Frogs

I used to have 2 frogs that lived outside. One Gray Tree Frog and one Green Tree Frog. I had been told that they make noise when it rains, but I never heard them. Until one night Duane and I were in the kitchen and we heard this loud croaking and the next thing I knew the green frog was gone. GONE. After I left the light on over the kitchen sink for it every night, attracting bugs for it to eat. AND HE UP AND LEFT ME! That croaking must have been him saying sayonara.

Whatever.

I think the gray frog got lonely though, because this is what I found tonight:

Least Favorites

Emptying the dishwasher has to be my least favorite job. It's not like it's hard or anything, I mean, when I load the dishwasher I position everything so it's really easy to put away. Like all the spoons are in one cubby, the knives have their own too. You just grab a handful of stuff and whisk it away to where it goes. I just don't like it.

And that's why in my house it's not my job. Yay! If the dishwasher doesn't get emptied, it doesn't get filled. Which is still my chore. But not if someone hasn't emptied it :)

A close second is washing dishes by hand. And the reason I don't like that is because I'm too short for it! I have to stand really close to reach and I always get my shirt soaked. Like it is right now.

I'd much rather be the garbage taker outer. Even if raccoons were to get into the garbage and throw it all around the yard...I'd rather that be my job.

What is your least favorite?

Catching Up

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog so I'm going to catch you up on one giant post!

On October 17th, 1989 , there was the Loma Prieta Earthquake. It was a 7.1 on the Richter Scale and practically in my back yard. It was pretty scary. Things I remember are: I was washing my coffee pot at 5:04 pm that day, when it hit. It took my mom forever to get home from work in Watsonville that evening. A man named Dale was killed on the freeway when his car hit spooked horses. There were huge aftershocks all night long. We Christmas shopped in huge white tents that year. Downtown Santa Cruz was in bad shape and the merchants had to move into the tents to stay operational. Frightening times.

On October 17th, 2009, 20 years later I bought these new bar stools! Can't wait to see what they look like up against that bar when it no longer looks like wood paneling. Someday. But I know for sure it will be way before 20 years passes. We sold our old dining room table and bar stools without having replacements. We still don't have a dining room table, but we've got our bar stools!

This is Courtney and Blaire on October 17th. They had just gotten back from shopping for their Halloween costumes. They're so cute you'd think they would want to be princesses or fairies.

Nope. I don't even know what you would call them, but they weren't cute!

They got the costumes to wear when they went camping with the girl's Mom and Mr. Gene. It was supposed to be a fun weekend of trick or treating and costume contests, but they all got sick with a stomach virus while they were gone and the fun was cut short. Fortunately for Bri it was Homecoming weekend and she didn't go camping. Instead she stayed with us and avoided the virus!

On October 23rd we finally had our Grand Opening at work. The building took a year to build and we received money from the state because we were moving our labs and management from Rhode Island down to Louisiana.

Governor Bobby Jindal came and spoke and cut the ribbon with our CEO. The ribbon didn't want to cut though and it was a pretty comical moment. Perhaps ribbon without wire would have worked better? It was a fun day! We even had customers come all the way from Sweden to celebrate with us.

October 24th was the Homecoming dance. Our Central Wildcats had beaten Walker the night before, bringing them one step closer to becoming District Champs. Thomas, Sarah, Bri and Zach looked fantastic and had a great time! These 4 are the best of friends. You would think that they were all dating, but no. All 4 of them say they are not. Although Sarah and Thomas are always together and so are Bri and Zach.

So cute!! And since I'm such a slow poster I can now say that they are dating! Officially as of October 31st! Yay!

Bri and her daddy! He is so proud of her and we couldn't be happier with the choices she makes and the friends she chooses to have in her life.

My new cubicle! We moved into our new building on September 9th, but didn't get our cubicles until October 5th. And then I didn't get around to decorating it until October 28th. See, I'm not only a procrastinator with my blog. I'm a procrastinator with a lot of things.

I blame my sister :)~

The week of October 26th was Spirit Week at Blaire's school and on Wednesday it was Crazy Hair Day!

Half her head was pink and half was blue. And my fingernails were blue too!!

I made Pretzel Sticks for the guys at work for Halloween. They turned out pretty cute and yummy!

On November 1st Blaire and I made these cute little bite sized pumpkin pies! We got the recipe from Bakerella and they were delicious!

We only made 12 though because after the first batch was done we started eating them right out of the pan and our bellies got full and we didn't feel like rolling out more dough and smushing it into the mini muffin pan.

This is my new cornbread skillet! Duane got me into using the cast iron skillet for making cornbread but we decided that it has a greasy taste to it because we use the same skillet that we use to cook meat in. Then I found this cornbread skillet and knew our greasy tasting Golden Sweet Cornbread days were over!

Then on October 31st I bought a new car! My very first new car ever!! The brakes went out on my beloved Malibu and during the week that it took to get fixed Duane and I started visiting car dealerships.

It came down to this 2010 Toyota Camry SE and a 2009 Honda Accord. They both were silver, but the Toyota dealership was more persistent. Which is something that would normally push me in the other direction, but I liked the Toyota salesman better. He was pretty funny! First we drove a red SE, but I wasn't that into it. It had light colored fabric interior and I didn't fall in love. Then our salesman told us about the silver SE that his Sales Manager was driving and asked if we were interested in a demo. We were. So we went out and looked at it on our way out of the dealership and I liked it. We went back a couple days later and sat in it and we both fell in love. It took a few more days before we could agree on a price, but it's now mine!!

And I bet I wouldn't have gotten this cool key if I had bought the Honda!! Now I won't have to have the remote entry thing hanging off my keyring. It's right on my key!!

*sigh* My Bu. She was a good car the last 4.5 years. Until she started costing me money. Duane got her cleaned up really nice and we only had the For Sale sign in her for an hour before we got our first call and sold her! I hope she makes her new owner happy. We go to the Notary tomorrow and seal the deal.

I'll miss my license plate. It was so easy to remember! I don't think that this pelican license plate will look good on my still nameless Camry though, so I think I'll be getting an LSU Geaux Tigers specialty plate. Unless I get a cool generic license plate like STF 619. That's not going to happen though because Bri got SWK 918, so I know we're past STF.

We don't get much of a season change here in Louisiana, but I noticed that the leaves are changing color on my Red Maple today. Just one little section though. The rest is green.

Speaking of seasons, Hurricane Season is supposed to be over. But Ida is headed our way and the Governor declared a state of emergency today. She's supposed to turn right when she gets up close to us though so keep your fingers crossed for us that she does. Duane says he doesn't think the gulf is warm enough now for her to get really bad. I suppose I should be thankful that Ida is also a procrastinator and waited until after the weather turned cold to show up.

Happy November, hope you all have a great one!!

Love,
Stephanie