A nice afternoon

Yesterday, after our walk,

and booking mo-ho trips,

Craig spent the afternoon doing

laundry and bookwork.

I spent most of that time playing

one of my computer games.

If you remember from an earlier

post, I'm a computer game junkie.

I can play for hours.

Especially if I can't be outside

and play in the dirt.

The game I'm playing right now

is 1503 A.D.

It's an empire building strategy game.

You settle islands, build cities, and such.

I won't bore you with all the details,

If your interested you can always

Google it.

And as I was playing ,

Craig fixed another

delicious meal.

He took stuffing mix, added frozen

corn, put in a casserole dish.

Took boneless chicken breasts,

coated with egg beaters,

(one of those egg substitutes)

and coated them with

Kikkoman Bread Crumbs.

They are the best for baking.

Tastes just like pan fried!

Well pretty darn close!

Put the chicken on top of the stuffing and bake.

Bake an Acorn squash,

add some honey and fakin bacon bits.

An you have a tasty meal!

Low fat too!

Click on the pic to make

yourself really hungry!

Snow

Another cold day in mid Michigan.

Yes, winter is way too long.

But since I'm stuck in winter, I

might as well show all my southern

readers what they are missing.

These pics were taken at Hunter's Park.

It is a new park along the Grand River, here in Lansing MI.

Great place to see lot's of wild life and nature.

Snow is actually very pleasing to

look at. But why can't we get it in summer.

It would be so much more enjoyable when it's warm out..

These pics are taken in the park. Though I enjoy walking thru it so much more in the spring and summer, It's good to get out in the fresh air.

We did spend the day booking mo-ho

trips for the coming summer,

which made us feel good.

Enjoy the snow pics !

Oh, and that's Craig in the third pic.

Sunday fun

First, it was fun seeing all the comments about my post,
"How Normal are You?"
It seemed everyone ranged in the 60% to 75% range. Which means we are all a little different. And that's good.
Of course everyone but Steven .
He hit 40%. Now anyone that reads his blog will agree, 40% probably is a little high for him. And if you haven't, You will find a very gifted writer. If not a little warped. Okay, Very warped! But I mean that in a very flattering way.




Now on to my Sunday, being in the midst of this dreary winter.
Craig and I decided to go to Detroit, ( a 90 mile drive to the
southeastern part of Michigan) To see the Detroit RV Show!
This year it was held at Ford Field.
Home of the pathetic Lions football team.
We were expecting masses of motor homes.
What we found were masses of pop-ups, travel trailers,
and fifth wheels. Only about two dozen mo-ho's.
You can see more than that at a dealer!
But it was fun none the less, and we did see
two mo-ho's we'd love to own.
Though a little out of our price range.

They had the entire field covered and also the entire
concourse.
The last pic is one of the units we liked.
Instead of posting all the pics here,
I've tried a host site Webshots,
so as not to bore the readers who aren't into
this kind of thing.

But,It's fun to dream!

Well.. well.. well

This post is dedicated to a crazy lover of snow, Albert.

This is his web page.
Albert

He is a very unique individual,
but he scored a 75%
on the how normal are you test.
Go figure. I scored a 70%.

And these are pictures of my house and my backyard.
Did I tell you I HATE winter?
But I have been working
on mo-ho trips for the summer.
Have about a dozen so far.
I can't wait!

funny Friday

Here's my silly post of the week.

Took this "test", (and a questionable one at that) to see how "normal" I was. (not that I didn't already have a good idea) Says I'm 70% normal. (I figured I was a little more than half normal) I wonder what exactaly is 100% normal? And I'm sure I wouldn't want that!

Everyone have a great weekend!

HOW NORMAL ARE YOU?

Big Damn Book

Bill, ( the guy who came over to tweak my computer)
stopped by work today and dropped off this book.
I had told him I was studying html on the internet,
so I could alter the way my blog looks.
(That's how I figured out the background and the banner.)

I'm not sure I want to "master" html as to just
learn enough to get by. But this book being so damn big,
I guess I should be able to find everything I need.

We'll see!

Happy Day

Today is my Blog-e-versary!

I have now been blogging for 1 year!

When I started this, I really had no idea where it would lead. At first, I wanted to do it because other people were doing it and I wanted to be a part of it. I didn't post much the first several months, because I didn't think I had anything interesting to say. Then I started posting pics of our travels. Than things about my yard and family. Craig was very concerned at first. He is a very private person and the thought of me putting it all "out there" did not sit well with him. but as time passed he has grown to enjoy reading my posts. And comforted that I'm not putting it all "out there". I have been selective of what I post about because I have friends, family, co-workers, and customers all reading this. I've always wanted this to be an informative blog about Craig and I, but easy on the heavy stuff. So you won't see me posting on controversial topics very often. I'll leave that to my responses on other blogs.

And on that note, I want to thank all the people who I've met thru blogging. And amazing variety from all walks of life who enjoy sharing part of themselves with others. I think that's part of what makes me want to continue with this.

I think I enjoy doing my blog more than I enjoy people reading my blog.

But than again......maybe not!

A busy day

Yesterday was quite productive. Craig vacuumed and did laundry. I scrubbed the kitchen cabinets (they're white and show everything!) and the floor and did the dishes. (well, I put them in the dishwasher)
In the afternoon, Bill, (the husband of a customer of mine) came over to "tweak" my computer.
He installed Opera, which is a browser like Internet Explorer. Well, he says it's better. It's a lot

easier to control how you accept or decline cookies, which are little codes websites put on your computer to store your surfing preferences. Most cookies don't do anything, but a lot of them, especially third party cookies, can.
I can see this is becoming way to technical, so let's just say we downloaded it and installed it and Bill took me for a test drive in it. The best part of Opera is it is a safer browser than IE. Especially if you like to surf "questionable" sites. (I didn't ask, but I think I know what he meant)
Not that a healthy male like myself would ever go to those kind of sites!

He saw that I had an Antivirus program and
also have Spybot and Ad-Aware.
So he also wanted me to have CCleaner.
Another free little program.(I always like free!)
This program is much more thorough than the
disk cleanup utility found in system tools.
It found 648mb of trash on my computer!
Even after I ran the disk cleanup utility!

After Bill left. Craig fixed another Delicious meal.




One of his specialties. String Pie.
Of course, here's the recipe, cause I know you'll want it!.

• 8 ounces spaghetti
• 1 med onion peeled and finely chopped
  
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 jar (14 oz) spaghetti sauce
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons butter, melted
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Cook pasta, drain.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F
3. Cook beef, onion, green pepper in large skillet over medium heat until meat is brown, stirring to separate meat. Drain drippings.
4. Stir in spaghetti sauce
5. In a large bowl, combine cooked spaghetti, Parmesan cheese, eggs, and butter; mix well.
6. Place in bottom of 13x9 inch baking pan.
7. Spread cottage cheese over top
8. Pour meat sauce mixture over cottage cheese.
9. Bake 20 min or until hot
10. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over top of casserole and heat until melted.

Serves 6-8 ( The picture above is a piece that was left over that I'll eat for dinner Wed.)

And of course Craig never follows recipes to the letter. He always improvises somewhat.

Here he added chopped tomatoes and green onions when ready to serve.

A new look!

In celebration of my 1 year blog-e-versary,
( it's actually Jan. 27th)
I've redone the template for my blog.
I've been studying html from this web site.
And it's Free! (I love free!)
visit W3Schools!

It's has been very difficult.

Like learning a new language.

But I have managed to pick up a couple of things. Like being able to put a link without showing the actual web address,which can be quite long. And putting a background behind my posts. And changing my banner. I still can't figure out how to make my banner larger, but I'll keep digging thru the template and try to figure it out.

Of course, I want to thank all the blogs I visit, because that's where I've gotten a lot of my ideas.
I've met a lot of wonderful people thru blogging this year and hope to someday meet some of you in person.
Okay, enough mushy stuff, I got a lot of house work to do.

I got South Park-ed!

I found this web site, South Park Studio ,

(Actually,I stole it from Janna),
One More Raindrop in a Bloggy Ocean

I know, I'm doing this a lot now.

But she had so much fun with it ,
I went there and played around. It was fun
putting together a Wayne and Craig look alike.
And apparently Morgen ,
It' a Blog eat Blog World , ( I got it spelled right this time)
has had fun with it also. So here's the South Park-ed
versions of ourselves.























I hope you can tell who's who!

funny Friday

Here's another funny Friday.
(I think this might become a regular piece here)
I saw this on another web site. ( yes, I stole again! ) I just thought it was perfect, the way it describes men and woman.
Now, before my readers get upset, let me explain. This doesn't mean that woman are more difficult than men to understand, (though I'm sure some male readers might will disagree) or that men are simple, one thing on they're mind, turn me on, turn me off, kinda guys. ( though most men and woman might agree)


So how about this......
Women are unique, vastly complex, fascinating creatures. With amazing, ever changing, thoughts, feelings, opinions...........
Oh what the hell, With all those buttons and dials, no wonder we can't figure out how to get them to work right!

gas prices

Continuing on with the last post.

It's interesting to see how much

gas prices change across the country.

On http://www.gasbuddy.com

you can find gas prices for any where.

There even have this color coded

gas price map to see how the prices

vary across the country.

Here in Michigan,

we seem to have some of the lowest.

The west coast the highest.

Canada's gas is even higher!

According to Ken in Montreal, it's because they

have much higher taxes then in the states.

Here in the states the price for gas ranges from

$1.82 -$2.94. In Canada, $2.66 - $3.85

The map shows the price in liters. I converted them to gal. for comparison.

Maybe they do liters to fool them into thinking their gas is cheap. "Oh it's only $.80 a liter!"

Let's see..... I have a 75 gal gas tank in the mo-ho,.... That would be 75 x 3.785 = 283.875 liters!

Wow, that seems like a lot! I think I'll stick with gallons!

how low will it go

Took these pics on the way to work this morning.
As you can see, another dreary day in mid Michigan,
I'm told both the east and west sides
of the state tend to be much sunnier.
It figures.

Over the past couple of months,
the price at the pump has slowly
dropped. They say a mild winter and
decreased global demand is the reason.
I think that's just f#*kin crap.
There is so much oil, there is no reason
that the price needs to go up
like it did last summer.

But anyway, how much lower do you think it will go?
I never thought it would ever go below $2 again.
I wish my mo-ho was on empty so I could fill It up.

The last pic is a Meijer Gas station.
You say, so what? But if you haven't lived in Michigan
or the surrounding states, You don't know that this is where Walmart came up with the Super Walmart Idea.
Meijer was a pioneer for the one stop shopping.
If you go into a Meijer store, you can see that

Wallmart must have taken pics of they're layout
and duplicated it.
I always miss having a Meijer store when we travel.
It's nice to be able to find everything you need in one place.
Super Wallmart is okay, but the quality of merchandise
isn't as good.


I just know by next summer,
they will find a reason to raise the prices again.



Enjoy the "cheap gas" while you have it.

Yummy

Normally for Christmas, Craig cooks a turkey. But with my mom in the hospital and us spending all our free time in Muskegon, we just didn't get around to it. So yesterday he finally cooked it! I love turkey. When it's on sale around Thanksgiving, we usually buy 3 or 4 and stick them in the freezer.
They're soooo cheap then.
We eat one for Thanksgiving,
one at Christmas, and one in February and March.
Craig is an amazing cook.
I've never seen anyone who could go thru the cupboard and find enough stuff to put together a delicious meal.
He loves to cook, and I love to eat.
Add in mashed potatoes and gravy, and some butternut squash,
and we had a delicious meal!

Winter hath returned

After a very mild December and even the first two weeks of January, winter's back!
Last night we were hit with freezing rain, followed by sleet,
and finally some snow to hide all the ice. Looks like it's going to be here a while.
If winter wasn't so long, I think I could actually enjoy it.
Snow and ice can transform the landscape into something
really beautiful.
I mainly hate the cold.
And the dreary days with no sun.
But I do have my PC games, (I'm addicted to them),
my blog, (which I am really enjoying),
planning mo-ho trips for the coming summer,
(I love camping in our mo-ho),and of course work.
(we all gotta do that, right?)

So here's some pics from my yard.

I'm sure all my warm weather readers will be envious
that they can't enjoy all this beauty!

Another weekend. Yea!

I'm off to Muskegon to see how Mom's doing. From talking to her and my brother Louie, she sounds like she's doing great!.

For those readers not familiar with Michigan, Lansing is in the middle of the state, it's the Capital, and home of Michigan State University. Muskegon is on the lake, 100 miles to the west. Where I was born and raised. click on the pic.

Craig will be staying home.

He has TONS of paper work to do. He does all the bookkeeping for the salon, and this time of year there is lots! He needs to finish the year end totals for work , estimated taxes, 1099's, and a bunch of other stuff.

I wasn't listening too well, it's all Greek to me. I just let him do it. He is an excellent bookkeeper. Very good with numbers. unbelievably organized!

I was never good at the kind of stuff.

So he does all the bookkeeping, and I do the cleaning, ordering supplies, stocking the retail shelves, and handling the pr stuff for the salon.
I think I got the easy part!

Another Dream

This dream has to do with Spiders.
I HATE Spiders! So for obvious reasons, there will be no Pictures accompanying this post. (and yes Morgan, that spider on your home page is freaky too! and I won't read that post!)

I've always hated Spiders, since I was a little kid. I think it was all those sci-fi movies with Giant Spiders, Or maybe the old Tarzan movies where he gets trapped in a giant spider web! I've gotten better over the years, but very slowly. It use to be if I saw a spider, some one would have to go into the room to kill it before I would go back in. Now as long as I have something LONG enough and BIG enough, I can beat the crap outta them!

So, I don't remember in this dream, what led up to the spider part, but I'm outside and I open the passenger side car door. There is this large spider web going from the top of the seat to the bottom front. You know the kind that's all spun in circles and attached at the corners. Actually if it weren't for the spider part, they're quite a work of art. But there it is with a spider in the middle, So I want to get it OUT of the car with the spider in it. So I take my finger, (why didn't I use a stick?)... (because it's a dream stupid) and quickly run it from the top of the web, down the seat, and fling it out of the car. Of course it's sticking to my finger, and I'm shaking it vigorously trying to get rid of it! It finally comes off on to the ground,
BUT WHERE"S THE SPIDER?
It landed on my pant leg! so I start hitting it with my other foot. (I'm wearing socks but no shoes, and I'm outside..... stupid dream) I finally get it off and it falls into a quivering crumpled speck. (the entire spider was only about the size of my thumb nail, legs and all)
And then I awaken, heart racing.
I say to myself,"it's only a dream", my inner self says,"but it was a SPIDER DREAM!"
I say to myself,"but it was a tiny spider", my inner self says"but it was STILL a SPIDER!".

I know it's a phobia, and I am slowly getting better.
I hate stupid dreams.

Funny Friday

Got out of work late last night, and have to be there at 7:30 this morning. So Just a quickie post.
There's been a lot of talk about global warming. And I ran across this on another blog.
(yes I stole it!) But I thought it was funny.
Have a great weekend! (at least all the people who don't have to work tomorrow, like I do)

a shorty post

Short post today, have to work 8-8.

Morgan commented that he's seen pics of me and pics of Craig, but no pics of Craig and me. Well, the reason for that is one of us is always taking the picture. We're not ones to ask other people to take pics of us, so I don't have to many. But here's one from the family Christmas that Lori, (my brother Bruce's wife) took and e-mailed to me.



Also playing around with my blog layout.

I added Sonific to the sidebar.
It's a free little music program.
Or maybe it's called a Widget.
I'm not sure. Still trying to learn some of this stuff.
But having fun experimenting.
I can change the songs, so I'll try some different
ones here and there.

I also added a little fireplace. So now you have
a warm fire and soft music to
read by.

one year anniversary

One year ago today, I had Lasik Surgery.

(laser-assisted intrastromal in-situ keratomileusis)

I'd worn glasses since I was 6 years old.

They were so thick I had to have a special

compressed glass, so they wouldn't look

like coke bottles. If you go way back to

my very first post. you'll see me in glasses.

I was so bad, when I got up in the morning,

I had to put my glasses on to go to the

bathroom to put my contacs in.

But not any more!

Now I awaken and can see

the large clock on my night stand

without having to lean toward it and squint.

It's quite amazing how they do it!

It's 20 minutes and your on your way home.

Back to work the next day!

First they do all these tests a week or so before the surgery, to make sure your a candidate for Lasik. Mainly your Cornea has to be thick enough so they have

enough room to remove and reshape the Cornea.

They use a laser (a highly concentrated beam of light)

to cut a flap across your Cornea, then they peel the flap back and bombard the surface with a Laser to reshape it. Once that's done, they carefully put the flap back and smooth it .

No stiches! Your done! And your awake during it too!

So you see everything!

Your vision is blurry at first. they give you something to sleep, and you go home. When you wake up hours later, you vision has improved. The next day perfect!

The eye heals very quickly!

But old habits die hard. For the next couple of months, I kept trying to take my, not there glasses off, to get into the shower.

The miracles of modern technology!

A Milestone

My first milestone! 1000 views!

Actually, that's only since I put site meter on my blog in August. But still, it's fun to see the numbers grow. Later this month I'll hit my one year anniversary of my blog. I didn't know when I started, what it would evolve into. But I've enjoyed sharing, and have also met many interesting people and have read many interesting blogs. Thanks for sharing with me.
Wayne

Super Sunday

Super Sunday as in, Another work week over! I love the weekends, but then who doesn't? Unless of course you work weekends. Or you don't work at all, then everyday is a weekend. I do work Saturdays, but have Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off. So that is my 'weekend'. Every one should have three days off each week.

1. You need one to recover from the week,
2. Two do get everything done you can't do during work,
3. And the third to feel like you had a day off!

Of course I work longer hours the other four days, but it's well worth it!

I got an e-mail from my

brother Bruce's wife Lori,

and she sent me some pics

she took at our Christmas

gathering.

Here's a couple of them,

The first one is of me,

my mom, and my

brother Brian's wife, Ruth.

And the second one

is Bruce's wife Lori,

and Craig.

I could post pics of all the nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews, but why? Just a lot of kids! You've seen one you've seen them all!

Of course I expect a lot of flack when the mothers read this, but they know I'm just not a kid person. I won't even hold a baby. Ewwww! So it's nothing personal.

Remember, click on the pic for a larger one.

Wonderfully Weird Weather

December weather, at least here in the Midwest, set a record for the warmest December! And even into January it is continuing with today's temps into the 40's. Our normal high should be around 30. A nice change from our colder than normal November. All of our winter related businesses are hurting, and snow loving skiers and snowmobilers aren't very happy , But I sure am! I hate the cold and shoveling snow. Not to mention the heating bill savings! Makes me want to get the RV out and go camping! .....But I expect that this won't last. We still have a long winter ahead of us. But I can dream, right?

Mom's home

This is my last post of a very lucky lady, my Mom.
She is now back home and happy to be there. She's doing extremely well and expects to go back to work in a couple of weeks.
Oh, and she's getting frisky, if you know what I mean. So any of you lurkers out there waiting for you chance at this lovely lady, the time is now! But first, if you want her phone number, you're gonna need to send me some background info on yourself. She might not be too picky, ( she says she's not gettin any younger) but I'm not gonna let any Tom, little Dick or Harry show up with out knowing he's;

1. A non smoker.
2. Not secretly married.
3. Financially secure.
4. Reasonably good looking.
5. Likes to buy her pretty baubles, and take her places.
6. And is physicaly equipped to satisfy her needs.

So, e-mail me with all the proper documentation, a nice hand written letter why your mister right, and picture proof of you physical credentials, and her phone number is yours!

Good Luck!