Tackle it Tuesday - 4/24/07

I don't have any pictures. But my tackle, that I did at about 1 am, was cleaning the microwave.

I buy TV dinners for when I don't feel like cooking. Evan does all the microwave cooking. He is the Microwave Master.

Yesterday I decided to microwave a burrito. In gladware.

I read the directions. They said, for a frozen burrito, cook time was 4-6 minutes. So I put it in there for 6 minutes because whenever I cook stuff for the shortest amount of time it's not hot enough.

So I was sitting down watching Charmed (or something) when the microwave beeped. I figured it was about time for a commercial, so I decided to wait to go get the burrito.

I started smelling smoke.

So I got up and went to the microwave. The kitchen had some smoke. When I opened the microwave, 150 cubic feet of smoke poured out. I slammed it shut. Then I got a potholder and got the gladware out of the microwave and put it in the sink of soapy water.

It was all melted. LOL. Funny how I always tell Evan to "be sure to use a ceramic plate" when he's microwave cooking, but I forget.

I had to open the back door and turn on the fan above the stove to try and get the smoke out.

Anyway.

When Evan got home from school, he smelled the burnt smell. He asked what happened.

Me - I burned a burrito
He - How long did you put it in there for?
Me - 6 minutes.
He - 6 MINUTES?!?! You're supposed to put it on 60 seconds for one burrito
Me - But it was frozen
He - Obviously not that frozen
Me - Shut up, Mr. Smarty Pants.

The inside of the microwave looked coffee colored. So last night/this morning while I was up I bleached the heck out of it and used some baking soda & stuff. I didn't want to use BAM! or anything more 'toxic' because we heat food in there, you know?

Now it's lightly tea colored.

I tried boiling some lemon water in there because it still smells like smoke. It didn't work. I think I'll have to park some baking soda in there, when it's not in use, until the smell is gone.

But that is my Tackle it story for this Tuesday.

*Update* I've found this site that had suggestions for removing microwave smells. The lemon didn't work for me, but I'm off to try vinegar. I'll let you know if it works.

*Update 2* The vinegar didn't work. It got a little cleaner, (the sponge I was using to wipe it out kept getting dirty), but the smell is still there. So, since I don't have any newspaper (follow the link above...), I've stuffed it with crumpled printer paper and I'll leave it in there overnight. I don't think it will work completely as the paper is less porous than newspaper, butI hope that at least helps!!! I might have to go buy a paper tomorrow, LOL.

Tackle it Tuesday - Part 2

I did it.

It was hard, LOL.

I didn't get to sleep until almost 10 this morning. Well, YESTERDAY, technically. But then I woke up every effing hour to go to the bathroom. Then Mommy Dearest came over today at 12 to take Evan out to lunch. (He has Spring Break this week).

Then I couldn't get back to sleep.

So I finished about half the book. Fell asleep. Started having the weirdest dream that Evan had come home and I couldn't answer him. In the dream, I was SCREAMING in my head but all that came out was "mmmmmm" (Sometimes people with Multiple Sclerosis have something that's like paralysis where they can't react visually/audibly to the people around them. I forget what it's called. It usually happens when they get overheated. I've had so many times when I'm TRYING to speak or move and nothing happens. And of course that gets you upset, which doesn't help. But that's a story for another day.) Anyway, when I finally got my eyes open, it had only been about 10 minutes, LOL.

I got up, ate breakfast, and read some more.

Then my mother brought The Boy back at 7pm and stayed until 8.... *sigh* (Totally cutting into my reading time, irked me to no end. I was a woman on a mission!! I thought he was going to spend the night he was gone for so long...)

Whatever.

I LOVED the book. It's a sequel (of sorts) to Odd Thomas.

Odd Thomas, the main character's name, is a youngish (I think he's in his 20s) guy who sees dead people. One of the ghosts that he sees regularly is Elvis.

Anywhoo, one day the father of his BFF (Danny) shows up in his bedroom. So Odd assumes that he's dead (the father, not the BFF). He goes to the Danny's house, finds the father dead and his BFF missing and he sets out on a mission to find him. His BFF has that "Brittle Bone" condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta. So of course Odd's worried about him.

That's where he meets Datura. She is described as "... a syphilitic suicide bomber with mad cow disease." HA! I think that's an accurate description of Datura. She's a crazy woman who thinks she's an Invincible Supernatural Adept (or something). Seriously sociopathic. More insane than Jeffrey Dahmer.

One of the things about Dean Koontz (and Stephen King) that I love is that he can totally gross me out in one sentence, and then have me laughing out loud the next.

At one point, Odd is hiding from the bad guys in a storm drain. He starts imagining really horrible ghosties/apparitions are coming for him. He writes:

"...my imagination spins into vortexes darker than any yours has ever visited.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you've got a fabulously dark, twisted, and perhaps even deeply sick imagination. I'm not trying to devalue the dementedness of your imagination and do not mean to diminish your pride in it."

LOL! Because, really, I was thinking "He doesn't know how twisted my mind is..." and then I read that. :-)

Thank you, Mr. Koontz, for not trying to diminish the pride I have in my sick and twisted imagination, LMAO!

I have to give this book 5 out of 5 stars because:
1. I can
2. Dean Koontz is a great thriller writer
3. There's a great M. Night Shyamalan "twist" at the end of the book that I wasn't expecting AT ALL. :-)

I recommend this book to thriller/mystery lovers whole heartedly.

Now I'm off to go visit the other Tackle it Tuesday participants.

Tackle it Tuesday - 4/17/07

Today, I'm going to read an entire book.

Before I had this computer, I went to the library every Monday and checked out 7 books. I'd read a book a day, and then return them and check new ones out the next Monday.

It took me since December to read "Inkheart". I'm ashamed, LOL. I've read whole Harry Potter books (which are HUGE) in 12 hours.

So, I WILL NOT get back on this computer until I finish an entire book.

Last year sometime, I got several books from Amazon. I think I've read 2 of them. One was The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (probably why I finished it the day after I got it). And something else.

I still have about 5 I haven't read.

So I'm going to read Forever Odd by Dean Koontz.

I'll visit all the other Tackle it Tuesday blogs after I'm done.

See you later. :-)

Our day out

So of course I didn't get to sleep until 5 am on Tuesday. I woke up at 9 am.

I didn't want to go out. But I never want to go out. So I woke Evan up and said "Let's go!"

First we went to the local "fishing pond". It was pretty. It would have been prettier without all the broken down trailers all around the property.

Click the pictures to get a larger view.



After that, I was going to take Evan to the park (in a neighboring state) to get some "Action" shots. But then on the highway I saw signs for Russell Cave.

I've lived in this area for almost 20 years and I've never been there. I knew it was there, but I thought it was just something for spelunkers. I didn't know there was an actual museum (about the size of any fast food restaurant) and a tour and everything.

So on a whim, I decided to go there.

When we got there, I told Evan to sit on the wall so I could snap a picture. I was clicking and clicking with no response. I said "I hope the batteries aren't dead!" He was thinking "Oh no, no more pictures." when I got the bright idea to make sure I'd turned the power on and I got this pic, LOL.



Then we went inside.

I feel I need to say something about Evan's fake smiles here. I don't LIKE taking pictures that are posed because he has this weird fake smile. After a disastrous yearbook picture in the 7th grade, I spent an entire summer standing in front of the mirror with my eyes closed, smiling, and then looking to make sure the smile was ok. Any picture you see of me without gums showing means it's a fake picture. My fake smile is AWESOME! Anyway, here's a fake smile. The picture is good, he's still cute, but I KNOW it's a fake smile so it bothers me. I can only get a real smile if I make him laugh right before I snap the picture. I'm not that funny to him anymore, LOL.



Anywhoo, here are pics of the "museum". (There are a lot of museums here that are so small that you could spit in any direction and hit a wall...but I guess that's Southerners for you.)






Then the tour guide, Antoine, asked us if we were going to take the tour.

Me - *visions of trying to get my walker up a hill and over rocks and fallen branches and then falling down the mountain and breaking my leg* No. I'm not walking anywhere!
Ant - We have wheelchairs. And there's a walkway all along the tour.
Me - *to Evan* Are you going to push me? (I can never get the hang of those manual wheelchairs. I always go in circles, or drifting to the right. My left side is weak!!!)
E - Yeah, sure! (He would have agreed to anything at that point)

So Antoine goes to get the wheelchair. He brought back a big ass thing that would have had room for both me and Evan, LOL.

So Evan is trying to get me out the door, and he keeps banging the wheelchair into the door jamb over and over.

Me - Let me stand up and get outside, then we can fold the wheelchair and bring it out and I can get back in it.
Ant - The door is wide enough. I'll just push you.

So we start along the tour. Antoine keeps up a running dialogue monologue. At one point he said there used to be bears in Alabama, and we still have mountain lions or some shit.

Ant - But we won't see any of them on the tour, they're nocturnal.
Me - Good!



It was so peaceful out there! I always had a fantasy of living in a cabin in the mountains with a little stream running alongside.





On the inside of the cave, there were some cheesy mannequins.



But Antoine did provide a STEADY flow of information about the Mississippian, Woodland and Archaic eras. VERY STEADY.

While we were there, a father who had just started homeschooling his son showed up and started asking a lot of questions.

That gave me time to take some more nature pics, LOL.






On the way back, Antoine said he was in college and didn't know if he wanted to be a history teacher or a dental hygenist. (He has the BIGGEST gap I've ever seen IRL. Maybe that's why his interest in teeth is so out of the blue?)

I told him he should be a history teacher since it was obvious to me that it was a subject about which he was passionate.

Ant - Yeah, I think kids today have the wrong idea about history. I think if I taught HS history blah blah etc.

So I took a picture of Antoine.

He did the stereotypical black guy thing that I totally don't understand. They always try to look gangsta in their pictures. But then maybe he was hiding his gap? I don't know. I do know that the picture does not represent the man who pushed me all around on the tour.


(We are going to send Antoine a copy of the picture along with a thank you note. The tour really was educational!)

On the way out, I stopped and picked up an arrowhead for Evan. Since the tour was free I was feeling generous.

When Evan went to pay, Antoine said "Don't worry about it, man. I got it. In fact, here's another one!"



On the drive back, Evan said that it was the best day he'd had in a long time. (Awwwwwww).

We still had to do some grocery shopping though.

I decided to go to Cracker Barrel first, and then Wal-mart.

I think that story deserves it's own post at some other time because Blogger has been driving me up the effing wall and I need to publish this before it freaks out again.

Plus I'm hungry.

Tackle it Tuesday

Well, today I AM going to go out and take some new pictures of Evan.

When he was a baby, I always had the camera at the ready. Once he started going to school and having pictures taken every other week (or so it seems) I only took pictures on special occasions.

I spent a lot of money on this digital camera!!! I need to put it to good use. Not to mention the big scrapbook that my mother gave me 11 years ago that I haven't even touched....

So, we ARE going out on Tuesday to take some pictures.

The Boy has already decided what he's going to wear! Do you think he's excited? ;-p

__________

4:54 PM

Well, we did it! We left at 10 this morning and we're just getting back. We are BOTH so tired that we just want to crash, so I'll tell you about it and post all the pictures tomorrow. But here's one. :-)