Never trust a man with your lemon bars....

  As I said earlier, we have company coming for dinner this evening.
Around noon , I still hadn't been to the grocery store because hubby had to go get the tire fixed (well ,buy two new tires) and I was cleaning and cooking some delicious lemon bars for dessert tonight. I tell my husband "I could go ahead and go now, if you can take that cake out of the oven when the timer goes off. "




"sure, ok. "     so I head off to the grocery store. He calls me about 10 minutes later " Are you sure this thing is done? " "Are the edges brown?"  "Yeah, but not very brown." " ok, well set the timer for 5 or 6 more minutes and then get it out "




Meanwhile ,I go to two grocery stores and then I'm standing in the rain putting all our excess junk mail in the recycle bin , in the grocery store parking lot. Hubby calls me again .

"I just fried your cake."   " What!?" " I set the timer for 5 minutes ,then I got a phone call and kept working and I forgot all about it." " Is it ruined? "








                                                       I'll let you guys see for yourself.

                                     (insert cuzz words here) and start over making new dessert. Ugh!

My Danish cracker box (living room)

and dining room.

We don't call him the bunny for nuthin' ,look at that weirdo

                                               Ok, I have an hour and a half to finish everything....I'm pooped.

                                                                               Have a great evening Peeps! Luv me

Maximum kick baby

      ok...now where was I?



Oh yeah, off the Effexor and doing fine except for one extremely annoying symptom, the God awful insomnia!



My spouse has been working out of the country, nearly EVERY week, Monday-Friday. So at first I was thinking, as I'm wide awake at 2 A.M. , "man ,I can't sleep when you're gone."


 That made no sense. I was home alone in America for months at a time, I slept like a baby.



Well, also home in America, I drink caffeine free diet coke, they do not have that here, AT ALL. So I had switched to Pepsi Max (just because it tasted better than the "coke light" ) That is what I've been drinking for months.


 Well ,one day , I dragged my exhausted ass out of bed, after being awake half the night and went out to run my errands.

 Here in Denmark it is RARE to find a place where you can buy yourself a nice fountain drink, to go.

 So as I grab a 16 ounce bottle of lukewarm pepsi max, I notice, for the first time ever, these words “maximum kick, no sugar"

I thought to my exhausted self, OMG, I wonder if there is extra caffeine in this shit?

Of course I googled it up as soon as I got home, imagine my surprise when I saw this:



"The Max Factor

In addition to being a zero calorie soft drink, Pepsi Max is also marketed for its increased caffeine content and the addition of ginseng, both of which give it the appeal of an energy drink. In comparison to the 38 mg of caffeine in regular Pepsi, there’s 69 mg of caffeine in Pepsi Max."

Hello, stupidity! I've been frying myself up every day with EXTRA caffeine.....this is after the pot of coffee I drink every morning.


Now, I'm having to wean myself off my extreme caffeine over dosage, am I feeling like a bee-otch? Why yes, yes I am. Senile? Yes, feeling that too. Shaking my head.


Hey, I said it was stupid, not exciting :)


************************************************************




Well, let me see .....what else is new since I haven't been blogging.




I have been spending my spare time going to flea markets and yard sales, (great fun! ) however ,now that it's about to be freezing ass cold, those are about to end. :((


I have tired to offer myself up as a volunteer, and since I do not speak Danish I have been rejected like the plague. Then, as fate would have it, this co-worker of hubby's asked me if I would be willing to help his daughter with her English.


All Danish kids take English in school starting about 4th grade(maybe)



I'm still in the discovery stage. I go meet her once a week and give her things to do in English, during the coming week.Then we discuss it all ,when I meet with her.
 Oh, she will be 15 tomorrow so it's not like I'm starting from scratch. (Thank God)
So, we'll see how that goes.


Cavuto has begun licking his stomach bald once again. This time I think it's because O'Reilly keeps beating him up.

 Picture it: the middle of the night, Cavuto is out prowling the house hunting for bugs or whatever, he starts his loud howling . Meanwhile, O'Reilly is lying next to us on the bed. First he wakes up, lifts up his head and listens ,then he gets all huffy, storms out there ...and the next sound we hear is Cavuto squeaking because O'Reilly has just pinned him down and started biting him.He is stifling that poor baby's personality. I don't know what to do about it ..except off to the vet for another steroid shot for Cavuto.Or maybe I'll start spanking O'Reilly. LOL 


Tonight we have an entire Chinese family coming over for dinner. My little friend TingTing is bringing her hubby, Mom and baby . So, I must get busy. My spouse was home all weekend and we were trapped here because there's a screw in one of the tires.(meaning ,yes, the house is a sty) 


                                               Happy Monday Peeps!
                                                    Love me

Sometimes my stupidity shocks me.......

          Sometimes my stupidity shocks me.......



   I know it's been FOREVER since I've blogged and believe me; it’s been cramping my creativity. My husband is extremely opposed to my having a blog because..What can I say..To know me is to love me, right? (lol) So, people who work for him started reading my blog. This is just not a good thing, for some people to have so much info/ammo on him.



  Well, I have finally figured out that I can have a "private blog" ,unfortunately ...this means that YOU my wonderful peeps will have to sign in, to read the damn thing. I am going to give it a shot; I hope that you will too. If not, I guess I will just write anyway and save it up for Hayden and "Maybe, Conrad"/Hamza


   I say "Maybe, Conrad" because as you know, Wes and Melanie are expecting a baby boy, Dec. 14th.
So far, the chosen name is going to be Conrad Wesley Black. When they had the first sonogram ,and saw that the baby was a boy, Wes jokingly began calling the olive sized fetus, Hamza (as this was one of the fabulous baby names they had recently seen) I have actually mailed packages addressed to Hamza Black.

Just recently I said "What if it turns out to be a girl?"    Wes said “NO! We’ve seen his package, he's well endowed."   lol  (they all are at that age)


Well, where the hell was I going with that? Oh yeah , maybe I'll just be writing to babies.

Speaking of which, you know recently ,I posted on FB ...all these cute ,cute baby clothes I had been buying at flea markets and thrift shops. Well, a few weeks ago I made 2 separate boxes of that cute stuff to mail, One for Hayden, and One for Hamza. Imagine my shock when it cost me 5 times what I paid for the cute stuff to MAIL it. Then, like 2 days later I had to explain to my spouse where this hunk of money had gone.

"Oh, remember all that stuff I bought for the babies? It cost a fortune to mail it out of Denmark."

Today, I finally tried to find out why neither Logan nor Wes have received these boxes. WTF'nF? It appears that for some reason the damn boxes have now been sent BACK to ME! I am sooo mad!
I can not pay to send them again.
 Now, by the time I go out for my visit in Jan. I'll have no clothes for myself in my suitcase because I'll have to BRING that stuff. Poor Hayden and Hamza will be 3 sizes larger than their cute Danish clothing. (So NO laughing when you see pics of them, looking like cute stuffed sausages, bursting out of their Danish baby clothes.)

They WILL be photographed wearing that cute shit if it's the last thing I ever do!

Ummm.. What else, oh ..As some of you know....I have been on antidepressants (of one type or another) since the year before Tommy died. When clinical depression struck, they were a Godsend. The bad part came later. Years later....I begin telling my doctors (in each country) "I am not depressed any more, if anything, I have an anxiety problem, I want to get off of these antidepressants."

Effexor had been the best working one, over 10 years on that shit.

Well, my UK doctor (3 years ago) totally ignored my request. My Denmark doctor, 2 years ago said " Oh, I don't want to do that until I get to know you better." As I'm getting ready to go home, for 5 months.

Are you kidding me???

So, this past spring when I went home, I demanded to my U.S. doctor to "get me off this shit!"
He began weaning me off of it immediately, by cutting my dose of 150 mg/per day, in half.

I did that for 2 months and YES the withdrawal effects were immediate.

Effexor is especially awful to stop. The physical symptoms are pretty severe, that is why doctors are afraid to HELP you stop taking it. I once ran out of it, when we first moved to Arkansas and our insurance had changed. I went ONE week without any and by the time I got to my doctors appointment I felt like I was about to die, my (normally low blood pressure was through the roof) NOT pleasant.

Anyhow, my US doctor, God bless that cute lil thing, he cut the dosage down and then cut it down in half again. By that time, I was ready to return to Denmark and refilled my last prescription, this was the lowest dose there is 37.5 . At this dose ,I was a frazzled nervous wreck (anxiety overload) ,My husband ,who hadn't seen me for a couple months, noticed how frazzled and anxious I was.

So , I got here with 30 days worth. How to ration or split, when they are the stupid little balls inside a capsule? The side effects were horrendous. Just at the lowered dose.....tick tock.... two weeks later I tried to split the pills..Ha! The little balls were all white, the static electricity made them stick to everything. I was way too blind (impatient) for that crap. I spent two weeks with brain shocks, blindness, ringing ears, totally useless, unable to drive...ect.. ect..

I tried to describe it to my husband, I couldn't do it. The best I can come up with is this: Imagine if someone removed your head, threw it in the dryer for an hour and then reattached it. Everything was on sensory OVERLOAD. Every sound is amplified, every movement is amplified. A speck in the corner of your eye looms huge, for days I thought my cell phone was ringing, No it was my own ears.

I felt like it would be better if I could not move my head at all. I thought about making myself some sort of neck brace. And an eye mask wouldn't have hurt either.

Keep that dryer head immobile and blinded....that would lessen the hell of it all.

Luckily...nearly a month later ....it's all GOOD! No more antidepressants! And here's the real unexpected thing.... my "anxiety problem" ? Ha! Apparently THAT was a symptom of the damn Effexor. I'm as calm as I used to be when I was young,.Beleive me ,that was a LONG time ago. That used to be my NATURE. I used to go to the doctor with 3, under 5 years old kids in tow and my blood pressure was so low, they couldn't believe I hadn't fainted.



       Well....I haven't even gotten to the stupidity part..... (sorry about your luck ,as my darling spouse lovs to say) No, really...it's the stupid time diff... it's betime for old ladies here.....


                   To be continued.............


                                      Love me
 

Magic Mike

A couple days ago, my friend Eva called me and said “I’m calling to tell you what your plan is for this evening.”

I was at the grocery store, “oh really, and what IS my plan?”

“Emilia and I are going to pick you up in my black chariot and we’re going to meet a whole bunch of girls at Applebee’s, have one drink and then go see the movie ,Magic Mike.”

Mmmm, ok. My only question was “Why Applebee’s?”

Apparently, that’s just where they all decided to meet.

All righty then, I’m in.

 So she picked me up and we got to Applebee’s there were about 10 women at our table, some were Realtors that they knew and some were just friends of those Realtors.

We were sitting next to these 2 real young girls who were having jello shots.

The girl next to me (whose name, I naturally, have forgotten) said “We’ve had about 12 jello shots; it’s ok though I’m an alcoholic.”

We took pictures, admired each others sun glasses and the girl next to me kept ordering more jello shots, then she tells the waiter “Her (meaning mine) drink is weak man, I think she should get a free jello shot.” Eventually he did bring Eva and I a free one.

I actually have NEVER had one before. It was like boozy jello .

We had been running late from the get go, ….BTW after popcorn and a diet coke …$23.00 to take myself to the movies. (Outrageous!)

The movie was about a male stripper, in case you didn’t know.

I will let you educate yourself right here:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/magic_mike/

To me, it was more like choreographed dancing than stripping, but hey, I’m no stripper expert. The movie actually had a decent plot in there, but unless you’re young, it wasn’t like it was so riveting that I couldn’t go out side and smoke (twice)

And here’s how I missed the entire last part of the movie.

Picture it; I had gone outside for the second time, to smoke. I sat down on the curb (like white trash ya’ll) and as I’m sitting there, I see this individual come up and start trying to open EVERY car door, down two rows of cars.

My immediate thought was “OMG he’s trying to steal someone’s car.”

I called 911 on my cell phone and I told them “I am at the Behind the mall cinema and I’m sitting here watching a guy try to break into every car in the parking lot. I told them what he looked like ect… “

They said “I’m sorry I can’t understand what you’re saying.” And they HUNG UP on me!

A couple minutes later I see the thief drive away in a black car. Was it HIS? I have NO idea. The police never showed up. The movie got out and when MY friends got out there I told them what had happened and I went to show them what the guy was doing, I randomly grabbed a door handle on some cars back seat and it opened right up. UNLOCKED!

THEN, I went in and asked for the manager and told him what had happened and wrote down both of my phone numbers.

I never heard a thing from them OR the police, NOR did 911 call me back (since they couldn’t understand me!)

It occurred to me later that maybe the guy wasn’t trying to steal a car, maybe he was just stealing anything he could, from any person stupid enough to leave their car unlocked.

Needless to say, I am livid about the response I got from 911 AND the manager of the theatre. Today, I tried to find out about the police log…..to see what theft crimes were reported that night but as of yet, I have had no luck. I even went to the library to try and see it in the newspaper, all they had was the Sunday paper.

Note to fellow humans, LOCK YOUR CAR DOORS, you idiots because NO ONE is looking out for you.

If you happened to have been robbed or your car was stolen a couple nights ago at the movies…let me know….I can identify your suspect.

In other news, I believe it was earlier that same day…I nearly killed my stupid self.

That morning I went to the thrift store and I saw this ceramic bird (a toucan, maybe) when I went to take it out of my cart, the tail hit the cart and broke off. The cashier says” do you still want it?”

Yes, I did! I knew that I had a brand new tube of super glue and it was a clean break on the bird.

Ok, the last time I tried to open a tube of super glue, I had to stick a pin down the opening, after removing the outer cap.

I got home, broken bird in hand and went straight for the super glue. I could not even get the outer cap off….so I do what any woman would do…I try to screw it off with my teeth.

Imagine my shock and horror when all of a sudden my entire mouth is flooded with super glue! It was on my lips, my chin, the roof of my mouth AND my teeth.

By some miracle, I had the presence of mind to NOT shut my mouth.

 

So picture it…there I am …mouth wide open, tongue hanging out, drooling, as I rush to the bathroom. I managed to get it off of everything except my teeth.

My teeth still feel like I have hard water scum all over them.

I know, sounds sexy, right ;)

Note to all of you: Should you ever flood your mouth with super glue…do NOT shut your mouth, and do not call 911, they will just hang up on you.

                                   Hope you all had a great 4^th of July

                                                     Luv me!

Like robins eggs in an eagle nest....

My little Hayden :)

Ugh! I'm so disgusted with the new blogger, I can not even function enough in here to do a post.


I'm going to just plow though it as best I can.....so read between the lines or something...lol

I was going to tell you guys all about my wonderful trip home from Denmark, but first I think I need to get something else off my chest.

Have any of you ever gotten fitted for bras? I am about to turn 50 years old and I have never done it. Why? Mostly because I was just too embarrassed to have someone see me standing there with the uh.....girls ...just hanging out.

I'm trying to get over this stupidity ...I mean really , who cares if some old lady sees my boobs ,right?
  I am having serious bra issues. Every time I go to Denmark I lose weight. Well, now my boobs are just lying there at the bottom of my big ole' bras.
 I went to TJ Maxx and bought some super cute new bras ...one size smaller ,and what happens?
(after I ripped all the tags off , naturally) The old girls are bulging out over the top of the bra like crazed muffin tops. WTF?
So what size bra am I supposed to wear? Someone please share your bra fitting experience.
Can I live through it? I simply must go do it.

Oh Poodles and Soul....you hoo.....add to your list of things to do for girl week "Go get fitted for bras"
You KNOW you're having bra issues.
  You're welcome :)

*************************************************************

Ok, moving on to my lovely trip home from Denmark.

My first flight was at around 7 A.M. ,I got up at 3:45 ,(oh the joy) hubby dropped me off .He actually walked me into the airport to show me where to go because he thinks (or maybe knows) that I am incompetent.The first flight was from Copenhagen to London. I had a 3 or 4 hour layover in London and the UK is so damn strict about everything that it was impossible for me to even go outside just to smoke a frekin' cigarette.Luckily ,my spouse had bought me a "one day pass" to the Admirals club lounge.  The food they had was nothing, but they did have a recliner that I lounged in for a few hours.

The next flight was the LONG one ,from London to New York. Miracle of miracles...the plane was only about a quarter full !(this has NEVER happened!) I had two seats to myself, had it been night time, I could have found myself a row of 5 and slept away. The movies they had playing were all crap. I tried to read a book. My attention span was like a gnat. There was a young orthodox Jewish couple sitting in front of me and when we first got on the plane ,I heard him say "I'm going to find a row of seats farrr away from you."

I assumed he was just kidding because of the empty plane . But after take off he did move over to the empty row next to me. She stayed in the seat in front of me. So I spent a lot of my time watching and speculating.
(Ok, being nosy!)
They both got Kosher meals which looked and smelled better than any of the crap that I got.

Note to self " next time order some special meal"

I finally landed in New york at JFK airport. I had a few hour layover there too and I was on American soil now ,baby! I was free to go outside and smoke.

I went outside and chain smoked about 4 cigs before I went through security.

Picture it......New York, it was roasting hot ,compared to the sunless 50 degrees I was used to. The was a young girl sitting on the ground with her bra and shirt straps pulled down ...tanning herself.

I 'm sitting there smoking ,trying not to stare at how stupid she looks and then not one, but TWO,older guys (like my age) start stretching and exercising...right there in front of God and every body.

 I see young girl rolling her eyes and her , thinking "OMG , look at those old fools, HOW embarrassing!"

Inside ,I am saying "you look just as stupid honey, put your damn clothes on!"

So ,I leave the sideshow and get into the enormous security line , where every damn person waited until they got UP to the conveyer belt to THEN remove their belt, shoes, laptop..etc...

I wanted to kill them all. I get thru and rush to my gate , my plane was supposed to depart at 5:20 , the sign at the gates says "now departing at 7 p.m. " (well, isn't that special)

I now have time ,so I go to the lounge (with the rich people) haha.

I ask the lady "are they going to announce the flights in HERE ,if they change the time?"

She says "Oh ,of course they are ." (you stupid ,southern cracker crumb)

So, I go buy myself a salad ,sit and eat then go back up and ask her "has there been any change in my flight status?" (that's right ,I'm a doubting Thomas)

Her "Oh ,they're in FINAL boarding now!"  (NO F'n announcement at all!)

I run to the freak 'in gate (after I swore I would NEVER do the OJ thru an airport) and as I get to the desk ,I see my plane taxi-'en down the runway.

The gate lady checks her computer and says "Well, I have good news and bad news. There IS another flight, but it's out of Laguardia."

Me  "How am I supposed to get to Laguardia?"

"The next flight leaves in about an hour, you'll have to take a taxi."

By the time I stand in a big line to get a taxi, we pull onto the freeway and oooh big surprise...it's rush hour traffic.

...............................To be continued ........stay tuned for highlights such as when i try to collect my luggage.....

Tayin' in the wane.... (now with more)

Ola Peeps,


 The other day while "I" was in cake heaven.......my spouse had this to say:


"Grandma had more frosting on hers"

"It needs to be in the refrigerator" (that's how Grandma did it)

"Grandma made it into a layer cake"  (as would I ,had the f'n thing come OUT of the pan)


Well excuuuuuuuuse me.



 




That reminded me of this other "cake incident" .....Picture it ...the olden days.....I think I was 23 years old.


 My dear little sister, Soul, was turning 19 years old.


 I take 3 babies and walk my fat self to the store to buy the stuff to make her a cake. One walking, one tripping over his own feet ,every few seconds and me carrying one 30 pound baby, the whole way.


I get home, whip up the cake and wait for my precious to get home.


Miss Priss arrives home and does not even EAT any of the cake! "Uh, sorry, I have plans with my friends."



Oh I should have learned my lesson back then.




Note to self: Never make a surprise cake for a Taurus EVER again.

Question to self: Why are the most significant people in my life ALL Taurus's? I must be a glutton for punishment.

(Update: my sister has informed me of HER version of events....you may see them here

http://soulmange.blogspot.com/2012/04/lost-in-translation.html

She came up with a pic too, note that the cake is not even cut. lol

*****************************************************



Yesterday, I had the joy of riding the bus to Frederiksberg, which I haven't done in quite some time. Now that we have a car, I usually wait for the days when I have the car.



I forgot what hell it is to ride the bus. I left the house, pulling my suitcase and walk to the bus stop. The weather wasn't too cold, maybe 50 degrees, but the damn wind was blowing like crazy.



By the time the bus showed up, mascara was streaming down my face from the damn wind making my eyes water.



The trip to Frederiksberg takes about 6 minutes in the car; on the bus it takes 30. The bus is sweltering hot, with the heat blaring. I remove my wool coat and hold it in my lap, an obese girl sits next to me, the heat from her body is about to make me spontaneously combust.



The bus stops, seemingly, every few feet . UGH! "We’re never going to get there."



I hum to myself, sigh loudly, and scorch.



We finally arrive and I feel like stripping my clothes off and running down the street, I’m so hot.
(I didn't do that)



I drag my suitcase to both of my thrift stores and the post office, wind howling into my eyes, mascara running. I catch sight of myself in the door, wipe my eyes and then notice that my hair now looks, literally, like a crooked birds nest atop my head. I am NOT in a good mood.




Needless to say, I found zilch at either thrift store. I was becoming bitchier by the second and still had the sweltering half hour bus ride to get home.



I'll spare you the details of the return trip. :)



By the time I got home ,I was such a bitch ,I thought to myself " Man ,If I was a dog ,someone would have me put to sleep."



My mood did not improve as I waited the next few hours for hubby to get home. I needed to cook dinner; it was time for me to be in my pajamas. The longer I waited, yep, the bitchier I got.



Finally about 7 P.M. hubby called and said “Do you want to just go out and get something to eat? I'm leaving now."



Hell YES ,I want to go get something.



 Luckily ,he asked before I had a chance to annihilate him, that does tend to ruin the mood.


Well, I have NO idea where I was going with that story.  (Hello ,senility!) I guess I'm just a bitch in the wind.


                                                  I do have the car today as hubs is out of town, so hello adventure. LOL Yeah right.


                                                                          Have a great day ya'll and if it's warm and non windy where you are, I hate you .

                                                                  

                                                                     Luv me

It's alive and eating cake

Well, I see that blogger has changed every damn thing since I've been in my never ending, winter slump.
That's just peachy.




Anyhow, yep....I'm alive out here. it's going to be a sweltering 55 degrees today. So in celebration, I am forcing myself to update my dusty old blog.




Why haven't I been blogging? A few reasons ........I've barely taken any pictures since I've been back in Denmark; it’s been cold, gray and dreary. Everything dead and brown. Ugh! I have had a severe case of writers block .Not that I couldn't think of anything, just that I was thinking of too much, all the time. My mind has been like a tornado in a blender.




Here's an example.....I'll start thinking "hmmm...I really need to update my blog, what should I blog about? The trip to Sweden? Helsinki? The flea market?" Then suddenly I blurt out " Ba kawwwwwk! " and start cackling.


Why, you ask? My son Logan once said to me “look at those chicken legs. Ba kawwwwk! "
Every time I see my own legs now I squawk like a crazed chicken and start laughing..




Then from there, my mind will just wonder on to some other insane thing which is in no way related to updating my blog.




So, let's try to focus ...ok.



We are "regulars" here at a Chinese restaurant. Yes, we're in Denmark and our favorite place is a Chinese restaurant.Anyhow, we have become friends with our little waitress there and a while back we invited her over for dinner.She works 6 days a week, every week so she had to trade shifts with someone and then wait weeks to come over for dinner.




That day finally arrived, yesterday. Today is my husbands’ birthday so my plan was to make a cake for after dinner. Well, you would think that would be a no brainer, right? Well, not when everything is in Danish and there is no Betty Crocker out here baby. First of all I had to find a cake pan. The closest I came was a spring form pan. (Which I have never used before)
I had a chocolate cake mix I had bought last year. "ok, fine, I'll make that and do home made frosting"




I type the directions into google translate and apparently all I need to add is water. I mix it up; put it in the spring form pan ....the batter is only about half an inch thick. I put it in the oven and pretty soon I smell burning chocolate. The batter is leaking out the bottom of the pan into a burning little pile on the oven floor.
I scrape that out with a spatula and throw it away. The cake is now about a quarter of an inch thick.




I go to wash the bowls and taste the batter. OMG! It tastes like chocolate dish water. Clearly this is not going to work. Meanwhile the batter keeps leaking out of the pan....I open the smoldering oven and remove the chocolate pancake .The shit cake and the shit pan go into the garbage.




Back to good old google, for a chocolate cake recipe. I had to make it in a oblong pan and it wouldn't come out of the pan, but I must say it's bombdiggity delicious!




See, can't stay on track . LOL


Dinner was very interesting . T speaks pretty good english .She told me that one of the guys she works with overheard me speaking and said " She speaks very beautiful but I can not understand what she says."
Apparently my southern accent butchers the english language.





This girl is like 25 years old. She was telling us about how her parents are so "old and worn out now." We asked "how old are they ?"

" ummm" thinking ...."they born in 1967"  (hubby and I nearly fell out of our chairs)




It was fun and refreshing to have our young friend over.





And now....I'm off to eat some cake for breakfast and then the flea market is calling my name.


                                                                    Have a great day peeps!


                                                                             Love me

Helsinki, Finland

Hi ya'll,

I just went on a business trip with my spouse to Helsinki ,Finland.

It was freezin' ass cold there ,but also snowy and beautiful.The second day we were there it snowed all day. The trees were covered in snow and there are hills there, it really reminded me of Colorado.

We stayed at a hotel right by the Central train station. The town has trolly cars (trams) ,which is how I spent most of my time. I just rode random trams to see what might be out there.I also spent a lot of time shopping and on our final day ,I took a taxi to this "famous" flea market, which turned out to be absolute crap! I felt guilty for not buying anything . It was seriously pathetic.

It's very gray and dark there. The sun didn't really come up until around 9 A.M. ,and then not much of it.

This made for some hideous picture taking. Also most of them were taken thru the window of the trams.

                                                     (click 'em to see them full sized) 

                                                              Have a great day peeps! 

Oh yeah, P.S. no sign of any of my rats since we've been home. The thought of them being dead makes me feel awful :(

Finnish hotel room

Finnish hotel bathroom

The view from our room

 

 

 

 

 

More hotel room

Sorry Wilbur,you must go......

Hi Peeps,

Yesterday, I did go to the loppemarked (flea market), the thing is held in a huge event auditorium. 

the actual place (photo from google images)

There were so many people in there, walking down the aisles is more like one mass shuffle. This makes it very difficult to actually get near enough to each table to look very closely OR to actually buy anything.

Add to this, I was pulling my trusty suitcase with a bag tied to the handle and with no where to put my giant, puffy coat, I had it tied around my waist. (Only sweltering from the waist down,baby)

Most of the merchandise was overpriced antiques. I was searching for the few regular old people, selling their crap, cheap! 

Not that I wouldn’t have bought some little antique, if I found something I loved, but mostly, I didn’t love any of it. The majority of it is either, A. blue and white or B. looks like it came from the 60’s, I like neither.

However, I did find a few little things and they were cheap too. Woot!

Canvas cat art

Little planter and also my new PERFECT tattoo idea (to cover my old one)

6 cheery placemats

2 cute egg baskets

A mess of various picture frames

3 baskets and a little cream pitcher

 and the most expensive thing I bought was a hot dog!

 **********************************************

You know a while back, I posted about how we have rats in our backyard?

Well, since then I have done a lot of rat watching, at first, I tried to convince myself “maybe it’s just ONE rat.” 

I named him Wilbur.

 Eventually, I spotted a lighter one, then a darker one, then a pair of smaller ones. My magical thinking had to be abandoned. The more I saw them, hopping with apples in their mouths, the more I began having visions of myself out there, feeding them cat food when it got too cold out.

I turned to good old Google and did some rat research. “Humane ways to get rid of rats”

Apparently, such a thing does not exist. I did find out the horrors of traps, in which rats have been known to chew their own legs off trying to escape, and sticky traps, where sometimes their face could become stuck and they would lay that way for days until they died. The most humane thing is the poison, which is a blood thinner. The rats actually hemorrage to death, internally (hopefully VERY quickly)

I also learned that rats can begin reproducing at 3 weeks old! Wilbur was well on his way to having his own country out there. 

I found out, during my rat-search that here in Denmark you’re supposed to report it to the city if you have rats.

Of course the city website is in Danish . Here’s is what it said (after translating)

“rats

Instances of rats must be reported to the municipality, which sends a rat fights out on the property to initiate combat.

The municipality must provide rodent control. Homeowners, in turn, obliged to keep buildings in good rat proof condition and ensure that there is a reasonable order, etc., so you do not give rats for good living opportunities.

Once you have notified a rat, you will receive a letter from us about things you can do yourself before rat anti transferee arrives.”

Having apples all over the yard was “giving rats good living opportunity” so my spouse cleaned them all up (again) this weekend. 

Bright and early this morning, I filled out the form on the city website to report "my instance of rats”.

About half an hour ago there was a knock on my door.

Me: still in my pajamas “who is it? “

Him: (in perfect English) “It’s the rat guy” 

Man, these "rat fights" don’t mess around! So, the rat guy just filled some contraption with nice, humane, rat poison and left it by Wilbur and families main rat hole.

Yes, I DO feel awful.

Well, ya'll I have a date with 6 dress shirts and a hot iron. (whoopie!)

                                                 

                                                                   Have a great day ! Luv me

P.S. remember these 2 things....rat traps and french cuff shirts are EVIL.