Being Switzerland

So I finally got to play the Switzerland map online in the 3rd installment of Ticket To Ride. I have no idea how the switch/passenger cards work. I did learn this is not the high scoring game I'm used to. I round out in the 200's no problem in the US & Europe maps but this one, well, I ended the game with a 75. For those of you that know T2R, you think, "wow loser." However, the 1st place score was 78, so not too bad for my first time out. Talk about a lot of head scratching, sheesh.

*back to work*

The Weekend

Saturday consisted of 5 hours of errands. I swear, I'm going to learn Lowe's one of these days. I got another box turtle to adopt out. His name is Charlie. He's big and pretty. Although, his owner said he is a very pregnant female. Funny cause when you look at him, he's just an overweight male but you can't argue with someone who knows everything.

Saturday evening was birthday time. Yay for bar-b-que chicken and hot dogs. And of course, Cake. Sunday was cleaning time. Finally, some time to organize. I finished the living room and the kitchen/dining area.

I love how certain family members feel the need to comment on how we haven't finished unpacking yet but are so demanding of our time it's no wonder we've gotten as much as we have done. End Rant.

Babyshower to finish the afternoon, followed by a migraine to round out the evening. Oye.

If I had a cot at work, I could easily catch up on my sleep... I may look into that. Howie leaves us in 3 days.... *sigh*

Cupcake Sweat Shop

I'm putting the Fun in FUNdraising. Tomorrow is BearStock 06, yeah baby! Anyway, us, along side some of our softball girls are selling Pizza & Cupcakes to start raising money for next year. I decided to make 150 cupcakes. All in one night. Tonight is the night. I have cupcake pans on the ready, cooling racks stacked and ready to cool and decorations for about 300 cupcakes. Better safe than sorry. I'm setting up an assembly line and designated areas for my baking escapade. One counter will have the bowls, measuring cups, ingredients and mixer. One counter will have cooling racks and the table will have the transport boxes and frosting station. It will be great!

I have a feeling I will have a dream about living in a giant cupcake when this is all said and done.

All Area Teams, All Coaches in 1 room

So last night was a gathering of all the coaches in our league. 2 of the coaches couldn't make it. Talk about some of the funniest people gathered at one table. I got to see a whole other side and I have to say I have a new respect for those coaches. It's also nice to know they share very similar problems with A.D.'s, athletes grades and promtness. Funny how competition drives us to turn into people we normally are not. I look forward to our upcoming years with these coaches.

We had 1 player chosen for 1st team, 2 players for 2nd team and 1 player for Honorable Mention. We're proud of them all but to hear other coaches talking about how impressed they are with some of your players just warms your heart like nothing else.

*cheers to softball*

*sings* "Here's a story..."

So waking up at 9:45am I heard nothing. No doggies running a muck, no Howie attacking my head in bed, no Erin singing and no TV noise. I got up and found the dogs a sleep in the living room, Howie was in Erin's office attacking anything that did NOT move and she was sitting there working. Apparently, she has the inability to sleep in and was awake at 6:30am... poor kid. I went and laid back down to relax. In flipping through the channels, to my wonderful surprise, The Brady Bunch was on for 48 hours!

Apparently, every weekend, TV Land puts a show on for 48 hours. I'm looking forward to Bensen the weekend of June 3rd. So it was a slow start for me today. My mom was golfing so I'm not going over there till later. Back to the Brady's, the next episode is when Marsha gets hit in the nose with a football.

The NEW IKEA

So we had to drive to Covina to get our IKEA furniture. It's about 30 minutes farther than the one we usually frequent in Burbank but holy cow wow is it so worth the drive. Apparently, this fairly new building is not very well known because right smack off the 10 fwy this wonder sits. For a Saturday it was so mellow and clean. I love IKEA but the Burbank one is quite overcrowded and parking for loading is for shit.

We did a brief stop in Valenica at BJ's to enjoy some yummy food for lunch. I call it carb loading for energy. Tummies full and a quick stop at the Tollhouse cookie place put us back on the road.

30 minutes later we cruised down for a bit and parked in a HUGE underground parking lot. It was so nice. This IKEA was 2 levels. We headed up the escalators, grabbed our shopping guide, a pencil and a tape measure supplied by IKEA. My dad had never been and kept saying, "I can't believe how much stuff they have." It was funny. His favorite part was testing out the chairs and couches. So I won't bore you with the next 3 hours of looking at shelves, bookcases, dvd racks, vases, pictures, kitchenwares, rugs, sheets, office stuff, etc.... you get the idea. Yes we were there almost 3 hours. 1 basket and 3 furniture carts later and we were heading into the huge elevators that had a 18,000lb limit. They were cool. Our couch, chair, all our furniture and bags + 4 other people with some stuff all got in and we still had lots of room.

My dad backed the truck in and we puzzle piece fit everything into his truck and we were back on the road. Once home, it was fun putting the couch, chair and ottoman together. Picture directions are brilliant, if you can't explain how to do it with pictures only, then it's too touch :)

So that was today, tomorrow is HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Enjoy all...

In the words of Sugar Ray... "When it's over..."

Our 4th season has come and gone. I can't believe it. We lost our last game but very respectively. The girls fought hard but when a team is on a roll, you got to hand it to 'em. We went all innings with a loss of 5-1 vs. the last time, they run ruled us in 5 innings, 15-0 or something horrid like that. The girls tried and got the bats moving, unfortunately it just wasn't all in sync of one inning.

This year is different. We watched our little freshman grow to a brilliant senior, who will be missed VERY much. She is our 1 and only that has been with us for all 4 years. I still can't believe she won't be there next season and I know it won't truly seem void till I look for her to drop her sneaky bunt and it isn't there. We have some hopefuls but it still won't be her commanding centerfield. Big, quick shoes to fill. Tears have been shed once but I'm sure Isabella couldn't near unleash what grad night has in store for us. I wish her well on her newest chapter in life...

So with the season at a close our lives should (operative word) be slowing down. Allowing us, to now, work on the house and relax a little more. In the words of a 8 year old, "NOT." Some how, things are going to be just as busy in the upcoming weeks. Meetings, running around, hardward stores seem to be what our future holds.

And roughly in about 2 weeks, Howie goes to his new home. I'm going to miss the little twerp. I think Piper Lou will miss him more. She likes to set her head down to his level so he can just paw away at her nose. It's like she's helping him train to be a big-boy cat.

Well tomorrow it's off to IKEA to buy some furniture... SWEET.

From Focus, Heart and Determination... and so it shall be.

WE WON!!! It was inspiring. We had 2 pretty rough innings but going into the bottom of the 7th we were down 9-10. 1 to tie and 2 to win. 1st batter got hit by a pitch. 2nd batter hit a TRIPLE to score one. 3rd batter hit a little floatie pop up that was dropped and scored the winning run!

I think we floated all the way home, I know I was smiling the whole time. I finally feel like all our hard work has paid off. They care and I know that now.

Some strings were all she wanted to play with. A small piece of plastic helped but sometimes all she needed was her thumb. The tips of her fingers were calloused but she didn't care. Sitting on that deck up in the mountains, surrounded by friends and the wind. Strumming that guitar, sitting barefoot on her favorite stool and wondering how she could play and hold her bottle of alcohol at the same time. Sometimes when those notes floated off those strings, they mesmerized even her. She couldn't believe they came from such small movements but even more impressive was the heart from where they were derived.

He was brilliant in his own right, he sat many a night alone in his room. One small desk lamp, a table tray, some paper and that trusty acoustic he had bought so many years ago. He may not have used it for shows but it's where any of his songs came to life for the first time. He was teaching himself cords, while she was miles away drinking and hitting a cue ball around.

Through a meeting of chance (aren't they all though?) they met and he showed her a few notes and she took that guitar like she had played for years. She made his songs, her songs. They played side by side for months. Not until later did she find out that he almost pummeled her for touching his guitar, no one touched it. His mother was the last woman to touch it before she killed herself. He thought that was the last bond he had with her.

For all things so simple between friends was over as quickly as it started. Jealous companions didn't understand the art that bound these two... So the music lived on in one and the other walked off without ever looking back. Regrets one has are few but letting go so quickly makes her think she should have turned around one last time.

5 hours of things I could have done instead.

Today my boss called and said he needed me to drive to Long Beach because he forgot his H2S tubes for the 900 wells he is testing. So I had to drive down Hwy 99 to I-5 to the 710 then back up the 710 to the 405 to the I-5 to the 99 to the 58 home. I made record time down there, which in L.A. traffic terms means it would be a shit drive home. Actually it only took me an extra 40 minutes. Not too bad considering I was on the brink of 5' o clock traffic near LAX.

Anyways, sitting in some traffic near Hollywood Blvd. I was thinking of things I could have been doing instead, here's what I came up with:

1. Sleeping - Sleeping would basically be at the top of any of my lists. I value it highly.
2. Shopping at IKEA - I couldn't believe I drove past 2 and didn't get to stop at either. Should be against the law.
3. Organizing the house - Lord knows, we've been so busy, 5 hours could get a lot of boxes unpacked.
4. Watching TV - 5 hours of TV may sound like a lot but we just got cable back, so I feel like I have a lot to catch up on.
5. I guess working - I had a lot of typing to do but it will still be there tomorrow and I got paid regardless, so no harm there.
6. Planning an intergalactic war on the peapod men - Really, it's time someone stood up to those bullies, I'm tired of them thinking they're all superior and stuff.

About here is when I realized, I needed to pay closer attention to traffic and laughing at the peapod men was getting me no where.

Hope everyone had a good 5 hour afternoon!

YAY!!!

Monday, May 8th @ 5:00am

Abundance

I just have a lot of things to do and I do not have the energy to do them. You know what else would be nice. To have furniture. Not that I don't like laying on our nice new carpet but it's quite a bit more painful to plop your butt on the floor then into a nice comfy couch. Just doesn't have the same feeling when you fall backwards onto the floor. Maybe I'm picky, who knows.

We may get a chair tomorrow *crosses fingers* we'll see though.

Waking up to blue eyes starring at me...

This morning I felt something soft and sweet gently caressing my nose. When I opened my eyes, there was Howie using his paw to touch my nose. His big eyes blinking back at mine. I grumbled "Howieee" and he fell next to my face and tumbled down my pillow. Howie learned to climb up the bed... No one is safe now, N-o O-n-e! *insert maniacal laugh from Howie*

Bring back JSS!!!

For those of you who don't realize from the re-run shows, Jamie, Jack & Stench are temporarily fired. ClearChannel got enough complaints that they are allowing the listeners to vote whether or not to bring them back. So go vote and bring them back. If you don't like them, then don't vote at all, you don't count. You have until tomorrow (5/3/06 @ 5:00pm) to vote.


Vote YES on Prop JSS <-- this is the link


Thanks :)

1% chance it wouldn't happen but it did, so whatever...

For my local buddies, you all know how last week at this time it was cool and raining. You also know that yesterday it was about 90. Bleah. As we are nearing the end of our season, mostly we are working on batting and making routine plays. Live pitching is always better than the pitching machine. As some of you may or may not know, I get vicious migraines especially from the heat. I agreed to throw batting practice yesterday knowing there was a very little % of not getting a headache. By batter 3, it was well on it's way. I was well hydrated, well rested but the heat was taking its toll. I went through a full round and walked into the dugout, laid down on the bench and put a bag of ice on my head. It was like thousands of needles stabbing the side of my head but I just smiled and closed my eyes. The ice helped a lot but the nausea was there. The evening proved to be a tough one, 40 minutes under a cold shower helped but I still felt very stiffled.

I wouldn't go through that for just anyone... I just hope the practice helped. Last week I didn't even think they cared, they haven't been playing like it but you know what happened? They lost a well fought game. All the way till the bottom of the 7th and one bad throw lost any chances of winning. You know the best part though? They cried and were mad. That was the best news of the game. Twisted? Nope, just tells me that all my hard work is going to a team that cares enough to get upset when they work so hard and get so close and don't get the results they wanted. Some discussions afterwards shed some light within the team and more for the coaches.

Practice yesterday showed a team determined... I want more than anything for that to carry over to today's game.... wish us luck. Not to win but to play to win.

The Weekend

So Friday night was cool, some of our friends stopped by to see the new house and bring us dinner. Nothing beats a good ol' greasy burger and crinkle fries with extra seasoned salt, oh, and a fried burrito. My hat is off to you Frosty King on Niles. It just so happened they wanted to play a game as well. So enters Alhambra. It took about 5 minutes to show them the basics and we were off. The market was selling tiles quickly and Alhambras were being formed in all directions. Good game, I won :)

Saturday morning we headed out about 10:00am and didn't return home till 9:00pm. We had to go to Lowe's (for about the 7th time since we've moved), attend a very intense t-ball game, lunch with friends, return shelf paper to Walmart, buy some necessesities/return a carpet to target, look for dish towels and dvd towers at Linens-n-things and World Market, replace carpet at the old condo that Piper destroyed in her smaller puppy days and pick up the dogs at my parents house. I'm tired all over again from just typing it. We got home to a very pissed off Howie for being home alone all day. Made some snacks and watched Derailed with Jennifer Anniston and Clive Owen. 2 thumbs up.

Sunday I awoke to barking dogs and Erin singing in the background. I swung my feet around to find a happy Howie running around. Erin was working in her office. Turns out she had like 8 hours of grading to do which later I helped for about 2 hours before I couldn't take anymore. I laid around most of the day. I watched a lot of Friends and worked on my white belt of suduko book that I had bought yesterday. All I can say, going on a week and half now without cable, thank goodness Erin introduced me to Suduko. Kills time like no other and it exercises my brain. I may go professional, it's too early to say though.

So it was a jam packed weekend as usual. See ya in a few.