Up to week 42

Man, I am a total loser. But to be fair, there have been many things happening and they are time-consuming.

I got a lot stuff done!

#20 I got the sewing machine fixed. It was the machine that I used growing up. It have been sitting in storage for I don't know how long. The bobbing case was bad and the tension was not correct. In the end, I was set back about $130, but it was worth it. The machine is a good machine. Even the guy who repaired it was in awe at the sight of it.

#21 I took crochet classes at Joann's. The class was ok. I learned all the things that I was doing incorrectly. No wonder my pattern looked funky and lopsided. Now that I know the correct way to crochet, I will be whipping out scarves, pot-holders, hats and towels.

#24/#25 So the garden is still alive and producing viable produce. Who knew!? I guess my black thumb of death is slowly turning gray. So I am crossing this off while everything is still alive.

#29 Had 4 outings with friends. Went to lunch with Bill, Jen and Sharon to Pom's. Yummy! Had cocktails and apps with Tracie at Lake Eola Wine Company. The bruschette is divine. I had cocktails and apps with Melissa at, wait for it, Lake Eola Wine Company. I can't help it, LEWC is awesome. If someone gives me the choice, that is where I go. I went to the Taste of Winter Park Festival. Tickets were fairly priced and we got them before the "incident" happened. I went with my foodie friend, Cathy. She is always good for trying new foods.

#40 Watched Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn was awesome. Let me tell you, she had her hands everywhere. No man was safe from her charm. She had a fiance, an ex-husband with a sailboat, and a rag-mag reporter at her beck and call. She bounced between all of them and about 5 bottles of champagne. She was a hussy, but a classy hussy. In the end, she sailed back to her ex because she was too wild for the new one.

#66 I completed the Almaniac which is an Old Maltese Challenge. The Old Maltese Challenges are trivia and puzzle contests. This particular one is an 80+ list of questions that can all be answered using only the 2010 Almanac. Most of the questions were pretty straight forward, but some of them were very hard to find. So after weeks and weeks of hunting through the enormous almanac, all the questions were answered. Correctly, I do no know. Only the Old Maltese knows and he's not telling right away.....

#72 I gave a gentleman $9.00 in the parking lot of Joann's. He said he just got out of the hospital and needed money to catch the bus to go home. I gave him some dough and gave him a lift to the nearest bus stop just in time to catch it. He got on the bus and headed home.

#74 Cd's I listened to:

Fleetwood Mac-Greatest Hits: Well, it is Fleetwood Mac, so you know they aren't really rockin', but they are still a classic band. Seeing as this was a greatest hits album, I knew every song.

Flyin' Blind-Flyin' Blind: Mark doesn't even know where this CD came from, which is indicative of the caliber of music that I heard. It was not good. The singer drowned out the rest of the band. They have to be local which means that they are probably not together anymore.

Fuel-Sunburn: Thank goodness I listened to this CD after Flyin' Blind. I need Fuel. They were my rock salvation.

Still flossing, turning off water in the shower, and drinking plenty of water everyday.

So, I will try not to be so lame in the future with posting. Sorry.

Week 39

My oh my--got some stuff done this week.

#35 I planted a love note to my guy. I used Easter as an inspiration. I used one of those plastic eggs, you know the ones that never close correctly, and I wrote Mark a simple note. I told him that he made me "hoppy" Corny? Why yes is was. I put it on his desk on Saturday and he saw it by the end of the night. So the nice thing was the next day I planned a very elaborate Easter dinner. While in the throws of battle in the kitchen, he wrote me a note and put it in the egg. I found it after my glorious victory in the kitchen. He said thank you for all you do! Corny? Why, yes it was.

#3 Wrote Thank you notes to Bill for some hot sauce he brought back from his trip. I watched SocaMan while he was gone. I also wrote one to Daryl for letting me carpool to a wedding over an hour away. Very cool, my friends.

#24/#25 Round two. I started a vege and herb garden AGAIN. Apparently, my black thumb of death was too much for the unsuspecting first garden and they were lost. Well, it was that and the scorching Florida sun and torrential downpours. This time I moved the garden to a semi-shaded zone. Mark dug up the ground for me and also built a barrier to build up the soil. This time I have 2 cherry tomato plants, 2 prince tomato plants, 1 rosemary bush, 2 thyme plants, 1 oregano plant, 1 purple basil plant, 1 pepper plant (I think is is jalapeno) and one green pepper plant that survived the first planting last year. I did not start any of these plants from seeds. I bought them at the local farmers market already started. I need all the help I can get!! I did lay down some mulch in the garden. Someone told me that this will help retain moisture in the soil and deter weeds and some pests. We will see if I can keep this one going.

I have a green thumb.
I have a green thumb.
I have a green thumb.
I have a green thumb.


#29 Went to a great little Mexican place with Cathy. The sandwich place we wanted to go to was packed, so we walked over to this place. When I say small--it was about the size of my living room. There are only 4 tables, 4 seats at the counter and 4 items on the menu. We had fresh tacos and Aye Ca-rumba were they stunning. Definitely going back!

#46 Mark and I went to date night at our local botanical gardens. We watched Star Trek outside on a blanket with a picnic dinner. It was really fun to watch a movie under the stars with the night breeze and fragrance of the gardens. If anybody has an opportunity to do this--do it. It is a completely different experience from going to a theater. The place we went to does date night once a month and it is very cheap to get in. Way cheaper than a theater and the payoff is very unique. Side note--usually they show girlie movies, so we were very glad to see a "boy" movie pop up on the schedule.

#2 I developed a data base of friends and family birthdays and special events. I just used a calendar program and I put in dates as they come to my attention. Now I can send cards, flowers, gifts, etc., when the time is right.

#40 Got three movies in this week:

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. So this movie came out when I was 8 and I desperately wanted to see it. Due to an unfortunate combination of a toilet and a lotion jar, it did not happen. Twenty-seven years later, I got to see it. It would have been better at 8. Seeing it as an adult, the movie had a lot of inconsistencies in the plot and a lot of unanswered questions. If I saw this when it came out, however, it would have been my favorite movie and I would have made my parents sick with demands to see it again and again. I will say that the special effects were very slick in this movie for the time it came out. And yes, it is very sad at the end when you think ET is dead. I almost cried, ALMOST.

The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade in this crime drama. He is charged with following cheating spouses until a dame saunters into his office. She wants him to find her sister who has gone missing. Bogart sends his partner out. When his partner turns up dead, Bogart realizes that there is more to this story. He finds out the missing sister is really a statuette in the shape of a falcon that is worth a ton of dough. Pretty soon, he has his hands full with the dame, the cops, the goon, the creepy guy(Peter Lorre was awesome), and the Fat Man.

In the end, he got the bird and everyone else became jailbirds. Great flick. Question, Why is it that Bogart always gets the girl he just met to fall for him 10 minutes into the movie? I guess he is just suave.

Duck Soup. OMG!! What a great movie. I laughed through the whole thing. It was slapstick and zingers for an hour fifteen minutes. It was hilarious. The Marx brothers definitely delivered in this flick. Groucho Marx takes over a country that is in bad financial shape and proceeds to drive it into the ground even more. His assistant only writes letters to other people, Zeppo. A neighboring ruler wants Freedonia for himself and sends spies to gather information, Harpo and Chico. One great scene in the movie is at the end when Freedonia is being attacked. All the guys are in a country house trying to win the war. Every cut shot shows them suited up in a different war uniform from various areas and times. The big fluffy french hat is the best! But who am I kidding? The whole movie was hilarious--the mirror scene, His Excellency is Due, the infamous Lemonade vs. Peanuts--the list goes on! Fun fact: Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera are considered national treasures by the Library of Congress. Not bad for a movie that was an economic bust at the box office and the cause of the Marx brothers getting fired from Paramount.