huge child

Oh my, check out this 17 pound baby.

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070926/ids_photos_ts/ra3291886192.jpg;_ylt=Ao7zbpjRYWQs8CXHuPJyjeyek3QF

allergies

I feel bad because I don't post very much. I think about it and then never have the time. I am going to try to post a couple more things today. Right now I want to complain, but don't want to actually complain to anyone specifically. I am having a bad day. For some reason I am having a horrible allergy attack. I have different kinds of allergies. Some are the sneezing and some are the asthma. But this one is the itchy nose. I mean itchy all over. Outside, inside and scratchy throat. If I am not careful, I will rub my nose raw and get an ugly scab on the top of my nose. I have done it before. I am trying to work and deal with this. I took an allergy pill, a benedryl, some cough medicine with codeine and have put an ice pack on my nose. Oh, and I sprayed the inside of my nose with Astelin. I still itch.

perfect salad

I think I made my perfect salad. At least perfect for me.

Crisp iceberg lettuce, cut up in small pieces.
Grated colby cheese
whole grain bread crumbs, toasted in skillet with butter
White wine vinaigrette, homemade (oil, white vinegar, sugar, garlic powder, salt)

Very tasty, yep, it was very tasty indeed.

Lazy Saturday

Well, I am having a slightly lazy Saturday. Dave is busy writing articles for Blue Ribbon YearBook and then he probably will have to start on his CD reviews for Living Blues. I left about 8:30 this morning to give blood. The Red Cross had been calling and calling me to see if I would give, as there is quite a blood shortage right now in the Detroit area. It seemed like it took forever to fill that pint and now I am feeling more weak that usual after giving blood. So I am just sitting around, reading a book, and intermittently popping up and doing a little bit of housework. I have cleaned the tub and sink in the bathroom, done 1 load of laundry and have two more to do. I want to put some nail polish on my nails and do some other little chores also. I am also feeling a little out of my element, since I have the website done and don't have too much more to do with that. I did want to set up a better photo gallery if I can.

Well, that's about it for now. More later maybe.

computer software

Dave has me working on a project for MAC Report Online. We want to change the website to a content management program. So I have installed Joomla and have been busy trying to configure and program it so that it is useful to our needs. For me this is fun (and frustrating sometimes) because the program is free, the addons and plugins are free, and I love taking software and figuring it out. We did pay for a template.

I feel like it is Christmas when I get new software to work with. This is even more exciting; there are all kinds of plugins, addons, etc to play with.

It is a work in progress, but you can watch the progress by going to www.macreportonline.com/Joomla


Comments, help, questions, constructive criticisms are welcome.

gross advertising

Watching TV and working on the laptop - commercial comes on for AllBran. It is a construction worker at a work site eating something from a bowl, walking around the job site. He is telling about how AllBran has really helped him. I don't think he uses any wording that describes the actual bowel process, just that he needed to be more regular. But behind him you see first a man pulling a huge iron girder out of a wall and then a dump truck dumping a load of bricks. How gross is that? Was that suppose to be sublimal?

Frank Marino

The last act at the Blues Festival in Pittsburgh was Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush. There were a lot of "groupies" in the audience, but by the time Frank played, a lot of them were so drunk they probably don't remember any of the concert. Frank is know for his hard, loud rock 'n roll blues. He also doesn't like to take breaks or stop playing. He is known for three hour long concerts. He had to cut his usual concert short for the festival format, but it still was not disappointing.

Well, that wasn't enough of Frank for Dave, so this last weekend we attended his concert in Detroit at St. Andrew's Hall. This was the real thing. Three hours and five minutes. No breaks. No chairs to sit in. No air conditioning, just fans. Oh my. Dave and I came prepared with ear plugs, comfortable shoes, and well-hydrated. Still, I had to sit down by the wall after 2-1/2 hours. Dave hardly noticed that I was gone. I think he loved it.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling

Well, at least it seems like it. Helicopters, small planes and now a bridge, just falling out of the sky. Sheesh.

Road trip to Blues Festival in Pittsburgh

Well, two weekends ago, Dave and I had a road trip to see a blues festival in Pittsburgh. Here are some pictures.

Larry McCray. Good, as always.


















Bernard Allison. He was a surprize for us. This is the first time we had heard him and he was very good. Plus he has two of the whitist band members, and they seemed even paler in comparison with the blackness of Bernard and his drummer. All musicians were awesome.

He even copied Lonnie and Ronnie Baker Brooks - going out into the crowd while playing. He doesn't have the handshake down yet, but the crowd loved it. I took this picture as he was walking past me. I was seated of course.

All and all, Dave and I had a good time, even if we did have to wait a long time for the music to start.

Blues on the Mall - Lansing, MI

We went to see Ronnie Baker Brooks in Lansing last Thursday.









I took this picture of these ladies dancing. What I find endearing is that they were just dancing away, not caring how they looked. They were happy, like little kids moving and shaking. How cool that we adults can sometimes just let loose and become kids again.





Ronnie is great at performing. His signature style, as is his dad's, is that he goes out in the crowd while playing a song and shakes hands, plays the guitar with a bottle (slide) and plays the guitar behind his back.


Mindy and Mike and Luke met us at the mall for the second half, after they got done meeting with Joel Zumaya and getting their picture taken with him. Check out Mindy's blog for that picture.

Finches visiting our birdfeeder - thanks Cindy

My sister gave me a thistle birdfeeder. We have seen two types of finches so far. A gold finch and a house finch. They are beautiful. I have the hummingbird feeder hanging out, but haven't seen any activity by it yet. They are probably too fast for us to see.

work today

Wow, what a day at work. I think I did pretty good at keeping up with things and not going crazy, but probably I could not have not whined to Kari or Bob about how busy I was. I had one VPN connection to get corrected, then immediately more calls started coming in. One to fix another VPN connection, one to fix some templates, another to install two of our programs on three computers, one of which proved to be a big problem, an email came in to fix a file on one website, another email to fix a graphic for a template, multiple questions about the software, more training for a new transcriptionist and a couple Instant Messages with questions. I barely got time to eat or relieve myself. I haven't had a busy day like that in a long time. It felt good to be able to handle things, but yet frustrating that I couldn't fix the couple things that I have left unfinished. Sometimes eight hours are not enough to handle all the problems that crop up.

Hopefully tomorrow will not be that busy.

Riley - ninja warrior

This is Riley sitting on his/her tail - preening - with the sound from the G4 TV show - Women Ninja Warriors.

Here are some pictures of Luke, born 5/17/2007 at 11:46 a.m. by C-section. 6 lb, 11 oz, 19 inches long.

Happy Mother's Day

Sometimes I miss my mom. She and I were not that close. I am not sure why. I think she didn't understand me and probably I didn't understand her. But I liked her. I just felt like I couldn't talk to her about things. I tried, but she would act like I was bothering her, so I stopped trying. Maybe I didn't listen to her, but I don't remember her really confiding in me or trying to.

But there was some kind of connection between her and me. I remember a few times when I thought she must be psychic or something. When I was pregnant a second time and Brett was about 14 months old, Jerry was studying for his exams and he was sick with a very bad cold. I all of sudden started spotting. I think the next day, my mom called to see how I was doing. I told her and the next thing I knew she and Ken were driving down to get Brett and I. She took us back to Grand Rapids and put me to bed. Then she called our family doctor. He had me go to the hospital where I miscarried. Mom took care of Brett while I was recovering.

There were other times when she would call out of the blue when things were going on in my life. So even though we never really had any heart to heart talks with each other, she always seemed to be there for me. I hope I was there for her when she needed some one also.

Driving to the hospital where she was dying, I knew I wouldn't make it to be there by her bedside when she took her last breath. I had been there the night before and I knew that she was at peace with dying. Looking at the clock in the car, I thought to myself, "Go ahead Mom, you don't have to wait for me", and later the nurse told me that she passed away at that time. I wonder if she still hears me now and then as the years go by. I do miss her, even though it has been 11 years.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

5/4 - 5/5 - weekend activities

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We went to a new restaurant for breakfast. We are compiling information for a book about good family dining places to eat breakfast at in Detroit. The place we went to will not be in the book. The food was not that great. We both came home and spent a good portion of the next hour in the bathroom. Good thing we have two.

Then I took off for the Red Cross, as they have been calling me and asking me to give blood. I had made an appointment for 10:30. I still felt a little iffy after the breakfast, but was hopeful that things would calm down, which it did, gradually, and 1-1/2 hours later I was out of there. I was lucky this time, didn't have any problems with blood pressure, hemoglobin, or clogged veins, and didn't get light-headed.

When I got back Dave wanted to go bowling. Great, I just gave blood, in my left arm and he wants to bowl. But I don't want to say no because we really need to start getting out and moving around and loosening up our joints so that we can exercise and loose weight. So I wrapped my arm up and we went bowling. We only bowled two games each so I didn't stress my arm out very much. Dave got a 205 on his second game. I didn't break 100 on either game.

Then we came home and relaxed. Then we were back in the car again, this time to go to the Eastern Michigan versus Central Michigan baseball game. The weather was slightly cold, but EMU won and it was fun to get out of the house.

Then today we checked out another breakfast restaurant. This one was good, so it will be in the book. Once home I browbeat Dave into helping me clean the house. It felt good to get things picked up and the floor vacuumed.

In keeping with our resolve to get out and exercise a little each day, if possible, we decided to go to the Lake Erie Metro Park and walk the 1-1/2 mile nature trail. Last weekend we walked the mile one and wanted to go back and try this one. This trail takes you along the shoreline of Lake Erie, so that was very scenic. We left about noon and it took us about 30 minutes to get to the park. For some reason we didn't plan very well. We didn't bring a lunch or drinks or even snacks. We just took off and left without preparing anything. I don't know what we were thinking. So a little more than half way through the walk I started noticing my blood sugar dropping. I looked over at Dave and he was fading also. We stopped to rest, but we both were not doing well. I think Dave was actually doing worse than I was. I totally forgot about his disease, where if he gets dehydrated, he gets ill and could die. Crap. I was scared. We were a little ways from the car and we did not have any fluids with us. Luckily we parked near the nature center and they had a vending machine with pepsi, water, and gatorade. After stopping for a few minutes, I was feeling a little better, but Dave seemed to be worse. I was holding his hand and encouraging him to keep going. I was trying to ascertain if I should make him sit down and have me go ahead to get some gatorade, but he said he could make it. He did. He sat on the bench outside the center, while I ran in to get the gatorade. As soon as he had his first sip, he said he started to feel better. I had enough change to get a pepsi.

We sat on the bench and looked at each other and wondered what we had been thinking. Why had we not been prepared for our hike? It has been so long since I have had to worry about Dave and the affects of his condition, that I had totally forgotten to be prepared.

It won't happen again, at least not this year.

Once the gatorade was gone, we got in the car, with me driving and drove to the nearest party store to pick up more gatorade and a candy bar for each of us. So much for dieting. But it was necessary that we both get our blood sugars back up quickly.

Then we headed back for home. Dave slept off and on in the car and is sleeping now on the couch. We did stop to eat supper on the way home.

Lessons learned. But this was a scary one. Dave works hard to live his life as normal as possible and he does a good job of managing his medications, so well, that I forgot about his condition. Low blood surgar for me isn't a big deal. Hypoglycemia (not caused by insulin injections) will not hurt you, as your body will not dip too low. You just feel uncomfortable. But Dave's low blood sugar was also accompanied with some dehydration and that is what causes his body problems.

Of course, it didn't help that I also was a pint low in the blood fluid area either, having given blood yesterday.

Well, all is well now. But having this little reality check, I am reflecting on how much Dave means to me and how devastated I would be if he were to not be in my life.

Good quiche

I have been reading a series of mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson, where the main character is a caterer and she has added delicious recipes in the books. I get very hungry when I read the books.

I tried this recipe and it was awesome. When I made it the recipe that I had wasn't correct. It didn't have the cream cheese in it, but still it was very good. It took me awhile to find the Jarlsberg cheese, but found that it was a hard swiss cheese that grated easily. If you like quiche, give it a try and let me know how you like it.

Crustless Jarlsberg Quiche
1/2 cup butter, sweet
1/2 cup flour, all-purpose
1 1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cup cottage cheese, small curd
1 teaspoon mustard, dijon
9 eggs
11 oz cream cheese; softened
3/4 lb jarlsberg; grated
1/3 cup parmesan; grated

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat, add the flour, and stir just until mixture bubbles. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly. Stir this cream sauce until it thickens. Set aside to cool. Stir baking powder, mustard and salt into cottage cheese. Beat eggs well, then beat in softened cream cheese and cottage cheese mixture. Slowly beat in cream sauce, then thoroughly incorporate Jarlsberg and Parmesan. Pour into two buttered 10" pie plates. Bake for about 45 minutes or until puffed and browned. Cut each quiche into eight large wedges. ---*Dying for Chocolate* Diane Mott Davidson

oops

Do not microwave a Marie Callendar pot pie upside down in the microwave.

Smoky Mountains

Some pictures of the outside of the cabin in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains and a few of playing putt-putt golf.

More Parrot Mountain

Simon, the cockatoo, hopped on my shoulder. I was given a long lecture by the caretaker to make sure that I didn't attempt to put Simon back on his perch myself, as he would bite me. The caretaker should be the only one to do it, so that he would take the risk of biting.

I assured him that I would follow his directions.


Then the caretaker disappeared. So I sat down with Simon to discuss his bad habit of biting people. He told me that he just wanted people to pay attention to him and he really liked sitting on my chest. He did his trick of ruffling his head feathers when I passed my hand in front of him. He enjoyed the scritches I gave his neck and chest.

Still the caretaker was no where to be seen. So I walked over this his perch. Put my hand under his feet, saying "step up" and once he was on my hand, I put him near his perch. No problem. He went to his perch. Still no caretaker. What the heck was that all about?



Dave likes the hawk-headed parrot. Awesome bird.