My mother’s NOT a trooper

Ruthless maybe. Competitive yes. Determined most certainly.

A trooper she is not.

Apparently, my brother’s last soccer practice involved a parent-vs.-son soccer game. My mom played for the parents’ team. For those that know my mom, you know where this is headed.

Have any of you played basketball against my mom? Baseball (that’s the safest, it’s mostly no contact)? Football?

If you have, you know she’s out for blood—winning is the only option.

And so when someone posted on my brother’s Facebook page that my mom’s a trooper….well, I’ll show you.

(names have be edited to protect the identity of the not-so-innocent).

We were quick to defend her against any who would defame her image. To me the label ‘trooper’ implies “toughing it out when you are struggling.”

And THAT is not my mother. At least in sports, there’s no struggling. That may be the other team, however. Don’t hold back when playing against my mom in deference to her very youthful age, her position as in-law, her title as your substitute teacher or girl scout leader. I’m warning you DON’T HOLD BACK! She won’t, and you just might lose an eye.

Love ya, Mom!

LiveJournal Tags: mom,sports,basketball,soccer

*happy dancing*

Yesterday was bad. Today, eh…nothing exciting, but no honey messes (yet).

However…

I’ve got something up my sleeve. Something I’ve talked about with people, but never done.

Hubs is all for it. Hopefully, you all will be too. When I tell you, which I’m not (yet). But I will, I promise. And then you can happy dance with me.

But first, I’ve got some work to do, progress needs to take place. Soon, though, hopefully…soon.

Yay!

*happy dance*

Oh you want a clue?

Well…that will have to do. (Aren’t I the poet?)

*giggle*

(And if you do know, you aren’t telling, or else )

LiveJournal Tags: Secret,clue,happy dance

Honey isn’t always so sweet

Yesterday was one of those days…you know? THOSE days? When nothing goes right, and not just things don’t go right, but they go down the toilet?

That was Yesterday.

My computer was fighting with me. Not a big deal. It’s starting to age…I was running a full computer scan. It doesn’t multitask well. But looking back on the day…it just added to all the other frustration that followed.

Unemployment. Sick of it. Want a job. That way I don’t have to deal with the Unemployment obnoxiousness (oh by the way, I went to my training—did I tell you I had to go to a class? Well I had to go to a class—after  I missed the rescheduled date because they scheduled it when I was in Disney—and yes I know I couldn’t claim those days. Run on sentence? I don’t care. Ironically, my class was in Niagara County, and everything—ok most things—were qualified with “you live in Erie County so it might be different.” Argh).

Yesterday, I got a call from Mr. Unemployment Man. Apparently they are reviewing my claim. The boss contested. For some reason they gave it to me and not my co-worker. His contesting didn’t matter before and now it does? So I had to retell the situation in detail. I want that job to be gone and done with. I hope it doesn’t go to a hearing. I might look into an  Unemployment attorney. Any recommendations? *#*^*&@

If that wasn’t enough to ruin a day—believe me it is. I get home. I’m putting away dishes…and I notice honey on the clean dishes. Honey! What the heck?! No honey is on the counter. I open the cupboards. There is a large pool of honey on the bottom shelf. And look, there’s the cover to the honey. Where is the jar? *drags over stool* Not on the second shelf. There it is. Lying on it’s side, on the third shelf. Why the heck is it up there? Not that it matters. The honey dripped down all the way from the third shelf to pool on the first. And then, because that wasn’t enough, dripped and pooled onto my clean dishes. Mr. Cute-Honey-Bear-Jar, you’re not so cute anymore. What a mess!

I ate dinner (not much due to a nagging canker sore—didn’t help the day improve any), laid on the couch and fell asleep. At 8 pm. Got up at 10 pm. Went to bed. I wasn’t giving the day another chance.

And so today begins with this (please note: our kitties never cuddle. They don’t sleep touching. They tolerate each other):

And there was kitty bathing other kitty without hissing cuteness too.

Perhaps an omen? Please?

I could use a day like this:

Calm, peaceful, serene…

Thanks!

LiveJournal Tags: Unemployment,bad day,honey,kitties,canker sore,computer

Fireworks and Parades

Howdy interweb world. I’m back. I was banished from the webbed world yesterday—that’s for another time, or not. It’s not very interesting.

But do you know what is interesting?

Disney World of course. Specifically the firework/laser show and the parades. In the plural. And you have to go to them all. Seriously. I’m not actually sure how I got hubs to all of them, but he went. And willingly too.

First there is the classical Disney, the Magic Kingdom Parade…

which continued Disney World’s 2010 theme of Celebrate Today!

It was very cute…and very hot because it was our first parade. We hadn’t yet learned to find a shaded spot. But we did sit down 45 minutes early, because we were tired of walking, and quickly learned that is actually the only way to get a good seat/spot (we actually had to stand because we had to stand to see over all the people).

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The Magic Kingdom Fireworks were spectacular! Narrated by Jiminy Cricket they had a story line and the fireworks and the colors illuminating the Castle changed to match the tone of the tale. Just as the beginning of every Disney movie Tinkerbell flew out from the Castle! A real person! So cool.

Night pictures are a challenge because you have to hold the camera still so the castle is a little shaky, but I love my camera’s firework setting. For this too you need to show up early to get a seat, but it follows the Electrical Parade (I have no pictures of this, my camera can’t handle bright lights moving at night) which is also very neat. Since it’s in the evening at least you don’t need to worry about finding a shady spot.

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Then there’s Epcot’s laser and firework show. Illuminations! Reflections of Earth (and you have to say it like that, with “Illuminations!” being an exclamation and “Reflections of Earth” being deep and narrator-like). Being a show involving fireworks, lasers, fire, water and moving parts, good pictures were hard to get, but we got a few

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Next is the Animal Kingdom Parade. Nothing screams Lion King like this parade. All the characters are dressed in safari costume, and the floats? Well they are just amazing.

A float moved by a man pedaling a crocodile bike? Ingenious! And while my camera’s battery died (What? I don’t have a taking-too-many-pictures-of-animals-problem) and hubs’ camera had a temporary spazz out, we got quite  a few good pics.

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Lastly, the Hollywood Studios Block Party Bash Parade (we never had a chance to see Hollywood Studios’ light show). We weren’t planning on staying for this—Hollywood Studios just didn’t hold our attention. I had some shopping I “needed” to do and we happened to be in a shop along the route that had a patio of sorts perfect for viewing the parade in the shade. Score! We are so glad that we got to see this because it was by far the most fun. It was exclusively Pixar characters (Bug's Life, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, the Incredibles, etc.) and so cute. The parade would actually stop along the route for a full twenty minutes at a time. There was dancing, singing, trampoline acts and crowd interactions. Simply awesome!

 

If you do nothing a Hollywood Studios but see this parade, your time was still well spent.

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And only Disney would have fireworks during the day.

And of course there are more Parade pictures posted here

LiveJournal Tags: Disney,Parades,Fireworks,Honeymoon

GAH!

We will take a short break from the fun and happy posts to vent.

I had an interview today. Woohoo yay…

I went into the interview, not knowing what I would do if offered the job. It’s second shift and I was unclear about much of the job itself.

I think now that I would probably take it if offered. It’s not a bad position. There’s opportunity for advancement and to move to first shift. It’s Spanish speaking and dealing with International clientele. Both of my major wants in a job.

So the venting?

That comes from how the interview began. “After looking at your resume, it appears you maybe overqualified in some areas for this position.”

Overqualified. I think I hate that word. Seriously I do.

For the last position I was turned down for, I kinda sorta understood the overqualified part. They were looking for High School diploma—I have a Bachelor’s. Still I think I’d have liked that job, and been good at it.

But for this position, they asked for a Bachelor’s degree. They asked for bilingual. Good people skills. I looked at the job description and I met every qualification. There aren’t many that I can do that for (although that doesn’t stop me from applying). So I think “a job I’m really qualified for, cool.”

Or not…

LiveJournal Tags: unemployment,overqualified,interview

Can you guess what sport we were playing?

Take a good look? It involves water and a net?

Contrary to what it appears, we weren’t fishing.

 

If you haven’t figured it out by now, um, there’s no hope for you.

This miniature golf course is pretty neat. Some of the holes were 4 and 5 par. And there were some nice water traps…Kurt lost a ball.

I lost, shocker! But only by 5 pts, so I’m ok with that.

More updates from Disney and this weekend later I have to drive home now.

LiveJournal Tags: miniture golf,sport,weekend,Binghamton

I’m gonna decorate my home like Disney World does…

Any objections?

Seriously, the Fall/Halloween decor (we’ll ignore the fact that Christmas decorations were going up at Hollywood Studios) of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is right up my alley. Super cute, just look…

         

Even Cinderella’s carriage is decked out in style for the holiday:

Mickey and Minnie’s Halloween spirit is shown in their homes too.

 

See we fit right in. Yep this is how I need to decorate my home. First item on the list: find Mouse shaped pumpkins….

LiveJournal Tags: Disney,Honeymoon,Halloween,autumn,decorations,Cinderella,Mickey,Magic Kingdom,Hollywood Studios

Ewww gross!

 

I interrupt my cute Disney posts with this…

This is not a Halloween Decoration…this is a ginormous spider (do you see the light reflecting off his eyes?) that Marc found in our house the day before we left for Disney. Ew!

It was so big that Marc would not kill it. He claims that it would make too much of a mess. And we all know I’m not killing that sucker. So marc trapped it in a plastic container, with a little finagling of cardboard and flip floppingness. That’s after it started to dart down the hallway and made me scream. I know, it’s sad.

I hate spiders in my house. I mean I went and examined it and took a picture. Had it been outside it would be cool, but NOT. IN. MY. HOUSE. In my house means potential for crawling on me—so not cool.

We have another eight-legged resident:

This fella lives outside our living room window (therefore the terrible picture—the cameras won’t focus on the spider, they prefer the tree). He eats bees and flies and repairs his web at night. I dubbed “him” a “he” as I don’t want “him” to be a “her” and lay eggs.

I could blast him off with the hose, but what if he falls on me? Gro-oss. And he’s actually very interesting to watch. Come over and see.

LiveJournal Tags: spider

Another Disney post

I quickly and instinctively developed a policy for getting my picture taken with the Disney characters. If they were in a full costume (i.e. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, etc.) I was all for it. But if they we a “human” character, I just took their picture from a distance, usually with some random child in it. Otherwise it just struck me as plain weird.

Next time I go to Disney, I will need to bring a child with me…even if I have to beg, borrow or steal one. Well maybe just beg or borrow.  A child justifies so many things at Disney, and it would free the hubs from having to be in the pictures with me, or me having to be in a picture by myself—because that is totally awkward.

And while I’m still waiting for Marc to upload the rest of the pictures onto our Media PC from the iPad, here are  some of the characters that I paparazzi’d.

Mary Poppins (I just love this costuming)

Snow White (obviously)

I swear I have Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) too, but she must not be downloaded yet.  And then after realizing that hubs was not going to cooperate with the getting pictures with characters on a frequent basis, I also have a picture of Pluto and Daisy Duck somewhere.

Thank goodness for parades. The parades are the most efficient way of getting character photos. Just make sure you have your spot at least 45 minutes prior to the parade if you want a good spot—and people, make sure the spot is in the shade! Here are just a few of the many parade shots.

A few characters from the Animal Kingdom parade:

 

From Hollywood Studios:

 

And last, but definitely not least (and definitely only a small percentage of the characters in the parade) the Magic Kingdom:

 

Until my next Disney post, see ya real soon!

LiveJournal Tags: Disney,Honeymoon,characters,pictures