So how about them Broncos? Boy, that was an ugly win - - but the important word there is win! I have to say that Jake lucked out on that 3rd interception that was called an incomplete pass -- that boy's foot was so in bounds! I'm surprised the ref called it the way he did. But I'm not complaining!

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By the way, Ted, the cleaning guy at work who I fought about the Broncos with? He's still not talking to me! Ha!

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So, there's a song by Roxette called Joyride that Jordyn has discovered and is totally obsessed with. Mostly because it's a great song but also because we have a Family Fun Center here in town called Joyrides. So she sings the song: "Hello! You fool, I love you! Come on and come to Joyrides!!" Cracks me up!

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Have I mentioned how much I like Elena, Shanon's 5 year old daughter? Out of the blue the other day she said, "I don't like the Raiders." Yay!! And then if that wasn't enough to warm my heart, she said, "I like Duran Duran. They're nice." YES! She's infatuated with wolves and when she heard their song "Hungry Like The Wolf" they were suddenly the best band in her world. I love that!!!

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I don't know how long it's been out but Def Leppard has a new CD out called Yeah! where they cover 70's songs. I'm always wary of covers but these guys rock at every one they did. And that's saying a lot, coming from me...they chose three of my very favorite bands to cover: Badfinger (No Matter What), T. Rex (20th Century Boy) and Thin Lizzy (Don't Believe A Word, my fave song by them). I can't complain a whit about any of them. They were masterfully done and the rest of the album is great as well. Plus Joe Elliott had nice things to say about Badfinger in the liner notes! :-)

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Hope you all had a great weekend!!

Labels: amalgams

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Man! We had a full-fledged blizzard Thursday(see previous post for the pics) and the next day was 60 degrees!! Mom & I went to the Broncos/Colts game Sunday which by tomorrow I should have a post up about, complete with pictures!!

Ian LaPerierre scored his 100th career goal last night against the Wild - I got home and turned the game on just in time to see it. Ian LaPee is my new favorite Avalanche player since Rob Blake & Alex Tanguay are gone. I still have Milan Hejduk but...I don't know, I like the scrappier players. And Ian LaPee looks like a hockey player with the crazy messed up nose!

I really want to talk about the Bronco game but I also don't want to give myself less to talk about when I get the pictures posted. I forgot to leave the camera at home so Collin could pull off the pics so...that's why the post has to wait.

Look at me just babbling on and on. Maybe I should actually get some work done!! :-)

Labels: amalgams

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Not a lot happening that's blog-worthy. Collin & I spent the whole weekend moving. We had the U-Haul on Friday and with the much-appreciated help of his Mom and step-dad, we got all the big heavy stuff moved. Now it's just cleaning the apartments and finding a place for everything in the house. Great fun for us!

Don't know what the heck was wrong with the Broncos yesterday. The announcers kept saying that "the rookie's not ready yet" when faced with Plummer's abysmal playing but my thought process is if Jake's going to play like a rookie and throw 3 int's, including one to Rod Smith while he's triple teamed then maybe we should put the real rookie in and see what he can do - can't be any worse than Jake.

See? Really not much to talk about. Hope all of you had a fine weekend!

Labels: amalgams

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Yesterday was a wonderful day. With one exception. Since it's always better to leave off on good news, I'll start with the bad.

My computer moniter burned out yesterday morning. Let us take a moment of silence...

.....

Thank you. I was happily, dare I say giddily, working on the data entry part of genealogy which is a chore that I love so very, very much when I noticed the washer was done. While I was working on the laundry (which is a chore that I do NOT love), I realized I could smell something burning. My first thought was the air conditioning. Since I was right underneath the mechanics of that, I sniffed upwards. No burning. I looked out towards the dining room and OH MY GOD! My poor little monitor...the sides of the display had caved in so there was a small stripe of the screen I had been working on and the inside edges were brown like someone had taken a match to it. And it smelled like burnt popcorn. The fact that until I get a new one means I have more room on my desk is a small consolation.

But now to the good stuff. Season 1 of Animaniacs came out Tuesday and Collin picked it up. I loved Animaniacs when it was on the air - so much so that I remember Derek & I would record the show every day and then when we had a whole tape, we recorded the audio of certain funny lines & songs onto a cassette that we could listen to in the car. But I haven't seen it for years. Would the funny still hold up? Turns out it does. We watched the first 4 episodes last night and I laughed my head off. Dot calling Albert Einstein "silly mustasche man" and Brain telling Pinky "I am not devoid of humor" were just a couple highlights. Yakko's World where he sings the name of every country (and one that doesn't exist anymore) brought me untold joy - - I was singing right along with him!! The only drawback was the video is bouncy sometimes but the fun...a perfect 10!



And then...oh, like things couldn't get any better?? Galaga became available on XBox Live's Marketplace. Now I'm not a big gamer - you can tell by my gamer tag on the sidebar - but I love Galaga. I started playing it because that was the game Matthew Broderick played in War Games and I became addicted. So when it showed up yesterday for download, Collin didn't even bother with the demo, just downloaded the real thing right away. Just the little "deeduhlee" when the game starts was enough to send my Joy meter sky-high. He literally had to send his 6 year old in to tell me to come eat, I was so into playing it.



So, all in all, Wednesday was a good day!!

Labels: amalgams

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Okay, maybe not a whole bowlful...how about 2 short stories? Sound good? Cool....

Story #1: Friday night I had a dream that I was at work but I had just clocked out and was in the library portion of the building. This is how you can tell it's a dream - this place would benefit greatly from a library like the one in my dream. It was huge - - I've dreamed of this place before - - two or three stories of mahagony shelves filled with books and a round check-out desk...anyway, back to the story...I was in the library with Collin and his son Justin and we knew that Queen Elizabeth II was on her way to visit. Justin went to open the door for her and I yelled to him to remember to bow to her. Then I told Collin the same thing. I was so concerned about protocol and didn't want to offend the Queen!! She came sweeping in with an assoiciate, a guy in a fancy suit, and I kept telling myself that I had to curtsy but she never looked at me so I didn't. Then suddenly she glanced over at me and I waved like a loon. No curtsy, just a Gir-like crazy wave. Collin leaned over and whispered, "Yeah, that's winning points." Surprisingly, the Queen thought I was "refreshing" and decided she liked me. She told me I could call her "Lizzie".

Story #2: I started a book last night by Mark T Sullivan called Labyrinth. I really like his books and was excited to get cracking on this one. It's very intense and as it's set inside an underground cave system, it's scary as all hell to me since I'm terrified of close spaces, i.e. caves. A group of escaped convicts take a guy and his daughter hostage and force the guy to maneuver them through the cave system to find a moon rock that could change the world so there's a ton of tension. I'm reading along, all into it, and suddenly I see pencil marks in the book. I got this book at the library and it looks like maybe an english teacher got a hold of it and made "corrections". The original line was "'Don't talk Dad,' Cricket said. 'You bit your tongue bad.'" The teacher wrote in an "ly" after "bad." Then Cricket tells her father to "lay down" and it's changed to "lie" and then she's thinking to herself, "Seeing her father like this scared her worse than anything that had happened so far." The teacher changed "worse" to "more". My thoughts on this are twofold. Number one, THIS IS A LIBRARY BOOK!! YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SCRIBBLE IN IT, NONETHELESS TREAT IT LIKE A STUDENT PAPERR YOU CAN CORRECT!!!! Number two, the girl in the book is 14. She is under an extreme amount of stress, and I highly doubt that correct grammar is high on her list of priorities at this point. I think the author knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this. I wish I could find out who did this and pop them on the hand with a ruler!

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Why not? I found all these pictures while I was digging through a box of them and thought, hey! Why not share? :)


1990...I loved that sweater. It was the only turtleneck I ever wore. It had real leather strips on it that made it cool! Totally 80's LA Gear shoes with two-toned shoelaces.


1993...I like my hair but can you see that giant-ass bow in my hair??? It looks like there was a party (probably for me, this was January) judging by the balloon plates on the kitchen table.


Shanon & I being cool on graduation day 1989!


Me on Halloween 1995 at Fargo's. I decided on comfort when I chose this costume - pajamas, braids and a teddy bear.


I went a little more "out" in '96 - that's Christina as a dead chick & myself as a scary dead chick. You can't see them but I took plastic spider rings and stuck them in my hair and then I had my rubber snake Damien around my neck. I was on hand out that day at Fargos and there were a lot of people who wouldn't take their pizzas from me because they were either scared of snakes, spiders or both!


This is on the way to Greeley - The Platteville Potato Associtaion. I don't know why that stikes me as hilarious but it does. Just imagining what the association does with potatoes...and it has to be said with the redneck accent. It just HAS to be.

Well, that's about it. Have yourselves a mag weekend!!

Labels: amalgams

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Happy Monday. Hope everyone's weekends went swimmingly. Here's an amalgam of things spinning around in my brain today....

"I'm not a guppy!" On October 3rd, my dreams are finally coming true!!! Disney is FINALLY re-releasing The Little Mermaid as a Limited Edition 2 Disc Set on DVD!! Yayayayayayayayay!!!! See, when they first released it years ago, I didn't have a DVD player so I didn't buy it. By the time I had one, Disney had pulled it. I've waited a long long time for this!

"I'm not Nick Fisher!" This weekend, Collin and I went to see Lucky Number Slevin. It was a highly enjoyable flick - Josh Hartnett, I think, played the role of his career and as always, Bruce Willis & Morgan Freeman were outstanding. If you like crime movies, this is a definite must-see!!

"I'm not old enough to know that!!" Another gem from Mom's birthday Game Night: During a game of Catch Phrase Mom was trying to get Justin to say the word 'pollution' and he just wasn't coming up with it so Mom said, "Give a hoot, don't..." Justin replied with, "Shoot?"

"I'm not crazy! I think!" Last night at work, Collin called me and we talked for a bit. When we said goodbye, I actully waved at the phone!! Gack! My brain...she is melting....meeellllltiiiinigggg.....

That's about all for now. And remember, "Give a hoot, don't shoot!"

Labels: amalgams, Funny

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Yeah, yeah - I know I promised to show you all the Thank You cards I made today but Collin didn't upload them into Flickr like I thought he had and I don't know how (yet!) so today you get the silly fun of Random Thursday! Yay!

Last week Jordyn & I went to have lunch with Collin. On our way to Schlotsky's, Jordyn starts talking about this boy in her kindergarten class. "You know, that Calvin doesn't have much going on in his head." While laughing, we managed to register our shock that she would say that. "Well, it's true," she continued dilligently, "He's only got the Land of Silly filling his head!"

- - - - -

Dad was up in Parker for 4 days this past weekend watching my cousins Mandy & Amy while their parents went to Vegas for a vacation. Through a roundabout way, Dad & Amy got to talking about suicide. Amy asked Dad how he would kill himself. "I wouldn't kill myself," he replied. Amy said, "I'd eat 40 teaspoons of salt. That'd kill ya!" Dad told her that she'd never get that much salt down and she said, "Yeah, but it would kill ya!"

- - - - -

Hey, how about a picture or two, just to round out the randomness?


Derek in his Popeye impersination. Can you see that little red thing on his eye? Over on the right? That was like a blood blister that never went away! It got knocked off twice and always grew back. He finally had it removed by a laser - I remember being in the waiting room looking through a Highlights magazine (I was only in 6th grade maybe so he was in 3rd) and hearing him screeeeeaaaam.....scared me to death!


It's Collin!! He's so cute!!!


Here's Brando/Otto trying his damndest to get out of his cage. You can see the determination his beady little eye and the way his teeth are gnawing for all he's worth!!

Well, that's all I got today. Have a great Thursday!

Labels: amalgams, family, Jordyn, Pictures

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Theme? I don't need no steenkin' theme!!! With that in mind, welcome to sheer randomness! Have fun!


To start off today's festivities, we have Collin's daughter Jordyn and her Christmas hamster Sam/Sunshine. She keeps switching between the name I gave him and the one she thought of. The poor guy is going to have a personality disorder soon! How cute are they???


Here's the other hammy-wammy, Brando/Otto. This is why he's called a teddy bear hamster!


Last week we had a game night at Mom & Dad's and while we were playing the hilarity-infused romp known as Mad Gab, Dad fell asleep and stayed asleep! His little "T Rex arms" crack me up!! I don't even think he knows this picture was taken. Until now!


A familiar site - Derek's open mouth! I took this at the Avs/Stars game last week. Much fun was had by all!


The view from my porch. Pikes Peak after the snowstorm we had a couple weeks ago. I did have a great shot from my bedroom window but the screen ruined it!


My favorite picture of the moment. I was trying to get a shot of Jordyn with Brando/Otto in his ball and the camera didn't work so she pulled the pizza out from behind her back and "POOF!" Picture taken. I think it looks like she's threatening him..."See what I'm doing to this pizza? You're next!! Argh!" And Otto's like, "AHHHHH!! I can't run away!!" Something like that. Anyway, have a great weekend!!

Labels: amalgams, family, Pictures

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There's nothing going on to blog about. Nothing too exciting has happened unless you count the murder that happened outside my parents' townhome complex Tuesday morning. They were awakened at 3:30am by a policeman ringing their doorbell asking if they had seen or heard anything. Sadly, the victim was the 20 year old son of the people who live a couple of doors away from my parents. And to have something like this happen so close to Thanksgiving...you know the holidays will be ruined forever for his family. The last I saw, the police had no suspects and no motive but the CSPD is usually very good at catching murderers and such...remember the Texas 7? There was a murder a few years ago that involved a high school friend of my brother's and they caught her killer within a couple of weeks, maybe not even that long.

Now that I've probably dampened everyone's holiday spirit...

Collin & I came across the Danish miniseries "Rigit" at the library...it was the original series that inspired Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital." It was subtitled, of course, but it was very intriguing. The character development was great...there were only 5 episodes but by the second we already had our favorites and the ones we wouldn't mind seeing being "gotten" by the ghost! The best part was the credits where the creator, Lars Von Trier, addressed the audience. After the first episode, he actually said, "If you find the story dull and predictable then look to your own life..." He always ended with, "If you choose to join us again be prepared to take the good (he made the sign of the cross with his finger as he said this) with the evil (then he made the devil sign with his fingers. It was awesome!)." My point here is if you saw the Stephen King miniseries then you should check out the original, if you can deal with the subtitles. Andrew McCarthy plays the lead, Dr. Hook. in the remake and so far he's doing a good job. The Danish actor, Soren Pilmark, did a great job so McCarthy had his work cut out for him living up to that.

Okay, I've babbled long enough! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and you get all the turkey and pumpkin pie you want!! And GO BRONCOS!!!

Labels: amalgams, entertainment, stories

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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!!

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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

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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

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