I haven't blogged in a while. I sometimes can't think of anything decent to say, but today I was reading my subscriptions and I got a great idea from a new follower Streetcopswife and she had a '13 random songs on my ipod' list....

So I thought I'd give it a try!

1. Bright Lights - by Matchbox 20

2. At Last - by Etta James (not the version by that "dumbass Beyonce'")

3. Addiction (accoustic version) - by the Black Crowes

4. Give a Little Bit - by Supertramp

5. Sweet Release - by LIVE

6. Boogie Shoes - by KC & the Sunshine Band

7. Everyday - by Toby Lightman

8. Wild Horses - by the Sundays

9. Possession - by Sarah McLauchlan

10. Songbird - by Eva Cassidy

11. Crush - by Dave Matthews Band

12. Redneck Woman - by Teri Clark

13. Rainin' You - by Brad Paisley

Tell me your random list.....

BTW...I do my playlists via my mood. Here are some of my lists: Girl/Group/Boy Power. Sad Songs, Mellow Stuff, Sexy Chicago, Stupid Dumb Boys, Girlfriends, Fun Stuff, Hot September, Lost Tracks, Rain Songs, Colors (all the songs have colors in the title - same as the Rain Songs list)

Best of.....

Hi new folks.

I got this great idea from "Well Okay Sassy Britches" about welcoming my new followers (all of you since I only started blogging less than a month ago on blogspot) with a quick recap of some of my fave blogs.

Hey Sassy, I found out the hyperlink thing from Word, so hopefully they work! Thanks anyways!

Please take a look whenever you can. I appreciate your looking!!!


My Fantasy day...Can this REALLY happen?


I killed a robin....


Benches for our butts


A wine story.


2 Days of Chicago bliss....Spring 2008


My kind of town...Chi-Ca-Go


Red's Picture Dictionary - part 1


Yoga is RETARDED!

Plumber update!!

I call my hub during the day yesterday and ask if he heard from the plumber. To which he replied, "Yes, he came and went."

I don't know why they think we can read their minds (at least when it comes to plumbing bills) so I ask, "Well, how much did it cost? What did they have to do? How did they get it out? How long was he there,?" You know, the ol' twenty questions dealie.

He casually responded, "$300.45 ." Of course he didn't embellish any of the questions I asked. He then said, "Well, it was $40.00 to come out, then we are Level 4 pricing, so it was $245 for that, then tax, etc."

"What the hell is Level 4 pricing mean?" I ask in a higher pitch than normal voice.

"How am I supposed to know?" To which I hang my head and wondered how he got along in life without common sense, because OBVIOUSLY, us women would have asked these kinds of life-changing questions.

Well...upon looking at the bill, the 'level pricing' was outlined in full which scared me because we were only level 4 out of 10 (10 being $998 for one hour).....must be for nuclear bomb repair or something. It is actually for 'emergency backup protection'. But in my mind, there is no plumbing service worth 998 bucks an hour.....OK, maybe sewage backup protection....


Turns out, all he did was come in, see the 'cartridge thingy' busted off inside, pull out a huge ass drill like you see in Freddy Kreuger movies and drill out the inside. When he put everything back in, 'overpriced plumber' casually mentions that now we might have to watch the downstairs pipes because when we tried to pry out the old 'cartridge thingy' we somehow bent the 'phalange thingy' and now could leak. If it doesn't leak into the tub, the 'overpriced plumber' says, then watch in the next week for a leak in the basement.


Great. Just great.

So now we wait to see if we have a basement leak. If we have to replace that pipe and the 'phalange thingy', then the plumber said it would cost $1000 or so to replace.


Fantastic. Moral of the story. CALL THE DAMN OVERPRICED PLUMBER. Just do it.

Ugh....plumbers

So my husband thinks he can do plumbing. I'm not sure why he thinks this. We have had a foray this summer where him and his dad tried to replace a garbage disposal that the guy at the store said would take a 'half hour, tops'....which turned into a festival of hammers and screw drivers against metal & bigger men than are possible to fit under the sink, fitting under the sink. I got nominated to be the 'girl under the sink' seeing as they weren't fitting too well.

We ran into a problem as well when we had to do the 'righty tighty, lefty loosey' thing and found out the moron who put the kitchen sink drain in, did it backwards, so all the while I was lefty looseying, I was in actuality, righty tightying. Yeah, don't ask.

Anyways. Last night my husband has this brilliant plan to fix the tub faucet that had started out as a light, but annoying drip, and has now escalated over the course of about a year to a full on stream that is costing us more than we care to admit on our water bill.

He goes to the 'friendly neighborhood home improvement store for dummies'.....and was promptly told by the tweeny girl that sold it to him, 'Oh, it's very easy. Just pull out the old one, and push in the new cartridge.'

Yeah, right.

He gets home and proceeds downstairs to shut off the water (Hey, at least he did that, right?), and the next thing I know, he is banging on what I know now to be the shower. He was able to get the faucet off, but the 'cartridge thingy' did NOT come out, I repeat....DID NOT come out at all.

After a while, all of the remaining plastic that was in the most remotest possibility to be grabbed on and pulled out to gain access to the 'cartridge thingy' was now nonexistent and broken off, leaving one small metal pipe.

He went back to the 'friendly neighborhood home improvement store for dummies' and talked to the tween again and got himself a lock wrench this time to attempt to remove the 'cartridge thingy'.

Upon arriving home, I had already begun to dig on line for those DIY sites to see if I can find anything with pictures, video attached, etc. You'd be surprised on how much there ISN'T. Frustrating! I did find one video and it proceded to stop 3 times JUST at the part I needed to know about. 3 times!! This means I had to watch the commercial endorsement of Dove Body wash 3 times in order to see the boring video of a 50-something guy with bad facial hair and a probable plumbers butt crack to get to the part where it conveniently geeks on me.

The next attempt by the hub was to pull with all his might at the small brass pipe that was part of the 'cartridge thingy' to see if it indeed could be popped out like the tween at the store said.

So, needless to say as he was pulling with the new nifty lock jaw pliers, POP off comes the pipe.

Yep, now our 'cartridge thingy' would NEVER come out. And of course, we didn't have the trap door behind the closet that my parents assured us we had like all other homeowners so that the pipes could be gotten at easily. No, we didn't HAVE ONE OF THOSE DOORS!!!!

We opt out of calling my mom to see if we could stay the night because with the lack of shower, that wasn't going to be very nice if we couldn't find a way to make only the TUB valve stay off. After finagling some and trying different combinations, we finally found the magic one that gave us a toilet, sink, kitchen sink and NO TUB.

I had to grab the phone and call the dreaded plumber. I haven't heard yet today what the outcome of it all is, but it sure can't be good.

As much as I say I don't really care, I DO because we don't really have any extra cash lying around, but the thought of having to do a sponge bath again, that doesn't include a beer & a massage, is not on my list of favorite things.

What's your bag??

So, I got this great idea for the blog from a new blog I'm following, Adlibby on the loose, so THANKS to her!

In reference to her rules...it's not fair if you take a purse that is fun, your fave, or something with more character than you happen to be using this minute. The rule is....it has to be one that you carried with you today. Here's mine.

It is a pumpkin-spice colored suede purse that I got from "That's My Bag" on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on one of my many trips in to train for the Chicago 3-day walk.... I love it and it holds all of my crap, without looking TOO much like a suitcase. I love that the straps are long enough to go over my shoulder without it being too tight. It only cost me about 39 dollars and it is Sag Harbor brand. It came in an olive green too, but I got the larger tote accompaniment in that color. I have that one today too, but don't have pics of it.

Here is the inside.... I love that it has credit card slots (then I don't have to have a wallet in there). Keeps the weight lower! Despite it looking full, it really isn't. I have a small spiral notebook in there that has lists. I have a brag album of my awesome nephew who is incidentally 7 months old yesterday. I have a ton of lipstick/gloss/juice/chapstick....I am not sure why I have so many. That's actually after I removed about 6 tubes of various other colors just yesterday.

Lastly, here are the contents....unveiled. I'm not sure why I have 2 packs of gum either, or the dogtags. I think they are left over from me taking them from my car console to my purse and they never found a home at home...They are souveniers I got from the Harley 105th festival in Milwaukee in June (yes, June), and custom dog tags I had made when we were in DC last August (again, yes, August). I have a small pack for those ostentatious credit cards that I don't like to show that I have those silly cards like Bath & Body Works & actually kept the promotional fake credit card from the movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic" on accident. I have recently thrown that out, but you get my drift. I have my business card holder in the pretty blue case which I got from my sister, and a brochure from my business just in case. I did not remove all of the receipts from the center pocket, because that would just make me look messy!

In looking at the pile, I don't know where the money is!! Probably at the store where I got all of my lipgloss.

Tell me what's in your bag!!??

I would drive a 100,000 miles...

Today, at exactly 6:53 am, my little blueberry 2005 Hyundai Elantra's odometer flipped to 100,000 fantastic, long, draining, happy, tune-filled, ice-covered, and repetitious miles.

I got my car in February of 2005 and it is the first time I had a new car from the current year in which I purchased it and not the older model to save money. I didn't plan it that way, but they didn't have any other blue ones other than the one with the fabric protection and retractable sunroof that was in the showroom. I didn't need the fabric protection, but they insisted that was the only one. Of course, that meant an added 600 or so dollars to the cost of my new little car. The goal was to keep the payment low, and at $248, I think I succeeded, considering it is loaded with the sunroof which I couldn't do without, the better stereo, A/C, cruise, intermittent wipers, electric mirrors, etc......

My little car has seen lots of places. My sister and I went to Yellowstone, DC, Virginia Beach & it has taken countless trips to the Quad cities area where my husband and I have family. What I hadn't counted on was the fact that in less than 4 years, my warranty is through. I wouldn't be so disappointed, but with a 100,000 or a 10 year warranty, I was hoping that I'd get at least 7 years out of it. Damn the job that is 33 miles one way!! Ugh!!

The odometer flipped while I was on the I (I-94 for you city-folk) at the Gurnee Mills exit in Gurnee, IL. I was in the middle lane.

Thanks to my little car for giving me such fun!! Here's to another 100,000!

"Dark & Twisty" song lyrics...

This is a repost from my Myspace from early 2007....

Keep in mind these are snippets or lyrics I think are good – for all different reasons – if only one that they work perfectly in that musical rift they happen to lie in, or one note really captures the feeling of the whole lyric. Some bring back good or bad memories. Sometimes they only sound worthy in the context of the music, but it's my blog and I can put whatever the hell I want on it! J A lot of these are depressing, and make me sound all 'dark and twisty'. I guess I'm a sap for sad songs! 3 stars if you can guess some of the song titles and artists. Some are easy! Maybe my appreciation for lyrics means I was a former poet too!

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.

Heal me…my darling, heal me…my darling.

I wanna be high, so high. I want to be free to know that things I do are right.

Bring the funk, funk me up, funk me down, funk my sideways, funk me always, got to bring the funk.

So come the following May, more than her appetite was getting wet.

No one's listening, not even the trees.
As I sit and watch the trees, Won't ya tell me if I scream will they bend down and listen to me. Makes me wonder if I know the words, will ya laugh at me or will I run?

I'm a stranger in my home.

But I'll see better when the smoke clears inside my head and I can listen when the screaming doesn't repeat everything I've said. All that remains is me and who I am at the end of the day and this happens everyday….

When your secret heart cannot speak so easily. Come here darling and have a little faith in me.

Watch the sun rise and fill our souls up.

Lovely lady, let me drink you, please. Won't spill a drop no, I promise you.

Would you forgive me love if I danced in your shower.
So forgive me love if I cry in your shower.
So forgive me love for the salt in your bed.


I need no soft lights to enchant me, if you'll only grant me the right to hold you every so tight and to feel in the night the nearness of you.

Hike up your skirt a little more and show the world to me.

Is no hope in you for me? No corner you could squeeze me? The space between. The tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more…the wicked lies we tell to keep us safe from the pain. The space between. Where you smile and hide, that's where you'll find me if I get to go.

I, alone tempt you, fear is not the end of this.

Put your soul in the water and join me for a swim tonight.

I know this love is passing time, passing through like liquid. I am drunk in my desire.

Oh the quiet child awaits the day when she can break through the mold that clings like desperation.

Oh God, if you're out there, won't you hear me? I know we've never talked before….

Change my life, make it right, be my lady.

When you light those candles up there on the mantle settin the mood. I just lie there staring silently preparing to love on you. I can feel the heat from across the room, ain't it wild what a little flame can make you wanna do.

It feels like it's rainin' you. Runnin down my face, takes me to another place. I can't think of better way to drown. It feels like it's rainin' you.

When I get where I'm going, I will love and have no fear.

This is how it seems to me, life is only therapy, real expensive and no guarantee.

You set my soul free, now every word that she speaks to me is pure gold. She set my soul free. She give me love, she give me hope, she give me strength to bear my faults for you.

Just like a thirsty field, I can't complain a bit….cuz I'm thankful for every single drop I can get. His love's like rain on a tin roof, sweet song of a summertime storm, the way that it moves you. It's a melody of passion raging on…and then it's gone.

I drove all night, to get to you. Is that alright? I drove all night, crept in your room, woke you from your sleep to make love to you. Is that alright? I drove all night.

Oh, darlin, darlin, darlin' walk awhile with me…..

The dust has just begun to fall. Spin me round again and rub my eyes 'this can't be happening', when busy streets have messed with people who've stopped to hold their….hide and seek.

Oily marks appear on walls whether pleasure moments hung before they take over the sweeping insensitivities of this still life. Hide and seek.

For you…..they'll be no crying. For you……the sun will be shining cuz I feel that when I'm with you, it's alright. I know its right. And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score….and I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.

Funny how my favorite shirt smells more like you than me, bitter traces left behind, stains that no one can see.

Let's go dance under the street lights, all the people in this world, let's come together, more than ever, I can feel it, can you feel it? Come on over, down to the corner, my sisters and my brothers, of every different color, don't you feel that sunshine? Telling you to hold tight, things will be alright, trying to get a better life…..man I know you want to let yourself go…..

I was feelin like a creep as I watched you asleep face down in the grass in the park in the middle of a hot afternoon. Your top was untied and I thought how nice it would be to follow the sweat down your spine.

Place your love, in my world. It's for you, it's made for you.

I can light the night up with my soul on fire. I can make the sun shine from pure desire. Let me feel that love come over me. Let me feel how strong it can be.

Like the desert, waiting for the rain, like a school kid, waiting for the spring, I'm just sitting here waiting for you to come on home and turn me on.

Hey my friend it seems your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me?

I'll walk half way 'round the world just to sit down by your side….troubles they may come and go, but good times, they're gold. When the road gets rocky girl, just steady as we go.

NOT A SONG LYRIC, BUT JUST A REALLY COOL LINE FROM A BOOK: "It's a beautiful thing to carry a person's tears in your pocket. Thank you." - The Doctor's Wife

2 DAYS TIL THE WEEKEND, BABY!!!!! CAN'T WAIT! (That's not a lyric, that's an original thought).