From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, One-Hit Wonder Cows:

With the overnight success of her first and only hit, Lady Marinade became known as the Material Heifer. Soaking up the newfound fame, this diamond-clad diva's ego was off the charts - much like every other song she ever recorded. Still starved for attention, Lady Marinade now hosts a chicken-cooking reality TV show called "Filet Factor".

Oh my goodness. What have we done? The new furniture has arrived and it's ENORMOUS. The extra fullness of the mattress makes the bed so high I have to scoot up onto it rather than sitting down on it. All of the other pieces are much larger than anything we've had before, too. It's going to take some getting used to.

Take one empty room...

...and fill it!



Just to have something on the bed, we bought a cheap comforter at Target and the lamps were snatched from the guest room.

I didn't mean to sound so glum in my last post. We really do love our new furniture. We cleaned everything out last weekend and have been looking at a completely empty room for a week. Suddenly having a bunch of furniture in there again was a bit shocking. We're already getting used to it and are looking forward to moving back in soon.

EDIT: Looks like we'll be camping out in the guest room for at least a few more days. All of the drawers in the new furniture are made from cedar and the smell is very, very strong. It's giving both of us miserable headaches at the moment. We're going to let them air out for a few days.

As per tradition on Halloween night, Mr Moo and I put It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in the DVD player on repeat, sat at the kitchen table, went through the metric ton of papers that were sent to us, and voted.



Fortunately, we agreed on everything except one tax measure so all arguing and heated discussions were avoided. We also went over copies of our credit reports to make sure no one has attempted to steal our identities. All was good on that front, too.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 139


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"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 140

Click here for the entry form.

I wanted to thank everyone for their input on our guest room curtain dilemma. We've decided to go in a totally different color direction, so the whole argument has become moot. We found a new comforter set for the bed, which is black and white.

It appears they make matching curtain panels, but I've yet to find them for sale anywhere. Not sure I would want that much of the print in the room anyway. I'm sure it won't be difficult to find something else we can agree on, a black panel with a white stripe or something. We'll see how it all looks when the comforter arrives early next week.

When we first bought our house, we had a company come in and install blinds in almost every room. We had vertical blinds put in the master bedroom. In order to be able to utilize both sections of the bay window that open, we had them mount the blinds on the outside of the window frame in such a way that, when opened, they stacked completely past the window. We didn't want the wind blowing through and rattling the blinds like mad every time the window was open. Because of this configuration, the blinds actually hung inside the room and took up quite a bit of space. You can kind of see it here:

Now that we have our new furniture and every inch of space has become so precious, we decided to move the blinds to the inside of the window frame. This would mean they would stack in front of one of the windows that opens, but we decided we could live with it since we almost never open that one anyway. Mr Moo started working on this project around noon on Sunday. We both figured he'd just have to cut a few pieces to size, remove a few slates and restring everything. A couple hours at most, right? HA! He had more problems with it than I can count (I dare you to ask him about the mystery piece of plastic he thought he didn't need) and it ended up taking him all afternoon and well into the evening to get it finished. Let's just say he was not happy and leave it at that. In the end, however, he did get everything finished and working, and I think it looks fantastic.

The window looks a lot smaller now, but that's a small price to pay for having the extra room. This will also make it much easier to hang curtains if and when we ever get around to doing that in this room. Now I just have to talk him into doing the same thing to the blinds in the family room.

History is being made.

Remember this moment.

I can't remember if I ever posted a photo of the finished coat rack and bench by our front door after the baskets arrived. Since I didn't have my customary table to put stuff on this year, I took the baskets out of the top so I could have someplace to put the Halloween decorations.


I'll probably put the baskets back once I put the Halloween stuff away (which I really need to do soon) because I don't have that much Thanksgiving decor.

I was just on the phone with my mother. Given that my father will probably do nothing but sit in front of the TV the whole time, I'm trying to sort some things to do with my mother while they're here for a visit over Thanksgiving. Actual snippet of the conversation:

Me: Is there anything you would like to do? Go shopping maybe? There's a large Christmas bazaar happening that weekend.

Mom: Why can't I do what I want?! When you come here you do whatever you want. Why can't I?

Me: Okay. What do you want to do then?

Mom: I don't know.

Sigh. Give me strength.

Some recent images from the MooCam archives.

Watching the election results together.

Carrying "the baby".

Kissing the boo-boo on my finger. Awww!

"You unpack the groceries. I'll just walk around the kitchen aimlessly."

Man Cleaning With Blowtorch Starts Fire

He was cleaning cobwebs with a BLOWTORCH?!? Bing bong! Hello?! The lights are on, but ain't nobody home!

We finally slept on our new bed for the first time last night...

...and it was fantastic! Individually wrapped coils. Extra thick foam core pad. New super soft sheets. Yes, fantastic sums it up nicely. Josie joined us at one point (I got the stool out for her) and, based on how loudly she was snoring, I'm going to assume it was acceptable to her standards as well.

It's positively monsooning right now. So much for getting any leaves raked up today. Tentative game plan for today has us going to Home Depot before the morning is out and doing a bunch of stuff around the house for the rest of the day. We were hoping to take a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill store for donating, but with it raining as hard as it is, I don't know if we'll bother today. I also have a client coming over at 1500 to drop off a bunch of alterations. Gotta love busy Saturdays.

Not sure, but I'm hoping this is happening at Home Depot stores across the nation.

Recycle Old Christmas Lights

I realize that LED lights are markedly more expensive than the traditional mini-lights, but you have to look at the savings over the long run. And the discount coupon definitely helps. We picked up one set of C3 LED lights today to try them out. I think we're going back tomorrow to get a bunch more.

We took advantage of a break in the rain today to get all of the leaves on our front lawn raked up. We also cleaned up the leaves in gutter on the street. Man, there were a lot. It's good we got them picked up before they went down and clogged up the drain though. We also went back to Home Depot with more dead lights and bought a couple more strands of the LEDs. We won't get all of our lights switched over to LEDs this year, but I'm hoping we'll be able to do most of them.

New bed - beyond comfortable. New linens - enh, not so much. Unlike our previous ancient linens, our new comforter is not paper thin nor are the sheets incredibly soft from being washed a million times. I woke up all sweat and hotty and couldn't get back to sleep. Then, every time I rolled over, the sheets made so much noise, I felt like I was sleeping inside a paper bag. It also doesn't help that the giant blister on my hand that I got from raking yesterday looks to be getting infected and hurts like a you-know-what. So, here I am after... Well, I don't know exactly how much sleep I got, but I do know it wasn't nearly enough. Bleh. Color me cranky.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 141

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The last of the autumn leaves in front of our house before the wind and the rains came.

When Mr Moo and I travel, we collect souvenir pennies. Well, when we remember to locate the machines ahead of time that is. Here's our collection to date:

When we went to Maine in September, we picked up a couple more. One from Bar Harbor, Maine...

...and one from Acadia National Park.

I'm still working on scanning the rest. Stay tuned.

The new bedding for our guest room arrived last week. I love it!

I wasn't so sure when I first took it out of the bag, but now that we've had it on the bed for a while, it's really grown on me. We still haven't sorted curtain panels, but that's really low on the priority list at the moment.

The December holiday issue of Martha Stewart Living has arrived. Squeee!

Since we're going to be home for Christmas this year, I shall be baking. Oh, yes, I shall.

Can anyone tell me what they are singing right before the department store scene in this movie?

Peace and flowers? Beans and flour? Please send follow?

This is our last full weekend before my family arrives for Thanksgiving. Mr Moo and I have a list of things to do about a mile long. He's been working on patching the ceiling downstairs, which has been a mess since we fixed the leaks, and all of the miscellaneous other holes and nail pops throughout the house. There's a whole lot of spackling and painting in his immediate future. My list is more varied and seemingly five times as long. And none of it is getting done while I'm sat here. Later, peeps.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 142

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I was going to say it's been a long and busy week, but, in actuality, it's flown by. So, I guess it's been a short and busy week. We've been working on getting everything ready for my family's visit and Thanksgiving next week. Mr Moo has been working on the house. He's been doing things like patching miscellaneous wall holes and the ceiling downstairs where we had the leak, painting, hanging curtain rods, etc. I've been cleaning, organizing, cleaning, shopping, cleaning. Repeat ad nauseum. Highlights of the week include:

Tuesday - I visited the dentist to have a "filling" replaced. It's not a true filling in the sense that there was no cavity involved. Several years ago, I had graft surgery on four of my teeth where my gum had receded excessively. The graft didn't take on one tooth so the dentist covered up the exposed area with some of the composite material used for fillings to cut down on the pain I was having and to prevent a cavity from forming. I don't know if it broke, chipped or what happened to it, but a ridge formed on it and it was driving me mad. The tooth was also starting to get super sensitive again and I could tell that food was getting stuck in there. It was time to have it redone. As per usual, he had to give me extra Novocaine (still haven't sorted why I need so freaking much every time), which numbed up half my head, gave me the shakes something awful and made me feel like crap for the rest of the day. It's two days later and my gum is still hurting from being jabbed with the needle so much. On the bright side, the tooth looks great and it's not hurting me anymore.

Wednesday - I headed out for "just a couple hours" to run some errands. It ended up taking nearly six. Yeesh. While I was out, I made a perfectly legal left turn on a green arrow. I signaled. I checked the other lanes before getting over. For the life of me, I can't figure out what I might have done wrong. A guy in a silver car came zooming up behind and went all road rage-y on me anyway. He got within inches of my bumper and actually followed me into the parking lot of the store I was going to. I pulled into a parking spot close to the door where there were lots of people walking around. He stopped in the lane behind my car and was screaming something, but I wasn't about to get out to find out what. I locked the door and started making plans to drive to the nearest police station. He stomped on the gas and appeared to be driving away. I was about to get out when I noticed he had driven around in a circle was pulling up behind me again. What the frell? Just as I was putting the key back into the ignition to get the heck out of there, he drove away for good this time. Freak. After doing my shopping very quickly, I made sure he wasn't still waiting for me, got safely back to my car and went on to my next destination, where I called Mr Moo to tell him what had happened. He was on his way home from work and drove to where I was to make sure I was okay. I could tell he was hoping to guy would show up again so he could kill him or something. He was mad. He wanted to follow and stay with me, but since I only had one more place to stop (a very busy grocery store with a well-lit parking lot), I told him to go home. I assured him I would drive straight to the police station if I caught even a glimpse of the guy again, which, fortunately, didn't happen. What a crazy evening.

It's 3am and I can't sleep. ((groan)) I've got wicked heartburn and my stomach is upset. Plus, my mind is racing about all the things I have to do over the next several days. What I would give to be like the cat right now - able to flop over and fall asleep anywhere anytime.

I finally wandered back to bed just before 7am and managed a few hours of sleep. I would have slept longer, but the UPS dude rang the doorbell and woke me up about 20 minutes ago. I didn't want to sleep all day and have trouble sleeping again tonight, so it worked out well. I just hope that I don't fall over from exhaustion later today.

Mr Moo is planning to come home early this afternoon so we can finish up a few more projects around the house. We also need to get over to the grocery store for supplies and the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Add to that a client appointment at 1600, dusting, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the bathrooms, vauuming, mopping floors and giving Josie a bath at some point and I've got a busy, busy day ahead of me. Caffeine, my friend, how would I live without you?

My sister and BIL will be here in approximately 15 hours and my parents in 33. We're in the home stretch now. Mr Moo and I have an appointment with our investment lady at the bank in about an hour then we'll be home cleaning up for the rest of the day. Fun! Fun!

Aside from having to deal with another passenger's stinky feet on one flight, my sister and BIL arrived without incident just before midnight last night. We got them home and they pretty much went straight to bed. Today, I have a bit more cleaning to do and a few errands to run. Then, later this afternoon, we're all heading back to the airport again to pick up the rental van and my parents. I can't believe the day they arrive is finally here. It's going to be a crazy busy week!

My parents arrived safe and sound earlier this evening. We got the van rental, picked up my parents, went out to dinner and checked them into their hotel room. With the time change and a whole day spent traveling, they were quite pooped. We stayed long enough to make sure they were settled then came back here to the house. My sister and I gave Josie a bath while Mr Moo did some work and my BIL did some reading. Now it's time for me to throw the last load of laundry into the dryer then head to bed. Goodnight, fishies!

My BIL will be heading out to pick up my parents shortly. Today, we are all going to see Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge and have lunch at the lodge. We also have dinner reservations at 1800. Other than that, nothing else is planned. I spoke with my mother on the phone this morning. It sounds like the jet lag is hitting her really hard. She's been awake since 0300. I have a feeling we'll be letting her lie down for a nap sometime this afternoon. I've been up since a little after 0600 and probably won't mind a nap myself.

The sun is shining. The grass is green. The orange and palm trees sway. It's going to be a good day.

Wow. What a day. We made it to Multnomah Falls and had a nice time there. Since it's almost winter and quite chilly out, there weren't very many people. The waterfall was flowing well and everyone enjoyed it. We had a nice lunch, stopped in the gift shop and started making our way back to Portland. On the way, we stopped at Crown Point for the great views of the Columbia River Gorge. It was incredibly windy, but we decided to get out of the van for a few minutes. Dad, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, got out and started walking around the front of the van. I looked away for one second and, when I looked back, he was gone. Yup, he had tripped and fallen. For those who don't know, my dad is overweight, has lots of issues with his joints and struggles to walk even with a cane. Any fall, but especially one on pavement, is a very bad thing. He landed on his left side and hurt his shoulder and thought he might have cracked a rib. Not good. We got him up and back in the van then headed for an emergency room. Long story short, after what felt like a million hours (only about three in reality), the x-rays showed no broken or fractured bones. Phew! He's going to be beyond sore for a while, but he should be fine eventually. He has ice packs and pain pills to get him through the night. We'll see how he's feeling in the morning.

Needless to say, we ended up canceling our dinner reservations and no one got their nap. We had a simple dinner here at our house and watched TV for a while afterward. Not exactly what we were planning, but no one cared because we were all so happy Dad's injuries weren't worse and he didn't have to be checked into the hospital overnight. As for tomorrow, the original plan was to have dinner at my in-laws', but they've both been horribly sick with colds and that was canceled several days ago. Other than that, nothing else was ever planned, which is probably a very good thing now since we don't know how Dad is going to feel. We'll probably end up watching movies and maybe playing some games. I won't mind spending the day at home since I need to start prepping stuff for dinner on Thursday anyway.

When I first saw this webcam capture, I thought, "I think we need to cram a few more people in my kitchen."

Then I remembered we'll have twice as many people here come Thanksgiving Day and we just might!

A photo of all of us at Multnomah Falls yesterday.

I spoke with Dad a while ago. He said he didn't sleep very well last night and is very, very sore this morning. He and my mom are going to stay at the hotel for a few more hours to try to get a bit more sleep.

We had a fairly good day today. My parents didn't come over until early afternoon, which gave me a chance to get quite a bit of stuff done. We sat around talking for a while after they arrived then everyone went shopping. The boys went off to a couple places in the van, and my mother, sister and I went grocery shopping in my car. By the time we got back, the boys had already returned and Mr Moo had started making dinner. We had chicken breasts, veggies and flavored rice. After dinner, Mr Moo lit a fire and we all struggled to stay awake. Well, until the cake arrived anyway. We purchased a cake for my parents 40th anniversary (which, technically, was November 8). We were going to have it for dessert at the restaurant last night, but, as you know, we never made it there so we had it tonight instead. Not long after cake, my parents went back to the hotel. My sister, BIL and Mr Moo watched some brain rot. And I continued getting stuff cleaned up and ready for dinner on Thursday. I think we're in really good shape. Almost all of the desserts are finished. We just have to make the pudding for the cream pies and chill them. I've got a lot of stuff (serving trays, dishes, silver, glasses, etc) out and ready to go. The large banquet table has been brought in from the garage and set up. All of the grocery shopping is done. I think I'm actually a bit ahead of schedule at this point. Tomorrow is the big crazy cooking and final prep day. There's a mountain of potatoes to be peeled and prepared. The pies need to be finished. The table needs to be set. The list goes on and on. It will be hectic, but with both my mother and sister here to help me, I think it will go rather quickly. For now, I sleep.

Highlights from yesterday's MooCam captures:

Everyone except me just left for an outing at the coast. We hadn't planned it because early forecasts said today was going to be crap. However, the sun is shining and it's almost warm out so they all went for a drive. They'll be gone for a few hours. I can't get over how quiet the house is now. It's nice to have a bit of time to myself to focus on getting some stuff done without having to worry what everyone is doing and whether anyone needs anything. I might even lie down for a quick nap.

Status-wise, I'm good and still think I'm a bit ahead of schedule. Might have time to sit down for a while later this evening and get a full night's sleep even. I believe the plan is for them to get back from their outing around 1800 with take-out food for dinner. Then they'll be going to a 1930 showing of Bolt tonight. If I can stay focused and not end up napping for 5 hours, everything should get done with no problem. Now I'm off to fold up a bit of laundry then make pudding for the pies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

After everyone returned yesterday evening from their sightseeing trip to the coast, we had a quick dinner then Mr Moo and my BIL took my parents to see Bolt. My sister stayed behind to help me get the cooking finished up. I finally crawled into bed just before 0100 and, wouldn't you know it, couldn't sleep. I think I managed about 4 hours before Mr Moo and I had to get up to put the turkey in the oven.

It's rolling up on 0800. The turkey has been in the oven for a while. I'll start making the appetizer trays soon. Right now, however, I think I'm going to lie back down for a bit.

Another year, another Thanksgiving done and over with. I still can hardly believe that it's over. As far as I can tell, everyone had a nice time and, of course, ate way too much. I'm completely and utterly shattered, but it was all worth it. Tomorrow, I plan to do as little as humanly possible. I might put up some of the Christmas decorations, but that will be about it. Must sleep now before I die. Happy Thanksgiving, fishies.

The last 24 hours or so, in summary...

Yesterday afternoon, I finished cleaning up from Thanksgiving then got my Christmas decorations out of storage and started putting stuff out. The boys mostly watched TV and my sister and mom worked on a jigsaw puzzle. We all ate a whole lotta leftovers for both lunch and dinner.

In the evening, we went to see Portland's Singing Christmas Tree. It was at the Keller Auditorium in downtown Portland. The singing and music were wonderful. It lasted a bit longer than we were expecting. We didn't get home until almost 2300.

My sister and BIL had a very early flight this morning. We all got up at 0400 and they were out the door at 0430. My BIL rented the van for this week, so they drove themselves back to the airport. They should be getting home anytime now.

After they left, Mr Moo and I went back to bed for a few hours. I woke up just before 1000 and was dismayed to discover I had a screaming headache which quickly turned into a migraine. I tried some ibuprofen and caffeine, but they didn't work. I took one of my prescription pills and laid down again. I should have eaten something first because it upset my stomach and I eventually threw it up. Wonderful. I managed to get back to sleep for a few hours, which helped a bit. Mr Moo got me something to eat and I took another half tablet, which seems to have done the trick. The day is almost over, but I'm feeling much better now.

While I was lying in bed in a coma, Mr Moo called my parents at the hotel to invite them to lunch, but they declined. My dad wants to watch the Oregon State vs. University of Oregon football game today, so we'll be going to get them soon since that starts in about an hour. I'll probably help my mom finish the jigsaw puzzle and continue working on my Christmas decorations.

And that, my friends, is pretty much where we're at.