Sometimes......

....I wonder about my brain.

When we went to see #2 Son perform yesterday at the "End of Music Camp Concert", afterwards, #2 Son asked me if I had taken video of him playing his flute.
I said NO Silly!.....I have a camera that only takes photos.
It's an inexpensive little thing and it only takes still shots.

To which #2 Son said, "Um, no....you can take video with it."
Now how did he know this and I didn't??

Maybe it's because I NEVER READ THE MANUAL that came with said camera?
Might be......
8-(

So I hit some teeny tiny buttons on my camera this morning(Why do they make these buttons so dang blasted small anyway!?!?) and I found out yes, I CAN take video with my little camera!
Too bad I didn't find out in time to record #2 Son's concert performance for posterity.... 8-(

So here is what I did this morning to test out my video capabilities.
Remember, I am NOT a highly skilled videographer...... LOLZ

Sluggy

Random Stuff About My Week

Hubs took off from work this week....he's got tons of vacation time as he never gets a chance with his work load to take time off, but he bit the bullet and took some off anyway.

We haven't spent this week doing any great and amazing things however.  He's done a few things around the house but basically he's just been kicking back when I haven't been bitching at him about something or other.   Yes, I do bitch.......imagine that?! lol

So let's see what's been going on around here......let me think.....

Oh yes!!
The big news is the crew showed up, bright and early(at least for ME!)at 8am on Monday to install our nifty new a/c and heating system.
After last week's mugginess I was more than READY for some conditioned air!

We were warned by the home office, that it might take up to 2.5 Days to get this job completed, so they might be here all of Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday.
But the guy, Mike, and his crew stayed a little past "quitting time" on Monday and got the job finished....completed.....done in one day!

And here are 2 of the units working away, one in the living room/dining room and 1 in the kitchen/den.....

There is another one in our bedroom upstairs that is just as lovely.

Yesterday I was out on the side of the house pulling weeds, where they installed the compressor unit on Monday.  One of the crew had pulled up some of the weeds where they put the compressor.  When I went over there on Monday to check out their work,  I was so embarrassed as the weeds were taller than me in some cases!  I just hadn't gone around to that side of the house since early Spring so I had no idea how bad it looked over there now.
And of course, Hubs and #2 Son, if they had seen the "forest" lately had just ignored it.
I can report that the "forest" is gone now.  I'll have #2 Son dig up the matts of grass that are so thick and tough you can't tame it with a weed wacker any longer and cart off the broken bricks hidden in there to the garbage sometime next week.

Speaking of #2 Son, he is currently in the wilds of PA, hopefully happily blowing on his flute.  We took the boy to flute camp on Wednesday.  Once we got off the Interstate, the drive wasn't as bad or as long as we had thought it might be.

Not much to look at, other than mountains and trees along the way, plus a few little towns.
Here's a wind farm I tried to get a picture of when we made a pit stop for "facilities"......

We feared the local road for half the journey was a little 2 lane divided highway  but  most of it turned out to be a limited access 4 lane job......

And I had Hubs pull over so I could get this shot of a local tourist attraction we passed, that I had ABSOLUTELY NO interest in checking out up close and personal......lol......

We found the college where the flute camp was being held easily since the college is about as big as the teeny tiny town it's located in. lol

I should say the "music camp", as opposed to flute campe, since they had other types of musical instrument camps going on jointly here, like brass and percussion.  There is a big old concert the last morning of the camp before the kids are slated to leave which should be nice.

#2 Son was a bit nervous as he didn't know anyone there and he had to audition as soon as he arrived so they knew what level of players to put him in with.  He was practicing his piece quietly in the car before we got there.
Here is where he is living for the next few days.....

It's the newest residence hall at this university.  And there was full on construction going on with what looked like 2 or 3 more fancy pants dorms going up nearby.
That residence hall was very posh inside with laundry facilities, lounges, conference rooms and practice spaces(music or dance, I couldn't tell)plus elevators that required swipe cards to be able to access the upper floors where the dorm rooms were located.  Plus #2 needed an actual room key to get into the double suite dorm room.  He had better not lose the card or the key because they charge big money to replace those. 8-(

These dorm rooms were a whole lot nicer than anything his dad or I lived in back in the '70s when we were in college!  His suite is 3 rooms.....2 bedrooms with a bed, a desk and chair, a dresser and hanging space for clothes.  Then there is the common area which had a small fridge, a microwave, a table and 2 dining chairs.  There was enough room in that space for a couple of easy chairs or a loveseat, if you wanted to haul some of that in.  There was a sink/mirror in the common room plus a bathroom(toilet and shower)located off of it.  And the whole shebang had central air and heat.

Anyway, here is #2 Son before we left him.....

I think he was pretty glad to be able to get out of our small town for a while as he's been  having a rough time with an ex-girlfriend and all their friends who seem to run hot and cold toward him since they are not an "item" any longer.
He's had such a rough time lately that he actual brought up the idea of doing cyber schooling in the Fall instead of returning to his high school for his Senior year.  There are other reasons why going on here, but I'm not getting into them now on here.
I think he was pretty jazzed, though you'd never be able to tell from his demeanor, to be with all these other music geeks, especially since it seemed like the girl/boy ratio was 4/1. ;-)

On the way home from dropping the boy off, we stopped for dinner as it was after 5pm.
It was a little hole in the wall pizza joint with high prices called Santino's.
Hubs got one of the dinner specials, cannelloni.....

And I got a Veal Parmigiana sub which was too big to eat it all, so I took half home.....

Every time I hear the name Santino all I can think of is this guy.....

I half expected him to come out of the back while I was munching on my sub and do a Tim Gunn impersonation.....




Then yesterday we took a big step to move forward with "The Great House Fix-Up & Purge of 2013". 
As I have said previously, my Plan A-having the guys who do home improvements for us we have used in the past do a bunch of house projects this year-didn't pan out, as these guys have a 6 month waiting list of customers.  So I proceeded to Plan B, which consisted of using one of those licensed franchise Mr. Handyman services.

Well Plan B was a bust when I found out that the Mr. Handyman franchise closed up in these area for whatever reason.
So I proceeded to Plan C-calling another handyman service, which also happens to be a franchise, called "House Doctors".  Actually, I contacted both House Doctors and a local independent handyman guy in a neighboring town.
Local independent handyman guy never returned my call but the House Doctors guy did.

So yesterday we had the HD guy come out to show him the projects we want completed.  He didn't immediately turn and run after hearing/seeing the list of jobs so we took that as a good sign. ;-)
He is off now, getting an estimate ready for us and hopefully we don't need to sit down before he presents it.  (I would insert an LOL here, except that the price could very well be one so high we will fall down upon seeing it.....and falling down is not anything to laugh about.)

So now we are in "waiting mode"....awaiting the estimate on having all this work done.  The estimate doesn't include either the paint we need for the painting jobs or the flooring we need for the flooring job.  Those costs are separate and we have to add to the price of getting them done.

Today, let's see what we did today other than sit on my fat ass and surf the web.

The big thing was I shoveled out #2 Son's room while he is away for a few days, then vacuumed it, then swept all the hairballs up that the vacuum didn't remove and then I stain treated the carpet and then I shampooed it.
That all took over 2.5 hours.  The a/c is running in there now to lower the relative humidity so the carpet can dry out.

Late tonight, I'll go pick off the remaining hairballs that the shampooer formed(when the spinning heads rotate on the carpeting)and then put the mobile furniture pieces back in the room.
#2 Son will get the honor of clearing and cleaning off all the piles of crap that I put on his bed to get it off the floor and out of the chair.

I don't know why we gave him a dresser since he obviously either hasn't a CLUE that your clothes are suppose to go in it or he just doesn't want to bother to put them in there when the chair is so much more a convenient place to toss them.  Maybe we should add a second chair in his room and remove the dresser, then he can have a chair for the clean clothes and one to put the dirty ones so they aren't all mixed up together.
Or am I just being too picky now? ;-)

And the child wonders why I won't let him move into the much large room vacated by his sister......

I also treated both the sink and the tub drains in the bathroom that #2 Son uses over the past 2 days multiple times.  I used up the entire gallon of Hubs supposed "heavy duty" drain cleaner/unclogger.
It did nothing......
So we'll pick up a better/different agent later this weekend and try some more.
I told Hubs I think we could stand to call out a "drain cleaning/clearing expert" service while we are spending $ on the house, as I feel all the plumbing pipes could use some attention.  That's something I don't think we've really spent on since we moved here 13 years ago.

So other than making hotel reservations, rescheduling a dental appointment, clearing out one of the freezer compartments, going through and tossing more crap in the garage, going grocery shopping at 2 store, balancing my checkbook, paying bills, sending for a liquor rebate, putting books on Amazon to sell, fussing at dogs, playing bubble land on F/B and making meals, that is what my week has been like.

What's up with you this week?

Sluggy

My Firstborn Declutters

While Firstborn child was home last week, he went through the closet of the spare room where all the detritus of his life is stored.
"Like mother, like son" I know you are thinking.
But Oh!....you would be wrong.

You know what detritus is, don't you?.....all the stuff your kid leaves behind when he/she moves out for good.
Every parent who has grown kids  has a house full of this at some point in the life cycle.  Depending on your kid, the amount and how long it sits in your house can vary greatly.

Firstborn did a great job with this decluttering and now only has a couple of articles of clothing, a couple of framed things from wrestling and high school and 2 boxes of "mementoes" stored in that closet.  He emptied the dresser and left a huge box of books and movies to take to Salvation Army or pitch.  I checked on Amazon about listing some of these things and selling back the textbooks to them.  The textbooks are not current editions so worthless basically and I'll be throwing those out(or using them for fire starters out back in the camp fire ring).  I know.....I am committing a sacrilege burning books.....lol

Only 3 items were worth the time/effort to list on Amazon so I've done that and the rest I'll send off to SA(a few I'll read first however).

Firstborn also left a bag of "garbage" in the spare room for us to add to our supply on Garbage Night.
But first, I went through the "garbage".
I did that because Firstborn has a penchant for throwing out perfectly useful and good items.......grrrrr

Of the items we found in that bag of "garbage" were.....
* 2 partial rolls of duct tape(Hubs about had a hissy fit over this! lol)
* a pair of hiking boot leather shoelaces still in the packaging
* an armband for a Zune mp3 player(hey, somebody else can use this)
* a Birthday badge for a 21 yr. old(with a spinner to see what you should buy them to drink at the bar)
* a brand new t-shirt I had bought him for Christmas with the tags still on it!

There were a few other things he deemed "garbage" too.....

 

A set of keys.  One key was from the totaled Toyota but I emailed  him to check on the other keys and they are safe to throw out.
With his mindset of throwing out perfectly good stuff, I thought I'd better ask...

A gargoyle and a bobblehead bassett hound figurine.  These were birthday gifts at some point and are acceptable to send to SA.

The Lord of the Rings Hallmark ornament(unused and still in the box!)was a gift again from me at Christmas.  I have an entire cardboard box of Xmas ornaments I have collected for each of my children tucked away for when they set up their own households.  Makes me rethink collecting these ornies for them when I see him toss one away like this.
My firstborn doesn't seem to have one sentimental bone in his body.
More's the pity....

And then I came across this......

Obviously a handmade/handpainted gift one of his friends made for him.  Now tell me, how could one just trash something like this with such a heartfelt, personal sentiment on it??  ;-)

Thanks to Firstborn's efforts, I am one baby step closer now to getting this house cleared out.
I think I am going to need a shovel & a roll off container though when it comes time to get the youngest child's crap outta here!

Sluggy

The Boring Blog Giveaway WEEK 4....Last Week to Enter!

It's Summer.  Things slow down this time of year in the Bloggiverse.
I think it's time for a return of.........

Sluggy's BORING BLOG BOX GIVEAWAY!

 

Here's how it works if you are new here.......

 

I put things in the box(mostly what I have gotten for free or almost free)each week and when the box is filled we draw a winner from all the entries received.

Here is what went into the Box today.....stuff for the girly girls......

 

 

 

1.  2 x  NYC Lip Stain

2.  2 x Magnetix Nail Poish
3.  1 x Maybelline Mascara

 

THE BOX IS NOW FULL!  THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO ENTER.

 

Let's recap everything in this box, shall we?

 

 If this is your first time, please go read all the rules for these Giveaways HERE.  *As always, if you are located outside the US, you CAN enter and win but weight restrictions/shipping costs may mean your prize box will contain less items.*

***Time to enter.....You can enter on this Giveaway post ONLY until I close the giveaway on July 15, Monday at 11:59pm.  This gives y'all just under 1 week to get all those last minute entries in.  Somebody is going to win this box of goodies and the entries are fairly low at this point in time so get your bad self in on this!

1 entry per person per day on THIS POST.
Leave your name/email addy and a COMMENT on this post.  

This week I want to hear about your garden(if you have one)and what you are planning on cooking/making with all the produce you are growing.  If you don't have a garden, tell me about your trips to the farmer's market or trips to actual farms to get produce or your CSA box.  What veggies are you loving now and what can't you wait to get later in the Season?

 

Personally, I can't wait until the local homegrown maters come in.  WoooBoy! Mmmmmm......

We'll be subsisting on sandwiches and salads when those babies start ripening!!! 8-))

 

You can come directly to this blog post or find it through the link on the right side bar to leave 1 comment per day.  The current Giveaway Post will be linked right at the top of the side bar.

Please NOTE--You MUST be a follower to enter the Giveaway.  If you aren't one, just click on the "Follow" button on the right hand side of my blog to become a follower.

There are 2 ways to get 2 EXTRA entries on this and each new Giveaway Post.......

1. Put my blog on your blog's Blogroll.  Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST with the URL of your blog so I can go check it out. **If I'm already on your Blogroll, say so in an extra entry comment once each week of this giveaway.

2.  Blog about this Giveaway on your blog with a link to this post.  Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST with a link to your blog post so I can go view it.  You can do this extra entry once each week of this giveaway.

 

These giveaways run about 4 weeks, depending on how often I get a blog post done.  The winner will be drawn from all valid entries received before the closing date of the giveaway.


 Any questions?  Just email me.

Happy Entering!! 

Sluggy

The Firstborn Comes Home for a Visit

We had a nice visit from our oldest son last week.
If not a too short visit.

I remembered this time to give him his important papers and his savings bonds.

On Wednesday we had planned to have a day together where we would visit the National "War of Northern Aggression" Museum in Harrisburg and then drop in on my blogger buddy MARK for a little visit and a box of wine.

But oldest wanted to see his friends from high school and Wednesday was the only day 2 of them were available last week so we didn't get to fit that trip in.   Sigh

On Thursday we had family over and the weather cooperated long enough to have a 4th of July Cook-out.

I didn't go wild on the amount of food, so we just grilled corn, dogs and burgers.  I had canned beans for those who could have them too.
And this puppy stood sentinel duty under the table waiting to capture any fallen morsels of goodness.....

And for dessert I served an Entenmann cake(that cost me $1 at the bakery outlet)and this....

 Fresh fruit salad with cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries and bananas.

And watermelon for us Southern gals.

My buddy,  Sonya Ann, has a good idea for those watermelon leftovers today HERE.
Not that I have EVER heard of such a thing as leftover watermelon personally......lol

On Friday Hubs and Oldest had a day out together. 
Here they are before the start of their adventure....

They went to Pottsville and took the Yuengling Brewery Tour.
It was a MADHOUSE from what they told me!  The tour gal said she had never seen so many people as they had hosted that day for the tour in the 5 years she has been working there.
Wall to wall people in an un-air conditioned building in high heat for HOURS!
I am so glad they decided to leave me home.....

That evening we took Oldest out to his choice of restaurants for his birthday--Red Robin.  It's a fancy pants burger joint with overpriced hunks of hamburger.

It use to be pretty good but the prices over the last 6 years have risen so high there and the quality has taken a bit of a nosedive such that I don't really enjoy going there anymore.

And on this visit the wait staff screwed things up such that it was NOT a good experience.  And that's all I'm going to say unless someone really wants to hear me rant about it....lol

But Oldest is a member of their Birthday Club so he gets a free burger on his birthday and a free dinky little sundae.

And I MADE the wait staff sing to him.  What better way to top of your firstborn's birthday than by embarrassing him.....please notice the red cheeks......lol......

So after that he gave me his patented "unpleasant" face.....

He was only funnin' me, here's a normal face....who can stay mad at their mommy when you are full of burger, fries and ice cream.....

We hadn't been to Red Robin in awhile so I was surprised to find this on the table.....

A "Ziosk".
You can order appetizers, bar drink refills, play games or music and pay your check right from your table.

This new "innovation" doesn't thrill me.

First, it's yet another "thing" cluttering up your dining table.  They already have all kinds of crap on the table when you sit down so there is barely enough room once your food and drinks come.
Plus the screen scrolls continuously and if it's in your field of vision, it's VERY annoying while you are trying to sit and converse with your dining companions.

I had to have Hubs turn it around so the screen was facing away from me it was so distracting.

While the games features could keep a bored child occupied, they cost money. 
And in my humble opinion as the mother of 3 almost grown kids, if your kid isn't adequately amused by the fact of being able to go out someplace to eat, he/she is either too young to be there or hasn't been trained well enough to behave themselves or you obviously take them out and spend money on them too TOO often. ;-)

The music feature.....let's talk about that for a bit.  It also costs money to use and it's limited to the songs in the RR muzak system...which you can't even hear half the time anyway because of the noise of the guests AND the volume settings of the 100 television sets, positioned overhead throughout the restaurant, all set to different stations.  It's just ridiculous!

And then there is the fact that this "Ziosk" takes the place of wait person for some of their functions. 
You can order appetizers and bar drink refills without having to wait for your wait person and if you don't want to have to wait to flag down your person to pay, you can use a c/c on this machine for a quick getaway.  While these functions could be a plus to your dining experience(especially if the restaurant doesn't have adequate wait staff or they are extremely busy), it also takes away from the human contact that is part of dining out.  And since you don't feel as connected to your wait person, you as a paying customer might be tempted to not tip or reduce your tip, seeing as you are doing some of the wait person's job yourself.
Anyway, I give the old "Ziosk" a big thumbs down....

Oldest left on Saturday morning and we were sad to see him go.
He had to get back as he is still trying to find a job plus a place to live in Pittsburgh by the Fall, when the GF has to start classes there.  It's a rough time for these newly minted college graduates to be looking for well paying work.

We spent a bit of time in the pool the rest of the Holiday weekend as the temperatures remained high and the rains held off for the most part and the air conditioning system wasn't being installed until Monday.

So how did y'all spend your 4th of July weekend?

Sluggy