Living close to the ballpark means we get fireworks after every game around the 4^th of july!  For the 4^th we decided to have a quiet evening together!!

We cooked up some hot and spicy flank, with some spinach and cilantro dressing, cuouscous, and some dal! Desert was strawberry gelato and some chocolate wafer cookies with V Sattui Muscat to accompany! Mmmmmm!

After the sun went down the show began! We had a 320 degree viewing capacity of the fireworks that surrounded us! We could see so many different shows! Some good, some not so good, but bright and sparkly all around! After most of the shows were over, the ball came ended and we got the big finale from the ball park!!!

It was a lovely evening and we enjoyed each other's company immensely!

Lazy Bear Pottery Studio Version 3 is well underway! It is definitely smaller! Or maybe i should call it cozy!

I mentioned new shelving etc from our fun over the weekend!

I can almost see my pottery wheel now!

This long weekend will see some definite organization! An old computer and monitor we came across during the office clean up will find a new home! My main offenders to keeping me from becoming fully organized is my stock! I need to find a place to store my pottery! Or perhaps sell it – novel idea!  J

So if anyone wants to help me out! Check out etsy.com or lazybearpottery.com and buy some!

Maybe next year I’ll join the family for the strawberryfestival and sell it there!

And if you remember Uncle Frank....  Our Body!

Here is his new home!

Over the weekend we noticed that Terrance was looking a bit swollen. Hmmm…

We dropped him off this morning and apparently he has some sub coetaneous edema – which means his cellular spaces are leaking! Oh lordie! He also has a protein level that is below one, which is as low as their machine goes!

Apparently not painful but could indicate possible liver failure, or reduced protein production or possible bad reaction to the anti inflammatory… He’s comfortably sleeping off his anesthesia right now and is supposed to have a very calm next couple days. Of course I just realized that it is the 4^th of July and we are really dang close to the Rockies  Hmmmm… Stadium…

Finger crossed that it was just a bad reaction to the Deramaxx (anti inflammatory)!

Weekend of chores and fun!

Saturday it was a bit cooler in Denver! 70’s! So I got a bug up my butt to clean, clean clean! And besides that it appears our maids are now MIA – I’m claiming deported, hubby doesn’t agree!

We also went FreeCycle and Craig’s List happy! Clearing out some stuff!

The whole first floor is mostly de-cluttered! We ordered smaller dog beds so we can reclaim some of our precious and gorgeous floor space! The upstairs office closet has been re-organized and most things are once again accessible! Hubby keeps claiming we need a storage unit – I claim we need to give up some stuff!

Saturday night we did a quick sweep of the country side to do our errands! Costco for soda and cascade (I tried the Melaluca stuff – no way, no how, it doesn’t’ even come close to my cascade – so much for being green there!), Home Depot for Lag Bolts for my/our new shelves in the garage and for some string and eyehooks to get the xmas tree to hang from the roof, and finally Target for groceries – and much to my dismay they were not accepting their own coupons due to counterfeiting that day – Grrrrrrr! So I made the poor little cashier take back a whole bunch of stuff that I only got cause of the dang coupons!

After our shopping adventures we watched Cloverfield. I got nauseous! I warn anyone that can’t do the motion rides to drug up prior to watching this film! I made it thru about 5 minutes and then listened to rest! Thank goodness I can see the TV while cooking! Whenever the camera would even out for a smidge I’d catch some scenes, or hubby would rewind once in a while and show me something interesting!

Sunday we awoke and did a mini hike! It was supposed to be a 1.1 hike to the top of an 8500 foot mountain. The book was wrong, it was more like a .8 mile hike…  Barely got our heart rates up! Sigh! But it was really pretty and I might recommend it for a sunset hike!

We got home in time for a late breakfast and then off to the garage to hang shelves and the Christmas tree! We, well probably me measured wrong so we had to go pillage a 2X4 from the trash out front left over from the construction of our fine homes! Basically a 4 foot shelf that hangs on brackets is really a 4 foot 1 inch long shelf! Our wall section was exactly 4 foot. Sigh!

We also got he Christmas tree strung up from the roof on eye hooks! Kinda ghetto looking, but out of the way! I tried to take pictures, but the camera battery died and I can’t find the other one I had on the hike with me…

Full weekend!

Crime in your face

Hubby sent me a link a while ago that lists all the crime that is around a city. It is displayed via icons indicating which type of crime.

We live near the parking lot for the Rockies Stadium so burglary is expected (yes, it is a sad state of the country when crime is expected)!

It is a little unnerving to see some of the crime listed in places that we occasionally take our evening walk. (I've modified some of our routes!)

Check our your neighborhood at spot crime

While attempting to find this site again I came across this one for LA.

You can sort by ethnicity, cause of death, gender, day of the week, etc… Pretty crazy! And again sad!

Camping in the dunes!

I convinced hubby to spend the weekend at the Grand Sand Dunes National Park – south of  Pueblo.  It was a really amazing time! To see these giant piles of sand gently sitting in front of Giant Mountains is just awe inspiring!

We got a pretty good start on Friday – 2pm – but still not early enough to get a site within the park. But there was the Oasis Campground – 133 sites – so we had a place to camp!

Our first sight was an amazing view, but hubby didn’t like the amount of bugs so we move along! We found another location – about as far from the rest room as possible!

We enjoyed a beer and a great campfire! Hot links, chips and salsa, and s’mores! Yeah!

The next morning we got up early. Hubby’s allergies were killing him! So we made the dunes by 7:30am!!  We headed up!! It was amazing! It was harder than heck to walk on!!

Seeing the different dunes, and edges, and wave patterns wasjust simply amazing!! We saw a couple little creatures – just crazy that theycan survive in this environment!

We trudged up and up and up the dunes! I was determined to make the summit, hubby was less than thrilled! At one point we took a break to get our breath under control so that something besides our heartbeat could be heard! At that point I said I’d give it 1 more hour and then we could bag it – that was 8am! We made the summit at 8:55! Whew! True to my word!

There were amazing views from the top, all around the sand dunes and mountains and the river! A really great place!

We got down in just over 30 minutes. I was lots of fun “running” down the fronts of the dunes! My left shoe filled with a ton of sand, by the time I hit the bottom my left side was 1 inch taller than my right!  Hubby gave up on the whole shoe boon doggle and went barefoot!  Some of the sand was a bit hot for hubby’s feet, so he would run quicker and then dig in to find the cooler sand!  J

After our jaunt to the top we headed back to the camp site for “lunch” and a nice nap!

It was HOT! We have discovered that we need a “cover” for our tent!!

That afternoon we headed back to the “river” to cool off! Having been there at 7:30am we never imagined that it would be “packed”. We had to park pretty far away and carry our stuff in! We were amazed by the amount of stuff that was on the river! Popups, coolers, chairs, toys, tubes, and more! It was like Lake Havasu in California! Ghetto Fabulous!

   This is what it looked like at 8am:

We chilled in the water, with the breeze for an hour or so! It was really refreshing!

We attempted a hike to an overlook to check out the dunes from afar, but the bugs were biting and the rain was threatening!

We spent our last evening chilling by the fire, drinkingsome wine and eating burgers!

One of our camping neighbors stopped by to chat. And the best line of the evening was:

"If you live in boulder and are not a triathlon you are shunned" 

I'm still laughing about that line!

If you get a chance – take in the sights at the dunes!

Bubbah Terrance is doing a smidge better today. We have figured out how to keep him doped up on pain pills so that he can traverse the stairs. He’s not crying when he sits, nor when he gets up. That’s definitely a good thing!

Bubbah Phillip is sick and tired of all the attention being bathed upon his evil brother! He just looks at us like, hey, I’m good child, pay attention to me, praise me!!!

I just remind him that his brothers days are currently numbered and that soon he just might be an only child!

Last night I went to a showing of Sex and the City! It was great! Loved the plot line, and seeing the gals together again! The nudity was a little disturbing since it was 3 stories tall – or felt like it was anyway! I know, I know, I’m weird! But I loved it! Loved the ending!! Loved it all! I laughed I cried, it was better than cats!

The only bummer to the evening, was that 1.5 hours into the movie the fire alarm went off.

Yes,the flashing lights started going, the projector stopped, the lights came on…What? I don’t smell anything, can’t we just see how it ends? I was concerned that if we came back for another showing I’d have to sit thru the first ½ again.Ugh!! But as luck would have it, it turned out to be a false alarm, so they letus back in and gave us a free ticket to another movie! Woohoo - I think it might be the "He's Just Not That Into You" one coming out in the  fall! It'll be another chick flick night!

Prior to the movie my friend L and I at ar Marlow’s. It’s a good old boy place, but dang is the happy hour affordable!! 12 oz draft beersfor $2! Sweet!

L and I split our entrée and got an appetizer – The halibut with lobster mashed potatoes and spinach and artichoke dip!  Lovely meal! A little noisey, but we had a nice time!

The waitress was pretty attentive, but the bar tender was overwhelmed!

Bubbah in distress…

2 weeks ago we brought Terrance into the vet for his monthlynail trim. Sounds benign I know. But Terrance doesn’t like to be touched orhave his feet even looked at. So this procedure requires that he be knockedout!

When he came home he was his normal groggy self and we let him sleep it off...  

But then something wasn’t quite right. He appeared to be limping. We thought he was chewing his feet again, but never caught him doing it.

Then we noticed the limping was on a different foot and then just would be random. We were confused and worried about bubbah Terrance.

It got to the point where Terrance wouldn’t move much, and his limping was increasing. We called the vet after about 5 days and asked if Terrance did anything crazy during his last visit – no one had noticed anything and this place is very good to Terrance, they put him in a calm room for his recovery!  They suggested an anti-inflammatory. So he took that the second half of last week and by the end of the weekend we were extremely worried about him! We got him an appointment for Tuesday. Turns out the poor bubbah has had hip displasia forever and it is now rittled with arthritis.

Sigh.

At this point he’s crying when he sits, crying when he is attempting to get up.

Dr says we need towalk him…  And stairs are bad…  Hmmm….

So we have some fancy drugs for him and are hoping for the best. I’m thinking hubby is going to have some hard choices coming up.

Something in my craw

There was something that occurred this weekend that I have not been able to let go.

It doesn’t matter the specifics. But basically someone I have never met was very rude and confrontational about a situation that really could have been handled differently. This will be a person whom I will be interacting with occasionally and they with me. This was a situation that could have been handled with tact, friendly faces, and common courtesy.

I’ve been mulling it over. I was in a crappy mood all day Sunday because this was how my day basically started. I’ve tried to move thru it. I’ve tried to talk thru it with hubby.

The sentence that really kills me was this “It isn’t a problem, but it’s getting to be”.

It really kept me from giving 2 hoots about this person or their issue. They had jumped out of their car with enough angst and piss and vinegar to start a south Boston brawl. I luckily kept my mouth shut, replied – thanks (with a side of dick head under my breath after he left), but it really left me wondering who this person thought they were.

I’m a little put out at the attitude. Ok a lot put out! I guess I could take the side of – maybe the attitude was based on some other events prior to our discussion.  But really – you get more bee’s with honey than with vinegar.  So keep that in mind today, and if you happen to see the weenie that ruined my Sunday – pee in his cheerios!

Packed weekend!

Friday hubby and I picked up my cabinet deal of the week! Came with a free countertop!

Me: I read the listing on craig’s list and skim to the bottom where it says all 3 for $50. I reply and then notice that the $50 was regarding the mirrors not the cabinets. Oh well, I never seem to be the first one to the party on these things anyway.

Seller: They are still unavailable, call my wife.

Me: Crap – I call the wife, but the number is wrong. I email the seller explaining I mis-read his ad, and that 250 was a little too much for my budget, but good luck to him.

Seller: Well, it also said or best offer and since no-one else has responded, it sounds like such to me

Me: Woohoo!!!!

Since my ability to eye ball how things will fit, and my idea that my vehicle is huge, let to the counter not fitting. And it was like 9 feet long too. Sellers were gracious enough to let us return the next day for it! Sweet!

Saturday morning we start with my last craig’s list adventure and put up the ceiling rack. I’m not sure how they managed to build our ceiling, but they put beams that were about ¼ inch cause every time hubby found a stud, the screws before and after the main nail went into air… It took about 2 hours longer than it should have, but it was up eventually!

Next, remove all the junk from the end of the garage. Shovecabinets in place. Determine which side we wanted the “gap”. The 3^rdcabinet wasn’t going to fit! We decided to leave the gap where the plumbers had put the air intake and the clean out valve for my sink!

Next was to hack out the back of the left cabinet since theplumbers also angled their pipe in the corner. Worked out well!

We determined we needed 80 inches of counter. So we could hack it to pieces and fit it all in the car! Woohoo!

As we were heading to Costco and SuperCuts the seller’s called and said that they would be available to pick up the counter. Ok, so no hot dog and berry sundae for me today!

We stopped at Toast – a cute little place down in Littleton that we have seen for the past 3 years and never stopped at! It was great! I had the Reuben – it was really tasty, a little light on the sauerkraut, and heavy ,seriously heavy on the butter, but filled my tummy! Hubby did the bacon cheese burger with a fried egg! We were pleased and it was a great location. It might end up be a destination on a bike ride in the future! Nummies!

We got the counter home, and headed to Costco, Home Depot (needed liquid nails to finish the job), and Supercuts – can’t have hubby looking like Wolf Man for too long, no matter how sexy it is!

We get home, I deal with the Costco aftermath – meaning me and the food saver action! Hubby goes and removes all the left over good from the counter. We got it on, places great, and proceed to empty boxes into the cabinets, cover the counter top and all the space in front and basically made it look just like it did before we started in the morning! Ugh! We still need the upper cabinets! Then we’ll be cooking with gas!

At that point it was 6ish…  Time to try out the grill – hubby finally got our propane one converted to the natural gas!  Hot links it was!

Then with nothing on TV we decided to head to down to Plaza deel Arte to check out the chalk art! Good thing we did, cause I was awoken Sunday morning to raindrops hitting the windows over my head! I felt so bad for the artists. There were a number of really cool ones this year. Here's one i really liked!

Sunday was a visit from the boobers! They didn’t really rememberme, probably because I was out of context, but they warmed up after their dadleft and they were stuck with me!

It was great to have my little guys to snuggle with! We played ball in the house, took a walk till they got too hot, took a ride in the car to get lunch, hung on the roof, napped in the big bed, watched TV on the couch, and finally it was time for their dad to come retrieve them. All in all it was a very nice day for me! It was a might stressful for Terrance since he was banished to whatever part of the house we weren’t in. He’s not so social.

So I think I had the quickest bout of mono or the Japanese really know how to make tea!

Thursday was just like the rest of the week, tired, node the size of Montana, tuckered by lunch time! I decided after lunch to try some of the tea that hubby brought back from from me. I used my “Giant” mug – which is basically 2  mugs, and then I re-steeped the same bag again later in the afternoon.

Around 6, after dinner, I had a burst of energy and decided hubby and I should take a walk to get ice cream! Well I did get a bit tuckered and we diverted for gelato that was a number of blocks closer! I got dulce de leche chip! MMMMM! Then I had hubby head down the block a smidge to check out this pizza place that has been under construction for a couple months. Every time I pass it on the way to work I would look in. So hubby and I were checking it out and Marco – the owner his-self- opened the door and said come on in! Well, we aren’t one to say no, so we did! I looked great inside! All the booths were setup, the wall decorations, etc! He brought us into the kitchen and showed us the cool new ovens – one coal, one wood! Neato keeno! They open Wednesday and we’ll be there! 

After we left there, we hung out and watched tv for a bit. I wasn’t tired. Hubby went to bed, I tried…  I was up until midnight! Ugh! Figured it was caffeine in the tea (I’ve been cutting out most caffeine in my day- only my coffee or latte in the morning). Figured I’d sleep till 7ish – my norm, this week of being ill…

Nope- 6am! Bright eyed and bushy tailed I popped out of bed, started the laundry, did some work, went and got some new (craig’s list) cabinets for the garage, walked to lunch with hubby, walked to work from there…   Still not tired…  Did happy hour – just 1 margarita from the Rio- and back to water, but still was up till 11pm or so! 

So my theory is that the tea is actually Japanese Crack!  :)