Goodbye Steve Irwin, you'll be missed.

Hubby came into wake me up this morning. I slept in. It was drizzly and still sort of dark outside, even at 8:00AM. He sat down on the bed, shook me and said, "Steve Irwin died." My first thought was that he was talking about that nerdy kid, Steve Urkel. Still half asleep, I mumbled, "Urkel? How?" and then Hubby said, "No, The Crocodile Hunter".
I actually thought I might cry. I hardly ever cry about real things.

I began taking care of The Princess when she was 3 months old. One day, when she was about 6 months old, I was flipping through the channels on TV and landed on Steve Irwin’s show. The Princess turned her head and began watching very intently. I think it was his voice and accent that caught her attention, but nonetheless, he certainly captured her attention.

So we began watching him everyday, every time he was on the tube. And during this time, I too became a big fan of his. I cried when he cried over his dog. I flinched when the croc bit his hand. I watched when Bindi was born. I guess I lived vicariously through his adventures. He seemed like a genuine nice guy. I guess if he had to die young, this is the way he would have chosen.

I’m so confused about my decision to leave MSN's Spaces, I feel like I’m leaving my family. It makes me homesick and gives me blogger’s block. I was reading fellow Spacer's way before I began to do this and I’ve enjoyed the fact that they read my junk. One of the reasons I began blogging was to meet the people I read. I didn’t always leave a comment, but be assured that most of them I've read since day one.

On one hand, I’m afraid if I leave, they’ll forget about me. I know some won’t, but I know that some will. Out of sight, out of mind, ya know? On the other hand, visiting Spaces really takes a lot of time and when I try to comment, my computer takes forever and sometimes it even freezes up. I’m talking time-wise - from signing in to commenting – it could be anywhere between 1 and 9 minutes.
And if the space has music? Unless I really liked them, forget it.
Blogspot is sooo much easier.
Decisions, decisions…

On a different note, I got called for jury duty again. This will be the 3rd time since I’ve lived here. I’ve never actually served on a jury, but I still got paid for showing up. What is it, $12.00 a day? Maybe it’s $6.00. I can’t remember. Unless I get picked, it’s another way to waste a day. If I do get picked, I don’t know who’ll watch The Princess after school and on her days out.
Her other grandmother lives closer to her than I do. However, she only wants The Princess when she needs a prop to show off her grandparental devotion.
I did an entry on her and her new husband titled The Enigmas. I’ve never met anyone (other than her sister) like this woman. If I did nothing but post entries about her and her husband, I would have at least one new one every day. It would take me weeks just to explain the backstory.

You know, there are words and acronyms that just get on my nerves. A.k.a is one. Slated is another. And when a person says "irregardless", I have to bite my tongue. It’s not a word. Don’t go using big words if you can’t do it right.

I love going to second hand stores. It’s too bad that other people are catching on to this. Goodwill used to be the best place to find great bargains and unique items at very good prices. Alas, since the general public has caught on, they’ve gone up on their prices.
Yesterday, I bought a brand new Sak purse for $3.00, a watercolor workbook for .50 and an oval cheval mirror (without the stand) for $5.00.
I plan on using it for the mirror over the new bathroom vanity. The ‘new’ vanity is actually a very old oak 3-drawer dresser. I got it at Goodwill about 3 years ago for $8.00. At the time, I didn’t know what I would do with it, but I knew I’d find a place for it. We are still in the process of sanding, staining and all that. Somebody had painted it a yucky, pinky brown. I think sometimes it’s perfectly ok to paint wood. But in this case, I think it was a mistake.

I have many pieces of odds and ends type furniture and other stuff that I’ve collected over the years. Some I’ve used and some still await their marching orders. Hubby just refinished a very small Queen Anne style table (I bought it so long ago that I can’t remember where or when I got it.) that I’m going to place next to the tub. It’ll be a nice place for a candle and other pretties.
Poor Hubby – when he built his workshop/garage/building, he thought it would be for his stuff. It does have his car (a ’66 Chevelle that’s in pieces at the moment) and his tools, but it also has chairs, dressers, tables, china, trunks and anything else I find.
Did I ever mention that I’m a packrat? I know why, I just don’t want to change all that much, I guess.
The guy that gave us Lola also gave us a claw foot bathtub. It’s not one of the slipper types though, darn it. We were going to use it in the remodeling, but the seating/standing area is not really big enough for two people, so someday we will do something else with it.

I mentioned that I washed Hubby’s cell phone, remember? We’ve been with the same phone carrier for more than 10 years and happy with them – but when we went to get Hubby’s new phone, their store wanted $149.99 for the phone for an upgrade w/ a 2-year contract. They did offer an instant $50.00 off and a mail-in rebate of $50.00 making the final price $49.99 - not to mention the upgrade fee and all that. What a rip-off. I think I’ll email them, like I did with Wal-Mart and voice my displeasure. Since Hubby wasn’t sure which phone he wanted, we decided to go eat lunch and think about it.
We stopped in at Wal-Mart and they offered the same phone he was looking at for $0.00 with a 2-year contract. Wal-Mart just keeps racking up points in my book.

Ok, enough boring stuff. Here’s the fun stuff:

An elderly Texas gentleman was stopped by a game warden in East Texas recently with two ice chests full of fish, leaving a river that was well known for its fishing.

The game warden asked the gentleman, "Do you have a license to catch those fish?"

"Naw sir, I ain't got no license. These here are my petfish."
"Pet fish?"
"Yep. Every night I ‘bout sundown, I take dese fish down to the river and let 'em swim 'round for a while. Then I whistle and they jump right back into th’ ice chest and I take 'em home."
"That's a bunch of BS! Fish can't do that!"
The elderly man looked at the game warden for a moment and then said,"Tis the truth. I'll show you."
"Okay, I've GOT to see this!"
The old guy poured the fish into the river and stood and waited.
After several minutes, the game warden turned to him and said,"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"When are you going to call them back?"
"Call who back?"
"The FISH!"
"What fish?"

If you'd like to read more of my rambles, head on over to my MSN Space, No Small Parts.