Its been over TEN DAYS since I last put up a post and im SORRY! The holidays have been crazy and our home computer is on the fritz...I think we got a virus...ok...I know we have a virus and Ive been minimizing the warnings now for a few months...we never put any sort of protection on the computer when we got it.

So now all I do is minimize the ten warnings that pop up every seventeen seconds and bitch and moan about how "The companies who MAKE the protection are probably the same companies who are creating the viruses!" all the while doing nothing about it.

So now Im going to have to take the computer into some place where they can clean it out and hopefully I dont lose the 400+ pictures I have saved to it.

Ill try and do it this week - I dont know how long this stuff takes and my parents computer is SLOOOOOWWW....so slow Im not even going to try and post pictures..

But once I can - I PROMISE I will have pictures of the Chili Cook-Off which was a GIANT success

Awards went to the following:
Burnt Pot: (Worst Chili) Kenny Hamric
Firemans Award: Curt MacDonald
Miss Congenialty: (liked by all, not hot enough to win) Catie Litner
1st Runner up: Tony Schenke
Grand Champion: Paul Rettig

Ill have pictures soon.

Also On the to do list - pictures and recaps of Thanksgiving - the Latest Rubi Girls show last night, and the big college friends get together at Stacy & Casey's this weekend. Should be a good time.

Stetsons right. This blog is sucking major ass right now and Ive been lazy/uninspired/discouraged by the computer malfunction....

OK - I PROMISE I will get the computer fixed this week.

I promise to post 10-15 pictures by Friday and have some really great recaps of everything.

for now though just accept my apology for this waste of 45 seconds of your life!!

:)

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

"A friend of mine" who felt her long distance bill was quite high considering her husband hardly EVER used the phone, went out after work today to explore new phone services. After finding a place that would sufficiently cut her $120 monthly bill to $85.00 with about the same service (and $120 in new phones) she went home to spring the idea on her husband.

He thought saving $35 bucks a month was a no brainer and said go for it.

"This girl" called her current provider, and after a less than angry "I think im going to switch provider" discussion with the customer service rep, walked away one happy camper.

Here's where "this girl" got a little embarassed:

The previous plan gave 500 minutes to both phones.

There was a .40 per min overage charge. Minutes were NOT shared.

What this means, is, say, oh, for instance, When "this girl" went 165 minutes over her 500...she was charged an extra $66 on her most recent bill.

What makes this even more sickening though, is that "her husband"......only used 14 minutes...for the entire month.

So, in the end, for sticking around, "they" now pay $60.00 for 700 SHARED MINUTES, service stays the same, AND WE GOT TWO NEW PHONES SHIPPING OUT THIS WEEK.

I guess I could have looked at this as a, why would "they" stay after being bent over for so long, but geez...its a lot of work to switch providers...

So let this be a lesson to you all...if you're scratching your head about your cellular service, ESPECIALLY if you've gone past your 2 or 3 year contract, LOOK INTO IT. Get another quote and call to cancel, tell them why, and see how they respond.

Sprint fair & flexible...look into it.

The question of the day is a fun one, and I would really like some participation and thought put into this one, people!

The other day, I was sitting there, looking at the shredder in our office. I would venture to say that the thing is about as old as I am...(pushing thirty!) and it has a really funny model name, "The Watergate"....ha!

I started thinking about how that shredder was a lot like me - for starters, its MUCH bigger and heavier than the newer models, but its been going strong with very little maintence. Its able to handle a lot more than younger models (staples, paperclips & 10 sheets) and although the exterior isnt the most appealing, and its got a few parts that are in need of repair, it never quits!

whoa! Is this my blog or a high school creative writing assignment???
Geez!!

So thats your question of the day - What machine do you most resemble and WHY???

I want some creative answers and Kat, for crying out loud, POST your comment....dont email it to me!!!

wink, wink.

Fellow blog reader & family friend Linda Raterman - Reader of the month!



Unfortunately, this was the only picture I had with Linda in it!! there she is, in the red shirt, at the Nelsons fourth of July party. In her absence, I almost put up a picture of her husband in a compromising position with the Nelson family dog, but luckly I foudn this one - dont worry, we'll get a better one at the wedding!

Linda read about the plight of my broken camera and offered me her old one! How awesome is that!

Now everyone tell Linda Thank You!

:) Happy Wednesday!

Celebrating the Bachelorette!
Here's pretty much most of the bridesmaids and then some...
Oh yeah...I got wrecked last night and was violently ill this morning (I think it was the Taco Bell) and its about 6p now and john and I are still laying around recovering in Dayton. It was a fun night though & Im really only functional enough to post these pics...if you were there and you have a story to share in the comments...knock yo self out!

*****PARENTAL

ADVISORY*******
The following pictures depict bachelorette party antics and "dirty Novelty items" that were purchased for the event...keep the comments on these pics to yourself!!! ;)

Ok - I said I wasnt going to write anything but this was sort of funny...On the way to the shower, mom was harassing me about this hair she could see on my chin and was freaking out and try to get me to pluck it. I tried. I thought I got it and then we get to the bar and this guy walks by and goes, "Hey, Look at her beard." So I start getting paranoid because I only thought there was just ONE little straggler, but apparently, now I had a beard. But then I realized he was saying BEER and not BEARD....as you will now see why...

Ok, then Mo shook up her beer and well, lets just say she got it a little excited...FANTASTIC photography work by mom...Leanne & I watch in amazement.
Me, Meridith & mom....although I dont know If I was supposed to be in this shot.

The girl wanted to bowl, and bowling she got - Here, Meredith & her foot fetish are happlily satisfied!! Had a great time girls! It was great to meet all of you finally! :)

The Donny Fortener Funny Chronicles....

So my dad is still keeping things entertaining around here:

John had to work this morning so I came up to Dayton last night and went out to eat with my parents.

Dad & I shared a pitcher of Amber Bock (did I spell that right?) & when we finished it the waitress asked if we wanted another and dad simply replied:

"No thanks, Ill wet the bed."

what?

The yesterday, I was in the kitchen and when I reached into the bowl of candy corn, I noticed that the brown "heels" of all the candy corns were left. SOMEONE was biting off the yellow & orange tips and putting the chocolate "heels" BACK IN THE BOWL!!!!

Dads response? "Well! I dont like the chocolate ones!"

ok!

We're off to meredith's shower & Bachelorette party tonight so stay tuned!

I dont know if any of you have noticed, but up at the top of this page, you can click on "Next blog" and just hop through random others thoughts. Often its in a foreign language, or some random subject that someone posted to get hits on an ad to make money. But tonight before I was about to log off, I was blog surfing and came across this woman's blog.
As much as I love to write...I dont like to read, but this was an exception! I even posted a comment that I was adding her to my favorites - she has a thoughtful perception and a great way of expressing it:

http://awkwardpose.blogspot.com/

***UPDATE!!! If you already read this on Thursday...read again my friend...I got inspired after stacys "Fight Club" tribute to scrapbooking and created a photo to accompany....

Ok, maybe you dont think these email exchanges between stacy and I are funny, but I beg to differ...case in point -


From Stacy: (to Alisa and I ....sorry stacy, "ALISA AND ME")

So... Fort and I want to know how your scrapbooking is >coming along?> What we really want to know is, are you down with it? I >mean, can you> hang for an ENTIRE scrapbooking weekend? > > We can start with something small... a scrapmania friday >at> archivers.... just to test the waters > > Your thoughts? >

From Me:

Im picturing alisa crouched and scared sitting at a >table, looking up at> stacy and I standing there as dark figures, arms >crossed, heads cocked> and eyes squinted judgingly, tapping our feet, using one >hand to tap> wiggle scissors into the other....> > > > "are you IN ALISA? Or are you OUT?"

From Alisa:

I know, this is now raised to cult like status. if I have to branded in the intitation, I am out!

From Me:

Seriously alisa, its really not that big of a ceremony....Stacy and I will cut you with a pair wiggle shears, drip the blood on to a plate where we will then take dye-cut fluorescent cut outs and sprinkle themonto the plate, glued to the blood forever

From Stacy:

and obide by these other rules:

1. You will need to maintain possession of wiggle scissors at all times. if any member of the cincinnati scraptastiks (me and fort) asks for your wiggle scissors, you need to present them.

2. You must wear a designated cropping t-shirt for 2 weeks. No washing.

From Me:

If any member of the Cincinnati Scraptastiks knocks the scissors from your hands you have to come over to our houses and do yard work.

From Stacy:

1st RULE: You do not talk about Cincinnati Scraptaskics.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about Cincinnati Scraptaskics.
3rd RULE: If someone runs out of paper or breaks their wiggle scissors, scrapbook weekend is over.
4th RULE: Only two croppers to a table.
5th RULE: One scrapbook at a time.
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes, but slippers and ballcaps required.
7th RULE: Scrapbook weekends will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at Scrapbook Mountain, you HAVE to crop.


_______
Ok - what I find especially funny about this exchange is that technically, it was directed to Alisa, who, for all we know, still at this moment has not even read the emails that followed....as you can see, it was simply Stacy and I trying to entertain one another. Alisa's involvement in this whole thing becomes nothing more than a prop in our daily routine. Its sad, actually.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!
IM sorry - Im not going to reward you with another question of the day until I get TEN responses on that last question...TEN!!! C'mon people - even the ones I dont know...just answer it anonomously...I dont care. Give me that warm fuzzy for the weekend and Ill reward you with LOTS of good pictures from Merediths bachelorette party. I hear they've got LOTS of phallic-related adornments for her Saturday night...and you dont want to miss out on that, do you?

DO YOU???? wink wink.

I thought this was funny...you might not, but I did.

So last thursday, before scrapbook mountain, I needed to drive around town and take pictures....roughly a two hour errand for ONE scrapbook page...

One of my scrapbook pages was of three houses that we DIDNT get...I had planned on getting the pictures WEEKS ago and never did. Then my camera broke. So thursday after work, I drove up to Stacys, picked up her camera, drove to Springfield Twp to take a picture of the homes, then back to Reading for that old one we looked at first, then all the way back to Deer Park for the last shot. They needed to be printed that night since we were leaving right after work the next day.

So I hit up the walgreens in Deer Park. My intention was to just print the three shots I needed and go like I can at CVS, but I was unaware that Walgreens SUCKS and even if you plug in the digital memory card there, you still have to wait an HOUR. Since Jmac was working 2nd shift that week, I just decided to walk down the little strip mall and pick up some chinese food for dinner.

So im dining alone. Its unusual after being together for almost five years! So anyway, Im eating, and in walks Elizabeth (Paulythebastards gf & fellow rugby teammate) She's all, "What the hell are you doing in here? dont you live in Finneytown now?" So I explained to her in excrutiating detail how I ending up there, all about scrapbook mtn, and spfld twp, reading, deer park, how walgreens sucks, how this chinese place is good and that I really liked the spicy chicken....blah blah blah...and she made this comment like, "um, yeah, its ok if you miss this area...you had to come back and visit, didnt you" (Our old apartment was in Blue Ash, just north of the Deer Park/Pleasant Ridge/silverton area..) and we laughed...ha ha...

Now tonight, I had my volleyball game in Pleasant Ridge and I had the times all f**ked up so I got there at 7:30....and my game wasnt till 9:30!! Oops...

So i dont live REALLY far from P-Ridge, but I decided to just go up to the SIlverton Cafe a few blocks up and have a sprite and a salad while I waited for my game. I couldnt get a signal in the place, but when I left, I have this voicemail:

"um, yeah. THis is Elizabeth. I was just driving by the Silverton cafe and saw you walking in by yourself...What is going on? are you still making lone visits to our part of town?"...or something to that effect.

Too funny, I called her back and she told me she recognized my "walk" and I was like, "I have a walk?" and she was like, "Yeah"

So then we kept talking for a little bit but I wasnt really paying attention because she said she regcognized my "walk" and all I could think about was how cool it was that I had a recognizable "walk"...

Then we lost all three games like we usually do (but they're good close matches I SWEAR) and then after the game we chit-chatted all that LAME pep-talk bullshit where you say things like,

"you know, I really rather play a good, hard game and LOSE then be playing in that C league with those morons"

things like that...but it would be nice to win every once in awhile.

Oh yeah. I want to apologize for what will probably go down as the WORST question of the day yesterday. I had a brain fart. Nothing was sounding good. But Ive got it now.

On the way home from the aCROPolis atop scrapbook mountain, stacy and I revealed to each other our obsessions with specific KINDS of pens, as well as our favorite Combination of favorite pen and favorite thing to write on.

We both agreed that the slickness of a glitter gel pen on black paper is about the sexiest way to write, with a good solid med. point pen with a sufficient amount of dark ink on a PAD of paper coming in a close second...no paper just on hard wood. The imprint needs to leave a mark on at least three sheets underneath. Gotta write hard.

On that note, the WORST thing to write with is a dull #2 pencil on wide ruled paper. How juvenile.

Thursday question of the day:

What are YOUR anal retentive writing utensil demands????

Sorry...no pics till Sunday! You'll have to just read for now!

More pictures from the "a-CROP-olis"....
Not much has been going on this week. just recovering I guess...Nick and Meredith are both having their bachelorette & bachelor parties this weekend so John and I are going up to dayton for that. Pam is promising to replace my camera on Friday, so until then, Ill just add a few more pics from scrapbook mtn...(and yes, Stetson, I did start scrapbooking a page for "Scrapbook Weekend" before I even had the pictures developed....I HAD FINISHED EVERY THING I HAD PLANNED ON DOING!!...LEAVE ME ALONE!
Heres a spread I did for our florida vacation & the rubi girl performance...

This picture goes to show just how extreme ones "workstation" can get...you had these over the top & insanely organized people...(I took this while everyone was at lunch...I thought it would be easier than asking her, "can I take a picture of your station? You've truly taken this one step too far...)....although the girl inside me that got brainwashed at scrapbook mountian is jealous...
...because my station wasnt nearly as organized.
We haven't had a question of the day lately...

How to you truly feel about this new scrapbooking craze? (Stacy is embarassed to tell some people)...

SCRAPBOOK MOUNTAIN CONQURED!!!
Golden Eagle Christan Center in Palestine, Ohio - Used for all sorts of retreats..

Talk about time well spent! Stacy & I took off from Cincinnati around 5 and it took us just over an hour to get up there. We had about 45 minutes to start getting things set up and then we headed to dinner. Then it was back to the scraptastic CROP-A-RAMA!!! Just about everyone in our group was up until about 3 AM Friday night ....scrapped all day Saturday and went to bed around 1. Woke up today (Sunday) and had breakfast - worked for a few more hours and then left after lunch. Everyone had some great pages & definitely wanted to come back in February.

Here, Aunt Jan works on her "Power Layout" ...Yes, I realize how funny this sounds, as it seems to indicate some sort of Olympic level gymnastics move, but its really not. (A "Power Layout" is working on multiple pages at a time to incresase productivity and yes, Im totally queer for knowing this.)

Jami, Stacy & I "Scootch" in for a shot at breakfast thias morning. IM ashamed that we once made fun of Teague for all the OU garb...can you guess where we all went to school? geez...

Stacy and I hold up some of our work in progress...good stuff stacy. I like what youve done with that purple piece of paper.
Stacy enjoys her own little piece of heaven...

My Aunts Jean, Jan & Judy...and our bunkmates...an interesting science experiment was in progress this weekend...how come stacy can hear Jean snoring WITH earplugs, yet could never wake up to me pounding on her door in college when I wanted to use her computer to check email?? Interesting!!!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!! Here are some of the pages we completed over the weekend. I finished 40 pages with just a few more to add over the rest of the year.

Stacy's homage to all things EMMA!!!!

A few of my pages...Halloween & Some benefit pics & the Komen walk page..


Email me if you have any good pics & Ill post them!

HAPPY MONDAY!!!

Until the cosmic void drops a new camera on my lap, im going to have to dig up old pictures to keep you all entertained...

Just about FORTY-FIVE hours Till scrapbook weekend!!

Ok - I dug up some pictures from kelts.com - just some random rugby shots from tours and other random events...

Toronto 2002 - John and I had JUST Sstarted dating, and we went to Toronto with the Kelts - En route to Canada we stop at a BK and kenny had some fun with the bottom half of a Shaquille O'Neal cut out...
Once we got to Toronto our bus broke down and the entire group had to ride the subway & walk a mile or so to get to the pitch..apparently Mike Mers couldnt wait to get ready and just decided to go for it on the streets...I was amused as you can see.

NYC 2003 - Of course we had to fit a visit to the Today Show inbetween Rugby Games! Very Cool - got to touch Reuben Studdard!! (American Idol winner 2003)
Sorry Folks! I wish I had more to share.

Last weekend when we were up at teh Lake I was reading one of my MIL's Country Home magazines and got inspired by this spread they had on re-doing an unfinished basement. They just painted the wood slab ceiling and I couldnt belive how great it looked. So I decided that I was going to do the same - its all I coudl think about on the way home and then I got home and went into the basement and im like, uh, this sucks, the ceiling is huge.

(Yes, after my recent journal discovery, Im making "Uh, this sucks" my new catchphrase.)

So its taken me a week but now im back on the paint the ceiling thing. Its gonna take a while and I also got discouraged when I was told that since its bare wood, I have to use PRIMER first. Well, Im lazy and Im going to look for a tinted primer and just try to have it done with...the thought of painting a ceiing with a BRUSH (cant use a roller) just kills me. But I did like 7 loads of laundry in the last three days and the basement is finally getting a little more tidy.

Forts Basement To Do LIst:

Paint Celiing

Change flooring - probably a nicer updated looking vinyl flooring. Id prefer berber carpet, but we dont have the cheese for that...

ADD A BAR! If you know of cheap way to add a sizeable bar or a nice Irish Pub thats lookign to get rid of a solid oak bar, please give us a heads up.

Eventually we want to get some walls up down there but for now, we 're just going to focus on the ceiling and eventually the flooring. Anyone with basement fixing up tips please please post them in teh comments.

Im sorry this post was LAME!! I have to confess that Ive been totally CONSUMED with our trip to "Scrapbook Mountain" as Jami called it...one way or another Ill have some good shots up of that on Sunday! This will probably be my last post until then so please try to contain yourself as you await this weekends update.

I dont know If I cant wait two days...uh, this sucks.