Tonight I was home alone and the phone rang. It was a telemarketer.
"Hello"
"Can I speak to one of your parents?"
"Um...they don't live here"
"Oh. I'm so sorry ma'am, you uh sounded uh like a uh child"
Thanks. It's OK to look younger than you are, but to be mistaken for a kid on the phone is just insulting! This isn't the first time this has happened either.
The other thing that bugs me about this is...Do not, under any circumstances, call me ma'am!!! Ma'am is for old ladies. First you think I'm a child, and then you go and call me ma'am??!!?? Ugh!
AND... Why on earth are you calling me anyway? Our number is unlisted and unpublished, which we pay a whopping 90 cents a month for. (Seriously, why don't keyboards have a "cents" symbol on them?) Anyway, back to our phone number. We are also on the National Do Not Call registry. This means that technically, telemarketers and the like are not allowed to bother us! I am always too unnerved by these calls to ever think to call them out on that, but they shouldn't have our number to begin with!
This is why I love email so much.
And don't worry all you telemarketers out there. I was civil and politely got rid of him. I didn't go off on the guy until after I hung up.
Thanks for reading!
April 24, 2012
April 21, 2012
Cluck cluck
Thursday night we finally got our chickens! They are Barred Plymouth Rocks. We named them Henrietta and Sophie. They were pretty stressed out when our friend brought them over. He said they probably wouldn't lay any eggs until they calmed down and got used to their new surroundings. It might even be a week before they lay any. Well he was wrong. There was an egg in the nest yesterday and one today! I haven't ever had eggs fresh from the chicken before, but I've heard they're very good. I'm excited to try them.
We started a blog that will be about our adventures raising chickens. It's at thechickencoopscoop.blogspot.com. Feel free to check in on the chickens!
We started a blog that will be about our adventures raising chickens. It's at thechickencoopscoop.blogspot.com. Feel free to check in on the chickens!
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| Sophie (left) and Henrietta |
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| Our first egg (bigger than actual size!) It's actually about the size of a standard grocery store egg. |
April 9, 2012
Success!
After much stress and confusion regarding different types of potatoes for making Mother in Law's potato salad, I have finally achieved success.
Yesterday we went to the In-Law's for Easter dinner. When we got there, Mother in Law was very excited to see the giant bowl of potato salad we brought. She grabbed it from my hands and ran into the kitchen for a taste. She liked it! Yay! The first thing she said was "When did you start making it?"
Oh dear. I must confess something. I made it on Saturday! I didn't take three days to make it. I knew it could all be done in one day.
"A couple days ago," I lied.
"That's what makes it so good," she said.
Ha! Take that, Mother in Law! I feel a little bad for lying to her, but it shouldn't and doesn't need to take three days to make a bowl of potato salad! And it was just as good.
I just wish there were more leftovers!
Yesterday we went to the In-Law's for Easter dinner. When we got there, Mother in Law was very excited to see the giant bowl of potato salad we brought. She grabbed it from my hands and ran into the kitchen for a taste. She liked it! Yay! The first thing she said was "When did you start making it?"
Oh dear. I must confess something. I made it on Saturday! I didn't take three days to make it. I knew it could all be done in one day.
"A couple days ago," I lied.
"That's what makes it so good," she said.
Ha! Take that, Mother in Law! I feel a little bad for lying to her, but it shouldn't and doesn't need to take three days to make a bowl of potato salad! And it was just as good.
I just wish there were more leftovers!
April 4, 2012
Confusion abounds
So last time I wrote, I was waiting for Mother in Law to bring me some ridiculously overpriced potatoes to make her blessed potato salad with for Easter dinner. She brought them this morning.
Now I'm really confused. The potatoes she brought me are red potatoes. Little tiny red potatoes. I thought the proper potatoes were these big yellowish ones. I think they're called Yukon Gold. So I consulted the recipe from the family cookbook. It says to use White Rose potatoes! What are those? Why did she bring me red ones? I don't dare ask her. This is driving me nuts!
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of The Preposterous Potato Predicament. I will definitely be keeping you posted.
Now I'm really confused. The potatoes she brought me are red potatoes. Little tiny red potatoes. I thought the proper potatoes were these big yellowish ones. I think they're called Yukon Gold. So I consulted the recipe from the family cookbook. It says to use White Rose potatoes! What are those? Why did she bring me red ones? I don't dare ask her. This is driving me nuts!
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of The Preposterous Potato Predicament. I will definitely be keeping you posted.
April 3, 2012
You say potato i say potato
I was asked to make potato salad for Easter dinner. No big deal, except it's not just ANY potato salad. It's Mother in Law's potato salad recipe. Mother in Law takes her potato salad very seriously. It is quite an honor to be asked to make it. It IS delicious potato salad - probably the best I've ever had - but the whole process of making it is quite ridiculous. Like the fact that it takes three days to make. Three days to make potato salad?!? Are you serious? According to her, it's too much to do in one day and it's better if the flavors have time to incorporate. OK, but three days? Also, the type of potatoes used is very important. I found this out the other night...
We had a whole family discussion on the importance of using the proper potatoes in the potato salad. When Mother in Law asked me if I would make the potato salad, she asked me what kind of potatoes I use. I just use regular potatoes. She just about had a hissy fit! Heaven forbid that I use normal regular potatoes! The ones she uses are some fancy kind that are like $2.99 a pound. I'm not going to pay $20 for like 4 potatoes when I can get a 10 pound bag for about $.50! (Why isn't there a "cents" symbol on the keyboard?) I was saying that potatoes all taste the same. Brother in Law agreed with me (thank you!) but Husband and Mother in Law were both lecturing me on the difference between the fancy potatoes and regular potatoes. They cook differently, they taste better, the texture is different, etc. Potato Snobs! I have quite a picky palate. I can taste certain things a mile away. And don't even get me going on texture. There are things I refuse to eat based solely on texture. Husband and I have made the precious potato salad before with regular potatoes and it's been just fine! It is still delicious! I have actually thought that ours is better than Mother in Law's! I just don't get what the big deal is with the stupid potatoes!
Finally, we reached a compromise. Mother in Law said she would purchase the potatoes if I would still make the potato salad. That sounded good to me. She is supposed to deliver them this week. She'd better hurry, because I should have probably already started making it by now so it can be ready by Sunday! :P
We had a whole family discussion on the importance of using the proper potatoes in the potato salad. When Mother in Law asked me if I would make the potato salad, she asked me what kind of potatoes I use. I just use regular potatoes. She just about had a hissy fit! Heaven forbid that I use normal regular potatoes! The ones she uses are some fancy kind that are like $2.99 a pound. I'm not going to pay $20 for like 4 potatoes when I can get a 10 pound bag for about $.50! (Why isn't there a "cents" symbol on the keyboard?) I was saying that potatoes all taste the same. Brother in Law agreed with me (thank you!) but Husband and Mother in Law were both lecturing me on the difference between the fancy potatoes and regular potatoes. They cook differently, they taste better, the texture is different, etc. Potato Snobs! I have quite a picky palate. I can taste certain things a mile away. And don't even get me going on texture. There are things I refuse to eat based solely on texture. Husband and I have made the precious potato salad before with regular potatoes and it's been just fine! It is still delicious! I have actually thought that ours is better than Mother in Law's! I just don't get what the big deal is with the stupid potatoes!
Finally, we reached a compromise. Mother in Law said she would purchase the potatoes if I would still make the potato salad. That sounded good to me. She is supposed to deliver them this week. She'd better hurry, because I should have probably already started making it by now so it can be ready by Sunday! :P
March 9, 2012
Thoroughly freaked out
Do you ever have a scary dream right before you wake up in the morning? Lately I've been experiencing these a lot. It just leaves me with this weird feeling all day. Especially if I can still remember the dream.
Like this morning. Two of them. Back to back. I tried to go back to sleep after the first and had another. In both of them I woke up right before I died. Now I just feel weird and kind of scared. I know dreams can be tied to things going on in your life. I hope these don't really mean anything.
And while we're on the subject of dreams, I have these other dreams where I know where I am, but it's not anywhere I really know. Does that make sense? It's kind of like I have a whole other life somewhere else. In my dreams, I recognise where I am, know where I'm going and how to get there, know where things are, etc. But it doesn't look like anywhere I've ever been in real life. I have these all the time. I don't totally believe in past lives, but I wonder if it's something like that. Maybe memories coming back or something?
Or maybe I'm just insane. :)
Like this morning. Two of them. Back to back. I tried to go back to sleep after the first and had another. In both of them I woke up right before I died. Now I just feel weird and kind of scared. I know dreams can be tied to things going on in your life. I hope these don't really mean anything.
And while we're on the subject of dreams, I have these other dreams where I know where I am, but it's not anywhere I really know. Does that make sense? It's kind of like I have a whole other life somewhere else. In my dreams, I recognise where I am, know where I'm going and how to get there, know where things are, etc. But it doesn't look like anywhere I've ever been in real life. I have these all the time. I don't totally believe in past lives, but I wonder if it's something like that. Maybe memories coming back or something?
Or maybe I'm just insane. :)
March 7, 2012
Time to catch up
I haven't posted anything for a while. I'm sure no one really cares, but I figure I should catch up on things.
I spent most of February being sick and feeling pretty crappy (physically and emotionally.) There is some nasty virus going around here that is kind of like a bad cold/flu thing. And it doesn't seem to ever want to go away! I still have a cough from it. I was sick for about a week. Had a fever for 4 days! I don't ever remember having a fever for that long. It would go away and then come back over and over. Not fun at all! And usually when I'm sick, I can still basically function. I can do a little housework, bathe, get dressed, run a few errands, etc. Not this time. I laid on the couch and watched TV and slept. I really don't think I've ever been that sick before!
Nothing too exciting has been going on around here. We are still trying to build a chicken coop for the chickens that our friend is going to give us. It's only taken 3 months! We're not very good at carpentry or whatever you call building stuff. We have run into a lot of problems. We tried making plans with measurements and such, but things didn't quite work right so we had to revise them. And revise them again. And again. We've become very familiar with our friendly neighborhood Home Depot. Saturday we were very excited because all that was left was to put the roof on. Yay! Almost done! Wait...Not quite...Saturday was the day of big "Duh" moments!
We had a piece of plywood that was supposed to be the roof, but when we put it on it was too small. Somehow we didn't account for the fact that putting the walls up would add to the length and width of the chicken coop. Duh #1.
Husband and I went to Home Depot to get another piece of plywood and some other stuff. We measured the coop this time and figured we needed a 5'x4' piece. We found a piece that was damaged and the guy said he could take $6 off for that. Yay! Plywood is NOT cheap! We had him cut it to the size we needed and checked out. We went out to our car and proceeded to load our purchases. It never occurred to us that a 5'x4' piece of plywood would not fit in the back seat of our Nissan Sentra. Here we have Duh #2! I swear that we've put large pieces of wood in the back seat before. I guess not. We stood there in the parking lot feeling very stupid. I could not stop laughing! How many problems are we going to run into in building this stupid chicken coop??!!
So how do we get this wood home? We tried putting it in the trunk. It was too wide. We thought of tying it onto the roof somehow, but weren't quite sure how to do that. I could just see it sliding down off the car and into the street. Then we remembered that we had seen a friend in Home Depot as we were walking out. He might have his truck! I ran back into the store and frantically searched for him. I went through the entire store. No luck. But just as I was about to give up and leave, I saw him heading for the checkout. I ran up to him and asked if he happened to have his truck with him. He said "Yeah. Didn't it fit?" He knew exactly what we needed. I went outside and told Husband that I had found him. We loaded the wood into his truck and went home. We were laughing our heads off about how stupid we were!
We put the plywood on the chicken coop, along with some shingles. We probably did it all wrong, but everything's still intact after the crazy wind we had here today. Whew! Hopefully the chickens will be satisfied with their new home!
Next I get to paint the chicken coop. I'm actually looking forward to this because I am feeling the urge to be creative. I get like this a few times a year. I just need to do something creative and get it out of my system. If I don't, it just drives me nuts! And I'm already nuts. It doesn't need to get any worse! The problem is, most of my supplies are still packed up from when we moved 2 1/2 years ago! I'm wanting to turn one of our bedrooms into my craft room, but other things have taken priority over that. Like building a chicken coop? Really? Maybe I can use it for a craft room since the chickens will probably die from improper care. I never had good luck with pets. I never had cats or dogs because I'm allergic, but I had lots of suicidal goldfish and a parakeet that hated me. Great!
Anyway, setting up the craft room is next on MY list of priorities. Which means that probably in about 5 years it'll be done! I would like to figure out a way to sell the stuff I make, but I'm not quite sure what to do. I would love to get on Etsy, but everytime I look at it it's just too overwhelming. I don't know if I need a business license, or if I can just go ahead and start selling. I haven't really had time to research it enough. I always keep putting it off, but I don't want to anymore. I really want to do this! I NEED to do it so I don't go completely insane!
There are so many things I want to do and I never have enough time to do them. I feel like I'm going to wake up one day and be old and almost dead and never accomplished anything. I'm going to be 40 in a few years. I can't seem to wrap my head around that. Mentally I feel alot younger than I am - maybe 25. Physically sometimes I feel about 105. :)
I think that's it for now. I'm realizing as I'm typing this that I've spent way too much time on my iPod. I'm actually having trouble typing on a keyboard! What a dork!
Thanks for reading!
I spent most of February being sick and feeling pretty crappy (physically and emotionally.) There is some nasty virus going around here that is kind of like a bad cold/flu thing. And it doesn't seem to ever want to go away! I still have a cough from it. I was sick for about a week. Had a fever for 4 days! I don't ever remember having a fever for that long. It would go away and then come back over and over. Not fun at all! And usually when I'm sick, I can still basically function. I can do a little housework, bathe, get dressed, run a few errands, etc. Not this time. I laid on the couch and watched TV and slept. I really don't think I've ever been that sick before!
Nothing too exciting has been going on around here. We are still trying to build a chicken coop for the chickens that our friend is going to give us. It's only taken 3 months! We're not very good at carpentry or whatever you call building stuff. We have run into a lot of problems. We tried making plans with measurements and such, but things didn't quite work right so we had to revise them. And revise them again. And again. We've become very familiar with our friendly neighborhood Home Depot. Saturday we were very excited because all that was left was to put the roof on. Yay! Almost done! Wait...Not quite...Saturday was the day of big "Duh" moments!
We had a piece of plywood that was supposed to be the roof, but when we put it on it was too small. Somehow we didn't account for the fact that putting the walls up would add to the length and width of the chicken coop. Duh #1.
Husband and I went to Home Depot to get another piece of plywood and some other stuff. We measured the coop this time and figured we needed a 5'x4' piece. We found a piece that was damaged and the guy said he could take $6 off for that. Yay! Plywood is NOT cheap! We had him cut it to the size we needed and checked out. We went out to our car and proceeded to load our purchases. It never occurred to us that a 5'x4' piece of plywood would not fit in the back seat of our Nissan Sentra. Here we have Duh #2! I swear that we've put large pieces of wood in the back seat before. I guess not. We stood there in the parking lot feeling very stupid. I could not stop laughing! How many problems are we going to run into in building this stupid chicken coop??!!
So how do we get this wood home? We tried putting it in the trunk. It was too wide. We thought of tying it onto the roof somehow, but weren't quite sure how to do that. I could just see it sliding down off the car and into the street. Then we remembered that we had seen a friend in Home Depot as we were walking out. He might have his truck! I ran back into the store and frantically searched for him. I went through the entire store. No luck. But just as I was about to give up and leave, I saw him heading for the checkout. I ran up to him and asked if he happened to have his truck with him. He said "Yeah. Didn't it fit?" He knew exactly what we needed. I went outside and told Husband that I had found him. We loaded the wood into his truck and went home. We were laughing our heads off about how stupid we were!
We put the plywood on the chicken coop, along with some shingles. We probably did it all wrong, but everything's still intact after the crazy wind we had here today. Whew! Hopefully the chickens will be satisfied with their new home!
Next I get to paint the chicken coop. I'm actually looking forward to this because I am feeling the urge to be creative. I get like this a few times a year. I just need to do something creative and get it out of my system. If I don't, it just drives me nuts! And I'm already nuts. It doesn't need to get any worse! The problem is, most of my supplies are still packed up from when we moved 2 1/2 years ago! I'm wanting to turn one of our bedrooms into my craft room, but other things have taken priority over that. Like building a chicken coop? Really? Maybe I can use it for a craft room since the chickens will probably die from improper care. I never had good luck with pets. I never had cats or dogs because I'm allergic, but I had lots of suicidal goldfish and a parakeet that hated me. Great!
Anyway, setting up the craft room is next on MY list of priorities. Which means that probably in about 5 years it'll be done! I would like to figure out a way to sell the stuff I make, but I'm not quite sure what to do. I would love to get on Etsy, but everytime I look at it it's just too overwhelming. I don't know if I need a business license, or if I can just go ahead and start selling. I haven't really had time to research it enough. I always keep putting it off, but I don't want to anymore. I really want to do this! I NEED to do it so I don't go completely insane!
There are so many things I want to do and I never have enough time to do them. I feel like I'm going to wake up one day and be old and almost dead and never accomplished anything. I'm going to be 40 in a few years. I can't seem to wrap my head around that. Mentally I feel alot younger than I am - maybe 25. Physically sometimes I feel about 105. :)
I think that's it for now. I'm realizing as I'm typing this that I've spent way too much time on my iPod. I'm actually having trouble typing on a keyboard! What a dork!
Thanks for reading!
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