I'm A Swayer

This is going to be one of those posts where I talk about a whole lot of nothing, including a conversation I had with a total stranger at Target last night, and you will have wasted five minutes of your life. So, let me apologize in advance for that. I don’t really have much going on right now other than a fight with the insurance company and a floor replacement on my hands; but I’m saving that story for another day – like when the fight is over and it’s determined whether or not I have to pay out of pocket for a total flooring renovation in one room of my house. Stay tuned for all the gory details.

I’ve been going through all my photos and the photos I got from Bernie and Rob from the Tour de France and let me tell you people, I am missing all the fun like it’s nobody’s business. I told my cousin, Chris on Saturday that the tour was magical and as cheesy as that sounds, it truly was. I really cannot wait to do it all over again in the future!

There goes my man Cav, struggling up the Galibier

I miss you, Tour de France!

Last night, Erika and I headed to the big city of Madison to eat at Bandito Burrito. I had bought a living social deal and when I bought it didn’t pay attention to the fine print and it was only for the Madison location. So, Erika was kind enough to drive us out there in exchange for dinner. The food was good and it was great catching up with my dear friend. There are a couple of cute looking stores there on Main Street next to the Bandito but they were closed. So, we hope to remember to go out there some time when the stores are open because one of them had the funniest/most adorable dish towels I have seen in a long while.

Before I met up with Erika I stopped by Target to get some money back on a prescription I bought last week (my discount card had expired and I needed to bring in a new one). While I was waiting, I was holding a case of Diet Coke on my hip and swaying back and forth. A lady came by and asked me if I had small children. I said, “No, why?” and she commented that it looked like I was accustomed to rocking a child back and forth because of the way I was swaying. I told her that I was just a sawyer; that I swayed in church and anytime I had to stand in a line. I actually considered it a compliment that I looked like a natural at rocking a child; maybe it will come in handy one day if the good Lord ever decides to bless me with some children of my own.

I realize you already know this, but my new mattress comes on Saturday and Saturday cannot get here soon enough.

It seems as though there was some other nonsense that I was planning to ramble on about and now that I’ve reached this point I cannot think of what it might have been. My dad and I are hitting the road again tomorrow as we will be traveling to Atlanta for the first two rounds of the PGA Championship. Please pray that we don’t have a heat stroke while we are there. After walking around in the lovely French weather, we are really going to be in for a rude awakening when we’re walking the St. John’s Golf Course the next two days. Ugh.

Saturday's Purchases

This weekend I made a couple of big purchases. They were very much needed and I’m pretty excited about both of them.

The first was a new mattress. Every morning when I get up, my back is hurting and I am aching like an old lady (no comments from the peanut gallery here, please). While I was on vacation, my back did not hurt once when I got up in the morning. It’s sad when a hotel bed treats your body better than your bed at home. I’ve been sleeping on the same mattress since I was 16. In other words, for 18 years I’ve been sleeping on that mattress. I found a tag on the box springs this weekend which listed the date as 1985 – that’s 26 years! I was obviously way overdue for a new mattress.

I got the new one at Mattress King in Hampton Cove. The sales lady there was really nice and I had a good experience there. My dad went with me and he also thought the lady was nice so I would recommend that location to any of you in the hunt for a new mattress. My new set will be arriving at my home on Saturday. So, if you don’t hear from me in a couple of days it’s probably because I’m in a land of luxurious sleep.

After the mattress purchase, we headed to Home Depot. We had struck out at Lowe’s and Wal-Mart as far as the lawnmower was concerned and decided to give Home Depot a try. I ended up buying a Toro that was a reconditioned mower. In other words, someone brought it back for whatever reason, and it was repaired and available for purchase. The price was a lot better than the new ones and it still came with the manufacturer’s warranty. I bought the Home Depot warranty on top of that and so it is under warranty for four years. Not bad.

I haven’t used it yet, but we did crank it up and Lowe’s and it cranked after two pulls and it had been sitting idle for two weeks. Nice! I suppose I’ll bring it out this weekend and give it a go. Believe it or not, I’m actually excited about getting it out and using it. Besides the sweltering heat, the main reason I always dreaded lawn mowing was because my mower was a pain in the behind. This new mower should make yard work much more enjoyable.

I put the old mower out at the road and knew someone would pick it up. I was right; 13 minutes after placing the old mower at the road, someone loaded it in their pick up and took it home. Hopefully he knows how to work on mowers because that one needs a lot of work. At least it had a full tank of gas – lucky for him.

My old mower sitting at the street

Thirteen minutes later, it would be snatched up.

I forgot to take a photo of the new mower -

I'll put one up later in the week.

Seventy Seven

While on vacation with my dad last week, there was one constant source of entertainment for me – it made me laugh numerous times throughout the day and it still makes me laugh even now when I think about it. Aren’t you just dying to know what it is? It’s my dad’s trigger finger. I’m sure you are confused, so, please allow me to explain.

While walking the streets of France and London last week, my dad always kept his camera on and as a result, he was almost constantly taking pictures unknowingly. I would occasionally hear the camera click and start laughing because the camera would be in my dad’s pocket or in his hand or even pointed up towards his face.

Every day I would hear the occasional click of the camera while it was dangling alongside my dad and it never ceased to make me laugh. Towards the end of the week, my dad started laughing too and often he wouldn’t hear it click so when I started laughing out of the blue, he would say, “Did I do it again?”

Needless to say, the title of this post is the number of pictures taken by mistake with my dad’s camera last week. There was even a series of 21 photos in a row from our outing at Versailles. I think they were all of his finger.

So, without further ado, I present to you a sampling of my dad’s now infamous accidental photos. I hope they give you a chuckle just as they did us.

Just walking along

Walking up to the chapel at the cemetery in Normandy

There were a lot with this red toned theme

Sitting at the desk in the hotel room

Walking in one of the gardens

There were a lot like this too - maybe the inside of his pocket?

It’s That Time of Year Again

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for – the return of cooking in the car! I’ll give you a moment while you regain your composure. OK, moving on. So many of you have left comments about the return of cooking in the car and prior to my vacation, I had so many other things on my mind that I could never remember to pull something together for cooking in the car.

Now that I’m back, however, cooking in the car is making its 2011 comeback with the debut of frozen pizza. Just how well did the frozen pizza cook in the car? Let’s take a look.

Tuesday afternoon, I stopped by Star Market in Five Points and for $1.17 bought a Jeno’s frozen pizza to be cooked in the car on Wednesday, which was one of the hottest days of the year, reaching at least 100 degrees, if not more. I never heard the official temperature reading, but my phone said it was 100.

Wednesday morning, I got to work about 7:20 and opened up the pizza box, took the pizza out of the plastic wrapper and placed it on my small cookie tray and put it on the dashboard for a day of cooking.

I ate lunch in the cafeteria yesterday and after lunch, around 12:15 or so, I went outside to check on the pizza. It was well on its way to being done. In fact, I probably could have and should have gone ahead and eaten it for lunch. The cheese didn’t melt, mostly just hardened, but the outer crust was getting crispy and it probably would have been perfect for eating. I, however, left it in the car to see how it would turn out by the end of the day.

Looking good at lunch time

Cooked to perfection

I left work later than usual yesterday because I was working on a project and so about 4:45, I finally headed out for the day. When I got to the car, the pizza was more than done. It was a lot crispier than I would have preferred. I took the pizza home and decided I would give it a try there. Since I was still full from lunch, I wasn’t planning on eating a big meal any time soon, but did want to try the pizza to see how it turned out.

A little too done at the end of the day

Once I got home, I brought the pizza inside and attempted to tear a piece off. It was more difficult than I expected due to the crispiness of the pizza. I finally managed to tear a piece off and took a bite. It wasn’t bad, but as I said, a lot crispier/more done than I would have preferred. I suppose I should have ceased the cooking at lunch time.

A bite taken - even the crust was a golden brown

Sorry for the terrible lighting in my kitchen

So, there you have it folks, the first cooking in the car experiment for 2011 was somewhat a success. You can cook pizza on the dash of your car, which is good to know if you are in the mood for pizza and don’t want to go out at lunch time. Stay tuned for more cooking in the car this August. Suggestions will be taken in the comments.

A Clue...

...Regarding Tomorrow's Post.

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

Well, I’ve been home for almost two whole days now and am still adjusting to normalcy. I went in to work on Monday and made it through the whole day without falling asleep on the keyboard which was a huge accomplishment in my opinion. After work, I went and got a pedicure – after two weeks of walking what felt like 10 miles a day, my feet needed some pampering. So, I spared no expense and went for the luxury pedicure which was worth every penny.

After the pedicure, I went and picked up my luggage from my parents’ house. Thankfully, it had been delivered earlier in the day. Once I got home, I unpacked the dirty clothes and started on the laundry. I also dug out all of the things I brought back with me which are now piled up on my desk. I hope to go through them tonight and separate out gifts from personal treasures. I still have a few things left in the suitcase that need to be put away and I hope to get all of that done tonight as well.

I had good intentions of getting a lot done last night, but after two loads of laundry, I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up, moved on in to the bedroom. The jetlag is getting better but still not completely gone. Today I feel more normal than I did yesterday and expect to feel a little better with each passing day.

I also have grand an intention of getting the yard work done this evening since the grass is, in some places, as high as my knees. This is the one chore I have been dreading more than any other. Thankfully, the humidity is supposedly lower today, which means instead of 100% humidity, it’s only 98.9% humidity so maybe it will be a little bit better. At any rate, it has to be done, especially since it’s due to rain later in the week and on the weekend. I just hope the lawnmower will start up because if not, I will probably be willing to shell out $50 for someone else to do it and in all honesty, I’d rather keep that $50 for myself.

The Tide seems to be doing a little better than she was on Sunday. She seemed a little friendlier yesterday and this morning but is still not 100% herself. Hopefully she will continue to perk up and will be back to normal soon.

I guess that’s all the less than exciting news for today. I’m not as interesting now that I’m back home; but I thank you for stopping by anyway. Have a great Tuesday.

And Then We Came Home

Last I left you, my dad was snoozing away and we were planning to go out on a river boat cruise on the Seine River later that evening. Since he was snoring, I decided to go out and do a little shopping and was able to get a few things to bring home with me and made it back about 30 minutes before we had decided to leave for dinner and the cruise.

We headed out a little after 7:00 and decided to eat at an Italian restaurant we had seen down by the Eiffel Tower. My dad just wanted some light pasta in hopes it wouldn’t bother his stomach too much and I had been craving pasta as well so it was a good fit for us.

After dinner, we went on down to the boat cruises and got ready for the 9:00 departure. It ended up being a great time because we saw the sun set in Paris while on the river and also as we were waiting to pull in to the dock, we saw the twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower. My dad said it was a great way to end the week and I would have to agree.

I woke at 5:00 a.m. the next morning and got a shower and finished packing up. My dad got up around 5:30 and by 6:00 a.m. we were in the lobby awaiting the shuttle driver for the airport. The shuttle service apparently lets folks drive their own vehicles and you never really know what kind of driver or vehicle you will end up with. So, around 6:15, a guy got out of a Mitsubishi Montero that had been parked in front of the hotel for a while. He was apparently our shuttle driver for the day. We got in to the back seat of the stinky vehicle – this was one European who apparently did not believe in the power of deodorant – and he told us he had one more pick up. We thought the pick up would be one more person, but it was two more people and so we were crammed into the Montero like a pack of sardines. It was the longest trip to the airport I’ve ever had, relatively speaking.

Once we got the airport, we got checked in and had an hour or so to spare; so, I found some food to munch on in the meantime. The flight was late boarding and late leaving. My dad and another man in line both said Delta never leaves on time and apparently they are both right because the flight was supposed to leave at 9:20 a.m. and didn’t pull out until 10:00 a.m.

The flight home was rather uneventful. We both got a little bit of sleep. My dad got more than me I think. We watched the last couple of movies – The Adjustment Bureau (weird, but kept our attention) and Secretariat (which we had both seen in the theater but enjoyed the second time around). The first two movies that were shown weren’t of much interest to either one of us. We were served a choice of Cajun chicken and rice or eggs in the morning and yucky pizza about an hour before we landed. Unlike the Air France flight, there was not an overflowing amount of free booze on the Delta flight.

Once we got to Atlanta, we had to go through customs, get our baggage at baggage claim and recheck our bags for our connecting flight to Huntsville. We had an hour and a half and were both hungry and had every intention of getting a hot dog before we left Atlanta. By the time we got our luggage rechecked our luggage and made it through security again, we had about 15 minutes to get to our flight. So, there were no hot dogs in our future. We made it to the gate just as they were calling our names and about to close the door.

When we got to Huntsville, we went to baggage claim, only to discover, not so surprisingly that our bags didn’t make it. We found out they would be coming on the next flight which had been delayed and wouldn’t be arriving until 8:00 p.m. So, we left the airport sans checked bags.

We both went to church at 5:00 p.m. and then went our separate ways. I was greeted by The Tide who didn’t seem very thrilled to see me. Unfortunately, I have since found out, the girl I paid to stay with The Tide, didn’t really do much staying at my house and I think The Tide, who loves attention and to be around people, didn’t get all the attention she should have gotten. This has been a very disappointing revelation. The Tide acted really strange throughout the night and I hope she will soon be back to normal!

I went to bed about 8:30 because the exhaustion of the day was taking over and I soon would have been up for 24 straight hours. A little after 9:00p.m., the baggage delivery folks called and said it would be 10:30 or 11:00 before they could bring the bag by. I told them to just leave it on the front porch. The Tide heard them when they dropped it off and I finally got up to bring it inside only to discover it was my dad’s luggage and not mine. At least it was his and not some stranger’s! My bag was delivered to my parents’ house this morning and I’ll be stopping by there after work to make the luggage exchange.

So, we are back home safe and sound and more than a little tired; but we had a great time and a very relaxing break from the realities of life. As I got through my pictures, I'll try to post some that you might not want to miss. Now it’s back to the grind.