We're so cute

You can make your own South Park characters at Planerarium. This is old news, of course.

This is me:


Dennis, in his Huebel "uniform":



And of course Chris with his new "hair-do":

That's a little Better

Wow, I lost my job Monday, sent out some resumes Tuesday, and got a call back on Wednesday. I could have an interview by the end of the week.

I'm so nervous. Apparently my judgement is just terrible when it comes to picking situations for myself. Eeeep!

Blame it on March

March has always been a bad month for me.

I don't know why I haven't yet realized that this crappy month really isn't a whole lot different from any other March. Nothing good happens in March. I have very bad March karma.

At least I didn't spend most of the month worrying about it being March. It's almost over now. There's only about a million more bad things that could happen.

I shall now retreat to my secret underground lair. (I wish I had one of these!)

Argh, Hindsight

I knew my job sucked, I always knew I did not fit well there, and I knew Peggy was is and always will be a complete unpleasable biatch.

I said so in June.

I said it again in July.

I bitched about being unhappy in August.

I just mentioned the random bitchiness two weeks ago.

When Dennis came home and I told him I was laid off, I got even more upset. I feel like such a loser. I've never been let go before. It wasn't even for anything I'd done wrong. I can see firing an airline pilot who wrecks planes. She said, "Your work is good," as she was doing it.

Maybe 27 years is high time to feel this bad.

#F@(L!%*V$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got canned. I should have seen this coming. I know I did, if I think about it. I didn't do anything "wrong," but I still feel like shit. This could have come at a worse time, but not by much.

Avoid Working at This Place









Booohiss

Easter Eggs & Elk

We dyed our Easter Eggs today, since Chris will be in Indiana for Easter this year.



Then we went for a quick road trip down I-44. Dennis almost made us run out of gas *teehee. Then we went to Robertsville State Park. There isn't a whole lot there, unless you have a boat, in which case there is access to the Meramec River.



Then we came back up to St. Louis County and Lone Elk Park.

We saw Elk:



Bison:



Whitetail Deer:



Crazy Cream Soda Drinking Children:



(Leave him alone, he's "growing his hair out.) :)


I'm struggling with allergy medicine again this spring. It knocks me on my butt until I get used to taking it, but I can't really go without it anymore either. I was really out of it for most of the day.

Yum

Oh yeah, I forgot to write anything about Dennis's birthday cake! I made it last night. It's a two layer chocolate cake, the filling is chocolate cream cheese icing with chunks of chopped up real chocolate in it, and iced with chocolate cream cheese icing. We went ahead and cut it this evening. It turned out really, really tasty. I'm really proud of it :) This is the first year I've made his b-day cake too.






It isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, but it tastes soooooo gooooood. I didn't have enough icing this time around, because my math was off for 9" round pans.

St. Patrick's

I didn't do much for St. Patrick's Day this year. I'm not even making corned beef & cabbage until tonight. I did wear my green wool jacket while I was running all over creation though.

I was on a mission to get Dennis's birthday presents today. He wanted some Nikon 8 x 40 binoculars and a Cold Steel Master Hunter knife. I got the binocs here in south county, but I had to make a run out to Grand Prairie Knives in Troy, Illinois for the knife. Then I had to run from there over to St. Charles to pick Chris up from school.

I managed to fit in grocery shopping at the Schuncks out there and kept all of the cold stuff cold in our cooler too. Yea... :)

Chris came back to our apartment for a while, we ate and hung out most of the evening. I couldn't handle the suspense, and I let Dennis open his presents open early. He really liked them :)

Then we all went up to Paul's apartment to wait for Jenn to get off of work. Paul is out of town for the weekend. We were up late last night *yawn*

Super Smokers

Today is my Dad's 50th birthday. We met my parents, my sister, and Mike Morgan at Super Smokers for lunch. It was really good, as usual.

We got him a "Vintage Since 1955" T-shirt, some gag-gift Old Pills, and some multi-colored whole pepper corns. I think he liked it.

No time for Blogging

I'm much too busy playing GT4. Help, I am addicted!

It's all Relative

Apparently Dennis is related to the Kaskaskia Island Dozas. His Great-grandfather, Almont, came from either on the island or from St. Mary's. DJ thinks that Almont's father is listed incorrectly in someone else's version of the family tree, so there could be something going on with the parentage there. We've found Almont's wife Gertrude's side of the family online. Dennis's uncle Mike looked into the geneology at some point, and had discovered a link to Sgt. York. There is a Lincoln (yeah, that one) link back on the island. There were relatives on the island / at the Fort for the Revolutionary War. The family is definately French.

It's neat that what Dennis found depressing at first sight has turned out to be so interesting. DJ has an old break action shotgun of Almont's, and an old black pot that belonged to Gertrude. It would be neat for Dennis to connect all of the dots. I hope he keeps talking to his parents about all of this stuff.

His uncle Mike has moved up to Joplin, and we're supposed to see that side of the family again around Easter. Maybe we'll find out more then.

Dozaville

We've seen a little blip on the DeLorme Gazetteer called "Dozaville" a few times. It always caught my eye because his last name is Doza. It's by Ste. Genevieve, and we're on that page fairly often. It's actually in Illinois, on Kaskaskia Island. We ran down through Waterloo, where we stopped off at Rural King. Then we headed down to Chester. We went down the back road right along the river from Fort Kaskaskia to Menard. Eeep, prison! It's a really awesome looking thing place though.

We had some trouble finding it once we got on the island, but there it was. It's, um, small. Dennis said it depressed him. It isn't much to look at, I agree, but I don't think he understands what it means to live on an island that floods like that.

A little more research makes it seem that a trip to the cemetery we saw would not be a bad idea. It seems that the Doza family goes back on the island into the 1700s. I'd be interested in finding out a whole lot more.

The Worst Employee Ever

I must be the worst employee ever. I had to take Wednesday off for Dennis's Grandma's funeral. No problem, I came in on my normal Thrusday day off. And was I ever in trouble!!! I could feel the seething anger, so I slinked and didn't speak.

Then I had to say at the last minute that I had to be late Friday morning because I had something to do at Chris's school. Of course I didn't get in until right before 9:00. There were three things that needed to be rushed, and she called at about 9:05 really pissed.

Blah. Like she's ever even in on Fridays. Yeah.

Don't care.

:)

Funeral, Dennis's Family, Shooting Hurts

Dennis was sorta nervous about going to his Grandma's funeral. His family doesn't always get along, and they don't see each other often. He hadn't seen his Grandma for a while either.

Nobody acted horribly while I was around. I have a big family, so it actually put me in a pretty good mood when everyone congregated at DJ & Cathy's house afterwards.

We had some time off in the afternoon, so we went shooting. I shot a stupid .223 and hurt my shoulder because I wasn't holding it right. I figured out that the benches at Henges hit me right in the boob, and there is no good way for me to get comfy sitting at them. I need to bring a phonebook to sit on next time.

:(

Dennis's Grandma died.

RALLY RALLY RALLY

We spent the whole day chasing rally cars and getting Dennis's car good and muddy at the 100 Acre Wood Rally in southern Missouri.



This is Lion's Park in Potosi, which is one of our favorite places to watch the cars because you can see them go all the way around the little gravel road in the park. It's neat. The Lion's had cooked up some awesome chili and hamburgers too.

It was fun, the weather was so nice, and the event was much more on time. There were also a lot more "authority figures" which sucked...

...and nothing bad happened at all...

We took Chris to Henges shooting range today. At first there was a guy next to us with a .45 that was so loud, it made Chris cry. Then some guys next to us were shooting a Garand, so Chris wanted to start shooting our .22 rifle. He did, and he did well, and he liked it.

Dennis was really uptight about it all along, but it wound up being OK once we gave Chris a chance.

EEEE-diot Holidays

Valentine's Suck-o-Matic. Not in the good way :(

I made dinner, Penne w/ Vodka cream sauce, yummy salad, yummy chocolate dessert, real whipped cream. It was good! We had P'Sghetti's good bread to go with it.

Then I got a headache and went to bed.

Dennis was sad. I was crabby and sleepy.

He did laundry.

Blah.

Blah.

Boring.

I got him a "sappy" card. He says it is the first non-funny, non-animal card I've ever gotten for him. It says something like, "If I had it to do over, I'd find you sooner so I could love you longer." (Hey, there is humor there, "Me love you long time." He just didn't get it...) He got me a card that was pukee as well, some cupcakes, and a car wash card. Yeah, Valentine's Day is a top priority around here!

Well, I am going to make it up to him today ;)

Happy Appletime

I made it to Chris's Valentine's Day party at his school! I just had to tell him "Happy Appletime" in person. I guess Paul's phone is disconnected?

Anyway, I'm in a hurry, why the hell am I online? I am supposed to be cooking dinner.

There is no squirrel

Well, it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and the weather was fine for a nice hike in the woods. Right? Sure, but if you happen to be squirrel hunting, and see NO squirrels in the woods, it sucks! Seriously, I had a great time again. But the squirrels are all in the neighborhood, not out in the boonies. *grr* We did have a nice long conversation with a yellow bellied flicker though. It sounded a lot like a grey squirrel, so we stalked it. Nope, just a bird. LOL!

I shot Dennis's .22 at a "Bubba Cola" can as consolation.

It WAS a beautiful day.