My Stalkers Love Me!

The coolest thing happened today. Granted, the mail ran yesterday but I didn't think about checking it. This morning when I got up, I decided to check the mail. There was a small box on my porch and some junk mail. No, I don't need a car loan. Thank anyway! 


I wandered inside with said box and tried to think if I had ordered anything. I did! Checks! But I wasn't sure how in the world they fit checks into a box like that and how in the heck they printed my order THAT fast. My gosh, they must've rush ordered them! I'd be surprised if there any banking info on them.


When I got to the kitchen, I opened the box and found the coolest mug! On the front is a computer (pretty sleek looking too) and under it in blue print is 

The Baker's Acres

www.dotchilatham.com 

AND it's in the trebuchet font I love so much. In case you are wondering, this is posted in trebuchet font. I stood there admiring the mug for a moment and then turned to look at the back. TOTALLY AWESOME!!! It says 

Blogging with reckless abandon since 2003!

I was so stoked! Then I started wondering... who sent this to me? Who had a mug special made just for me? That is the COOLEST thing EVER. Then it really dawned me that this stalker has to be someone I know because

1. It can to my house address
2. My house address isn't on my blog, only my mailing address is on my blog

Yea, that's all I got. Lame, I know. But even the domain name registration is private so no one can get my home address. Weird!

So I have been drinking my morning coffee out of this mystery cup from my mystery stalker and I gotta say, I really like it! That is the coolest mug! I will have to post pictures later today once I have batteries for my camera... or I will once my cell phone is charged. I can post from there.

To the stalker (and I say that in a loving, non-creeper kind of way) who bought me this mug... Thank you! If it's who I think it is, I'll be calling you later today... I think. We'll see if I am right!

Fake nails... I feel like Dolly Pardon in 9-5

Ever since I was little and watched Nine to Five  with Dolly Pardon typing away with her long fingernails, I have wanted to have long nails that I could type with too! Like long, pretty manicured nails that look cool and pretty. Not like my gnarly, phyllo-dough nails.

But this weekend, I saw my friend Lolita and she is so funny and wild and cool and I just love hanging out with her! I tried on her Native American dresses (I look HOT in them) and gave me a picture of herself when he was younger and then she gave me a box of fake nails. They are pink with white tips. I was giddy.

So I came home and decided to try them on and see how they do. First, I can't type with those things on. Hats off to Dolly Pardon! I can't open anything either. Thank goodness Dolly Pardon has assistants! And I am not even going into the whole wiping my arse debacle! Ouch.

Last night I fell asleep and I am now covered in scratches, including one in my left eyeball. I finally just had to rip them off. The problem there is that I super glued them onto my nails. As I ripped them off, I also removed several layers of my nails on every finger (did you know nails have layers?). My fingers are now sore and feeling quite bruised. I cried like a sissy when I ripped them off. But at least now I can type and update the blog again.

Beauty IS pain! Screw that. I'll stick with my stubby, ugly, boy nails. Thankyouverymuch!

My Bedroom Floor Collapsed

It's not as horrible as it sounds, but my bedroom floor did give way and scared the pee out of me. My kids and I were all sitting on my bed as my youngest was showing us a new game demo for a game he has been drooling over for a week. We were giggling over some of the stuff he was doing when it sounded like someone dropped a bunch of wood behind the head of the bed and then I felt it shift. We all looked at each other and my oldest jumped off the bed and I scrambled off my side of the bed as fast as I could. I think that is the fastest I have moved since June 26.

My youngest son was trying to figure out what was going on when my oldest looked at me and said "I know what that was! Mendel, get off the bed." Mendel quickly crawled off the bed and Miles started inspecting something near the head of the bed, stood back up and said "OH! I was right! The floor collapsed!" WTF!? I walked around the bed and sure enough, the floor was bowing downward. Miles pulled my bed out and then the boys moved everything away from the damaged floor area while I tried to calm my nerves.

They moved the shelf away from the wall and moved everything around. My room looks like crap now but we can clearly see a nice sized gap where the floor and the wall meet, or where they used to meet. After a lot of oogling and nerve calming, Miles decided to investigate more. He walked over and stood on the area commenting on how flimsy it felt and his brother was so supportive of his curiosity by encouraging him to jump. Oh my, children! I told him not to give me a heart attack! Instead he settled for Miles putting both feet together in one spot. I was JUST about to explain why that was a bad idea when Miles laughed and said "OKAY!" and put his feet together... and then promptly dropped an inch.

I think I actually tasted my heart as it came leaping out of my throat. Trying to keep the calm-mom-in-the-face-of-danger mode, I said "Miles, why don't you get off the collapsing floor and come over here." The look on his face was priceless as he said "I can't" and laughed nervously. It was a cross between a look that says "this is hilarious" and a look that said "I know I am about to meet the creepy spider family in the basement up close and personal!" I couldn't help but laugh. So I grabbed a hold of him and pulled him towards me.

No one has gone downstairs to see if there is damage down there, and frankly I am not that curious. I am sure someone will go look eventually but it won't be me! Besides having a hurt back and not being able to make it down and up the stairs again, have you actually seen my basement? It is creepy. Not just creepy like a normal creepy basement. My basement looks like the scene to a horror movie. No really! It does. Ever see Texas Chainsaw Massacre? You know that scene with the basement where they go down the creepy wooden stairs to a dirt and gravel floor and it's dusty and dank and cobwebs everywhere. Yea, that is what my basement looks like. It scares the hell out of me!

As if that isn't bad enough, I swear to you the amount of spiders down there is astronomical! There are cobwebs on top of cobwebs. It's like those creepy attacks in the horror movies where you have to move spiderwebs to the side so you can get by. I open the door and I instantly hear shrieking horror movie music in my head. Mostly spiders don't scare me. But a small army led by Aragog living in my basement makes my skin crawl off and leave the basement without me!

Here's the kicker. The genius that built this place had the bright idea to put the breaker box DOWNSTAIRS in the MIDDLE of the basement! I want to find that sadistic bastard that had that epiphany and make them go downstairs and flip the breaker in the middle of the night because I sure the hell am NOT going down there. You could tell me there is a chunk of gold down there and I'll do the same thing as when the breakers trip. I'll call my brother and wait for him to get off work. He'll go down there.

My inflammatory markers are elevated, cough syrup anyone?

I got a call from the doctors office today. The CMA told me that my lab results show that my inflammatory markers are slightly elevated. I have no idea what that means. I guess I should have asked. I'll call tomorrow and ask. All I know is that I am still in a lot of pain. The Tramadol isn't helping at all. My back burns insanely and I have become a touch of a hermit because of it.

I don't go to the store if I can find any way to avoid it. I usually end up in tears by the time I am done. It's agony to walk through my house anymore, much less a whole grocery store. The most places I go are to the mail store (they bring my mail out to me), Nikky's house, and Town Pump. I have no life now. But I have to say, I have had fun crocheting!

I will have to post some of my crochet projects sometime. I am making about five blankets, a purse, matching crochet hook bag for my purse and matching slippers. I have a lot of time on my hands so I will have plenty of projects to do and complete! I also decided that since everyone is getting sick, it was time to make couch syrup. I love my homemade cough syrup!

So I went to Nikky's house and we made three batches of cough syrup. Cherry with onion, cherry without onion (for the onion allergic) and strawberry with onion. I have to say, I have never had a strawberry batch turn out like this before. We made two batches in one and somewhere along the way it went wrong. The finished product looked like blood and pus mixed with a little vomit and smelled like rancid garbage. My guess is that we used the wrong onion. The cherry syrup mix turned out wonderful! I ended up taking some last night and it works like I remember it to!

For the rest of today, I will be working on updating all my blogs, writing, posting recipes and working on my book. Today is just going to be a writing day! At the end of the day, I will start my very own herbal book! I am excited!!!

HAPPY NEWS!

I am thrilled and excited to tell everyone that I have a part time position at work now. I was thrilled to hear this! I will work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday now, every week from 6am until 2 pm. So I won’t have my weekends off, but I will have 3 days a week off all in a row so I am still happy about it. Now I can have time to blog and work on my writing too! And have time to spend helping the boys more with their school work too. I think this will work fine for now. It’ll be weird working during my sleep hours but I think I’ll adjust just fine.

Well, I am off to get a nap and get ready for work now. Just had to share!

Dotchi

One more week of school!

The boys have one more week of school left! I can't wait until they are done with their projects so I can post pictures of them. At first I really really wanted them to look better than everyone else's project but when I finally sat back and quit obsessing, I remembered that the main theme is for the kids to have fun with it. They are really enjoying it too. This week Miles has to finish writing his 7 paragraph report and Mendel has two more to go. I am so proud of what they have done so far. You can tell they are enjoying it.

Writing and stuff

I have been writing on Associated Content and I started on hubpages too. I need to work on my helium content too. But I am having fun with the writing. I don't get to spend oodles of time on it though. I am going to focus on it during the summer and post my articles once a week rather than everytime I publish something. I don't want my blog to turn into a huge ad for me LOL.

Ah, I must go for now. I am going to finish dressing up my blog.

Just a quick note before I vanish...

C minor *poof*

Seriously... My computer died. I guess I touched it or something. Maybe I breathed on it before with morning breath or something, but it totally died. Like, it's GONE! I'll be okay. Hubby is fixing it for me. I guess I'll have to do things like... I dunno, clean, cook, wash clothes. Perhaps I'll even learn something unusual while the withdrawal jitters wear off.

Anywhoodles, the boys are doing great. Lil Mendel is going through a moody phase. Happy and bouncing one minute and crawling into the deepest darkest parts of the boat and moping the next. I suspect some kind person is giving him candy with red dye. I can't prove it but MY children are NEVER moody! HA!

Miles is going through the stinking feet stage. The odor of his shoes endangers small animals, clears sinus passages and peels paint from the wall. There MUST be an end to this stage. Perhaps I could just amputate while he sleeps? Lysol is my friend.

So, now I am off to go find some habit to fulfill my lack of computer time... I think I'll practice splicing lines. I did well on my fifth one. The first was wild looking. Not sure what it was, but it wasn't a splice. Or, maybe I could go to the library! Man, my email is going to be so full! I have 5444 in my spam filter. I am NOT sorting all those things!

Toodles, Dotchi

I am back! YEA!

We are back in California. Actually we have been back but I am working at getting organized again. Isn't that exciting!

Today was the boys consultation at school. We are doing great! Good news is that I can turn in work any day any time (assuming they are open) so I don't have to spend a day trying to hunt down all their assignments.

I am taking a writing course. I am just waiting for the materials to get here so I can start it. I am also taking a math course. Yes, voluntarily!

I will update the blog a little more later. I just hate to see it sitting here all un-updated! Especially after the great email from the Dad with kids who has been reading this as inspiration that he won't have to wait until the kids move out to persue a boater's lifestyle. I'll post some thoughts on that for you later. And thanks so much for the email. It really made my day knowing that someone reads the blog.

Now that I have that out of my system...

We're cleaning up the inside of Epiphany today. I did laundry too. Miles cleaned out and organized the drawers and I bought paper plates, bowls, and plastic utensils to avoid doing dishes. I really need to get a windsock for the fore deck hatch and a canopy to lay across the boom. We aren't facing E/W so I don't get the wonderful breeze we had last time we were here. It gets so stuffy in here. I put a fan in the cockpit near the main hatch and have it blowing in for some simulated breeze. Tonight we are going to a concert to hear the 1812 overture. I need to remember to pack snacks.

One of the joys of living out here is watching all the people sailing in and out, try to dock and attempt to teach their friends how to cast off. I saw a lady nearly fall in the water trying to jump from the dock onto a moving boat. It was slightly hilarious... but not as much as the guy that killed the engine before raising the sails and drifted into the back of a few boats. I couldn't help but laugh.

I've noticed that when I talk to people about living aboard there tend to be varying degrees of opinions.

Some people love the idea, dream of it as a lifestyle and wish like mad they could do it too.  They ask questions out the wazu and some get rather silly with them. "Where do you use the bathroom?" or my favorite "Where do you sleep? Like, on the deck or something?"

There are those who live aboard and think it is great.
Some actually have central heat and air, hot water, dishwashers, washers and dryers and couldn't imagine how anyone lived without them. 
They usually gawk at our "very small" boat and refuse to live on anything smaller than a 45 footer.

A few only did it because they HAD to. One lady talked about having to row to shore all the time and how horrible it was to live aboard. I thought her perspective was interesting. She said the kitchen was too small to cook so they ate out all the time.

There are the people that wouldn't even think of living on a boat with kids, much less living on a boat at all.

There are the people that wouldn't think of living on a boat at all, much less with kids. One lady compared it to child abuse and said I was horrible for forcing my children to live such awful lives. She also hates grass, sand, children that run, walk, breath too loudly, blink too often, or are within 1000 feet of her. So I didn't really pay much attention to her. But some actually have honest concerns about boat living. Like, is it harder to make a meal on board? No, not really.

Anyway, I wanted to hear your concerns. You can post them in the comments section which will come straight to my email. I am going to start a FAQ and a LFAQ (less Frequently asked) label on the blog. Eventually I will work out these labels and get them organized too. 

Until then, ask me questions on what you want to know about living aboard or whatever.

Til then,
Happy sailing!
Dotchi

The San Diego County Fair

Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early (read as "7 am") to head out to the San Diego County Fair. The first thing we did was BREAKFAST at Perry's Cafe, which is REALLY tasty. Good prices too.

Then we headed to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. We parked at the horse farm area, although I can't tell you how to get to it because I am really bad with directions and I couldn't find it online. We road a Double Decker Bus to the fairgrounds where we entered.

After getting through the line, the bag check and the metal detectors we had our tickets scanned. I figured that if I have to pay to get in the fair, then I am NOT paying for the overpriced drinks, so we brought our own to start with. I didn't buy too many drinks after that because I am NOT paying $2.75 for 20 ounces of soda. That's just ridiculous!

We went through all the shopping areas which really resembled a Flea Market, and I ended up buying a bag to carry my stuff in. It was reasonably priced ($7.95). But some of the item prices were outrageous! Tank tops for $89? No thank you! We did find some good deals, like the $9.95 skirts. There was a room with jacuzzi, windows and stuff like that. Then there were some pretty darned cool exhibits that I got sucked into like they were black holes. Especially the rocks, gems, jewels and fossils exhibit. THAT was cool.

We ate an overpriced lunch. Food should not be that expensive. Chicken on a stick was $4. And a paper plate with chow mein noodles was $5.43. I figured they made a killing off the chow mein noodles. It wasn't really chow mein noodles either. It was more like oodles of noodles, complete with oversalting, with a few veggies thrown on top. Each packet costs me .16 at the store (for name brand) and the veggies couldn't have been more than .10 worth. The pizza looked better than that. My tongue still burns from all that salt. But I paid $5.43 for it so I felt REALLY bad letting it go to waste. It wasn't horrible, but it was horribly salty!

After that we headed to the booth for $30 all day wrist bands. Apparently this is only on special days. The rides were okay. The kids had fun. But some were pretty lame. I bought tickets for myself rather than the wrist band. Individual tickets were .75 each. I bought 14 tickets for $10 (71 cent each). Most rides are 4-6 tickets each.

Sorry to report this, but a lot these rides are not worth the $4.50 (at most) you spend to get the tickets. The "haunted house" was so non-scary. I nearly died from laughter rather than fright. It wasn't sealed well either so there was light streaming in from the cracked and you could see the whole set up.

One ride I went on with Mendel 2.0 had me asking "that was it?" at te end of it. We sat down (after paying 5 tickets) in a little "car" type thing. It went up a ramp and curved through the doors so we went out onto a balcony and could see everyone down below. So far there was nothing interesting except the doors we went through. It wnt across the balcony, into another door and down to the exiting ramp where we stopped and got off. That was it. The spinning bears were more entertaining. This thing was BORING! What a waste of money.

There were some rides that were fun. Bumper Cars, of course, a roller coaster, tilt a whirl, the vortex ride... all the classics.

We ended up leaving about 6 pm and drove back to Coronado and ate dinner at KFC Taco Hut (which is KFC, taco bell and pizza hut combined). Then we went to the movies and watched Spiderman 3. I LOVED IT!

By the time I went to bed, I couldn't stay awake long enough to finish telling my hubby about the day.

Next year, I think we'll just save up and go to Knott's Berry Farm. Afterall, if we are going to waste our hard earned money, we might as well spend it on something that is worth it. Lake Winnie was more fun than this and it's about the same as far as quality goes.

I am having a pretty sluggish day. I think I'll stop sleeping in on Sunday's. While it is nice, I always drag butt on this day and then it trickles into my Monday. At least I am getting the morning and eveing routines downpat. I found that The Messies is a much more realistic site for me. I'm not windexing my sink now. I can feel guilt free with a clean sink, not one that could double as a mirror. I especially like the two versions of cleaning. They both suit me.

I have been working on eBay auctions. I have to get my butt in gear and finish uploading the pictures so I can upload the auctions from Turbo Lister to eBay. So I guess I am off for now since the boys are outside having a water fight :)