Meet the Press

My Son-in-law, Deac, enjoys watching  Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.  So, while he was watching his show — Michael and I decided to go into the kitchen and have a little fun with the play-dough that Aunti Angie and Uncle Nick got him for his 2nd birthday.  As we were creating purple tigers and green butterflies, I could hear several men’s voices getting louder and louder — each one trying to speak over the other one that was trying to speak over the other one!  All having their own opinion on whatever subject they were passionately discussing.   All of a sudden it dawned on me!!!   There was something very familiar!!  Meet the Press reminded me of the show that MEN criticize!  The show that is often made fun of by the MALE population.  The show where women passionately discuss subjects that are considered “hot topics”!!  And yes, occasionally  more than one woman is talking at the same time —just like I heard this morning.   I couldn’t believe my ears!!  Really, Meet the Press was just a male version of  The View, but with testosterone instead of estrogen!!    I’m Just Sayin”

Roughing It!

I know that  my peeps have been  checking for a new blog, so I just thought I would take a few minutes to save you some time.  This is the thing–starting tomorrow, for 6 days, I will be roughing it!!  I will have NO internet access, I will have NO cable TV, and probably NO TV to fall asleep to when I go to bed!!  YIKES!!  

Tomorrow I  am flying to MN to paint.  Angela and Nick just bought their first house!!  So, while they are off to work I will do my best to turn this house  into their cozy, comfy home!!  That is my job and I love it!!  Besides the fact that I will have to go through computer/cable withdrawals, I am really looking forward to this trip.  I love my kids and I love to paint, so this is the best of both worlds!  But before I leave, I just felt the need to let you  all know that you can save your clicks.  There will be no new posts until I return to civilization!  In other words I will be “on the DL”!  Ta Ta for now

The Wedding

My baby girls wedding was on September 19.

  

Angela and Nick got engaged on the beach in Florida in April 2008.  So for almost 1 1/2 years we have been planning this wedding!!  I must say that I was much more of a mom-zilla, than Angela was a ” bride-zilla”!   I wasn’t horrible, but when things went wrong, like when we had to have the invitations all printed twice because the location we were having the reception changed their name, or when I realized that the ink on the return envelopes smudged during the mailing, it did stress me out!!  I was also a bit shaken and  may have uttered “OMG”  over and over to myself, when the Wedding Co-ordinator from Coast sent us an e-mail stating that she no longer worked there, and that happened  before we had our negotiated prices confirmed in an official contract!!!  But through all our planning, doing, and re-doing,  Angela always remained calm, at least in front of me!!  But then again – - – I did always try to remain calm in front of her too! LOL   One by one, the details all came together.  And after many sleepless nights, and worrying about the weather, the invites, the place cards, the flowers . . . it finally all came together on that beautiful Saturday evening! 

Although Angela and Nick wanted to have the wedding on the patio, the decision to have it inside was definitely the right one!  Just the right  amount of  chairs were set and one of Angela’s special friends made sure that everything  else was set up perfect!!  From the place cards to the memorial table and all of the table centerpieces—she did  an awesome job getting it all together!!   Thank you Carrie!!! 

 

Gloria is Angela’s BFF and also her MOH (maid of honor)  Gloria made sure that her dress was steamed to perfection, besides a hundred other details that  she took care of !   Thank you Glo — YOU ROCK!!

 The wedding ceremony began promply at 5:00 p.m.  It was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been to!!  The minister was a personal friend of theirs.  He provided the guest with a very touching sermon—I have to admit–I laughed, I cried, and then laughed again!  And I do believe,  everyone was right there with me!!! 

 Instead of the lighting of the unity candle, they poured the  2 pitchers of different colored sand into one , and during this time my grandaughter Brittany played a beautiful song on her clarinet.

The entire service lasted about 1/2 hour, and was immediately followed by cocktail hour!    

Dinner was served promply at 6:30.  The food was delish, although I really was too excited to even eat much!!  But of course I did have room for the best wedding cake EVER !!

The dinner was followed by an awesome video that Angela and Nick put together.  I think  it included pictures of almost everyone that attended the wedding!!   And the cocktails continued!!

Angela and Nick started the dancing with one of their favorite tunes.

After a few special dances—Angela and dad, Nick and mom—then the party really got going, and this is when I put my camera down!  After all, I am a dancin’ machine!!   I may have to write another wedding blog showing the pictures from the “reception”!!  The photographer told me she has some great pictures of me enjoying the music, if you know what I mean!!!

I do believe that fun was had by all!  My wish for my daughter and newest son was that they have “the wedding of their dreams” . . . and I think they actually did!!    I do think it was a perfect wedding…for the perfect couple!!    “I’m just sayin”!!

Jimmy Buffett

I love, love, love it when Jimmy comes to town!!!  We look forward to this event every year!!   Actually, I don’t even think it is about the concert as much as the party that proceeds it!!   I really don’t think that anyone just goes for the music!  Party time starts in the a.m.   Fans arrive with tents, BBQ’s, swimming pools, palm trees, parrots, and margarita’s on tap—not to mention plenty of beer!!  And this party happens every year—hot or cold rain or shine!!  But the party really has nothing to do with the reason I love JB.  Come to think of it, I really am not even “into” Jimmy all that much!!  I look forward to the concert every year, because that means that  our 3 oldest g-kids spend the night at our house! 

Brittany is now 17, Zach is going to be 16 this week (Happy early birthday Z!!), and Tony is 11 years old!  It is their mom and dad who are Buffett fans!!  So, ever since the kids were little, we have kept the kids overnight on the day of the concert.    And now, even though they are old enough to spend the day at home, they still choose to come and spend the day with “GT” and “G-pa”!!  Actually, I even think that they look forward to and enjoy our time together even if we are on the “DL!”    Although  I must say—fun and frolick was had by all!!!!

This time, we decided to go bowling!  But the fun didn’t end here!!!  We  went home and played “Executive Bowling”!!  For those of you who don’t know what that is— read my blog from 7/27/08 titled:  Executive Bowling.   After the kids finally got enough bowling, we played an exciting game of Scattergories!  We had a delish home cooked dinner and then we ordered a movie.  I can’t believe that  I actually stayed awake for the whole thing!!  It was a really good and exciting movie, even though I don’t remember the name of it!! LOL   Since it was now getting late, most of us went to bed except Brit!!  She stayed up and worked on a project for her advanced art class—before school even started for the year!!    

Sunday morning we all went to 8:30 mass.  Thank you kids for all getting up and ready–without a single complaint!!  My g-kids rock!!!   After a yummy pancake and bacon breakfast, more games were played—until Kevin and Maggie came to pick them up!! 

I  really think that I have much more fun when Jimmy Buffett comes to town, than the ones who actually go to the concert!!         I’m just sayin’

August

I know, I know, it has been almost a month!  So let me just catch you up with my adventures and LOL moments!!  Prepare yourself for a long one—after all it’s been almost a month!!!

My first job in August was at a house that was under construction.  You know what that means—-NO BATHROOMS!!!  I was there for 3 days.  The first day of work was Jerry’s my my 31st wedding anniversary.  (happy anniversary, my love)   I finished the day by 2:30 and was able to make it through the whole day without having to use the OUT-HOUSE!!    Not so lucky on the 2nd and 3rd days–I was actually forced to (not use the out-house!!!!!) take a break and drive to the closest gas station!!  But it was worth it!!  It was a good job—actually any job these days is a good job!!!

That weekend Maggie and I flew to MN for Angela’s Bachelor-ette party!  What a great way to go!  We could relax with a cocktail at the airport before the flight which only took 1 hour!  And the price was soo right—round trip for $100—Wow, definitely worth it, especially cus Jerry wasn’t going along, which meant I would have had to drive!

On the day of the party, the 4 of us who had come from out of town on Friday, had a chance to relax at the pool with Angela.   It really did get very hot just laying on the lounge, so instead of jumping into the pool to cool off, I decided to cool by splashing cold water all over myself–from head to toe!!  Since I was too lazy to get up and take water from the pool, I just grabbed my glass of water I had brought down with me!  Hmmmm— it really didn’t cool me so I thought I would try it again!  As I reached for my glass, Maggie informed me that I was taking her glass of  7UP!!  LOL—No wonder it felt warm and sticky instead of cool and refreshing!!  That was the end of my sunbathing—time to hop in the shower!

The party was so much fun!  I just need to mention a few highlights!!  We started at Angela’s house with an awesome menu of eats!!  Gloria, the maid of honor, planned the entire night and prepared all the food—with the help of Carrie.  Maggie and I also help by preparing our specialties! 

 

The plan was to go bowling, but we were slightly delayed when we got word from the outside world that there was a tornado heading our way and we should take shelter.  So the party moved to the basement garage!

The tornado passed.  Actually I don’t think that it ever got close, but we did have our adventure!!   We brought our drinks and games and never missed a beat!  Before we left for the bowling alley, 5 of  us had an awesome shot of  Tequila!!  I had chilled the Sauza and shot glasses making it especially tasty!! Yumm!!  

   

We finally made it to the bowling alley.  I figured I would show those youngsters how it was done!!   My first time up (no practice balls!!!) I felt a strike coming!!  Instead, it was me that flew half way down the alley! YIKES!!  But in my defense—the alley really was sticky, so after that first ball, I quickly learned not to slide during my release!!  LOL

Of course the shot of tequila at the house was not enough!!  But I figured we have all been drinking throughout the night, no one would know if I just ordered the rail tequila instead of  “the good stuff”!!  BIG MISTAKE!!  When I asked the bartender what kind it was—she didn’t know!!  Of course she couldn’t even look at the label since it was coming out of the liquor gun, from a big barrel in the basement!!  I am sure you can tell by our expressions that it definitely was NOT PATRON!!!

Most of the  party peeps left after we closed the bar, but six of us ended up back at Angela’s to snack on left overs and have some silly girl talk before bed.  We never noticed when Angela disappeared!!  Finally we realized that no one had seen her for awhile!!  After searching the apartment we found her under a stack of blankets!! 

Soon after, the rest of us followed her lead!!  Fun was had by all!!!

The following weekend was Adam and Angelica’s wedding!  Nothing funny-just lots of FUN!!  What a beautiful and happy couple!  Congratulations A&A!

The next weekend it was back to MN for a wedding shower, but this time my g-daughter came with us.  No flying, since “my main man” drove.  The shower was held in the party room at Angela and Nick’s  apartment building.   It started at 11 a.m., so brunch was served—delish!!!    Since it was an early shower we still had time to lounge at the pool side!!  OK here is another LOL moment:  We had been out there for at least an hour before Brittany looked at me and said:  “Grandma—is the bottom of your swim suit inside-out???  How embarrassing!!!  But once again, in my defense,  the inside looked just like the outside, except for the seams on the sides—and I did get dressed without my glasses on!!!   Well, once again, my time in the sun was cut short—since now I just knew everyone was staring at me!!!  

We stayed at A & N’s until Monday morning.  We left at the same time Angela went to work.   Before going home though we did stop in Eau Claire (or as I like to call it—La Crosse LOL)  to take a look at the campus.  I can’t believe that my Brittany is already a senior in high school, and looking at colleges!  I really think she liked this one!  We ended up touring the campus for about 3 hours, of course HALF of that time was spent  finding our way around!!

Now it is wedding crunch time.  So many last minute details before 9-19-09!  But everyday we cross a few more things off of the list.  I hope to have my list complete by 9-12, since that is the day Sara, James and Michael come to town!  I definitely need to have some quality time with them and some  special time with my g-son!!   I’m just sayin!

DON’T YOU HATE……!

. . . . . when your “map quest” gives you very specific directions to get home from were you were, but they are totally different then the directions they gave you to get there???   And since you are not at all familiar to  the area, you just have to rely on the piece of paper that you are following???  and then…to save paper, you didn’t print out the map?  And you are just driving along, taking a road you never heard of before, and all of a sudden the road is closed for construction and there are no detour directions??  And since you don’t have a map or a GPS (or GPR or whatever the letters are for that thing that tells you where you are and where you have to go) all you can do is guess which way to turn ??   And by this time you really don’t even know what direction you are going, since it is a cloudy day and you can’t tell where the sun is and even if you could see the sun, you still don’t know what direction you are traveling?  And you have to turn onto another road that you never heard of— guessing at the direction, hoping that it will somehow lead you to the road you are supposed to connect to if the road wasn’t closed??   And then after driving many miles you finally see a street that sounds familiar, but you have no idea what way to turn to get to another road that you know?  And   then whatever way you choose is absolutely the wrong way, which takes you 8 miles down the road before you decide to turn around and try the other direction??  And then it gets worse  because you call your main man to  help you find your way home cus he can look at a map, but of course he is not in the office, so you have to call him on his cell phone, but he left the phone in his car cus it is broken and doesn’t hold a charge?  And by now you have gone about  20 miles out of the way, before you finally find another sign you recognize??  So  you say a prayer and hope that it will take maybe this means you are at least heading in the right directon ??  And when you finally get to an area that is more familiar — the “Map Quest” 28 minute trip home, finally brings you into your driveway after 1 1/2 hours??   And then  — you walk in the door, and your cell phone rings, and it is hubby coming to your rescue???   I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!!!

I’m Cured!

I have been struggling with this addiction for at least 15-20 years.  It has not been easy!  I tried to hide it, but finally it became impossible.   People became suspicious!  After all, who was I fooling!  I am sure that everyone could smell it on my breath! 

I do believe that I  became addicted the very first time I tried it!!  I really was never interested in going there until I decided to order a “Mexican Pizza” WITH NO MEAT!!   But once I took my first bite—YUMMMM—I was hooked!  From that day forward, Taco Bell was my “fast food” of choice and I have never ordered anything else!!   But the habit got worse!  I was not satisfied with just one!  Oh no!!  My standard order soon became TWO Mexican pizza’s with no meat!!  I couldn’t control myself—I was addicted! But  now?   I am free!!  I HAVE BEEN CURED!!  And I am feeling confident that I will never return to that nasty habit ever again!   NO—my friends and family did not have an intervention!!   Instead, I finally hit rock bottom!! 

This week I went to the Bell.  I ordered the usual.  But I could tell there was something wrong when I took my first bite!  There was something definitely wrong!!  I thought that maybe the shells were fried in old grease!  It just had a strange flavor.  But I was so hungry, and how bad could it be!  So, I continued to eat it!!  I ate about half before I decided that it might be better if I took one of the shells off.  But that didn’t help much.  So, before I ate the second one, I not only took  one of the shells off, I also put it into the toaster oven to re-heat it!  I thought that would help.  Instead, it seemed to just get worse!!  It was at that time I realized I had hit bottom!!  How could I have kept eating something that was so totally horrible!! 

I called, explained to the manager, and asked for a refund.  He immediately apologized and said he would be happy to make them over.  NO THANK YOU, I said.  I much prefer a refund.  (I had lost my appetite and was already feeling sick!)   He was so nice about it though.  And when I returned for my refund, he once again apologized, gave me my money back and told me to keep my receipt.  He hoped that I would give them another chance and the next time it was free!    Hmmmm—I thought about it!  After all, this is the first time I have ever been so completely disappointed, but I decided to throw away the receipt, never to return!!!  ALLELUIA!!  I have been cured!!!

OK, maybe I didn’t exactly throw it away.  Maybe I put it in my top dresser draw.  But really—by the time I feel the urge, I will have forgotten where I put that receipt!!   I’m just sayin’!!

When Will It End?

 I am not talking about water in the basement, our soon to break down stove,  the noisy/gas leaking hot water heater, our leaky kitchen faucet or even the big screen TV that just up and died on us last week.  And  my car AC that needed replacement?  I am so over that!   Until now, I  have been just taking a deep breath and telling myself that shit happens (pardon the language!)    However,  I am going to tell you what has my blood boiling today!! 

The problem started on February 15, when I booked our November flight to Florida, using our NWA World Perks points.  Woohoo, a free trip, finally!!  You see, before that day, every time I tried to use my points, there were no available seats!  It had become almost impossible to find a flight that was not blocked!  So, this time I  decided to call far in advance, nine months to be exact! I could have had a baby in 9 months, certainly that would be enough time to find a flight that wasn’t blacked out!!

I was determined not to hang up the phone until I got confirmed dates.  As I gave them one date after another, they continued to tell me (over and over), that there was nothing available on that day.  Finally I said:   “You tell me when I can use my points and fly for free!!!”  She had ONE day that we could travel to Florida, and ONE day we could return.  Forget about direct flights—that was only in my dreams!!   They have us stopping twice on the way there!   And on the way home?  The only available flight leaves Orlando at 6:30 a.m., which meant we had to leave Cocoa Beach at about 2:00 a.m. to get to the airport on time!!  But only one extra stop on the way home!!  

Like I said, I was determined to use our points and THAT WAS FINAL!!   So I booked—despite the fact that our normal 2 week trip has now been reduced to a 1 week trip, which included 2 days lost to travel!!   But really, my main man and I remained positive!!  We looked at this as an adventure!!  Woohoo!!  And we beat the system—we actually got to claim our 2 free tickets!!  Life was good!   Since we booked in Feb, I have already received 4 schedule changes, and it is only July!!  I wonder how many more there will be before we go!  

By the time we booked those flights, hubby and I had already decided to stop using our “NWA-World Perks” Card, but instead we took out 2 new cards (one personal and one business) that gave us cash back!  This would be much better.  We would take the cash, put it into a savings account, and only use the money for travel tickets!!  What a perfect plan!  That way, I could shop for cheap tickets, on ANY airline, and not have to worry about blackouts!  The best of all worlds!  We agreed that we would put away the US Bank Perks cards (business and personal) and only use the new ones.  So that is what we did.  A couple final bills came to us that only included the “auto pay” transfers that I had set up with various companies such as telephone, cable, and business distributors.  As the bills came to me, I called and gave them my new number.  After that, I stopped getting bills from US bank, and we lived happily every after!!

WRONG!!!  Everything was transferred on the personal account, however there were a few of my business distributors that still had my old card number.  Oops!   

After the March statement, I never received another bill or correspondence from US bank, until June 25.   It was an automated urgent message informing me that there was a problem with my account and I should call back immediately.  As I entered the requested numbers, I was asked to hold the line for the next available operator.  Finally when “the next available” came on the line, I was shocked at what I heard!!

The usual questions were asked:  “What is your name?  What is your card number? what is the zip code on the account?   Well, up to the last question, I was giving all the right answers!  But when I was asked my zip, I was told it was the wrong answer!  “What do you mean it’s wrong—I should know my own zip code”!!  (But then of course I actually had to look at my address just to make sure, since I am getting old, if you know what I mean-LOL!!)    But I was right!!  I had given her the right number!!  But she insisted that was not the zip on the account.  “We have been living here for 4 years—that is our zip code!!”  I said.  At this point, my heart started racing!   Then when I told her my address, she insisted that it was not the one on my account!!  For a minute I thought my identity had been stolen or I was in the Twilight Zone!

Finally I gave her a zip that matched!!   But it was  not my current zip!  It was my old zip, and address, from 4 freakin’ years ago!!   I was definitely shocked and appalled!  How could this happen??   All I knew for sure was that since I was not physically using that card, and I was no longer receiving monthly statements, I must have given the new number to all my peeps!   How wrong I was!!!   My first reaction was that someone else was using my number, but when she started to tell me  what was charged, I knew they were mine, and I had just forgot to give a couple of my contacts the new number!  YIKES!!

I spent hours on the phone trying to find answers, have the account re-directed to the right address and get copies of these bills so I could check them out and get them paid immediately.  It also took much time to convince these same people that I should not have to pay any late fee’s or interest charges, since I have always paid my bill ON TIME and IN FULL and BEFORE THE DUE DATE! 

I had them fax copies of the bills to me.  After checking to make sure the charges were all legitimate, I paid the bills over the phone.  They told me that since it was apparently their fault, credits would go through for the late fees and interest, on the next bill which I should be receiving shortly, now that they had the correct address.  The June statement came to the right address, so that should have been the end of it.  NOT!  I received the June statement and it did show credits for 2 late fees and 1 interest charge, but there was still one interest charge on this statement that should not be there!  

Now, this is the kicker:  I called to have it removed before paying the bill and after entering my information, the operator came on the line and told me I had entered the wrong zip code!!!   Grrrrrr!!  ONCE AGAIN they changed my billing address to the old one!!  Can you even fathom that???  I sure couldn’t. I could feel my blood pressure rising, as I went through my story over and over again, and kept being transferred to different departments!  Finally, I was connected to someone who sounded like they knew what they were actually doing!  He explained that the first person who changed my address back to the current, only changed it in one location, and it needed to be changed through out the entire system!  He was extremely confident that he had now taken care of the problem for good, and I should have no more problems, and that I should wait 2 days, and then set up an “on-line” account, so I could keep track of any future activity!!  I decided that I did need to do that, just to make sure all was good in “Perk” land!   

This brings us up to this morning.  I went onto the i-net to register for on-line banking.  And once again, after putting in all my vital statistics I kept getting denied!  This happened 3 times before I decided to just call and ask what the problem was.  Yup!! You guessed it!!!  Apparently I was putting in the wrong zip code since the one on my account was my old zip, which belonged to the old address that was currently on my account!!!  How could this keep happening!!!  Honestly, I really thought that after the hours I spent yesterday, we finally had everything corrected. 

Again, as I felt the BP rising, and my heart beating out of my chest, I had to repeat my whole story to not only that person, but to 2 more people as I kept getting transferred!  After 2 more hours of explaining, demanding answers and looking for guaranties that this would NOT happen again, I was finally told that to insure this from not happening in the future, it would be necessary for me to physically go into a US Bank and only then would this problem be permanently corrected!!   So now, I have another couple of hours of waiting and explaining to look forward to tomorrow!

Now you are probably thinking that I should just close this account and be done with it!!  But since I booked our last trip, I actually still have enough perk points to almost book 1 more or at the very least, be able to use  toward a rental car.  And I really hate when I have something free coming and I don’t use it!!  But I can guarantee you that once I use every last p0int that I can—I will officially close it out!  But in the mean time??  How many more hours will I have to waste?  Any guesses??

Flying high in April…

Shot down in May!  As my good friend Frank reminds us:  “That’s  Life” !!!

But  why is May lasting so long!!!!  lol   In order to appreciate the good things in life, you do have to experience the bad.  And we have definitely had our share of bad,  in the last couple of months.  But,  no  worries!!  The bad will not last forever!!  That is not the cycle of life!!   You got the Aprils and you got the Mays.  

The goal of my blogging is to keep things  light and fluffy.  I really do not want to  whine and complain about the negative things in my life, after all so many peeps these days, are stuck in May and dealing with lots worse than us!  We really are blessed!   We do have the best family ever!  We have a beautiful home and I love  my work (when I have it)!!   

However, we all know that when it rains—does it not pour????   And yes, the water is still finding its way into our basement—but we are working on it!!  Our Home Equity Loan is proof that we will not give up until we are dry or run out of borrowed money!!  And some day, when I can laugh about it, I might just tell you the whole story!!  And maybe I might even be able to laugh about the fact that our big screen HD TV died last night for no good reason!!  But I am sure it is not because it needs the $200 bulb that we have already bought and paid for, in anticipation of the picture going out, since that does happen about every 8 months!  Oh noooo–that would be way to easy!  Instead I think it has something to do with the fan, which probably would cost us more than the TV is worth.  But the good news is that I hear—Big Screen TV’s are much cheaper today than in the past!  After all, ours is  an older model—not even a flat screen!   And we were planning on getting a new one some day, just not right now! 

And I am not complaining about the new problem that has caused our stove to give off a “gastly smell over the last couple of days!   After all, Taco bell is just down the street–YUM!   And the water heater?  Well, it has been making that load horrible noise for months now, and we have lived with it!  But, the other day when I was downstairs and it kicked in—I wasn’t expecting the gas smell!   That can’t be good!  

But really, April  is just around the corner, honest!

Cheers

This weekend my main man and I took a road trip to MN.  Our daughter and (soon to be)  son-in-law live there.  We really never need a reason to visit the kids, but we actually had some wedding things to take care of, so it was a good excused to go.  Eating and drinking  seems to be the  main theme of all of our visits even though we did manage to complete the addressing of wedding invitations,  the fitting of Angela’s most beautiful wedding gown, and the purchase of the supplies needed to make her wedding veil.  We even spent hours at an Art Festival!

But, back to the theme of our weekends—eating and drinking.  It has come to be a normal part of each visit with these kids, that Nick and I do a “shot”.  It is not like we always want to, or need to, but if one of us says to the other:  “Is it time for a shot?”   of course the other can’t back out!   Usually we have a shot at the end of the night, after we have already had enough to drink!  But—I just think that is a waste of good tequila to slam it down, and then go to bed!  All that does for me is give me a bit of a headache in the morn!  So this time I decided to be a little smarter about it!!

I said to Nick:  Let’s have a shot in the beginning of cocktail hour instead of waisting it at bedtime!  Of course he agreed with me, hence, the start of cocktail hour on Friday night.  Let me just say that this was a really good plan and it would have worked!!

We followed or shots with our usual before dinner cocktail (and perhaps a shnook for good measure).    Our favorite MN restaurant is a sports bar called “Majors”.   They have really good food there, and the atmosphere is OK if you like sports!!  About every  5 feet or so, there is a big screen TV, and they all display either baseball,basketball, football, or hockey, depending on the season!  (For one brief moment I thought I saw something good on one of the TV’s but it must have been a commercial LOL)  Anyway, we are usually too busy talking to pay much attention to whatever ball is being tossed, kicked, or hit! 

Ooops, I am getting off track again—back to my point.  Usually I have 1 tequila with dinner and the rest of our four-some have a beer  (of course  hubby usually has 2, since he never has to drive once we get there!)  This night, I made the mistake of just ordering tequila on the rock, instead of asking for Patron, or Sauza!!   I used to be able to say:    “I never met a tequila that I didn’t like!!”   But over the past couple of years, I have certainly found a few that have totally disappointed me–and this was one of them!!!   I did try, and I got more than half down, but it really wasn’t worth waisting the calories on!  

Anyway, I did have just enough to drink, since Nick and I started with a shot!  I really didn’t need to have any more!!     But then—we decided to go to JJ’s, which is the bar/restaurant right next door.  We always talk about going there, but for some reason it just didn’t look appealing!  Angela thought it looked scary, and I always say that it looks like it would be a smokey bar, but of course that is just silly, since MN has a NO SMOKING policy!!  LOL

Anyway, this time we decided to be brave, take a risk, bite the bullet, and go over to JJ’s for a drink.   Of course  they all had a beer,  and I should have had a glass of water!!!  But NOOOO!   Since my last tequila  was sooo disappointing at Major’s, I decided to have a Patron!   Yum—it was Buck!   But of course this was the one that woke me up at 4 a.m. with that:  (one-to-many) headache!   Grrrrr and I thought I solved that problem by having the shot first!   When will I ever learn!

Anyway, fun was had by all—Friday and the rest of the weekend!   Cheers!