Say what????

I can now have coffee anytime???

  Company says caffeine pants can help you lose weight

In my pants....

While I dance...

On a walk...

While I talk...

I think I need to try these....

Because we all know I love my coffee...

And I need to lose weight, too...

Peyton PHlaCe Antics...

One of the newest projects at Peyton PHlaCe is named after a car...

A very fast car....

A very efficient car...

So efficient that....

When one takes off they all take off...

The CF Core Team members each received a radio controlled model of this fast, effcient car...

And during a meeting to bring upper management up to speed on project status...

The project manager decided to drive one of the model cars very fast across the boardroom table....

Every other model car in the building took off flying, too...

Off of their owner's desk....

Across the office....



Apparently they are all on the same frequency....
 
And owners like to keep the remote on so they are ready for action whenever they need a quick diversion....
 
And diversion they got....
 
And now Ms. Admin is wondering why she has received requests from 15 different team leads for krazy glue to be stocked in the supply cabinet...

I misunderstood....

I thought Saturday WAS rapture....


Not just the beginning...

Some say Saturday is Judgment Day

I will most likely be here for a few more months...


I am pretty damn sure I will not rise into the heavens...


Not that I am a bad person...


Just not that good of one....


For example  quit going to church a few years back....


I added up the daily attendance forced on me by my parents growing up....


And then I added in the Sundays I attended for a few years after I moved out of the house....
 
And I figure I have attended enough to cover the Sunday thing for the rest of my life and probably the lives of my three kids as well....


But I have digressed again...


Being under the misconception that Saturday was the end of the world rather than just the beginning of the end...


I went through my life's savings this past week...


Not that there was a lot to go through, but still....


Now what am I to do????


Maybe I should head out for some coffee....

Shut the Effin Lights....

G-Man is home for the summer...


Which means every time I come home from anywhere....


And every time I wake up in the morning...


Or in the middle of the night because I am old and do not sleep through the night much anymore....


Every frickin' light in the house is on....


I decided it was time for a Mom-Son heart to heart....


And since the only time we seem to see each other is late at night when I am ready for bed and he is heading out to  spend time with friends....


I caught him the other night....


And took him to dinner...


Which was more like an early morning breakfast...


Because 12:01 is morning....


And you know what kind of food places are open at that hour....


Yeah, bad idea....


I did not sleep so good after...


Not that I sleep good anyway...


But back to the light business....


I learned something during that breakfast...


About why G-Man has a need to flip on every light as he goes through the house...


 And not turn them off as he leaves a room...


My G-Man is deathly afraid of spiders....


Which I sort of knew....


The last time I heard him crash against the shower doors and thought he had someone in there with him that he was .....


Anyway...


He came out of the shower and mentioned that I might want to be careful of the huge spider that was in there that he could not kill...


Probably because he was too busy trying to get away from it...


This little itsy bitsy spider...


Really....


Itsy bitsy....


But back to the lights....


As G-Man informed me at breakfast...


I, as a Mom, should know that spiders are nocturnal...


They like to crawl and jump around and do other weird things in the dark...


But...


If the lights are on, they will stay hidden...


And all the lights need to be on...


In every room....


Otherwise they will all go to the dark rooms....


And when you need to go into a dark room to get something you left there....


When you turn on that light...


They will all feel the need to scatter...


And at least some of them will most likely scatter toward you....


So the lights are staying on for now...


Otherwise G-Man will go to Dad's to live for the summer....


Yeah, right...


Dad's house has ghosts...


Little boy ghosts...


And old woman ghosts....

Playing 2 Win...

Last week I posted a little about my current coffee addiction...


In case you missed it, I have been cafe crawling lately....


Internet cafe crawling, that is....


Where they offer coffee and internet services....


I pay them $20 and they allow me to spend time using their Internet connection...


Browsing the web and checking my email...


And updating my blog...


And chatting with my Facebook friends...


And checking my OKCupid profile...


And playing sweepstakes games....


And hopefully winning my $20 back before I leave...


I discovered these little cafes in mid-February...


By mid-April I had paid out $300 that I did not win back...


$300 for services I can get at home for free...


At first I looked at it as entertainment/grocery money....


Most places offer free dinners...


Pretty good dinners, too...


But still...


I do not normally budget $150 a month for my own groceries/entertainment....


Just because I do not have it to budget...


But I really like cafe crawling and gaming...


It IS addicting....


And I AM addicted....


I am not ashamed to admit it....


There are worse addictions....


 So I figured I needed a way to control this addiction...


I have devised a plan....


And believe it or not, it is actually working...


It is quite simple....


I realized that I was losing so much money because I would alway play down my winnings hoping to win even bigger....


And then when I lost all my winnings, I would put a few dollars more in the machine...


Odds are I am going to hit paydirt sometime....


Well I cannot afford to wait for the odds to bend my way...


So I decided I would not allow myself to lose more than $20 week...


I gave myself $40 to start...


And I started cafe crawling....


I take only my ID and $20 into each cafe...


I play my $20 and cash out my winnings...


I do not play my winnings...


At least not all of them....


I sometimes leave the cafe with my $20, sometimes less, sometimes more....


When I no longer have $20 left of my $40 (that is, when I have lost the whole $20) I am done for the week....


That has happened only once since I started this strategy 4 weeks ago....


And I did not lose that week, because I start over with only $40 each day....


Daily winnings are put aside and do not count toward the next day's winnings...

I call this my Play to Win strategy...

You can call me Charlie...


Yes, I am winning...


Because that is the only way I can afford to feed my addiction...


Admittedly, I do not win big...


Not like my cafe buddy who seems to have the winning touch wherever we go...


But I do ok...


In fact, as of earlier this week, I have made back the $300 I lost before I started my P2W strategy...


Right now, I am averaging about $75 per week in winnings...


If this keeps up, I may actually be able to afford to feed G-Man while he is home this summer...

The slamming of the door....

As you may recall, the recently promoted so now he is my boss's boss at Peyton PHlaCe is not someone I have a whole lot of respect for...


Not sure that above statement has any grammatical accuracy whatsoever, but I am past caring right now, so if you have a problem with it, you are welcome to move onto another more grammatically correct blog...


But I digress....


Boss's boss now has to replace his former position...


Which is a senior manager position....


However, when he first took that position, it was a lowly manager position...


So he has posted it as such....


He started out that way, so should everyone else....


Except that the position actually grew into a senior management position over the years...


It did not just happen to get a new title because he was so good at what he did....


By the time he left it, the number of people he managed actually evolved into groups of people, with lowly managers leading them...


Supposedly the candidate that he favors for this senior management position that he has posted as a lowly management position has called him on it....


So the position is on hold....


Or so he says....


Apparently, a the posted position has been un-posted and a new senior management position has been posted....


A fact which the non-favored candidates stumbled upon by accident...


And are now wondering if they need to reapply...


Or if they will even be considered qualified for a senior position....


But not my worry....


I did not apply for the position...


I just try to stay out of his way...


Which is a lil tough sometimes...


Literally....


The other day as I was coming back into the area of the office where my desk is located....


As I am reaching out to open the door at the top of the stairs...


The door comes flying open ....


Nearly hitting me in the face...


I had to jump back to avoid the hit...


Yeah , it was SSOB...


No apologies...


No slowing down...


I am on a mission, he says, as he flies down the stairs...


Maybe I should not have moved back so fast...


Would a flattened face be worth a few weeks away from the office?

I'm addicted.....

I admit that I have an addicting personality....


I also claim to be able to control most of my addictions....


For example, I love to smoke...


Once I started I was finding quite a few excuses to smoke....


To be doing something with my hands....


To stay awake while driving home at night...


To get an extra 15-minute break at work....


But smoking is an expensive habit....


So I have curbed it....


Now I have committed myself to only smoke when I am drinking with smoker friends who are providing the smokes....


That is working out pretty well so far....


Tho it seems some of my smoker friends are trying the same tactic....


No  one seems to have cigs on them anymore....


Then there's my sex and street drug addictions....


I think I have those under control, too...


It is hard to tell at times....


But I digress...


In February, a friend asked me to go visit a nearby casino with her...


I took just a few bucks that I could afford to lose....


In case I found that I liked to gamble uncontrollably....


Which I do....


Well, did....


Now I have it under control....


Really.....


Have you heard about the new cyber cafes?


They offer a great cup of coffee...


And provide an outlet for my newest addiction....


Which I have under control...


Really...


I'll explain how....


A lil later...


Right now, I am headed out to find a good cup of coffee.

Bad Car Week

Having recently invested over $1400 in car maintenance, I was not happy to see my Check Engine light light....

I was even less happy that the POS was idling rough and stalling once it was warmed up....

Yeah....

I have seen these problems before....

Usually the CO light goes off by itself after a few tanks of gas....

Not this time...

And once the weather outside settles down, idling smooths....

Usually...

Not so this time...

What the weather outside has to do with the smoothness of the idling process is beyond me...

But then, I am no mechanic....

Not by a long shot....

I was planning on waiting a week or so to get all of this stuff fixed or at least looked at...

Because by then G-Man will have moved home from college for the summer....

And I would be able to share his car while mine was being diagnosed/fixed....

Well, best laid plans...

I got a call from G-Man that his car was causing problems when he was trying to shift into/out of gear....

He had been using the parking brake to keep it in Park...

But now he could not get it into any gear....

And yes, he did check to make sure there was transmission fluid in the reservoir...

So he had it towed...

And apparently it is not worth fixing...

But he can make $250 if he scraps it...

Cool....

We can use that money to get my POS fixed....

So we can share my POS...

Until it needs scrapping...

I'll drink to that....

It's not like I really need a reason to drink...


My wreck of a life is full of them...


But more on that later....


Right now I thought I would share this with you...


Because I do not want any of you suffering from coronary heart disease unnecessarily....


Drink up; alcohol can be good for your heart


It was in the news....


It must be true...

Waking up to a One Cup Connection...

Awhile back I posted about the health benefits of coffee....

And this morning as I was going to get that first cup that I needed so bad, I realized that I have some easy blog fodder that I meant to post last week...

A reader (yes, I actually have a few of those left) saw my 600th post and sent me a link to her company's page....

One Cup Connection...

A place to buy coffee and coffee machines....

Keurig brewers to be more precise....

My reader asked me to promote her site and she sent me some text to use "as is" if I want....

And since I have not had the chance to actually drink that first cup of coffee this morning...

I want...

So....

Without further ado....

Do any of you use a Keurig brewer?

Did you know that "keurig" is actually derived from the Dutch word for excellence? (I have a special place in my heart for the Dutch, well one Dutchman, anyway. ~Phillipia)

One Cup Connection carries some of the most popular one cup coffee machines and has a wide selection of K-Cups. (I'm a D-cup myself, but that post is for another time. ~Phillipia)

You can find the sales and deals on the specials page.

Don’t forget to swing by One Cup Connection's Facebook page for their latest promotions!

I am thinking that Island Coconut flavor looks pretty good...

Happy Easter!

Apart from commemorating the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, Easter gives us a chance to connect with friends and relatives and spend some quality time with our kids.


I like to concentrate on connecting with family and friends...


And spending time with my three wonderful kids and their significant others....


I think I commemorated enough when I was growing up...


But however you choose to celebrate....


Have a wonderful Easter Sunday!


And a sincere thanks to all the chocolate bunnies who are sacrificing their lives for us today...

Just because I do not call....

Damn it has been a trying week....


But now the trial has ended....


And the verdict is in....


My brothers have disowned me...


Again....


Yes, again....


My brothers have chosen to not talk to each other and/or me and/or my parents for long stretches so many times over the years that I have lost track of who they were talking to when....


I am not quite sure how it started this time....


But apparently I started it....


A little background....


Brother1 and I have never been really close ...


Brother2 and I shared a close bond for a couple years during college....


Our parents were very strict catholic parents....


And to hear my brothers talk, we were abused so bad  - not physically, but emotionally - that they had to move away and disown family to get past it....


And I am still not past it...


According to them.....


Because I have not moved away...


Or disowned my parents....


Or both....


I have my head in the sand....


According to them....


And that is why my life is a wreck....


According to them...

Brother2 has been on a "let's get back together and act like family (but without the parents 'cuz they are the reason we are estranged) kick" for the past couple of years...

I have not been playing along the way he would like...

So back to exactly what I did this time....


Brother1 had a health scare last year and shared that info with Brother2....


Brother1 asked Brother2 to not share this info with me....his right....


Except Brother2 did share with me and told me not to tell my parents....


As a Mom, that was really hard for me....


Everytime I talked to my Mom over the next few weeks, I hurt for her....


When Brother1 decided to tell me what he was going through (via email) I emailed back that I was sorry he was going through this and I was praying for him....


And I then told my Mom because he did not say not to....


And when I told him I told Mom he made it clear he did not want to hear from her....


Like I control what she does.... 


But I did keep her posted how he was doing...because she asked...


And when she asked if I thought it would be ok for her to call, I told her she might want to wait for him to tell her....  


Because I kept in touch with Brother1 and his wife via email and asked how tests and treatment were going and let him know I was praying for him. (BTW, he came through with a clean bill of health and his active life was back to normal within a few months)....


I could have called....


But my cell phone service from home sucks...as you know if you follow me....


And I no longer have a landline...


Which is fine by me....because I would much rather email and facebook chat ...


I really rarely call anyone....


Even my Mom...email and chat is good enough for her...


And phone conversations with my brothers are always stressful....


Because I never know when they will start whining about/bashing our past and our parents and my relationship with my parents...


And because it is rude to hang up on them but I can choose not to read parts of emails that bash me or my parents....


Anyway, over the next few months, I noticed that Brother2 was contacting me less than usual...


And then recently I realized Brother2's wife was no longer my friend on FB (Brothers are not on FB)....


She was still on FB, I did check that...


So I replied to one of her forwarded chain emails with some chit chat and also that I noticed that we were no longer FB friends ....I told her I was not sure if she defriended me or if I accidentally defriended her....if I did I did not mean to, but I would leave it up to her to friend request....


She answered my other chit-chat, but made no mention of FB and did not send a new friend request...


So, yeah, I figured something was up....


And I asked myself how much I cared...


Again, I have enough stress in my life...


In fact, I was in the ER with G-Man till 3:30 AM Tuesday morning...


Because he hurt his back again...


So I was realllly tired and cranky when I got to work Tuesday morning...


And my first missed email was from Brother2...


Getting stuff off his chest....


Telling me how he lost respect for me because I did not call my brother last summer...


And he knows it is because Mom said I shouldn't and he is hurt that I keep letting her come between us....


Uh, NEWSFLASH.....


I quit doing what my parents said about the time I moved out of their house 20 some years ago...


But for some reason, my brothers refuse to believe that....


Every time I react to something in a way they think is not right, they insist that it is my parents' doing.


And because I will not admit that....


They think it is their duty to beat it into me (with words) how Mom ruined our lives growing up and how I continue to let her ruin my life (which is a wreck, as you know)....


I love my brothers, but my life has enough stress in it....


And I choose not to blame my past or my  parents or even  my ex for my shortcomings....


Or rehash where it all went wrong over and over and over again.....


I choose to have a civil relationship with my parents....


Because they are my parents and I do love them...


Even tho I do not agree with everything they do....


I choose to believe that my parents were doing what they thought was right when they were raising us...


It is not like we were beaten daily or locked in closets or ....


And I chose not to believe my mom is some evil person with evil intent in everything she does....


No matter how hard my brothers try to convince me otherwise...


WTF....


Just let it go is all I ask....


Brothers, you do not have to talk to your parents....your choice...


I do not try to change that....


I choose to talk them....my choice...


If we cannot drop this line of conversation and find other things to talk about, I guess then we are done....


Because I choose not to rehash and not to be bashed via phone or email....


My choice...


Well for Brother2 anyway...


Brother1 made it clear this week that he did not want to hear from me again and will be relegating any future emails from me to the trash...


Ok.....


And Brother2 says he will not initiate contact with me again..


But...


When I choose to realize what is wrong with my life and want to talk with him I can do so...


By phone...


Not email...


Because it is obvious I share everything with Mom...


OK.....


Well, we all know how much I love to make phone calls....

Just thought I should share....

While I cannot take credit for the studies...


I can share the findings...

Recent studies revealed that the kind of man a woman finds attractive can differ...

Depending on the time of month....
For example...

If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged, masculine features.

However....

If she is in the other time of month...

Or....and especially....

If she is menopausal...

She tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth...

And an axe lodged in his forehead...

While he is on fire....

No further studies are expected.

Just for the record....

I concur with these findings....

It has been a busy week...

Worked Sunday  - Thursday Morning...


Then took off for a girls' weekend:)


With...


A lil Wine....


A lot of cheese....


Some shrimp pizza....


Canoli...


Hot Tub Time....


Lots of movies....


Sight seeing...


Picking out houses whose owners we intended to befriend...


Looking for "the one" ....


He may be hot....


He may be rich.....


He is single....


He may be old and/or ugly and rich....


He may travel a lot for business....


We just want to live in his house...

Sitting in the hot tub on the deck....
Overlooking the lake....
Taking in the view....

He drives a big truck...


With a lot of power...


So much power we could not seem to catch up with him...


Or any of his friends....


WTF, slow down...


We just want to get to know ya...