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Planes, snow, tears, frustration and sadness!

I posted a while back that my brother would be flying in from Portland for Christmas. He was supposed to arive on Friday, but if you've watched the news at all you know that Portland has been covered in snow for the last week. Well on Friday they got a new storm and we got their old one. Everything was fine when I left for Salt Lake to pick him up from the airport. Well okay it was snowing and the wind was blowing but, as far as the information on the flight everything was "On Time" well that means that his flight should have left 30 minutes before I did. It didn't. My poor brother has huge issues with PTS having served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Due to the Army's hurry up and wait way of doing things he also has huge issues with planes. After being on the plane for as long as he could handle with no information, and sitting next to a lady who (apparently) smelled as if someone forgot to change her diaper before she got on the plane, he go up and got off. I don't blame him. I was talking to him on the phone several times until he couldn't handle it anymore and I couldn't calm him down because at that point I was slinding (in several directions) on Parleys Summit and trying desperately not to be pushed into the median. At the end of the trip to Salt Lake I was sobbing on the phone to my mom, my friend Kori, and co-worker Zach begging Zach to take my 7am shift the next day because there was NO Way I was getting on Parleys again that day. Thank you Zach! Thank you Kori for letting me stay the night at your house, as well.

Well, after all of that I got on the phone and called Southwest and called to see if anything could be done about the ticket. Many thanks to Cindy operator number 66. She listened to what I had to say didn't even ask for any details she offered another plane and when I said that there wasn't anyway we would able to get him anywhere near a plane she gave us a credit that is good for anyone. On Sunday my Mom used it to fly out to see him for a couple days. Poor kid he was worried that we were mad at him and all sorts of other junk. I told Mom when she was making the arrangements that she'd better make sure that she spent Christmas with him. She decided that she would spend Christmas morning with Andrew and the afternoon with us.

Sadly, our fish Calli that I posted a couple pictures of a month or so ago has died. She died yesterday morning. Poor fishy, has had trouble before when we cleaned the fish tank, with not getting enough oxygen. The fish tank with a fish tank that big needs to be cleaned at least once a week and unfortunately the bubbler was off for just too long. Calli was still alive but just never recovered. We will miss Calli.

-Leslie

Merry Christmas from Louie!

Mom brought home a big box to mail some Christmas gifts for my Aunt and Uncle in Texas, tonight. My cats being the cute little buggers they are immeadiately tried to investigate. Unfortunately, Minerva didn't stay in the box long enough for me to get a picture of her as well. But any way Louie wishes you a Merry, Merry Christmas from his box to yours!

I Love the snow

I love snow, and it has finally started snowing and sticking here. I am so happy, as long as I am in the house. I really hate being cold! Oh well, the thing that I really hate is the migration of the de-icer. I guess that we use to much de-icer (I say we, but really I don't put it down very often) and so we track it in the house, which would be fine if it stayed by the door where we leave our shoes. But it does not, somehow it's all over the living room, down the stairs, in the hallway, everywhere, including (probably) the bathroom. I guess it's time to get out the vacumn, and leave it by the front door. Of course, that will make for some really attractive Christmas morning pictures. Speaking of which for the first at this job I have both Christmas and Christmas Eve off! I am really happy about that, too. Andrew (my brother) is flying in from Portland on Friday and he's staying for a whole month! I love my brother, so I am looking forward to this. Since he will be here durring the time of my Dad's birthday, we are planning to go to see him that weekend too. Well, I need to get in the shower and get ready for work. I don't want to but, I must be responsible and well I like having a paycheck, so off to work I go. Have a good day, or week or whatever until I talk/type to you again.

-Leslie

How many have you read?

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

I bolded the books that I have read...

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye -JDSalinger

19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - my favorite book of all time!

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I seriously love Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

By my count I have read at least 13 of these how many have you read? I am a little iffy on Lord of the Flies, I know this was read to me in class, but I don't know if we finished it.

-Leslie

Last night!

I have been doing the night audit for 9 days straight and all I can say is thank goodness that I have tomorrow and Wednesday off! I am the back-up auditor, and he decided to go to visit his parents for the week of Thanksgiving. Which I don't really mind so much usually, but usually I do get days off too. Not this time, it's the second year that he's gone on vacation for Thanksgiving, which isn't so bad, (double time for holiday pay is very nice) but that means that for the last 2 years, I haven't been able to cook the turkey. My mom and I have an agreement that we switch years on who gets to cook the turkey. Well I guess there is always next year, maybe. ;)

I am no where near prepared for the craft fair on Saturday, but I hope to fix that on my days off this week. But only time will tell. I will post what I get done and let everyone know how it works out.

Talk you soon!

-Leslie

Just a little update

In my last post I told you about falling down the stairs. Well I called the advice nurse for the VA and she told me to go ahead and get seen at the emergency room. So my mom and I drove down to Salt Lake and went to the emergency room. The wait wasn't as bad as it sometimes is, thankfully! The doctor wanted to have me get into a gown but when he pulled the gown out there was some really wierd snaps that we couldn't figure out so instead, we went with a sheet, it was kind of funny really. The verdict is that I pulled/bruised some muscles in my thigh but I didn't rip anything or break any bones (I didn't think I had broke anything.) So he gave me some prescriptions for anti-inflamitories, pain killers and muscle relaxers. I am at work trying desperately not to fall asleep. The doctor offered me a work excuse, but I am the back up night auditor, and the regular night auditor went on vaction this morning so there wasn't any point. We just don't have anybody trained/willing to take over, and truth be told, I don't mind. Eight days of night auditor pay will be very welcome to pay for new toys from the new Idea Book which will be coming out soon, and for Christmas pressents. I think I know what I am getting everyone but my husband for Christmas. I just don't know what to get Zorro, maybe a gift certificate to NewEgg, or another computer supply store. Have a great day, and be careful on the stairs!

-Leslie

The Twilight Movie

My mom and I went to see Twilight yesterday with several friends. It was great. We (mom and I) decided that we wanted to see it again so with a short break for dinner, and to purchase an ace bandage since I was a klutz(more on that in a second)we went back to see it again. The first time we saw it at The District in Salt Lake the second time we saw it at The Jordan Landing theater. There is a huge difference and I found myself distracted and almost bored at the second theater. They still had the air conditioner on there was less the 30 people in that showing but the air was set at like 55-60 degrees, and it was stinking cold! Also the screens are dim I was really disappointed. I now remember that it was really dim the last time I watched a movie there. There is a scene where you can see the clouds rolling in and forming, but on that screen it just looked like a pretty picture because there was no definition and the contrast was way too low.

For those of you who know me, you know that I have foot problems. Well becuase of those my right ankle is really pretty weak. In the last 4 years I have managed to fall down the stairs probably about 10 times. My ankle will just suddenly turn under (it almost seems to fold) and I will be sliding down the stairs. It's really not very fun, but it's only been bad enough for me to need crutches once, but I always need to brace my ankle for a couple of days. Last night I fell down the stairs in the movie theater before the movie even started. It was awesome, at the time the only thing that hurt was my ankle, so we just planned on stopping to get an ace bandage after the movie got out. Which we did, and I kept it wrapped up all night long. Well after we got home and I had relaxed for a while I realized that I have managed to pull something in my left leg when I fell. It just plain hurts. around my knee, in my thigh and in my hip.

Oh well, life is an adventure. Have you seen Twilight yet, did you do anything goofy while you were there? Drop me a little note and tell me what you think!

Craft Fair

So Nicole called me tonight to see if I wanted to take a table at a craft fair. I tld her I would so now I have to figure out what I am doing and order accordingly. Any suggestions? I am currently thinking some notecards, and Christmas cards, notebooks, daily planners and post-it note holders. Also since I crochet pretty well I think I will do some dishclothes, potholders, and dish towels. I also have some stamps that I either have duplicates or, bought but don't use I will probably have those available as well.

Leslie

It's been a while

So I was told my Nicole today that I need to update my blog (the or esle was not specifically noted but...) so look Nicole I updated aren't you so very proud of me? Hee hee, sorry I have been busy finishing and sending out swaps and I have to redo a second one that managed to get lost in the mail. I got my Christmas card swap back they were all beautifully done I was so happy. Sometimes you get a couple of things in a swap that aren't what you were hoping for and you end up very disappointed. Not this time. I have even managed to sign, and partially address them. Yay! go me!

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? I have I already have one of my mom's Christmas pressents and I just purchased a couple of things for my brother. My brother Andrew is very talented he has taught himself to play the guitar in the last couple of years, and loves to draw. He draws mainly anime, but he is very good at it. Does anyone know where I could get a book or dvd on drawing anime or maybe even comic books? I think he would enjoy finding something like that under the Christmas tree. I still haven't even got a clue as to what to get my husband for Christmas. It will have to be something he won't think of because he has a habit of telling me not to get something for him. We haven't even been shopping recently so I can't use my usual tricks of watching him browse to figure out what he would like. Maybe I will get him a magazine subscription, just for the heck of it. Anyone have any suggestions for a 30 something husband who likes to tinker with cars, and computers?

Oh well maybe next time I update I will have my new markers and some artwork to share. I hope this is a long enough update for you Nicole! Just kidding you know I love you and your munchkins too.

-Leslie