Author: Andi

I have been on kind of a painting binge at home. I painted three rooms last week with my mom's help.
* Main Bathroom – Yellow – Banana Cream
* Dining Room – Green – Mother Nature
* Kitchen – Red – Cinnamon Cherry
I have three more rooms on my “need to paint” list, and yes, they have equally as silly names. I should get to one or two of them this weekend. I don't usually like to paint, so when I am in the mood to do so, I have to keep going. With my kitchen painted a lovely shade of red (I won't paint another room red….what a lot of work), I am hoping to become a Food Network-worthy cook. Or at least make some more interesting foods. I just got the dining room back together – hung up a new shelf for some of my Grandma's China – and I need to get around to taking pictures of the rooms I did. I will do that soon and put up some pictures.

After painting last week, I came down with a cold that I haven't been able to get rid of. It isn't as bad as it was, but it's still lingering and making me not very motivated to do anything. Mostly, it's been keeping me from the gym and I need to get back into the swing of going there.

* OLD VERSION *

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

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* MODERN VERSION *

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, “It's Not Easy Being Green”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having
nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent
welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican

We just returned from our cruise to the Caribbean on the 11th and we had a wonderful time! There was so much to do on and off the ship. We really kept ourselves busy. And of course, there was more food than I could imagine available any time of the day.

1st stop * Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

This is actually pronounced Half Moon “Key”, but they spell it differently. This island is owned by Holland America and is a really beautiful little island. It was a bit chilly and windy this day, but we still found an exciting activity. We went on a jet ski tour of a bay on the back side of the island. We even went into the main part of the ocean, it was a bit rougher out there. Thankfully the sun came out as soon as we were standing in our swimming suits. But the water was so warm, it didn't really matter.

After our tour, we had a barbecue lunch they had available at the island. We were interrupted by a very unhappy rooster.

He was not happy with us being there and we found out this was because there was a mother hen and some babies nearby.It was strange to see one just sitting around…..but there were even more of them at a later stop!

2nd stop * St. Thomas, USVI

Here, we took a private sailboat trip which took us to two different places to snorkel. They also gave us drinks, breakfast and a huge lunch on the boat. Chuck and I had never been snorkeling before and had a great time. We saw a bunch of wild looking fish. We even saw, sting rays, puffer fish, star fish….no sharks (phew) and no sea turtles (darn). It was so amazing. The color and clarity of the water is just like you see in movies and pictures.

The scariest part of the day was the drive to the sailboat. Their streets are very vertical and they drive like maniacs at high speeds….and you are on the other side of the road. It's a bit hard to get used to. Oh…and they lay on one loud honk to let people know they are coming around a sharp turn or steep area other cars can't see them. I guess you just pray anyone coming the other direction knows what that means!

3rd stop * Tortola, BVI

We didn't have anything planned here, so we took a tour of the island. This is the same type of ride as the previous day….scary! But the views were gorgeous and it started to rain while we were on the tour, so we were glad we chose not to walk around. There are animals walking around all over the place here….roosters, hens, goats….it's just funny.

After we returned from the tour, Jean and I went to a couple shops and Chuck and his dad rented some scooters. I am glad I missed out on this adventure. It sounded a bit scary. You had to drive on the other side of the road along with all the other crazy people out there, and go up some of those really steep hills…all the while hoping your scooter will make it. Yikes. But they had a great time!

4th stop * Nassau, Bahamas

I think this was my favorite stop. Nassau is where the famous Atlantis Hotel is, but we didn't get a chance to go there because we took a 40 minute drive to a place called Stuart Cove's. There were did quite the “adventure”. His dad chose to do something called personal SUBs (Scenic Underwater Bubble)…here is a picture:

It was a very strange feeling. His dad was the first one in and was wondering what he had gotten us into. You sit on this thing and are wet everywhere except your head and shoulders. Then you drive around and look at things. You are about 15 feet underwater and have a bouy at the top of you. They pump in air and you just drive around breathing in this bubble-thing. They would line us up for pictures. Then they would feed them right in front of our faces. The fish knew this drill. They swarmed around the food and you could touch them and they brushed your legs…it was very cool. There wasn't a huge variety of fish here, but there had to be thousands of them. It was very fascinating. The most interesting fish was the bright blue parrot fish! This is what one looks like if you aren't familiar.

We had a great time.

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On the ship there were so many things to do. The rooms we had were wonderful and we were able to open up the balconies and walk between the rooms without going outside. That turned out to be the place we congregated quite a lot.

There were a number of shows on the ship. Our favorite was the illusionist. He was very entertaining. Some of the other people in the group also enjoyed a man who impersonated Elton John. He was an amzing piano and guitar player.

The food was fabulous! There was always a buffet somewhere to get food or room service. We also had a lounge across from our rooms that had food there as well. You were not going to go hungry…that is for sure. In one of the eating rooms there was a guy named “Honkey Dorey.” This man was amazing. He memorized everyone's name that came past him. It was crazy. That mind could be put to use somewhere much more productive, but he was certainly entertaining. We had a couple formal dinner nights. Here's a picture of us dressed up for dinner….

Well you can't see more than our faces, but you get the idea.

Chuck and I played a lot of ping pong on our down time. There's a casino on the ship, too and I played some slot machines….I didn't win anything. Chuck played some Blackjack and poker. We lost some of the family down there for hours….they liked the casino.

One day, I made a bear on the ship! He was kind of cute and very soft:

I named him “ms Lido Neptune dam” after some of the rooms on the ship.
I also got this funny shirt:

On the back it has all the names of the Holland America ships…they all end in “dam”.

We also got towel animals on our bed every night. Here's my personal favorite:

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I included a couple pictures in here and links to some of the days, but there are many more photos to see HERE. More people should be adding to them when they get a chance. But the ones from us have my name as the owner and should be the first ones in the categories if you don't get around to looking at them right away.

*Note* Don't forget to click on the photos…that makes them larger.

I have decided that more things should come in miniature size. Like shampoo…not just a select few, but all of them. Then if you wanted to change shampoo, you could get a sample first. This could just be me being strange, but I really like those little samples. You can't get much use out of them, but for a trial basis they are good. I don't know that a tiny shampoo sample would be enough for me on a week long trip, but for a couple days it would work. I also like the small cans of soda. Mostly because I don't usually finish a whole can. It could just be that I am small…..and my perception is skewed. Who knows. Just a random thought I had.

It's been a whole year and a couple days since my grandma passed. I can't believe it's been so long. Time flies. We got through Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it was strange. I think having them at our house really helped. Had we been at her house or my dad's I think it would have been harder. We survived, but I thought about her a lot. I wasn't really sad because I know that she wasn't in pain anymore, but it still seemed like something was missing.

I have been to a couple funerals recently and they made me think about being at my grandma's. How bad I felt and wanted to just be left alone. But I had to talk to these other people and almost console them. I think there is something flawed in funerals. People just want to have time to mourn and we want to be in their pockets to make ourselves feel better. I just think it's strange. But maybe it's just me that is strange.

So when a cat loses a tooth, do you leave them a kitty treat? I found a tooth this morning when I was cleaning up. It could be Dax's since kittens do lose their baby teeth. I didn't see any obvious places in her mouth it could be from, though. Maybe it was from Sam or Sadie, in which case that may explain why they have been throwing up. Interesting.

We changed phone companies yesterday. Cingular wasn't very good. Your “year” contract with them is 366 days by the way. But we finally we able to cancel and went to T*Mobile again. We got the Motorola Razr V3 phones. So far I really like it. I have been draining the battery life in it just by playing around. It's a lot of fun. I am happy to have a phone that works again. I can hear out of it and it doesn't drop calls or sound fuzzy, or quiet….it's much better. And Chuck found the Rush Limbaugh theme song…Now I have it as a ring tone!

It's been a long time since I have posted anything on here, so I had better give an update.

Christmas was pretty hectic, but a lot of fun. We had my family here at our house for Chirstmas which was a new experience. I really like haveing people over, though. Next year will be a breeze…this year was practice. We got many great gifts and had a lot of yummy meals. We went to Iowa and Nebraska and spent time with both sets of Chuck's grandparents. I really enjoyed this. We were able to spend a lot of time with both sides of this family, too. Most of them we don't get to see very often.

I have been working out like crazy and eating better in hopes to get bathing suit-ready for our cruise the beginning of February. Only a couple weeks left. I am so excited about it. I have never been on a cruise and his dad is taking his parents, sisters, their kids….there will be a big group of us. We joined a Lifetime Fitness near our house and it's been a lot of fun going there. I still have to go to a class, though. I am getting a little better at raquetball. I can almost beat Chuck legitimately when he plays left handed and this is quite an accomplishment!

I found I like talk radio a lot. I have been listening to it all the time. The new FM station, 100.3 KTLK, is great. I am hooked. Glenn Beck cracks me up.

We went to a Wild game last night. We beat Toronto for the first time 5-3. I love hockey games! They are so much fun.

I got tickets for us to see Les Miserables. I am really looking forward to going. Chuck has seen it before, but I haven't. Hopefully I won't be so confused when I listen to the soundtrack after seeing it in person. I am told I will understand the jokes used in the Simpson's which reference Les Miserables as well. So that will be a good thing.

The kitties are still crazy. Dax is still a wild little kitten. Sadie keeps herself busy by defending herself against Dax. Sam sits on the couch and sleeps and momentarily gets up to eat…..and puke. By the way, anyone want her? I think she needs to be in a one cat home. She is so jumpy and maybe less cats will help her. Let me know if you are interested or know someone who is.

That's about it. Everything else is about the same as it was at Christmas time. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and Happy New Year. I'll be sure to post more often….even if it's just me rambling.

• Puzzles (1000 piece)
• Ornaments
• Holiday decorations
• Snowman anything
• Vases (unique/intersting ones)
• Books (from the previous entry “book list” or anything that you might think is a good read.)
• Gift cards:
  • Target
  • Craft stores (Michaels, JoAnn Fabric, etc)
  • Restaurants (Don Pablos, Applebees, etc)
  • REI
  • Bed, Bath and Beyond
• Cookbooks
• Norah Jones “Feels Like Home” CD

It finally snowed the other day. I forgot to say anything about it because I was too busy enjoying it. Sadly, it isn't going to stay on the ground very long, though. They said it would all be gone by tomorrow. But there is more int he forecast. Our new driveway has proven tobe a bit of a challenge to get up with the Jettas. We'll have to get some salt for it. Hopefully the snowblower will be able to make it up. If not, we'll make it tough and add some chains to the tires. It's so cold today. When the high is 40 tomorrow it is going to feel warm. How sad. But I am glad it finally feels like winter. Now I have an excuse to have my seat heaters on all the time…unlike when I had them on in the summer.