The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...

I was going to stop the Facebook bunny updates but the bunny has fans. They demand to know. So here is the bunny after yesterday's snow. One ear has disappeared again.

  Ella decorated the cupcakes and a fine job she did! She would sprinkle a few on, then ask my advice, then sprinkle some more. We had crayon candles for Elliot. He loves crayons. Evelyn, Ella, Alex, and Elliot at the little table. I'm pretty sure Alex is saying cheese. I don't know they ended up on the kitchen floor but at least it was clean. Ha! Elliot was tired here and not so much interested in birthday cake or candles or singing. Alex was a real trooper. He had a birthday party last week so he knew the deal with presents. He cried when he realized these were not for him but he recovered quickly and then took the job of toting presents to Elliot. He waited patiently while Elliot opened it, then went for another one. By popular demand, I brought back the dreaded cheesy potatoes for dinner last night. This is the hash brown stuff you throw in a crock pot with a couple cans of nasty faux yellow cheese soup. I like to doctor them up a little but they are still un

The bunny's ears appeared again yesterday, proving that the sun is strong this time of year even if it's colder than hell. (Regis took a picture which I will post later because I'm too lazy to get off the couch.) I don't know what the temperature was but the bar was full of people who started out crabby about the weather. After a glass of wine or beer, not so much. Vickie wore flip flops, a way of flipping off winter. Good for her. We're celebrating Elliot's birthday today. I have two big beef roasts in the crock pot already and I'm making a spinach salad, cheesy potatoes, and cupcakes. I love birthdays. I have some work to do today to get the house ready for company but I enjoy the preparations. We watched Pirate Radio the other night. I really enjoyed it. There was more drama in the end than I typically can appreciate in a movie and I would have been happier if I had known that the ship DID NOT go down and they DID NOT die. I don't like suspense

This blog post is not written in real time. It’s been written over several days and paragraphs have been inserted and deleted many times. No wonder I get confused. I’ve been in a funk the last two days. I started thinking about it on my way to school this morning which complicated things since I had to remember to go by the PO to mail my TRA application and then meet Regis at Arvin’s so my car can get serviced today. The plan was to stop at Kwik Trip for coffee on the way to school. That’s a lot to remember. Regis said he told Arvin that I left before he did so he might have to back track to find me. It’s never quite that bad but I have to get a ride to Arvin’s after school and I’m worried that I might forget and will walk into the parking lot at the end of the day and wonder where my car is. I dropped my TRA application in the mailbox by the bank. As it was leaving my hand, I realized I hadn’t put a return address on it. Oh, brother. It will probably be lost in the mail for years

The gray shadow is the tip of his ear. Poor guy. The weather looks wretched. I have a haircut appointment in Mankato at 4:30 and being the wuss that I am, I am inclined to cancel. Regis, being the eastern guy that he is, is inclined to go.He says he is feeling spry. I said he will be feeling spry in the ditch. Regis was called into a conference room today to talk to his boss. He said he felt like he was walking to the gallows. But, the guy told him what a great job he's doing and now he can work up to 32 hours a week. Hurray! There is a squirrel out in the yard hanging upside down on a bird feeder trying to shake some peanuts loose. I know they don't really hibernate but it must be a bitch to wake up from a nap, wander out into a blizzard to try to find a snack...and what the hell...all this snow. Poor guy.And I forgot about the part where you have to hang upside down in your somnambulant state. We haven't done a very good job of feeding the birds and squirrels thi

I'm having a tough time making a decision about anything today. I changed the picture on my blog, then changed it again. I've spent an hour changing the template. Should I change the sheets on the bed or wait until tomorrow? It's because we're teetering on the edge of winter and spring. Winter clothes don't look so good anymore but it's too cold for spring clothes. And what about footwear??? We're in the midst of a blizzard warning that includes up to a foot of snow. Ah, hell. We had a good time yesterday. Went to Mankato and did some rapid shopping of sale racks in two of my favorite stores. We wanted to get a new bedspread thing for our bed because the one we have is so heavy it slides off. We had one for years that Mom got at some after-Christmas sale dirt cheap and we loved it. Exactly the right weight and it didn't slide off the bed. I found a Vera Wang set at Kohl's that had been 300 dollars. Seriously? Someone would pay that much money

Vickie brought us coffee from Jamaica so we're having a cup this morning. I went to the Pulse even though my tiny winter-weary brain objected to going outside in the cold. She also brought me a voodoo doll and Regis this little rasta guy. I'll leave to your imagination what is beneath the banana. The weather forecast is miserable, pitiful, damnable, curse-worthy. One of the things I love about keeping this blog is that I can look back to previous years. I did that yesterday and what do you know, I was in the same ugly end-of-winter funk the end of February as I'm in the year. I was taking pictures of the bunny ears emerging from the snow. I was complaining about the cold and dark. I was eager for sandals and tired of winter clothes. Ah, well. Such is life. We celebrated Alex's 2nd birthday last night at Bob and Emily's house. Alex and Ella love the camera and the minute they see it, they pose and shout, "Cheese!" It's a hoot. We have a q

From our buddy, Paul Douglas: 3-6"   potential snowfall in the metro area Sunday. Some parts of Minnesota could easily wind up with over 6" from Sunday's storm. I expect the NWS to issue Winter Storm Watches by late Friday or Saturday morning at the latest. It's still too early to tell where the heaviest snow bands will set up. This will be a wet, slushy snowfall, very different from what fell in January (much easier for MnDOT to keep roads wet/slushy vs. snow-covered). That said, travel may become increasingly tricky during the day Sunday, with the worst conditions after dark Sunday evening. Holy crap is all I have to say. We should have known that this was NOT spring even though it's been 50 degrees and snow is melting like crazy and all we get are flood warnings. This is not spring. WTF I came home from work today absolutely whipped. I had a glass of wine then finished the preparation of the stuffed peppers that the sous-chef had started. He's a

The title of this post is actually a blast from the past. A few years ago, I wrote a book in my dream and this was the title. I rarely dream, or I should say, I rarely remember my dreams. Regis has dreams where there is a well-developed plot and even sometimes a sub-plot. All the characters in his dreams have names of real people from his past. He had a dream once about Frannie Babenshack from kindergarten. I had a dream the other night that we went to a fancy dress ball but everyone was wearing Nike sport shoes. That's it. That is the extent of my memory of this dream. Couldn't my sub-conscious have a little bit more of an imagination? The weather was spectacular today. I had to do some driving around from school to school and it was warm in the car and almost too warm to wear a coat. Ah, spring. I checked out the bunny late this afternoon and the whole head is now exposed. I went to an elementary school and entertained a funny little kid in a Spiderman hat with my phone

I made an egg bake with cottage cheese, sharp cheddar, and lots of spicy peppers. Regis pronounced it delicious. We cooked a ton of peppers and onions for the carne asada fajitas. I don't know what carne or asada mean...it's just in the recipe. We use flank steak and it's wonderful. We use the peppers and onions in almost everything. Our patio as it is now. I waded out to try and find the charcoal chimney under the grill. No luck. Boo hoo... The bunny ears are our gauge of how fast the snow is melting. On Friday morning, we could see the tip of the left ear (nearer the sun) and none of the right ear. It got to about 45 degrees today. That, my friends, is 65 degrees warmer than it was last week. Holy shit, Batman. Here's the view of the bunny ears from the front door. Since we couldn't find the charcoal chimney, we had to improvise. Regis worked with newspaper and an old White Owl cigar can to get those coals going. He also had to expend some air blow

I'm where I start every day, in front of the fireplace with my hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Not sure if it's the caffeine or the warmth I crave. It's almost twenty degrees outside so it makes me dread the going out a little less. How's that for a couple good qualifiers. Almost and a little less. Not very definite this morning, am I? I'm going to exercise at 7:00. We're picking Ella up later for a dress-up day. She's bringing all her fancy stuff and I'm sure she'll want to rummage through all my scarves and jewelry. We put on long dresses and hats and every necklace I own. Regis will take pictures and we'll have a blast. This afternoon, we'll go to the Polar Plunge. I can't imagine how people do that, but they do. They go down there in skimpy clothes and wait to jump into a hole in the ice. I can hardly stand to watch it much less think of doing it. I he.ar Spiderman will be there today. Regis will take pictures We had a n

I woke up at 2:45, unable to get back to sleep. I want to go to the Pulse this morning... it's too late to take an Ambien so I get out of bed, make coffee, turn up the furnace, and start the day. I don't mind it, really. I like the early morning hours but the day gets long. I need a little nap about 9 o'clock and they frown on that at work. Ha! In the fuzzy minutes between sleep and waking, I thought of a good blog title but of course, like dreams, now it's gone. We had a quiet evening. I read an article in a magazine, read a book for a while, paid bills for the middle of the month, talked to Mom on the phone. We planned to watch Pirate Radio but it got too late. We want to go out to Canby for a visit but I want to wait until they have five days without a late start. That could be May. Last week, they had one day of school and that started late. When the wind blows out there, it's awful. Tiffany and I drove out one sunny, warm late February day last winter

It's been so cold out this week that we're all tired. Tired of wearing forty extra pounds of clothes. Tired of dry skin and cracking finger tips. Tired of thinking about whether or not you can leave a thermos of coffee in your car for an hour without it freezing rock solid. The good news is that today could be, just could be, the last day of it for this year. It will be, they have said, in the 30 degree range over the weekend. Hallelujah! This is the Spiderman costumed character at the place where Regis works. They dress him up for holidays... Spiderman, not Regis...and here he is in his cupid costume. I love it. They had a Christmas party last Friday which we were unable to attend. The theme was Party like a Rock Star  and I guess they had quite a time. I want to work in a place that has fun like this. As if life isn't weird enough, Regis volunteered to do taxes for the old people organization this year. He went to a bunch of training first, then started doing taxes yes

After unloading our cable tv which we do from time to time in irritation, our kids have been teasing us about being NO RES, as opposed to high-res . Ha. Very funny. We got res, just not as it pertains to television. We watched Pixar Short Films Vol. 1 tonight. What a hoot. Amazing to think about how different this is from the animation of my youth. It's really a different art form. Regis says it's done with computer source code and I have no flippin' clue what that is. Regis is trying to put an RSS feed on a blog. I managed to do it on my blog and I know it means that people who are regular readers can get notified that you have posted. Beyond that, I have no flippin' clue. I tried to help him but really, it was some sort of cosmic miracle that I managed to do it so I'm useless. I looked at a funny website last night. First I wrote that it was the absolute funniest website but I think that would be like calling it awesome so I erased that and wrote that it wa

Me at Martini's, the bar in the Grand Kahler. Regis at Mac's Cafe where we had a most delicious breakfast. We had a wonderful weekend that didn't always go as planned but still was, as the billboards say, awesome. (Aside: I never eat in a restaurant that claims its food is awesome.) Our intention was to spend the weekend in Rochester so we could attend a Lehto and Wright concert on Saturday night at a place called the Acoustic View. We had two tickets reserved for us and we put the place in google and had the address and a map. More on that later. Friday afternoon after checking into our hotel downtown Rochester, we met Steve and Sherry for dinner at a place called Chester's. I had dinner there before and thought the food was good. There was a Rick Springfield concert that night at the civic center so the place was crawling with big-hair 1980's types. One woman had a denim jacket on with a painting of what must have been Rick's face on the back...bigge

Elliot went home last night about 8 o'clock. He is a doll and we love him but he is exhausting as most little kids are when you're old. I have a renewed respect for parents of young children. They have amazing energy. Elliot's saving grace is that he runs up behind me and hugs my legs. When I pick him up, he kisses my cheek, then turns my face to kiss the other cheek. He reminds me of Tiffany. I moved the Christmas tree into the dining area tonight and decorated it for Valentine's Day. In a month, it will become the Equinox/St. Patrick's Day tree. For some reason, I started reading my old blog posts. I think I was looking for an old picture of the Valentine's Day tree which I did not find, but I did find an old post called: keep your fried baloney hole shut. I laughed out loud. Did I make that up? I asked people to use my two new favorite words, sycophant and ennui, in a sentence. The comments are priceless. This one, I fear, was written by my husband. She