May I Have Your Attention, PLEASE!

OK, so I tricked you with the naked sign. Sorry, but I just wanted to get your attention for an important announcement.

Grandma J is moving. Not really earth shattering news, right? But she's like actually moving as in eating, sleeping, showering, and cleaning house at a different location. By different location, she means she's left The Compound for The Spa....and there's no turning back. Of course, she's actually leaving Thursday morning because that's when the "movers" are showing up.

I wanted to post a sign, so everyone would know that I may be MIA or AWOL for a day or two. You know, service interrupted. This is the best I could do on my budget........

Just so you know, I'll be checking your blogs on my cell phone, so be careful what you say in my absence but even though it lets me type out a comment, it never publishes them.....ARGH!

Waco Late At Night.......
......the witching hour

Sometimes A-Ron's baseball tournaments start early...and here in Central Texas, early means Friday night. So the team, along with Grandma J, and the rest of the extended team heads fifty miles up the road to Waco Texas for their first two games....back to back, starting after 7 p.m. It's important to squeeze as much baseball into each day, because 7th grade boys, who start school before eight in the morning have no business slacking off before midnight.

Once again, Grandma J is amazed at the beautiful diamonds that the boys are privileged to play on. There are at least eight of them in this complex.

Scores? First game, our Texas Tribe wins 14-1. Second game, Tribe loses 10-6. No doubt the Tribe will come back strong, just like last week in Round Rock, where they took second place.

By the time the coach had his pow-wow, and everyone loaded up their vehicles, it was time for some of us to get some grub. Right about now Grandma J would like to send out a prayer petition for a more diverse menu Sunday...McNuggets doesn't agree with everyone after midnight.

McD's it was....a very busy location right off the infamous I-35. But Grandma J was encouraged by this sign......

Inside, not so much....there was one line....a very long line. This poor child was having a rough time.

Her manager was definitely a team leader wannabe. There were orders no one was claiming.

The manager kept double checking the screen trying to make sure they had the orders right. Hello.....Grandma J shouted under her breath maybe they got tired of waiting and left.

This guy? was getting very impatient waiting and started to fidget and rumble a bit.

Michelle #2 befriended him by asking him if he wanted to follow her on Facebook. Michelle #2 is such a people person.




We finally got our food...just coffee for Grandma J, and decided to sit outside. Three ball players, two moms, one sorry he came dad. How do you spell fun?

Grandma J got home at two in the morning, read one blog then hit the hay.

It's a rainy Saturday in Texas, but we are up for more games tomorrow, back in Waco. Maybe we can eat at Rudy's BBQ.

Tax Day Freebies!




Maggie Moos is giving away free ice cream cones.....we don't have a Maggie Moos, but I've been to one in CA and they have great ice cream. If you have one, stop by for your free scoop.



Cinnabon is giving away Cinnabites today! YUMMMM!





McDonald's gave me this coupon for a free chicken biscuit or sandwich with the purchase of a beverage. I checked online, and some locations are giving free Big Macs. Check your local McD's.







Subway restaurants want to give everyone who walks into a Subway on tax day a free cookie. Regular flavors include chocolate chip, chocolate chip M&M, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia and double chocolate chip.

Happy Tax Day

How About Some Humble Pie?




....or maybe I should just go ahead and confess to being over zealous when I bragged about losing 10.2 lbs. since January 5th. I was doing such a good job of Smacking Down the Big Blogger Butt before I went on vacation. Then I came back home to find out I had lost another 3.6 lbs! Yeah for me! But in reality I knew that couldn't be true because I did some over indulging in CA.


Not that I actually ate a Molten Lava Cake at Chili's, but the kids and I did the full fast food circuit.....McD's, Burger King, In N Out, Baskin Robbins, and of course IHOP.



So, I apologize for jumping the gun, and leading y'all on....thus, there's egg on my face, and I'm fessing up to cheating.

And just in case anyone out there is a chemist or super duper caloric/sugar analyst...tell me something. Because really no matter how I do the math, I can't figure out how this equates......



Three pounds of Butterscotch Squares from See's.....slowly nibbled rationed over a period of, oh, let's say one week month...minus three weeks....

....how does this three lbs cause an active woman with hypothyroid to gain 3.6 lbs?

I'm working on remedying the situation...I went to WalMart, bought some lettuce, celery, and tomatoes for tonight's salad.

Then I picked up these flowers for $5 instead of the apples with caramel dip. I am back on the wagon, and just for good measure I'm saying three Hail Mary's.

Can I get an Amen?

FRIDAY MATINEEE on Thursday

Tyler Perry's
The Family That Preys

I have to tell you, I was really torn about which movie to see today. Thanks to my readers, the vote leaned towards The Family That Preys. The degree of leaned was almost unanimous.


There was one vote for this one from Rebeckah. And one unsolicited vote for this one....thank you Hollywood, I hope to see Nick & Norah s Infinite Playlist soon.

I stopped at McDonald's for my ten piece nuggets, and packed them into my purse with my can of diet pepsi. I'm on a pauper's budget until payday due to my extravagant vacation....foregoing my usual Jason's Deli brisket of beef or pastrami sandwich. Thanks to JJ I have some movie gift certificates...

I love that dog.

I settled into my seat and was shocked that I was the only person in the theatre...which means I can laugh as loud as I want.

On to the movie.

I took a few pictures of my own...not the best quality but it was fun. Kathy Bates plays wealthy Charlotte, the matriarch of a large corporation.

Alfre Woodard plays Alice, the matriarch and hard working mother of two married daughters. These two women are best friends for over thirty years, and are torn apart by the greed and scandal that permeates their families.

Charlotte throws caution to the wind and buys a classic convertable and invites Alice to join her on a cross country junket. Reluctant at first, Alice decides to go on this Thelma and Louise type junket with a little bit of Cinderella and Charlotte's Web stuff.

In New Orleans, Charlotte throws caution to the wind and induges in a Hurricane. Alice, a non-drinking Christian, admonishes Charlotte saying she would never drink "anything named after a natural disaster".

Charlotte has the time of her life, and Alice cautously follows....wearing her cowgirl hat, but holding back against dancing at a Country Western Bar, or a strip joint.

Along the way they see the Grand Canyon

Charlotte get's baptized in a roadside pond at the insistance of Alice.

And they share tears, and fears. I don't want to say much more, but I laughed hard and cried.

But just so you know, my grandson thinks I cried when we saw The Hulk.

I give this movie......4.5 stars!!

CHAPEL DAY WITH MORE McD's AND POKEMON

Now it was Pooper's turn to take the afternoon off to go gallivanting with me. I went to the school to take him and Beauty off campus for lunch. It was Chapel Day, and the boys have to wear ties, and the girls have to wear their jumpers....at least that's what Beauty wears.

Aren't they just adorable? Pooper is a bit undone, but most of the boys have a hard time keeping their shirts tucked.

We went to McDonald's and they picked out the toy they wanted with their Happy Meals.

Then we sat inside and ate our lunch and watched TV.

After lunch, We dropped Beauty off at school and headed to Target. Originally Pooper wanted a lego Batman kit, was torn between Lego kits and Pokemon sets. I don't know, are they sets? I have never been able to understand a single thing about Pokemon....and believe me, my other grandson in Texas used to have a zillion of them, maybe he still does.

Pooper was extremely excited to find out his packet had two Dialga cards....a big one and a small one. He wanted me to take a picture of both, and of course they both look the same in the pictures.

We bought Elise a Shake Me Elmo, and she is making a blanket out of diaper wipes for him.

Tomorrow I may head to the Newport Pier and do some people watching....eh hem....CBW

YESTERDAY'S LUNCH TODAY

I was up and about very early this morning. It seemed so strange to be driving somewhere with a purpose before seven a.m., with the sun just rising over the horizon. Driving with my headlights on. It was so mainstream, so deja vu for me. Before I retired, work started at seven, which meant I was on the road by six-thirty every morning. That was the routine for years, and today, it felt strange but good.

After my appointment I went grocery shopping. For the first time in a long time, I didn't buy any junk...well no ice cream or cookies. I decided to buy the fixings for a patty melt. For some reason, I hadn't had one since leaving CA. So, I get the rye bread, Jewish Rye...because I think it has the most flavor, and it's probably kosher. I bought some frozen, pre-shaped, ground angus....and some nice big tomatoes.

So blah, blah, blah.... I get home, put stuff away, clean up the leaky liquid dish soap and start to fix my patty melt. I try to stay away from cheese because it's binding...and I'm getting used to going without it. Just don't let the California Happy Cows know, because for them? It's the Cheese!

Yeah, OK, so I can just see you guys drooling over this. The really exciting part for me is the retro diet pepsi glass that I got at a gas station in the 80's. I just recently unpacked it. And this is what the other side says:

This picture is courtesy of E-Bay. ...uh huh!

Then, since I'm already flashed back to the 80's....I hunted down this relic from 1978 for tomorrow's coffee. It's from McDonalds.

That's how it went today.....I can't help but believe that she is the one who recently put me in this retro state of mind.

Marey, the quality is poor because the picture is old, but I thought you might like this.