♪♪♪ I’m so excited! I just can’t hide it! ♪♪♪

Dudes and dudettes!  April the 1st, April Fool’s Day, is one day away.  That’s the day I announce the winner of the Give-Away!  Get your name in there!  Click on the pic!

I’ve been going through my refrigerator and have found several worthy items that could be added to the mix:  half a bottle of wine; a couple of on-the-edge-of-their-due-date Activia (very good for your digestion), a bag of frozen chocolate chip cookie dough already made into individual cookielets for your baking ease; something that looks very similar to jelly (it’s in a jar); and I’ll even throw in one of my prized jars of maraschino cherries!  Everyone that knows me, knows how I love to collect jars of maraschino cherries (although I haven’t bought any in a while).

And as if that isn’t enough to entice you, I will add to the mix some of my lovely artificial flowers for “planting” in your yard.  No watering!  Most of them look very real.  Proof in point:  my daughter who occasionally will razz me about my fake yard flowers was over here one summer day looking at all the plants and flowers in the back yard.  As she wandered around looking, she would bend down to sniff them.  One particularly lovely yellow rose was sniffed several times before she turned around and exclaimed, “That’s fake!”

Then there was my friend, Cheryl, who stopped her car on the road in front of the house one day to admire my beautiful flowers out there in the flower bed.  I said, “Get out and come look at them.” (Laughing my buhiney off the whole time.)  She got out of the car and was oohing and aahing over them until I said, “They’re fake.”  “What?! When she came over to water my many plants one summer week while I was gone on vacation, she also watered the fakies.  Even after knowing about the oh-so-real fake ones.  I’m telling you, they look better that fake hoohas.

The family tells me my Great-aunt Gladys used to put fake flowers in her yard all the time.  They also tell me, “You’re just like your Aunt Gladys.”

Aunt Gladys had Alzheimer’s.

Surfing Again

Too much surfing the net for posting a blog.  I catch all those waves of free stuff being given away, and I just have to click and roll with it.  So now I have landed on the shore of way-past-my-bedtime, and am leaving you all with this tidbit:

There is free stuff all over the place out there in Webville!

Here is a great site: 

A Time for Everything… And It’s Not Now

The harsh reality is I am a dork.  Wikipedia describes it as “USA pejorative slang for a quirky, silly and/or stupid, socially inept person, or one who is out of touch with contemporary trends. Often confused with nerd and geek, but does not imply the same level of intelligence.”  Although I like the description in Urban Dictionary better: “Someone who has odd interests, and is often silly at times. A dork is also someone who can be themselves and not care what anyone thinks. ”  I have also found out in my dork research that it also means “Vulgar slang for penis.”  I am so excited!  A new word to use that most people won’t know what it means whenever I yell at them, “Hey, you dork!”  teehee teehee

See what I mean?  I am such a dork.  For instance, about a month ago I decided to get all my beautiful plants from last summer (that I store in the garage during the winter months) out for a nice drink of rain since the weather was warm and rain was on the way.  I had Brandon come over and help me move them outside, fully intending to move them back in a week.  “Now, where did that week go?”  So, of course, my plants were left out longer, through a frost, and here they are today.

my poor, poor plant

boo hoo hoo hoo

Why, you ask, would anyone not pay attention to the weather and get on the stick (pun intended) to get this done?  Because that person is a dork.  One who goes through life thinking there is always at least an extra hour in the minute or an extra week in the day.  (One of the reasons I’m always late.)  Then, when the realization hits me that, no, a minute is truly that, a mere minute, I must then rush to make up for the time I don’t have that I thought I did.  Are you getting that?

Here are the beauties in their heyday.

so beautiful

This year I am trying to accomplish goals, work, “things” in a timely manner.  I have failed miserably.  But tomorrow is another day.

Which means I will be back at work.  I can’t wait to ask my guy friends, “So, how’s the dork?” teehee teehee

I just realized… if I were a guy, I would be a double dork.

I think I need Dorks Anonymous.  We’d all tell our names, ages, ranks, addresses, SS numbers…

Too Pooped to Pop

A long drive home today because of the rain.  The farther north we got, the colder it got.  We thought about turning around.

I got here just in time to get the grandgirls for the night.  Kate loved her goodies; Ava could have cared less.  After a late-night snack of fried eggs and orange chunks, it was off to bed with a good-night book: Larry the Cucumber and Sheriff Bob the Tomato, Fastest Dodge Ball in the West. Kate was out pretty quickly; Ava was practicing her new vocals she had apparently learned this week.  Something like “Pop-I do.”  She threw a Gee in there every now and then for good measure; probably so I would think she was talking about me and let her stay awake.  But sleep finally won, and she’s out like a light as well.

My head is heading to the bed to crash and burn along with the rest of me… the burning part is this stinking heart burn.  What is with that?!  Where did that come from?!  I used to NEVER get heart burn.  Is it an old fart thing?  It’s not enough I have to come home to this freezing weather that makes me ache all over; I had to bring heart burn with me.  Did you notice that I am NOT a happy camper?

I have a great story, though, for tomorrow night.  My sweet, dear self (did I hear coughing? or was that choking?  no… I think it was laughing) will be back then.

 

Leaving Paradise

Waaaa!  Waaaa!  We are packing up, throwing away the leftover food; sacking up our goodies we bought; getting the snacks ready for the trip home.  From white sands to white snow?  Please tell me it isn’t so!!

It’s been a slow, uneventful, good time.  Maddy is brown as a biscuit; Rosemary is right behind her; and I am splotchy freckled with an edge of red.  I love it!!!  I don’t even care that my “tan” is speckled.  Or that my nose and cheek freckles are popping out like zits on a teenager.  Sitting of the evening looking off the balcony at the stars shining over the ocen is hard to give up.   Listening to the waves rolling and watching them race each other to shore is something I will miss.

But real life beckons.  Home… here I come.

Just a Nibble

The Give-Away is April 1.  There were some neat things at the stores today, so lucky you… I found a few for the Give-Away.   I thought you needed a little taste of what’s to come, so I took a picture.  Here’s one:

isn't it lovely?

OOPS! Sorry.  That’s mine.  Here is yours:

Pizzaz!!

These two packages are just a little taste of what will be in the aaa Give-Away box!  Don’t forget to click on the Give-Away image on the sidebar to enter.

 

The Give-Away Rules and Rewards

Today is the day the Give-Away begins.  I’m still searching for just the right prize (I know what I want), and tomorrow is another shopping excursion to see if it’s there.  You guys (my faithful readers as well as my new readers) have been and are great, and that’s why the big Give-Away.  You deserve to have as much fun as I have been having with this little blog.  So I’m looking for something that everybody (guys and gals) will like, although you may have to share some of it with your significant other or a good friend.

A preview: click to enlarge

On April 1, I will upload all the names to random.org and let them choose the winner.  You can increase how many times your name gets put in the pot by doing all of the following giveaway funsters.  Each time you do one of the funsters, let me know by leaving a separate comment.  Now, does that sound too hard?

Here are the funster rules (the reward will be announced later).   Leave all comments on this blog (The Give-Away Rules and Rewards).  Click the Give-Away image, and it will take you back to this blog to comment .

1.  Comment to tell me you read apronsandappetites.

2.  If you have facebook or twitter, put a little post on there about the giveaway and then comment on here and let me know that you did.

3.  Subscribe to apronsandappetites.  Look on the right; there’s a place to subscribe.

4.  Guess what kind of lap top I will be giving away.

5.  And for the fifth chance to put your name in the pot tell me your favorite blog I’ve done so far.

Don’t forget to click on the Give-Away image box to the right to get back here to comment.

Yippee!!!!

Bathing Suit Body

One of the very good things about vacationing at the beach many, many miles from home is the fact that nobody knows me or my fat, little chubbette thighs.  I can prance down to the beach with the knowledge that I do not care that people are making snide comments about my porkers.  The little darlings can flip and flap all they want.

That goes for the rest of my saggy, baggy little body as well.  It has just exulted in swaying in the wind while standing completely still.  Mrs. Doubtfire doesn’t have anything on me!  I have threatened Maddy that I shall wear my super bikini and stand right beside her at all times; thus the boy problem will be moot.  One gander at the granny in the get-up will be all it takes to have them running the opposite direction.

Tomorrow’s plan is to be on the look-out for geriatrics that think I have firm, supple skin.  They need to be blind, I guess.

Those Wonderful Waves

The waves washing up on the shore sound like heavy rain, and with the veranda doors open, it feels damp.  But the doors will stay open for awhile so we can continue to hear the waves crashing against the earth, hear them roll up and then away.  I want to be able to dream this sound when I go home.  Soothing.

The sun was just right today as I lay sleeping on the lounge chair by the pool.  We had walked up the white, soft sand toward the pier, and now we were back, having taken a dip in the pool, and, tired, lying on the chair, the sun on our backs, our eyes closed, sleep just engulfs us.

I think I could retire.