O Holy Night - Part Deux

My mom is totally right, Josh Groban rocked O Holy Night, but Michael Crawford will always be king!! He gets extra points for that group of kids he parades out on stage. Cute!

I thought I'd post my nominees in the female category of "the only people who should be allowed to sing O Holy Night are..."

First:


Usually I want to smack Celine Dion, but I really like this version.

And Martina McBride rarely does anything wrong (ignore the lame video & just listen):



And in a category all unto itself:



Merry Christmas everyone!!

This one is for Alli...

So Alli, I hear it's mid-term season. This little guy doesn't like it either:

I Hate Mid-terms...

"This is my worst semester EVER. In History, I have a paper due on the Code of Hammurabi; in Government, I have to write about Alexander Hamilton, and I haven't even started reading Hamlet for Literature class."

Hang in there Al, it's almost vacation time :-)



The above is complements of our friends at Cute Overload: http://www.cuteoverload.com/

Get To Know Me - Christmas Edition

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both

2. Real tree or Artificial ? Artificial. I have cats & hope an artificial tree is less tempting for them to climb.

3. When do you put up the tree? Early to mid-December.

4. When do you take the tree down? Twelfth-Night (January 6th, I believe)

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, especially when it's spiked. Yum!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Cabbage Patch Kids.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My dad.

8. Easiest person to buy for? My mom.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. I inherited my grandmothers nativity, complete with removable baby Jesus.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Neither. Maybe next year when I'm married and don't live with my mom. And never one of those stupid "Christmas Letters", EVER!!!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don't remember getting one I didn't like.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story. I swear we watch it for all 24 hours on TBS every year!!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I find something that would make a good gift.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? My mom's apricot kolochky!! I could eat them until I puke!!!!

16. Lights on the tree? Yes

17. Favorite Christmas song? I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? STAY HOME!!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? comet, cupid, donner, blitzen, dancer, prancer, rudolph. that's all i can come up with.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Don't have my own tree yet, but I think there is an angel on the top of my moms.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning only!!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Stupid Christmas music on the radio starting on Thanksgiving!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I have a small white tree with pink lights that I put in my room. So I guess pink & white are my favorite color theme :-)

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I prefer the Christmas breakfast that my family has. My mom makes waffles and much like the kolochky, I stuff myself. (do you see a pattern forming here?)

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Cash for my wedding. I don't need any more stuff.

26. Who is most likely to respond to this? Crystal & my mom.

27. Who is least likely to respond to this? Karin

I'm sorry to do this to you...

I found a website called Cute Overload. And it's just that, tons of cute animals doing cute things. It's just one of those sites that I check out when I have nothing else to do and end up spending way to much time watching a kitten play with a grocery bag. Anyhow, I'm not sure if it was all of the cold medicine I was taking or what, but I thought it was hilarious and now it's all I've been hearing in my head for the last 4 days!! So, if I have to be miserable and sing this ridiculousness, so do all of you...







Video is complements of: http://www.cuteoverload.com/

Congratulations America!

Way to go America, you just elected the man that said this (and by "you", I mean not me, I unfortunately, was allowed to vote only once) :

“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

So, what I want to know is, have we counted the votes in these extra 7 or 8 states? Maybe these were the votes that McCain needed to squeak out a victory. Hmmmm.....

I guess it's a good thing that I've been working late and on Saturday, I'll need that extra cash when "He Who Shall Not Be Named" (that's what I'm calling our new President-elect. He's a jackass and I refuse to speak his name, just so you know...) is in office and taxes the crap out of me so he can give us everything for "free"!

It's going to be a long 4 years and everyday I don't drive my car off a cliff will be a good one.


On a lighter note, I'm going to try and grow out my bangs. I'll keep you posted on how that's going.

Anybody want to hear a joke?

I'm not sure why I think this joke is funny, but when I heard it a long time ago, I laughed really hard. Then someone emailed it to my mom a couple of weeks ago and I still thought it was funny. Here goes:

A duck walks into a store , hops up on the counter and ask the clerk " hey, you got any grapes?

The clerk say's No- I don't have any grapes, and we don't do business with ducks . Now scram.

The next day the duck goes back into the same store, hops up on the counter and ask "got any grapes?

The clerk say's I told you yesterday, we don't have grapes, and we don't serve ducks, now get out of here.

The next day, the duck goes in the store, hops up on the counter and says to the clerk " got any grapes?

The clerk says" Look Duck, I've told you for the last three days, we don't have grapes and we don't do business with ducks. Now if you come in here one more time I'm gonna nail your flat webbed feet to that counter.

The next day the duck walks into the store , hops up on the counter and say's" Have you got any nails?"

The startled clerk say's No.

The duck say's " Good, Got Any Grapes."

Where Ducks Walk on Fish...

well, not so much walk as trample on fish!! 2 Sunday's ago Ray & I went to the spillway in Linesville, PA, to feed the ginormous carp!

When we first got there I didn't see any fish. I got some really bad directions and it ended up taking us to two and a half hours to get there (it should usually only take one and a half hours). So, not seeing fish right away, I'm thinking, we drove two and a half hours for some freakin' ducks???



So, we started throwing some bread in the water for the duck and relatively quickly I got my own little following of fish fighting for my bread:



Here's the real redonkulousness...

This giant round pool looking area (I'm assuming this is the actual spillway as the water spills from the lake into it) is full of fish. Wall to wall massive, nasty, big mouthed carp!!





Here is some of the lovely fall foliage across the lake:


Some nice lady took our picture for us:


More ducks...

Seagulls...


It was an absolutely beautiful day. We took the back roads home and had a great time!!

The Great Pumpkin!

I was channeling Martha Stewart tonight and carved this fantabulous pumpkin!!






It's a white pumpkin which I've also heard called a ghost pumpkin. I don't know if I'm the only person who's never seen one of these until this year?? But, I though they were so cute and needed something different besides just a pumpkin face, so I went with stars. Charlie had to draw the stars on for me and cut I them out. I think Martha would be proud!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TEAM WELCH!

Happy Anniversary!! Love you both!!

I had to sneak this one in, I love this picture!!

While not a photo from the wedding itself, here's Linda at her bachelorette party...

Please look after this bear. Thank you.

Paddington Bear is 50 today!!




Under normal circumstances I wouldn't care about this, but I used to watch Paddington cartoons when I was a kid. When I saw Google this morning I couldn't help but smile when I saw him. Although, if Paddington is 50, how old am I...

Destination: Abu Dhabi?

As some of you may recall, on the Garfield & Friends cartoon, Garfield was always trying to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi. I threaten the cats with that punishment if they don't behave. I think Hobbes was feeling guilty about something when he just hopped into the Priority Mail box full of bubble wrap...

I Need My Portion of The Bailout Money, Please...

So, I wasn't really sure that the government bailout was the greatest idea, but now, I'd like my share sent to me asap. Why you ask? Well, after a trip to the mall to pick up my engagement ring (I got a lovely wrap to accompany the center stone, and it had to be sized and the two rings joined together), Crystal and I had dinner at Chili's. Delicious!

We leave Chili's and I'm heading back to Crystal's house to drop her off. As I'm turning left from State Road onto Brookpark Road, I notice the police behind me. I say, "Hey, is that the police behind me?". Then, being the fine upstanding citizen that I am, I pull to the right so he can go around me and be off to fight actual crime that might be happening. But wait, as I pull over, he gets behind me. WTF ??? He gets off of his motorcycle and comes up to the car and says something to me that I didn't totally understand and takes my license. Cut to the chase, I allegedly ran a red light. I think it was still yellow, but honestly, I was too busy talking to really have noticed what color the light was. (maybe that's part of my problem???)

So, please, Mr. Secretary of the Treasury, get my check over to me so I can pay my ticket in the amount of:

wait for it...

$126!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you read that correctly, one hundred-twenty six dollars! For $126 I should have a much cooler story to tell other than I ran a red light!! If this is any indication of how the rest of the weekend is going to go, I'm getting under the covers right now and not coming out until Monday morning!

This is fun!!

Linda got this from her cousin Ellie’s blog, and I stole it from Linda...

YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car):
Duke Galant

YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fav craft, fav weather element + “Tour”):
The Cross Stitch Sunshine Tour (I wouldn't make a very hard core rockstar with a tour name like that!!)

YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Blue Moon Snickerdoodle

YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name):
M-Low

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Red Karma

YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, hometown city):
Christine Cleveland

YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first): Lowmi

SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink):
The Pink Diet Coke

STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume, favorite candy):
Red Delicious Peanut Butter Cup

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names):
Ann Lewis

WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter):
Wagie Wilmington

SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower):
Spring Pansy

CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”): Banana Pantsie

Interesting, huh?

The Zoo!

Last Sunday, Ray & I went to the zoo. He was given free tickets through his work last year, and we finally used them. I haven't been to the zoo in several years, so I was excited to go. The weather was perfect, not too hot & not too cold.

I guess if you've seen one zoo animal, you've seen them all, but here are few pics:

You gotta love anything who's natural hair (feather) color is pink:


These are some kind of African singing dogs. They were not singing or barking , but soooo cute:


Most of the animals were sleeping while we were there, I think they knew it was Sunday. This polar bear reminded me of the Coca-Cola bear:


Here's a pic of Ray & I taking a rest while walking up the deck. (please excuse all of my chins, it's not easy to take your own picture):


Lastly, I have no idea who this woman in the video is, but this song is for my mom:

Americas Favorite Pastime

Linda and I went to the Indians game last night. They played the Detroit Tigers, which if Detroit was on the other side of the country would be fine, but the fact that they are within driving distance is not good. There were entirely too many obnoxious Detroit fans there.

I love an Indians game, the crowd, the hotdogs, the cute players, however, when Linda and I do anything we usually talk the whole time. But, we did manage to watch some of the game:-)

Well, we were watching and not screwing around at just the right moment when this happened:



What you don't see in the video is even the guys in both bullpens run all the way across the field to get in on the action. At about the 4 minute mark is when you get a decent shot of FaustoCarmona pounding on Gary Sheffield, who by the way, is about a 150 in baseball years (39 years old in real life). Honestly, is there anything better than a baseball brawl?

So, a good time was had by all, we ate hotdogs, drank fountain pop (sorry, I'm not a beer drinker), heckled the Detroit fans, watched Gary Sheffield get his ass kicked, and won the game 6-5!!

I love this town!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lil' P!!

Happy Birthday to Crystal & Rob's son Peyton. He's 2 today and not so little anymore, but he'll always be Lil' P to me ;-) Love you guys!!

Here we are having Honey Hut earlier this summer.

NEVER, EVER FORGET!

This is the most upsetting, disturbing and heartbreaking video I have ever watched, and that is exactly why you need to watch it too!!

Babies, Lil' Bro & Michael Phelps

Ok, I swear this is my last post about Michael Phelps, but this one actually has a purpose and isn't totally gratuitous. Now that Phelps phest '08 has ended, I've noticed that my brother & Michael resemble each other. Here are just a few photos of both for comparison purposes.




I think there's a resemblance.

And let me just say congrats to Michael Phelps for his 8 gold medals. Pretty impressive!!

On to the baby portion of the post!!

Even more impressive than 8 gold medals is little Grace Ann Beck born to my friends Crystal & Rob on Sunday. She's just a little peanut compared to her big brother Peyton, but super cute and looks like her mom! Congrats guys!!

A Few Things I Was Thinking About...

The Olympics

I know Linda loves the Olympics, and honestly I could take them or leave them. I don't really keep track of what's going on. However, thanks to Michael Phelps and the men's swim team, I too love the Olympics now. God Bless the USA!!






Next Order of Business...

R.I.P. Chef

Pig Husband!!

This is Pig Husband-town and John Edwards is the mayor!!!

I don't think that cheating on your cancer stricken wife with a campaign worker bodes well for one's karma. Idiot!!!

Cats, Cats and More Cats!!!

As half of my blogs namesake I thought I’d better talk a little about my cats:

Not that many years ago, I really, really didn’t care much for cats. Other people had them, they were just kind of there and usually made me sneeze. I tried to stay away from them as much as possible. Then over Labor Day weekend in 2002 my dad and I went to visit his family in Indiana and The Boy stayed home to skateboard and ended up breaking his ankle. He had to have an air cast for several weeks and needed surgery. Needless to say, he was immobilized for quite some time. If you have ever met him, you know he’s got a bad case of ADD and cannot sit still, so the fact that he had to lay in bed for weeks with his leg elevated was torture. Feeling sorry for him, my mom agreed he could have a kitten. Once I got a look a this kitten I was in love. We named her Karma, and she’s totally my cat now. Here she is in her natural state, napping and relaxing:

Then in Christmas of 2002 we got another cat (one just wasn’t enough) that we named Zen. He was all black and very chill. He just sat and observed as if he was sizing us up or possibly doing some sort of kitty meditation. He loved to be petted as long as you didn’t try to pick him up and carry him around. He begged like a dog for milk, buttered toast and bar-b-q potato chips. It took a few weeks for he and Karma to warm up to each other, but once they did, they were inseparable. Sadly, in January of 2006, he passed away. We aren’t sure what happened, but based on his symptoms the vet thought it may have been a cancerous tumor. He was only 4 ½ years old and we still miss him, he was the coolest!!


After a few months of only one cat we decided that we were in need of some additional furry friends. I was just going to go to the Animal Protective League and adopt a cat. Then, I happened to be paruzing the newspaper and saw there were 2 cats up for adoption for $60 each and they had already been fixed, declawed, and had their shots. I called the phone number and it turns out that a family in Brunswick had adopted 2 kittens from a local shelter only to find out that their kids were allergic. The owners didn’t want to separate them because they were brothers and had never been apart, and I was the only one who wanted both of them. So, I loaded them into the carrier and drove them home. Much to Karma’s dismay she now had 2 new friends. We named them Calvin & Hobbes. Calvin is orange with white feet and a white chest. He looks like he’s wearing socks and a shirt. Hobbes is all orange. They are a constant source of entertainment!!





Karma isn't particularly fond of Calvin & Hobbes. The are wild & crazy and want to play all the time. Karma, like myself, is more of a hangin' out and chillin' kind of cat. However, the night of Linda & Mark's wedding they to, like myself, were hittin' the sauce a little too hard! They broke into the Tupperware container, spilled the cat treats all over the kitchen floor and ate until they puked. Then all 3 of them passed out on my mom & dads bed. Here they are, one of the few times they have all slept in the same place at the same time.
It's a really good thing that I have family, friends and a fiance to keep me busy, othewise, I'd totally be the crazy cat lady with 47 cats!!