I wish I could get more comments.

Shanon did my hair today - a trim and colored it light blonde with red, almost orangey, highlights. It looks pretty darn nifty. Thanks, Shanon! :-)

I just started The South Beach diet yesterday and was following the recipes inside the book. The one for the dessert, ricotta vanilla creme, was just about the most yummy thing I've had in a long time! I'm dying for another bowl but I have to wait til later. Gotta follow this diet so I can get skinny!!

You all know, if you're a long-time reader, that I'm obsessed with working on genealogy. Last week, I discovered that through my Mom's Mom we're descended from the kings of Sweden, Norway, Denmark & Finland. Through them we're now related some way or another to almost all royalty. This morning I found the connection to us and Queen Elizabeth I which is really cool since I've been reading biographies on her for over a month! Now if I can find a link to Marie Antoinette and, most importantly, the Romanovs!

Mom has a new post!! Finally.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Labels: amalgams

|

God, I've missed hockey!! I'm so glad it's back. The Avs are playing L.A. tonight but sadly it's not on TV. I was checking hockey scores and saw that the Calgary Flames kicked some serious boo-tay last night, beating the Oilers 5-0!! Wish I could have seen that game! And, if that awesome win wasn't enough, the scorers included 3 ex-Avs - Chris Simon with 2 goals, Shean Donovan and Stephane Yelle who has always been one of my faves! In fact, because I miss him:



I was also tooling around the Avalanche message board last night and found this:



It was the sign off picture (or whatever those are called on message baords) for the user 2004 Avs Cup. I thought it was AWESOME!! Simply awesome. Thank God hockey has returned!! In fact I just signed up through Pat Angello's site to play fantasy hockey! So excited about that. If you want to play, too, go to his place and follow the instructions. C'mon, Collin, you know you want to. :-)

Labels: Avs

|

I've mentioned before that I'm part of a lunch group; two other ladies here at work & I go to IHOP for our lunch break every Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Last week they were fairly busy for 1am and we had to sit by the restrooms. A young lady came in with what appeared to be her boyfriend and made a bee-line for the ladies' room. We had no warning to look away & shield our eyes from the oncoming monstrosity.

She was very tall without the 4 inch spike heels she was wearing. She was also not a small girl. Not grossly overweight by any means but not slim either. She was showing everything in a mini-mini black dress, the skirt of which stopped right under her butt cheeks. The dress had a halter top and no back so we could see her thick black lace bra she wore with it. As she walked by our table, she was tugging at the skirt, trying to get it to cover her legs. I know my brain was scarred from the amount of cellulite that was flashed our way. Ginny, the older of the two other women, leaned across the table towards me and whispered, "Hooker." I was also of the opinion that she would make a great candidate for ValuHo.

Last night we made our trek to IHOP and were sitting at our usual table when here she came again, the same guy in tow. She looked a tinch less sluttish this time but she still appeared like she frequented Nevada Avenue a lot. She was wearing a tight maroon tank top that scooped down low, showing off tattooed boobs, a maroon hoody, tennis shoes and a mini-mini pink and maroon plaid schoolgirl skirt. The skirt, once again, barely covered her butt and this time she was standing by our table talking to the waitress and kept kicking her legs in the air towards her man (who looked like a drunk biker). We were forced to stare at each other so as not to see the show. Honestly! People are in there to eat! Have some decency for Heaven's sake!

I'm wondering what she'll be wearing next week.

Labels: food

|

Collin has this nifty computer program called Alchemy which allows him to watch TV on his computer. He can also record TV programs like a VCR. This came in handy Thursday night when the season premiere of CSI was on opposite the 2nd episode of Reunion. We decided we would watch CSI and record Reunion so I'm hanging out in the bedroom while Collin's getting everything set up. The O.C. (which I have never watched before) was playing on the computer while he checked out settings and did a test run of the recorder. I started paying attention to the show and wondering about the characters and the story lines when suddenly I heard it:

"Guess I got what I deserved...left you waiting there too long my love." My head whipped around like a bullet and sure enough, it was a cover of Badfinger's "Baby Blue", sung by Sad Girls. I couldn't believe it! It was like a sneak attack by Pete Ham! I had NEVER watched The O.C. before in my life and with all the messing around with the computer Collin had been doing...it was a miracle I heard it at all! It was meant to be!! It was a decent cover, too. Hopefully with the kind of exposure The O.C. gets, people will have liked the song well enough to check it out then be interested in the original.

A girl can hope.

Labels: Music

|

Happy Friday to everyone! For your weekend pleasure I proudly present a few pics! Enjoy!

We start with a picture of Collin's kids taken by Mom last week on her back patio. She had one picture left on her camera so she snapped this. I think it's the best picture I've seen - Jordyn usually gets the Chandler Syndrome where she suddenly can't smile if there's a camera pointed at her but Justin surprised her by grabbing her.


Next we have the man himself, Collin of F&P fame, before his hair cut. This was also taken by my mother at my cousin's wedding in July. You'll notice the glass of wine in his hand...my cousin had arranged for 2 glasses of wine for each guest. We're not big wine drinkers and I felt bad about not drinking mine but luckily a fly landed in mine and I was saved!!


Yesterday morning was spent going through all the hockey team sites, getting caught up on who was playing where...I've decided I'm rooting for Calgary this season - they look more like the Avalanche then the Avs do!! While I was browsing through the Chicago Blackhawk site, I found Eric Daze's new pic. He looks like a total dork! Look at that tongue...and that hair:


So there you go! Enjoy and have a super weekend!

Labels: family, Pictures, sports

|

I was rearranging my bedroom closet yesterday morning and I ran across a couple of things I decided I would share with you all. One is Good. One is Evil. We'll start with the Good.


Here is Rita Kitty. This is my favorite picture of her and I couldn't find it for a long time. Turns out it had fallen out of my box o' pictures and was on the bottom of my closet. She looks very sweet in this shot, something the camera seldom captured. This was right after she adopted us.

Now for the Evil. This is something I had completely forgotten about...it was drawn by my brother well over 10 years ago when Derek & I still lived at home. I was always teased about my rather large nose when I was younger, hence the inspiration for this picture:



"Heado's Future Child" is the theme...just a giant nose with some hands & feet and some eyes. That's my "NO!" below it. I'm still quite sensitive about my nose although I think I've grown into it...I don't get teased as much although one day while Collin & I were playing video games, his son turned towards me suddenly and said, "Wow! Your nose is HUGE!" Yargh. Thanks, Justin. I had a dream right after that about local newspaper columnist Rich Toches mentioned in The Gazette how giant my nose was!! **sigh**

Labels: family, Pictures

|

If you didn't read yesterday's post and think you might want to try your hand at how you'd survive a plane crash in the freezing Canadian wilderness, skip down and read the previous entry before reading this. If you are one of the handful of people who played, here's the "answers:"

First off, my winning team and I picked this order:

1) Canvas for shelter

2) Axe for chopping wood to make a fire

3) Crisco to burn in the fire

4) Lighter to make a fire with by the spark on the

5) Steel wool

After that came the clothes & newspapers for warmth after the fire was started, the chocolate and the whiskey (we figured the whiskey would calm us down), the map as a floor of the shelter and ending with the compass and the gun. For each "correct" answer we got a certain amount of points. The one with the lowest amount of points wins and we had 18 while the 2 groups of guys had 21 & 25. We then saw what the Army instructor's answers were and we were pretty close.

(By the way, none of you went the way of the Army instructor and I'm sure he would've shaken his head dismally at Derek's approach, as entertaining as it was)

The lighter was first even though there was no fluid. It said that just a spark on something like the newspaper or steel wool could start a fire or you could pour the whiskey in the lighter and use it as fuel. The Crisco was next for not only it's use as fuel but you could spread it on your body for warmth (ala Derek) and use the mirrored can lid to signal planes. The steel wool was third for it's use in starting a fire while the clothes & the newspapers were 4th & 5th. Everyone was saying they would drink the whiskey for warmth but the answers actually said that alcohol takes on the temperature of it's environment so drinking that bottle in 30 below zero degree weather would freeze your esophagus and stomach. Ouch.

The thing was, we won the Survival Game but we were also ensconced in a warm, well-lit meeting room and were all of sound mind & body while we were methodically thinking this problem through so sure, we survived on paper. I'm thinking it's more likely that Derek's scenario would be more apt to happen with the stress and the trauma and the freaking out. But it was fun. Thanks to all who played.

Labels: Quiz, work

|

Last night we had another Buddy Trainer PAT Team meeting at work. The first 15-20 minutes of the meeting is always spent doing some kind of group building activity. This time was almost fun. We split up into groups of 5-7 people and played a game called "Survival." It's a situation game used in military training classrooms and was developed by a guy named Mark Wanvig, a former U.S. Army instructor. I thought I would post the game and see how you would do in this situation. I'm hoping this will generate some comments since the last couple posts, I haven't gotten that many. Are you guys bored with I post? Maybe this will spice it up a bit!



"You and your companions have just survived the crash of a small plane. Both the pilot and the co-pilot were killed in the crash. It is mid-January and you are in Northwestern Canada. The daily temperature is 25 below zero and the night time temperature is 40 below zero. There is snow on the ground and the countryside is wooded with several creeks criss-crossing the area. The nearest town is 20 miles away. You are all dressed in city clothes appropriate for a business meeting. Your group of survivors manages to salvage the following items:

- A ball of steel wool

- A small ax

- A loaded .45-caliber pistol

- Can of Crisco shortening

- Newspapers (one per person)

- Cigarette lighter (without fluid)

- Extra shirt & pants for each survivor

- 20 x 20 piece of heavy-duty canvas

- A sectional air map made of plastic

- One quart of 100-proof whiskey

- A compass

- Family-sized chocolate bars (one per person)"



Now, what we had to do was list the 12 items above in order of importance. Our first priority was to get warm then to summon help. It was made clear to us that we shouldn't attempt to walk the 20 miles to the town in the current weather conditions and to make due with what we had. We also knew that in time a search party would be sent out to look for us. Our group was comprised of 5 women, the other two groups were all men and we won the game. According to the "answer key" we listed our items correctly to survive. Now let's see how you do! Good luck!

Labels: Quiz, work

|

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. My 5-day weekend went very fast. I think it went faster than my normal 4-day weekends.

I thought I'd spice up your Monday with a couple of kid anecdotes. Here we go...

#1: Thursday I went shopping and to lunch with my friend Shanon & her 4 year old daughter Elena. She was doing something at the table while we were eating that wasn't making Shanon too happy and she said, "This just isn't working out." Elena replied, "Are you breaking up with me?"

#2: Collin & I were on the way home after picking up his kids from their Grandma's house last night (we went to the Bronco game...GO BRONCOS!!!) and I mentioned to Jordyn that I heard her favorite song, Keith Urban's "You'll Think Of Me" on the radio on the way up to Denver.

Jordyn: "Awww, I missed my song! Daddy, have you heard that song?"

Collin: "Yes."

Jordyn: "What did you think of it?"

Collin: "It's...a song."

Jordyn: "Do you like it?"

Collin: "I suppose."

Jordyn: "Isn't it just sooooo sad?"

Collin: "Sure."

Jordyn: "No, it really is. It's sadder than the darnit's!"

All in car: "The 'darnit's'?"

Jordyn: "Yeah, you know...when you say, 'Darn, it's sad."

I love kids!

Labels: amalgams, Elena, Jordyn

|

I got a mood ring the other day. It's shaped like a heart and Jordyn is completely entranced by it. She follows it around to watch it change color on my finger and is always asking what color each mood is. She asked to try it on Thursday night to see what her mood was. It turned almost black which, according to the color chart, means unhappy/angry. She was appalled! "But I'm smiling!"

Last night we were waiting for our food at Popeye's and once again she was on Mood Ring Watch. She was thrilled when it changed to purple then pink then turquoise. Finally, in all seriousness, she asked me, "Is there a color for crazy?"

Labels: Jordyn

|

We had a tough last night of work...we had a surprise layoff in which we lost 2 co-workers. One wasn't that big of a shock but the other was - a lady I really liked got the axe. What was bad was that we were told at the beginning of the night that no one was allowed to go home early and we had little to no work. So...to keep my mind off of the upcoming layoff and to keep myself busy, I grabbed the Nene Thomas book that Collin bought me and I started copying pictures out of it.

Nene Thomas's sister Ann-Juliette has some work in the book as well - pen & ink drawings of her sister's work. Those were what I chose to draw. I drew three full-page pictures and let Collin critique them. He then chose his favorite for display here:


This is called Orchestrals #3: Symphony In Black & White. I love her dress - her lips took me 15 minutes to do where I was happy with them and I'm still not satisfied. There was also supposed to be a thumb on the other side of her body but everytime I attempted to add it in it looked like a piece of bologne so I gave up.

To see the original, click here. Also, if you like her art, buy something from her gallery! I'm definitely going to!!

Labels: Pictures, work

|

My weekend went way too fast - 4 days just isn't enough time to get everything done that I need to. My biggest chore was getting Collin a new bed. He really needed one & my friend Shanon had one that she was willing to give him. So she & I loaded up her Suburban and moved & set up the bed. We felt quite manly. It's a great bed - very comfortable. You lay down on it and you never want to get up!

After that my project was to get some genealogical work done. I had promised a co-worker I would look for some info for her plus I had until Friday evening to finish using up my free 2 week trial on Ancestry.com. I wasted 4 hours on searches with the free trial with nothing useful coming up. I was so annoyed I called them up to cancel the trial. The guy that helped me, Calvin, was very polite and friendly but PUSHY! It was as hard getting the cancellation done as it was to cancel AOL!

Calvin: "May I ask why you're cancelling?"

Me: "I just don't have the money this month to continue with the subscription." (After the free trial was up, if I didn't cancel it they would charge my credit card $199.95. I have to pay for my tags this month not to mention various other bills. This was just not the time.)

Calvin: "If it's money you're worried about, we have tons of payment options..." He went into his little spiel which I turned down. Then he starts telling me about a free service where you give them the name & info of the ancestor you're looking for and they search for you then email you the results. What the heck, I thought when he asked me if I had a name for him to search for. I'll give him my grandfather's name...I wasn't able to find squat on him in the whole 2 weeks since his birthplace burned down along with all the records. Maybe they could find something I couldn't. I gave him all the info I had. Then he asked what his middle name was.

Me: "Ellsworth."

Calvin: "Ellsworth! I love that name! I'm a big mountain biker and my favorite bike company is called Ellsworth!" Oookay, Calvin...enough enthusiasm now. My brain is getting tired.

I finally did get it cancelled but it felt like it would never happen. Then I went back to normal online searching and discovered that my 2nd cousin 10 times removed is...drum roll please....President George Washington! And, if that isn't enough, Martha Washington's great granddaughter from her 1st marriage married Confederate general Robert E. Lee! So he's not really a relation but he's in the tree!

Derek's poker night was Saturday and I placed 6th. Not too bad...Dad, the big money winner, put me out. Collin placed third for which I was very proud of him! That morning Collin & I went to the metaphysical celebration at the Phil Long Expo with his Mom & Step-Dad...he bought me a book of Nene Thomas' art. If you're not familiar with her, check her out! She's got some amazing works of art!

And it seems as if my attempt at blog art has failed. No one commented about my cheerleader (well, Collin said she was cute & Derek was just mean) but really...I was going to not post until I got comments on her but...I thought she was cute. Considering Derek got all the artistic talent in the family....

Labels: amalgams, family, money

|

Somewhat! I was doodling in my notebook at work the other night and I came up with this little cheerleader...I had to fishish her hastily because it was time to go for my walk, hence the messy pon poms & "Rah!" But I like her - notice the "W" on her chest for Widefield High!

Give me a W
Give me an E
Give me another E
Give me a K
Give me one more E
Give me an N
Give me a D

Everyone have a great one!

Labels: Pictures

|

Because of the high gas prices, I'm trying my best to save what gas I have already. My biggest sacrifice has been not turning on the A/C and just driving with the driver's side window rolled down. It hasn't been too bad...but yesterday it almost killed me!

I was driving on Circle over the Circle Bridge when something big & yellow zipped through my open window right in front of my face. I heard a THUNK and a rustle when whatever it was hit the passenger window and landed on the bag I had laying in the passenger seat. I looked over and didn't see anything...obviously it had landed underneath the bag or on the side of the seat. I figured if it were anything alive it would have already been up and flying around. Or hopping - I actually thought it was a giant grasshopper.

Now anything "alive" would be bad...I'm terrified of insects of any kind and to have one in my car while I'm driving during rush hour traffic would be a calamity! I kept glancing over and not seeing anything. At the next stoplight, I moved my purse carefully....nothing. At the stoplight after that, I gently pulled back a corner of the bag and let out a screech followed by a terrified whimper. Laying, dazed but alive, on my seat was a giant fuzzy bumblebee. I'm more afraid of bees than I am of spiders so this was a tragedy of the highest order. I was actually crying...what if he came to and started flying about? I would wreck for sure!

Then I started to think...what if he had hit me in the head or face when he zoomed in? It would have meant certain death for me - a heart attack coupled with me driving my car off the Circle Bridge while freaking out. It reminded me of that Far Side cartoon years & years ago where the 2 aliens are leaning against a tree with the smoking wreckage of their space craft lay behind them and the villagers coming up the hill with their torches & pitchforks. The one alien's single eye at the end of a tentacle was big-eyed and scared and his buddy says, "I can't believe it! One lousy little bee gets inside and you freak out!" I had that hanging on my mirror for years because that alien could be me.

When I got to work (driving the rest of the way pressed as far against the driver's door as I could), I ran inside & got Morris, a co-worker of mine. I asked him if he would dispose of the bee for me and he agreed, going out & scooping him up in a coffee cup before tossing him in the bushes. He said his little legs were wiggling while he was in the cup. It had probably been only minutes before he came to and attacked me! Luckily, I survived.

Labels: bugs

|

Last week while working on the genealogy for my father's side of the family, I discovered that through my 4th great grandmother, I am descended from Lord & Lady Westerfield of Suffolk, England. Their family name was Gosnold and one of my great grandfathers from that line was Gentleman Usher to Queen Elizabeth I and another great grandfather Gosnold was the man who decided on the legality of Lady Jane Grey's ascension to the throne. Another descendant was the man who discovered and named Martha's Vineyard after his daughter (my great aunt!!)...that particular trip to America was the basis for the shipwreck in Shakespeare's Tempest. I was very excited when I read all of this and immediately called Dad to let him know.

While I was relating all the news, Jordyn was, unbeknownst to me, listening to every word I said. When I hung up the phone, I turned to see her on the floor, bowing low. "Are you bowing to me because now I'm royal," I asked.

"Yes, your Honesty." (She meant Majesty but Honesty is cuter so I didn't correct her.) She spent the rest of the afternoon bringing me things, kissing my hand, and calling me "Honesty." It was the highlight of my week!

Labels: family, Jordyn

|

ANCIENT EGYPT
Famous Ruler: King Ramses II
Living Quarters: Brick, mud and straw houses
Hardship: Drought
Ancient Egypt is one of the most fascinating and
puzzling time periods ever. Plus mummies are
cool!


What Time Period Do You Belong In?
brought to you by Quizilla


There really should be no surprise here. This is the time I'm completely and utterly fascinated with! I don't have anything else for you today...my well has run dry. I'll try harder next week! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Labels: Quiz

|