Merry Christmas !

Steve and I are home. In our Love Shack. We know where all of our kids are, and they are healthy and happy. We have everything we need, and quite a few of the things we want, and so we are blessed. I wish the same for all of you.

I wish for each of you a holiday season filled with special times with family and friends, lots of good food, and an overabundance of love and laughter.

Bathroom Redux

We don't eat bacon here a lot, it's just not a body friendly food. Most of the time. But, there are 3 times a year where I bust a bacon move, in a big way. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a summer reunion party we host. Some of the dishes require bacon. I am of the opinion, if you are gonna cook a messy food like bacon, then why not cook a lot of it,....say, 3 pounds of thick cut bacon....and have done with it for a while, instead of cooking a pound at a time, and cleaning the kitchen 3 times to boot?

In theory, this is a GREAT thing. Cook 3 pounds of bacon before Turkey day, freeze 2, and then you have bacon for Christmas and the Summer reunion all ready to go, thaw and use. Except. This equation doesn't figure in Team Gail. The SMELL of bacon will drive my crew wild, and if they have reason to suspect there is cooked bacon in the freezer, my poor freezer will get torn apart by multiple family members, at different times, all of whom are convinced THEY have secret knowledge as to where *I* would stash the bacon. They can usually find it, damn them. So today, I made my "3 pounds of Bacon for 3 holidays and-if-I-believe-it-will-last-that-long-I-have a-bridge-to-sell-myself" annual bacon pilgrimage. I know though, as sure as I am telling you all about it, that I will get "2-Stripped"

Oh Hon, just 2 strips with my waffles/bagel/grilled cheese

Oh Mom, I haven't had bacon in so long

Oh, Mom, my budget won't cover bacon

Oh Mom, no one cooks bacon like you do....that ALWAYS works

to DEATH, and that bacon will be gone before the snow we're getting today is.

Sunday. Less than 2 inches of snow, Yay Team Gail! Steve didn't even need the snowblower, so as soon as the guys were done shoveling, Steve and I went to the mall [Yes, I know...I HATE shopping. UNLESS,..I have a 30% off any one item coupon at Old Navy, then I'm all in]

Which brings me right back to my train of thought.

Do you like getting your picture taken?

Because, I HATE it. I didn't realize it til we started having kids, but there it is. My niece made me a scarf, and asked that I FaceBook a pic of myself wearing the scarf. I have been putting that off since Thanksgiving, and decided today was time to man up. I've been looking at pictures of other people, trying to find out how they can pose comfortably, it's just not in me. Steve must have taken 10 pics, and then the fun started. He figured if I was laughing I wouldn't mind having my pic taken. All I have to say about Mr Steves' method of photography is "Thank God".

Thank God no kids were around
Thank God he wasn't standing in front of the living room windows.

Also, I have been informed that I am supposed to have an actual PIC of myself, as opposed to something I found humorous, as my avatar at said FaceBook. Who the hell made all these rules? Once again, Steve took lots of pics, but screw it, that's over my comfort level today. If people don't like that "I'm a lumberjack and Im OK" then it's all on their heads. Only one person picked up the Month Python reference anyway.

The Bathroom! I promised pics. There area few things still to be done, and they need to be left for when we have open windows and adequate ventilation [painting and flooring, they desTROyed the floor] but the 78" long shower:

is gone, and the tub:

is in place. A girl has Gotta have a bubble bath, and the Love Shack feels more like ours now.

This from my friend E, although I took it back to the beginning of the episode. All in the Family, when Edith is going thru the change. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it, and how many memories I have of watching this show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_cUVfYUuf0&feature=video_response

December:
21st: -Look At The Bright Side Day
-National Flashlight Day
-National French Fried Shrimp Day
-Hamburger Day
23rd: -Festivus

Am I here? Really??

Typed it all in,and published. Nada. Pissed. Will try again later. Oh MY this sucks.

I Forgot....

...... to Blog! I have been having major computer issues this week, none of my doing. Facebook decided I was coming from a bad IP [aol, of course] and first, made me type in words and announce that I am "Human". Then they just blocked me. The Bastards! So I made a tech report for them, and I am officially unbanned.

But I noticed something very interesting. I began to have the same problems with Google. And you know what? I can replicate the issue, it's THEIR bad, not mine. It only occurs after I use Firefox. [an alternate browser to AOL/ IE, or IE alone] I thought, maybe Google doesn't want the competition, since they have been rolling out Chrome, but who knows? Google, BTW, also owns Blogger.com, where you are right now reading my tale of woe. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..... something isn't right, and I'll report back when I get to the bottom of it. Or my blog will disappear too @@

The bathroom,

[except for the small shit that we need to do,... stain and finish the new shelves, lay a new floor, and paint some small areas. All that will wait until after the holidays. Our peeps got to see the before, on Christmas they will be able to see the After, and then during he summer party they can see the finished product]

is DONE. I am THRILLED, and I will blog pics asap. We have a tub! Do you KNOW how much I prefer a tub and shower to a football field long shower? Well, now you do. The poor G.C put the drain stopper in backwards,

[that was pretty funny, and very telling. I REALLY liked that he came right out, told us he fucked up, and offered different solutions for the problem. That's why we'l hire him again if we need him]

so he had to go get us a universal drain stopper, then the cartridge for the shower was a lemon. Steve already replaced that. Every little annoying thing that could go wrong went wrong. The contractor asked us to rate him on a scale from one to ten, and without consulting each other, we both gave him a nine...that taper sucked BAD.

As I sit here, our Christmas tree is in the middle of the livingroom.Our first Christmas here, and we are still deciding where it should go. Truth be told,we both agree on where it's going, but just want to sit on our asses for a little longer. I will tell you, Steve is a BAD INFLUENCE on me. BAD. He has me addicted to movies. I vastly prefer books, I can count on the fingers of one hand, the movies that stood up to the original books. So to surprize him, today I found the original Jaws on HBO on demand. We kinda spent a lot of the afternoon watching that. Good times :O)

Also, I have to say, I had my first experience with a bootleg movie, and it was my last, too. "Inglorious Bastards" has been making the rounds [it is due out on PPV and dvd this Tuesday. I have not seen it yet, but Steve and Tony liked it so much we are buying it.] We tried to watch it last night, got 5 minutes in, and turned it off. The picture quality was so poor, we knew Quentin Tarantino deserved a better viewing than that. Gails' Advice to You...skip the bootlegs, they suck. I woulda been PISSED if I paid for that. Also, check the Redplum coupon flyer that came with todays paper, there is a 3$ off coupon for Inglorious Bastards right on the cover.

December:
12th: National Ding-A-Ling Day
13th: Ice Cream and Violins Day
15th: Car Herders Day
16th: Barney and Barbie Backlash Day

Red Plaid Boxer Briefs

Dear Wife, Husband, or S.O of the General Contractor:

Hi! My name is Gail, and I have had the distinct, um, pleasure of having your peep[s] work in my home. Except for the taper, the crew[s] were nice guys who tried to clean up after themselves, and I found them to be kind and funny.
However, we gotta have a talk.
About red plaid boxer-brief underwear.
And the men who wear them. Evidently, unbeknownst to them, I can see the material, I can tell by the elastic that they are boxers and not tighty-whities.....and a lot more. PLEASE, for the LOVE OF GOD....make these men crouch down, their back to you, BEFORE they leave for work. Get a gander of what they be presentin', you dig? I don't need to know any-THING about their undergarments. Or what they're covering. Or not. It's not that I haven't enjoyed the show.... It seems that maybe a certain man [STEVE! You know its Steve] is learning all about when the tables are turned,...and the woman is looking at the mens asses. And discovering that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't like it very much. Which makes me love him all the more, a little green-eyed monster is just Fiiiiiiiiine by me. But in my defense, *I* did not go looking for asses to appear, as if by magic, throughout my livingroom and stairwells. I'm just lucky, I guess.

Also? I find it to be a huge dichotomy.....if the pants are so loose that they hang at the nether regions of the hips....that the men STILL pick at their asses. Come on, I am going thru a LOT of stress, noise, and dust here. Do I NEED to see that? Would YOU want to? I am going thru Clorox wipes and Lysol spray [and I distinctly dislike the smell of lysol] to beat the band, over the visuals being presented to me.

To you Contractors and crews thereof.... I have made a short list of items for you to peruse at your leisure.....but hopefully before you report to the work site next.

-Please, please, keep the pants up. And the shirt down.

-Please show up in the general time frame that you have stated to us. If the taper said 8:30 am, arriving at 10:30 am,- with NO apology or acknowledgement that you have just pushed back completion of this project by a good 24 hrs,- is NOT acceptable. And, if we use this contractor again, we will specify that we do not want that taper to work in our home again.

-If part of the crew is in the bathroom, and your boss is outside, I don't want to hear, repeatedly and with gusto, that you :
-do not want you balls busted
-you will bust the other guy[s] balls
-fucking suck my balls
-this fucking sucks my balls [at this point I almost ruptured my self trying not to laugh out loud, I have never heard guys so fixated on balls]
-you can fucking suck my fucking balls
-and the rest of the fight you are having. [Unless you open the bathroom door, and I can get a chair and some popcorn. Your faces were angelic, who knew you were so fond of your balls, your friends balls, your neighbors balls, and anyone elses balls that were in your general vicinity ??

-Judge ye the distance between your workspace, and where the family members are. Can they HEAR your bodily explosions? Can they indeed, hear you laugh about them and rate them? Do you know if, perchance, Tony and Gail just sat down to lunch? And were treated to a musical interlude? Funny, I didn't see THAT on the final write up for job cost. Sure got our moneys worth outta THAT part of the crew.

Trying, TRYING to maintain a sense of humor. This sucks donkey balls, to quote a friend. I'm getting pissed and impatient, and Steve is bearing the brunt of it. It's Sunday morning now, and the tiling crew is here. The contractor says the tiling in that room is a 4-5 hour job if nothing goes wrong. [?? @@ ??] But I still have to wait for it to dry, to get grouted, to dry again, and to get sealed, and dry. Oh, YAY Team Gail. And guess what? The sound of the tile saw is deafening and unescapable.The Love Shack had better behave for a while, my brains are leaking out my right ear right now.

A link I thought tres funny. Scroll down and watch the video. The taper could have used this info:

http://www.wikihow.com/Wake-Up-Late-and-Still-Make-It-on-Time

December:
5th: Happy Happy Birthday Stevie! :o)
6th: National Gazpacho Day and Mitten Tree Day
7th: National Cotton Candy Day
8th: Take It In The Ear Day [oh my]