2006 May Archive at eastowners

Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Holiday Weekend Heat

Published

on May 28, 2006

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So, I figured that I’d use a different color so you can understand how HOT I am this weekend. I think summer is finally here! I’ve been trying to tough out the heat by not turning on the air, but I chickened out this afternoon when it was a steamy 85 in the dining room….meaning it was about 90 upstairs where Clare had taken a nap at and was sweating up a storm. Of course it didn’t help that she had a fleece blanket covering her, but she’s so darned independent and OCD about certain things! So, I turned it on and the AC is diligently working on getting it cooler in here. It’s not bad on the main floor, it’s the sweltering upstairs that’s the problem. Oh well, I complain when it’s freezing and snowy….and I complain when it’s hot and sticky. At least the humidity isn’t that high…..that’s the clincher for me.

In other news, here’s an update on life in the Watson house! Let’s see….we’ve had some fun adventure’s as of late. Clare went to an open gym at Gymco, and had a blast! She really enjoyed jumping down the trampoline runway that they have inground, as well as doing balance beams, summersaults, and she even swung from the rings in the ceiling into a donut ring on the ground. I was highly impressed with the swinging on the rings, as that is something she’d usually shy away from, and she did it twice! On Saturday the 20th we headed down to Niles to take advantage of some free babysitting while we went out to Czar’s 505 in St. Joe to see our favourite band Hello Dave. It was an interesting night with my brother-in-law and his wife Karyn, as well as their friend that came with us. THe drinking began with the usual double vodka and tonics, then suddly we were doing Jager Bombs…and it all went downhill from there. Thankfully we had a DD to get us back to Niles. It was a bad night, and now my father-in-law has some stories to add to the holiday dinners. I personally and going to forget that that night ever happend! This past week has been very busy with play dates, MOMS Club stuff, and our usual 3 days a week spent at the YMCA for classes and workouts. I found a babysitter for the summer, so I am excited about continueing my once a week 3 hours away from Clare time. She’s very nice, and came highly recommended from the gal I had this Winter/Spring. Clare seems to like her, so that’s all that counts…well, and that they don’t do anything too crazy while I’m gone

This weekend has been spent relaxing to the most extreme. Yesterday we were able to sleep in til like 9:30am, thanks to Clare playing in her room while we slept. It was so nice! Then we headed out for some coffee and bagles at the Bagle Beanery….very yummy, and a perfect way to start a Saturday. Afterwards we cruised on down to Costco for some petrol and much needed grocery shopping. While we were in there I mentioned stopping by their cell phone qiosk just to see what they had to offer and if it was any kind of a deal being a member and what not. Well, it turns out that T-mobil had an awesome plan….and I got the hippest new phone for dirt cheap! I was able to get the Magenta Razor by Motorola for like $35, when it was a $230 phone. Plus I got a $45 mail in rebate to send in on top of it all. Pretty sweet deal, and it is all cute and Magenta! It also has a camera in it for taking pics & video, which will come in handy when either I don’t bring the nice camera or we go out to the bar. It only takes little snap shots, but will definitely be nice to have. And it’s so dang small & thin, I forget I’m talking on a phone when I’m on the phone. So, I have a new toy to play with for the weekend. Today we took Clare to see Over the Hedge…..so cute, and way better than The Wild. I could see buying it and watching it over and over again. Who knows what tomorrow brings, I think more relaxing, and Clare will probably want to go out and spalsh around in her kiddie pool I set up last night. She was so die hard about getting in last night when I put the water in…..I tried to be a good mom, and not let her freeze…but no way, she wanted in. So….I let her get in, and after about 15 minutes she was shivering. Tonight it was much better, and she actually enjoyed it.

Where to begin…

Published

charmaspice

on May 16, 2006

in Movies and Music

. 0 Comments

So, it’s been a while since I’ve told you all of my lifes secrets….well not all of my secerets, because then they wouldn’t be secrets would they. Oh so confusing I know. Anyway, on with the juicy details! Last week was a pretty full one, as usual around here. Clare went to the ENT for a check-up, as she was having fluid in her ears again. I told the dr. that it was due to the fact that she had like 6 ongoing colds in the past 3 months that were all congestion. His solution was to re-do the tubes, and do a second round of them. I wasn’t convinced, so instead he gave us som Nasonex samples to do every morning for 6 weeks. It wasn’t all that bad, as I thought oh no something else I have to tie her down for! We went back last Tuesday for a re-check, and he said that everything looked good, but to make sure she’s hearing well he wanted to do a hearing test. So, the put Clare and I in a sealed room, and put headphones on her. She did everything the lady told her too and has perfect hearing accross the chart! But, because the one tube is inbetween the parts of the ear we have to go back in November. He said he could take it out now, but it’d be pretty painful for Clare. So, we’ll see where it is in 6 months, and with any luck he can just take it right out and we won’t have to go see him again! The rest of the week was spent doing the usual of Tumble Bugs & Dance class at the YMCA. On Thursday it was so miserable outside we went to Taco Bell for lunch after dance class. I thought about going grocery shopping, but decided against it as I hate lugging groceries in the rain. It was a good thing too, as around 4pm on Thursday the power went out. Brad came home, and we decided to head to the book store for some dinner and entertainment. Clare played at the train table for a while, while I chated with a friend we ran into, and Brad perused the music section. Then we headed home in time to light all the candles for some light. I bundled Clare up for bed, and gave her lots of blankets as we were not slated to have power until 5pm Friday! I also put lots of blankets on our bed, thankfully I had bottled some of the sun from the day before, as the house was around 71 when the power went out. It had dropped down to like 63 or so when it came back on at 4am Friday. I read by candle light, and Brad dinked around on his laptop with very little power.

Friday morning we went to visit a preschool, to see if it was a place I wanted to send Clare to in the Fall. Preschool is outrageous around here….the most reasonable, non-religious programs runs around $140 a month. We are on a waiting list at one place, and I really liked their program. The other place it was good…but I don’t know if it’s something that I really like, and think Clare would do well in. I’m sure she’d do fine, but it just seemed like a lot of transition from one thing to the next. After visting there we headed to the mall to play with our MOMS Club friends. Saturday was spent catching up on laundry in the AM, and then after Brad came back from work we headed to Toys R Us in search of a bike for Clare. It kinda stinks with her birthday at the end of Summer, as if she does get some fun outdoor toys she doesn’t get to play with them until next summer. That, and she was ready for a bike with the tricycle becoming a little small for her. We found a Dora and Boot’s themed bike, and it was what she wanted. We also bought her a helmet, good thing too as yesterday she fell on a sign post and could have split open her head if she hadn’t had a helmet on. She’s so clutzy sometimes! We’ve been practicing riding it, and yesterday we went down to the gas station to fill the tires. She rode most of the way, but on the way back was a little frustrated with going uphill…it was a good excuse for quiet time, and she ended up taking a nap! Saturday night Holly stopped in, and we went out to Chili’s for some dinner. We came back and watched a movie along with margarita’s! On Sunday we went to Krispy Kreme for some Mother’s Day breakfast. We all (Holly too) ate 4 donuts….totally gluttiness I know, but they gave us a free one when we walked up to the counter, and then split a dozen among us. To help us out though we drove down to Rivertown Mall and walked at least one and a half donuts off. Then we came home, and Clare imediately wanted to ride her bike. She’s been riding it inbetween sprinkings of rain. We ended up going out to The Noodle Company for dinner, and had some yummy pasta dishes. Yesterday Clare and I met a MOMS Club friend for breakfast up the street at Wolfgang’s. It was yummy! Then we came home and she rode her bike for a while. Back to the helmet incident, we came to the street corner and I told her she had to pedel accross the street fast to make it up the next sidewalk part. I gave her a push, she let go of both handle bars, and fell sideways off the bike into a street sign head first. Everytime she freaks out it’s kinda funny as she lets go and falls sideways off the bike. Today it’s been off to the YMCA for some yoga and cardio for me, and Clare went into the child care. We also went grocery shopping to replace the stuff I had to throw away with the power outage. That’s about it, so exciting I know….but it’s the life of a stay-at-home mom. At least I don’t have Clare in so many things around town I’m not writing about soccer practices, gymnastics, yada yada yada…

Power’s Out…

Published

dead headphonist

on May 11, 2006

in Local

. 0 Comments

So… the power’s out. Nice that one of the neighbors, who happen to have power, left their wireless access point unsecured. I’m running on 23% battery on the laptop, so not too long before I’ll be shutdown and have do something like head off to bed, or just chill. We’re sitting here, in the dark, listening to WYCE on the jambox (batteries hooray), Char’s reading by candle-light, and I’m typing away, frantically trying to beat the battery meter to ‘E’.

We’ve had some really rainy windy weather in GR… that’s the reason for the outages. They are estimating near 10,000 people without power in W Michigan this evening. It’s upposed to get down to 40 tonight, so it’ll probably get a little chilly… kinda like camping I guess.

Long time no blog

Published

dead headphonist

on May 7, 2006

in Food

. 0 Comments

Here’s a blow by blow of the past week and a half or so…

The Veedub appears to be somewhat functioning. I drove it to work two or three days this week and it seems fine. On Saturday, we took it out to get coffee and fuel at Costco and it had a little close-call on overheating, but I honestly think that’s because it still has (mostly) water in it and it was low. We bought some coolant at Costco, filled it up, and got it home without any major incident. I still think there’s a problem with some sensor as I’m having intermittent problems with it thinking it’s in gear when it’s in Park. I didn’t have a chance last week to call Auto Sports… I’ll get to it sometime in the next week.

I (finally) got a Media PC setup this weekend. It includes emulators for NES, SNES, and Genesis, so I can play some of my old games directly from a menu. I’ll post some more information about the config once I’ve completed the setup. So far so good… Clare and I watched a movie this morning on the rig.

I tore into the Honda today and got a good amount of the stock garbage stripped off of it. Pictures will be in the “Our Vehicles” gallery very soon. I can now walk to the back of the garage without playing “dodge the old-ass motorcycle”.

On Friday night, Char and I went out to The Melting Pot for a little anniversary celebration. It was excellent, highly recommended, and surprisely, they have a vegetarian selection on the menu. Neat neat place. We had the full course meal; cheese, main course (oil), and chocolate fondues. After dinner, we went and saw “RV”, which by the way is a terrible flick. We had higher hopes… guess we should have checked Rotten Tomatoes first. It was one of those “on a whim” things anyway. $17 down the drain, but at least we were too full from dinner to waste money on popcorn.

All told, it was a good evening. At least we got out and had a great dinner.

5 Years….and still going

Published

charmaspice

on May 6, 2006

in Food

. 0 Comments

So, yesterday was our 5 year anniversary. My morning wasn’t so great, as Clare was being a huge pain and not listening to me. So, we ended up missing playgroup, and after lunch she was sent to her room for some quiet time. I had a huge headache, and needed some time to zone out and not think about her 3 year old attitude! She ended up taking a much needed nap….and I was able to catch up on my Texas Ranch House. It’s a pbs reality/history lesson, with people out in Texas living the life of rancers/cowboys in 1867. It’s a little dramatic at times….but somewhat educational as to what life was like back then. While I was watching the tv, a delivery truck pulled in. Brad sent me some red & pink roses for our anniversary. They are very pretty, and I enjoy smelling them in the dining room….so does Clare. Then I went upstairs to get Clare up, and get ready for our night out of celebration. Allison, the sitter, came around 5:45, and then we were off. Brad had made reservations for us at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant. It was the most fun I’ve had out in a long time! We started out with some cheese fondue that had bread, carrots, celery, caulliflower, and apples for dipping. Then we had a salad, followed by our main course of veggies that we deep fried in an oil. They brought us mushrooms, tofu, eggplant, asparagus, artichoke hearts, a gorganzola ravioli, potatoes, portabello mushrooms, and summer squash. It was the most fun sitting there dipping them in batter and frying them up, and then they had like 6 different sauces that you could dip them in on the side. VERY YUMMY! Then for dessert we had chocolate fondue with I think everything that they have in the kitchen that goes into their different dessert fondues. It was so yummy! The plate of stuff to dip in had strawberries, cheese cake, angle food cake, pineapples, marshmallows, and I don’t remember what else. We had a very delish port to drink along with dessert as well. All in all it was AWESOME! Because we had a few margaritta’s with dinner we decided to walk over to the theater to see a movie. The nearest movie to the time we were there was RV…..very very very very bad & disapointing. I think they show all of the funny parts in the movie trailer. Brad was ranting and raving on the way home, but I wasn’t expecting much….I had high hopes with it having Robin Williams in it.

Today we awoke to go get some coffe & a bagle in the VW. We drove down to Costco to get some gas, and the car got a little hot and almost over heated. And then it wouldn’t start after putting gas in it. So, we pushed it over to a parking spot and cruised around Costco for an hour and a half or so. We got a groovey little ice tea brewing machine….so now hopefully we’ll have something else to drink besides water in the house! Especially since we’ve reinstated the ban on pop again, damn you Coke and your Black Cherry Vanilla Coke that you test marketed here…..it’s so addicting! We were back to buying pop by the fridge pack, not anymore though. After we got out of Costco Brad put some coolant in the car and we headed for home, the thermastat finally started kicking in and we were good to go. We are thinking that the thermastat is all gunked up from the sludge that he drained out of it, so it probably needs to be replaced. Clare wanted to play outside, so we hooked Moonshadow up on the tie out and played in the back yard with the bubble machine. I took some pics, and hopefully Brad will put them up in the near future. She has also taken an interest in her tricycle, and is actually riding it. So, I shot some video of her riding in front of the house and down the driveway. I think it’s time to buy a bike! We found a princess bike with training wheels at Dick’s Sporting Goods a few weeks ago, so I think in the near future we’ll go back and get it for her. After playing out in the yard for a bit we decided to go for a walk up to Bombay for some Indian Food for dinner. When we got home we watched Hoodwinked, it was very funny….it’s the story of Little Red Riding Hood from each character’s point of view. Clare really liked it. We also watched a Dora the Explorer DVD that we got today at Costco. They have some really good prices on videos and books, if you can find something you like. So, all in all it has been a great weekend for celebrating, and who knows what tomorrow has in store. These past 5 years have had their trials & tribulations, but so does every great relationship. So….here’s hoping for another 5 to come!

Happy May Day!

Published

charmaspice

on May 1, 2006

in Food and Housework

. 0 Comments

So….did you run around your May Pole today? We didn’t either….there’s always next year! So….it’s been a busy weekend around here. On Saturday we got up to go out to breakfast with our friend Matt at the Omelette Shop. Yummy as alwasy! And then we came home to do some stuff around the house. Brad worked on his car (see his blog), Clare played in the yard, and I did some yard work. It was finally time to mow the lawn for the first time this season, so I did the back on Friday and the front on Saturday. I finally finished the flower bed project that I started last weekend, as you can see in the photo below.

On Sunday we did some relaxing in the AM, and then decided to head out to see “The Wild” at the mall theater. I think Clare said it best 10 minutes before it ended, “Let’s leave, this movie is BORING.” We convinced her to stay, and she changed her mind after seaing the final song & dance number. Then we walked around the mall for a bit, and Clare played in the play area. She even got some new Dora sandals for the summer at Payless. Afterwards it was to Taco Bell for our monthly Sunday Dinner.

Today we got up and headed to the post office to mail the city taxes….stupid Siemens, and them not getting that right! We stopped into the Kava House for some coffee (chocolate milk for Clare), and then decided to head up to get Clare’s hair cut. I’ve been battling the tangles in her hair forever now, and it’s only getting worse. She runs from me, throws her hands up, and only makes the tangles worse then when we started. So this morning was the last straw! I love the long hair, but it was time for it to go. I had warned her too many times, and I needed to follow through with my threat. We went to Snip It’s….it’s a GREAT place to go. Clare was very intimidated about going, but once she got there and saw how cool the place was she was excited. Snip It’s is a barber shop/salon TOTALLY geared towards kids. They take the kids back with this ticket that they turn in at the end for a prize from their prize machine at the end. Clare did an awesome job too, especially since it was her first time getting her hair cut in a place like this. I had done it at home until we started growing the bangs out. She’s far to wiggly for me to do it anymore. It’s a cute little bob-style cut that’s shoulder length, and has layers for texture. Her bangs frame her face, and now she can play without looking too much like a sheepdog. She likes it, and thought that it was cool. I took some pics, and will try to get Brad to put them up asap. I also took a video, in which she told some of her famous knock knock jokes! Anyway, it’s back to the laundry that is in desperate need of being done, and then Clare wants to go for a walk.