One more funny shot from my sister's wedding.

I asked my sister what was happening in this photo and she doesn't know. For lack of any better content today, let's have a caption contest. Leave a comment with the best/funniest/strangest caption you can think of for this photo. Go!

Walgreens is having a sale on Halloween t-shirts this week. When I saw this one, I had to buy it.

I got a rock.

Isn't she lovely?

I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that my baby sister is married.

Sick of photos from my sister's wedding yet? Too bad! Here's a couple more.

My sister doing the booty dance in an attempt to keep the hotel's automatic door from closing on her.

My brother-in-law, the ham.

(second photo taken by Brian)

Here's a photo from the rehearsal:

I have no idea what I was doing. Grating cheese on my sister? Giving my BIL the signal to bunt? Hula dancing? Who knows.

I've been going through some more photos from my sister's wedding. Here is a shot containing my brother's infamous white socks.

Now that's a sharp dressed man. :-)

Before we left on vacation, we instructed my in-laws to harvest whatever veggies they could find in our vegetable garden. We knew if they didn't, by the time we returned, everything would be rotten. We told them to, seriously, help themselves. My MIL sent me an email while we were gone and included this photo of their harvest:

Looks like they did pretty well with the tomatoes, no? Mr Moo was a little disappointed that he was missing prime tomato time. I promised him we will not go away at this time next year, so he will not miss it again.

I found a great big turd on my front lawn the other day.

What a mess. It was a strange-looking turd. And, stranger still, when I tried to pick it up, it made noises at me. Bizarre!

Today's lunch:

Hummus and pita bread. 'Twas yummay!

My mom called this morning and we had a lengthy and pleasant conversation. Those of you who have known me for a while and know of the tumultuous relationship I've had with my mother will understand why a normal conversation with her is such a big deal to me. For those that don't, just know that my relationship with my mom has not always been good and a phone call that didn't end up with one or both of us screaming at the other would have been impossible until very recently. She seems to have really taken to heart the things we talked about during our big family meeting at Christmas and is making a real effort to make things better. Don't get me wrong. We still have a lot of issues to work through, but every step forward we take towards repairing our relationship is a wonderful thing in my eyes and I couldn't be happier.

The primary reason my mom called me was to ask if I could repair the dress she wore to my sister's wedding. Apparently, the dry cleaner lost one of the buttons from the jacket when she took it to be cleaned after the wedding. The buttons are covered with the same fabric as the jacket so she isn't going to be able to find a replacement in any store. She is going to send me both the jacket and the dress. I will harvest some fabric from the hem or a facing on one of the pieces and send it to a business in California, which will make a new fabric covered button. Once I have said button, I will sew it onto the jacket then ship everything back to my mom. With all of the shipping back and forth, we'll probably end up paying close to $75 to replace a $0.50 button. It's crazy, but getting the dress fixed is important to my mom, so I will do it for her.

Taken last weekend:

It's an Ingrid Bergman rose in my front garden. Unbelievably, it's the end of September and the bush is still producing blooms. It helps that we're having unseasonably warm weather right now and haven't had a hard frost yet. Even the tomato and cucumber plants are still going. 'Tis some strange weather we be having.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 072

Click here for the entry form.

When you boot up your PC and get this message...

Error 1 loading OS. This may be due to a virus.
1. Shutdown.
2. Boot from floppy.
3. Run ONTRACK Disk Manager.
4. Select "Upgrade" from Advanced Options.

...you know it's going to be a long, LONG day.

Today is my friend Steven's birthday. Steven is in the military. When I last heard from him, he was writing to me from Iraq. Unfortunately, I haven't heard from him in a while. I'm not sure if he's still there or if he's come home already.

If you ever happen to read this, Steven, I want you to know that I'm thinking of you on your birthday (and most other days), and praying that you are safe and coming home soon. Happy Birthday, my friend.

Our sofas in the family room are in desperate need of re-upholstering. I called a local company today to get a price estimate. $2700! Holy heart attacks, Batman! I think we'll live with the faded fabric for a while longer.

Josie. Taken today.

Some days are just rough, aren't they?

I've been eating cold pizza today. I feel like I'm back in college. Flashback!

Mr Moo and I started watching a new television show this evening.

The description from cbs.com reads:
JERICHO is a drama about what happens when a nuclear mushroom cloud suddenly appears on the horizon, plunging the residents of a small, peaceful Kansas town into chaos, leaving them completely isolated and wondering if they're the only Americans left alive. Fear of the unknown propels Jericho into social, psychological and physical mayhem when all communication and power is shut down. The town starts to come apart at the seams as terror, anger and confusion bring out the very worst in some residents.

The first episode was compelling. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the series turns out.

Mr Moo has taken the PC from the family room, set it up here in my office and connected it directly to the flat panel HD TV we have hanging on the wall above my desk area. This is in addition to my regular PC and monitor. I'm geekin' out here! Woot! The reason for the move is my PC's inability to display on the TV. We have two TiVos to record television programs downstairs and my PC has the TiVo Desktop program so I can upload the recorded shows to it. However, the video card in my PC doesn't support the HDMI interface the TV was looking for. Since Mr Moo was using this other computer to play games on the big TV downstairs, it has a newer and better video card in it. So, upstairs it has come, to the TV it has been connected and many a file I am transferring. Wheee!

Another late one. I swear I will do October on time. This month's Cows in Shining Armor calendar image (click to see full size):

Lady Guineveal
Behind every great cow is a tail. And behind that is a strong heifer. King Art-Herd's heifer was Guineveal, the most beautiful, most tender creature in Cowmoolot. She was captured by Moodred, treacherous ally of the Burger Eaters. One night while Moodred slept (standing up), Lady Guineveal escaped with the help of Sir Lunchalot. As a token of her gratitude, she gave him her scarf woven of the finest clovers, alfalfas, and grasses. He promptly ate it.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 071

Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 070



Click here for the entry form.

With my being gone on vacation and all, it seems like this contest round has been going forever. I've added a second image to see if that helps. Guess away, Merrill.

"Raaaa! Go away, lady. You're bothering me!"

Taken yesterday.

Between yesterday and today, I've spent approximately 10 hours outside doing yardwork. It was a disaster area and in desperate need of some love. Weeds had taken over most of the flower beds. The corn was covered in little black bugs and needed to be cut down (so much for using it for Halloween decorations). And the flowers out front were crying out, "Deadhead us, please!" I got almost everything done, but there's still a tiny bit more weeding to do. It will have to wait until at least Thursday, however, because both of our yard debris cans are totally full. The rain that's about to roll in for the next 3-4 days isn't going to help either.

While I was outside yesterday, I found my first praying mantis of the season.

I was getting worried we weren't going to have any in the yard this year since we haven't seen a single one, but I now know there's at least one. Let's hope he can find himself a mate to make more for next year.

Myself, my sister and my brother. Taken last Saturday.

My brother was the cause of one of the biggest laughs of the day. Apparently, he does not own a pair of black socks and no one told him he should get a pair to wear with the tuxedo. So, he wore what he had - white socks. Even the photographer was teasing him about it and saying he'd have to PhotoShop all the pictures where his socks were showing. Brothers. Sigh.

Mr Moo and I at my sister's wedding reception.

This one was taken by my aunt.

Mr Moo owns an ancient set of LL Bean soft-sided luggage. One of the seams, where the handles are stitched on, is starting to come apart. I called LL Bean today to see if they have an authorized repair shop in the area. The customer service rep I spoke with told me that LL Bean guarantees 100% customer satisfaction and, even though the bag is 20 years old and the damage is just from normal wear and tear, they will still replace the bag free of charge. Crazy! I haven't a clue what they would replace this with considering they don't sell anything even remotely resembling it anymore and I'm also fairly certain Mr Moo will want to get it repaired rather than get a new bag, but I'm still impressed that they even made the offer to replace it. Go, LL Bean!

I scored a new client today. She wants several home dec items made for her daughter's bedroom, including pillows, a canopy thing and a duvet cover. We're meeting next week for a consultation appointment at a local coffee place because, since she became pregnant again, she's developed an allergy to cats, which she's never had before. She sounds very laid back and easy going, and I'm looking forward to working with her. Now I just need to get going on the projects I left behind when I went on vacation.

Love confetti from the favors at my sister and BIL's rehearsal dinner.

The favors themselves? More bleeping chocolate. I swear the world is out to make me fat.

I've been on the phone with my web hosting company this afternoon. To save a bit of money, I've moved all of my websites under one account. Moo's World is still the primary and everything else has become a subdomain under that account. There was no sense in my paying for a full account for sites that take up virtually no space and generate very little traffic. In addition to the "move", I had planned to upgrade the hosting plan of the primary account to get a bit more disk storage since I was getting close to running out. When I asked the support person about doing this, he said, "You don't need to upgrade. I'll just give you some more space." He then upped my disk space from 400 MB to 1 GB for free! I'm still on the cheapo plan and I've now got more space than if I had upgraded. Woot! Patrick, fabulous tech support dude, if you ever happen to read this, you are my new best friend forever. Thanks!

It's raining!
It's pouring!
The old man is snoring!

Well, actually, my old man is at work, but you get the idea. I believe this is our first really rainy day since summer began. Autumn is coming on hard and fast this year.

Another wedding photo that Mr Moo took.

No, I wasn't standing in a hole. Yes, I know I'm short. No, I'm not a midget. The other girls were all either really tall or wearing gargantuan heels. I was surrounded by giants, okay? Enough already!

Today's tomato harvest.

I'm amazed how well the plant is producing fruit still. There are at least this many more left on the plant trying to ripen in the dwindling sunlight. I'm not sure if we'll get to harvest them since we're coming into a cold spell for the next few days. If the weather reports are right, the overnight lows might mean the end of our veggie garden for the year.

In case anyone has been waiting with bated breath to see, these are the dyed shoes I wore at my sister's wedding.

The cobbler didn't do a great job with the dye around the satin band. You can see some light parts which didn't get dyed as much as the rest of the shoes. In the end, however, my skirt was plenty long enough to cover them up so it didn't even matter. No one could see them.

The shoes were relatively comfortable and I made it to the reception without being in complete agony (partial, yes, but not complete). I did change into my sneakers not long after we were introduced because my toes were crying out for their freedom like little William Wallaces. It was a lovely look.

I also learned that the dye is not water-retardant. There was a lot of dew on the grass where we posed for photos and my shoes got a bit wet. It didn't take long before I realized the color was coming off them. Personally, I didn't really care because the chances of me ever wearing these shoes again is slim to none. My concern was not getting any of it on my sister's dress. Since I was the MOH, I had to stand right up next to her in the photos and my shoes were constantly touching her hem. Fortunately, I realized what was happening early and was able to keep my shoes away from her dress. Phew!

I forgot to post this yesterday. I'm such a horrible mother.

Happy Birthday, Darling Zoe!

Yesterday was an amazing, superb and fun-filled day of cleaning, unpacking and laundry. (Can you smell the sarcasm?) And, today looks like it will be more of the same. I only have one more load of laudry to do, but there's still some things in the suitcases to put away and a lot of picking up to do. The litterbox beckons, too. Joy.

Since I was in my sister's wedding on Saturday, I wasn't able to take any photos of the event myself, but Mr Moo took a few during the course of the day. Here's one:

Bummer about the lens flare in the corner, but I have no doubt someone else got a shot of this without it. So many people took pictures that day, I swear there will be thousands of photos coming through the pipes before too long. The wedding was absolutely perfect. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather and nothing at all went wrong. All of the craziness and running around the week before paid off because the day was truly effortless.

It's not even 0700 yet and I'm up. Yup, definitely still on East Coast time.

We're home and very berry tired. More on the morrow.