The Naughty Leprechauns are coming!

I usually post about this after it happens, but I get a ton of comments on how people wish I'd done it earlier. Your wish has been granted!
Every year, the night before St. Parick's Day, the Naughty Leprechauns visit our house and wreak all sorts of havok. Indy looks forward to their visit almost as much as Santa. Of course they have to think of new stuff to do every year, which is quite difficult. In the past they've done the following:
Made a fort with the sofa cushions
Tipped over all the dining room chairs
Thrown all of Indy's clean socks and underwear on the floor
Turned the eggs green
Turned the milk green
Turned the toilet water green (for some reason thus is Indy's favorite and a must do every year)
Rigged it so that when Indy opened his bedroom door green confetti fell all over him (this was poorly thought out by the leprechauns as it was a mess and we were cleaning up confetti for weeks-they will not do that again!)
Opened all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and bathroom
Hung green streamers in front of Indy's door (so many you couldn't see the door)
Stolen toys from Indy's room and set them up in an elaborate display on the dining room table
Used Playmobil Roman and Egyptian chariots from Indy's room to have what we believe was a crazy chariot race around the living room

Of course it's not all mischief. The leprechauns also leave behind trinkets, gold wrapped chocolate coins and GREEN dollar bills. It's no wonder Indy looks forward to this! The biggest problem the leprechauns have is finding new and exciting mischief to get into every year. What will they do this year? Who knows?!?

BTW, I'm blogging from my iPhone so if it's kind of crazy, well, now you know why.

The addiction: Transferware

It's no secret, I loves me some transferware. Love, love, love it. If you missed them, you can see some flea market posts where I scored some of my transferware here and here.
This past week we were fooled by the interwebs (what?  fooled by the interwebs?  yes, yes we were).  What was listed as a flea market turned out to be something like Goodwill, except that they had a little wine shop in one corner (I love Europeans!).  We were disappointed but decided to have a look around anyway and James Bond came upon a huge amount of transferware at a ridiculously low price.  He also spotted a red transferware coffee pot and some brown transferware cups and saucers.  Since I first told him I ♥ transferware he's become intent upon finding it.  He's got a really good eye and can spot it from a mile away.
Anyhoo, for the price, we had to have it.  Had.  We put it all in a big carton and hauled it up to the cash register.  The 3 brown cups and 4 brown plates had no price on them and the guy at the register (who also happened to be the owner) told us not to worry about it and didn't charge us for it!  We only paid for the blue pieces and the red coffee pot.  I won't even tell you how little we paid for it.  It's kind of embarrassing.  When we got home and unpacked the box there were 40 (FORTY) pieces in total-7 brown, 1 red and 32 blue.  Craziness!
We washed everything and then had to find a place to put it.  As I was shoving things out of the way praying we'd have room for it all I realized we might have an addiction.   I took photos of most of what we own so you could see how insane it's gotten.  I've sold several pieces on my etsy shop Tres Magnifique.  Each one I sold took a tiny piece of my heart with it. 

Here are our coffee pots and some of the sugar and creamers and a water jug we have.  The blue and red at the far right with the round lids are the same pattern.  The teal coffee pot and water jug (second row, left) are my favorite pattern.  Of course we have the fewest pieces of it.  One of the coffee pots is missing its lid (back row, center), but it makes a fantastic vase, especially for tulips.  I'd really like to have more tea pots (they are shorter and squatter than the coffee pots) but the coffee pots seem to be the most popular.  These aren't all relegated to a cabinet.  I have several of  them scattered around the house as part of the decor.  It would be a shame if they were never seen.

Okay, on to the cabinets.  These are our dinner plates and stacks of cups and saucers, bowls with handles (I adore those!) and random sugar and creamers.

You'll notice that there are multiple patterns. I'm not picky about pattern unless it's one that I find particularly unappealing.

Here's a close up of some of the cups, saucers and bowls.  Seriously, are those bowls not the cutest things you've ever seen?

Dinner plates!  I think there are 37 here and I have about 25 more not shown (yikes).  FTR, we actually use these as our dishes, which is why the patterns are all mixed up.  While there are several patterns, we do actually have enough of one pattern (same color) for a 12 piece service of dinner plates, salad plates and bowls and 8 cups and saucers.  We don't match them for our every day use.  It makes for a pretty and colorful table to have them all mixed up.

Cabinet number 2 holds small plates (salad size), bowls, serving pieces and more cups and saucers and more random sugar and creamers.  The small salad plates (24) are on the left on the bottom shelf and bowls (19)  are on the right.  The bowls are shallow, but we've found we like them.

Closer view of the upper shelves with some lovely serving pieces.

Covered dish and gravy boat.

Close up of some of the cups and saucers and sugar and creamers.  Notice the stacks and stacks of saucers and dessert plates in the back.

I think we might need an intervention! 

We find these at flea markets all over Europe and honestly pick them up for a song.  James Bond and I both take pleasure in spotting these treasures among the other flotsam and jetsam sitting on tables or piled in boxes and James bond takes extreme pleasure in getting me to haggle on the price.  If he would learn his numbers in German he could do the haggling, but he says it's easier to stand there looking like he's unhappy with the price while I try to talk them down.  Whatever.

Oh, I should also mention that after I took these photos, I discovered that I had another cabinet below the counter containing 19 plates, 17 bowls and 18 salad plates.  Yikes!

RTT: Growing baby, time wasters and other nonsense

Wheeeeeeee! It's RTT! Look at that, I made a rhyme!  Sit back and enjoy.

*Stacy's been holding down the RTT fort for so long, I think it's just permanent.   Accept it Stacy!

*Indy told me the other day that he wants a shirt that reads "I love Latin!" in Latin. Sigh.

*Thank you ABC for allowing your programs to air directly in hulu.com (so I can get my Castle fix).  CBS, I'd like it if you took a page from ABC's book.  Your programs through hulu are linked directly to cbs.com and they "aren't authorized in [my] country."  Boo, CBS.  Boo.

*Six months ago, my RTT was about how I'd had Han Solo the day before (that's right, I'm so dedicated to RTT, not even childbirth could keep me away). Today my sweet little man is 6 months old! How did that happen?

*Every month (on the 4th) I take a photo of Han Solo with the Teddy Bear Indy gave him on the day he was born. Here are his birthday photos (I wish I'd thought to take one without the blanket on) and this month's photos:

He's grown quite a bit.  Maybe on his first birthday I'll post the entire series.

*Still no official paper orders from the Army yet.  We're supposed to move in 16 days and without orders in hand we can't do anything, except sit here and wait.

*I've found a new favorite time wasting site. Humorgasms.com *Warning!  Do not go there if you're easily offended.  Here's just a small sampling (of the ones that don't have curse words in the caption-I don't want to offend anyone for now)

Work it girl!

Who thought this up?

And seriously, WHO thought this was a good idea? Look closely, it's not what you think.

*Oh, oh, and Bluntcard.com!  I love this site so much it hurts.  *Again, don't go there if you're easily offended.
Here are a few of my favorites.  Well, actually some of my favorites are not really appropriate to post here, but these are pretty darn good too.

*What's up with Blogger today?  I can't post photos from the Compose page, but I can from the Edit HTML page.  Get it together Blogger!

*Okay, I think I'm done.  No wait!  I haven't posted my funny sign!

Not a "show" I want to see:

*Click the button above to read the other randoms and link your own.


PS.  Dear other RTTers,
I know I've been slacking on the commenting lately, but I have actually read your RTT's.  I promise to try to do better on commenting, cause some of your RTT's are awesome.

Does this make me a bad wife??

to make sure there are no more surprise babies, James Bond got the big V yesterday.  I know it hurts, but they didn't even have to put in any stitches.  He acts like he gave birth to the largest baby in the world naturally.  Give me a break.  I've gotten more than a giggle or two out of pretending to throw things into his lap.  The look on his face is priceless and he falls for it every. single. time.  And then he tells me I'm evil and sulks for a few minutes. It's the little things that make life fun.  Does this make me a bad wife????

RTT:The video heavy editon

11 weeks, Keely.  Eleven Weeks.  Why have you forsaken us?  You have time to get a feather in your hair, (for reals, peeps) but not host RTT?  Lame.  That's okay though because we've got Stacy to rebel with.  Rock on Stacy!

*In case yo didn't know, my beloved Johnny Depp is going to be staring in a new movie version of The Lone Ranger as Tonto. Sa-weet!  He's been attached to the project since 2008.  Make that damn movie already!

*Why do they call him The Lone Ranger if he's got Tonto? Doesn't that mean he's not alone.

*OMG, I started back on the 30 Day Shred and all I can say is OUCH.  Jillian Michaels is the devil.  De-vil!  I hate her.  A lot.  Damn her skinny self.

*Defy Authority, Feed the Pigeons

*It's a good thing we don't have CourtTV because I would watch the Casey Anthony trial all day. Seriously, I'm fascinated by the crazy things the defense has come up with.

*Anthony Weiner.  What a tool.  Anyone surprised he did it?  Yeah, me neither.

*Again, how is Robbie Williams not popular in the US????  I want to rock with you Robbie!  Be sure to watch until at least 1:55 (you won't regret it). Stop at 2:40 though because it gets weird after that. If I know Raven though, she'll like the weird. ;)



*Squeeeeeeee!!!!!



*And no, I didn't write (or sing this), but I totally should have, because, yes, this is exactly how I feel about my beloved Johnny Depp (really, you must listen to the lyrics):



*Indy and I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 the other day and stood in line for 45 minutes.  We got to the register and they sold out.  !@#$%  Indy was crushed, but I promised to take him back tonight.  It's already night here and we just got back.  It. Was. Freaking. Awesome!  I actually think it was better than the first.  Shut the front door!  I know.  Visually, it was gorgeous.  We didn't see it in 3D, but it was still filmed in 3D and had depth!  If you haven't seen it, do so.  Ska-doosh!

*At least he has goal:

And that concludes today's RTT.  Go hit the button up top, show Stacy some love and then link your own RTT.  You know you want to.

There's a reason I don't go in the sun.

You'd never know it to look at me, but one of my great-grandmothers was full blooded Native American. My mother (her grand daughter) can go outside for 10 minutes and come back in beautiful shade of brown. My father is a red head. Lucky me, I inherited the very pale European ancestry that goes along with that (burn, peel, burn some more).    I was born with red hair myself, though it turned a dark auburn as I got older. Look how cute I was:

Age 1:

Age 2:

Aside from my debilitating allergies, outside is just not my friend.  Oh, sure, it looks pretty outside and I do love pretty trees and flowers, but for the most part, I enjoy them more if there's a lovely plate of glass between me and them.
Today was a really beautiful and unseasonably warm day here in Heidelberg.  There also happened to be a Flohmarkt (flea market) on the Messeplatz.  Now you know I loves me a good flea market, so I drugged myself up with allergy meds (which I am once again allowed to take now that I am almost full term with Han Solo) and off we went.  We arrived around 11am and it was PACKED.  Holy cow!  It was the biggest flea market since this past fall.  It was warm though, and being grossly pregnant (okay, not really, but to ME I am) I just wasn't in the mood.  There was so much cool stuff, but I didn't feel like talking to anyone or haggling over prices or get close to the many, many bodies that were swarming around me (and some of them smelled terrible).   We stayed until around 2pm, when it shut down.  This put me outside roughly 3 hours.  We went and grabbed some lunch (and ice cream!) and then headed home.  James Bond looked at me when we got in the apartment and went "OMG!  You are so burned!"  What?  I looked down and sure enough, my arms were bright red.  No wonder my skin was tingly!  I pulled up my shirt sleeve and there it was:  a farmer burn.  This is similar to a farmer tan (you know, the definite line where your sleeves was), only red.  Drat.  Fortunately, I had a light weight scarf wrapped around my neck, so my chest was protected and my moisturizer has an SPF in (though my face is slightly burned), but my poor arms are cooked.  Don't believe me?  Check this out:

Pretty, huh?   Now I'm certain that I'll go into labor at any moment and every photo of me holding a newborn Han Solo will have my weird farmer burn in it.  Sigh.  I should know better than to go outside.  Outside is just not my friend.

Quit your whining you wussy American

I have little patience with "reality" TV. Back when it first started, it wasn't so bad because the contestants weren't all hard bodied fame whores.  Now, that's pretty much all you see.   I liked the first season of Survivor. Who doesn't remember naked Richard Hatch?  Truck driver Sue or "Aw, hell, I don't know" Rudy? I loved Rudy. I was really pulling for him to win, but alas, it was not to be. Now reality shows are populated with people who would make me run screaming the other direction if I had to engage in a conversation with most of them for more than 2 minutes.  Plus, I really hate the people who have been away from their families for like 2 days and boohoo about how hard it is and how they don't think they can take it.  Seriously?  Talk to a military family and see what you have to boohoo about.  Gah!
One show I generally don't mind though is The Amazing Race. Indy is a HUGE fan, so even though many of the contestants annoy me, we watch it. Plus, I loves me some Phil Keoghan.  That's him at the top in case you didn't know.  Maybe it's the Kiwi accent or how he occasionally (but subtly) tells contestants they're morons.
We get the episodes 2 days after they air in the States, so the most recent one was where the contestants had to go from China to Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), India. Before they left China they had to drink a cup of tea and then once in Kolkata they had to find that same type of tea from about 300-400 of cups set out before them. Indy and James Bond both said I would own that challenge. I love hot tea and am very particular. I often drink tea like I drink wine (picking out different flavors in the tea). Anyhoodle, I got very, very, very annoyed at many of the people in said tea challenge. The whining and moaning! OMG! I can't tell you how many times I yelled "IT'S JUST TEA!" at the TV. Several of the contestants went on and on about how this was the "hardest thing" they'd ever done. REALLY? THE HARDEST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE?  Are you freaking kidding me?  I wondered what the Indian attendants working the challenge thought of this.  If it were me, I'd have had a really hard time not rolling my eyes.  I know one of them had to be thinking: THIS is the hardest thing you've ever done?  I live in INDIA.  Did you SEE Slumdog Millionaire, you spoiled American?  Did you see the swell of humanity just outside this building?  Drink your damn tea and get out of my country.  I'm really sympathetic like that though.
Are you a reality TV fan?  Do you think it makes Americans look like complete idiots?  FTR, I would LOVE to go on The Amazing Race, but James Bond and I would probably kill each other. 

The greatest shower of my life-it's good be clean

Most women seem to be bath people. I am not most women (as you may know by now). I've never been big on baths. It just seems like you're soaking in your own juices and that's just icky. If the water is too hot, you get hot and that's no fun. Even if it's the perfect temp. it will eventually cool and then you'll be cold. What do you DO in the bath? I've tired reading, but after dropping 2 books in the water, I gave up on that. I'm just not a fan of baths. I'm a shower kind of girl. I loves me a good shower. I can stay in the shower forever. I've even been known to sit in the shower. I get a lot of thinking done in the shower (in fact I wrote a good portion of this post in my head in the shower earlier). I find the sound of the falling water relaxing. I've been in showers so long that James Bond has come in to check on me and make sure I didn't somehow drown myself. My dream home has one of those great big tile showers with multiple shower heads (and a steam option) and a big marble slab for me to lay on while the water beats down on my back.  A girl can dream, right? 
I know to most people a shower is just a way to get clean and one is pretty much like the next, but there is one shower I will always remember and the closer I get to giving birth to Han Solo, the more I remember it.

Back in July of 2002, we were once again living in Heidelberg, I was pregnant with Indy and it looked as though I would give birth at any moment (despite the fact that I wasn't due until late Aug). We had been to L&D (labor and delivery for those who might not know) numerous times to stop contractions and the docs told me that if I went before 36 weeks, they would have to medivac me to Landstuhl because our small hospital had no NICU (at the time they weren't sending women to German hospitals, I have no idea why). When they sidy medivac, they meant they would put me in a helicopter to get me there.  As you can imagine, I was violently against this idea.  Being in labor was one thing.  Being in labor in a helicopter was a whole other animal, and I was not about to go there.  Every day I rubbed my stomach and told Indy we just needed to make it to 36w.  The night of July 24th, James Bond and I went to bed around 11pm and he promptly fell asleep (I hate that he can do that!) while I stared at the clock.  Only 1 hour to go and we would be at 36w.  The minute the clock flipped to midnight, I sighed, rubbed my stomach and said "We made it."  The moment the words were out of my mouth I had my first contraction.  I lay there timing them for about 2.5 hours (they were about 15 mins apart) and finally decided to get up and take a shower to see if they would stop (sometimes warm showers or baths will stop false labor). They didn't so I went back to bed and kept timing them. By 4:30am they were about 10 mins apart and I woke James Bond to tell him. He groggily pulled on his clothes and grabbed the keys, thinking this was going to be yet another night spent in L&D, only to be sent home. When we got to the hospital, the OB on duty checked me out and said we would be having a baby that day. WHAT? YES! We were terribly excited, and hunkered down to wait. And wait. And wait. At 7am the OB went off duty and midwife came one. She checked me out and said it would be a while yet, so just get comfortable. At 1pm I was miserable and in pain. We had walked about 100 miles in the hallway, JB had rubbed my back (I had terrible back labor), held me while I cried (labor sucks) and listened to me rant and rave. The midwife would NOT give me any sort of pain medications, despite the fact that I begged for it. She said it would be "better" if I just worked my way through the pain. I really hated her at that moment. 3 hours later, James Bond had had enough and went to tell her that it was not her decision to make and if I wanted pain meds, it was her job to make sure I got them. She finally agreed and came in with something to inject into my IV. It reminded me of a movie (you know, how they inject stuff into IV's and the people immediately fall asleep?). I tried to tell James Bond this and said "It's just like in the moooo..." and I was out. I slept for about 2.5-3 hours and my contractions seemed to stall. James Bond was cranky and irritable, though from MY perspective, he had no reason to be. When I woke up (feeling much better-I was exhausted), they were back with full force, but the evil midwife had gone off duty and my favorite OB, Dr. Gobern, was on. He checked me out and said I was dilated to 7cm, so it would be much longer. He also offered some pain meds that merely took the edge off and made me slightly more comfortable. At 9pm he offered me an epidural. YES, PLEASE! Life got so much better after that. Finally (FINALLY) at 11:41pm (23 hours, 41 minutes after the first contraction) Indy made his appearance in the world weighing in at a very tiny 4 pounds 14 ounces. I was delirious, but got the "post birth" energy surge and was awake until about 1am. Indy was sound asleep, as was James Bond, so I laid down and drifted off, happy to be able to sleep without being kicked from the inside. Indy slept great and woke me at 6 to eat, and then promptly fell back asleep. The nurses came to bring me breakfast and check on me. James Bond went home to take out the dogs and call our families and drop off several rolls of film at the one hour film developer (we didn't have a digital camera back then). I asked if I could have a shower. Giving birth is messy and gross and I just wanted to be clean. The nurses told me I needed to wait until the doc gave the ok, but brought me stuff to give myself a sponge bath. Let me tell you, after nearly 24 hours of hard, sweaty labor and then all that goes along with giving birth, there was no way a sponge bath was going to be good enough, but I took what I could get. The doc was supposed to see me at noon (12 hours after the birth), but some very inconsiderate woman came in around that time and gave birth to twins, keeping the doc from my room until nearly 2pm. How rude of her. I spent those hours trying not to smell myself (I'm extremely sensitive to smells), taking an obscene amount of photos of Indy and just staring at this perfect little person who had been in my body just a few hours earlier. By the time the OB got there I felt gross. I hate to be dirty, and this was just too much. I begged to be allowed to shower and he said if I felt up to it, it would be fine. Oh, happy day!!! James Bond helped me out of bed and into the bathroom (giving birth also makes you quite sore) and promised that if Indy needed me, he'd come get me post haste. The bathroom was small, the shower stall roughly the size of a coffin, with 1960's greenish-yellow tiles that were cracked in places and there was a bit of mildew in each of the corners (believe me, military hospitals are less than glamorous), but I didn't care. I turned the water on full blast and climbed in. HEAVEN! I bumped my elbows trying to soap up, and I couldn't sit down, but this was the single greatest shower I had ever taken. It was so good that I was in there for almost an hour. James Bond came to check on me several times (and to report that Indy was still cute and still asleep), but I just wasn't ready to get out. I had unlimited hot water and I was getting clean! Once I resembled a prune from head to toe, I finally pulled myself away from the cleansing spray and dried off. I slathered myself with pretty smelling lotion and felt more like a human than I had in about 48 hours. Seriously, cracked tiles, mildew and all, this was the single greatest shower of my entire life. It's honestly the only shower I can ever remember.
When I give birth to Han Solo, it will be at a very nice German hospital that I know from my experience with food poisoning back in Nov, has wonderful, huge corner showers and is scrupulously clean. I'm sure that first shower I take after giving birth will be a moving experience and will rank as one of the TWO greatest showers of my life.

BTW, come back tomorrow to adore me some more as it is my birthday and I know you want to wish me well.

I'm a WINNER!!!!

After my disasterous, no interwebs, no telephone Tuesday 2 weeks ago (I think I'll call it Black Tuesday from now on), I was all set for the Heidelberg Community Spouses Club monthly luncheon on the following Wednesday. The luncheons are nice, because it's good to get out of the house and talk to grown ups and eat and laugh and win stuff. Oh, and there's usually some sort of presentation. I won't tell you my feelings on this month's presentation. I'm sure you can guess by that statement that they aren't glowing.
Anyhoodle, I take Indy to a friend who was watching him for me, as our regular sitter was booked and 3 (THREE!) back up sitters canceled on me and tra-la-la'd my way (yes, STILL in heels at 8.5 months pregnant) to the Village Pavilion for the luncheon. I checked in and bought $10 worth of raffle tickets (the HCSC raises a ton of money for the community, you know) and then wandered around talking to friends I saw and checking out the vendors (but didn't buy anything). At 10:30 the seating opened up and we all scrambled in to find seats at the same table with our friends. After placing my name card to reserve my seat, I wandered over to the raffle prize table to see what was up for grabs. If you when a raffle, you get to pick whatever is on the table (the first winner is the best to be because you get to choose from everything, while the last winner gets what's left). I was a bit let down and grumbled that I should have saved my money because there wasn't much on the table I liked (and the things I like usually get snapped up quickly-you know, because I have good taste and what not). See, no interwebs and no phone makes me crabby.
On the first raffle ticket drawing, of course one of the two items I liked was snatched up. Bummer. It was a Coach purse, in case you were wondering. I'm not a big Coach fan, but of all the things there, I liked it. Raffle drawing #2 and #3 took another item I liked. Drat. Raffle drawing #4 was...ME!!!! Shut up! I went to the table and decided to snatch up the OTHER Coach purse. All my friends oohed and ahhed and said for $10, that wasn't too shabby. True dat!  ETA:  The purse was donated from the PX, so I checked it out while I was there a few days later and it was $225!  YOWZERS!
We ate lunch and dessert (OMG, the lemon cake was divine), listened to some people talk and of course I had to pee about every 15 minutes. Drat! Coming back from one of my frequent bathroom trips, I heard a raffle number called that was 1 number off from my previous win. It was ME!!! I went as quickly as I could back to the dining room, while all my friends told the ticket drawer to hold on because I was coming (they call the number 3 times and if you're not there to claim, they draw someone else). I made it up to the front and looked at the remaining prizes. Nothing struck my fancy and I was about to take a set of 3 serving trays with a tapestry Easter runner, when I thought, I have a ton of serving trays, why get more? I looked over the prizes again and saw a big basket full of cake mixes, icing, ceramic cake pans, a book titled Kids Can Cook and a Martha Stewart child size chef's hat, apron and oven mittens.  Now, Indy loves to bake.  He bakes all of our birthday cakes and takes great joy and pride in it.  I thought he would LOVE this set, so I picked it instead of the serving trays.  He saw it when I got home and had a fit!  He's so excited he can barely stand it.  One of the cake mixes is strawberry (which is my favorite) and he said he could use that for my b-day cake in a few weeks.   I'm such an awesome mom.  Plus, I really liked the basket it all came in. 

After I got home and found my internet was FINALLY back on, I sat down with a cup of tea and set to reading all the emails I had missed.  One of them was titled "Congratulations!  You're a winner!"  I almost didn't open it, but the preview showed the name of one of the blogs I follow, so instead of deleting, I opened it and WHAT DO YOU KNOW???  I WAS A WINNER!  I won a nail gun and compressor from a give away sponsored by Centsational Girl!  I have not won a blog sponsored give away in well over a year and almost didn't enter this one because, well, I wasn't going to win, so why bother?  Haha!!!!  Can you believe it?  I called James Bond at work to tell him and I think he was more excited than I was.  Nail gun + compressor = crazy excited James Bond.  Huzzah!

Would you like to see the swag I won at the luncheon?  Of course you would!

Lovely Coach purse:

Baking basket for Indy:

I like to think it was just the universe apologizing to me for stealing my interwebs and phone the day before. 
BTW, the compressor and nail gun arrived today. James Bond practically drooled all over it.  Until I told him it's MINE!  Bwahahahahahaha!  If he's nice, I might let him use it though.

Darn it!! Pointless post with towel animals!

I have a whole bunch of photos on my computer to do entire blog posts about in case I have nothing to really blog about. It's a file named "Random blog photos." Today, I had planned to do an entire post about garbage. That's right, garbage. Garbage in Europe is more of a game than anything, because you MUST recycle. We have multiple cans and multiple containers outside for stuff to go it. I took loads of photos (that I KNOW you would be interested in) and where are they? No idea! NONE! The whole file is just gone. Poof! Like it never existed. I know it did. So now what???? Well, I've got little to talk about (except for the whole pregnancy thing and I'm just over it), so instead I'll show you some photos of the towel animals that we found in our cabin EVERY NIGHT on the Disney cruise we took last year. Why? I dunno. I thought you'd like them. Who doesn't like towel animals?

Loch Ness Monster?

Stingray (wearing my sunglasses)

Elephant

Rabbit

Scorpion

Lobster? 

Orangutan

Peacock

Dinosaur

Cobra

I.....?  What are your guesses?

I wonder how long it takes them to make these?  Can you imagine if that was your job?  "So, what do you do"   "Me?  Oh, I make towel animals for the Disney Cruise Line."  I think it would be kind of awesome.  Okay, there you have it.  My totally pointless post. 

No interwebs and no telephone make MiHH go crazy

Yesterday we had no internet or phone service. Actually, it went out around 5pm the day before, so it was a whole DAY AND A HALF!! OMG, it was like living in 1990! On top of that, my cell was dead and I couldn't find the charger (I have since found it-you know, since I couldn't sit around on the interwebs). It was torture.  My poor little Yuka (that's my computer's name-cause she's Japanese) just sat on the table with her little lights blinking slowly and sadly.  I know she was wondering why I was ignoring her.  Poor thing.
In case you're wondering, we pay our bill online and the bank card I had on file expired and I forgot to update it.  Did the company bother to tell us that the payment didn't go through?  No.  No, they did not.  They just let our bill go (not even an email notification!) and then cut us off!  Ack!  Of course they cut us off at 5pm and then the next day was a semi-holiday (Fasching/Mardi Gras to those of us from the States) and had shortened hours.  I went into the offices around 10am (that's when they opened) and paid the bill in person.  I was told that they were shutting down at noon and our service "should" be back on by 6pm, but since it was a semi-holiday, they couldn't promise anything.  WHAT????  At 6pm James Bond and I were both obsessively trying to log on to our computers, but to no avail.  We were like junkies trying to score a hit.  I guess.  I mean, that's what the druggies on CSI act like.   Our wasn't turned back on until 10am THIS MORNING!  Really?  Okay, sure, I got my laundry done, swept and mopped the bathroom, loaded the dishwasher, schooled Indy, cleaned out a closet and read a whole book (on my Kindle, so at least I had SOME sort of electronic device), which was all well and good, but come on! I need my interwebs!!!!  My Kindle has "experimental" interwebs, but if you can't connect to a network, forget it (3G is a joke).  When I finally logged on, I had so many emails it wasn't funny AND I was a whole day behind on the blogs I follow!  I suppose I should be grateful that they didn't cut our cable service too, huh?  How did we live without our electronics? We're not tied to them, like some people (we don't have phones at the table, and do actually talk to each other), but not having the option to go online or even call someone was so....primitive.  Maybe I need an intervention?  Preferably online.  :)

Project completed(ish)

You may remember my post last week where I wondered how some bloggers get so much done.  My mom thought I was griping, but I wasn't.  I was genuinely curious.  Well, anyway, between crazy contractions (this child wants out!), I actually got something done! Three somethings. Sort of.

Since everyone else in blogland is ripping apart old books, I thought, hey, why not? and attacked some old books I got for free. Huzzah! James Bond thought I had lost my mind when he saw me ripping off the covers.  I think he thought I'd finally been pushed too far.  Hahahahahah!  Oh, sorry.  I liked the look, but thought it needed something more.  I printed off a French postcard from The Graphics Fairy {heart!} and put it under the twine.  Cute, eh?

Here's a closer shot of the side.  The webbing and paper didn't want to come off in two ares, but had a small strip between, so I took the rest off in a similar pattern.  I like the effect.

I also put some of my mini Eiffel Towers in (under?) my cloche and printed off some more post cards from The Graphics Fairy to place behind them.  I think it looks nice.  Not really a project per se (unless you count the whole process of sizing, printing AND cutting-whew, I'm exhausted), but still.

A while back I saw these awesome Hanging Flower Balls over at House of Smith (actually I saw them on another blog that led me to the HoS, but I can't for the life of me remember which blog-sorry about that!) and knew I wanted to make a smaller version of them to...I don't know.  Sit around?  Put in apothecary jars?  In my bread bowl?  Whatever, I just knew I wanted to make them.  I got my crepe paper and read the tutorial about a million five times and went to work.  Now, over in the tutorial she says "Seriously, you CAN'T mess these up!"  Well, to quote a famous little, yellow cartoon bird "She don't know me very well, do she?" Oh believe me, I could (and did) mess more than a few of these up. Badly.  It looked like a crepe paper massacre had happened at my house.  I may have even uttered quite a few very unpretty words. Maybe.  I don't really recall.  I'm just saying it's a possibility.  I persevered though and finally got my groove on and started cranking out the crepe paper roses.  I then glued them onto styrofoam balls.  Side note: I'm afraid my glue gun, Matilda, may be on her last legs.  She's not working very well anymore.  Poor, sweet Matilda.  She's been so loyal and only burned my fingers a few dozen times..  Anyway, because of all the complete goofs minor mess ups, I didn't have enough to finish the pink rose ball and then when I went back to the store, they were out of the pink crepe.  Gah!  I got most of the ball covered though and then just put the blank spot down.  I'm smart like that.  Can't even tell can you?  Here's a close up of the white rose ball.

And finally, here it is all together.  I had to use the flash though (ick) because I didn't have enough light to get a decent photo. 

Hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day!


Linking to: