Holy Pumpkins!

As I've been a bad, bad blogger (DVR and the Wii are sucking my life away!), I've decided to post some photos of the wonderful pumpkins we all carved Sunday night. First we enjoyed Chicken Enchilada Soup and then Troy's delicious cherry dessert thingee. Then watched Paul fall asleep SITTING UP on the couch before ordering him to bed. Then we carved. And carved. And carved some more. I myself did four and had wrist pains the next day. Then everyone left and I separated and cleaned a shit-ton of pumpkin seeds. Now, enjoy the shiny, pretty pumpkin pictures!

Celebration!

I was very privileged to attend the celebration of my Uncle Bruce's life! What a wonderful tribute!! There was plenty of laughter and beer drinking that I think he would have approved.

Uncle Bruce had over 300 people attend his memorial and what a testimony to the very full life he led. He truly never met a stranger and he while he will be missed, I couldn't have asked for a more joyful celebration of the life he led while he was with us on this planet.

I hope that everyone can learn from his example and truly love your fellow person. Thank you Unc, for allowing me to be one of the many people you cared for! I am so grateful to have been in your life!

Love,

Belinda

Family Reunion "Pro" Photos

My favorite Uncle...

So, here we are in August and it's been an alternately wonderful and sad summer so far. While we had a blast at the big family reunion trip, we were all worried about our beloved uncle who's gotten progressively worse.

Cancer not only kills, but it destroys the essence of the person it is killing. It takes their dignity and their strength. But as long as we are left on this earth, our memories stand strong. While there is pain, there is also love. We can bask in the remembrance of those that have gone before us, secure in our knowledge that we let them know how very important they were to us. Every moment, every breath we have, is for those people who have placed a finger on our hearts. And my uncle is one of those.

Love you, my favorite Uncle. May the way be easy for you.

I will continue to try to better this world and make it a place where cancer cannot have another parent, spouse, uncle, aunt, grandparent, cousin, brother, sister or friend. Take my hair, take my blood, take my money. But stop taking people I love.

Love,

Belinda

And a month+ passes

I am an awful blogger. And it's even the good season, when interesting and fun things are happening in the garden.

We've enjoyed zucchini, cucumbers (although these are prematurely dying off), tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkin flowers and green beans already.

I go out there and am amazed at how HUGE everything is. The zucchini are under attack and I haven't been able to kill all those bastard squash bugs, but here's to hoping they won't get them all.

I have no pictures to share because I am truly that lazy. So many things have happened since I blogged last. Let's do the reader's digest version of the Potters.

1) Mom and Dad visited, we ate and shopped. Dad tried to fix my laptop power cord, which I think worked, but since my logic board is fried (I think), it doesn't really matter. Good try though Dad!

2) Potter bought a Rat Truck thingee. Go read his blog if you actually give a damn.

3) Garden is massive and huge. Grass is still a problem. Bugs are definitely an issue.

4) We're kicking Time Warner Cable to the curb (we hope). DishNetwork has a helluva deal and that's who we're hoping will slap a dish on our house and give me entertainment. I will FINALLY have a DVR. Welcome to 2009.

5) I bought a new iMac. It will kick ass in every way. I also got a free iPod Touch. I am so geeked out about it, I actually had a dream on Saturday night. In the dream, I was uploading movies. My life is quite sad really.

6) Speaking of dreams, Beth will be so proud, but I totally had a dream about zombies last night.

7) Relay for Life is coming up on the 24th! I have to walk. Probably would help me out if I hadn't totally just slammed some fried green tomatoes for dinner tonight.

8) Potter is still on overnights. I am still watching/doing whatever I want. Heh.

9) The 4th of July was un-eventful although we went to a friend's house and watched boys with their fireworks and played a game.

10) Life continues on.

Love,

Belinda

No worries!

I survived my ride-a-long!! It was in reality kinda boring. These poor guys get called out on a lot of goofy stuff. The most scary thing was racing to a call. The HUGE amount of multi-tasking that was going on was CRAZY! He would be hitting siren sounds, typing into a computer, driving at 80 mph and trying not to hit the idiots that wouldn't get over for him. My life flashed before my eyes several times.

We had a nice chat along the way and he's a fairly new officer (been on the force for 2 yrs) so that was interesting. Although I felt super old. We went on 6 calls in the 3 hours I did the ride-a-long. All were goofy. Nothing too exciting, although that's ok by me. The officer kept apologizing for boring me, but I was all "Hey as long as I leave here with no gunshot wounds, it was a good night." 

Apparently, they do ride-a-longs all the time, you just have to apply for it. We met up with another officer who had a civilian with him too, so it's pretty common. 

Unfortunately, I have no great stories to entertain you with. Just a suggestion, don't call the cops for something goofy. 

Belinda

Nervous much?

All of us in the Trace and DNA sections are supposed to do ride-a-longs with officers. As mine is tomorrow night (what sort of genius does theirs on a FRIDAY night???), I'm a smidgeon nervous. Hopefully we won't see any crazy action but I just wanted to tell everyone hey and remember that I love you all. Just in case, ya' know.

Heh.

Belinda

Promised Pics

Here's more pics of the pub crawl. Drunky-mcDrunks.

Me and the Potter! Every once in a while, I'm amazed at how tall he is. Or how short I am.

What I love about this picture is the scary dude in the mustached t-shirt lurking in the back. So, for those of you not in the know, this is Nikki and Tom. I'll let you guess which is which. Heh.

A much more dignified photo than the "gang-sign" one in the previous post. Potter, me and Brenda. Paul and Brenda are holding the goblets bought by Nikki and CJ at the flea market. I think they cost all of a $1.50 but were a huge hit with most of the ladies in our group.

The mustached wonder women of KC!!

There's my stache. I like mine to be all turny-up and stuff. I'm amazed Paul is seen with us in public.

Hope you enjoyed all the mustaches!

Belinda

Couple of pics

I swiped some pictures from Nikki's blog. She tells the story better than I do so check that out.

Our team names were "Janet Reno Dance Party" and "Go Fuck Yourself Cancer." Both are brilliant (and TOTALLY AWESOME) I have to say.

This would be AFTER mass consumption of lots and lots of beer. We looking pretty good for being so lit up! I have only the vaguest memory of this photo, so I have no idea what the hell we were doing. But it's funny. So, there ya go.

The big after-party scene. Free booze for ALL. This would be were I actually went from being just a little bit buzzed to really pretty hammered.

The first bar. And the fake mustaches. Mine didn't last because it was itching my nose. I have no idea how boys wear these things. Brenda and Nikki kept their's all day, but Ashley and I lost ours pretty quickly. Although I did get asked by a random guy about free mustache rides. Heh. People are funny.

In the car on the way there. Brenda and I were all happy and smiley. Although Brenda may be confused and thinkin' she's a gangsta.

This is Hungry. He followed us EVERYWHERE. Stalker. Check out Nikki's blog for more of Hungry's mad-cap adventures and more pictures. I will try to get the rest of Nikki's pictures from her this week and put more up for your enjoyment!

Belinda

Happier Toby!

Mom requested a video showing a happier Toby and I aim to please!

Belinda

I survived!!

Pictures will be forthcoming of the big event yesterday! It was a lot of fun and we had a CRAZZZY group of people on our team. Somehow, miraculously, we never lost anyone of the 23 people. 5 bars and lots of beer!! Paul slowed down and ended up not drinking for the last forever and so was able to drive us drunkards home. Although we do have Nikki's car here, heh. 

It was a great time and we would definitely  do it again!! I didn't take my camera to the actual event because Nikki had hers, so I will try to steal those pics and post for your enjoyment. And they are funny. As a teaser, imagine the ladies of the group in fake mustaches. I don't know WHY we were wearing them, but they got a lot of compliments and I even had a strange guy ask me about free mustache rides. Good times, people, good times.

Belinda

Who needs a liver?

A very large group of about 23 of us are going to be participating in the pub crawl for cancer event here in KC tomorrow. The money goes to lots of groups usually, but this year is getting given to Breast Cancer Research which makes it extra special for me! We have two teams and we hit five bars and drink 4 pitchers of Coors Light at each bar. Then afterwards, we get totally open bar for about three hours.

Don't worry, we have DDs set up and ready to go! It's been going on here in KC for several years and has started to spread over the US. If you would like more information, click THIS! 

Nothing like drinking for a good cause! You get all silly drunk AND feel good about yourself!!

Wish us luck and I'll try to post some pics afterwards!

Belinda

The saddest dog on the planet

Workin' Hard on the Weekend

The weekend turned out pretty nice, so we worked our asses off.

First up. Move a shit-ton of gravel. We have this little side driveway thing that has been pretty much a cess-pool of mud since we moved in. Paul got 8 tons of gravel and then had to move it.

He moved it with that little ol' bucket too, since I was dominating the wheelbarrow. Such a gentleman. Notice he's smiling. It's because I'm his wife and I'm silly and make him laugh. Mostly.


That there is what a shit-ton of 8 tons of gravel looks like. It took a while to move it around. Although I was just moving a measly ton of dirt, so I can't take any credit for this at all.


The greatest journeys start with a single step. AND the greatest gravel driveways start with a single bucket of rock. God DAMN, I am a poet.



Here'd be my shit-ton of dirt. But it looks all little and wussy compared to the 8 tons of gravel. That Potter. Always upstaging me.


Day 2 of the weekend and another ton of dirt later...we got the beds all full of dirt and planted with stuff.


Potter "tilled". The quotes are overkill, but the ground was in no way ready to be tilled. I had great desperation that I would never get a garden going with the rain and we just decided to go for it, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!! So, here's a watermelon plant for your enjoyment.


I did something different and ordered pepper and tomato plants from online store. The box was pretty trashed when it came on Friday and 75% of the plants were destroyed. Here's the lone survivors! Peppers, woohoo. This is Gypsy and Fat N' Sassy peppers. I love that name. Fat N' Sassy. Yes, I am.


Zucchini, three different varieties. These seedlings have been slowly strangling to death in the house and in their little plugs. They are so not looking okay. We'll see if any survive. Don't worry, a whole 'nother bed was seeded with fresh zucchini seeds.

My five rows of love. Yay for our tiller!! Thanks Santa :)

Them be potato plants growing in that thar tub!

My new two toys. In the front is the cucumber trellis, that tall ol' big thing in the rear area is the bean tower. The idea of what I dream they will look like are below.

Cukes all happy and off the ground!

Imagine that lady is me and I'm plucking thousands, nay, MILLIONS, of beans off my tower! I have a rich fantasy life. Or a really, really boring one.

And in case you were gnawing at your fingers in wonder and anticipation about my destroyed plants, a phone call today to Jung's has gotten me a whole new package of the plants that were destroyed! Well, only if they only have the varieties I originally ordered. I put a lot of research into these choices. They are not just willy-nilly decisions. If they don't have what I ordered, I get my money back. But here's to hoping that they do and round 2 of shipping works better than round 1. Cuz that was just sad.

Belinda