work was extremely challenging today

I love my work, but today was a big challenge. A server went down and clients were calling and calling and calling and instant messaging and emailing. I barely was able to eat lunch or get up to stretch my legs.

my nose is growing

I have a huge zit on my nose. I feel like Steve Martin in Roxanne. My nose seems to be getting bigger. If it gets any bigger I will not be able to see. I have to go to a football game tomorrow, so I will have to use some clever make up tricks to cover up the offending blemish.

Blogging

This is kind of fun. Maybe I will take the quiz again later and I will have advanced as a blogger. What kind are you?

oh brother where art thou - a classic movie

Dave and I love this movie. We are getting so we know some of the lines. These are lines that can be used in your every day life.



"Believe me Delmar, woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man. "


"It is a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

"A half a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down."


"I'll tell you what I am - I'm the damn paterfamilias! You can't marry him! "


"Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought."


"Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism. Consider the lilies of the goddamn field or... hell! Take at look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope."


"Do not seek the treasure.


"You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a... a cow... on the roof of a cotton house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the ob-sta-cles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation. "

But there is a part that we either fast forward through or switch to another channel for a bit so that we don't have to watch it. It is when the "cyclops" beats them up. It is particularly violent and makes me uncomfortable. I think it makes Dave uncomfortable also since he didn't seem to want to watch it either.

handyman debbie, assistant dave

A couple of weeks ago our reclining rocker broke. The wooden piece in the front that holds the springs came off on one side. I think I have it fixed. It took a little trouble getting some of the hardware off and then Dave had to help pull the piece of wood that had the springs attached so that it popped back in place. Then I put all the hardware back in place and nailed some nails in to keep the wooden piece from popping out again. I certainly hope it lasts for a while. Don't want to have to buy more furniture right now.

McMillan Family Get-Together

I was the oldest one at the get-together. I think my sister, Cindi is a close second. We met at Cindi and Mike's house in Grand Rapids. Actually Ken Morris, our step-father, was the oldest person there. But here are the "sisters".








Minky, Mike, Luke, Mark and Charly - fathers and their children.










Brett with mom on the right and Aunt Cindi on the left.










Cindi's son, Japhy and his beautiful wife, Jenna, who we found out is 8 weeks pregnant. Congratulations. Kari is sitting to the right.









Beautiful Lisa, Cindi's daughter, hold Charly, my active and lively 18 month old grand-daughter.



Check out Mindy's and Kari's blogs to see what we ate and more pictures.

dancing with the stars

I wish I could be on dancing with the stars. Well maybe not, but I do love watching the show. Probably because I imagine myself dancing like that. Note to self: Get video to help you learn to dance like or sign up for lessons.

Malarkeys, Westland, Michigan

Dave and I have been having bad experiences a restaurants. The food hasn't been the greatest, the service slow and unfriendly, and the facilities not as kept up as you would want to see at a restaurant that you are eating at.

But we took a chance on a new restaurant, at least new to us. Dave says that local, unfranchised restaurants are better, in his opinion. So we went to Malarkey's Irish Pub in Westland. We were served promptly and the waitress was friendly. She even offered her suggestions for what to have to eat that was good. I chose the hamburger, cooked medium rare. Dave chose the french dip. Both meals were excellent by our standards, which I think are fairly high. The waitress came back to the table a couple of times to refill our drinks and make sure that our food was okay. The manager stopped to ask also. Overall, the atmosphere was pleasant, with lots of TVs running. I would have liked a little more choice over the content that was running, but that is not always available and we weren't going to stay long to watch the sports events scheduled for that night.

We will definitely go back there and see if our first impression was the norm or if it was just a fluke.

big boy restaurant

Dave and I eat out at least once a week and I think I am going to start writing critiques of the places that we eat. We have definite ideas of what we like and how we like to be served. Also, I tend to look around and be aware of how the restaurant seems to be run, how it is managed. So I will be commenting on different places that we eat at and my impressions.

I haven't figured out if I am going to have a scoring process, but if I do, I will come back and score this restaurant.

The first is the Big Boy Restaurant in Fowlerville, MI. We stopped at this place on our way to Mt. Pleasant. We had gotten a late start because we had to turn around to go back to the house because we forgot our binoculars for the football game. I have fond memories of Frisch's Big Boy from when I was growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio. My dad knew Dave Frisch and at one time was offered a job as a manager at one of the restaurants, but Dad turned the job down.

We were seated immediately and the waitress that seated us asked for our drink order. When she brought that, she informed us who our waitress would be and that she would be with us shortly. This is actually a very cool thing because it shows me that the waitresses are willing to help each other out. We didn't have to wait long for our waitress to show up and we made our order. I ordered the fish sandwich, Dave ordered the big boy sandwich (minus all sauce and stuff), and we ordered an order of fries to share. The food was delivered in a timely manner. Dave's food was prepared correctly with no extra stuff on it. My fish sandwich was perfect also. The fries were just right. The waitress refilled our drinks without asking and before our original drinks were empty.

Now what impressed me is that this fish sandwich seemed to taste the same as the first fish sandwich that I ever ate at a Big Boy restaurant. How can that be? That had to be about 48 years ago. Incredible. I have had some bad experiences at Big Boy restaurants when they run out of their signature tarter sauce and have to use the Gordon's brand. The sandwich tastes awful. This was just right.

We ordered the pumpkin pie. We usually don't get dessert, but the pie was so tempting. I asked for extra whipped cream if at all possible. The pie was delicious, not store bought, possibly fresh pumpkin.

Overall, it was a very nice experience.

More reviews of restaurants to come soon. Thursday night we went to a local bar, Malarkeys in Westland, MI, so that will be the next review.

The other noteable things about our experience was that the bathrooms were clean.

children

The kids and I get together for our birthdays. We just added Brett to the tradition. The girls and I started it so that we would have a "reason" to go out to eat and spend time with each other.

I am so glad we added Brett this year. Because now it feels complete.



I think I must be the luckiest mother in the world. I have the world's best children. I am not even sure I deserve them. But I thank God for them every day.

If as spirits in heaven we choose who we are going to come to earth with, I think that the four of us must have done just that. I would be the mother and the three of them would be the children. When we all get together it is like we are soul mates or something. I always feel like there is no other place I would rather be than spending time with them. The laughter comes so much easier. The tears do too. It is like all my feelings are heightened when I am around the three of them. After spending time with them, I feel recharged and relaxed.

It has always been like that and I hope it is like that forever.

halloween

It was kind of fun last night. I made Dave go buy some candy. He did good. He bought two bags, one of sweet tarts and the other suckers. I put them all in a bowl. Then I turned on the porch light, got my Eastern Michigan sweatshirt and cap on and waited for the kids to show up.

Right on cue, they started coming to the door. Cute kids, large and small. I got a kick out of the older kids. They half-heartedly got dressed up, held out their pillow cases, and did a nice job of saying thank-you. They didn't even look sheepish that they were "too old" for this. Nope, they wanted candy and were just having a good time walking around asking for it.

The other cool thing was that I was standing on my porch, I looked south down the street and there was a lot of activity, kids and parents walking around, people chatting with each other, someone mowing their lawn. It looked friendly and peaceful. What a nice looking block of houses. Maybe that is why people were driving in from somewhere else and trick or treating on our street. Yes, they were. I noticed a car with a load of people. After they were done with the block, they opened their trunk and poured the bag(s) of candy into a container in their trunk. Hmm, they were amassing quite a stash.

Well, we ran out of candy fairly quick. Guess we will get 3 bags next year. I turned off the porch light and closed the blinds. No one came to the door after that.

Last year we went away for the evening, but I am glad we didn't this year. I enjoyed seeing all the kids and saying hi to the parents.