I love my job, even if the pay sucks

My husband is so funny!

Ever since we got married almost 7 years ago, we've had an agreement that he would do the laundry and I would do the dishes. (I hate doing the dishes but I think it happened that way because his uniforms needed to be done a certain way  - not so much anymore but it just stuck that way.) Anyway, he's hurt his back so I've been folding the laundry. He found a $20 bill in my pocket while he was washing clothes, and when I was done folding everything he came and thanked me and gave me $20. I stuck it in my pocket and forgot about it. The next weekend when I finished folding the laundry he thanked me for helping again and gave me my "pay". I laughed and stuck the same $20 in my jeans pocket again. It's been floating back and forth like that for a while. When I stuck my hand in my pants pocket a few minutes ago and felt that $20 it made me laugh. I don't remember where or whom I got it from originally but now it makes me think of him.♥♥♥♥

First Day of Spring in Paris

What a weekend! I drove to Disneyland Paris Friday afternoon. Yeah, that's right. I drove the whole way and we're still alive! I actually did really well. My hubby even said he was proud of me haha! His back was bothering him so he had the heating pad on for most of the four hour drive. 

The townhouse we rented at the Marriott Village d'Ile-de-France was beautiful. Too bad I didn't think about taking a few pictures until our crap was spread all over the entire place! (*We got a discount for being military. Make sure you bring your tourist passport and military ID though because they require you to write your passport number down when you check in and the ID to get the discount.) 

It had 2 bedrooms upstairs with a bidet & a giant tub in the master bedroom (all three of us fit in it) and another bathroom with a shower in the hall upstairs. There was a full kitchen and another bathroom downstairs, a dining room, living room with a pull out couch and a patio with "french" doors (hehe!) I managed to lock myself out on the patio twice. You'd think I'd learn after the first time. We even had a little stream in the back yard with ducks swimming by. They came right up to me when I went outside. The sign said not to feed them but apparently a lot of people disregard that. They were awfully friendly. I guess the ducks don't know that the French are supposed to be rude ;) I didn't have any trouble with rudeness so I think that must be a myth. I thought people in New York were much worse than the people I've encountered in France. 

Too bad it rained quite a bit the first night we were there. We ate supper at Cafe Mickey and my little one got to meet all the characters. For some reason she was being shy on this trip so it wasn't as much fun as last time. I guess it just wasn't our weekend. Adam's back started spasming Saturday and we had to postpone our train ride into Paris. I ended up going to the local market and buying groceries for lunch. I was surprised how reasonably priced everything was. We each tried something different and we got some waffles dipped in chocolate for breakfast the next day. Mmmmm! So good! We didn't think we were going to make it to the Eiffel tower but he took his muscle relaxers and pain pills and his back brace and was a trooper. We parked at Disney (it's free parking with the annual passport) and took the RER from Marne-la-Vallee-Chessy to Charles de Gaulle Etoile. The entrance is right next to the entrance to Disney. Then we switched to the metro 6 and got off at Trocadero. We walked the 2 blocks to the tower  arriving only 30 minutes late. We were still able to skip the line and ride to the top even though our reservation was for 8pm. (*If you are planning to go up the tower save yourself tons of time and buy your tickets online. They cost the same and you get to skip the line. Just allow enough time to get there because you have to select your time when you purchase them. http://ticket.toureiffel.fr/ )

It was so beautiful from the top although my pictures didn't turn out very clear. It was a little chilly up there so we didn't stay long. I made like a tourist and bought some souvenirs in the nice warm shop inside. On the way back to the metro we grabbed some Subway (bad bad idea!) and barely made the last train back to the hotel. We thought we had missed it because our stop wasn't lit up. We took it anyway thinking we'd ride as far as we could and then take a taxi the rest of the way. Luckily the train left us off in Torcy at 12:23 am and the last RER came along at 12:33 am. Whew! Thank goodness because I didn't see anywhere we could have hailed a taxi and we can't use our mobiles in France without huge roaming charges. 

Sunday was the first day of spring and the sun actually made an appearance. We went back to Disney for a few hours. We didn't go on many rides since Adam's back was really hurting but we walked around a bit and then ate at the Rainforest Cafe. I managed to take a 30 minute detour through Reims, France on the way home. Everyone in the car was asleep or it probably wouldn't have happened. I guess that part of the Autobahn was new and not in the GPS. Crazy GPS lady (that's not what I was calling her last night) thought I was off roading and started re-calculating which tricked me into thinking I had missed a turn somewhere and made me take the next exit off the A4. We ended up paying 3 extra tolls to get turned back around and on the right road again. I was a little frustrated. 


All said and done we had a nice time and learned a lot even if it wasn't as much fun as last time. When we go back in August we'll be brilliant tourists and know exactly where to go ;) (yeah right!)

I've got my green on!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's been a busy week! Lots of appointments.  I had a booth at the BCSC Luncheon yesterday. The ladies were kind enough to let us vendors eat for free, so I had my St. Patrick's day feast a day early. Unfortunately the luncheon ran late and I had to leave early to pick up my daughter so I apologize to those of you who where planning to make a purchase after the lunch and didn't get to. You can contact me directly and we can get together. To the winner of the raffle, if you would like to exchange your hat for a different one please contact me as well. I've almost finished one of the custom orders from the show! 

It's becoming a tradition for me to whack off all my hair in March so I did that again today (twice in one day actually- long story!).  I also (finally) went and got my international drivers license. I'm pretty sure my husband only wanted me to get it so I can help drive on our vacation this time. The poor guy hurt his back so I guess I won't complain about doing my share of the driving since he's done all the driving the last two trips.

We are leaving for Paris in the morning so I will get back to everyone next week. I hope you all have a great weekend. I know I will! 

The raffled hat

Arrr! Monster Radiation Blindness!

Ahoy me mateys! I had no idea how hard it would be to sew with only one contact in! Maybe I shouldn't be driving....hmmm. 

I went to the eye doctor Thursday because I felt like I was coming down with pink eye. Any of you with children or contacts will know exactly what I mean. This was the red, itchy, mattery, dry feeling kind thats usually contagious (not the also all too familiar light sensitive, burning, watering, mattery kind caused by my contacts.) Since my daughter had been rubbing at her eye and complaining it hurt we managed to be seen during the last half hour of the day. I can't say I was very impressed. She told me that I didn't have pink eye. Actually no problems with the eyes. I had 20/20 vision with my contacts in. Apparently the contacts were the issue. She told me to take them out and clean them once in a while. WHAT?? Apparently she's not aware of my "wear them until they are painful 12 month plan." She also admonished me for not having a pair of glasses to wear in an emergency like this (which turned out to not really be an emergency since there was nothing wrong.) And if that were not enough pleasantries she scolded me for using my daughters expired pink eye medication from the last bout in our house. Hmmm. I'm not sure how well me and this new eye doctor are going to get along.  I changed the contacts when I got home but the next day it was even more red and watery so I decided to leave it out a few days and rest my eye. I had to leave the other in so that I can function. I've gone months with just one in so I didn't think it would be that big of an issue but then I tried to sew. It's been interesting getting used to this lack of depth perception. I was going to leave one eye off my last project as a dedication to my new "pirate squinty eye" sewing technique coupled with the radiation leak in Japan which is sure to jump start some new species of animals, but since that's not what my customer ordered I stuck with the normal two-eyed cookie monster.  Maybe I can get a job at Disneyland Paris working at on the pirate ship whilst we are there next week. ;) wink wink. Get it? Bahahaha!

Spring Fever

Look what I got in the mail yesterday from my grandmother-in-law! My birthday present finally got here!

I had to start using it right away so I finished up the three hats I had in the works and made these...

I also let my daughter pick out some new nail polish at the store. It was fairly inexpensive so I let her get an assortment of colors. Of course we had to use every single one the minute we got home! Her hands and toes are a like an ice cream cone with glitter sprinkles on top. She insisted I paint mine as well. I took the nail polish off in the morning (after all I'm a little too old for blue, orange, yellow and green fingernails), but I left it on my toes ;) It's our little secret. 

I'm not sure if we've got a case of spring fever but judging by the recent color choices I'd say it's a pretty safe bet.

Stephen King dreams

© Allyson Kitts | Dreamstime.com

I have always had really crazy vivid dreams (probably from all the caffeine in my Diet Coke) and I've always said that I wish I could record them and play them back later because they would make kick ass movies! I should be writing them down because if I don't tell the dream to someone I will forget it sometimes within a few minutes, sometimes as long as the next day. A few weeks ago I had a dream that my husband was a serial killer and I was struggling with the decision if I should turn him in or not. I won't gross you out with all the yucky bits of the dream but that's the five second recap. Last night I was reading the new Stephen King book (Full Dark, No Stars) that I got for Christmas. He is my all time favorite author. I've read everything he's written and he only comes out with new books about once a year so I've been trying to make this one last as long as possible. Since it's a collection of short stories I can take a break in between them and not be lost when I come back to it. The story I started last night is called "A Good Marriage." I swear, Stephen must have some kind of tap on my brain. There are some parts of the story that don't match up (like being married 27 years and the husband being an accountant) but there were some details that gave me the shivers. I know what you're thinking. That I must have read this story before and then dreamt of it but I swear to you I have not. This book just came out in the fall and I got it as a Christmas gift. I have no idea how the story is going to end. I know I haven't read it and I still keep feeling like I must have read it even though I KNOW I haven't! 


Anyway, the entire situation has given me an excellent idea for a book. I'm not much of a writer or I would attempt to write it myself. Perhaps I should just send it to Mr. King. I think he would get a kick out of it. 


By the way, for the rest of you Stephen King fans, his next book is scheduled to be released November 8th, 2011.  Approximately 1,000 pages (yay!) about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination. It sounds like heaven to me. 

http://www.stephenking.com/promo/11-22-63/announcement/