Sunday, January 25, 2009

Quicksand on the beach?

Don't stop walking...

This was taken in Lincoln City, Oregon today (Sunday) on our "Super Family Fun Day." It was cooooold outside; about 40 with a brisk damp breeze off the ocean. So cold it hurts. But we had a great time. More pictures to follow...

Friday, January 23, 2009

FW: Ondossagon HS 1985

Pam's note: Ahhh, memories... Here's another book all about me. This will probably explain a lot of things...
Can't wait to see your answers!
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Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!!

FORWARD with name of your High School and graduating year in the subject box.
As you send this on, don't forget to send it back to me.

1. Did you date someone from your school?
Never, I was a traitor and dated guys from rival high schools

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
nope

3. Did you car pool to school?
Sometimes car pooled (I drove) or sometimes took the bus. I lived 10 miles away from school.

4. What kind of car did you have?
1981 Honda Accord named Beatrice

5. What kind of car do you have now?
2007 Chevy HHR named Guido

6. It is Friday night...where are you now?
Work, then home

7. It is Friday night...where were you then?
Movies, cruising back and forth down main street* or having friends over to play ping pong basketball (the table was in our unfinished basement and you can score 2 pts if the ball lands in the sump pump hole), sometimes we'd rent a vcr and some movies and have everyone over (this was in 1984-85, ok?) or go to a basketball game, or at a community theatre rehearsal/show.

* Ok, Miss Dork here and her friends wore sunglasses, rolled the windows down, and blared classical music just to see who would turn their heads and stare at the losers in the tan Honda hatchback named Beatrice. (Probably the most un-cool thing to do in the most un-cool car on the road, so at least we all matched.)

8.What kind of job did you have in high school?
I worked on our dairy farm when I didn't have school or 4H stuff going on. I really didn't do a heck of a lot except drive the tractor in circles around the field at hay baling time.

9. What kind of job do you have now?
Customer service rep. Kind of the same thing, when you think about it.

10. Who was your best friend in high school?
Depends on what I was doing. My best friends during school extracurricular stuff were Kristin, Pauline, and Amy.

My friend Michelle's family owned a restaurant and she had to work every night and couldn't do a lot of extracurricular stuff, so she was my best friend on the bus, on band trips, and we hung out at each others' houses all the time. Especially every year when the Sound Of Music came on, I happened to be having dinner at her house. Ham with mashed potatoes and corn. Mmmm.

She's still one of my best friends. I'm forwarding this to her. She's probably smacking herself on the forehead and saying, "What an idiot."

11. Were you considered a flirt?
Maybe? I really don't know.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I was a Band geek (bells) and I joined Choir because I couldn't have two study halls in a row. It was boring because I memorized my part (alto) while the teacher struggled to teach the sopranos their part. I thought they were incredible stupid because they had the melody, but whatever. Only a few of us could read music, so I'm sure that made it hard for the rest of the group to know what they were supposed to do. To kill the boredom, I'd hum along with the sopranos, purposely off key. The teacher could never figure out which soprano was singing off key, so she made the whole group sing their part over and over until they got it right. (They never did, thanks to me.)

13. Were you a nerd?
YES!!! Still am one too. See above (and below) for proof.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
Surprisingly, no. I was an absolute angel throughout HS and never even had a detention. I managed to get all my shenanigans blamed on other people. Or if I was the suspect in anything, I turned on the charm and played innocent until they left me alone. School was in a really old building, (c. 1900?) and it had open stairwells from the ground floor up to the 4th floor attic. One time a couple of us theater geeks were cleaning out the costumes and we came across an old fake pearl necklace that had broken. Somehow all the pearls ended up bouncing down all four flights of stairs… I think someone was were trying to see if we could shoot them straight down between the 12" gap in the railing so they would freefall directly to the first floor.

Eventually Chrome Dome (the principal) came upstairs and demanded some answers. We just lied and told him the necklace broke and some pieces must have fallen downstairs. He seemed to buy it because we didn't get in trouble for that (or any other er… "self-appointed extracurricular activity") but I got the impression he didn't like me very much.

Hey, it's not my fault the wall between his outer office and inner office was only 8 feet high and the room had 12 foot ceilings… and the outer office was usually unattended… and he always had misc crap thrown over the wall onto his desk… right?

15. Can you sing the fight song?
Yes, still. I never understood why our teeny little school in the tippy top of Wisconsin would use "Illinois Loyalty" as their tune, though.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher?
Reino Hill. I did get sent to Chrome Dome's office for calling him Drano. To his face. Actually, I wrote it on the back of a test. Mr. Hill would wear Packers colors on game days and if they won he'd wear a Packers pin or something extra the next day.

I also really liked Mr. Hnath, who looked like Gabe Kaplan (Mr. Kotter) - Each summer Mr. Hnath would go on some huge trip across the globe and decorate his room with pictures from the trip: Easter Island, the Great Pyramid, Great Wall of China… When we didn't want his lecture on any given day, we'd ask him about the pictures and he'd spend the majority of class talking about his most recent trip.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
There was a table at the back of the cafeteria. I called it the Back-teria.

18. What was your school's full name?
Ondossagon Public School. Our cheerleaders had to spell it at basketball games. Can you pronounce it? Some of the other schools' cheerleaders struggled with the name now and then.

19. When did you graduate?
Sunday 5/26/85, 2pm.

20. What was your school mascot?
A royal blue bull with gold horns. We were the Aggies.

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
Maybe, but that's moot because the school was closed and now the campus is a horse training facility for disabled people, or something like that. There is an all-school reunion coming up that I'm hoping to attend, so while I can't go back to the school, I can go back and reunite with my conspirators.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Yesterday, my precious child said...

Ooh! I have an idea!

First, you get a bald guy...

(long pause while she thinks about it)

....umm, actually it's probably illegal.

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Link to PamHawk.com

Another important tool for your Giveaway

Posted: 21 Jan 2009 02:52 PM CST

Several weeks ago I posted about how to host a giveaway on your blog. If you're using this info, you must add this brilliant blogger to your arsenal of giveaway tools: Handmade Showcase. The link has...

Visit my blog for the full story ~

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Link to PamHawk.com

A nosy peek into bloggers' PW stats

Posted: 19 Jan 2009 02:29 PM CST

I admitted it before and I'll admit it again: I'm nosy. Not out of curiosity or boredom, but I'm nosy in the same way a mother wants to get to know her childrens' friends and their families. I want...

Visit my blog for the full story ~

: : Giveaway : :

Posted: 20 Jan 2009 02:59 AM CST

Just a little self promotion here: I'm having a giveaway at one of my other blogs, The Pass It On Plates Blog. If you have a minute, hop over there to enter. Would love to see one of my readers over...

Visit my blog for the full story ~

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Here's the latest from PamHawk.com

Link to PamHawk.com

Newsletter Tools and Techniques

Posted: 14 Jan 2009 04:55 PM CST

Last week I told you (with a great example) why newsletters are such a powerful marketing tool for your business. You saw in the example, an easy way to encourage people to opt in to your mailing...

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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

I am a Superior 1930's Wife.

Ok, I am guilty of cooking while wearing pajamas, but I do keep my husband's dresser drawers tidy!

After you take the test, leave a comment here with your results -

70

As a 1930s wife, I am
Superior

Take the test!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

The teenager just said...

The Vikings game is on TV. Rachel has been trying to follow football games and is starting to show a little interest in it. This is good, since I'm kinda football-clueless and always wished I understood what all the yelling was about.

The announcer said they would return in a minute to the Fed Ex Ball Bash, then they would show viewers the Year In Review.

The teenager (Rachel) exclaimed, "What?!"

I asked, "...what?"

She said, "A ball bash? That's gotta hurt. And a Urine Review? Yuck."

Yep, Frank. That's your kid.

Friday, January 2, 2009

More about the kitchen


The Black Hole, originally uploaded by passitonplates.

We call this part of the kitchen "The Black Hole." When we moved in, Dad had to use a saw to cut away a half inch of the countertop and he had to remove the trim from the upper cupboard so the fridge would fit in the opening. Then he stood on the countertop and pushed the fridge away from the countertop as Frank and I pushed.

The good news was that the fridge was in. The bad news is that it's not coming out.

My arms are too short to reach the upper cupboards back here, so not much is stored in them. Hence the name: The Black Hole. While mostly useless wasted space, it is a good place to stash pretzels and small appliances...

Oh, and yes, one cupboard door is missing. I took it off when I got tired of not being able to open the door more than 90 degrees. The stove vent hood prevented the door from opening any more than that, and accessing that cupboard meant sticking your head in the space to the right of the fridge, then twisting around to look into the cupboard.

Our next major purchase will be a full kitchen remodel.