my Irish Lad

hi girls!

Ashley, glad to hear you guys are having another great vacation. When will you be back? how did the beach houses turn out?

Liz, are you all moved in? How is comunal living going?

well the weather in BMore is perfect, and the whole weekend would have been perfect if I wasn't working the whole time. I was off yesterday, and after church went to a BBQ with the new guy that I have been seeing. His name is Johnny, I met him a few weeks ago when I was out with my friends after an Orioles game. He's really nice, lives in Federal Hill, it's so nice to date someone so close. He is actually looking at houses in my neighborhood too, that might be a little too close for me right now, we'll see.

I'm really trying to be on my best behavior, because for so longI've basically just treated Mayson and the other guys I've hung out with like crap, I could act as snotty and whiney and bossy as I wanted and basically still get whatever I wanted, well except a real relationship, which is what I really want. I have a feeling Johnny's not going to put up with that. Hopefully I can keep it up!

Cali

So I'm here in California. The weather is great and it's been lots of fun. The past week we've been in a house that was 2 blocks from the ocean and tonight we are moving into a house right on the ocean. You literally have sand between your toes right when you walk out the front door.

The wedding was great. The colors of my and Leland's dress were actually really cute. It was a really fun reception. Leland was cute. She joined the bride and groom for their first dance on the dance floor. It was pretty funny.

Monday: beach day
Tuesday: Disneyland
Wed: Chuck interviews at a school here in Orange county and go to Vegas
Thursday: play in Vegas
Friday: interview at UNLV and come back to Cali
Sat: fly home

We will have a busy week but it should be lots of fun.

mmmm.....meat

we tried the steaks on mothers day. they were very tastey-slightly overdone-but good flavor and quick;)

banana peel?

I read in Real Simple (my free copies that I get every month now) That a banana peel is excellent fertilizer for rose bushes. You detach them so they are in strips and bury them around the roots.

Kiki-you'll have to try it.

I LOVE the Let's Dish meals. I have been able to get so much more work done in the evening because I think and do less for dinner. It's great. tonight we are having the Mojito Citrus chicken. I 'll let you know how that turns out.

Yummy!!

I had the southwestern pork chops tonight and they were yummy. Chuck loved it especially. It was so easy too. It's nice to not have the mess of the prep work. I also used my new bowl - thanks Liz.

I had so much fun with you two this weekend. I heard on the radio that it was the best time to plant a garden because we are having so much rain this week.


I loved Kristen's post.

lost & found

I decided to get a cat because they would be easier. Easier to take care of in a city, in a small house, with my erradic, hectic schedule. Then we ended up with two cats, not a problem; they are so easy to take care of we won't even notice there is an extra one.

Easy my butt. Now on top of my weekly cleaning the floors, kitchen 2 bathrooms, bedroom, living room (notice only two of those rooms are exclusively mine) I now have to clean the entire back room, from cat food and cat litter scattered all over the floor, spray for ants as 50 of them try to haul off one peice of cat food, clean all the windowsills in the house, and the walls under them, from dirty little paw prints, clean the front of the dishwasher, fridge and oven, from sticky paw prints, clean the floors from broken glass from cats sticking their faces into water glasses left out on the coffee table. Cleaning dirt removed from the potted plant onto the kitchen table, and then the little plies of puke from eating the potted plant, all over the house. Thats in addition to vacuming all the furniture and sweeping the floors every day to decrease the cat hair and prevent my cat sensitive friends from turning into red eyed, crying, sniffeling snotty monsters when they come to my house.

A good thing about cats, you don't have to walk them. They can be as lazy as they want and can be locked up prisoner in your home for years, watching the world from behind a screen. No getting up early to walk them before work, or rushing home to let them out. Being the kind, humane pet parent I am, I have trained my little kitties to be city savy cats, we have the addedd benefit of having one of the only backyards with a tree, and some dirt, and room to chase bugs or anything else that moves (including your kitty sister) which means that even on the rare occasion they venture down the alley-way, or through the fence, they are bored with the neighbors lack of interesting stuff and soon return to all the buggy wonder of our yard.

We have become very lax about "outdoor time" and with the onset of warmer weather we (I) often open the back door as I am cooking/cleaning the kitchen and let them come and go as they please (despite their bravery, they still scare easily and will come dashing back in at any loud or unfamiliar sound, or new cat on the premesis) Yesterday morning: Boy2 and I are taking the trash out at 6:30 am, before we both go to work, I use the front door/alley path, Boy2 uses back door/throught the house route (argg! Tracking mud/dirt all over the floors I just cleaned last night!) Right before I leave for work (6:35) I notice the kitchen door is open, I do a quick scan of the backyard, no kitties, remember seeing Mona (the good one) in the living room just moments earlier, Sasha must be with her.

8pm, come home from work, greeted at the door by Mona (the good cat) Sasha is usually just as eager to see if someone came home who is going to scratch her back and give her a treat. Boy2 is watching tv:
Me: Have you seen Sasha arround?
Boy2: I don't know... they look the same
Me: How long have you been home?
Boy2: Four hours

We spend the next hour and a half walking up and down our streets whistling and calling for Sasha, and basically looking like idiots, we found just about every other cat in a 1 mile radius, and got lots of return whistles, letting me know, whatever it was I was looking for, I could be sure to find it through this window, baby. We returned to our lonely house dejected, how could we be such bad pet parents, and it rained all day today.. where do you think she went, how long do you think she meowed at the door before she gave up on us? What if she took shelter in one of those abandonded houses? The ones full of sketchy cats and rats. I think Boy2 was even getting teary eyed (serves him right for leaving the door open)

About 1030 I made another call into the backyard and heard a cat yeowl and a thud from the neighbors yard, I rushed over to the fence, and there was our little Sasha, her small pitiful meow, and her little orange paw reaching out between the fence slats (the other yeowl was from one of the neighbor cats, also in the other yard) Somehow our cats can scale cinderblock walls and chain link fences, but can not for the life of them climb a tree or wooden fence. ( I don't know why either.) So she was stuck. Although every other fence structure on our premesis is decrepid and crumbling apart, this fence would not budge. We tried lowering a bucket over the fence, but since it wasn't a laundry basket she wouldn't climb in it, I tried pounding on our neighbors door, they wouldn't answer, we tried prying a slat off the fence, digging a hole underneath it, nothin. Finally the other cat scared her and she climbed up a cinder-block wall on the other side of the yard and was able to jump onto our neighbors roof, then on to ours, and then with a lot of coaxing, and herding by Boy1 (also on the roof now) jumped into Boy2's window. (Boy1's entrance was much more amusing) Then she needed a bath because she was filty, and getting everything else (besides Boy1, who was himslef filthy) filthy, and now Mona was hissing at her because on her 16 hour adventure outside she picked up smells not from this house and was now an intruder.

Cats are not easy!

Has anyone tried their Dishes? I'm saving it for a night whn I can enjoy them, not when I'm rushing off to work.

The 3 Amigos