Dang it Guys and TWA 800

When I'm at 24 hour fitness on the treadmill, it seems like guys are checking me out. I take that as such a compliment being that I'm old. Well, I finally came to the realization that the guys are not checking me out. They have been checking themselves out in the mirror behind the treadmills for the past 2 years. Sigh. 

I have been reading in the news about the new documentary that is coming out in July about flight TWA 800.  It is very interesting. 

Yesterday, I'm looking for books to download from the library and I see Night Fall written by Nelson DeMille. It is a fiction story based on flight TWA 800. When I first started reading it, it was okay, but boy did it turn out to be a really intriguing book. I would highly recommend it. It was such a fun read. Perfect for the summer......if you consider government cover-ups and scandals summer reading....which apparently I do.

30th Reunion and Hayley graduates

I had a fun weekend. Lots of stuff going on.

Saturday was a big day. Hayley graduated. This was a huge deal for us. Several months ago for reasons unknown to me (she would not spill), Hayley wanted to quit school and get her GED. I think she stayed in school because she had one class that she really enjoyed. I believe this was the class that watched Honey Boo Boo ocassionally. Well if that's what it takes to keep her in school, so be it.

Three generations! Mom, Hayley, and me. We enjoyed a nice lunch at Babes.

Friday night was my 30th class reunion at J Gilligans in Arlington. I wasn't planning on attending, but decided to go. Glad I did. I had a really good time seeing everyone and reminiscing as far back as 3rd grade. Of course, I had to pay $55 to walk into a bar. I was so busy flitting around talking that I didn't take very many pictures. I hate it when I do that.

Okay on a side note. I downloaded that Waze application. How cool. You can see the accidents, traffic, and po po locations on your routes.

I've been cooking again lately. I had fresh zucchini from the farmer's market. I made zucchini cakes with a horseradish dipping sauce. My boyfriend who eats hots dogs and burgers like crazy draws the line at fried foods so he did not like my zuchhini cakes. I thought they were pretty good. This is not my recipe even thought it says  Connie....it's a different Connie.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Connies-Zucchini-Crab-Cakes/Detail.aspx

Storm Shelters

So when I bought my house in historic Frisco, it came with this really ugly underground storm shelter with standing water. I talked to the contractor about removing this eyesore, but then decided it might make a good wine cellar or possibly a good tornado shelter. I have noticed plenty of storm shelters in my neighborhood. Someone put the date of 1960 in the concrete on mine.

I decided to do some research to find out why all the storm shelters.

Well there was a HUGE tornado that started in Dallas Lovers Lane area and ended in Frisco in the Stonebriar area. There were 200 injuries, 10 deaths, and $2.5 million in damage. This was 1957. I'm going to assume that this is the reason for the lovely storm shelter in my backyard. I don't know the exact population in Frisco in 1957, but this is what I have found:

Census

• 1950 - 736
• 1960 - 1184

Here is a link to the Frisco tornado information. You can use Google maps to enter the latitude and longitude to see where the storms were.

http://www.usa.com/frisco-tx-natural-disasters-extremes.htm

More recently in 2006 Anna area had fatalities in a tornado.

In memory of Roxanne. All dogs go to heaven.

 
Back in 1999 or so, I decided to get my first dog. I had been jogging in the neighborhood and had been followed a couple of times. I decided I needed a scary dog.
 
My good friend, Susan, took me to German Shepherd rescue to look at 'scary' dogs. I looked at several dogs and Susan helped me pick a 2-year old, hyper as heck, female. Her name was something weird and German. Susan told me to rename her. My kids and I were driving home trying to think of good German names and we just couldn't find anything we liked. While driving, the Sting song Roxanne came on and our new dog was named Roxanne. As a side note I have a cat named Billie Jean who was born the same month Michael Jackson died and I had a bird named Lucy for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Roxanne was the sweetest dog ever. She liked all dogs and cats and people....rabbits not so much.
 

Well Roxanne had been turned back into the shelter twice and she had some mental deviations. Hahaha. She would NOT go outside. I  had to drag her out. I'm guessing someone tied her up and must have left her out. She wouldn't even go outside if I left the door open and I was outside.

So the first day back to work after getting my new dog, I left her in my master bathroom with food, water, toys and a big window with a nice view of the neighborhood. I'm at work and my coworkers start telling me that dogs get anxious and that I may have no baseboards left at my house. Now, I'm thinking my dog has eaten my bathroom. I go home and the bathroom is intact and my dog is overjoyed to see me.

I quickly found out how to make my dog happy. I put in a dog door. From that time on, she was almost normal and would go outside on her own.
 
We had barely gotten to know Roxanne and I see Hayley who was about 5 is laying on top of my dog brushing her teeth and Roxanne is just letting her do it.

A couple of things I learned about dogs:

• NEVER feed them brisket. I had diarrhea all over my carpet. She looked like she felt so bad about that. 
• Never leave a frozen package of meat on the counter. I went to check the mail and returned to find a piece of styrofoam on the carpet.
• Hire a pet sitter. The few times she went to the kennel, she would come home and surprise me with poo on my floor....sometimes the same day and sometimes she'd make me proud and surprise me a few days later.

Roxanne used to stand outside in the rain alot, so we bought  her a yellow rain slicker that we would make her wear. I remember my kids also putting my Cowboys sweatshirt on her, but then she pooed and it landed in my sweatshirt. Thanks kids.

I cannot find the photos of her wearing bunny ears, the Cowboys sweat shirt, and the rain slicker.

So when I moved to a new house back in 2007 she escaped out the front door. Well about 2 hours later a man brings her to my house. He also had a two-story red brick house and she had been laying on his front porch.

She was the sweetest dog ever. She was so sweet that someone robbed me of my laptops by coming in through my dog door while she was at home.

Roxanne gave us many happy years and I'm sure her hips are working and she is running all over heaven.

I love my daughter's confidence

So as many of you know, my daughter started working when she was 16. She was a sales associate at TJMaxx and was even awarded employee of the quarter. Well after an entire year of working there and still making minimum wage she decided to change jobs. She went to Rudy's barbecue where she got a couple of raises. Now they have hired new people that almost make the same as her and these people just don't show up and don't even bother to call. And they don't get fired. My daughter is there at 5am on weekends and does everything from being cashier, delivery person, to cutting the meat. She felt completely taken advantage of and she quit. 

I told her that YOU should always get another job before you quit the current one. Anyway, her response "I'm cute, I'm smart, I'm funny, and I'm a hard worker. I'll get a new job." Guess there is a reason she left off humble.

The somewhat good news is that her former manager says he can get her an office job with his cousin.

Could have burned the house down Saturday

Saturday morning I decided to build a little brick retaining wall near my back patio. I'm outside sweeping my patio and a tarantula jumps out at me. I about had a heart attack. Well, I came inside and decided my project could wait.

In the mean time, I had some pork chops thawed out that needed to be cooked so I decided to throw them in a skillet. Next thing I know, I'm in the front yard planting flowers and herbs. I venture to the back yard and decided that I'm doing my project after all. I grab my caulk gun to use my brick glue. Well, the glue is so hard that I can't get it out, so I decided to microwave it. Thank goodness because I forgot I had pork chops cooking. Dodged a bullet there. I went inside and my ventahood thingy kicked itself on...I didn't even know it had that ability so at least it was sucking up the smoke. I did microwave my brick glue and it softened it up nicely.

So speaking of caulk guns, when Hayley and I lived at the apartment, she came knocking on my bathroom door all weirded out. She said some guy called and said he was bringing his cock over. It was the maintenance man who was coming to caulk my kitchen sink. Hahaha.


This is from my blog last October about 40 minutes of being blonde: 

So I've had fleas in my yard and on my animals all summer long. Yesterday, the Home Depot guy recommended a different spray with Nylar, so I bought it. I came home and  hooked it to the hose. I sprayed the flower beds really well because the dogs like to sleep in there. I also did the front and side yards. I went around to my big backyard and did all of that too including under the shed.

So I go to unhook from the hose and the bottle was full. UGH. This bottle didn't only have the tab to open it  up, but another button that had to be turned and then pushed in. So anyway, I had to start all over. Basically, I spent 40 minutes spraying my yard with water. 

Well this Saturday, my boyfriend is spraying liquid nitrogen around his yard. He has done both the front and back yards and spent quite a bit of time on it. He says this bottle has lasted 2 years and he's still got a bunch left. The  look on his face is priceless when he realizes he did what I did last year. He has had the same bottle for 2 years because he hasn't sprayed any of it on his yard. He's not even blonde.

Relaxtion Center of Plano

So this is probably the first and last time I'll ever say this:

"I did too much cardio this week."

My lower back is killing me. Well Dave Ramsey would probably advise me NOT to spend money on frivilous things like massages, but sometimes you just have to ignore Dave.

So this Relaxation Center is close to my office and I thought I'd check it out. I called and an hour massage is $65 and 1/2 hour is $45. Well logic would dictate to go for an hour, but Dave was sitting on my shoulder. I realized it would end up being an extra $25 with extra tip and that is a week's worth of fast food lunches, so I opted for 1/2 hour.

I get there and its so dark that I can barely see to take off my own clothes, but very soothing. The lady comes in and starts to massage me through the towel. I thought maybe she was afraid of skin on skin contact. Boy was I wrong! Soon after I'm naked and she's got the oil out. 

Towards the end of this massage she has hopped up on the table and is straddling my thighs and massaging my back and butt. All I could think is "Am I going to see this on the Internet?" I have never had anyone do that before... well at least NOT during a professsional massage.

Anyway, I feel like a brand new person. I had no idea that my calves, shoulders and triceps were even sore until she started on me. They have a customer for life.

So today is the day, I go to the driving range and practice. Finally!