other breaking news, I was told today that I didn't get a job that I interviewed for last week. It was no surprise to me. I actually interviewed at the Michigan Supreme Court for their HR Director position. It was a panel interview at the Hall of Justice. If you haven't ever seen that building, here it is:

The interview was amazing. I really thought it went well. When it came time for me to ask questions of the panel, I asked them why they were looking at external candidates since I would assume that the State already had a number of qualified, interested people already on the payroll. Basically they said that they hadn't decided if they were going to go internal or external. They were only interviewing five candidates. Three were internal and two were external, one of which was me. The Court Administrator told me that given the volume of applicants, I should feel very flattered that I was chosen for an interview since only two out of the entire State were selected. He was such a genuinely kind man, and I thought that was such a kind thing for him to say.

The he said the bad word....HOWEVER. He said that if they were to choose an internal candidate, they would not back fill that job, so there would be a significant cost savings. That, he said, put me and the other external candidate at a "distinct disadvantage."

I figured that going into this, so I wasn't surprised when they called today and said that they had chosen an internal candidate. The Asst. Court Administrator, again made me feel so good about how the interview went and told me that this was a very tough decision for them to make.

So, I'm still unemployed, but I feel so good about how I was viewed during this process and how well the interview went. It helps boost my confidence a little, something I need after being unemployed almost three months.

I have my new resume, and it's already attracted the attention of one recruiter. Who knows if anything will come of it, but I did have a phone interview today. I've applied for many, many jobs this week all over the state, so my hope is that next week I will begin to hear back on some of the positions I've applied for.

In the meantime, I'm taking the weekend off to relax. It was an intense week for the job search, and I'm burned out. I'm going to read, scrapbook, and watch some DVD's. Then, on Monday, I'll hit it hard again and see what else I can do.

Historical Moment

Yesterday the TV was full of Obama's swearing in ceremonies. It was really something to see. I can't say that I watched it all, after all how many hours can you watch secret service men standing next to a waiting car? But I did catch things here and there, and I did watch the actual swearing in ceremony.

WOW. It was very moving. The sea of people, the emotion clearly evident on the faces of those around him....... this was a day I didn't know if I would ever see for our country.

I pray for the entire Obama family and hope that he has what this country needs to help us recover from the hole we've dug ourselves into. I don't know why anyone would want to be President right now, but I'm thankful that he volunteered. We need help, and I hope that he can turn this around.

So, Mr. President, welcome to your new home and your new job. May God bless you with the wisdom you will need over the next four years.

Job Search Monday

Last night we saw "Legally Blonde" at the Wharton Center. We really liked it, and judging from the crowd reaction, everyone else liked it, too. It was certainly a lively crowd!

We received an e-mail prior to the start of the show's run at Wharton, and it said the lead actress had either gotten sick or had an accident. She wouldn't be able to perform at all, so they brought in the actress who made the show famous on Broadway. We were very impressed with her. She was perfect for that role, and boy could she sing and dance.

It was the end of a pretty quiet weekend at home. I stayed in my craft room scrapbooking most of Saturday, and that was a lot of fun. I also have been busy revising my resume, and I finally have it in a format that I'm happy with. I'm lucky to have some great people around me who are willing to help me with that, and their input has been invaluable.

So, armed with my shiny new resume, I spent nearly seven hours on the computer today trying to find a job. I posted my resume everywhere, sent it to tons of recruiters, and then I also applied for several posted positions.

The job search is dragging for me. I have had two interviews that I haven't heard back from yet, but I'm not of the belief that I'll be offered either position. So, I need to spend all of my time and energy getting out there and finding that perfect position for me. I know it's out there...... I just have to keep digging until I find it.

Funniest Things I've Seen on TV

A couple of years ago, my friend Laura had us all about dying of laughter when she revealed she had actually ranked things she saw on TV in order of how funny they were. That was recently brought back up when I posted on Facebook that the Christmas episode of "Big Bang Theory" was the funniest thing I had ever seen on TV.

It got me thinking about the things that have really cracked me up over the years. Here are a few of my favorite TV memories, the ones that had me absolutely dying of laughter.

Carol Burnett: When she came down those stairs wearing the curtains WITH THE CURTAIN ROD STILL IN THEM, I about fell out. Come on, who's better than Carol Burnett?

Bosom Buddies: They guys are trapped in a cabin in a snow storm. They're whittling. Peter Scolari whittles a Farrari with doors that open and close, and poor Tom Hanks whittles the bark off a stick and calls it an albino snake.

Soap: When the grandpa comes down the basement steps dragging that plastic dog. Oh my God I thought I was going to die.

Taxi: When Jim is taking his driving test and trying to cheat. He asks, "What does it mean when a traffic light turns yellow?" Alex whispers to him, "Slow down." Jim begins to repeat the question over and over again, each time going slower and slower. Honest to God it will make you keel over laughing.

Big Bang Theory: When Sheldon opens his Christmas gift from Penny, which is an autographed napkin from Leonard Nimoy. When he discovers that Nimoy actually wiped his mouth with the napkin, he exclaims, "I have Leonard Nimoy's DNA? All I need now is an ovum and I can grow my own Nimoy!"

So, what are your favorite funny TV moments? What made you laugh so hard you couldn't even hear the TV? Post your answers as a comment - I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Yahoo!

Furnace is up and running with a new pump and new fan. Yeah! It's quiet, and it's blowing warm air, and all is good.

The pump wasn't covered under warranty, but everything else was. So we were able to get the repairs made without a huge bill, thank goodness.

Tonight I'm off to scrapbook with the girls at church. It's supposed to be miserably cold, but that won't keep us from our appointed scrapbook time. Since I went with the group on Saturday and then also cropped with Kim on Saturday night, I've been back in the mood to get some pages done. Today I had a lot of things to do related to the job search, but tomorrow looks pretty clear. My hope is that I'll be able to spend a few hours in my craft room doing what I like to do most.....

And in a warm house!

Keeping Fingers Crossed

Furnace guy came this morning, and we now have heat! Evidently our pump that takes out moisture from the furnace and air conditioner had died, so that was problem #1. The bigger problem, though, turned out to be some motor that was part of the actual furnace. The fan on it wasn't moving at all, and, without that, we would have no heat.

So, we had good news and bad news.

Good news was he had the pump on the truck (since we called ahead, thinking that's what it was), so he replaced that.

Bad news was he didn't have the furnace fan piece, but it will be in tomorrow. He got it going for us, but he doesn't know if it will keep going until he returns or not. He showed us how to jump start it, but we just don't know if we'll continue to have heat.

Very good news is that he thinks it's all going to be covered under warranty! That would sure be a blessing. So, he's checking on that, and we're keeping our fingers crossed.

The funny thing is that we've had the furnace five years and never had it inspected or tuned up. For some reason, around Thanksgiving, I just insisted that we do that. Great timing, right, with me not working! But we did it anyway. Now, because we had that tuneup and inspection, everything should be covered. If we hadn't done that, they wouldn't be able to cover it. So, hopefully that $80 we spent in December will be money well spent and this will all be covered.

It really wasn't too bad without the furnace. Our neighbor lent us a space heater, and we had one ourselves, plus an electric fireplace in the basement. I just hunkered on the couch with Jack this morning with the heaters going, and it kept it about 63 degrees. That's okay with a dog and a blanket to keep you warm.

We'll see how it goes from her on out. He'll be back tomorrow with the part, so one way or the other we'll be good to go after that.

So, keep your fingers crossed on that warranty business - sure would be nice to get out of this without having to have a big bill!!

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

It's 8:30, and our furnace is dead.

Had it inspected on 12/23. Also had a tune up at that time.

Never had a furnace problem before. Furnace is only 5 years old.

Seems odd to me that we had no problems, then had a tune up, and now it's dead.

HMMMMMMM.

Have left a message for them, but we'll tough it out tonight with electric heaters rather than pay overtime.

We'll see what the morning brings.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

Dog Days of Winter

What a wintry day! I met some former LandAmerica friends for lunch today, and when I left to head home, it was snowing to beat the band.

Since I'm a scrapbooker, I've been waiting for a good snowy day to get out in the back yard and take some pictures of the dogs in the snow. I have a little mini scrapbook I want to put together, and pictures of the pooches would be perfect.

I wanted to get some of them running.





This one cracks me up.




Of course I'm such a great photographer that I was able to capture these gems.








Suddenly I realize Jack's gone. He's waiting for me at the back door. I think he forgot I was outside....he just stared at the door.





You can tell how cold it was just by looking at this poor pitiful poodle.



Tomorrow I'm off to scrapbook with my friend Deb and a group we've found through Meetup.com. It's our first time going with them, so we're going to check it out and see what's what.

Then Mr. Love and I are heading to St. Johns. One of the groups he does volunteer work for is hosting their annual appreciation dinner, so we're going to that.

After that, we're heading to Randy's sister and brother-in-law's house for the evening. The guys will watch some alien movie, and Kim and I are going to scrapbook.

Sounds like a perfect day to me!

Wiped Out on Thursday!

I started my day by going to the doctor for my annual physical. What a joyous event that is, right ladies? Well, I did actually enjoy the part where she came in and congratulated me on my weight loss. That was the first thing she said to me, and believe me, it made my day.

From there, I had some errands to do. Some went well, some not so well. We have our insurance through Randy's work, and somewhere along the way with their 2009 upgrade, they changed how they charge for prescriptions. So, I go strolling into WalGreens, innocent that I am, to find that my previous $20 prescription is now $50. FIFTY DOLLARS. FIFTY. DOLLARS. AMERICAN DOLLARS.

Then came home to find the cable bill went up AGAIN, for about the millionth (millionth? is that a word?) time. Each time it happens I swear I'm canceling but I never do. They know they have you over a barrel, and what are you supposed to do about it?

Well, a job would sure help! But I digress.

Then I go to Sam's to pick up some enlargements I had made for our living room. I sent them in online Friday night. They called Saturday and said their machine was done, so they would be ready on Monday. OK, this is Thursday. Again, innocent that I am, I go waltzing in there like I think I'm actually going to be able to pick up my pictures.

WRONG. The gum chewing lady behind the counter says the repairman didn't show up on Monday. When I told her that I had received a call that my pictures would be ready on Monday, her reply was "Well, it's been down since before Christmas." Now, I'm not always the brightest bulb, but that answer really didn't have much to do with the fact that I was told my pictures would be ready on Monday.

She went back to chewing her gum, and I left, shaking my head.

Why is it that so many people behind counters chew gum?

I can't stand hearing or seeing someone chew gum. Yuk.

OK, back to my day.

I head home and figure out how to mail in the prescription so at least I can pay a discounted rate. This involves printing off forms on the web site and calling customer service where, thankfully, the man who answered wasn't chewing gum. Then a trip to the post office to mail it off, a stop at the second grocery store of the day (gotta take advantage of the sales, wherever they are!), and then a trip to the OTHER Sam's in town to pick up the pictures. Thankfully, those were ready, and they were beautiful. Unfortunately, once again, the girl behind the counter was chewing that gum like nobody's business. But she was kind, efficient, and she actually had pictures for me to take home, so all was good.

A lot of good things happened today. Of course, there was the mention of the weight loss, and that alone makes it a good day. I was also lucky that I had just been to the doctor and had a new prescription to mail in, so I didn't have to pay the FIFTY AMERICAN DOLLARS at WalGreens. I also hit the radio stations just right and heard all sorts of my favorite songs as I was driving. I was singing my heart out heading down the road, enjoying every minute of it.

I was very good about using my coupons today and saved a boatload of money between the sales and coupons. Gotta love THAT.

I got the pictures hung in the living room, and they look so nice! Just what we needed in there. We have frames that we bought in the fall for fall pictures, and I just reused them for winter pictures. It's a pretty cheap way to change the look in the room each season.

I also dodged two bullets today on the way to the post office. The route I took is 35 mph most of the way, but it's easy to go beyond that without even knowing. For some reason, probably because I was singing along with the radio, I was actually going under the speed limit when I saw the first cop waiting to pull someone over. I couldn't believe my luck, and then, just as I had forgotten him, there was ANOTHER one waiting for a speeder. Again, I was under the limit so just went right by him. Love it when that happens!

Tonight I was watching the Bonnie Hunt show (I think it was Monday's episode). She showed this video, and it just touched me. If you love babies or dogs or both, it will touch you, too. Enjoy.

Been Busy

Things got crazy around here for a few days. We spent both days last weekend at my parent's house, where Randy was working on my mom's computer. My niece Kelsey ended upcoming back with us on Saturday, and we had a great time with the Wii.

So Sunday night I started taking down the Christmas decorations and getting out the winter things, but I didn't too far. Monday came, and I got a call for an interview on Tuesday. I decided to do some serious prep for the interview, so the rest of Monday and Tuesday morning was spent going through old performance reviews, looking at interview questions, etc.

Finally got everything from Christmas put away last night and got out all of the winter things. I decorate with snowmen for winter, and then I decorate the bathroom for Valentine's Day. I'll get some pictures posted of everything.

The interview yesterday seemed to go well, but you never know about these things. It would be a great job for me, so I'm hopeful. When I got home from that interview, I had a voice mail asking me to come to an interview for another job. So, that's set up for the 15th. I don't know if anything will come of either of these, but it sure is nice that things are finally starting to get moving. I've applied for probably 100 jobs in the past two months, and I never hear anything back. Now that the holidays are over, maybe I'll finally land that dream job.

Happy New Year to All!

The past few days have been so hectic! Mr. Love and I decided to move our TV from our tiny TV room and hang it on the wall in the living room. The problem was that the wall we wanted to use was too small for the TV. Mr. Love to the rescue, as usual. He expanded the wall one foot, and then we were ready to go.

Of course, when he started painting the wall, you could see a difference in the old paint and the new paint. He ended up painting the whole wall over again.

We asked Todd and Chris, Randy's two brothers-in-law, to come over to help get the TV mounted to the wall. It turned out to be a bigger project than we anticipated, and they were here for over two hours. We were so grateful that Todd had actually done this before when he put his TV up on the wall, so he was able to figure out what was supposed to be done pretty quickly.

Only problem was, the bracket that we bought was a generic model for any type of TV. It came with a template, and the instructions said to put the template on the wall right in the center of where you want your TV to hang. Randy did that, but we didn't realize that our particular model of TV had the mounting holes higher than center. So, when they actually put everything together, the TV hung 6 inches lower than it was supposed to.

You wouldn't think 6 inches would make that much difference, but it really did. We had measured the table that was going to go under the TV and then allowed 12 inches between the top of the table and the TV. Since the TV was now lower, there was only 6 inches between the TV and the table. So, it looked like the TV was actually sitting on top of the surround sound component on top of the table. It looked awful.

Todd and Chris had already been here way longer than they anticipated, so they had to leave. Randy called our friend Mark, who came right over. They took the TV down, moved the wall bracket up 6 inches, and rehung the TV. They were done in less than half an hour, and it looked fantastic. It was right where it was supposed to be, and everything came together after that.

One of the reasons we really wanted to get this done now is so we could have it done by New Year's Eve. We had our friends Mark and Kathy over, and we knew we would want to play Wii games. There was no way to do that in our little TV room, and we didn't want to do it in the basement, so this worked out really well.

We had a blast with the games. Kathy brought some, some we rented, and we had some. We were so wrapped up in them that we almost missed midnight!

Good thing we didn't starve to death.

We played Mario Cart, which is where you race each other in cars. It got pretty cut throat.

It's hard to watch your husband drive off a cliff!

If your husband is beating you in a race, just cover his eyes.

Snarl.......

Then we began our performances, singing along with various songs on American Idol. The guys had announced right at the beginning of the evening that real men don't sing, so we were were NOT going get them to sing. So Kathy and I did a bunch of duets.

After a couple of songs, the guys came in the room, sat down, and pretty soon they were singing along. We handed them the microphones, and next thing you know, they were stars!

Trouble began, though, when Cloe jumped up next to Randy to figure out just what in the world he was doing. She got right in his face and tried to make him be quiet!

Then each couple did a song.

This is why Randy and I don't dance in public.

Jack went into the TV room and went to bed about 9:30. He never stirred....slept through the car races, the singing, all the music, the celebration at midnight......oh, Jack!