Grumpy Santa's Christmas Countdown

Grumpy Santa Says:

Yeah, that will fit on your crappy little tree.
hohohoho

25 days 'til Christmas

On the Island: Dickens on the Strand

This weekend the Strand Historical Distict in Galveston will be transformed into Victorian London.
Dickens on the Strand, now in it's 32 year, has become a favorite holiday tradition.
See ya there!

Rhett found his Christmas toys

He only had to dig in 2 Walmart bags, dig out the package and tear it open to get to them.
He comes trotting down the stairs and drops this at my feet the little shit.



There were 5 in the package and I can only locate 3, so he must be hiding two of them for a future adventure.

Trimming the Tree: Desi's turn

Desi got her very own Christmas tree too!

Yes, that will be fine Daddy


I'll just wait here for Santa


Did you hear Jingle Bells?


Oh, I guess not

In Houston: Autorama

We decided to kick around H-town yesterday and ended up at the George R. Brown for the Autorama.

There were
New Trucks


And Old Trucks


along with every kind of classic car you can think of

I stupidly forgot to bring extra batteries, but did get a few pics HERE.

Houston Astros Morgan Ensberg was appearing, but we didn't wait in the long line for his autograph.
Sadly, the pic I took is blurry to share.

It was fun, and only fair after I drug John to see the Diana stuff.

Weather: It's raining....

its pouring.
One of those nice sleepy rains.....*yawn*

Beer Blogging?

Glenn Reynolds prefers Beer Blogging to Cat Blogging.
This little dig was aimed at one of our favorite places on the web,
Carvnival of Cats.
Now......
I usually only enjoy drinking beer while cat blogging ,
but thought I would give it a try.

Which, dear readers...do you prefer?

Beer blogging


or

Cat blogging


Yeah, me too

Grumpy Santa's Christmas Countdown

Grumpy Santa says:

"ahh, tell it to the Easter Bunny"

29 days 'til Christmas

Shopping: The Mall Madness Game for girls

I just saw this advertised on Saturday Morning TV.
I think I would enjoy playing this game with my young nieces and grands, but I'm not sure what values they would gain by pretending to shop with a never empty ATM near by. Maybe a budget your money and save for college game would be better.

Trimming the Tree: part 2

Where's Rhett?

Trimming the Tree Part one

Check out more cute kitties at IMAO this Sunday for the Carnival of Cats

Shopping: Black Friday

If you thought I left 15 years of retail management only to shop on Black Friday.. you were wrong.

I'm going back to bed.

The Apprentice: Hour 2

Part 2 of tonight's Apprentice double header finds the blondes + Adam once again playing the waiting game.
Alla worries who will cook her breakfast should Clay be fired.
You have to admit, that girl has her priorities straight.

The teams are selling perfume this week.
They are given a bunch a shrinkwrap to work with.
Rebecca and Randal hire people to hock the fragrance.
Adam wants to wrap up a horse-drawn carriage including the horse.
Somebody call PETA already.

Today's lesson is how to cuss out someone on the phone, really useful Trump....Thanks.

Excel found out Capital Edge was holding megaphones at Radio Shack and bought them out from under them. Man, that was harsh, I love it.
Alla is Pissed.

Both teams head out with hoochie-looking Shania Twain wrapers in hand.
Excel spreads temps and "stolen" megaphones around the city and Capital Edge Wraps their carriages, and thankfully not the horses.
Looks like a close race.

The results are in:
Capital edge loses by only 5 calls.
Someone will be fired.
Alla is pissed.

Excel's reward is to spend the day with Shania.
They enjoyed horseback riding followed by dinner with the country music star.

Meanwhile, Adam and Alla feel Felisha should be the next to go.
Felisha....(why is she only wearing a towel?).....realizes she will get the blame.

In the boardroom:
Felisha is in the hot seat, but to Adam's surprise, Alla sticks up for her.
Trump sends Alla to the suite.
After some discussion about who is better suited to go into the final four, Adam was fired.

bu-bye Adam

The Apprentice: Hour 1

The much awaited 2 hour Apprentice started out with flashbacks and deleted scenes from the beginning of the season. It was fun to watch and I can't help but wonder what else they didn't show us.

Where's Rafe?

Well, he turned his nose up at a turkey dinner.
I offered him white, dark and giblets.
Rhett went for the giblets right away.

Rhett says: YUMMY!

Meanwhile....

The guys struggled with my Christmas Palm Tree


But it turned out pretty


They put out the snowman


and the candy canes too


Ho Ho Ho

Trimming the Tree

The Boyz are helping put up our tree today

Rhett is in charge of color coding the branches



Rafe makes sure they go in the right order

We may get this done today, and we may not

See lots of blogging pets at The Friday Ark

Happy Thanksgiving

Lazy day for us today. I just put a 12 pound turkey in the oven.
That should feed 4 humans and 2 cats fairly well.
I like watching the parades, but can take or leave football.
Have a good holiday everyone.

Shopping: M & M's

Did you know M & M's come in 21 colors?
Did you know you can order them in any of those colors printed with any thing you want?
Did you know you can buy cute collectibles without going to that big store in
La Vegas?

Well now you do.

Grumpy Santa's Christmas Countdown

Grumpy Santa says:

Burp!


32 days 'til Christmas

"Ugliest dog" goes to Rainbow Bridge

Sam, the winner of an "ugiliest dog" contest 3 years in a row passed away at the age of 14.
This pampered pooch was rescued from an animal shelter 6 years ago as a foster and won the heart of his human rescuer. He was internationally famous, appearing on numerous talk shows and even had his own line of T-shirts and coffee mugs.
RIP Sam

Rainbow Bridge Poem

Shopping: Fun at Super Walmart?

I put off buying Thanksgiving food 'til today.
I was feeling too lazy to drive an extra 5 miles to Big HEB or even the extra two miles to FancySchmancy Signature Kroger. I don't shop at Don't forget your stupid Shopping Card or pay too much Randals for a variety of reasons any longer and that only leaves Super Walmart. Now I am the usually to first to slam Super Annoying Walmart, but actually had an easy trip today. Pretty much everything I needed for Thursday's annual feast was right on the main food aisle. From green bean casserole fixings to stuffing, celery and broth. I was able to load up and be out with no waiting in line even.
I opted for a fresh turkey thinking there is no time to thaw one now, and there was a nice selection of assorted sizes. I can't help but wonder what I forgot to buy, that was way too easy.

If you think Thursday is Turkey Day, you are wrong.

Today is Turkey Day, at least for this pair of lucky gobblers.
Each year a turkey slated to become turkey and gravy for White House guests receives a presidential pardon.
Normally the lucky bird is sent to live out his life in a local petting zoo, but there is a change in itinerary this year.
40 pound "Snowball" will be sent on a jumbo jet to Disneyland and be given the royal treatment as Grand Marshall in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
They are also sending along a backup bird.
I suppose that is just in case the poor thing can't take the excitement. I'm thinking they would rather be sent to the petting zoo.

Real Estate stuff

Man, talk about complicated!
I thought the hard part was getting my education completed and evaluated, but just spent about an hour on-line trying to figure out how to register just to be tested. I did manage to get the application filled out and paid for. Now I find out I need to wait at least 2 days for that to be processed before I even register for the test. I still have to find a prep- class and those are filling up fast because starting Jan. 1st the state requires 30 more hours of education and many people are trying to get liscensed (ME!) before that happens. I hope to get the the prep-class as close to the testing date as possible. I don't know why I am letting all this stress me out. I should be enjoying this first holiday season that I am not working in retail.
Maybe I should get a just holiday job at the Mall while I get this finished up.....nah...maybe not!

Update 11/23: I got a huge pdf file in my email that I can't open for some reason with all the instructions on how and where to take the test...I just can't win.

Grumpy Santa's Christmas Countdown

Grumpy Santa says:

"Back off, Fluffy.
I haven't even had my egg-nog yet."





34 Days 'til Christmas

On the Canal: Fall Foliage

Ok, so we don't really have any fall foliage here, but you could

Take a walk along the bayou.



Stop and smell the Hibiscus.


and do some bird watching.


Yup, fall is in the air

TS Gamma and Planning Ahead

It appears TS Gamma will miss Florida, though the storm has been a tough one for Honduras this morning.

Over breakfast this morning John and I discussed how we will handle a future evacuation. While we felt storm prepared Pre-Rita, when it actually came time to pack and run we left a lot of things behind we could have/should have brought along. We felt unorganized on the actual day with John hammering boards and me grabbing precious family photos off the walls and shelves. Maybe there is not an easy or perfect way to load your life up into a couple of cars, but next year we vow to do it better.

The Apprentice

Just for fun, two more personal sites.



Dr. Randal Pinkett joins the list of those candidates with a
"book forthcoming".
And
James is looking for a job.
I guess the links marked "video" and "press" are also forthcoming.

Grumpy Santa's Christmas Countdown

Grumpy Santa says:

"Beat it, fish breath!
It's not even December yet."



36 days 'til Christmas

Shopping: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

I LOVE these things!

I hate the smell of cleaning products, heck I hate cleaning, but these wierd little sponges work great. You just wet it and the magic solution inside goes to work to clean up all that hard to clean up stuff on the stove, counter, floor.....you name it.
No odor, no mess.
John was struggling with Fanastic and a rag on the stove the other day and I said, "No use the magic thingy".

Well, he got on a cleaning splurge after that, even the toaster and fridge got hit.
I laughed and asked him did he like those sponges and he said,
"well they don't hold up very good."
Oops, I forgot to tell him they are supposed to disappear as you clean.
Then you can buy more, you see....magic.

Weather: TS Gamma

Tropical Depression 27 and regained strength and been named Gamma.
TS Gamma could hit the Florida coast as early as Monday.
Unbelievable.

In the News: This will make your hair curl

A new pill has been invented to make curly hair straight and straight hair curly.

As someone who doesn't even like to take a sinus pill, I find that a little freaky.

Star Jones on The View this morning wondered how this pill knows what on which part of your body you want the hair to be straightened.

Now that's funny.

Friday Cat Blogging: The "eyes" have it

I wanted to take a picture of Rafe's pretty blue eyes.



Of course Rhett saw the camera and



wanted his picture taken too


For more camera friendly pets visit the Friday Ark.
and
Sunday's Carnival of Cats will be hosted at Scribblings.

The Apprentice

It's week nine of the 13 week job interview for our remaining 6 candidates.



The firing of two last week left the corporations lop-sided.
Clay volunteered to join up with Randal and Rebecca at Excel.
I think he figured he had worn out his welcome with Capital Edge.

I guess I should throw in that the teams got to meet Miss Universe, though I'm not sure what the point was except to remind viewers that the Trump Organization owns her too.

The task was to write and produce a song using a new talent for XM Satellite Radio.
I have to admit I was really was not into this task.
Is The Donald going to buy a radio station or something?
I just don't see the point, unless it's to give George something to talk about.
I like George.
Anyways.....
PM Rebecca quickly finds Clay difficult to manage and PM Felicia is excited about not having to manage Clay.
After all, it's all about Clay.

Well, both teams found interesting artists to work with and the songs did not sound too bad at least to me. Keep in mind, however that I listen to Barry Manilow, Madonna, and No Doubt in my car so what do I know.

The execs at the radio station are not happy with the edgey song Excel has produced and even more not happy that Randal's poster was printed with the wrong station number.
Like they were going to use it anyway....picky, picky!
After hearing opinions from station listeners on both tunes, Capital Edge is the clear winner.

The winning trio of Adam, Felicia, and Alla tour the Manhattan Skyline with Trump.
Trump tells him about all the stuff he owns and they are/act properly impressed.
Meanwhile, the losing duo of Rebecca and Randal prepare to throw Clay under the bus.
I say duo because Clay has not really been part of any team since day one.

The boardroom in Carolyn's own words was a tough one.
Mr. Trump says he must look at the history of these candidates.
With a stern slap of the table, Trump fires Clay.
Rebecca and Randal both visibly wince as though they are waiting to see if they are going home as well. Randal grabs Rebecca's bag so she can get herself and her crutches into the elevator.
Shouldn't she be in a walking cast by now?

Clay heads off to the cab wear he....well you know.

Bu-Bye Clay


Jamie at the Eye of Polphemus says Excel missed the mark.
Ann Althouse thinks Trump is a lot harder on contestants this season.
and
you can hear the featured songs at Yahoo: The Apprentice

The Texas Real Estate Commission

has approved my application to test for my license.
Now I just have to pay my fee, take a prep class and schedule the test.
Oh.....And pass the test and find a job.
But hey, one thing at time....Right?

Shopping: Photo Christmas Cards

I almost ordered cards from ShutterFly but thought $1.43 each seemed a little high, so decided to check around first.
Walmart Photos offers photo cards at a very low price along with the choice of having them mailed to your home or picking them up at your local Walmart.
I ordered a few using this last year picture of Rhett just to see the quality.



The style I chose was only 33 cents per card and I chose home delivery for $2.10.
I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Update: the cards came today, 11/22. They look nice but are printed on that slick photo paper all over and will be hard to sign. Maybe I can just sign the back or something

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Templates

I'm playing around with a couple of different looks for my blog.
I would like to have my own graphics on here at some point but
1.I'm not sure how to do replace what is there and
2. I am not feeling very creative right now.

Update: What a pain. I had to re-install the trackbacks and redo my side bar.
I guess I thought the new template would auto-absorb my stuff.
That's what I get for thinking I guess...haha.
I won't be doing that again for awhile.

Weather

Ooh, it's a little chilly today.
Time to break out the fuzzy houseshoes!


Rhett says: MINE!