Friday, March 27, 2009

Am I Irish?

 

Top-4_edited-1

I’m a little late getting around to my St. Patrick’s Day post, better late than never, I guess. 

See this man pictured above?  This is my father in 1972.  I am told by my mom that these clothes were really in style.  She said that my dad was quite the dresser back in the day.  Unfortunately, all that fashion sense was lost on me,  thank goodness style is not hereditary.  One thing I did inherit was his red hair, green eyes, and freckles.  All three of which we seem to think are Irish traits.  But a quick Google search and I discover that some of those traits are not Irish after all.  Only 10% of Irish people have red hair.  Most Irish people have blue eyes, 42%.  As for the freckles however, 40% of Irish folks have them. 

We have worked on our family tree, trying to see if we have Irish heritage in our past, but it’s difficult.  You see my father was adopted when he was an infant and considers the parents that raised him to be his parents.  Our family tree is full of all the people we consider family but none of them have my dad’s genes.  So we can only guess where his physical traits came from. 

Some other things to consider are:

  • He has an uncanny love of potatoes
  • A weird fascination with plaid
  • He gobbles up any and all green vegetables including cabbage
  • He really knew how to pinch pennies, but now that he is older he like to spend his pot of gold

 

Are you thinking what I’m thinking…

 

 

 

image 

Forget being Irish I think my dad is a leprechaun!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ronnie the Plumber

Last Monday our family was just finishing up dinner and Kyle was clearing off the table so we could have FHE.  Kyle was rinsing the dishes when all of a sudden Ronnie looked up to see a stream of water coming toward him.  Unfortunately he used is cat like reflexes and dodged it.  It might have made it more fun if it actually hit him.  Anyway, we were all stunned and still processing what just happened when Kyle turn the water on again and again a stream of water came rushing towards the kitchen table.  The kitchen faucet broke.  After shopping at two different stores we found a replacement faucet and returned home where the real fun began.   I tried to stay far away form the faucet changing process but I ended up getting sucked in.  When it was my turn under the sink all I could think of was this spider leg I had found under there last summer.  It was probably an inch and a half long and even though I sprayed bug spray under there I knew that most bug sprays don’t kill spiders.  I just knew that spider leg was there because a bigger spider ate the rest of him ( I know spiders don’t eat, they suck the blood, I never said I was a rational person) and the bigger spider had babies that were just waiting to hatch at any moment.  Yeah, I kind of have a thing about spiders.  Anyway, I was able to help minimally in the changing of the faucet that took over 3 hours and flooded our kitchen at least 3 times. 

I guess a good thing did come out of the faucet experience…Ronnie gained some plumbing skills.  On Wednesday he thought he would tackle the sprinkler system from H_LL.  It really is the sprinkler system from H_LL, because every year we have some major issue with it and it costs a lot to fix it because the company that all the parts are from went commercial and now charges 4 times the normal amount.  I think it’s about as old as I am too, which isn’t that bad if you’re me but really bad if you’re a bunch of PVC held together by glue and exposed to harsh desert heat.  Just look at, it’s looking old and it was a decroded piece of crap:

03 04 09_0504

I had an idea to take a picture of it and take it to Plant World and see if they could help us.  I just love Plant World, they are always so nice and will take the time to try to help you out.  I’ve gotten to know the guy in the sprinkler part pretty well since they are the only ones on our side of town that carry our sprinkler parts.  So Ronnie went to talk to sprinkler man and Lana and I went to visit the birds…they have really cool talking birds among the plants, it’s better than our Zoo and it’s free.  The sprinkler guy hooked Ronnie up and sent us on our way.  A few hours later Ronnie had done this:

03 04 09_0517

Much prettier!  Turns out we didn’t even need one of those value thingies.  Unfortunately, Ronnie’s favorite cell phone died in the process, a moment of silence please…

 

 

Our sprinkler box is right next to the car port so Ronnie set his phone down on the hood of the Jeep while he was working.  I had to leave to pick kids up from school so I just hopped in the car and went on my marry little way.  Picked up the kids from school and was heading home when I saw something fly right across my hood and smash on the street.  I knew what it was, but I still called Ronnie anyway to see if by chance I was wrong.  I wasn’t.  I pulled over by Bonanza High School where some boys were playing lacrosse and hopped I didn’t get hit in the head by a stray ball.  Then I saw pieces of his phone scattered on the street.   I gathered what I could and went home to tell Ronnie the bad news.  It was no surprise to him, because he needed to make a call and realized where he put his phone down at, but it did surprise him that I made it that far with phone still on the hood.  What gets me is no one said hey lady, you have a phone on your hood.  Oh well, he had two replacement phones he can mess around with so it’s not a horrible tragedy. 

Monday, March 9, 2009

Daylight Savings Time

I really hate the Monday after Daylight Savings Time!

I was curious what this song was really about so I Googled it.  Sad.

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) is a convicted American murderer who carried out a shooting spree at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California on January 29, 1979. Principal Burton Wragg and head custodian Mike Suchar were killed in the attack, while eight children and a police officer sustained wounds. One of the children, who was hit in the hand, talked about the incident on a local radio station to San Diego County.

The school was across the street from Spencer's house, from which she fired the shots. She used a rifle that she had recently been given for her sixteenth birthday by her father. When the six-hour incident ended and she was asked whom she wanted to shoot, she said, "I like red and blue jackets". When asked why, she shrugged and replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."[1] She also said, "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun"; "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond"' and "[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings." At the time of the shootings, Brenda Ann Spencer was 16 years old.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Chino.[1] She has been eligible for parole four times and has been turned down each time, most recently in 2005. She will be eligible for parole again in 2009.

In 2005, she claimed that she was drunk and under the influence of PCP, and that her father, Wallace Spencer, had sexually abused her as a child and that the state and her attorney conspired to hide her drug test results.

Spencer's crime, her perceived lack of remorse, and lack of a serious explanation for her actions when she was captured, inspired the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldof.

Her quote, "I Don't Like Mondays," also appears written on a wall in the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Waffles on Wednesday

Ronnie and I have started a new tradition called Waffles on Wednesday.  Doesn’t it sound delicious?  It’s the new WOW.

  Most Wednesdays Ronnie is off from work so we get the kids dropped off to school and then start thinking what are we going to do for the rest of the day.  We usually come up with things that need to be fixed around the house so we head to Lowes.  But before we get there realize we purposely didn’t eat breakfast with the kids so we could go out to a nice breakfast kid free.  It just so happens there are tons of places to eat around Lowes, but we have found the best.

It’s called Waffle Cafe.  It’s a small business and I’ve only seen two people working there.  Jeff takes your order and pretty much acts like a waiter even though it’s not supposed to be a waiter type place.  Yooni is in the back creating the best waffles ever.  So here’s the deal with the food.  You get to choose your waffle, they have regular, oat, flax, pumpkin, and maybe another one but I can’t remember.  Then you choose what to put on top of it like fruit, nuts, candy, and sauces. 

I tried the oat waffle with pecans and haven’t been able to deviate.  Their oat waffle is made with cooked oatmeal I think and the texture is amazing.  Ronnie loves the waffle breakfast sandwich.  It’s a regular waffle folded in half and stuffed with eggs, bacon, ham, and a super secret sauce.  It looks like honey, but Ronnie says it has some ginger in it.  I asked Jeff what the sauce was and he said it’s super secret.  Then a lady dinning next to us said she asked the same question and got the same answer.

image I have seen a lady order the chocolate strawberry waffle and she was making noises that were not appropriate at the breakfast table.  I swear I was sitting at the diner in When Harry Met Sally.  Anyway from her response I would say it was fabulous, just look at it!

They do lunch and dinner too with things like a waffle lunch sandwich, BBQ waffle and waffle pizza.  They also have smoothies, and bubble tea.  The most indulgent item on the menu are the waffle sundaes.

Their prices are fair and everything is cooked to order.  So if your hankering for the best waffle ever and it happens to be Wednesday meet us there around 9:15am. 

WaffleS Cafe

5165 S Fort Apache Rd
Ste 160
Las Vegas, NV 89148
(702) 597-9775