Northbound, We Go-Go!

Tomorrow morning, or rather, I guess, 'later' today (it's after 1am right now, the 30th), we're leaving for Salt Lake City, where we'll connect with Wendy and the angel boy-O, to spend some time with friends and family, plus Wendy's clan too. Then we'll be off to Colorado with the angel boy-O in tow - - for his very FIRST ski trip! woo-hoo!!! We're sooooooo very excited to have him on the slopes with us and with my immediate fam from Iowa, who we'll stay with in Keystone. I'm so eager to hit the road, my hands are shaking with excitement! I'm not sure I'll get much sleep!

Our internet access may be sporadic at best, although my honey-man will be seeking a connection for his work at times ~ The point is this: I hope to post, but may not have much chance to do so.

In the meantime,
I hope EVERYONE enjoys
a fantabulous New Year's celebration!

Cheers! to you and yours!!!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 3

One of the reasons I love my honey-man is because
he is just as thrilled as I am about having a new Kitchen Aid Mixer, to the point that he will announce at unexpected moments,
"I'm so thrilled we have that mixer."

And he was the one who took this picture below, not me...

Hackin' Away

This was written on the 19th: I've been sick since last week... have stayed home from work for a few days now, feeling absolutely unproductive to the max, lying around, coughing my head off. Oh, but it snowed this morning! in Vegas! I was awake at 3:30-ish this morning, coughing away, and I had gotten up to get a drink ~ and discovered SNOW! I took a picture of the backyard, believing it would all be gone by 7 am... it was gone by 9 am.

Belated Most Merry Holiday Greetings!

We just got home from a flick - - on our 3rd try, we finally made it to a showing of Casino Royale. Thanks Grams!

The tree is still lit up and piney, my honey-man's in the bathroom shaving, I've got two cups of tea already steeping, with a kitty to my left side and a kitty at my right foot. And to my furthest right, a Kitchen Aid Classic Mixer, begging still to be put to action... Today was a lazy day, just trying to rest up, hoping to prevent any relapse into hacking-my-head-off-all-day status. Tomorrow though, I've got some plans brewed for tomorrow.

woo-hoo! (wink, wink)

I hope everyone's been enjoying a wonderful holiday break from the usual chaos.
All the best to you and yours!!

Romancing the Stone

I've been sick the last couple days (but I'm now wearing winter clothes, liberated from my storage unit last night ~ yahoo!!), and early yesterday, I began to develop a lovely deep and very scratchy voice... and it made me remember something from childhood:

When I was 9 years old, twice in the theater, I saw Romancing the Stone with my mum, and I just loved it! And from then on, I was in love with Kathleen Turner's voice. I wanted to grow up and have a voice like her... It didn't happen, of course. [SIDE NOTE: I'm remembering and realizing more and more often that my parents were purty liberal with me as a child, when it came to movie ratings and allowing me to view 'more adult' themes... e.g. I'd seen both Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club when I was 10 years old - ?!?]

Back to Kathleen Turner: As a kid, I didn't know how to use the term 'sexy' to describe anyone or anything at that time, especially since I was entirely unfamiliar with the word's existence until age 11, BUT IF I HAD KNOWN, I would have described Kathleen Turner's voice as sexy. Mind you, I haven't heard her voice since she appeared as Chandler Bing's transvestite father in the TV show Friends... I'm not sure I remember what her voice was even like in Romancing the Stone, I only remember loving it as a little girl.

The voice I'm sportin' today is the closest I'll ever get to Kathleen Turner's deep and breathy voice box.
And this voice is hardly sexy.

Roses in Bloom

Taken last Saturday, near the Burbank Farmers Market... the light played some tricks on me... a kinda of fuzzy affect -

Intended Posts, Possibly Post-Holiday Season

I hope to have the chance to write posts about the following topics I've listed further below, but not until some other things get done first, like rummaging through my storage unit with my honey-man to locate my winter clothes and ski gear tonight! and preparing and mailing off nearly 80 xmas cards by this Saturday!!! while fitting in an evening of baby quilting with my aunt tomorrow night and packing for L.A. before leaving town this Friday, but not until I do 3 loads of laundry and choose a white elephant gift for an upcoming holiday party on Sat. in L.A., and once I'm in L.A., the rest of our ski-gear shopping for the angel boy-O and some more holiday gift shopping before attending the white elephant party, and then once back in Vegas, bucket loads of stuff to do for work before leaving town on the 20th, and 2 holiday parties and 3 luncheons, and packing everything I'll need while I'm gone from LV for 17 days, and um, um (my brain is already fried!):

1) Mah new Matrix
2) Owen's new personality development
3) Thanksgiving reflections
4) Collected Sunset pics
5) That strange Hollywood Bowl sign off I-15
6) L.A. job search progress, or lack thereof
6) My new digs
7) Chrimpus preparations
8) Babies
9) my PDA
10) Divorce

My "I Hit a Cow" Story, Part VII ~ Who's at Fault?

Alrighty folks! (drumroll puhleeeze) Just moments ago, the final words were spoken and a mega huge sigh of relief was had by me! ~ Can ya guess what it is? oh come on, you can guess! [Yeah, I know - you can see it below at a glance - I'm just a cheese ball; so deal with it!]

Conclusion in Terms of Liability: Although traveling at the time through Idaho open range territory, the cows had not broken nor did they force themselves through any fence lines... Instead, with a 10 foot wide gap left open, it was found that the rancher hadn't properly maintain his fence lines = this means the cows simply wandered free, out of pasture and out on to the road... because of HIS negligence.

The Final Word: It's not my fault that I hit that poor cow.

P.S. A friend just wrote asking what this means for me, exactly =
It means I don't have to pay the rancher for the cow, nor do I have
to pay for any of our medical bills... and it won't go on my driving
record as a negative mark!

Bless the Mechanically Minded! & Loving Family Relations!

Lots and lots to do this week (OH HELP), buhht I must stop what I'm doing to sing glorious praises to dear Cliff of Ogden, UT ~ Wendy's adorable daddy ~

Early this past Sunday night, with blankets and gobs of car munchies in order and a couple Christmas CDs on hand, we were all loaded in the car to head over to Griffith Park in L.A. to see the lovely Chrimpus lights on display, buhht there was a big problem: my - new - 2005 - Matrix - WOULD - NOT - start - !?!

Can you say "WHAT THE HELL?"

Oh no, I did not panic = it was far too depressing to get all riled up about it! These days, that kind of moment has been exactly par for the course... and at the time though, I must say, it did certainly help that my honey-man didn't get upset nor mad or panicked ~ thank you, babes!

So yeah, my car wouldn't start! We popped the hood and grabbed a flashlight and performed a thorough visual inspection of every nut and bolt, casing, tube and wire for anything that looked remotely out of sorts. We then tried the engine a couple more times - - definitely not turning over...

Then the remarkable: My honey-man told me he was going to call Cliff, that he'd know what to do. So he dialed his former father-in-law and briefly explained our situation, and he held his cell phone out and over the car engine, cuing me to try the engine again... And then? A diagnosis was given aaannnnd not only was it absolutely free of cost, turns out it was dead-on correct! THANK YOU SO MUCH, CLIFF!

The next morning, my honey-man did as he'd been instructed: He picked up a spray can of starter fluid, which he sprayed into the engine air intake to check if we had an ignition spark, which we did have, and then he gave my gas tank a good dose of fuel injection cleaning treatment and it's worked!

#1 - How absolutely awesome is that? - to have someone correctly diagnosis an engine's troubles over a freakin' cell phone connection!?!? HUH?!? - - YOU SOOOOO TOTALLY ROCK, CLIFF!

#2 - How touching is that? - for my honey-man to have his former father-in-law available for such a connection?

#3 - How wonderful is that? - to be in love with a man whose former in-laws love him enough to maintain more than just civil contact with him?

#4 - How absolutely heart-warmingly cool is that? - to have those kind of people in our lives? what fabulously yummy good people!

Ahhh, my heart!

Life is good.

The Worst "I Hit A Cow" Stories: It's Serious

Since my car accident on Oct. 27th, I've encountered something a bit unexpected from people = A total lack of either sympathy and/or empathy...

It's been 40 days, but every week still, someone else from work hears about the now 'old' news, and they come by my office to see me, and once again, I find myself retelling my "I Hit a Cow" story... I've told my story to soooo many people, I can't possibly count! The majority of those who call or write or come by, they express their caring for me and my family and a kind of grateful disbelief, that none of us were seriously hurt, which I sincerely appreciate. In fact, I've been so surprised and so very touched by how many people have taken interest, who have gone our of their way to tell me they're glad we're all okay.

Again, for all you grateful well-wishers our there, THANK YOU ALL!

There are a few people though -just a rare few- that behave with a sort of 'You're fine -everyone was fine- so get over it already, why don'tcha?' attitude, as if I shouldn't mention a thing about any of it when asked how I am or what's new, as if I shouldn't even still be thinking about any of it ...

...even though my insurance case may remain open months from now... even though I'm still jumpy when driving at night or whenever someone rides up behind another driver... even though, with the rodeo in town and the smell of fresh livestock manure in the air, my stomach churns and I feel physically sick from the smell, so similar to that of the night of the accident... even though, just a couple weeks ago, they were still picking more glass out of Brianna's face... And even though my Grams still can't bring herself to drive at night along that 5 mile stretch of hwy 89 between her home and my aunt Brenda's, even though my Grams would happily drive slow in order to keep an eye out for wandering cattle, but the speed limit is 65 mph and she fears that she'll either anger someone or be rear-ended by an inattentive driver...

Yes, we were damn lucky. But I really don't believe some people realize just how lucky we were. They see us, and they see that we're physically fine -we walked away from it- and so, because of that, it's all blown over as if it was nuthin' - - Try that attitude with Mary Jo, a woman who wrote to me a most heartbreaking letter this last Tuesday, asking for help, having found my blog and read my posts about my own experience. She has a far greater and far more painful understanding as to what can happen when cattle wander loose on public highways.

Having been given her approval, I'll tell her story: Mary Jo lost her dear son on October 22nd, to a cattle-related semi-truck accident here in Nevada, on highway 93 in open range territory. Her 32 year old son, John, was driving a semi-truck and pulling loaded double trailers at night and had no chance to brake. The cow went beneath his truck's undercarriage, seriously compromising the steering gear. He couldn't recover control of his truck and he went off the road and he died... Yes, driving a long, large and heavy semi-truck, he hit a cow and he died.

Try telling Mary Jo that it's important to maintain state open range legislation to protect cattle ranchers from costly lawsuits and fencing maintenance, and see if that will all sound reasonable to her.

If anyone has any ideas or contributions that could help stop people from being killed needlessly by livestock allowed to roam the highways freely, please contact Mary Jo: jodybell404 at aol dot com ~ Thank you.

Thank you, Liberty Mutual! I Kiss Your Feetsies!

The remaining balance on the loan for my cow-ruined old 2003 Matrix has been paid off... Those last 4 words hold the most meaning, of course.

WOOO-HOOOOOOO!

(Now imagine me doing a choo-choo train-like celebration march.)

For now, that is all.

It's Monday, No Doubt

Why do so many of us have such a hard time taking good care of ourselves and our health, both physical and emotional? Are we gluttons for punishment? Living in denial? Don't care enough? Just don't care? Don't have the resources? or the know-how? Do we think we can get away with it?

Blak.

The consensus thus far:
It's a lack of TIME.

Lotza Double-Takes Today...

[Big run-on sentence coming]

Since I never thought I'd still be in Vegas come this time of year -this being the COLD time of year- and not yet in L.A., I'd packed ALLL of my winter clothes, now in boxes that are buried deep, deep, deep amongst a gazillion other boxes in my storage unit, and where they are in storage exactly, I have no idea cuz I never thought to take note or keep them in an accessible location, as I never thought I'd need to know, since I never thought I'd still be here, dammit!!! [For those who may be questioning me, MY DEFINITION OF 'COLD': It was 36 degrees yesterday morning = that's COLD!] And so, I have only a few long-sleeved items (3/4 sleeve, at best for most) that I've been wearing over and over again for the past several weeks now. PLUS, I have no warm winter coats - - those too are all packed, along all my scarves, gloves, and ski gear, including long underwear, all of which I'll need to locate real soon, since we'll be going to Keystone again this year, for the week of New Years.

Anyhow, seeing that the nice black, wool and cashmere blended pea coat my aunt had lent me in mid-October was ruined (see pic further below), I've only recently (today) chosen a new option from her coat closet, shown above.

And lemme' tell ya, it's certainly festive, yes? and quite warm, thankfully.

I had stopped at Einsteins Bagels this morning, wielding a long-had, unused gift certificate from Christmas of last year, for the purchase of a scrumptious Cheddar Omelet breakfast sandwich on a toasted Six Cheese bagel [Yes, I realize; that's CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE AND MORE CHEESE! = YUMMY!]. Upon entering, and all the whilst standing in line, oh boy - - the looks I got? I almost had to laugh. Lots of double takes! I hadn't realized it was such an eye-catcher.

Do you see its hood? It dangles down, below the top of my bum!

Here's the cow crap-ruined pea coat:

Something to Keep in Mind

I used to drive by this lil' self-serve car wash every morning, on my way to work. Having moved to a new place, as of today, I've got half of my old to-work driving route back, sending me past this place once again. I'd missed it. I had to stop and take a picture of their current board.

Have an excellent weekend, everyone!