Here is to another week, locked in the frozen grime laced snowy wastelands of Minnesota. We are nearing February and its the time of year I loathe. I'm over the super cold, over the short gray days, driving to work in the dark, and returning home in the same inky blue. I'm tired of using more windshield wiper fluid in one day than a dehydrated in-patient's IV holds. Did I mention I'm over it? Happens to me every year. Opposite of the polar bears waiting for the arctic freeze to return and seal meat to prosper, I'm waiting for green grass, bonfires, and 16 hours of daylight. Soon. Two more days until Puxatawny Phil peeps out from his groundhog hole to tell me if there will be six more weeks of winter. I heard he's on Twiiter now though I doubt he even leaves the hole. He has his PR groundhog assistants check I'm sure.
In the meantime, we've been getting caught up on movies. We saw Julie and Julia this weekend. What a sweet movie. We're halfway through the Hangover. Jury's still out on this one. Guy humor for sure. We have the Wrestler up next, followed by the Hurt Locker. I am hearing many things on Avatar, so I may have to actually venture into a theater soon.
I guess I'll say the big excitement for this past week was the bomb threat at the high school that closed the high school and junior high last Monday. Somebody didn't want to take that bugger of an algebra test, that's what I figure. Some goofball used yellow spray paint on the doors of the high school saying, "Mass bomb 1-25-10". Personally I thought they were talking about drunken communion but it was enough to shut down both the high school and junior high due to bussing issues etc. Nice. Um, did they not realize that these days schools have cameras all over the place? Dorks. Of course there was no bomb but it gave the police dogs a nice outing.
The kitchen is all but finished. The new window treatments are up and everything is touched up and painted except for the baseboards at the bottom of the cabinets at the floor. This weekend we finish that and move into the laundry room to peel wallpaper and paint those walls a Smoky Slate, to match the kitchen. At least our projects have helped the winter time pass. Tammy's nephew Nick was over last night to give us pricing on materials to start moving that basement bedroom wall out about a foot, finish the ceiling in sheet rock, getting rid of the drop ceiling, and cutting out a hole to open the stairway leading down there, where we'll add a banister. That will be the BIG project. We'll take our time and have fun.
Tonight is Sarah's band concert. Go clarinets! Jake's isn't until April. He's a baritone man. Right now the Gopher men's basketball team is being smoked by Ohio State. Bummer. Sports yes, but not the same. I was able to tape and watch Serena kick Henin's butt at the Australian Open. I guess there are some sports on worth watching, I must just have the football blues. Well, then again I am a Bears fan, so that is an on going condition. Twins and Bears. I'm ready.
That's about it for this week. I have no rants or raves to report. But I'm glad to be alive, healthy, working, and loved. So I got that going for me. And Jake's got a 12th birthday this month. Sweet. Here's a great week and yet another chance to win that Powerball! XOXO
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
A Happy Belated Birthday to You, Tammy Graham!
Twas not so long ago (two weeks more or less) that Tammy became the first of this clan to turn 45. We May birthday girls will just have to wait our turn, right Dexter? Right New Nancy? Right MJ? Here on Sodium Manor I have been so pre-occupied with kitchens and internet modem blow ups and snafus that I was not able to properly acknowledge this milestone in this blog until now. So in honor of Ms. Graham's 45th birthday, she has given me permission to include this cheesy wheezy lemon squeezy, sweet in a goofball way, poem I wrote for her in honor of our life (well, and demonstrating for Sarah how easy it is to create a poem in less than an hour when money is tight and Xmas gifts are in demand and no, they don't all have to be romantic-ey and ewwwwy). So here goes.
Love in our house looks like this:
The sound of the washer at midnight
The buzz of the dryer at dawn
Cooking our eggs Sunday mornings
And John Deere mowing our lawn
The bellow of kids up the stairway
Loose sand from the dogs coating floors
Our TV too loud in the front room
The cat crying out near the door
Our house staying clean for a minute
Stray socks being flung in the hall
Making spaghetti for dinner
Nursing the tears from a fall
The laughter of kids being silly
They jump out and scare us for fun
Talking of homework and stories
Helping each other stay young
The paying of bills at the table
The projects that move up our list
Simply put our life is amazing
Each day is a wonderful gift
a-blee a-blee a-blee that's all folks. Until next week, another day another project.
Love,
DIane
Love in our house looks like this:
The sound of the washer at midnight
The buzz of the dryer at dawn
Cooking our eggs Sunday mornings
And John Deere mowing our lawn
The bellow of kids up the stairway
Loose sand from the dogs coating floors
Our TV too loud in the front room
The cat crying out near the door
Our house staying clean for a minute
Stray socks being flung in the hall
Making spaghetti for dinner
Nursing the tears from a fall
The laughter of kids being silly
They jump out and scare us for fun
Talking of homework and stories
Helping each other stay young
The paying of bills at the table
The projects that move up our list
Simply put our life is amazing
Each day is a wonderful gift
a-blee a-blee a-blee that's all folks. Until next week, another day another project.
Love,
DIane
Monday, January 4, 2010
How to get How to get to Sodium Street...
(To the tune of the Sesame Street song)
Sundberg Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way
To where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sodium Street?
As you can see by the photo it’s a Sundberg Family Christmas on Sodium Street (a.k.a Sodium Manor), with a few non-Sundbergs thrown in for good measure. Just to be clear Tammy's a (nee Sundberg). Ah, but is there a Grinch in this Sundberg clan? A Cindy Lou Who? It’s up to you to determine for yourselves and remember: Only YOU can prevent forest fires. Notice Jake and Sarah are almost as tall as their mom in the middle. Time flies. We had an excellent Christmas Eve gala at our place with plenty of great food and great people. I heard the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. Now it’s the new year and I’m calling forth a year of creation and wide-eyed wonderment. Um, yeah, so let’s blog all over this cat house.
Most of you already know that Tammy and I have been spending a lot of time at Home Depot. What you may not know is how different the experience is for each of us. Often times one of us will pop into a Depot (we have several in the area to choose from) on the fly to pick something up. That is where the similarity ends. Here is how the experience goes for Tammy when she enters a Home Depot alone, or with me bringing up the rear so to speak. In she walks and the aisles seem to part for her, everywhere she goes men are falling all over themselves asking her if she needs anything, can they help in any way? Heck, they place their orange aprons over melting snow puddles so she can cross the floor. Rose petals magically appear floating softly from above and angelic music coos all around. Only a small exaggeration, trust me. I’ve witnessed it with my own two peepers. It’s quite fascinating from a sociological standpoint. You’d think these guys just got off a deserted island or something. She says its creepy (I hear tell it’s one of the downsides of being hot. LOL). It’s kind of funny because Tammy is actually quite handy and can use practically all power tools and has done so numerous times including saw-like thingees, ratchety doohickees, and mega drills. She installed her own invisible fencing with Nancy Dexter’s help at her old house, and created and laid her own tiled fire pit another time, etc. So when she goes in Home Depot, she is no helpless Nell looking for Dudley Dooright to save her. Although the guys there seem to think that is exactly what she needs, or else as my theory says, they just want to get close enough to slip their telephone numbers into her coat pocket.
Cut to me. I AM Polly Purebread looking for Underdog to help me. Our new dishwasher came the other day and we needed a longer steel braided cable than what was used in the old one, so I agreed to stop at the Depot on my way home from work. When I enter a Home Depot alone? Picture this: The workers scatter like cockroaches. You can hear the echo of my boots as I wander toward the plumbing department. Crickets begin to chirp loudly in the background, and I think I can sometimes hear paint drying. My HelloOOooOOooos bounce off tiers of scaffolded product with no reply. I am the only human left on the planet. Well, it seems that way anyway. I keep looking around for the floating eyeball and Rod Serling to announce I just stepped into The Twilight Zone. This time, after wandering for a bit I found the plumbing department, desolate of course. I did espy a couple of worker bees near the flooring row but as soon as I saw them, they saw me and buzzed off to somewhere else. I found the aisle where I think the braided tubing loiters, and an old fuddy duddy worker meandered by in slo-mo, and saw me perusing the items, clearly concentrating and carrying a bit of trepidation. I glanced at him. He picked up his phone from his belt and made a personal call, walking away from me. Seriously, were my cooties showing? Annoyed at this point I think to myself, hey, I’m no dummy, I can figure this out. Let’s see, here’s the braided tubing, but I need at least 8 feet and these are only 6 feet long. Hmm, I must need a brass coupler, now where would those be? I was close. I could smell it. But close wasn’t going to cut it, so I left the aisle on a mission to find Grandpa Walton and force him to help me at pencil point. He was hiding (he claims picking up a loose screw) in the electrical wiring aisle. He saw me. I pounced. I dragged him by the ear to come and help me, and he got me squared away after I suggested a coupler to him and he agreed (eyeroll). Anyway, that’s how different our Home Depot lives appear.
Short story long, we spent NYE weekend sanding and painting the kitchen cupboards (Irish Mist- a white with gray undertone) in preparation of the new granite counter tops that will be arriving soon. We still have some cupboard doors to finish but everything else is done and new contact paper has been laid, and the kitchen put back together. By week’s end doors will all be back on and it will be looking good. We are picking up new handles and hinges tonight.
On a side note as many of you also know, it is colder than a fart in a dead polar bear up here right now, and yesterday we took Sarah and her friend shopping in Maple Grove as her Xmas gift cards weren’t getting any younger. So while we were waiting for them to meet us at Pot Belly’s, we enjoyed a sandwich and did some people watching. It was maybe 4 degrees outside, -11 with wind chill or something. What do we see? A woman in FLIP FLOPS. Not a girl. Not a teen or tween. A full grown 30-something woman sporting flip flops. I swear only in Minnesota. On the way home I bet we saw a total of about 15 snow mobiles tooling around. No flip flops on them however, just on the woman shopping. Seriously...
Guess that's it for now. This weekend we get to hang with Cathy and Andrea and I'm thinking there may be a lasagna in our future with garlic bread and salad. Hmm... Until next time, I love you all and Happy New Year to YOU!
Sundberg Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way
To where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sodium Street?
As you can see by the photo it’s a Sundberg Family Christmas on Sodium Street (a.k.a Sodium Manor), with a few non-Sundbergs thrown in for good measure. Just to be clear Tammy's a (nee Sundberg). Ah, but is there a Grinch in this Sundberg clan? A Cindy Lou Who? It’s up to you to determine for yourselves and remember: Only YOU can prevent forest fires. Notice Jake and Sarah are almost as tall as their mom in the middle. Time flies. We had an excellent Christmas Eve gala at our place with plenty of great food and great people. I heard the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. Now it’s the new year and I’m calling forth a year of creation and wide-eyed wonderment. Um, yeah, so let’s blog all over this cat house.
Most of you already know that Tammy and I have been spending a lot of time at Home Depot. What you may not know is how different the experience is for each of us. Often times one of us will pop into a Depot (we have several in the area to choose from) on the fly to pick something up. That is where the similarity ends. Here is how the experience goes for Tammy when she enters a Home Depot alone, or with me bringing up the rear so to speak. In she walks and the aisles seem to part for her, everywhere she goes men are falling all over themselves asking her if she needs anything, can they help in any way? Heck, they place their orange aprons over melting snow puddles so she can cross the floor. Rose petals magically appear floating softly from above and angelic music coos all around. Only a small exaggeration, trust me. I’ve witnessed it with my own two peepers. It’s quite fascinating from a sociological standpoint. You’d think these guys just got off a deserted island or something. She says its creepy (I hear tell it’s one of the downsides of being hot. LOL). It’s kind of funny because Tammy is actually quite handy and can use practically all power tools and has done so numerous times including saw-like thingees, ratchety doohickees, and mega drills. She installed her own invisible fencing with Nancy Dexter’s help at her old house, and created and laid her own tiled fire pit another time, etc. So when she goes in Home Depot, she is no helpless Nell looking for Dudley Dooright to save her. Although the guys there seem to think that is exactly what she needs, or else as my theory says, they just want to get close enough to slip their telephone numbers into her coat pocket.
Cut to me. I AM Polly Purebread looking for Underdog to help me. Our new dishwasher came the other day and we needed a longer steel braided cable than what was used in the old one, so I agreed to stop at the Depot on my way home from work. When I enter a Home Depot alone? Picture this: The workers scatter like cockroaches. You can hear the echo of my boots as I wander toward the plumbing department. Crickets begin to chirp loudly in the background, and I think I can sometimes hear paint drying. My HelloOOooOOooos bounce off tiers of scaffolded product with no reply. I am the only human left on the planet. Well, it seems that way anyway. I keep looking around for the floating eyeball and Rod Serling to announce I just stepped into The Twilight Zone. This time, after wandering for a bit I found the plumbing department, desolate of course. I did espy a couple of worker bees near the flooring row but as soon as I saw them, they saw me and buzzed off to somewhere else. I found the aisle where I think the braided tubing loiters, and an old fuddy duddy worker meandered by in slo-mo, and saw me perusing the items, clearly concentrating and carrying a bit of trepidation. I glanced at him. He picked up his phone from his belt and made a personal call, walking away from me. Seriously, were my cooties showing? Annoyed at this point I think to myself, hey, I’m no dummy, I can figure this out. Let’s see, here’s the braided tubing, but I need at least 8 feet and these are only 6 feet long. Hmm, I must need a brass coupler, now where would those be? I was close. I could smell it. But close wasn’t going to cut it, so I left the aisle on a mission to find Grandpa Walton and force him to help me at pencil point. He was hiding (he claims picking up a loose screw) in the electrical wiring aisle. He saw me. I pounced. I dragged him by the ear to come and help me, and he got me squared away after I suggested a coupler to him and he agreed (eyeroll). Anyway, that’s how different our Home Depot lives appear.
Short story long, we spent NYE weekend sanding and painting the kitchen cupboards (Irish Mist- a white with gray undertone) in preparation of the new granite counter tops that will be arriving soon. We still have some cupboard doors to finish but everything else is done and new contact paper has been laid, and the kitchen put back together. By week’s end doors will all be back on and it will be looking good. We are picking up new handles and hinges tonight.
On a side note as many of you also know, it is colder than a fart in a dead polar bear up here right now, and yesterday we took Sarah and her friend shopping in Maple Grove as her Xmas gift cards weren’t getting any younger. So while we were waiting for them to meet us at Pot Belly’s, we enjoyed a sandwich and did some people watching. It was maybe 4 degrees outside, -11 with wind chill or something. What do we see? A woman in FLIP FLOPS. Not a girl. Not a teen or tween. A full grown 30-something woman sporting flip flops. I swear only in Minnesota. On the way home I bet we saw a total of about 15 snow mobiles tooling around. No flip flops on them however, just on the woman shopping. Seriously...
Guess that's it for now. This weekend we get to hang with Cathy and Andrea and I'm thinking there may be a lasagna in our future with garlic bread and salad. Hmm... Until next time, I love you all and Happy New Year to YOU!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
