Yard Sale and Funeral

This morning was our Relay for Life team yard sale at town hall. I got up at 5:00 am this morning and made my cranberry orange muffins to bring. They were Krusteaz brand so I only had to add water and drain the enclosed can of cranberries. Super easy. I got to work at about 6:40 am and starting helping unpack boxes of crap, I mean "treasures". I mean honestly, some of this stuff was absolute junk that should have just been thrown away, but it surprised me what people were buying.
We didn't price anything, we just put up signs that said no reasonable offer would be refused. It was a name your own price gig. I did peruse the goods before too many people showed up and grabbed a black silky tank top that has big gaudy jewels under the bust and two pairs of tan capris. I donated $5 for the lot of them. There was lots of yummy treats besides my muffins. We had rice crispy treats, brownies, muffins from Costco, coffee, tea and cocoa.

Just as we were counting on we had a captive audience of all the people who had literally camped out in the breezeway at work waiting for football sign ups. They went crazy for the hot beverages and killed time by buying knick knacks from us.
I know it's a little dark, but those are tents in there. People started showing up shortly after midnight last night. All for football. And it's not even high school football, it's Pop Warner little kid football. CraZY.

I left at 9:00 a.m. and got home in time to change quickly and head over to the Catholic Church down the street for Aunt Teri's funeral service. Uncle Joe (her husband) was greating people at the door and gave me a big hug and wanted to make sure I met up with the family. He guaranteed me that I wouldn't recognize the "D" when I saw her. I went in the church and ended up sitting on the opposite side of the room as them, but I saw Aunt Susie and Uncle Mark, Kayla, Amber, Zach, Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathy (from Kennewick, WA). I heard them say Uncle Vern, but I didn't see him.

I didn't care for the service. They obviously didn't attend this church because the Father didn't say anything about Aunt Teri other than what was written in the obituary, couldn't remember the girls' names and spoke about the third daughter as if she was still alive. It was bad. The best part was when their youngest daughter, Brittany (the one who has Lupus), got up and spoke. She did a great job, considering her mom just died a week ago, and talked about personal things. It was very nice. Catholics are strange and have a lot of strange rituals so I had to sit through all these sayings from the Father that the Catholics in the group would make standard replys. It's all about traditions. They also did a communion, but it's only open to Catholics. Anybody else has to ask for a "blessing" instead. Bah! Then the Father lit up his insense ball and swung it around the casket singing some horrible hymn accapella.

Finally at the end of the service the family followed the casket out and that's when I saw Denise and Scotty. Scotty is huge. Tall and big. He's probably just as tall as Little Man and just as big. Denise has gained even more weight and now uses arm braces to walk on. Not good. By the time I got out of the church she was being loaded up in a van to go to the gravesite. I didn't go say hello because it's too much drama to deal with her, but I did try to find Aunt Debbie. Wilson will remember her from our NSync trip. She's the one who's husband was telling Wilson and Kelly about Torrance being the ghetto and something about being mugged. I just remember it was funny. Anyway, I couldn't find her and just ended up leaving. The gravesite burial was for family only and then there was a reception at a ranch on the Midway (towards Durham). I was too physically and emotionally exhausted by then so I went straight home.

This afternoon we went to the movies and saw "State of Play" with Russell Crowe. It was really good. I love a good espionage thriller.

Now we're just watching the end of the Nascar race while we digest our yummy Trader Joe chinese food dinner. I'm so full I'm not sure I could physically move myself off the couch even if I wanted to. Which I don't.

Rainy Day Racing

While we could still use more rain for the season, this isn't the best weekend for it. We had a Friday race out in Willows today that we left for amidst rain sprinkles this morning. Thankfully it stayed dry at the track, but that didn't stop us from having other difficulties. First thing we did when we got to the track was put together our new pop-up tent. It was actually as easy as the box said. It takes two minutes to expand the frame out and then the top, canopy cover straps to the frame with velcro. It doesn't get much easier then that.
We bought sides for it too, but we didn't need them today. After we had the tent up we went to get the car out. We have two metal ramps I push the car down on with Chris in it to control the steering and braking. For the first time ever, one of the ramps fell down halfway through pushing the car out. The rear wheels were down on the ground, but the nose and front tires were still up in the trailer. Chris managed to stop the car before it dropped down to the ground, but then I was scrambling to try to push him back into the trailer far enough that I could get the ramp set back up on the lip of the trailer. It was slightly scary, but we managed to get the ramp back up and the car out safely.

We got there at 8:30 am and our first track session was at 9:00 am so we were hustling to get everything set up and ready in time. While Chris was changing tires I went to get out his driving suit and found out that we'd accidentally left his driving shoes at home. Ugh. The pedals are small and close together so he was going to have to do the best he could with his big skater sneakers.

After he went out on track for a couple of laps and came back to the pits we found out that he was leaking oil again.
A very frustrating morning. On a good note, the race club decided to move the race from 1:50 pm to 10:00 am so even though we were ready to pack up and go we decided to go ahead and run the race since it was so close. Then, a couple of laps into the race he lost his steering and drove off track. That's when we were really done. We got there at 8:30 and left at 10:30. I think that's a new track day record for us.

After we got home it really started raining and it's been going ever since.

I haven't done much scrapbooking lately, but I did make another birthday card for a co-worker. I think it came out really nice. I wouldn't normally have put the paper clip on it, but it was holding a gift certificate on the inside of the card.

Tomorrow I'm working a yard sale at work for our Relay for Life team. I have first shift with one of the Fire Prevention Inspectors, Yvette, at 6:30 am. Of course it's still going to be raining all day tomorrow and all day Sunday. We're going to be huddled under the awning in the front of our building. We're also bringing baked goods and hot drinks to sell to the people who will be standing in line for football sign ups at Town Hall in the morning since they'll be a captive audience. I've got a cranberry orange muffin mix I'm going to whip up in the morning and bring with.

My yard sale shift ends at 9:00 am because I need to get home to meet Kari at 9:45 am to go a funeral for my Aunt Teri (one of Little Man's aunts). She was married to Uncle Joe and they lived next door to Denise up in Magalia. Uncle Joe's the only relative I've kept in touch with for the last 8 years because he comes to my work for permts. That's why Kari's going, she knows Uncle Joe from work. I suspect all the relatives will be there (Aunt Susie, all the cousins, and maybe even Denise if Joe doesn't ban her [they do NOT get along]). This will be interesting.

British Car Show

Today was the British Car Show at Canyon Oaks Country Club. We went last year and enjoyed it so we called the 'rents this morning and invited them with since Canyon Oaks is literally about two blocks from their place.

In addition to the cars, they had a silent auction going on, a saxophone quartet playing music and a bbq with tri tip sandwiches and bangers. I didn't take any of the photos, so these are by no means my favorite cars, but here's some that were there:





I'd tell you what my favorite was, but I've already forgotten and even if I told you I don't have a photo of it so you'll have no idea what I'm talking about anyway. So there.

Sabado Gigante

Today was an action packed Saturday. We got everything done and then some.

We started off this morning with some interesting homemade baked apple french toast. I'd made it last night and let it soak overnight, but I think I should have blended the cream cheese/egg mixture a little better because all the cream cheese ended up on top. It was good, but I don't think I'll be rushing to make it again soon (except that we'll be eating the leftovers tomorrow!).

Then, at 8:30 a.m. the DirecTV man showed up to install our new service. We refuse to pay the ridiculously high increased prices of Comcast so we're switching services. Next weekend, AT&T will be out to get our internet hooked up.

Since "Jeremy" took almost 4 hours to get us all set up we hung out outside and made our plans for the patio and visited with Mum and Justin when they each stopped by. We kept getting interrupted though by numerous pass-overs happening this morning.
We also took some time out to spy on our neighbors down the street who were having some kind of beauty pageant party going on. It was a group of young teenage girls being dropped off who were all wearing pageant sashes. Except for the boy who was dressed up like Woody from Toy Story. I don't think they were from gold nuggy days because they weren't period dresses. Some of them were wearing prom like dresses, others were wearing sundresses, one was wearing shorts and a tank top. It was mysterious and weird, but luckly we have this handy new fence we can peek through unobserved.
On a more productive note, Chris did do the finishing tap work to the sand in the patio area. We needed to make sure it was completely compacted before we laid the brick.

Once we were inducted to the satellite television family we hit the road and made a b-line for Home Depot where we picked up some aggregate stepping stones to inlay in our brick patio.

Next we went to Lowe's where we picked up 350 bricks. Luckily they got to load them in the truck. We just had to shrink wrap them down.

After lunch we got started on the patio. We made an assembly line where I unloaded bricks from the truck down to Chris' work area.


By dinner time Chris had the whole patio laid, pending some finish filing on the perimeter bricks that were slightly too long. We both liked the way it came out.
Nice, huh? This is the point at which Wilson and Raquel stopped by to say hello. I don't actually have any photos of them, if you can believe that, so you'll just have to trust me that they were here.

I called Chris in from his finish work at 5:30 to eat dinner, after which I headed out for a little get together with some work friends for a "spring swap". We were all bringing our no longer used clothes, shoes and accessories to swap with each other. I didn't get there until 6:30 (it started at 6:00) so most people had already sorted through the clothes, but thankfully nobody wore my size so I had my pick of anything sized S or M. But also to my disadvantage, nobody wore S or M clothes so there was very little I could use, but I did manage to snap a couple of tops and two skirts. It was fun, but it would have been better for me if I attended a swap with other midgets who wore S and M clothes. I also brought a bunch of jewelry with me which went over big. Nobody else brought any and my stuff was pretty nice, I just wear a different style now. Here's me sampling some of the clothes at the swap:

Captain Sleepy Pants wimped out at about 9:50 tonight so I sent him to bed while I watch QVC and blog. I was desperately tired earlier when Wilson was here, but now I've caught my second wind and even though it's almost 11:00 p.m. I'm not that tired. I'll have to remind myself that when I'm falling asleep in church in the morning!

Happy Secretary's Day

While Jessica and Tyler were busy hugging whales and saving the planet, I was busy at work reaping the benefits of Professional Administrative Assistant's Day, which I believe is a glorified way of saying Secretary's Day. My boss is Al, the Community Development Director who oversees Planning, Building and Code Enforcement. The other boss is Dennis who keeps an eye on Engineering, Sanitation and Public Works. They've learned that it's easier to do something together for the office ladies than each taking care of their own staff. This year they brought us all vases of roses (picked from the yards of Dennis and one of our Engineers, Radley):

They were so cool because every bouquet was different:


In addition to flowers they also arranged for a breakfast spread from Juice and Java to be delivered. There were bagels, muffins, coffee and orange juice. I couldn't eat any of it, but I did have some delicious coffee.

This week has gone by crazy fast. I've just had a ton of stuff at work going on. Meetings, meetings and then some more meetings. Oye!

A note of highlight, though. We made the seafood chowder soup mix Jessica bought us at Christmas. I bought a frozen mixed bag of scallops, shrimp and calamari from Trader's to throw in. Other than that you just had to add some crumbled bacon and a can of evaporated milk to the mix of seasonings and dried potatoes. It was absolutely delicious. And even better as leftovers the next day because it thickened up a bit.

Now we just have left a wild rice and chicken soup to make. Of course I waited until the weather was in the 90's before I made the chowder. Nothing says summer like a nice hot house and hot soup!

And the winner is.....

THE COMPETITORS:

The Reigning Champ; Crock Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage:

The Challenger; Baked Corned Beef and Cabbage:

And the winner is..............

It's a TIE!!!

Here's the deal, I absolutely loooooved the baked cabbage. It was so delicious I could have eaten the entire head if cabbage wasn't on my 'do not eat' list. I think the concentrated liquid made it super tasty. However, we both preferred the softer, more tender crock-potted beef. The baked beef was good, but we both remembered the stewed version being better. So there you go. Next year we'll crockpot the meat, bake the cabbage and continue to roast the potatoes.

The Fence is Up!

After much persistence and sweat by the boys, the fence was stabilized in an upright position by the end of yesterday. I really like the way it came out.



Now that the fence is up Chris can finish leveling out the patio area to the fence line. Next will be bringing in the sand and getting the bricks. I don't think I'll be getting out of that part.

We're just hanging out watching "Two Weeks Notice" while the corned beef finishes up in the oven. It smells soooooooo good. 10 more minutes....