I Am Blessed

Today is my 51st birthday.

The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day.

I have a wonderful husband, awesome children and the most fantastic family anyone could ask for.

We have our health and plenty of love to go around.

I am truly blessed.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

When, oh when am I ever going to stop making stupid mistakes?

This week a made a few mistakes that frustrate me beyond belief. Not because the mistakes were all that tragic, but because I made them at all.

First mistake: Along with my salary at work I get a small incentive, which is extra money I get paid for the typing I do. It usually amounts to between $45 and $55 per check. On my last check, it was $214.00. This is about $150 more than is was supposed to be and as a result, my gross pay was also $150 more than it was supposed to be. For the life of me I could not get that there was only one mistake, in my incentive. I was thinking that there was two mistakes, in my incentive and in my gross pay. So when my supervisor told me that they would take the difference out of my next check, I kept asking her what about my gross pay. Lets just say she had to tell me several times before it dawned on me what she meant. I was embarrassed and felt like a ass. Luckily, she's a great person and we got a good laugh out of it!

Mistake #2. The license plates on both of our cars expire this Saturday, so today on my way home from work I stopped at the SOS office to renew them. Michigan has changed the look of their plates and so one of the cars needed to get a whole new plate, not just the little sticker that goes on it. I did my business, got the plate and two stickers and went home. I decided to put the sticker on the new plate and proceeded to put the WRONG sticker on the plate. All this happened in about 3 seconds because that is how long I think things through before I do anything. And you know those suckers DO NOT peel off, so I had to go back to the SOS office and ask them to issue me a new sticker. It took longer to do that than it did to get the renewal in the first place. Lucky for me the girl was really nice and assured me that I was not the first person to make this stupid mistake.

So when in your life do you finally get to the point that you stop making these mistakes, if ever? I know my problem is that I have to slow down and think about things, but I have never been able to do that and I don't know how to teach myself to.

How about you? What stupid, embarrassing mistakes have you made? And how the hell do I learn to slow myself down? Help!

Seven Things

I have been tagged for this meme by the lovely Laura. I have to list 7 weird things about myself. I don't know if I can come up with 7 things, or maybe I'll come up with a lot more and realize that I am really weird! Oh well here goes:

1. I have to balance my checkbook every month to the penny. If it is one cent off, I find it!
2. When I am sitting down with my legs up, I cross my toes like you cross your fingers!
3. I absolutely HATE driving around parking lots and parking structures looking for a spot to park.
4. I hate to write by hand, If I never had to to write anything again that would be fine with me!
5. I want to retire so I can winter in a warmer state but I don't want to be the age of retirement.
6. I chew gum all of the time and if I go a few days without chewing gum I get withdrawl symptoms!
7. I love to cook but I hate to clean up and would eat out every day just to avoid that!

Ok So here's the seven people I tag: Robyn, Nance, Julie, Crystal, June, Yvonne and Bossy.

Here's another weird thing: Most of the people that I tagged have no idea that this blog even exists!

Weekly Winners.

Fog.



Racoon prints on the front lawn.

Scratch-off Heaven

Yesterday was Rich's birthday.
He loves to buy these scratch off lottery tickets so I bought him some and Shauna got him some too.
He had a total of $50 worth of tickets. After he got home from work today we had a scratch fest! Total won: $46. So we're not millionaires but he had fun, anyway! We went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner last night. I had the Mediterranean Salad which was really good. Then everyone came back for cake and ice cream. It was a nice night. Marie and I went to breakfast this morning and then to BCF because I had some 20% coupons. I got a cute turquoise shirt and a pair of fingerless gloves with the little flap that comes over the fingers to make mittens. I love them and they are supposed to keep your fingers warmer. I hope so because my hands freeze when I walk to and from work.

Brrrr......

It's mighty cold here right now. This morning it was 7 degrees out when I woke up. Luckily, today is the coldest day and it is supposed to get much warmer in the next week. Up to or even into the 50's! All this snow should be gone in no time.

Friday is Rich's birthday. We are going to dinner as usual and then I will have everyone over for cake and ice cream afterwards. He likes to keep it very low key and that's fine with me. I like to keep my birthday low key also.
We have to go see my MIL this weekend. She's 89 and lives in a nursing home that is about 60 miles away from us. I am ashamed to say that we have not seen her since Labor Day weekend. We usually don't go quite this long without visiting her and I know my husband feels bad sometimes. Luckily, she is a pretty content person these days. She's always happy to see us when we get there and never minds, or never realizes that it's been so long since the last time we were there. She is happy just to sit at her table in the activity room, working her word puzzles and listening to her music. She's a pretty spunky lady and wouldn't hesitate to tell someone what she thinks! I bought her a little jewelry case that looks like a monkey and a pretty ring to go inside it. Hopefully she'll like it. If not she probably will tell me so!
Shauna has been having on and off headaches for the last two days. She has migraines and she drank wine on New Years Eve. Poor baby. I think I have had one migraine in my whole life and do not want to have another one. They are no fun.

More Snow

We had a very nice New Years Eve at Don and Linda's. Jim, Helen and Carly were there. We played Wii bowling and a game called SceneIt. Ate some munchies and we left shortly after midnight because it was starting to snow. It took us a while to get home because the roads were starting to get slippery. Shauna's friends were still there. We wished them a happy New Year and goodnight and went to bed.

This morning we woke up to this:

It looks like a ton but actually was only about 5 inches. It sure is pretty. This view is from my upstairs window. I spent the first part of today taking down the Christmas decorations. I was going to take my time and get it done over a few days, but once I get started I don't stop and now it's all down, packed and put away. All that's left is to clean up and put furniture back where it belongs. Then back to work tomorrow with only three days until the weekend.