The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today. - Lewis Carroll

...another one of those random thoughts posts.....

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Ever see those 'Batesville Casket Company' trucks? Giant semi truck with the respectful yet eye catching logo and lettering.  Ever notice how on the highway nobody ever cuts them off, or even so much as passes those trucks. Today as I was headed out of town,  this guy in a truck practically ran a half dozen of us off the road trying to get to the head of the line of cars before the road narrowed, but when he got to the casket truck he just nipped right in behind. Coward!

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Watching those cold and flu commercials, do you ever get that head nodding reaction?  You know, 'yeah, your absolutely right, I should stock up', 'totally right, I don't want to wait until I have a cold and then go out feeling like crap to buy the drugs', 'When you're sick is not the time you want to be trying to figure out what to take for it'.

I've been sucked in, I'll admit it.  I run out and stock up on cold medicines so they're 'on hand'.  Yup, whole 'cold and flu season' goes by and I don't get sick at all.

NEXT cold and flu season the medicines have all expired and I'm out at the drug store feeling like crap trying to figure out what I need....

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Got a phone call the other day, caller ID showed a phone number whose area code identified it as just a random northern Illinois number. 'Hello'

'Hi mommy, I just needed to talk to you'. In one of those flash through your head millisecond thought processes I think.  Huh, the number didn't come up as Jessica's number, must be calling me from work, must be really important if she's calling me from work, hope the kids are ok....

'What is it baby'.........sudden dead silence on the phone, then an obviously young teenage boy voice asks 'Who is this'

Huh, it was somebody else's baby.....

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Talking to someone the other day about how inside I feel 20, but apparently have reached that age when my siblings and I need to start thinking about taking care of the parentals.  When I mentioned that to my sister she said only I had reached that age....

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In other news, I think that Aidric is getting close to being ready to consider thinking about removing the training wheels from his bike.  Sean has raised the wheels up so high that Aidric would have to be riding the bike on its side for the trainers to actually touch the ground, but the boy still refuses to have them removed.  He insists he still needs them.

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That is all.

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Looking for a small snacks...

...why is the good stuff always just out of reach...even for
a giraffe.

The primate family tree.

Calgon take me away!

A great view of Santa Barbara.

Aidric rocketing down the aunt hill.

Aidric and Stas' getting the hang of the hill.

Woo Hoo!!

Next I'll try it standing up!

Yipee!!

Watch out for that tree!

Aaaahhhh the tree!!!

Yea Ha!!

And now for the knock knock version of our program.

Comedy is exhausting.

That's all folks we're all out of jokes.

Now the singing and dancing portion...

Ahhh, time for the goody bags.

Cool a balloon....with a handle?....

A break to play with the matchbox cars.

These were Emerson's first matchbox cars ever!

'Pies'

On the road to Aidric's school, the university 'driveway' is lined by farmland.  It's about a one mile drive from the main road to the campus and the drive is bordered by strawberry fields. lemon groves and, new this season, raspberry canes.  The fields were planted in rows and then every three rows of canes is covered by a greenhouse armature and plastic and each entire field of these greenhouses is walled or fenced by a black tarp-like material on poles.  These 'fences' are really more like curtain walls that can be raised or lowered to allow or disrupt air flow.  Anyway, I don't really know much about the why of any of these procedures, but....

...one day I noticed these red spray painted markings in various places along the black 'fence'. These markings are numbers and the word 'pies'.

300 pies? Would that be raspberry pies? How many pies you can make per greenhouse? Well that's just stupid, what a bizarre way of measuring assets....

No you moron not pies, 'pies' - in spanish..... See in spanish 'pies' means feet.  300 feet. Still don't know to what the measurement refers but thank goodness it's not actually pies.....

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Five years ago today Sean had just arrived to work - a one hour commute - when I called him to tell him 'it was time'.  It was snowing in Toulouse, it hadn't snowed in Toulouse in recent memory.  

Sean turned around and drove back (an hour) and managed to not be hysterical as I tried to quietly labor in bumper to bumper snowy morning traffic.  Our well practiced 15 minute trip to the clinic took an hour and I was 'hoo-hooing, hee-heeing' most of the way.

8 hours from the first contraction, Aidric was born!

Happy Birthday baby boy!

When Aidric was little Daddy used to
carry him around just like this.

Yesterday he thought he'd try it again.....
not so much, 5 years and 50 lbs. later.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

In the Target parking lot waiting for a space when a woman backed out of another space and hit my car. Before I could get out of my car - with , I swear, forgiveness in my heart because she really barely nudged me. - the wench waved at me dissmissively and drove away. Forgiveness evaporated....

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

The sun has dipped below the clouds on the coast and god it's going to be a glorious sunset. Headed home, but pulled off at Cardiff by the Sea to watch.......oh yeah, that's why we live here.....

Spent the afternoon wandering the mall with Rich, we had hot chocolate to warm up because despite having umbrellas (rescued from the trunk) we were soaked from the knees down. The chocolate was amazing, like melted down cinnamon truffles; it was practically chewy! What a fabulous day.

Gotta go the shows about to start.....

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Richie came to town for the weekend and so the boys went camping. I am procrastinating on finishing this photo project that Rich has to take home with him tomorrow; so naturally I went to a movie.  I went to see 'Hereafter' with Matt Damon.  Seeing a movie like that one all alone is probably best.  There's no one else there that will need to be bribed later to not tell how you were blubbering like a baby at a stupid movie. A stupid, long and drawn out movie that you actually paid to see and that in the end sort of broke your heart.  Typing this now and thinking about that little boy I'm blubbering again, probably because he lost his twin....It was a very long movie

Anyway, on the way home, thanks to the stupid movie that made me cry, I had the worst craving for some spaghetti.  So here I am at 10pm browning some sweet Italian sausage and trying to doctor some jar sauce with red wine, fresh garlic and some sun dried tomato paste. Since there's no hope of me sleeping tonight anyway I'm also having an iced chai. Stupid movie.....

That is all.....

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

This morning as I was leaving the gym a man was coming in.  He was taking one last puff of his cigarette and stamping out the butt on the sidewalk.  As he walked through the door he was still exhaling a trail of smoke. An older gentleman sitting in the lobby muttered 'arschloch' under his breath, I would have gone with a milder 'dummkopf' but still I had to agree.

They've almost finished the work on the new Lewis Rd. bridge, but today they have begun breaking up the brand new concrete divider. So are we to get from this, that the bridge was made with sub standard materials and it's already falling apart? OR These guys are waisting our taxpayer dollars and just creating more work for themselves.....either way.........

Alright, one more restored old pic, from June 1964.

The young Moreno clans.

At least Bad decisions make good stories.

I'm working on a photo project for my mom.  Scanning a hundred or so photos to put on a photo frame as a surprise gift.  My mom is giving it to my aunt and I get the dubious honor of scanning the photos and loading them on the frame.  Just as an example yesterday in 4 hours I managed to scan just 22 pictures and am 1/2 way through fixing the first one.  This shouldn't take any time at all!

I was given some fabulous OLD photos to scan and a few of them are in pretty bad shape. They've been scratched, folded, set in the sun and just to top things off one of them looks like it was held under water for several days.  Now I love photoshop and nothing gives me greater pleasure than putting my skills to good use, but fixing a photo a pixel at a time is tedious and tiring and I think it's making me blind.  I don't mind really, I like focusing so hard on a project that I lose all track of time....no really, it's no trouble, no trouble at all.....really....it's fine......just fine......

I would love to post before and after pictures of the worse one, but they're not my pictures to post.  I will, however, post a couple of pics that include my family members, because lord knows we could all use a good laugh.

Who the heck? And what is on that boys head?

All the Moreno cousins with a couple of (ironically enough)
Campbells thrown in.  It was somebodies wedding. And don't even ask, I have no
idea what was going on with my hair.

Now here's a fine looking group.  Ahh those 70's.

How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

Up at 3 am. can't sleep,  can't stop sneezing, nose won't stop running, eyes are streaming....what the hell have I got? cold? sinus infection? allergies?  All 3!!?? Ugh!

Anyway, watching useless TV and surfing the web.  realized I hadn't posted this nice picture of Sean and Cormac.  Cormac calls him 'pop pop' or something that sounds like that. They were sharing a morning coffee

'That's disgusting pop-pop!'