Holly’s Happenings

Yes, I have another headache today! So far it doesn’t feel like it’s going to go to the migraine stage, but it’s not a mild headache either. I don’t know what it is that’s causing me to have headaches to much lately, but I’m very sick of them!

We’ve had a couple of decent days weather wise here in NW Ohio, but that’s about to come to a VERY abrupt halt tonight! The current temperature right now is 45 degrees, but according to the weather man, it will be 60+ degrees COLDER tomorrow morning when you factor in the windchill! Yes, you read that right, I did say 60 (SIXTY) degrees. They’re calling for a morning temp, with the windchill, of 15 to 30 degrees BELOW zero! And we wonder why we’re all running around coughing and sneezing? But that kind of cold is just INSANE! Thankfully I don’t have class or anything tomorrow, but if my daughters school isn’t delayed or closed, I’ll have to take her to the bus stop tomorrow. Personally, I hope it’s at least delayed because I really don’t want to go out when it’s THAT damn cold! Tomorrow will be a good day for me to curl up in the recliner, grab my blanket and school books, and just spend the day studying! Especially after hearing my marketing teacher tell us today that we’ll probably be having our first exam next week.

We received some awesome news from our landlord this week! Well, it’s awesome news for us, but not so awesome for him. He decided that since our local economy and real estate market is in such bad condition, it would be better for him to keep this house as arental property investment than try to sell it. This is good news for us because it means that we have more time to establish our credit better and put ourselves into a position so that we can buy the house ourselves! His original intention was to put the house on the market this summer, now he’s not sure when he’ll put it up for sale.

Yes, I know that grammatically that title makes no sense. BUT, it did get your attention, didn’t it? If your answer was yes, then I achieved what I wanted to! And now that I have your attention, I can talk to you about something that is important as well as a cause that I feel is very much worthwhile!

If you could help kids learn important things about life by giving something that you no longer use, would you? There is an non profit company called Car Angel that you can donate boats, cars, motor cycles and even RV’s to. They, in turn, take the proceeds from your donations and use them to videos for children and teens that can teach them some of the values that you and I grew up with. You can also choose what specific charity you want to have the proceeds from your donation to benefit. Since they help many different types of people, you are sure to find a charity will suit your taste.

Car Angel has given away more than 2.4 million videos, free of charge, to individuals as well as churches and organizations. The one that I want to share with you is a documentary that shows exactly how drug addiction can change your life.

Yes, I know, barely above freezing is not even CLOSE to Spring type weather. But when you’ve had an average high temp in the teens for almost 2 weeks, twice that temperature feels warm…LOL! On top of that I’ve been watching The Travel Channel today and they’ve had a few shows on about warm, tropical vacations.

But in all seriousness, once the warmer weather is here, we REALLY need to get busy on the outside of the house! The yard and flower beds were let go for a very long time, so we’re not going to have much of a choice except to pretty much start from scratch with them. And since the yard is nothing but sand, we’ll have to have several truck loads of topsoil brought in.

I also want to build a deck off the side of the house and have it lead down to a patio type area in the side yard. That way we can build a nice fire pit and put the patio furniture around it. Eventually I’d like the patio area to be screened in, but that will mean building a roof with an opening above the fire pit that will allow the smoke to escape, so that definitely won’t happen this year!

Current Mood: Cool

Yes, I know it’s only mid day, but I have a TON of things that I need to get done before midnight tonight, so I’m posting this now, OK? Allright, well now that we have that over with, I’ll fill you in on my week.

Monday was a pretty decent day, nothing much going on. The kids were off school so we pretty much spent the day just chilling out.

Tuesday was a bit crazy. We got a couple of inches of really wet snow first thing in the morning and the roads were crappy! I had class early Tuesday and my hubby needed to come out to campus to get his classes for this semester wrapped up, so he drove me out. Because of how bad the roads were, I ended up being about 5 minutes late for class, but everything worked out fine. Tuesday afternoon, however, was a completely different story. I found out that I was right and my son did skip school one day the previous week. So I had to follow through with what I told him would happen if I found out he had lied to me about skipping school so that he would know how serious I was! I took his computer completely apart so that he would not even be tempted to sit down at it and grounded him from it for at least a month! His skipping school caused him to fail 2 exams which meant he also failed the 2 classes for the semester. That’s simply NOT cool! He’ll get it back when I get reports from his teachers stating he has nothing below a C!

Wednesday was spent doing homework and housework. My hubby ended up working 15 hours, so it was just the kids and I after they got home from school and I had a fairly major project that I wanted them to help me do for their father.

His desk sat right next to the wood burner, and he doesn’t deal well with heat at all. So I wanted to move a chair out of this room and move his desk over here next to mine. That would put him across the room from the wood burner. But to do so meant that I would have to go into the crawl space and move his DSL line. In the almost 4 months that we have lived here as well as the 3 years that we lived in the other house, I never once ventured into the crawl space. I have a hard enough time with basements, but YUCK on crawl spaces….LOL!

So, the kids and I did some cleaning, then we moved the chair that was out here into the front living room. Then my son and I ventured outside to get to opening for the crawl space. OH, I was scared, I just knew that I’d come across a mouse or a spider or something. But I was determined! This was something that I REALLY wanted to do for my husband. My daughter stayed upstairs so that she could pull the DSL cord through for me. Amazingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and we were done in about 15 minutes! Then I just had to come back up here and move his desk and hook up the computer.

Thursday was pretty much a blur! I woke up at 5:00 AM with a full blown migraine that included sound, smell and light sensitivity. I took my migraine meds and went back to bed in the hopes that when I woke up, it would be gone. When I woke up 4 hours later, it was worse than it was at 5:00 AM, so I took another dose of my migraine meds and also took a shower. To make a long story short my migraine held a grip on me for a total of 15 hours before it finally gave way! I lost a whole day thanks to a stupid migraine! But it was easily the worst one I’ve ever had in the 12+ years I’ve dealt with them! I sure hope I don’t have another one like it for a VERY long time!

The rest of the week was boring, with not much news to report, as has been the story for the weekend. The super cold weather we’ve had for nearly two weeks has finally given way and we’re actually above freezing today with a high temp in the 40’s for Monday and Tuesday! For the first time in more than 2 weeks we don’t even have a fire going in the wood burner. Poor thing, it needed a break BADLY!

I can’t help but think about what life was like for me when I was growing up. I grew up on a large farm, we had livestock as well as crops, and I honestly don’t remember ever thinking that I was bored and had nothing to do, even during the summer months. Life during my childhood was busy, but it also seemed very care free! I don’t remember worrying about things like predators or making sure the doors were locked at night. I do remember worrying about things like whether or not I had finished my chores and my homework while trying to fall asleep at night.

Kids today have a much different world than the one that I grew up in. We’re seeing more and more stories in the news today that detail how a child will be hanging out with their friends on the swing sets of their local playground one day, and the next day they are behind bars for crimes that they are being charged as adults for. As a parent, I can only do my best to raise my children in the hopes that one of them does not become one of these type of news stories.

My husband and I were talking this weekend about “things”. You know, those reality type things that provide the ups and downs for all relationships? Things like bills, and the reality of the fact that I need to make the decision about whether or not I’m going to continue to travel down the road of life with my beloved and trusty Honda. We always talk about this kind of stuff this time of year. Why, you ask? The answer is simple, it’s Income Tax Refund time!

Our “original” plan had been to use our refund this year to pay for a seriously over due major family vacation to the sunny state of Florida. When we first started talking about going to Florida it was because my sister had offered to let us share their time share condo with them. Since the condo was already paid for, the only thing(s) we would need to pay for would be the trip to and from, half of the car rental for the week and anything else that we planned on doing while we were there (i.e. Disneyworld, sight seeing, etc.). Now, all in all, that’s a great deal, especially when you consider that a weeks lodging while on a vacation is at least half the cost of the trip. But I honestly dreaded spending a week under the same roof with my sister and her abusive husband, as did my own husband and children.

So then we started talking about taking our own trip, especially when we discovered that the week my sister had the condo was not the week the kids were on break from school, and I couldn’t justify pulling them out of school for a vacation. I checked into a week near the Orlando area, but just wasn’t sure that’s where I wanted to spend my time. I’m more of a “kick back and relax” kind of person, than an amusement park/sight seeing person, so the thought of spending a week on a beach held more appeal to me! And when I started talking to my husband and kids about it, the beach actually appealed more to them as well.

Unfortunately, reality is kicking in and with the things that need to have major decisions made soon, my husband and I realized yesterday that our vacation simply isn’t going to happen right now. What figures is that I had just a great deal on some really nice travelpro luggage, but I might still grab that because somehow or another we WILL take a family vacation this year, so we will still need to have luggage!

I woke up this morning shortly before 7:00 AM and turned on the news.  I almost fell on the floor when the weather man said that with the windchill, the temp outside was near -20 degrees.  I don’t mind the cold, but when it’s this type of bitter cold, I don’t leave the house, PERIOD!

So, my plans for today are homework, potato soup and FOOTBALL!!  Today are the AFC and NFC playoffs and determine who will be at the Super Bowl in 2 weeks.  I’m rooting for The Patriots and The Packers!  That would make an AMAZING Super Bowl match up!

I’ve gotten a good start on the homework so far, all of my work for my BUS 101 class is done, so all I have left to do is a couple of small assignments for my Marketing class and then Algebra, but the Algebra isn’t due until Friday.  I’ve had my daughters MP3 player on all morning, tuning out the kids arguing and the dogs barking….LOL!  Hubby has a movie on again, he’s watching The Mask again…LMAO!  I don’t think he’ll ever get sick of watching that movie.

Football starts at 3, so I’d better get the soup going!  MMMMMM….have I told you how much I LOVE potato soup?  I’ll have to post my recipe for it on here some day.

I was talking to my mom on the phone this morning and she asked me if I wanted the set of matching recliners she has in the living room. Well of course I did, they’re awesome recliners and would look great in the front living room. But when I asked her why she was getting rid of them, what she told me completely put me in shock!

My mom is your typical “old school” person and has had the same furniture in her living room for over 30 years. Now, before you go EWWWWWWW you need to know that other than being a little faded from the sun, the furniture is in near mint condition. It’s still very comfortable to sit on and has no holes or signs of being thread bare at all. And since she just turned 70, I honestly did not expect to hear her say that the reason for getting rid of the recliners was because she finally decided it was time to replace her 30+ year old furniture. What shocked me even more was that later, when I was talking to my sister about it, my sister said that the new furniture our mom picked out is a more contemporary furniture style, which she said she couldn’t believe mom chose…LOL! Way to go mom!!

If you’re anyone in this house, you don’t know what time it is unless you look at a wall clock or the clock on the computer…LOL!  Well, that actually excludes my husband, because he wears a wrist watch, but neither myself or my children wear them.  The kids each have a watch, they just don’t ever wear them.  And me, well, I’m holding out because I want a Technomarine watch, but currently they’re out of my price range. But when I get that pretty pink one, I’ll be sure to post pictures so you can bask in it’s beauty! It has to be the best looking watch I’ve ever seen. So until I get it, my wrist will remain bare!

Current Mood: Alarmed

Mondays have always been one of the days of the week that I’ve actually looked forward to for a while now.  When I was working, it always seemed like I managed to get Mondays off, and for school I’ve made sure not to schedule any of my classes on Mondays either.  So once the hubby leaves for work and the kids are off to school Monday has kind of turned into my day for me.  Some days I spend it doing things around the house, some days I spend it doing homework and some days I actually spend it doing as much nothing as I can!

Today is my son’s 15th birthday, so my first goal today was to have a decent morning so that his birthday wouldn’t start out on a bad note.  It was “bad enough” that for the first time in a few years, the kid actually had school today.  All was going well until it was time for me to head out the door to take my daughter to school.  My son said something about having his keys which made my daughter realize that she didn’t have hers.  Now, normally that’s not that big of a deal, but since last week, her key ring also includes the key to her gym locker, which she shares with two other girls.  So not having the key meant that they wouldn’t be able to get into the locker and get their gym clothes which meant points off for gym.  We looked for nearly 20 minutes for those keys until I finally told her that I we HAD to go or she would miss the bus.  Wouldn’t you know it, since I was getting a later than normal start to her bus stop, I got behind another school bus that had to make several stops on a very narrow road.  This meant that it was not possible for me to pass the bus, which ended in her missing the bus.

Now, normally this wouldn’t have been a bad thing except for the fact that my husband left me his truck, which was SUPER low on gas.  There was no way there would be enough gas in the truck to make it all the way out to her school, and he had what cash we had, so I couldn’t go and put gas in it.  So, I ended up with a brat child home with me today.

The rest of the day wasn’t going that bad until I went to put in the DVD for my one online class into my computer so that I could watch the assignment for this weeks assignment.  For some reason the DVD wouldn’t auto play, so I went in to try and manually start it and discovered that somehow I had lost all the drivers for it.  So I went to Gateways website and downloaded the drivers, installed them, restarted the computer, and NOTHING.  The DVD drive still wasn’t recognized!  I then talked to my best friend who is one heck of a computer guru and she suggested that I may have possibly lost my software to actually play the DVD’s.  So I downloaded a trial version of a program to play DVD’s, installed it, restarted the computer, and NOTHING!  I went directly into the DVD program and tried to add what I needed to play and got an error message saying I needed a DVD player installed on my computer.

I’ve known for a while now that I either needed to reformat this computer or replace it!  Only 3 of the 8 USB ports are working, my card reader for the card from my camera keeps needing to be reformat every time I’ve taken it out of the card reader and it’s simply totally bogged down considering the size of the hard drive, the amount of memory and the processor I have on it, all of which are VERY good and not low.  But the fact of the matter is, it’s a Gateway computer and it’s a HUGE P.O.S.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I ended up watching my DVD on the portable DVD player at my desk and taking notes so that I would be able to answer the questions that I needed to.  But it was just a HUGE amount of stress that I really didn’t need right now!  I’ve had a couple of very crappy nights sleep along with a HUGE amount of stress from a situation that happened with my daughter over the weekend and all I wanted today was a quiet day so that I could get my homework done!

And imagine that you pull up next to me at a stop light. You look over, admiring my car and notice that I’m motioning for you to roll down your window. You roll your window down trying to imagine what I might need when I lean out the window and ask you, “Pardon me, but would you have any Grey Poupon“?

I was recently asked if I would try two of Grey Poupon’s newest mustards and give my honest review.  Since I’ve always been a mustard gal, I was very glad to be able to take part in this product review!  I waited anxiously all week for my delivery to arrive and it finally came yesterday!  When I opened the box I was thrilled to find out that I had been given a jar of Grey Poupon hearty spicy brown as well as Grey Poupon harvest coarse ground mustards.  The hearty spicy brown is an AWESOME mustard made with yellow onions and the harvest coarse ground is made with whole mustard seeds.

For my first try of the mustards I took the recipe that is at the Grey Poupon website for Saucy Summertime Hot Dogs and made some alterations to it with ingredients I actually had on hand.  The recipe calls for chopped tomatoes, dill pickles, onions and pepperoncini, you  then mix in 2 TBSP of Grey Poupon hearty spicy brown mustard.  I took some red, green and yellow bell peppers that I had and sliced them, then sliced some sweet onion and banana peppers and sauteed all ingredients in a little bit of butter before I mixed in the Grey Poupon hearty spicy brown mustard, then topped the hot dogs with this.  I also added a little bit of shredded cheese to mine.  Let me tell you, it was AWESOME!  Even my hubby and son said that they loved it!  Here is a picture of how the hot dogs turned out.

For dinner tonight, I wanted to make something that would allow me to use the Grey Poupon hearty coarse ground mustard.  Although they have many recipes on the Grey Poupon website, I couldn’t find one that I thought my whole family would eat, so I decided to try out something that would be my own creation.  I decided that I’d take the hearty coarse ground mustard and add some honey and melted butter to it and use it as a “glaze” for part of a ham that I had in the freezer.  After mixing the three ingredients together I drizzled them over the ham and baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes or so.  (Yes, it was a precooked ham)  The result was a kind of sweet kind of spicy flavor that my family was a bit leery to try.  But after I convinced them that I had no doubt they would like it, we all sat down to dinner.  I’m THRILLED to say that dinner ended with four completely clean plates!  Here is a picture of my ham before we sat down to devour it!

Since I’m a mustard gal, I had no doubt that I would enjoy trying out these two varieties of Grey Poupon mustard.  What I didn’t know was hot only how much I would enjoy them, but how much my family would enjoy them as well!  I like adding new options to the foods we eat, and it’s always a good thing when you have two kids who are VERY picky eaters, who enjoy the new options as well!  So if you’ve been looking for something new to give your favorite recipes a kick, I highly recommend  both of these varieties of Grey Poupon mustard!

Our poor Riley, this guy has been so sick today!  The only thing we can figure is that he got into something that he shouldn’t have.  He’s thrown up a total of 4 times today, the first time was the GROSSEST thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  We finally gave him a small amount of rice and he’s sleeping really peacefully right now.  And yes, I know he’s sleeping I keep checking his breathing…LOL!  So please keep Riley in your thoughts!  I’ll post how he did over night in the morning!

Football this weekend has had it’s good points and it’s bad points.  I’m happy that the Packers and the Patriots won!  I’m TOTALLY bummed that the Colts lost, but they also played one of the worst games I’ve ever seen them play!  Right now I’m watching Dallas and the Giants ans as of right now, at the end of the 3rd quarter, the game is 17-14 with Dallas leading.  This is definitely going to be a close game!

My first few classes at school went well.  I only have one class left that I haven’t had yet and that is my Tuesday night English comp class that is at my son’s High School.  It could have shot myself the other night when I realized that I scheduled a class for the same night of the week that my ALL TIME favorite TV show is on!  Yes, I’m talking about American Idol…LOL!  We have watched American Idol as a family for the past few seasons, it’s been the one thing that the four of us will drop what we’re doing and sit down and watch together.  I’d definitely have to say that we’re American Idol addicts…LOL!  BUT, at least I’ll be home on Wednesday nights to see who gets sent packing!  And I can always watch the performances online too!

Our landlord stopped over this morning to talk to us about the things he wants to do with the house this spring and get some ideas and input from us. Besides this house, he’s also in the process of putting on a huge addition to his own house, so he’s trying to think of ways that he can do both remodels with the best amount of savings. He asked us if we knew anything about the local directbuy warehouse, which we didn’t. He said that a friend of his had told him that with all that he needs to buy, he might want to consider a membership at one because it could save him some money. I don’t know anything about them, but I told him I’d ask around. So if any of my readers here have bought from any of the places like this, please let me know!

Have you ever read something that made a fond memory from your youth come rushing back so fast you feel like it’s current again? When I read that Rich “Goose” Gossage was admitted into the Baseball Hall of fame, memories from my Senior year of high school came flooding back!

Ahhhhhh, High School, those years that “most” people remember fondly. It’s not that I don’t have good memories of High School, it’s just that I honestly don’t have many memories period! I was your typical “wall flower” and on top of that, I was a band geek…LOL! I kept to myself and really didn’t have many friends. But, as most teenage girls, I had a HUGE crush on a very cute boy and his name was David.

David was your typical American boy, he loved fast cars and baseball, and his favorite team was the New York Yankees. (PLEASE don’t shoot me Christine…LOL) I had tried to garner David’s attention a couple of times during my Junior year, but I didn’t know ANYTHING about fast cars or baseball, so I went back to my wall and spent the year “observing” him…LOL! Over the summer between my Junior and Senior years of High School I spent as much time as possible learning about baseball and watching every Yankee’s game I could catch so that I would be able to at least know the players names and what position they played. I also started paying more attention to my looks and started taking the time to do my hair differently and even started wearing just a little bit of make up….LOL!

What I had done over the summer WORKED! The first day of school David actually said hello to me for the first time, without my having to do anything to get his attention. I gradually started talking to people I knew he talked to and would drop comments about how the Yankees had done in their latest game or what an awesome play a specific player had made. In time, David and I were “talking game” on a daily basis, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled in my life! He even “loaned” me his prized Yankees jacket one afternoon in class because I had mentioned that I thought the classroom was cold ;o)

Looking back now, I honestly can’t remember how the Yankee’s did that year. But the one thing I do remember was that David’s all time favorite player was Goose! So when I read that Goose had finally made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first thing that crossed my mind was David and the Fall of my Senior year. If you’re wondering if David and I ever “hooked up”, the answer is no. My best friend at the time decided that he was “The Man” for her and since she was prettier and more popular, she hooked up with him instead. Turns out that was a good thing because shortly after graduation I found out that they were looking at diamond rings because she was pregnant….LOL! Better her than ME!

Yes, I know that “technically” it’s still early. But considering that I originally went to bed over 2 hours ago and I’m still not asleep, it’s now a sleepless night! I was content with flipping channels and watching TV until I heard the commercial for the Mesothelioma Lawyers for the umpteenth time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that there are lawyers out there to help people with things like this. But after hearing any commercial over and over again, it’s time to find something else to occupy my brain when I’m having a sleepless night!

Speaking of tonight, did you see that Hillary won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire tonight? The last I heard/paid attention to, the word was that everyone thought it would go to Edwards (Edwards took 3rd). John McCain took the Republican primary and Huckabee was a distant 3rd. I know the Presidential election is important, but I personally will be glad when November is here and all this campaigning and slamming is OVER!

They say that you learn something new every day.  Most days, I can’t remember what it is I’ve learned, if I learn anything at all….LOL!  But today I learned something that made me go WOW!

Last spring I purchased this monitor:

I have loved this monitor since the day I hooked it up!  It is an HPw2207 22 inch wide screen monitor.  Rather than having the matted screen like most newer flat panel monitor have it instead has a glossy screen.  I do love the clarity of the glossy screen, but my biggest peeve with it is that it is the most horrible thing to clean!  I have yet to find a way to clean it that doesn’t leave streaks.  But that’s NOT what this post is about, I didn’t learn a way to clean it today, I instead learned that it can do THIS

This is the most AMAZING thing I have ever seen!  I loved my monitor when it was horizontally wider, but it made many websites look “odd”, especially if it was an off centered website or one that only used the far left side of the screen.  With my monitor now being vertically wide, OMG, not only do sites look better because they’re not being stretched out so badly, but I actually get the full length of the page, which is a better option in my book!

Now, if you’re wondering what too me SOOOOOOOOO long to realize that this monitor flipped like it does, well, as embarrassed as I am to admit this, I never read the owners manual…..LOL!  I found out because I was at HP’s website checking out computers and seen that if I ordered a monitor identical to mine with a new computer from HP, the monitor would be well over $100 less than what I paid for mine.  That made me curious so I went directly to the monitors page where I seen a graphic showing it being flipped…LOL!

That made my day!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE my monitor now…LOL!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a heat wave!  Just a few days ago I was complaining because it was BITTER cold!  So much so that we actually ran our wood burner several days straight to try and help the furnace keep up.  We ended up having to buy a cord of wood last week because we had almost used up what we had bought shortly after we moved in here.

Over the weekend, the weather was very mild, but nothing compared to what they are calling for today and tomorrow!  We actually have a chance here in NW Ohio of breaking a high temperature record that was set over 100 years ago!  The record high temp for today is 61 degrees set in 1907, they are calling for a high temp today in the mid 60’s and near or at 60 degrees tomorrow!  And considering that the temp was 57 at 5:30 this morning, I have no doubt we will hit the mid 60’s today!

I have short sleeves on and have opened a couple of windows in the house already!  It’s so nice to smell the fresh air!  Fortunately this house has a very open floor plan, so it doesn’t get that stuffy closed up smell a house normally gets in the winter time!  But I’m definitely taking advantage of being able to open windows and let the fresh air in while I can!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for many of the advances that have been made in many areas because of modern technology. But when it comes to advancing consumer technology, well, it confuses me! I mean, HDTV, Plasma TV, LCD TV and then then necessity for things like HDMI switches and cables. Come on, just give me a TV that is easy to turn on and find the channel that I want to watch, that’s all I need! Sometimes it seems like consumer technology is advanced only to confuse the consumers into buying things they don’t necessarily need!