Fine Amish Craftmanship

So this is the newspaper "article" which made my dad make his most recent purchase. Note that the word "advertisement" appears in fine print at the top. Notice the headline - "Amish man's new miracle idea helps home heat bills hit rock bottom." The "miracle idea" is to create a electric heater that looks like a real fireplace but this one rolls around on casters. That's right folks, a fireplace you can put in the middle of your room! The Amish part of the product is the handmade cherry mantle that surrounds the faux fireplace. Now to be fair my dad didn't really care about the Amish part of the product, he just thought it was kind of a cool idea. So this is what arrived on the doorstep one day... And this is what this fine, handcrafted beauty looks like in person...Tah dah! Isn't your heart just warmed by the sight of it!? (Don't you love these pictures? We tried to to get pictures that the Amish could use in their next ad. Paul and Martha are visiting this week and got to enjoy the hearth as well. Paul's caption for this picture was "Another Satisfied Customer!") Look at the realistic looking burning coals (they flicker!) You can hardly tell it isn't a real, working fireplace! I mean except for the fact that it is in the middle of the room and that it is just about 2 feet tall. And feel the heat!!! Actually it doesn't put out much heat which is kind of a problem since it proclaimed to be an economical heating device. So sadly, my dad is going to return it. Although the burning question is how do you return a product to the Amish - they don't use phones! It will be hard to part with the faux fireplace. (Does anyone else see a similarity to the "Christmas Story" leg lamp??? Maybe this fireplace is actually Italian too. It does say on the box Fra-gee-lay!)

Stressed

Work has just been all consuming the last few weeks and I will be glad to see February go. Too many huge projects all at once. When your life has been too busy to blog your life is just too busy! Today when I was creating on my 10+ page spreadsheet I mindlessly named it "Total Breakdown." When I opened it later the title seemed quite ironic and it made me laugh which was actually kind of therapeutic.

Happy Birthday Tom!

Today is my brother Tom's birthday! I hope it was a fun one! He's a big Charger fan and he does a great wookie impression. We love ya!

Hail Cesar!

Today on my way into work I was stopped at a traffic light just outside my building when I spotted the cutest gray and white pit bull puppy coming around the corner. He was being walked by what I thought was his owner. He was so cute with his floppy ears and big feet! The next thing I noticed was an adult pit bull walking with them but he wasn't on a leash. I thought it was strange to have a pit bull off a leash in the middle of downtown. The next thing I noticed was the dog walker - I knew that I knew him but it took me a second to figure it out. It was none other than the Dog Whisperer!!!
Have you ever seen that show on the National Geographic Channel? Cesar Millan is like the Supernanny for dogs! He's a dog behavior specialist who goes around the country helping people with their dog problems. It's a funny show. I don't watch it very often but one holiday they were having a "Dog Whisperer" marathon and I watched it all day long. There weren't any cameras around him this morning but it was just a funny moment.

Happy Belated Birthday to Joe!

Here is a BIG birthday shout out to my brother-in-law Joe! Happy Birthday! Now a key part of a birthday shout out is a silly picture of you posted on the internet. You asked for it, so here it is...

Buddies

I have a buddy for each of my favorite pastimes. Otto is my TV watching buddy. Jasper likes to sit with me when I'm scrapbooking. He is a very good companion cat. He keeps a good eye on his humans.

Happy Birthday Carson!

We hope Carson had a great birthday! He is the funniest kid. The following picture just about sums it up...
He turned 14 today! How'd that happen? We hope he got everything he wished for. Here's another good picture of him and grandpa.

Inappropriate

This weekend I went to ANOTHER baby shower. Tis the season I guess. Anyway, this was a shower for one of my friend's from high school and so our moms always come to these things too. I had put my new red Coach purse with the rest of the purses in the living room. At one point my friend's mom picked it up and said, "Who's purse is this!!??" I happily replied that it was mine and she went on and on how pretty it was and how she wanted it, blah, blah, blah. She asked where I got it from and I told her my boss had given it to me for my birthday. She then asked where I worked and said how lucky I was. I then replied, "Yeah, I am very lucky, me and my boss are very close." She then looked sideways at me and gave me an "oh really???" sort of a look which took me a few seconds to process. When I was in elementary school I remember some teacher doing the "what do you picture when I say the word firefighter or nurse?" quiz. Once you had a mental picture in your head they would show you a picture of a woman firefighter or a male nurse just to show how sometimes we think of jobs as gender specific. On Saturday I learned that apparently when you say the word "boss" a person usually pictures an older man in an expensive suit. Once I picked up what she was putting down I blurted out, "NO! My boss is a woman!" She started laughing and I was very glad I was able to clear that up before it was too late.

By the way, here's a picture of my new fabulous purse - which I love. I have NEVER paid over $50 for a purse and I was firmly committed to the notion that it was a waste to spend so much money on a stupid purse but I am beginning to understand the appeal of a great purse. I am truly developing real feelings for this accessory - not my boss, the purse.

IT Support

This is what I heard this morning coming from our computer room...

Husband: "Oh yeah, well kiss my a**!"
Computer: "bewwwwww" (powering down)
(Husband comes out of room looking content...)

Me: "What was going on in there?"
Husband: "Oh, I'm just doing some troubleshooting."

Before Super Tuesday...

...there is Annoying Monday! When we got home from work today we found over 10 messages waiting for us on our answering machine encouraging us to "get out and vote" tomorrow. Angelo and I are registered with different parties so we always get the junk mail and phone calls from both the democrats and republicans. (Which is actually kind of interesting.) We got calls today from all kinds of people including Cindy McCain (John McCain's wife) who called us twice just for good measure and also a POW friend of McCain's. We also heard from volunteers from Mitt Romney's camp as well as Scarlett Johansson who called to encourage us to vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. (We didn't hear anything from Hillary. She must have sensed we weren't interested.) The phone continued to ring all night with more exuberant callers with more voting advice. I am actually kinda upset that Oprah didn't call, I would have liked to have heard from her. The sad thing is these phone calls must work to some degree or else they wouldn't do it. I will be glad when this supposed "super" Tuesday is over with. Then we can just go back to our regular evening telemarketing phone calls that just want us to increase the services on our credit cards, not "rock the vote!"

Scarlett helps us decide between blue or red...

Have you ever...

sat in your car furiously looking in your purse for your keys and then discover that they were actually in the ignition? Oh, and your car was already on? Yeah...I've never done that either. Or how about trying to squeak out a silent one while in Target but instead create a thunderous rumble that seems to reverberate throughout the whole store? Nope, never. I swear neither of these things happened to me tonight.