Blue And Gold Macaw

I'd like to introduce you to Tango our Blue and Gold Macaw. This is our first big bird...I have owned parakeets and cockatiels in the past. He is a "recycled" parrot as he had a family who gave him up over the summer. The family had to sell him due to the husbands health we heard.

Tango is 4 years-old and says all sorts of words. His favorite thing to do is to "answer" the telephone. Each time it rings, he will say "Hello!" The funniest thing he says, I think, is "Mmmm, mmmm, good!" when you give him a peanut to eat.

His diet consists mainly of store-bought parrot food. It is specially formulated to give him everything he needs to stay healthy. He also likes fresh fruits and vegetables and will also eat meats. Pretty much everything we eat he can eat except avocados and chocolate. I even gave him a chicken drumstick the other night that he held onto and ate the chicken off of it! He thought that was great! He also likes a variety of dried fruits and nuts. He eats peanuts, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds and brazil nuts as treats as they are high in fat and a lot is not good for him.

My husband has absolutely fallen in love with Tango. He wants to get more parrots because he enjoys spending his free time playing with Tango and talking to him. Over the next several months, my husband plans to build an aviary for Tango to fly around in outside. What a spoiled bird!

Having A Ball!

I finished Final Scream by Lisa Jackson last night. I liked it very much and can't wait to read my next book by her. I have no idea which book I will start tonight. I still have 7 on my night stand. I need to see which ones are due the soonest, I guess. That is one way to figure out which to read first!

We had an early morning this morning as Sons #1 & #2 had basketball evaluations this morning. Son #2's started at 8:30 AM! YAWN! This is the first year they are playing basketball. They have been playing baseball, though, every spring since they were both 5 so I think they are excited to be trying something new. Basketball season ends just as baseball season begins so that will be good.

Son #3 is still having a lot of accidents. I was thinking it was going to be so much easier with the third to potty train but I was so wrong:( He is going to be the most difficult, I think.

We are gearing up for Thanksgiving here at our house. This is the first year in a while that we will be staying home for Thanksgiving. We normally drive up to Pennsylvania to my mother-in-law's house. My husband has to work his regular job Friday through Sunday and didn't want to take the entire weekend off again this year, especially with our construction business having two jobs going right now. I went to the store yesterday and bought everything I think I need for next week. I'm trying to avoid going to the grocery store until after Thanksgiving Day.

Anyway...not much else going on here. Saturday mornings have become my mornings to deep-clean the house but since we were already out this morning, I can't seem to buckle down to cleaning:( Oh well. Maybe things will get done this afternoon. Who knows!

Book Chatter

I finished reading the second book of the Bodyguard Series by Cindy Gerard entitled To The Limit the night before last. I read the first book of the same series entitled To The Edge a few months ago. I liked both books and am looking forward to reading the next book of the series entitled To The Brink which is due out in January, 2006. If you like to read romantic suspense, I recommend giving her books a try.

So I have 8 books on my *to be read* (TBR) pile at the moment. Two arrived just yesterday in my mailbox from Booksfree.com. My mom gave me a Booksfree.com gift membership last year for my birthday and I have continued to be a member despite the fee they charge. I find that having this membership is worthwhile because any book I want to read that I can't find at the library I can find on Booksfree.com. I use two different local county library systems - the county I live in and the one in the next county over. I usually end up with quite a long list of books I can't find at either library. For example, I now have over 40 books on my list to borrow from Booksfree.com. So if I were to buy these books I borrow from Booksfree.com from a store, I'd be spending a lot more money than the fee I pay. And, I'd be buried under a huge pile of books in no time. I simply don't have the bookshelf space.

Anyway, after finishing To The Limit, it was time for me to make a decision on what book to read next. This is always a very difficult decision for me to make. I want to read all of them at once!!! So, last night I chose to start Final Scream by Lisa Jackson. This is the first book I've ever read by Ms. Jackson and so far I like it a lot. I am only 48 pages into it but I look forward to reading the rest.

So enough chatter about one of my favorite subjects for today. I'm off to finish laundry! Oh joy :P

Other Blogs

In my "free" time, I have been browsing blogs and I have stumbled across a blog that I find particularly interesting. Kudos to Kel of the Secret Confessions blog! What a cool idea!

Potty Training Blues

Son #3 turned 3 years old on September 20, 2005. We have been attempting to potty train him lately and just when I think he gets it...we have set backs.

This past Friday and Saturday were very good days in the potty training department. He went both days without accidents!! YAY! But yesterday, he had several and today he already had one. Now, I'm not saying that I expect him to have no accidents whatsoever...but this morning's accident was blatant. I had just asked him not two minutes before if he had to go pee and he said "No." Then I turn around for a minute and when I turn back, he is peeing in his pants:( *sigh*

Thank God this is our last child to potty train!!!

Birthdays

My 36th birthday is coming up on November 26th and I find the closer I get to 40, the more introspective I become. I can remember when my mother turned 40. My older sister and I put on a big surprise b-day party. We called all mom's friends and we baked the cake (it turned out lopsided but still tasted good). I can remember thinking back then...man, mom is getting OLD! She is now 64 and I hope I look as good as she does at that age!

I don't really know how I'll welcome 40. Will I be depressed about it? So far, no other birthday has depressed me so I don't think that will happen. I'm a pretty easy-going person...I type-B personality. I kind of go with the flow of things and I don't let things bother me for the most part.

One thing I do know I want to do is to finish college. Son #3 is going to be starting school full-time in a few years and it would be nice to do something with else with my life, though I still want to be home as much as possible for the boys. I attended college in California up until I gave birth to son #1. By that time I had already obtained my Associates Degree and was heading onto my Bachelors but had to stop (and give birth to my son) just a semester short of obtaining that degree in Psychology.

I've been checking into online colleges thinking that I can start now and have a good start on getting to where I want to be before son #3 gets into Kindergarten. One thing that strikes me is that they are just as expensive as the local brick-and-mortar colleges so the question there is are we at a point now that we can afford to send me back to college? We can get a student loan but really don't want to get into more debt than we are in at this time. We have been steadily paying off our debts over the past few years so why add more? But because I am a stay-at-home mom, online courses would fit so much better into my family life than shuffling myself off to a local college to attend classes so that is the route I will go, I'm sure.

I am seriously thinking about majoring in Forensic Psychology. I've been doing a bit of research and read that one of the main jobs of a Forensic Psychologist is to determine whether or not a suspect is competent to stand trial. So that sounds interesting to me...dealing with suspects and working in a courtroom setting on occasion.

In order to obtain a Bachelors degree in Forensic Psych, you take quite a few criminal justice courses so "natural" minor for me would be in criminal justice. I don't know if I would become a cop ever. I've just never thought of myself as a cop. My uncle was a cop in inner-city Philadelphia his entire adult life and now his son, my cousin, is a cop there as well. Maybe I could become a counselor to cops..which reminds me of the Lethal Weapon movie with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover when Mel gets approached a few times in the station by the shrink. His reactions to her are so funny!

Another thought is that I'd minor in English. I did well in English classes all through my schooling and I'm thinking that I want to write books someday. I'd love to write romantic suspense or romance novels. I'd be good at it, I think. I just need to get past my shyness and jump into writing a manuscript with both feet. That feat is outside of my personal comfort zone but then again, so is having a blog and here I am.

I am a work in progress with more room to grow. Going back to school will help me grow and therefore, I will be happy.

Book Fair

Last month, I went to the Green Valley Book Fair in Mt. Crawford, Virginia which is located near Harrisonburg, Virginia. If you love books and live in Virginia or neighboring states, I strongly suggest you check it out one day. It is a HUGE building full of books of all kinds. They even have a separate room, which is huge, full of children's books. They have great deals...we paid around $50 for several plastic bags full of books that would have cost at least double what we paid at your average bookstore. I know I will go back someday again.

I'm Not Brave

OK...I confess...I'm afraid of cleaning my oven. And it is a self-cleaning oven!!! IF I kept up with regularly putting the clean cycle on, I wouldn't be in the jam I am in now.

I turned the oven on this evening and have oven-fried chicken baking in there right now...but all I am smelling is something that has spilled inside as it gets burnt to a crisp. Really, the surface of my oven is so thick with crap...I don't think it will all come off when I grow some balls and clean the damn thing. I need to get a metal scraper...or will that damage the surface? I don't know but it needs help. If I were to turn on the oven as it is now, I think I'd burn the house down. Seriously! I don't want to have to call 911 again.

Last November I made my first ever 911 phone call. It was a chilly, rainy day here in Virginia, so I started a fire in our fireplace. We have a fireplace insert, by the way, stuck inside our masonry fireplace. It was slow to start so I opened the door a crack to get the fire hotter and VVVRRRROOOOOOOMMMMMMM! The wall started shaking, the dishes that I have hanging on that wall over my fireplace were rattling, and it sounded like a jet airplane was taking off just outside the house.

I ran up the steps to the landing and looked out the window to see thick, black smoke billowing out of the chimney so I called 911. The fire station is less than a mile down the road but it is all volunteer here so it took them a few minutes to get to the house. By the time they got here, luckily, the fire had pretty much burnt itself out. The chief later told me that I am very lucky the roof was wet because some burning creosote fell on it. If it had been dry, it would have had a chance at catching the roof on fire. YIKES!

So anyway...I don't want to have to call these wonderful, dedicated firemen and women back to my house due to my laziness about cleaning my oven! How embarrassing!

Not Too Busy For Books

I started off this school year promising myself that I won't take on as much responsibility outside the house as I did last year. It is funny how promises can be broken in a blink of an eye. I seem to have MORE on my plate than I did last year. I've spent the past many weeks jumping from activity to activity and spending almost no time at home on the "important" stuff like laundry and having a semi-decently clean house. [I'd never make it a goal to have a spotless house with three boys, a husband and a brother-in-law traipsing in and out dirtying my white (why oh why did I choose white?) kitchen floor]

I must say though that I do "quit" everything I'm in the middle of at 8 PM every night and tuck myself in bed with a book. Things that don't get done by 8 PM, they wait until the next day. Luckily, my husband has learned to live with me dropping everything to read at night. He must realize I need this quiet reading time like I need oxygen. It rejuvenates me in a way sleep can't and is really the only thing I truly spoil myself with. Everything else in my life is geared toward husband and children.

I read true escape novels - romance books, for the most part, but I will also read mystery and suspense and horror from time to time. I can handle reading a scary book but hate to watch scary movies. Go figure. Anyway, any fictional book with a story I can really lose myself in is ok by me.

So I find myself every day after dinner diving into helping the boys with their homework and feeling relieved because after homework is shower time and after they take their showers, it is near 8 PM. I get my youngest down first and then the two older boys go to their rooms and read before bed and I do the same. It is my most favorite time of the day:)

12.5 million dollar BRA!?!?!?

Ah...the days are growing short before Christmas is here and my mailbox is getting full of extra thick catalogs containing those great gift ideas. One such catalog that arrived today in the mail is the new Victoria's Secret Christmas 2005 edition catalog. As I am browsing through this catalog, killing time before dinner is ready, I land on page 23 which pictures a model with a bra made out of "...2,900 pave-set diamonds and 22 ruby gemstones. The focal point is the Mouawad Splendor diamond, an extraordinary 101-carat flawless pear-shaped stone."

And yes, it can be yours...this one-of-a-kind bra of diamonds and rubies...for a mere 12.5 million dollars! It's the deal of the century!

Holy cow!

First of all, it would be the most uncomfortable bra ever made! Now I will admit that I would join a modern-day bra burning in a heartbeat and I will also admit that I won't wear a bra unless I have to (if I'm going out in public for example). Even my Maidenform brand bras that I bought for around $12 or $15 (in a package of two) at Costco are uncomfortable to me and they are made out of some sort of man-made fabric.

Secondly, what could you wear it under??? The current fashion trend is for tight-fitting tops and that behemoth of a diamond at 101 carats would make a major bulge...enough so to almost look like a third boob. And it's not like you could wear this bra out on the town and let others see it on you like you could if it were a 12.5 million dollar necklace. Nope...you'd buy this thing just to set it up comfortably in your safe deposit box or in-home safe. What is the point?!?

Ok, and lastly, who can afford such a trivial thing in this day of Bush-onomics where gas costs over $2.50 a gallon. The average working Joe or Jane can barely afford to drive to work these days. The thing costs as much as 5 million gallons of gas!!! And if you can afford to buy it and do so...what does that say about you in this day and time? 12.5 million dollars can help clothe and feed a whole lot of people...and poverty in America has finally been a top news story since hurricane Katrina so everyone knows about it now, I hope.

**deep breath**

Anyway...let me step down from my soap box...

One last thought though, before I close this post...why didn't they create a thong to go with it??? If someone is shallow enough to buy this bra, they sure would want a matching thong they can wear with it!

Ordering stuff online IRK

OK...I have a big pet peeve that I just need to vent about. When I order something online, I expect to get an email that the thing(s) shipped. Especially if said email is promised to me in an update email from the seller. Ok, here's the story...I ordered something for my Macaw, Tango. It is a "tree" of sorts that is specially made for different varieties of birds. You tell the seller what type of bird you want the thing made for and they custom make one special for that type of bird. This "tree" is something the bird can play on when it is out of it's cage..something different than the cage itself, which if I were a bird, I'd bore quickly playing on my own house. This particular "tree" I have ordered has a base with wheels that you can attach it to, or it comes with a hook you can install in your ceiling so you can hang it up and the bird can play on it that way. It is quite a cool thing, really. When it is suspended from the ceiling, the bird can get it to twist and turn and move the way it wants and seeing as how Tango is quite acrobatic in nature, he should have a good time with it...IF IT EVER GETS HERE.

Anyway...so I ordered this tree back in the middle of August...paid for it in full and contented myself in waiting for this made-to-order "tree" to be made and sent to me. I waited patiently until the middle of September, when I sent the company an email asking for an update on my order. I received an email back stating they have it scheduled to be completed the end of September and that they would send an email letting me know it shipped and the shipping number, etc. The tone of the email was somewhat condescending though I always give the sender the benefit of doubt, being that I can't hear their voice thru the email so I don't know if they are truly being condescending.

So here I am STILL waiting and it is just about the end of October. I did send off another email early this morning to the company asking for another update. I mean, maybe my spamkiller program has eaten the email telling me the "tree" has shipped. So I guess I'll have to wait and see some more until I get an email back. Hopefully the tone will be other than condescending.

But wouldn't you think the company would send ANOTHER email if their promised completion date was somehow changed to a later date??? Just to let your customer know that you haven't forgotten about them and that the "tree" is being worked on. I don't know. It twists my nose out of joint.