Happy Halloween! Besides my damn gray roots, further proof that I becoming a hag is that I have not bought any candy to pass out to the kids. I was seriously planning on just shutting off the lights and drinking beer in the dark. However, since Matt and I were invited for a little get-together at a neighbor's house, I now have a legitimate excuse not to pass out treats. (FYI--I am wearing an orange t-shirt right now if that makes me any less of a Halloween ghoul).

My sweet in-laws came up to the mountains yesterday and we all  got to hang out. They brought me some fabulous birthday gifts (that's the perks of being the only girl. my mother-in-law and I are treated like the queens that we are). Anyway, I wont brag about all my fabulous gifts, but one of them may or may not have been this bowl.



Someone knows that I have a serious dish fetish. 

Last night I had a dream that in addition to all the wonderful b-day gifts that I received,  my mother-in-law (Judy) left me a $50 bill under a cup "to go shopping." In my dream I told her "oh Judy, you gave me so much, you didn't need to give me any money."  Her reply was "well you better buy something for Matt. It is not all about you, you know."  HAHAHA. We all got a laugh out of that. That is the last thing that she would ever do in real life.

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Chase works as a waiter/bartender at a popular place in our area.  He decided he was going to dress up as a milkman last night for work.

So he bought a bow tie. I mean a real bow tie that you have to tie. And  he spent forever trying to figure out how to tie the damn thing.

He finally figured it out.  I think he looked pretty authentic.

He can't put the phone down for a picture?


I don't know if he carried those bottles around all night or what? I asked Matt this morning. "What are the odds that Chase returns my basket?"

Matt gave it a "less than zero."

So funny story about tying a tie. We lived in Dallas when Chase was in middle school and he was playing football at that time. In case you haven't heard: the state of Texas takes football playing Very Seriously. In 7th grade, his football coach made it clear that on Monday's game day, the boys were to wear a shirt and tie to school. Serious business. So the weekend before the first game, we went to Penney's and bought him a shirt and tie. Of course I did not know how to tie the damn thing, so I told Chase that he was going to have to get on the internet and figure it out. He did so without a problem. (I guess the bow tie is a little trickier).

That first game never happened because that day was September 11, 2001 and all events were cancelled.  There were, however,  plenty of other tie-wearing occasions that came to pass.  Flash forward three years to 2004.  Matt and I were getting married in  "we are getting married" clothes. Luckily my son knew how to tie a tie because my soon-to-be snowboarder husband had never really needed to wear one and had no clue: ) That is a sweet memory.

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In case you are wondering at all.

I mastered the Moo Shu pork. I was really worried about those pancake things, but they were simple.



It was all the damn chopping.   Waaayyy easier to call Bamboo Garden. Oh and I learned that Moo shu is Mandarin for "wood ear" which is the type of mushrooms that are in the dish.  Anyhow, I made Moo shu on Friday for my mom's birthday dinner (our b-day's are three days apart) .

Happy b-day Mom (if you still read my blog) and thank you for the wonderful b-day gift that you gave me : )

I have been in major "clean out the damn clutter" mode for the past two weeks. I have taken two jeep loads to the FIRC in the last week and (shockingly) have only come home with about a half load. Maybe someday I will actually be able to park my Jeep in the garage. To that end, I have posted all kinds of furniture and extra crap on Craigslist (but have only managed to sell one little office chair). Boo-hoo.

Well on to what I gathered at the FIRC and elsewhere.

Okay, here is a weird one. Ever see one of these?

It is a carved little porcelain plate with a blue light behind it,

that looks like this when it is dark.



How could I resist for $1.99? I mean seriously.

Through the magic of Google, I learned that this thing is a "lithophane."  I can't wait for that to be on Jeopardy. Boo-ya  Alex!

Last year for my b-day, Matt took me to the ARC in Denver (yes that is what I wanted to do) and I bought a red gumball machine. It has been sitting down in my laundry room gathering dust. So in my push to declutter, I got the thing out, painted it white and filled it with my all time favorite, WHOPPERS! Woo-hoo. BTW, on my eighth birthday, my brother Mike bought me a carton of Whoppers-- and I have to tell you that it is still one of my best birthday memories. I was so dang excited.

Now it is like it is my 8th birthday everyday!

So since I posted a bunch of  crap on Craigslist, I had to counterbalance that with looking for crap to take home on Craigslist. Yin and Yang. And speaking of yin and yang, up until two weeks ago, I thought it was "ying and yang."  Am I retarded? How did I never notice that there was no "g"  in  yin before. Duh and oh yeah, it wasn't until law school before I realized that "for all intents and purposes" was not "for all intensive purposes."  I wonder what other phrases I am mis-phrasing.

So anyway, the Rocky Mountain Craigslist postings are not that extensive --as you can imagine. While purusing the  "free" section I see a listing for all kinds of promising things. And guess what ?  The free stuff is on my street. And guess what else? It is the same house that I bought my butcher block island. In the end, I  took home a wicker rocker and a lighted makeup mirror. And guess what else else? I have been wanting one of these mirrors for like years. Every time I go into Bed Bath & Beyond I am shocked when I look into one of the x10 magnification mirrors on display and see that I have a wild hair growing out my eyebrow or chin. I have never really wanted to fork over 60++ bucks to terrify myself in this manner, but for free, I will.


Have you ever seen my spare bedroom turned Lori's dressing room otherwise known as the "princess suite?" I highly recommend that you forgo having kids --or at least keep them to a minimum so you can have one of these rooms. Seriously.

Oh gawd, this post is getting long.

I will be quick.

In a turn of genius, I hung up this little corner light that I bought at a garage sale. That corner was so dark.



I had to string it through this scary hole.



I was pretty proud of myself.

Oh and do you want to see the other door painted orange?


Of course you do. Here it is.
I really do like it.

And finally, so you can see the kind of mature people that I live with.

"tongue of Lori"

RUDE!


AND something totally totally unrelated. Has anyone ever made Moo Shu Pork? What about those pancake things that go with it? Is it impossible?

Today I march deeper into middle age.

That aight. Nothing says "sexy" like 42 years old. Try not to be too jealous.


Want to know how the world looked when I made my debut back in October of  1968?

People were crazy for the race to the moon.

Life Magazine cover Oct. 25, 1968

Revlon got in on the moon craze

I did not realize that the space race was the inspiration for Revlon's Moondrop lipstick line until spotting this ad in Life Magazine. When I think of moist lips, I think of the moon. haha.  In 1968, man had no way of knowing that the moon was as dry as a Mormon's liquor cabinet.


Of course, Vietnam was in full swing back in October of '68.

Here is what this soldier had to say about the upcoming presidential election with candidates Nixon/Humphrey/Wallace (btw doesn't the soldier kinda look like Obama)?

"I filled out the registration card when they came around and asked for it, but I'm not voting for anybody. Those guys don't really want to end the war. They must make money off it. They don't give a damn about 'our boys' over here."

Sound familiar? Blackwater anyone? Some things are timeless. 

Back in October of 1968, the Summer Olympics were held in Mexico City.


The text reads:  "It was as much a victory over the force of nature as his opponents just as the vault of Apollo 7 into space proved once again, spectacularly, that man will not forever be pinned to this planet . . ."

WTF??  I guess journalists were required to relate everything to the space race back in October of 1968.

Propaganda. It is not just for Commies.

Here on planet Earth, ideas were slow to change-- as evidenced by this ad that I found in the October 1968 Popular Mechanics.



Hahaha. What use will men be when mechanics become so easy that even a girl can do them?

That reminds me of a conversation that I had with Matt last night. We were watching TV and a political ad came on attacking a particular Senate candidate. The advertisement is saying that the male candidate is an extremist and does not believe in abortion,  even for cases of rape and incest.

Me:  I think we should pass a law that states that no man should ever be allowed to vote on any abortion or reproductive issue.


Matt:   I disagree. I definitely think men should be allowed to vote on those issues. We have been voting longer. We are better at it.

Sometimes.  I swear.

Back to 1968. Here is a little glimpse into our "future."


I like how our future space-age selves are using a corded rotary phone to send  high-tech images. Easy to imagine a man on the moon-- but a cordless phone?  Get outta here.

Want to hear something crazy? A brand new microwave would set you back $545 in October of 1968 (I did not even know microwaves were around then).


That would be a whopping $3,471.75 in 2010.

No thank you.

I would rather have two of these.


I could use a Boonie-Bike right about now. Despite the high hopes held for my future back in 1968, today I remain pinned to this planet.

And, this is how my little spot on Earth looked on the morning of October 26, 2010,  the day I turned 42.

THE END.

Yesterday was that time again.

Bookclub.

And this month it was my turn to host.

If you have ever been to my house, you know I am a huge fan of the bundt cake. I make one on for pretty much every occasion. I actually feel sad if there is not a bundt cake sitting all pretty on my counter. It is like I am stuck in 1974 and refuse to leave.

As expected, I made a bookclub bundt. I thought I would try the wonderful fall flavor of butter pecan.

I also thought a good complement to butter pecan would be Ben and Jerry's new flavor called Dulce Delish. While I don't approve of the term "delish" (due to Rachel Raytard using it every third word), the ice cream is highly recommended.


I am going to have to talk to Ben and Jerry about the little name situation. BTW, if you say "delish" "EVOO" or "Groovy" we cannot be friends.


Oh and hey, do they give Nobel prizes for food?  If they do, I nominate Ben and Jerry for this genius flavor:



Go to the store and buy some right now.I will wait right here.

Okay, you back?? On to the bookclub and book review.

The book we read was the Swedish book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

Here is a picture of my niece, Tara, reading the book (that I stole off her blog).



BTW, Tara is not in my bookclub, but she does like to read.

While I am the fool that selected the tattoo book over a month ago, I farted around and did not start reading it until Monday at 10PM.  Uhm, I did not know it was 600 pages long and that half the words are Swedish things that I am clueless about. Oh and excuse me. It is a very violent and graphic book.   (Sidenote: I just thought of something. Isn't the bundt pan a Swedish thing?  Oh I bet those bookclub girls think I am super clever. HA!).

Ok. Enough about me, on to the book:

Attention Swedish publishing people.  Guess what?  I don't know the value of a kronor. For example, when I read this paragraph, I am confused:

For all I know 210 kronor could be worth seven cents or it could be worth 54,311 dollars.  This is America. Put things in terms I can understand. I am on strict reading deadline and I don't have time to google currency converters.

Then there were lines like this one at the beginning of the book.
    "Three months in goal and 150,000 kronor damages. That's pretty severe." 

Oh, I see how it is going to be. An "English" translation, eh?  Again this America, I am pretty sure we say "jail."

And the money thing. Sooooo  irritating.

One of our bookclub members, Jane is from England and I tried to convince her that she needed to be in charge due the "English" translation, but she claimed that she was confused by a lot of the terms. I tried to argue that as a native European she needed to take full responsibility for the situation-- but shockingly, that logic did not really go anywhere.

On a positive note, I do like the idea of tattooing people with "warning labels" when they are mean to me.

Remember that time when Matt was super bossy and wouldn't let me watch the second half hour of Sister Wives because he wanted to watch Eastbound and Down?  That was so rude. How cool would it have been if I would have thought of handcuffing him to the coffee table and tattooing "GREEDY" right on his ass.   I bet he would let me watch whatever I wanted if I would have done that.

Well, that is my review. If coherency is your thing and you don't like my review check out Tara's.

I don't know if it is a full moon or what, but I was feeling pretty wacky today.



Yesterday, I bought a new front door that I found on craigslist . I actually have two front doors; one on the ground garden-level (which is my office door) and one on the main house level. We put the office door on 6 years ago and I have yet to paint it (lame I know). Then I found the exact same door on craigslist, so I bought it and I acted like a big brat until I got my way asked sweetly if Matt would hang it on the main level on his one and only day off.



So while my wonderful husband was doing this,

I was painting my identical office door . . . . . . orange.

That is right, I said ORANGE.

orange paint job in progress

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?  That would be just wrong.

(oh, and I am going to paint the other door tomorrow).

Matt and Chase were teasing me that I was painting the door Bronco orange. So Matt put John Elway's number 7 on the door with blue painter's tape.

Well,  at least John will feel welcome when he drops by for dinner (which he is prone to do).



What is that I said????

You read it right.

BACON POPCORN (this is where I get inducted in the Hall of Fame).

People, I expect fan mail.

I am watching the mine rescue and since I hate twitter, I am going to live blog. 

1. Why are the people on the outside of the mine wearing hard hats? Is someone going to throw a rock at the families or the Chilean President? It reminds me of pro baseball managers. Why do they all wear uniforms? Are they going to pinch hit or something?

2. Who had the flag idea first? Texas or Chile? Oh and I am glad they they had time to paint that flag on the rescue tube. However, I am shocked that Coca-Cola did not figure out a way to plaster their logo all over it. You gotta know if it was a US rescue, McDonald's and Coke would be all up in that.

3. I am glad that Chile had the good sense to schedule the rescue for prime time. I hate repeats. I and am still mad they did not broadcast the winter Olympics live. RUDE. Oh and hey dumb ABC Olympics bosses, did  you see Bruce Kardashian Jenner running around or something?  These weren't the '76 games. I have the internets!! I  knew who won before your big surprise primetime presentation.

4. What the freak is the temperature down in Copiapo, Chile? Why so many puffy coats? Oh and hey, I like saying "Copiapo."

5. These guys look remarkably non-chalant upon emergence from that tube. I would definitely need a bottle of wine with a Xanax chaser before I got in that thing. Hold up. Matt is pointing out that these guys are miners and are used to confined spaces because, ya know they are miners. Whatever.

6. I am kinda in love with Mario Zimwhatshisname (the second miner). Also, I am cracking up because as they were showing his picture earlier, I was thinking he is an "older gentleman" then MSNBC informs me that he celebrated his 40th birthday down there in the mine. Nuts. I am 41, but in my mind, I look 24ish.

7. Whose car alarm keeps going off? Yo homes, check yo Escalade.

8. Quit showing US miners. We just look stupid. No offense if you are a US miner who was once trapped but  later rescued and are now on MSNBC giving your thoughts. BTW, did you ever see Coal Miner's Daughter? I think I know every line in that movie. Remember when the only premium channel available was HBO and they only played about 4 movies each month over and over? To this day if that movie comes on, I am compelled to watch it. It does not matter whatever else is on or what part of the movie I stumble across, I watch it. Maybe it is just THAT great of a movie or maybe I just revert back to 1981 and think that is all that is on.

9. Are those guys getting overtime for the months down there? If it was the cheap company that Matt works for, they would probably deduct the cost of his food and water. I would have to call Gloria Allred to straighten shit out.


10. Do you think these reporters are going to stay up all night ++++ for all 30 miners?

11. Matt claims to have no memory of the coverage of the rescue of little baby Jessica who fell in that well in the 80s. How is that possible?  I wonder if he remembers the OJ low-speed freeway chase??? Jeesh. What about 9/11? Oh wait. He was probably playing frisbee golf that day.

12. These reporters make me want to cut. So stupid.

This post is subject to updates  . . . .

It is snowing this morning.

Well, bring it winter.

I can take it, even though my calendar is most definitely telling me it is FALL.


 I promise I just wanted to sit here and drink coffee and eat cinnamon raisin toast anyway.

 Happy 10/10/10 y'all.

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We slept in Saturday morning because we had been down to Denver on Friday night and we did not get home until after 1am (which is pretty much unheard of around here).  After breakfast we decided to take the dogs for a walk on the golf course which has finally closed for the winter.  The golf course becomes our default snowshoe route, sledding hill and general dog walking spot all winter long. Love it. Anyway it was cold and, get this, snowing on Saturday. Ugh.

Contrary to our street be designated a "circle" it is actually a semi-circle and just around the curve, our neighbor was having a garage sale right across from the golf course. They weren't having much luck due the fact that it was cold and ya know, snowing. Matt and I were the only customers.

We take a quick look around and then . . . .

I spotted it.

There it was.

I have been searching craigslist for almost two years now.

When I do find something similar, the sellers want $300 for it. Uh, I don't think so.

What is it?

This John Boos million pound maple island.

I have wanted one of these honking islands since high school. My friend Jennifer's mom had the same island in her kitchen and I LOVED it more than words.  I graduated from high school in 1986. Hello. That is a long time to wait for a giant chunk of wood.


Guess how much the neighbors wanted for it? 

$50.  I almost peed.  But still,  I could not resist bargaining (it was a garage sale after all) and offered them $40.

SOLD!

It was in pretty sad shape and we spent another $20 on sand paper and the better part of the day fixing her up, but now she is PERFECT.  (In my excitement I forgot to take BEFORE pics).

OK, check it out. I took pictures from every possible angle to show you just how darn perfect it is in my kitchen.






Matt is going to lower the light two feet so it will be hanging at just the right height over my island (you know I like to keep the man busy).


I am in Love. Doesn't it look like it was custom made for my kitchen?

I am convinced that ANYTHING you want you can  find for next to nothing if you go to enough thrift stores and garage sales.  What I love about this particular find is that we weren't even going to a garage sale, we just ran right into it.


PS:

I have mentioned before about how Matt and I have a garage sale list of things we are hoping to find someday. 


For the last year in addition to that island and a million other things,  I have been on the lookout for something like this bucket to use as a trash can in my bathroom (oh and yes, I am 100% serious).


You would think that there would be thousands of old buckets like this out there, but I have yet to find one.

Oh well. One of these days. 

Today I will just sit here and be happy about my awesome island.