Brian is not very good at drinking water.

Seriously Brian, you should try DRINKING your water instead of just spitting it all over the floor. Did you even get any in your mouth?

Quick Trip to Chicago

We planned a quick trip to Chicago this weekend to meet up with Erin and Doug for brunch.  We went to the Grand Lux Cafe which is downtown and DELISH.  I had the fresh garden omelette and it was absolutely amazing.
I wasn't thinking like a blogger at the time so I didn't have the waitress take a picture.  But I can work one up in Paint really quick.

This just might be my masterpiece!!
Seriously, that's exactly what it looked like.  HAHA!! Might want to click on the picture to see the artistry and the attention to detail on the food.  Grand Lux should have me design their menu pictures!! I crack myself up, I tell ya.  Look at my plate.  It looks like a school bus with red wheels! That's supposed to be an omelette and tomatoes.  HAHA, I'm awesome at drawing.
Come and do draw-wwwwings with me.



Anyway, it was a beautiful day in Chicago.

It rained almost the whole time.  We were soaked walking down Michigan Avenue but it was still fun.  I had never been to an Apple Store so that was exciting.  We also visited Niketown so Andrew could look at jackets.  He didn't bring one so he was freezing. While we were there, we saw all the athletes Nike sponsors including good ol' Tiger:

I have to give credit to Erin on that one.  That was definitely her joke. Hilarious!  (So just to clarify, NO, Tiger's picture does not actually have a text balloon at Niketown. Those were my Magical Paint skills at it again.)

Take Your Son to Work Day

Tomorrow is the annual Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.  It is apparently sponsored by Barbie. Side note: Barbie now has two new career choices: News Anchor and Computer Engineer. Computer Engineer Barbie has a sweet blue tooth and wicked awesome pink frames.  Love it! Now if little girls all over the world could just be inspired by her and choose this as a career, then I wouldn't have to deal with the deplorable tech support I deal with now.



Oh and by the way... YOU'RE WELCOME!!

Anyway, back to the "Take Your Kid to Work So Your Babysitter Can Have a Break" Day.  I actually did this earlier this year. 

Done and done. 
Don't worry, he got a couple treats for doing my work that day.

 Good boy!

He also got to rest a little too.  Two 15 minutes breaks and a lunch were all I could allow.  I mean, come on, he has to follow Labor Laws too!

But hey, at least he didn't have to go work at the GAP like this dog.

That sucks.

Those two words are all I've heard from people the past two days. Why, you ask? The picture will help explain.





I drove down to Indy with my two co-workers for a convention for our work association. We arrived at 10 am and went inside. At the break at 11 (yes, just an hour later) I went back out to my car because I forgot to take out my Garmin and I discovered my broken window. Sweet. I wasn't even in a bad part of Indy. WTH? Broad daylight? Are you kidding me?
So what did these awesome criminals take? My two co-workers suitcases. They left my suitcase and my Garmin in the car. Seriously? What's that all about?? Did they not want my suitcase because it was dirty and covered in dog hair?? Maybe. Or did they just run out of time and my suitcase happened to be on the bottom? Who knows? They broke into 3 other cars in the parking lot, not just mine. So I called 911 and they said they would send someone out. We waited for an hour and a half and no one showed up. Finally 911 called me back. (What?) They ended up taking our police reports over the phone because they couldn't get anyone out to see us for a couple more HOURS. Awful.

By that time I had called a Chevy dealership to get a quote on how much this was going to cost to fix (since I didn't want to drive 3 hours back to South Bend with rain coming in my open window). They quoted me at $535!! Gross!! Then I called Safelight Autoglass. They were awesome!! Only $177 and I was fixed in a couple hours. Phew! But my poor coworkers each lost over $1000 worth of stuff in their suitcases.

Say it with me now, "THAT SUCKS!"


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIN!

It's Erin's birthday today! Erin is my sister-in-law. This is my gift to her.

Hope you have a great one!

Best "That's What She Said" Ever

The plumbers had to come back to our house because our drain was leaking again.  While they were there, we overhead them say:

Plumber #1: Grab a hold of my pipe with both hands. Got it? Okay now take the rubber off.

Huh huh huh huuuuuuh... good one.

IKEA is the Devil.

Seriously.  It is.  And yet, we keep going back.

Here goes the story.

We pick out the bookshelf we want for the office on IKEA's website.  It's white and over 6 feet tall, much like Robbie Hummel.  Anyway, we pick out a weekend to drive to Bolingbrook, IL to pick it up thinking it would be simple.  By the way, they make you walk through the entire store to get to the area where you can pick up the  boxes that hold your furniture.  So of course we find tons of other stuff to buy before we even get to the  bookshelf.  We find the bookshelf by matching the Aisle and Bin Number on the tag of the white display bookshelf.  We grab the boxes, purchase our items and head home.

By the way, our little Equinox hardly holds 6 foot tall boxes but we manage... with my knees in the dashboard.

That night I open the boxes to begin putting the shelf together.
It's not WHITE.  IT'S BROWN!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Are you kidding me???
The next day, we head BACK to Bolingbrook, IL to exchange our stupid bookshelf with my stupid knees in the dashboard again.  We walk through the entire store AGAIN so of course we find more things we want to buy.  We make the exchange. This time I open the boxes to make sure the stupid thing is white.  It's in a totally different bin number.  Argh.  We make our purchase and head home again.

Now we have to put the stupid bookshelf together.  AAACCKK SWEATDROPS!
Things are going swimmingly at first.  All the pegs are in the holes, all the boards are matching up, everything is level.  Then we go to put that last screw in.  It won't line up.  EVERYthing else was lined up.  But not that last screw.  After countless attempts, many cusswords and several lost tempers, everything lines up and it is finally put together.  HOORAY!!
Here is the stupid bookshelf.

The bookshelf is very nice but look at that crazy electric blue room!! That's electric! (Boogie Woogie Woogie!)
I know, we're crazy. 
But check out the desk.

Everything in the room will probably be black or white to offset that crazy color. 

We also got a new light fixture for the room.  The old one was gold.  'Nuff said. 

(By the way, I'll do a Compare The Room Post when we get it all set up.)

Some more stuff we got at IKEA? That fun silver bowl and striped silver place mats! Look at that sweet set up! That's some Bree Van de Kamp crap right there! Haha!

Also?

A fun silver wine holder! The wine on the bottom is from Cline Winery in Napa Valley. Where my San Fran peeps at?  Oh.  You don't remember the wine tour? Yeah, me neither!

We of course remember this.

But then it starts to get a little fuzzy...

Ah, memories.

But anyway, IKEA is the devil.  But I still love the cheap crap we get there.

Happy Easter!

We went to Rensselaer to celebrate the central religious feast in the Christian liturgical year.

Or Easter, if you will.

We got to see the nieces and nephew in their Easter gear...

I'm a regular Olan Mills, huh?

We could get Jack to stand by the tree but we did get a picture of him in the van.

It was also Lilli's birthday.

I just love these candles.

Haha! For a second there, I sounded like the Target Lady.

I have to throw in my favorite Target lady quote real quick (see the whole skit here):
Justin "Classic Peg" Timberlake: Then guess who runs into me? My preacher from church! And guess what he said?
Kristen "Target Lady" Wiig: That heaven has a TARGET?

Aaahhh, Target lady. :)

Want to know something else dorky about me? I went to the high school garage sale this weekend.  They were selling old uniforms and I bought some old cheerleading uniforms. I was SOOO Excited.

Yay! I don't care if I'm a dork.  I'm a nostalgic dork. :)

It's going to be a Wonderful Day

"It's going to be a wonderful day" has been my motto lately to say in the morning in the hopes of it actually happening.  It doesn't always make my day wonderful but at least it makes me laugh in how ridiculously positive it sounds.  It also makes me laugh when things go wrong on my "wonderful day".

So let's talk about Andrew's wonderful Monday.  (He really needed this motto that day.)  He wakes up to find a wet kitchen floor.  He looks up and spots THIS.

 

What you see here is the ceiling caving in.  Awesome.  It was shoddy patchwork done by the previous owners in the first place.  But the fact that it's mushy and about to disintegrate? NOT GOOD.  We've got a leak in our master bath.  GREAT ODIN'S RAVEN! 

Then Andrew went to the dentist. You know how that story usually goes.  Definitely not a fairy tale ending.

So not a great day.

We called a plumber and he came the very next day (ok, today is going to be a wonderful day!).

He was able to cut through our ceiling with a spork.  I'm not kidding.  It crumbled like bleu cheese.  It was raining drywall all over the kitchen floor. Crazy.  But they figured out it was a drain problem and not a pipe problem.  PHEW!  They replaced the drain as you can tell below:

Yeah, I can't tell either.  We only have a little bit of mold so we have to wait a week before we can patch (who are we kidding? I mean pay someone else to patch) the drywall and then we'll be all set. 

 Ewwww mold!!

Quick side note:  The plumbers had to leave during the repair to go get a new drain because they did not have one on them.  I continued working on the computer while they were gone.  About 15 minutes pass and there's a knock at the door and COMPLETE AND TOTAL SILENCE.  That's odd, I think.  Normally Brian shrieks and attacks the door like the doorbell personally violated him. I go to answer the door and it's the plumbers.  They've returned.  I also discovered that our neighbor's son is at our door.  He said, "Umm... do you know your dog is loose? Should I go catch him?"  WHAT? Oh crap.  So I follow neighbor boy and we go looking for the dog.  I say to him, "How could he have gotten loose? That's so weird."  Right then, we pass by the back door which is gaping wide open.  Aw NUTS!
Brian ran over to what we call "The Compound" (a multi-million dollar house that sits on probably 100 acres) and was running around on their basketball court, by their fountain, around their landscaping.  That was one of those moments where I wish I had mind control over Brian, "DO NOT POOP! DO NOT POOP!"  The people that live there have sued people in the neighborhood for various reason and they scare me for that very reason.  So neighbor boy (his family has been sued) and I run up and grab Brian and try to get OFF their property as soon as possible.  Not very possible since we had to walk quite a long distance.  As we're trying to get away, the wife pulls through their gated driveway.  ARGH BUSTED! She slows down by us and I profusely apologize and explain how my dog got loose and apologize some more. She says, "Mmm-hmmm" and DRIVES AWAY.  They are AWFUL! Whatever. Just as long as they don't sue us! :)



So, really, after all that... it ended up being a "wonderful day", didn't it?  Hear me laughing?