Fall in NC

For this post...what will be lacking in content will be heavy in pictures :)

Had a wonderful time in Raleigh for a very last minute visit. Geoff was going to meet his dad and brother to see an NC State football game (why you would spend $$ on seeing them play is beyond me....haha). I decided to tag along to see some friends.

It ended up that Geoff went to Greensboro on Friday night and stayed with his dad and brother at his grandmothers house.  I was dropped off in N. Raleigh and picked up by my friend Sarah and stayed with her and the pups overnight.

Miss Jolie (Jake's best friend)

Miss Tess  (70 pounds of love...and boy does she love the dirt)

Beautiful NC leaves (and no, I was not driving and taking the pictures)

Sarah was a wonderful host for this last minute visit!  We went and saw the new Angelina Jolie movie directed by Clint Eastwood "The Changeling".  Wow was is good....but sad.  Then she had to teach a bachlorette "class". Hahaha.....I have never seen this side of Sarah...EVER!  But she is an instructor at this pole dancing class in Cary.  It's very classy!!! The girls seemed to have a good time learning the routines on pole/matt/...and wall :)  I will not post any pictures of that part....hehe.  But look up Aradia Fitness in Cary, NC if you ever get bored of your old workout routine:)

I was then picked up by my best friend Laura. Her husband, who goes to Duke law (NC State's opponent for the football game), was also going to watch the game. We waited until the guys got back from the game (State won...holy moly), and went out to eat. We had a wonderful time visiting with them (as short as our visit was).

That Sunday morning, we had breakfast at Starbucks, said goodbye to our gracious hosts (they had lot of studying to do). And went to North Raleigh so I could have a quick visit Amy (friend from my NC book club) and Mr. Sam!!! (Geoff had the wonderful task of finding a Jared's that had time to clean and polish our rings)

This had been the first time I had been to Amy and Damon's new place! I love the area of Raleigh they live in. The house was beautiful, and I loved Kashi's "wing" of the house :) That dog was one nice setup!

And without further adieu.....

Sam and Amy

Such a sweet guy

Yup...he's one happy lil guy! 

Thanks to everyone that let us drop by!  We had a wonderful (and super quick) visit!

I'm MIA

I should have posted by now, the pictures from my fun trip to Raleigh last weekend, but I have been going CRAZY with "To-Do" lists... It's bad... I swear...I would forget were my head is if it weren't screwed on... Examples from some of my lists:

• Call plumber
• Clean out basement (by myself) so plumber can take old 1950's GIGANTIC water heater out and get tankless water heater put in (and have some space to store stuff down there!!)
• Call Handy man (our old one was a jerk and left us with 1/2 done jobs...you betcha I withheld his last payment)
• Call pool guys re: leak
• Call Gardner's: dead grass
• Call electrician re: breaker constantly being tripped
• Call Whirlpool re: our new energy efficient dryer having a drying time of 3 hours!!!!
• Call Georgia Power and get the power lines unwrapped (we needed to do that when the gutters were installed and now water is inside of them....fun!)
• Call Critter Control because the squirrels are back (and we have to pay $500 to redo the same job they did last year since the idiot contractor took all the stuff down that critter control put up! I was LIVID when I heard this, I told the guy 10 times not to do that!!)
• Get Thanksgiving menu planned
• Find 2 place settings of our China

My personal favorite....find the kitchen phone and base. It is driving Geoff and I bonkers that we can't find the phone or the charging base. This is something that is never moved and all of a sudden it's up and gone!! WTF??!

I'm doing all this while I am getting ready for a trial I may or may not be going to this Monday in California.

And the icing on my cake (hence why I am writing lists every 10 mins...) I have been dead tired for four days now. Darn squirrels in the attic are keeping me up all night. And the street sweeper decided 1:00am last night was a good time to go around the neighborhood with his back up beeping noises.

Finally, last night Geoff and I went to our church to help with their homeless family projects. Churches throughout the city work with a non profit to have rotate having families stay in each church every week.

Geoff and I watched over 4 kids, 5 and under. Now, I have coached little kids all my life. I've babysat and been a nanny through high school and in college. I have seen my share of tantrums and badly behaved kids. But this 3 year old boy would make super nanny cry!!

I have never seen a kid so badly behaved. And the mom....well there was 2 reactions from her.Either yell at her kid or she would beat the crap out of him. NOT KIDDING. In a church no less.

Highlights of the night (ok, lowlights)

3 year old screaming during dinner

3 year old throwing all his food at people walking by him

Punching 1 year old brother

Punching anyone....period

Biting people

Food in his hair, clothes, ears, wall booster seat

(All in all...he has beaten my youngest brother in law as Satan's Spawn. And let me tell ya....it was a very close race).

While it's hard to discipline a child in front of it's parent, I finally had enough and I went John McCain "maverick" on this little boy. He wanted attention. Well he got NONE from me if he acted badly. He finally figured timeout could be avoided if he didn't try to beat up anyone. I little reverse psychology on him and whamooo...better behaved kid. If he tried to punch. Geoff just held his arms and let him squirm/flail until he tired himself out. The kids acted so much better when mom was in the other room.

And I still won't forget what the mom said...

Her: "Do you guys have kids?"

Me: "Nope"

Her: "Why, not?"

Me:"We are waiting until we're ready"

Her: "How many to you want? 4 or 5"

Me:(trying not to cringe) "Umm not sure yet, I was an only child and liked it"

Her:" Well, I dunno why I keep having kids. I guess I should take a vacation. But it's easier when the older ones look after the younger ones"

Geoff: (trying to change the subject) Hey girls, what grades are you in?

Her:"They haven't been to school yet"

And that's when my heart broke. And I think Geoff's did too. Politically I know a lot of us are in different places. But I will always think having kids is a privilege and not a "right". Privileges can be earned and taken away depending on your behavior. "Rights" can be abused. Until people view it that way...I think society will never change. And kids are the ones losing out.

I promise this weekend I will get my sanity back and post pictures from my trip!

Proud to be an American.....

That is the face of one happy citizen...notice the free Krispy Creme Doughnut and AWESOME Georgia peach "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker :) Not only did it take a whopping minute in line (it was BAD this morning...but I waited before the lunch rush and picked up Geoff from work so he could vote before he got home at 6:30 pm). And our polling place...at our church 3 blocks down the street...talk about convenience. Today reminded me for than ever how beyond proud to be an American I am today....

• Proud....that I am able to vote.
• Proud...that I don't have to stick to "Party lines" I can vote for whomever I think will do a better job with our country
• Proud...to see the long lines of people voting...for the first time in decades have lines been this long
• Proud....to see people on the street corners with thier signs held proudly in the air for both Rebulicans and Democrats!
• Proud...that for the first time in my adult life, I am able to really know all the issues each candidate stood for. Being informed was powerful!

I think we often take for granted how lucky we are as a nation! Sure the economy is doing doing so well, the housing market stink...blah blah blah...but sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture. We have it SO MUCH BETTER compared to other countries!

I say this as I am going through some of my mom's paperwork...I found her citizenship papers and the flag she got when she took her oath to be a citizen of the United States of America. I thought it kind of funny that my mom was named "America" when I was young. But now as I am older, I think what a strong and powerful name it is!

Halloween aftermath....

What a weekend! I was lucky to have pre-stuffed 115 bags full of candy (and some extra for the non-costumed teenagers/adults that we knew would come). We live in an area where well... a lot of people that don't live in our area like to trick or treat at. After last years "disaster" of making the house look scary and older kids trampling over the little ones and then push open our door trying to look inside. We decided this year we would have a table set up on the front porch, and cut them off at the pass. We also had a new set of rules. If you are little (under 13) then you got a bag of candy, pencils, erasers/ Super little kids got an extra tub of play dough or the girls got little Halloween Barbie dolls. If you were a teen /adult with no costume, then you got a couple mini candies. All in all it was a success! We had SOOO many kids, but this year they were a lot more polite (we think it's because we were watching them the whole time). We ran out of candy by 7:45pm, which was fine since this year we vowed to end by 8 pm (that's when the OLDER kids/adults come out. We think we have about 150+ people (that includes the mini candy we gave to the older people not dressed up). Our favorite costumes this year... Little Yoda (with the walking stick too!!!) Little James Bond (dressed in a suit ...to the 9's!! and a little brief case that had the 007 gun on it...too cute) Little fireman (3) who's mom asked if he could walk around the fountain where the paper bag la terns were and he would go "Fire" and put it out with his imaginary hose. He did this for all 10 of them :) And the best part would be to see the faces of these kids when you would say "Here comes Yoda"...they would light up when you "guessed" the costume correctly! Or when you gave them there treat bag and they would yell "Mom, look what I got!!!" and "See ya next year...ok?" hahaha. Cute kids! We then took everything down and got all dressed up again to go to our friends Halloween party. We had a good time! Ava did a wonderful job and had great treats! I was an idiot, and since I hadn't eaten but 1/2 a slice of pizza and a pumpkin treat ALL DAY was starved and started to drink and snack at the same time. 3.5 Halloween Cosmo's and 1 potent jello shot later...I was 3 sheets to the wind. I know I have had more to drink than that and been loopy but OK. Then again I am 45 pounds lighter and had no real food in me. We got home and I had THE WORST tummy ache ever....(this by far was worse than my death by Apply Martini incident of 2002 where I could not touch vodka until 2007). Needless to say. I was one sick old lady. Why did I say old? Cause only old Madeline, who passed out after this...somehow managed to be sick, clean the bathroom, change clothes and get into bed. Geoff didn't even know I was sick at all since there was no evidence! Saturday morning...ughhhh. I felt soooo bad. Not a headache hangover, but my stomach was still hurting. I couldn't figure out why.. It wasn't until 3 hours later I realized, I hadn't eaten...and what I did had yesterday...well ...it was long gone by that morning. I decided to have my cure all for hangovers. A cheeseburger Happy Meal from McDonald's. I know....sounds greasy and gross. But desperate times called for desperate measures!!! Go ahead....laugh at me all you want. But I kept moaning to Geoff "I will never drink again!!!" He just laughed :) We ended Saturday by going to Target and stocking up on 50% off Halloween pencils, erasers, Barbies, stickers, party bags etc for next year!