Happy Birthday Dad!

Today my Dad turns 80 years old! I still can't believe it. He seems so young. For instance, the picture above was taken this past summer. Dad went out for his first-ever ATV ride through the woods. My brother was very concerned about this (with good reason - look at who was driving the ATV), but Dad came back grinning from ear to ear, reporting that he had a ball and wished he could ride all day long.

Dad stays young by keeping busy. Most of his days are spent running back and fourth to Haddam, being involved with every aspect of the construction of the new house. No doubt he will soon be busy with carpentry work as well. I hope I take after you Dad!

Happy Birthday!!!!

Time Crunch

I am having trouble finding the time to blog this week. I'm afraid that may only get worse until the end of next week. This is our total crunch time at work and our home life is not much better. As a matter of fact, today was the first day since January that I missed my 5 minute meditation. That makes me very sad. I am going to have to try to meditate at 10PM tonight and we all know how that is going to shake down. I'll be sound asleep within 30 seconds. sigh.

I am writing this blog post now with one eye on the laptop and one on the TV. I can't miss my American Idol. And since I can't come up with a darn interesting thing to say at the end of this hellish bad day, let me take this perfect opportunity to show you a couple of neat pictures of my nephew John. He not only played a solo in a jazz band in Disney World, but he also marched in the Disney Parade. And by the looks of American Idol, I'm sure he sounded much better than the Idols do tonight. Good job John!

Two Big Accomplishments of the Weekend

Karlo did a little “Happy Dance” across the dining room yesterday. He finished his book manuscript. What a great feeling that must have been for him. I only wish I could know what that feels like, as my portion of the work is far from done. Where is the justice here? Part of me was jealous that the huge load was now off his shoulders and onto mine. But the other part of me is thrilled that Karlo will no longer have to be chained to his laptop most waking (non-working) hours of the day. This should improve our home-life greatly. It also occurred to my yesterday that this moment could have come a whole lot sooner if Karlo didn’t still type with only two fingers!

In addition to that huge accomplishment, we also did some landscaping in the front of the house. I have been dreaming about this moment since we moved in. Now this frees me up for more new dreams (fish pond)! We relocated some of the deciduous shrubs that were in front of the house, and added a few brand new evergreen shrubs. My biggest goal was to get rid of the yucky (half weeds) grass and make both sides of our very square house perfectly symmetrical. I think we accomplished all that. I’m happy . . . for now.

A Sample of My Day

The pressure cooker is heating. As we are getting closer and closer to our lives regaining some form of normality, the pressure and stress is increasing. I guess the old saying of, “it has to get worse before it gets better” is true. We are running full out between work being insanely busy and the tasks at home increasing by the day. I am literally counting down the hours until our 90 day work-out is complete and the book manuscript is finished. Once that is behind us we have to get through some work-related events, and then I’m pretty sure we will get our lives back.

Last night was a typical Thursday. We rushed home to do our one hour work-out. We hurried through dinner and then I wash all the dishes, got dressed and toke off to my dance class. I couldn’t stop yawning during the class (but I still think that’s because country music bores the tar out of me.) I had YogaDudes order to make, pack, and ship, mail to open, bills to pay. I did, however, carve out five minutes to sit down and make a long list of all the things I needed to get done today. I was so proud of myself that I remembered to bring the list with me and I started my day by crossing things off the list one by one.

Around 9:30 this morning the list disappeared. It was on my desk for 2.5 hours and then it suddenly vanished. I spent another 5 minutes ripping my office apart. How could I lose the list when I never left my office? I am willing to bet that I packed it inside of a box that we shipped. One of my personal tasks this morning was to return an item that Karlo bought (yes, I have to do his dirty work too). So I filled out the paperwork, packed the box, and gave it to Karlo to ship. My list has GOT to be in that box. So much for all the other things I was supposed to do today. Maybe the guy that's getting the box will finish my To Do list for me!

Our Handy House Guest

These days I have been crazy busy. Between work being nuts and our ridiculous schedule at home, I can't think straight. And all the while Karlo's mother is always on the hunt for something to do. She is forever searching out the next project she can work on. So far she has knit me a beautiful hat, made me a new fleece vest, made some pillows for us, and a couple of days ago she whipped up this new laptop case for me. How cool is that? And all this, of course, is in addition to the eleborate dinners every night. We sure are going to miss her when she goes home.

Gas Prices

I am getting completely disgusted with the gas prices and I'm sure I'm not alone. This morning I happened to notice that the price of diesel went up $.30 since yesterday. And that reminded me that California Sue suggested that I ask everyone what the prices are in their home town. I wasn't going to do this since I didn't get very many comments on the Spring update last week. But then I realized that I did get some email reports and Lisa, well she showed off with an incredible Spring report.

Since CA Sue is very curious about our gas prices, let's compare notes. I don't know what the gasoline costs in Tolland (and I'm using Tolland because, well . . . there are no gas stations in Eastford), but the diesel is now $4.59/gallon. So tell me, what does a gallon of the cheapest gas cost in your town?

More Swinging Pleasure

As if the horse wasn't exciting enough for me, this past weekend Karlo also hung our new porch swing. I didn't blog about it yesterday because it was cushion-less and too uncomfortable to sit on. Well, I guess when you compare it to the comfort level of the horse, it wasn't so bad. But last night our pretty new seat cushion arrived. I couldn't wait to place it on the swing and test it out. It's bliss. How inviting does our little porch look now? I just want to sit there and sip a lemond-aid. Wait, make that a Mojito. Now that would be nice. And someday this porch swing may look out over my new goldfish pond - no pressure Karlo (but now everybody will be expecting to see it when then visit!)

Oh and speaking of my horse, last night we were watching Dancing With the Stars, and as Karlo was talking to his mother (in Hungarian), I recognized my horse's name. I clearly heard "T-on-sow-sh" in his sentence so I questioned why he was talking about my horse. Come to find out, the literal translation for Tancos is 'Dancer.' I named my horse Dancer without even knowing it. Now I love the name even more! Next year we may even buy a Prancer or Vixen.

My Little Pony

We had a big exciting weekend. Well, as exciting as you can get in our current state of complete and total work overload. My highlight was finally getting to use my Christmas present . . . so I guess you can say that I experienced “Christmas in April.” Remember my rubber horse? Well here it is. His name is Tancos (pronounced t-on-sow-sh). I wanted to name him after one of Karlo’s grandfather’s Hungarian horses and this is the only name I can actually pronounce.


And here’s me swinging on him:


I had a grand ole time until I nearly fell off. I guess I exceeded my cow girl abilities, getting a little too confident in my riding. Maybe all the line dancing classes went to my head! Darn thing nearly threw out my back. But just like Karlo’s mother says, “If you fall off, you need to get right back on.”

In addition to the horseback riding, we did a fair amount of gardening, planting and transplanting shrubs. Karlo and his mom did most of the work. I just supervised.


We also had a very brief visit from Karlo’s brother. I know many people are curious to see what Tibor looks like, so here’s a family portrait:

Now I'm Curious

Lisa's last comment has me wondering what it looks like in your backyard. Yes, yours. We still don't have any signs of buds on our trees. Although I did notice today that Tolland seems to be springing to life. Does anybody have actual leaves yet? Who has buds? Who, besides Karlo and I, are still living with not so much as a bud on a tree? Inquiring minds want to know. Since I have no time to go driving around the state (and the nearby states), I want to know what it looks like in Rocky Hill, Andover, Middletown, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California (wait, CA doesn't count. It's been nice forever there and I don't want to hear about it) . . . I better get some comments from all over. Tell me . . . leaves no leaves, buds no buds, what's flowering?

Spring is in the Air

I'm thrilled by the fact that we spent a whopping 10 minutes outside today. It was bliss. I had a very busy day at work (no time to blog) and we had a tough workout when we got home. But we managed to carve out 10 minutes to go out and sit by the pond with the dogs. Aaaaaah.

The dogs took a dip in the (still) clean water.

This funny looking hound tried to dry off in the sun.

Peanut took a "cat nap" (is that allowed for a dog?) on Karlo's face.

And look at what I found in the yard:

Naturally 7 Wall of Sound

Tammy saw Naturally 7 Wall of Sound live in concert last week and shared this video link with me. Now I have to share it with you. These guys are unreal. Everything you will hear is being vocalized. There are no musical instruments what-so-ever in this video. Check it out:

Blissful Weekend

I’m happy to report that I had a very nice weekend. I still did a lot of work, but in between the hours at the computer I managed to relax and enjoy myself. I think my favorite part of Saturday was lounging in the best $40 investment of the year.

We recently picked up two of these chairs at Job Lots, despite Karlo’s protest that he won’t have ANY time all summer to sit down. I personally, will find the time. It was great! I lounged outside in the sun for about an hour. That was when I realized just how noisy it is out here. Between the constant orchestra of different birds chirping, tweeting, crowing, screaming, the chipmunks and squirrels running around, and the wind blowing through the trees there was never a quiet moment. But it was blissful. No traffic noise, no weed whackers or lawnmowers, no screaming kids – just me and the noisy nature. I wanted to stay in that chair all day.

But I had things to do. I got some gardening done. Planted some bulbs and transplanted a few shrubs. When I walked out the front door, in my work-out attire with no make-up on and bad hair, I thought, “This is great – there is no chance of neighbors walking by and wanting to visit with me. I am truly secluded and nobody will see me looking terrible.” And don’tcha know . . . as I’m ankle deep in dirt I hear a motorized vehicle coming up the street. Since that is a rare occasion, I looked up. Then I heard a honk and saw my co-worker and his wife drive by on their motorcycle. They waved, I waved and then I held my breath and wondered if they would come back. They did! Uuugh. I’m not even safe looking hideous in Eastford. I learned my lesson.

Today was another blissful day. I went shopping with my friend Sue (Fitness or Tolland Sue for those of you that know her). I had the most successful shopping day ever. I think Sue is my good luck charm. Although I still didn’t find any shoes that fit. I found some I loved, but of course – no luck in the fitting department. Well, I suppose Sue is a good luck charm, not a miracle worker.

And I have a question regarding my shopping spree. Perhaps you can help. I bought a white purse and now I need to know the rules. Do I have to wait until Memorial Day to break it out or can I use it immediately?

The Food Fest Continues

We have had a different homemade soup with dinner every night since Karlo’s mother arrived. I first typed “we had a different homemade soup FOR dinner,” but I had to change it to “with” dinner. The first thing put on the table is always soup and I always enjoy it so much that I go crazy and fill myself up. That’s right about the time that I realize the main course is still on the stove.

Last night was no exception. When we got home from work the cooking smells in the house seemed so familiar to me. I have to say that up until this point, none of the smells were recognizable or very pleasant to me. But last night . . . wow, it smelled great.

And when I tasted the soup I was in HEAVEN. Karlo’s mom explained that it was half Hungarian and half Italian! She must have invented it just for us. The base was a tomato broth (not thick like tomato soup, but more liquidy). It was seasoned to perfection and included these little homemade pasta-like pebbles. I couldn’t control myself and had to have seconds. As a matter of fact, I gobbled it up too fast to stop and take a picture. Sorry about that.

After I stuffed myself with soup, she brought these out to the table.



Couldn’t tell you what they are called, but one batch is salty and the other batch is sweet. The sweet ones have apricot jam in them. I’m still not sure where she’s getting this apricot jam from. And the best news of all . . . Karlo and his mom are going to Canada this weekend, leaving me home alone with all the leftovers. You can take a number and get in line to visit me and my Hungarian treats!

Scrambling

Seems I’m in a constant state of scramble these days. So much to do, so little time. I’m scrambling just to get a blog posting today. I haven’t had a free moment to think of an interesting topic, but the one thing that does come to my mind is our little Nut. I know I have made some comments about her low IQ in the past and I think I would like to take those comments back. She has really come a long way.

I was convinced that she was NEVER going to understand that she can help herself to going down to the basement for food, and let herself in and out of the house. Bentley caught on almost immediately that he was in control of his desires. If he was hungry, he simply got up and walked downstairs. He fed himself, let himself outside and then back upstairs. This is every dog owner’s dream come true -- a completely self-sufficient dog. Now if we could just teach him how to turn the water on to fill his bowl and scoop the food out of the bin . . .

Then there was Peanut, who struggled for months with this concept of being self-sufficient. She still felt the need to cry and be guided up and down the stairs. But that recently changed. At first she started to follow Bentley up and down. And then suddenly the little Nut started to go down all by herself. I was so proud of her. It was like my child took her first step or said her first word. My little baby isn’t so stupid after all!

And now the little escape-artist has figured out how to break-out of the dog run. My poor mother-in-law was ironing the other day and happened to notice Peanut in the yard (on the North side of the house). Problem is, the dog run is on the opposite side of the house. She managed to guide Peanut back into the house and we weren’t quite sure how she got out. Then last night Karlo was upstairs and looked out the window to discover Peanut in the backyard, near the stone wall (way down near the pond). How proud was I when I called her and she came flying back to me as quick as her skinny little greyhound legs would take her.

Karlo has made some fence modifications and I’m hoping we don’t find her out and about on her own again. But I have a strange confident feeling with her now. Even if she does get free, she is now smart enough to know how good she has it and will not venture off too far. Neither dog has EVER tried to push the boundaries of the yard. As a matter of fact, they usually need to be forced outside.

Family Matters Part II

Before I get started with my second story from the weekend, I just want to give a great big Happy Birthday wish to Penni! Hope you’re having a great day.

Now on to my story . . . Karlo’s mother has been sharing all kinds of amusing stories about Karlo’s childhood with me, but this one was particularly interesting. She told me that when Karlo was a baby he cried and cried so much that she had to bring him to a specialist to find out what on earth was wrong with him. The doctor inspected Karlo and said, “Lady, this baby is starving.” Karlo’s mom explained that she feed him constantly. As a matter of fact, she said that he would scream in between spoonfuls of food. He couldn’t wait for her to reload the spoon and just wanted more and more food. This explains a lot. Some things have never changed since birth.

Also, when Karlo was born, his mother took one look at him and cried. Not tears of joy. She was very concerned that something was wrong with him. He was very long and skinny, but it looked like his limbs were all swollen up. The doctors said that nothing was wrong with him and those were muscles in his arms and legs. Can you imagine? He was born buff? What a riot. His brother was born tiny and scrawny and Karlo looked like a baby superhero.

She also told me that Karlo used to sneak fruit to bed every night and his brother would complain about all the noise from Karlo crunching his apples in bed. As she’s telling me this story, I turn to look at Karlo, who was sitting on the couch with an orange and two apples at his side. At least I have met the one person that can relate to my never-ending problem of keeping this man fed.

Family Matters

I have two amusing family stories from the weekend. I’ll share one today and one tomorrow. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture yesterday. Once in a lifetime meeting of my Dad and Karlo's Mom and I blew it . . .

Yesterday my father came over for a traditional Hungarian dinner. This was Dad’s first trip out to the Boonies by himself and, of course, I was a concerned about him. I gave him explicit directions and told him that I would meet him right off the highway to guide him ‘through the woods.’ It normally takes Karlo and I about 30 minutes to get from Dad’s house to the exit, so when it got to be over 50 minutes, I started to worry.

As it turns out, my brother tried to help (uuuugh) by letting my Dad borrow the GPS unit. Now, does anybody remember my rant about the men in my life not listening to me? A few months ago, I explicitly told my brother NOT to trust his GPS coming to our house. Of course, he himself didn’t listen to me and ended up calling me (from his 4x4 SUV, with his GPS) because he was lost and needed help getting to the house. Sigh. You think that would have taught him that perhaps I know what I’m talking about. After all, I do LIVE out there. But no, he thinks he’s helping Dad by giving him the GPS. The one thing what is guaranteed to screw you up in Eastford.

Needless to say, Dad got lost IN HARTFORD and was therefore delayed getting on the highway. Now I have lots of questions here, the first being, “Why did he need the GPS to find the highway in Hartford?” He knew he was to get on I84 and get off exit 71. Why did he need help with this? Whatever.

The good news is that Dad drove home by himself with no guidance, no map and NO GPS. I grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him, and made him promise that he would NOT turn on the GPS. Low and behold he had no problems finding the highway. I was so proud of him. He was the last male family member that I would have thought would ever listen to me, but he did. Thank you Dad!

The Scary Truth Behind the Chickens

Last night Karlo’s mother made some chicken for dinner. Of course it was all fancy with each piece of chicken sitting on top of a cut potato and seasoned to perfection. Her biggest comment and surprise was about how much the chicken shrank after it was cooked. She never experienced that before. She also commented on the color of the chicken. Why was it pink in its uncooked form? These questions didn’t make sense to me. What color should raw chicken be? And I thought all meat was supposed to shrink when it’s cooked.

That was when Karlo explained the realities of the chicken (and all other meat that we get here in the US). Where Karlo’s mother lives, she buys her chicken directly from a local farm. No, not live and not with feathers on it. The chicken meat is yellow in its raw form, not pink. And it doesn’t shrink after cooking.

Karlo informed me that the chickens from his mother’s local farm mature (are ready to be eaten) in 6 months. Our chickens, on the other hand, are pumped with hormones, water, and fat so that they are mature (ready to be eaten) in 6 WEEKS. They are so full of unnatural things that most of them just disappear upon cooking. Well, the water and fat does. God knows what happens to all the hormones.

This is just depressing. How can Americans possibly eat healthy when most of the food that is available to us is toxic? Makes me want to start growing a garden and get some chickens.

Random Tidbits

I can't come up with one cohesive subject for today's blog posting so I'll share a few random things. First, our little princess broke a nail on Wednesday. I know this doesn't sound bad. We all break our nails all the time. But this was terrible. When I got home from work (Karlo had to work late so I was alone), Karlo's mother tried to explain that there was blood all over the floor. She had no idea what was wrong with one of the dogs. When I looked over at their (brand new) bed I realized it was covered in blood. uuuugh. Upon closer examination of Peanut's back leg, I discovered that one entire nail was missing. She broke it off at the base of her little toe and it was still bleeding all over the place. How on Earth did she manage this? All those dogs do all day long is sleep! Where exactly is that toe nail now? I put a little bandage on and she acted like nothing happened. She's still running around playing like it's no big deal. She's one tough little dog.



I wish could spell (or pronounce) my new favorite food. Karlo's mom makes these little sponge-like objects and puts them into soup. I adore them. I could eat a big bowl of nothing but these sponges. I mentioned them in a recent posting and we have since bought new ingredients to make them. This time Cream of Wheat was used. Karlo's mom is still shaking her head in disapproval because they are not quite right, but I love them. Here's a picture of them. I could eat them every day.



Today is a glorious 'rest' day from our P90X training, which means that we have now completed Phase 2 of our 3 phase ordeal. Five more weeks to go and we will be done. I really don't know what I'm going to do with all those extra hours in my week. Hmmmm, I have a feeling I won't have a problem filling them up. I do look forward to the extra time.

And the last thing that I want to mention is how much fun I'm having line dancing. I hate to even admit it, but it's really fun. Tina, you have to find a place to try this out. Last night the instructor played a pop song just to show us that these steps can be used to dance to all kinds of songs. It was amazing how much more fun it was when I didn't have to listen to the country music. I would have NEVER signed up for line dancing if it wasn't for my neighbor. I'm going to have to thank her for this.

This Is Amazing

A friend sent me these photos. The title was called "I Come In Peace." Can you imagine being the photographer that captured this meeting?

I Take Back the Mac Curses

Yesterday was a bad "Mac day" for me . . . but then I went home and got away from all computers for a few hours. I sat down for some much needed R&R on the couch and on comes a new Mac vs PC commercial. I loved it! Laughed my butt off. It involves Macs, Windows Vista (which I have at home) and yoga. What a great combination. The commercials alone are enough reason to buy a Mac. Check this one out:



For more entertainment, you can go to the Mac website and watch all the different commercials.

Is This an April's Fools Joke?

If it is, I don't think it's funny. I am really trying to make friends with my new Mac. It has been approximately one week since I really started using it. Every day presents new challenges, but I've been facing them one by one and getting by pretty good (for the most part). In the past 4 days I've already experienced two lock ups. Today, being one of them. The picture above shows exactly what my screens look like at this very moment. I surfed online to find out what to do when a Mac locks up. All the info online tells me to hit Command, Option, Esc. That does positively nothing. At least Windows lets me get out of lock-up! Stupid Mac.

I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to tell myself this will get easier every day. Thank God I have my trusty Dell still with me. I would be lost without it. The jury is definitely still out regarding whether Macs are so much better than PCs. So far I'm not sold. I think I have no choice at this point but to power down. Either that or go out shopping and see if the computer recovers itself while I'm gone. Now if that doesn't sound like the best excuse to go shopping . . . That's it, I'm outta here!