Deja Vu

It was like deja-vu around here last night. Last year after Christmas we lost power and we lived in the dark for four days. I don't know what was going on around here but a major part of our city lost power last night for about four hours.....which is way better than four days, but still....very annoying! I was on the computer last night around 8:00 when everything went black. I groped my way down the stairs where hubby had a flashlight. We could see outside that nothing was on anywhere. I decided to take the car out and see exactly where power was out and where it was still on. I could only see lights in the city next to us. I drove around and saw no lights anywhere except at a few businesses where they must have had a generator that kicked in. No street lights, no traffic lights, nothing. It was scary driving without any street lights and traffic was backed up at the intersections so I took some dark side streets home and got off the roads. We lit a lot of candles and stayed in the family room where it was warm with our gas wall furnace. By 10:00 I took a sleep aid and tried to fall asleep on the couch since there was nothing much to do. I think it was around midnight when all the lights finally came back on. I haven't heard what was going on last night to cause the black-out. I mean, there were no storms of any kind going on....just a regular night. Weird...

So today I met up with my son and we went to a couple estate sales. I bought a cute gnome for outdoors and a welcome thingy with red birds on it to put by our front door and a few other things.

Tonight I went to the show and saw "The Book of Eli" with sexy Denzel Washington! It was a good movie. After some catastrophic event that wiped out alot of civilization, Eli has the only remaining bible that this guy is trying to get his hands on so he can have power over people. Apparently, 30 years earlier Eli heard a voice telling him to 'go west' and take the bible where it will be needed. So he had been walking west for 30 years reading the bible everyday. Then the bad guy gets the bible from him but discovers that it's useless to him because......(gotta see the movie to find out)....Eli finally gets to the San Francisco area in the west where a guy is running a print shop and Eli tells him that he has a bible. So the guy wants to see the bible so he can print out copies of it for the people, but Eli doesn't actually have the bible anymore, but he does......(well, you'll just have to see the movie to find out!)

Tomorrow hubby and I are going to our son's girlfriend's house for her daughter's birthday party. It'll be the first time he has met her parents. I've met them already. Should be fun....

Back again....

Drove back home from Caseville last night. I got in late because I had to wait until General Hospital was over before I could leave. It's getting really good now that...."Michael discovered that Dominic is really an undercover cop and he told his mob-boss Dad who Dominic has been working for and getting evidence to send him, mob-boss Dad, to prison...."....and...."Lucky confronted his fiance, slutty Elizabeth, and told her that he knows that she has been screwing his brother!..." I couldn't miss THAT! So it was almost 4:30 by the time I left and got home by 7:30 a good half-hour before "The Bachelor" came on. It's so sad that I have to time everything around my TV shows...

I had a nice relaxing time in Caseville and met my friends up at the Eagles Saturday night. I stuck to my no-beer diet and drank gin & tonic instead. I even watched what I ate, except for Sunday when I decided I was HUNGRY and I got a personal size pizza from Subway and ate all of it. Those diet patches didn't work worth a damn and even with my cutting back on my diet and eating spinach, cottage cheese, turkey and fruit....I lost a total of 3 pounds in 2 weeks....and then I ate the pizza Sunday night.....and gained 2 pounds back by Tuesday....so I'm basically back to where I started. It's so fucking depressing!!!!!!! That diet patch company has a money back guarantee so I'm sending them a letter and getting my money back. I need to get back to the gym and get back on the treadmill, and I need to start walking even though it's cold as hell out there....

This new computer comes with that new Windows 7 and I hate it. I much prefer Windows XP. And my speakers don't work....it requires power-sourced speakers...ones that you plug in an outlet, so today I went to Office Depot and bought new speakers so now I have sound....hurrah! Luckily, over the weekend Office Max had the same computer on sale for $70 cheaper so I took the ad into Office Depot and they matched the price and refunded me $74! (tax included).....

Tonight Lost is on....last season's finale....cause next week the new and LAST season starts. I have a feeling that even when it's all over, nobody will still be able to figure out what the hell went on and what it's all about....!?!

Back online....finally!

I am glad to report that I am finally back online at home! We bought a new computer over the weekend. We decided to get another desktop since we really have no use for a laptop yet. My computering takes place on my desk in my computer room that I finally got all set up looking nice with my desk that took hubby 5 years to put together. Why would I want to put a computer on my lap?? I guess that's why they call them 'lap'tops. If you put a laptop on a desk, then wouldn't it be a desktop???.....or a tabletop if you put them on a table?? Hmmmmmmm......

Of course, it is very limited looking for desktops because they are slowly being phased out by laptops and the new type of desktops that have all the modem stuff inside the monitor, eliminating the need for that "thing that sits on the floor" as I call it. And those are very pricey. We went to several stores and were lucky to find a few standard desktops in each store. I hope this one lasts as long as my other one did because the next one will have to be a laptop type since the old desktops won't be available.....they will be gone like all the old tube TV's.

I was perfectly happy with my Windows XP and now I have to get use to this Windows 7 that they are selling. I hate CHANGE! I don't like having to get use to something new. I can't find anything. I have no idea where Wordpad is. I can't find the screen savers, so my screen goes black after awhile when I'm not using it. The fonts are so small I can barely read anything. My typing area here is half the page and before it was the whole page. I'm sure I can do something with the fonts but I have to figure that out first. My speakers don't work and everything is so quiet. I guess I have to buy new speakers. The keyboard is similar to a laptop and I like my other bigger clickety, click keyboard. This keyboard lays flat and I like it angled slightly. I'll have to find something to lift up the top end a bit. I'm use to having different things I would click on at the top of the screen and they aren't there now. There's no Yahoo mail thingy. When I click the 'home' thingy, I get taken to Internet Explorer instead of my usual start page like before. Everything is so f'ng different!! and I hate new things....

Okay, so what else is new?? Son hasn't heard anything about the house he wants. I know there are other offers on it and I think his offer is probably too low.

OH OH OH!!.....I am a big "Days of Our Lives" fan, and over the weekend two of the stars were appearing at several Art Van locations. Daniel and Chloe!! I went to the Saturday location and saw them but I forgot my freakin' camera so I didn't bother getting in line. So Sunday, I went to the Novi Art Van and took my camera. I took pictures of them and then decided to get in line so I could meet them, get their autograph pictures and have someone take a picture of me with them. It was so awesome. While I was in line, the other ladies and I were all talking about the show and what's going on and our ideas of what we think is going to happen, etc. The line moved swiftly. I was at the very end with only a few people behind me when they cut off the line. They are here doing charity work for a HOMELESS SHELTER, helping HOMELESS PEOPLE!!!....They were here a couple months ago with 3 others from the show doing charity work for the Detroit Rescue Mission which I support and send checks to periodically, and this time they were helping the Genesis House in Detroit. "Daniel" (Shawn Christian) is from Michigan. So when it was my turn to meet them, I told them how happy I was to hear that they are involved with helping the homeless because I support the DRM also and try and help homeless people, too. They said they wish there were more people like me in the world!!! I got both their autograph pictures and I gave my camera to an Art Van guy and he took a picture. I'll have to post it when I get it downloaded. It was so exciting. Shawn is super cute and sexy as hell and Nadia (Chloe) is so beautiful and thin!! She has a gorgeous complexion.....and they both put their arms around me for the picture....I almost fainted!

So that was my exciting weekend...

Tomorrow I am leaving for Caseville again for a week. Then I'll come back and get ready to start my tax job. I hope the weather stays somewhat nice. Of course, I'm taking my 'babies'.....Keno and Mini Sue.

....oh and talking about Keno....he got out of the yard again! We couldn't figure out how he did it. We were afraid that he climbed the cyclone fence which he hasn't attempted yet. So when I put him out again, I watched him. He went to the back corner of the property where the back fence meets the neighbor's side fence and there was a gap and he started to slip through but I called him and he came back. That area is usually so full of brush and crap that you can't even see the corner in the summer, but now it is all bare and he spotted it. We think that when that tree fell on the fence a few years ago, it must have pulled the post away and left a gap that we weren't aware of. Hubby fixed it so there's no opening now. Boy, if there is a spot anywhere, Keno will find it! He is like a Houdini.

That's about it.....til next time...

Ciao

Farewell Computer....Ye been good to me

I'm still using the library computer, but I've been looking at new computers. I took my computer to a computer shop and he told me that my computer is too old to fix....(10 years old) and he doesn't even work on computers that old. He said that my computer died....may as well give it a proper burial and buy a brand new baby computer which will probably only last me less than 5 years anyway. He said that computers made today are made cheaper and don't last as long. I was lucky I got 10 years out of my old clunker computer. He can get all my info and files out of it and put it on a data server or something and then he can put it all back into my new computer when I get one. I decided to skip that for now. I'll keep my old computer in case I think of something really important that I absolutely have to get and then maybe I'll have him retrieve it. I put alot of my picture files on CD's already and I have all my pictures printed out anyway. Can't really think of anything important enough to spend $100 on. Plus, I don't want all that crap put back into a new computer. Might be viruses attached to some of those files. So we'll get a new computer and start over....one with a much larger memory capacity.
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My youngest son and his fiance have been looking at houses in the Trenton/Brownstown area which in the area where her family is from and they found one that they like. I went with them and the realtor to look at it over the weekend. It's in a great neighborhood and really nice but it needs a ton of work...it's not bank-owned but the buyers are selling it on a short sale with the bank. The story is that they bought another house and decided to rent this one out and the renters trashed it...so then they hired some fly-by-night guys to gut alot of it out to redo and the guys took out the kitchen, all the flooring throughout, and part of a bathroom and then they took off with their money, never to be seen or heard from again. Of course, it wasn't too smart for them to pay the guys all the money upfront anyway. So now they can't sell it for anywhere near what it's worth, so the bank is agreeing to a short sale. But it's really a sharp house that sits next to a pond with a fountain. Wish I could post a picture of it. So anyways, Tuesday he put an offer on it. There are multiple offers going on it though, and the bank will decide who gets it I guess. He's in no hurry to move in because he still has to try and sell his house so he has time to get it fixed up.....and between the two of them they know people who do various things that will help save them money....like my husband! Maybe hubby will have a winter project to work on now....
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I'm planning on leaving for Caseville by next week for a week. Then I'll come home and get ready to start my annual tax job. Can't believe it's Tax Time already.

Back from Christmas in Caseville...

I hope everybody had a great holiday! Hubby and I had one....great Christmas and New Year's. Hubby got up to Caseville a couple days before Christmas and I had the tree up and some outdoor decorations up. He brought up more lights and decorations for outside and he put everything up and I think we had about the only really lit up place along the road. It looked really nice.

Christmas Eve was fun. Hubby put on his Santa suit to fool the dogs. He went outside and knocked on the door, and when he came in they went nuts. I think Mini Sue knew who he was cause he has tricked her before, but now she is wise to it all....but I don't think Keno knew....at least not at first, but I think Mini Sue tipped him off at some point. Keno doesn't let anybody else pick him up, but Santa was sure picking him up okay...haha. I took lots of pictures but since my computer is dead to the world, I can't download them. (Yep, I'm still using the library computer)

Since we had Christmas to ourselves.....nobody coming over, nowhere to be....we stayed in our lounging pj's all day and took our time opening up all our gifts. We started opening at 12:30 and didn't open the last gifts until 5:30. We always give lots of gifts and take a few drink breaks along the way. I think we had almost 30 gifts to open all together. We always buy each other some main nice gifts but we also give each other a lot of little things....like candy, nuts, cocoa, coffee, little $1 gift type things. It's just fun to open up gifts...doesn't matter what it is. One of my favorite gifts was a magnetic notepad that said "Blondes have more fun" and a picture of one of those Smirfs with blonde hair.....he said it was only a dollar but I loved it! One of his favorites was this little squirrel figurine that I got at the thrift store. Anyway, we buy stuff like that.

New Year's Eve we went up to the Eagles. Most people brought some type of food to contribute to the food table so we had lots to eat. I took these cookies dipped in belgium chocolate and they were the only dessert type dish that was there, so I'm glad I decided on cookies. One of the women there opened up some bottles of champaigne and passed out glasses just before midnight. Then we went home and partied with the doggies the rest of the night. I stayed in bed all the next day, so I must have had a good time!!

I just got home Monday and hubby came home today. Now I have to decide what to do with my computer.

So the holidays are over for another year. We must have watched "A Christmas Story" a dozen times. I love watching the Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel and I'll miss that. The one with Billy Ray Cyrus "Christmas in Canaan" was pretty good. And I really loved "Holiday in Handcuffs" with that hunky Mario guy.

Except for my computer crashing at the end of the year, we had a pretty good year for a change.....now on to 2010....

...Is it Twenty Ten, or Two Thousand and Ten?? I'm hearing mostly Two Thousand and Ten and that's what I say. My opinion is that it isn't "Twenty" until the year 2100 and none of us will be around to say it anyway.

So Happy TWO THOUSAND AND TEN!!!!