Tuesday, November 4, 2008

I’m moving out!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with blog.com.  Whenever I post something, whether it be a blog entry or a comment on someone else’s blog, the site is very sluggish.  Then there have been the intermittent, but seemingly never ending problems with formatting (problems that I have no control over) and my patience is over.

Thanks to Deb (I’m not even going to TRY to hyperlink to her blog!  If you want to see it, see her comment under my last post!), I found a new site.  I’m going to give it a whirl.

So, henceforth my new blog address is http://sandiesimplysays.wordpress.com/

Posted by Sandie at 02:59:30 | Permalink | No Comments »

Friday, October 10, 2008

Lovely, just lovely!

Why do all the big “must do” things seem to happen right before Christmas?

First, I backed into my husband’s truck.  Oops!  Cost us $750 in deductibles.  Ouch!

Then, he tells me he needs new tires for his truck.  To the tune of $1,000.   Double ouch!

OK, we should finally be done, but it always comes in threes…Alyssa’s filling fell out and now she needs a crown.  It will probably cost us about $300 and that’s AFTER insurance.

And did I mention we were planning to go out of town for Christmas?  I’m thinking we’re going to have to cut back on the gift budget this year!

Posted by Sandie at 00:52:52 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Sunday, September 7, 2008

I SWORE I wasn’t going to do this…

I swore I wouldn’t make any political posts here.  I don’t want to get caught up
in the ugliness I know is to come over the next couple months, but I’m really
getting to my wits’ end with some of the comments I’ve been hearing!

The first started shortly after McCain announced Palin as his running mate.
One of the message boards I read was all abuzz about it and the announcement
of her daughter’s pregnancy…which led into discussions about Trig (her
youngest son) supposedly being Palin’s grandson and not her son.  One of the
posts on said message board was “She could just clear it up…all she has to do
is release her medical records.”  Now why in the hell should she do that? 
Why should she even have to justify that her son is indeed her son? 
Maybe we should have Obama submit to DNA testing because those girls might
not really be his.

Then came Palin’s speech at the RNC.  I did not watch it live, but have watched
all but the last 10 minutes on You Tube.  I don’t think anyone can argue that
the speech wasn’t good (even if you don’t like what she had to say).

But that leads to other comments…one lady on TV was commenting on it.  She
didn’t think Palin would make a good VP because she is inexperienced (of
course, she had to throw in the jab at McCain’s age, saying something to
the effect of “If McCain is elected to office, she’ll likely take over in a
couple years.”).  I don’t deny that Palin is is inexperienced, BUT does Obama
really have that much experience over her?  And really, isn’t it more important
that out PRESIDENT has experience (if we’re going to say experience is important)????

Then came my lunch on Thursday.  I went with a few people from my
office…two of them who have very different political views than I do and
one of them is my boss.  I generally try to stay away from political
discussions at work.  I’ve learned that it’s never really good to mix the two
and in the past have lost respect for people because of some of those discussions. 
I don’t know HOW it even got started, but the two of them started in on Gov
Palin.  I can’t even remember all of the discussion (I was trying hard not to listen
because I was getting dangerously close to letting loose on them both), but one of
things said was, “I’d love to see her go toe-to-toe with Biden.  I don’t think she’d
survive.” (They were talking about how she gave a good speech, but wouldn’t be
good at off-the-cuff kinda stuff because she has no experience with it.)  And my
thought, of course, is “And you think OBAMA can go toe-to-toe with McCain???” 
Oh that’s right, he already did that (Saddleback, anyone?) and Obama wasn’t
all that hot.

I truly don’t CARE that these people support Obama, but really if they’re
going to pick apart somebody’s experience, they need to look in their own
backyard as well.   Neither one of these people are exactly brimming with
experience!

And for the record, yes I will more than likely be voting for McCain/Palin. 
(I know, big suprise, right?) While the experience factor may have played
into my decision, it’s certainly not the driving force behind them (and I
realize other’s will say the same thing…but I’m not the one spouting off to
anyone who will listen about how inexperienced Obama and/or Palin are). 
And I will be the first to admit both of them have their short-comings, but
neither of them give me the same pit-in-the-stomach feeling I get when
Obama talks.

I think I just need to go into hiding.  Somebody please come get me on November 5th!

Posted by Sandie at 04:40:56 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Hello? Is anybody there?

Just blowing the dust off in here!  I really need to get better about this blogging thing!
Posted by Sandie at 03:45:09 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, August 4, 2008

Class of 2009

Today is the first day of school.  Yep, that’s right, the first Monday in August school starts.  Bleh.  As has become our tradition, I took Alyssa to breakfast.  This year she chose Burger King.  Burger King is right across the street from one of the high schools and there were probably 50 kids in there…all Seniors.  How’d I know they were Seniors?  It was hard to miss it on their shirts and their crowns.  Yes, their crowns.  It was actually a cute idea.  They’d taken some crowns from Burger King, decorated them in their school colors and, of course, made sure everyone knew they were Seniors.

As I’m watching these kids, it made me a bit sad.  Not nostalgic, because honestly you couldn’t PAY me enough money to go back to high school!  But sad because I realized that in 2 short years, Ashley will be celebrating the first day of her last year of high school.  And we’ll probably miss most of it. :-(  Just another of the things that suck about stepfamilies (especially when you have a job that takes you all over the world).

On another note, Alyssa started third grade this year.  Third grade!!  She moved to the big kids’ hall!  I was a little worried about her, because she was stressing earlier in the week, but I think she’ll be OK.  She’s already sucking up to her teacher…she insisted that we bake her a big cookie for the first day.  *SIGH* My babies are growing up.


Posted by Sandie at 13:41:53 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

End of summer blues

We dropped Ashley and Amanda off at the airport yesterday. The house is much too quiet today.

This was quite possibly the last summer Ashley will be here for an extended amount of time.  She’s talking about taking summer school next year and once that’s done it’ll be time for band camp.  Maybe she’ll change her mind by next year, but I don’t know if she will.  Amanda did say she’ll most likely come, even if Amanda doesn’t.

And now for my annual mini-vent: every year, on the night before the girls are scheduled to head back to Texas, their mom calls and tells them about the “wonderful surprise” she has waiting for them.  And the girls spend the night trying to figure out what said surprise is.  It irritates the crap outta me!  Why can’t the 10 months she gets with them every year be enough for her?  Why does she have to encroach on our time?  Is she really so insecure that she has to think of ways to entice them to come back?

Posted by Sandie at 02:58:12 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Flying the friendly skies

Apparently travelling brings out the blogger in me as I’m writing this entry as I’m flying miles above the earth in the friendly skies.  Of course, you’d never know that since I have no internet access up here so I’m posting it hours later.

Anyway, I’m travelling to Tucson this week for my job.  Because of when we booked the flight, I’m stuck with a window seat.  I hate window seats.  Abhor them actually.  Why?  Because I always have to go to the restroom when I’m on a plane.  Doesn’t matter if the flight is an hour or three hours, I’m going to have to get up at least once during the flight.  Fortunately, there is only one passenger between me and the aisle, so I only had to disturb one person when the inevitable hit.  Unfortunately, he was sound asleep when the urge struck.

So, I sat in my seat for awhile and waiting.  They bring the drink cart by, surely that will wake him up.  Nope.  Ah, now they’re picking up the trash, THAT has to wake him up.  Nope.  Finally, I can stand it no more and have to wake him.  Luckily, he’s a very friendly man and I warned him pre-flight that I would have to get up at some point during the flight.  He was not bothered at all by my bothering him (at least he didn’t appear to be).

I take my walk down the long aisle to the restroom.  We’re sitting in coach, so we’re limited to the lavatory all the way at the back of the plane.  I get there and there’s a line.  Great.  Now I’m standing in the aisle doing the potty dance, which is even more interesting because Aunt Flow made her arrival just in time to accompany me on my flight (guess she figured I needed some company) and I’m  at the point where I HAVE to change my pad NOW.  We stand there for an eternity that was probably only a couple minutes, but felt like it took at least an hour, when gloriously we hear the click signifying the current occupant has unlocked the door and will make his grand appearance.  And out he comes, with a book in hand. A BOOK.  You have got to be freaking kidding me!  Who brings a book into an airplane lavatory?  No wonder he took so freaking long!  At this point I’m thinking there ought to be a law.  They can announce it right along with all the passenger safety information…”Federal Regulations prohibit smoking and reading in all lavatories.  Anyone caught tampering with the smoke detector or carrying a book to the lavatory can expect to be beaten by all the other passengers waiting to use the lavatory upon your exit.”

That should do it.

Posted by Sandie at 02:37:37 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Baby Borrowers

One of the new shows this summer is The Baby Borrowers.  We started watching it the first week it was on and I’m hooked.  The premise:  5 teenage couples (don’t be fooled by that label though…all the teenagers are over 18 and not as young as they’d leave you to believe watching the show or seeing the commercials!) live as a couple, taking care of a house, working, and taking care of kids that they “borrow” from their parents for 3 days.  The parents are nearby and can see everything from cameras that are all over the house.  Additionally, there is a nanny in the house at all times who steps in when they see something unsafe (and only then…she’s not allowed to help them in any way).

I’m hooked on the show because I find it interesting to see how these couples cope with caring for children (so far, they’ve had infants and toddlers.  I think next they get pre-teens and then teenagers).  At the end of each “stage” the parents critique the teenagers, letting them know how they think the teenagers did during their 3 days.

This is where I have a problem with the show.  Some of the parents (and let’s be honest, it the moms every time) get a bit of a holier-than-though attitude with the teenagers.  Generally, they leave me wanting to slap the crap out of them.  For example, tonight’s show was with toddlers.  Some of these toddlers had not ever been cared for by anyone other than their parents, so they are understandably upset.  I mean, how would you feel if you got dropped off with a couple of strangers for three days and had no idea why?  Anyway, that makes for a very unhappy toddler and therefore a very hard time for the teens.  One couple had a very tough time with their charge…he cried A TON!  They tried their best, but there were times they just got frustrated (and who hasn’t with a child who is constantly crying!).  The mom comes over and starts getting all over the girl criticizing nearly everything she did.  The girls went ballistic and I can’t say I blamed her!

NBC is billing this show as a social experiment that gives these teenagers a chance to see what parenting is like.  Actually, what they’re teaching them is how to baby sit.  It’s unrealistic to drop a toddler off for three days and then say “You’re going to be a bad parent because…”  What first time parent knows exactly what they’re doing the minute they bring a child home?  And how many first time parents bring a toddler home?  I think I’d like this show much better if they skipped the parent critiques!!!

BTW, the girl who went ballistic tonight told the mom “take your baby and get out of my house.”  I’m glad that she did and couldn’t have said it any better myself!

Posted by Sandie at 03:20:19 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, June 30, 2008

Gone Fishin’

My coworker lives next to Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia, on a few acres of land with a HUGE pond.  He invited my family and another coworker’s family to his house on Saturday.  We had fun right up until we got rained on!

The highlight of the day was watching the kids fish for the first time.  Tony and I are not fishers, so I was a bit apprehensive when the fishing poles came out (shh…don’t let my family back in Wisconsin know!).  Here’s the whole gang:

I think only two fish were caught that day.  And lucky Ashley caught one of them!

And here’s a close up of the prize catch:

The best line of the day goes to Angelina.  We were using hot dog pieces as bait (don’t laugh…that’s what Ashley caught her fish on!).  Angelina was having a blast casting (with the help of Daddy) and reeling her line back in.  At one point, she got all excited and yelled “Look!  I caught a hot dog!”

You probably had to be there, but trust me, it was hilarious!

Posted by Sandie at 02:54:35 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Thursday, June 26, 2008

9 years and counting…

Yesterday we celebrated our 9th anniversary.  Yay!!  Nothing exciting though…he had 9 roses sent to my office (very sweet) and then we had to take Amanda to Macon for cheer practice.  Practice as 2 hours, so we went to Olive Garden for dinner and then walked around Best Buy.

I guess that’s what it’s come to…a quick dinner and shopping!  Maybe we’ll do something big next year. :-)

Posted by Sandie at 00:36:18 | Permalink | Comments (1) »