Saturday 8 - Restaurant Edition

Thought I'd give this a try - seemed like an interesting way to take my mind off things for a little while. :)

1. name your favourite sit-down-and-be-served restaurant.
Um... I haven't been that many places.... kind of a tie between Red Lobster (someday I'll actually try the lobster), Applebee's, and O'Charley's.

2. name your favourite fast-food restaurant.
Taco Bell, though I'm really starting to crave that Reuben sandwich at Arby's. Uh huh, I like smoked salmon and cream cheese on bagels too. LOL But living in the south, you can't get that down here. Only time I ever had it was in New Jersey.

3. if you want something sweet, where do you go? (krispy kreme, dunkin donuts, convenience store, etc.)
If we had a Krispy Kreme closer than Memphis (75 miles away) I'd go by and get a doughnut. But since we don't, I'm stuck with Wal-Mart or a cup of hot chocolate. Oh well, I'm not supposed to have much sugar anyway.

4. at your favourite sit-down restaurant, what is your favourite dish?
Oriental Chicken Salad

5. at your favourite fast-food restaurant, what is your favourite meal?
Nachos Bell Grande with a lot of Fire Sauce

6. i never order dessert. is dessert on your menu for lunch or dinner if you eat out?
Only when I'm eating at Applebee's with a friend of mine. Rarely if I'm on a date (which is even more rare). Most men have an awful opinion of you if you want dessert. (Either you're a pig or you want them to spend too much money on you. Actually, I think they're too cheap.)

7. what is your favourite type of food? (mexican, greek, japanese, chinese, thai, italian, good 'ol all-american, etc.)
Chinese with Italian and Mexican running close behind. I'd like to try Indian sometime though. I still don't like sushi. I've tried it 3 times... the last time in a VERY nice sushi restaurant. But I still like wasabi flavored rice crackers and peas!

8. are you going out to a restaurant any time this weekend? why or why not?
Not unless it's a drive-thru. Going into a restaurant to eat by myself would be just too depressing.

You Are a Glazed Donut

Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone dig you. And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten.

What Donut Are You?

Yes I am warm and fuzzy!

Just so that you don't get the wrong idea from the other Tshirt I made, here's one of the others that I made (actually, all of this stuff comes on all kinds of clothes and stuff like mugs and calendars). It's from a picture of my sister's dog Sadie, when she was a puppy. Yes, the very Sadie I adopted for exactly one night a few weeks ago... when they decided they couldn't live without her after all. LOL

Pup Art Tees and other stuff - shop

I didn't go to the prom.... *sob!*

Okay, maybe I should 'fess up here. My school didn't allow us to have a prom.

The reasoning behind that decision was that it was "only a way for the rich kids to make the poor kids feel bad because they couldn't afford to buy expensive formals." Hmm. Okay, well it sounds altruistic, anyway. I certainly wasn't one of those rich kids, and my stepmother would definitely have not taken me shopping for a dress. But I did have a job, and I'd have gladly saved up for a prom dress. In fact, lots of kids without money had actual jobs. Go figure.

I was just watching "Pretty in Pink" again, and wondering if I'd have ended up in the same situation. Granted, the economic differences weren't quite as big for me as they were in that movie, and I'm sure nothing that dramatic would have happened, but dances and I don't get together for happy endings. LOL The simple truth is that I can't dance. Nobody ever taught me. It really isn't as simple as just getting out there and moving around. Do that, and you look like a frog in a blender. People laugh at frogs in blenders.

All right, I'll be honest. I don't actually believe in any of that romantic stuff that I've seen in movies anymore. Why? Lack of empirical evidence. It would be nice if men got ideas from watching some of those movies, but I honestly believe they only do that sort of thing if they're trying to manipulate a woman. And then you don't hear from them for a couple of weeks at a time, for no particular reason. Of course there's a reason, but it's their own personal agenda.

Anyway, I still love the music from that movie. :) Watching Andrew McCarthy and James Spader's not half bad either, though Jimmy does look like he's stoned through most of the movie. I'm just not a fan of that half-open eyes look...

Within a few short years of my graduation from high school, they reinstated having the prom there. Go figure.

Am I going to make it through the last 6 weeks of school?

Personal Note: Thanks to everybody for their kind thoughts while I've been sick for the past few days. I never thought something so simple would run me down quite so badly, but it did. I'm just starting to feel back to normal this afternoon. Hopefully this is a good sign that my medicine is really doing its job. I slept 11 hours last night, if you don't count all the times someone or something woke me up.

• My sister called me at about 7:30 am wanting advice for a friend sick with food poisoning - what should they do? Anything they should take? (I've had it about 3 times... and NO, it wasn't MY OWN COOKING that did it! Always someone else's!) I suggested saltine crackers, clear liquids, and jello that won't look nasty when it gets barfed back up.

Do NOT eat blue jello. Ever ever ever! (Okay, maybe that's my own fear of blueberry since I got sick back in kindergarten after eating BooBerry cereal. I'm sure it wasn't the cereal that did it, but you don't want to see what that stuff looks like after ... I did eat blue jello last March when I caught that bug that gave me a nasty case of gastroenteritis and a permanent gash-scar across my nose... ) And it still looks bad, even if it's just jello coming back.

• That being said, I told her that there would be cold clammy sweats, and I was most comfortable on the cold bathroom floor, as flat as I could be. Preferably a tile floor, but my bathroom doesn't have tile. It's also not enough space to really stretch out on, which means Terra comes in to sniff around, checking to see if I'm okay. Giving me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies because my skin hurts too much to be touched at that point. Oh, and there's that thought that goes around in your brain that's almost a guarantee that it's food poisoning: the sure knowledge that you're about to die. Okay, so I haven't died yet, but I was convinced I would every time, and I was hoping it would happen before I got sick again. I also told her that maybe it would be a better idea for her friend to just go to the emergency room at the hospital, because real food poisoning is too dangerous to fool around with.

But if there's nobody around to see that you're really in danger, and you can't drive yourself or even drag yourself to a phone to call for help, then you have to deal with the fact that you have to take care of yourself (making the jello and all), and possibly die alone if it turns out that you have a fatal case of food poisoning or the complications do something nasty to you, like dehydrate you to death or your heart stops or something. Honestly, though, when I'm that sick I try not to dwell on just how many ways I could die from it.

• Terra woke me up wanting to be let out at about 8, just after I'd gotten back to sleeping really well.
• Somebody came knocking on the door wanting to sell something or other. When they didn't get an answer at the kitchen door, they went to the front of the house and started pounding on the wood door. I would like to tell them, if somebody doesn't answer ONE door, don't anger them by pounding on another door. You just might be aggravating a sick person who really needs her rest, and this is the ONLY day she can get it.

Of course I haven't dug up all the monkey grass and thinned it out. Of course I didn't get any priming done in the kitchen. Of course I haven't conquered the mountain of laundry. :( Those WERE my plans for the three day weekend, but when I get time off work, something always comes up so that I can't do what I should be doing.

I don't mean that as a whine. It's just an example of Murphy's Law. Actually, I think I'm gonna call what happens to me "Valarie's Law": When you have time off work, something always happens to keep you from doing what you really NEED to be doing. In this case, it's a double whammy of my original complaint plus a lovely sore throat that I woke up with yesterday morning. Both, of course, happened because I am "run down" right now and needing rest I should have gotten over spring break, but didn't because I wanted to help someone else.

For a middle school teacher who is constantly exposed to all sorts of icky germs because her attempts to teach students manners fall on deaf ears, I'm doing remarkably well at not catching stuff from them. That bottle of Germ-X behind my desk probably helped a lot this year. DEFINITELY going to keep using it.

The difference in how I use the Germ-X and how the kids use it:

• Every time I go to the bathroom, I wash my hands with soap and water. I know there's "icky stuff" on my hands from touching their papers that I'd really like to get off my skin as much as possible. I also try to make a stop to wash my hands before lunch. I always squirt the Germ-X on my hands as I'm telling the kids to line up for lunch, for some extra insurance. And when I feel like I've touched something icky and can't run right to the bathroom, I use the Germ-X. (I used to not be so compulsive about cleaning my hands, but it couldn't hurt...)
• The kids think that if they use Germ-X on their way to lunch, that takes care of everything. They don't believe me when I try to tell them that it doesn't actually remove dirt or any other icky items from their hands. They think it's a cure-all, and that it is TRULY a substitute for washing their hands... Even after they've just come out of the bathroom... The hand washing area of our bathrooms is open to the hallway, so we can see when they do or don't wash their hands... and we always nag them to wash whenever we can.

Well, I've only got to make it about 6 more weeks until school will be out. But I can predict right now that I'll be sick with allergy problems that cause me to just about lose my voice the last 2 or 3 days of the school year. It's happened the last two years, and it always coincides with our faculty end-of-year dinner. But it gets me out of singing karaoke in front of people who will make fun of me forever. No singing because I'd be coughing all over them. LOL

Drinking lots of water for my now more-dry-than-sore throat, and it seems to be helping. While I was seeing the doctor, they swabbed my throat to test for strep, and it came back negative, so it's just your average garden-variety sore throat for a teacher who talked way too much in the last week, trying to prepare her students for the state tests coming up week after next.

Want to know something truly funny? The kids have been asking me what we're going to do after those tests, as if I'll be at a loss for teaching material and I'm supposed to find some way to simply entertain them until May 26th. LOL I told them, "We're going to have class, just like we always do. You don't really think you've finished all of the 8th grade material, do you?" hehehe

Apparently they've had teachers in the past who just let them play for the last month of school after the tests are over. The teachers on my team have never felt that was a good idea. Toss 10% of the school year out the window when they still have so much to learn? No way! Yes, it does sound heavenly to just do my own thing and relax for the last month of school while they do their own thing and don't learn anything (I can think of so many fun things I could do other than my JOB), but I really think that's irresponsible of any teacher who does that. We're there to teach them, and I'll be teaching them until they're out of my sight. Hopefully, they'll still be learning from what I taught them, even after they're long gone from my sight. Isn't that the point?

You do know I'm a little paranoid, don't you? LOL

I know, I've probably started sounding like a paranoid fruitcake, but ever since a certain nightmare (which is still crystal clear in my memory after all these years) that I had when I was in college, I've felt like there would be some point in the future when I'd have to grab what I could and just run. Probably some kind of weather emergency, given the recent worsening of tornadoes around here... and the increase in frequency of them. I'm going to point my finger right at global warming and say that it's already headed well into the danger zone. Here's a link to another article to help with that plan for "running" if you don't have that unshakeable confidence that you'll always be perfectly safe.

But really, does it hurt anything to be prepared, and years later look back and laugh at your paranoia? :D I'm hoping that's what I get to do someday, and not look back and realize I've had yet another premonition that really did come true. Good grief, I had that happen just a couple of weeks ago, and it only took a couple of days to really happen, although the dream was just horrible and scary, and the real life part was just fine.

In An Emergency, It's Ready-Set-Go

American Red Cross Links
(These have instructions for all KINDS of disasters... tornadoes, mudslides, earthquakes, blackouts, chemical emergencies, drought, fires, floods, heat waves, hurricanes, terrorism, thunderstorms, tsunami, volcanoes, wildfires, and winter storms):

Get Prepared
Prepare at Your Home
Prepare at School
Prepare at Work
Prepare in Your Community

Create a really complete disaster prep kit - including a 24 week plan for building a large kit.

The Book of Me by Angie Pederson

I got this book in from Amazon yesterday, and I have to say, it's a really neat book for creating scrapbook pages about your own life. I don't seem to have any problem making pages with my family in them, but it's the same as the picture situation... I'm just not there. Seems like everybody's glad to leave all the picture taking to me, and they don't care if I'm in any of the pictures. I finally got to the point of handing the camera to my nephew and asking him to take some random pictures with me in them, so that I'd have them someday. :) He very nicely cooperated, and digital cameras make things easy anyway. Even his little brother took a really nice picture of me when he was 7.

Anyway, I was going thru the chapters starting some sample layouts with some random thoughts, and it got more and more depressing the further along I went. It bothered me when I got to the "Soul Mate" chapter and I realized I couldn't put anything there. And of course the next chapter is the one where you gush over your children... and never having found the love of my life, of course I don't have any children either. :) Then the "Homemaker" chapter. Sheesh. Somehow I just don't think you can call me that when it just refers to one person. I think I'll have to call it "Houseowner" because it doesn't feel like a home here by myself. I know I can agree that I'm glad that at least I'm not paying rent. And I'll admit something right now... my house is always messy because I'm always unhappy here by myself. What's the point of turning this place into Martha Stewart's hangout when I'm just about the only one who'll ever really look at it? It's hatred for the space and situation that makes me disrespect it this way.

So I've come to the conclusion that my "book of me" will wind up being pretty short. But there won't be anybody to read it anyway, so I guess it won't matter. LOL Having to skip all those chapters of the book... feels like a painful reminder that I've had to skip those same chapters in my life. I think I'd almost rather go back to just sticking my thousands of pictures of everyone else into scrapbooks than taking such a close look at myself.

I'll probably substitute layouts of my dog where my kids should have been, but there's no way on earth I'm going to commemorate any of the few ex-boyfriends I've had. None of that ever turned out well, so why would I want to remember any of them? Well, maybe I could do a special page where I could remember what it was about each one that makes me glad they got out of my life. Is that mean? :) Or is it just fair, considering what they each put me through?

Don't get me wrong... the book is absolutely wonderful. On the other hand, I am not, so I'm going to have a hard time committing to my project that just oozes depression. I have to admit that I'm a little jealous looking through some of the stories in the book that describe how that person is so thankful they had that special person beside them all the time for support. That must be nice. :)

Gardening and Tan in a Tube, part 2!

Well, it's working well enough that after using it for one night, I was asked at work on Monday morning what was different about me. LOL The teacher who asked said that she thought it was something about my makeup or that I look thinner or something. I asked if maybe it might be that I look a bit more tan, and she realized that's what the difference was. Apparently the results are pretty natural looking.

Nice tan, no sun, no heat, no risk of skin cancer? No problem here! LOL

Although I'll admit I did mow the yard today (and there WERE big dead patches of crunchy brown weeds, though nowhere near enough to kill it all) and I almost got the whole thing mowed. But in the back yard, which is shadowed most of the day, that tall grass was wet and kept clogging up the mower. You can't ever let it get ahead of you or you have to cut the mower off every 10 feet to unclog it. (Like I'm gonna unclog it with the blade going! NOT!!) Then restart it... Crummy job, lemme tell ya.

I got some big patches finished back there. It should give me enough to start with tomorrow. *sigh* I hate mowing my yard. I also discovered several new ankle-breaker holes while I was mowing, and the old pecan tree stump that I pulverized a couple of years ago has apparently started settling itself into a GIGANTIC hole in the backyard. I think that a couple of shovelfuls of dirt won't fix the problem... At some point this year, I think I'm going to have to get about half a truckload of dirt brought in and fix some places in the yard. It would just make me feel better if I could get the whole thing fairly flat. There are always dips that I can't get the mower to cut well enough.

I think my plan last summer to put hostas under the trees, to choke out the weeds may have been a good one after all. The dogwood tree's hostas have almost all come back up (I had to transplant one new one, and of course, it was the one that was facing the road that left me an empty spot, LOL), and with the rate those things grow in my yard, I think in a couple more weeks they'll be so huge that I won't have to mow under the dogwood tree until next spring. I'm tempted to fertilize the hostas. mwaaaahaaahaaa! nah, they don't really need it. They grow insanely anyway.

The mulch ring under the pear tree was all but choked out by creeping charlie, and I spent about an hour on my hands and knees laboriously pulling it all out by the roots. (Until I completely lost the grip in my hands, and then I had to quit. Carpal tunnel syndrome, anyone?) It was tangled into the pine needles, so I was left with bare black soil showing. Obviously, the rotting pine needles and newspaper underneath helped a whole lot there. Hmm.. Wonder if I can transplant some more hostas there now, and if they'll grow well enough before summer gets here that they'll choke out the bad stuff too?

No villagers with pitchforks and torches at my door, but the teenage boy across the street didn't seem to have a problem with sitting on his front steps and just staring at me while I worked. Doesn't he have any idea how rude that is?

Tan in a tube... LOL

Okay... after seeing my sister's fabulous... and very fake tan, I've decided to try it out myself. Jergens Natural Glow Daily Moisturizer (and skin darkener) is what I'm using. Actually, I tried some one night last week, and I was surprised by the results. I did have to dig into my first aid kit for gloves though. No way am I gonna have monkey palms just for a tan!

By the next morning, I DID see a difference, though she and Matthew both said that they saw a decided glow before I left their house that night. Yay! I'd rather not have to depend on getting into a tanning bed. Last year I nearly fried myself, and when we went to 6 Flags, the boys kept forgetting NOT to slap Aunt Val on her very sunburned back and shoulders.

Hmm.... Seems like drinking water in the park made me feel really faint that day. (Okay, the truth is that I almost DID faint that day, several times, and I was just too embarrassed to tell my sister and her family the truth about it. It could've been a mild case of heatstroke on top of my sunburn. Seems like nothing made me feel any better other than Sprite, and usually I don't drink sodas at amusement parks because the excessive sugar levels mess with MY blood sugar levels too much and make me feel sick. Normally I bring in a collapsible water bottle and premeasured packets of Gatorade. (I thought of doing that with Gatorade and Crystal Light back in early 2002... long before the Crystal Light company ever did it. Makes me wonder sometimes if they read my post about doing that on the Disney For Less bulletin board that I posted my suggestion for doing it on. Big hint: Yes, all the water fountains in Disney World have warm, swampy water... But the water in the bathroom sinks is cold and very nice tasting.)

On the other hand, I was in the middle of a huge weight loss stretch, but it was happening mainly because I wasn't eating. A bite in the morning, a nibble in the afternoon, nothing after 5 pm... not enough to keep me alive, so it's no wonder I lost weight. But I wasn't hungry, either. I did think it was weird that day at 6 Flags after I'd had that near-fainting spell, when I finally got some more Sprite in me and we came upon that stand selling roasted ears of corn... They all ate off one, and neither of the kids wanted a bite of mine. Maybe as hollow as my cheeks were looking, I just looked like I should eat all of the corn myself. LOL

Ever sprayed Round-Up on your entire yard?

Well, I did last Saturday. LOL I was upset that I have literally knee-high weeds of every variety in my yard, and no actual grass. (Opportunistic little monsters.) I called my dad to ask him what kind of chemical (and I hate all the environmentally unsound stuff, but vinegar wouldn't cut it for my entire yard of weeds) to spray, and he sleepily answered "Round-Up." On the whole yard?!?!? Yep, the whole thing. The Bermuda grass is still dormant, so I'd only be killing weeds anyway.

Now, I know that the commercials show the sprayed weeds yellowing, wilting, and dying within 24 hours of application, but it just doesn't happen that way in real life. It's been 8 days, and I'm just now beginning to see that stuff really dying off. I THINK it might have worked.

I'm also pretty positive that I missed lots of places in my quest to cover every square inch of the front yard, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Every dead weed helps. I'll get them later, mwaa haaa haa.

I'm SURE my neighbors hate me because they've all mowed their yards at least twice by now, and I haven't mowed mine once yet. But let's look at the facts: They either have two adults in the house, and one does the yard mowing while the other takes care of all the other stuff like cooking and cleaning...., or they have a teenager who has to do the mowing, or they don't work (retired) so they have all the time in the world to mow anyway. At my house, it's just me doing ALL of the work, plus working full time to the tune of about 50 hours a week. I can't even pay my nephew to mow mine anymore, and I gladly WOULD, but he seems to think that he should be getting paid $20-$25 for a 45 minute mowing job, when I supply the gas and the mower. Holy cow, I'm a teacher and I don't make that much an hour!!!

And I've got a bone to pick with my neighbors anyway. If they'd kill the weeds in their yards, I could kill them in my yard, and we'd only have minor maintenance to do. But noooo.. they won't do anything about dandelions or anything else, and if one person has dandelions, EVERY yard has dandelions. Might as well start picking the flowers and making some nasty-tasting wine from them.

IF the Round-Up really did work and my yard really is 90% weeds, I'm gonna have big dead patches in the yard. LOL Well, there's always sod! It's not like I don't have a big landscaping job ahead of me anyway... I need shrubs and I've got a flowerbed to revitalize... The one that my sister and I created a couple of years ago is overgrown and needs to be redug now. (and I'm so looking forward to pulling out all that plastic and seeing just how much grass and Creeping Charlie are tangled into it...)

What are the chances of my being able to take a week to make that flowerbed nice again? Would the villagers appear at my door with pitchforks, spears, and torches if I didn't get it finished in one day's time?

Spam - here we go again...

Again with the spam - what is wrong with you people??? Do you honestly think that you have the right to add your stupid stuff to our personal comment sections?

And do you honestly think that anyone is interested enough in what you're selling to really go to these sites you're illegally advertising?

Well, if you were anything other than a cowardly fool, you'd use your real name instead of an anonymous posting and you'd provide your personal email so that we could see YOU in court paying millions of dollars for your spamming. But no, you're too chicken.

So if you want to comment on my blog, you're going to have to be a registered user. And if I don't like what you say, your comment will never see the light of day. How do ya like them apples, as my grandmother used to say?

Somehow, I'll bet that this T-shirt I made would perfectly describe you. So far, everybody that has seen me wear it has absolutely loved it. :) It was inspired by an ex- uh... I guess you'd call him an ex-boyfriend, but he never really acted like much of a boyfriend.

Anyway, if you have the urge to hang out with Hannibal Lecter like I sometimes do (though I have to admit the whole cannibalism thing really does gross me out, and at times just the regular meat on my plate has been in a condition that made me either want to hurl or become a vegetarian - I'd rather go hungry), please, be my guest and buy a T-shirt or any of the other stuff like boxers, mugs, coasters, journals, aprons, and pillows that have this sentiment on them. Wouldn't bother me a bit, since I've spent tons of hours working on all of my designs, and I've got to pay for the store space somehow anyway!

Get my psychotic T-shirts and other stuff here!

So far, I think someone has bought a mug. :D But it said, "Whatever!" LOL And there was the T-shirt with the guy going "nyah nyah" and saying Whatever! that my sister commissioned, but that was just a gift.

I actually started the store because lots of the other teachers at the school where I teach have been telling me for years that if I'll make T-shirts or sweatshirts with our school name or mascot on them, they'll buy them. So that's why you see lots of Trojan stuff there, and why you're going to see lots more Trojan stuff too. heheeh Heck, *I* never can find any Trojan stuff to wear for school spirit!!! Might as well make my own, right?