journey of life

Which of the following baked goods ended up oozing all over my toaster oven?

a. pumpkin pie
b. pecan pie
c. brownies
d. chocolate chip cookies

Happy Thanksgiving! Take a guess what we are doing this week.

a. Traveling to France and sipping Beaujolais nouveau.
b. Staying at home.
c. Gallivanting through Pennsylvania Amish country.
d. Going to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Which of the following did we not hear while walking the dogs last week:

a. God is going to punish you. God hates dogs….and snakes.
b. Oh, look! Little Lassie dogs.
c. Your dogs look like attack dogs. Do they bite?
d. I am not a big dog person, but I like your dogs.

Have you heard of Sugarland? Of course, I’ve heard of Sugarland. I just didn’t know who they were, really.

Seriously. I knew they were a country band of some sort, with a lead female singer…and…well…that’s it. I couldn’t have named names or song titles. Until today.

Last night I recorded the CMA Awards in hopes that the Eagles performance would rock (it didn’t) or some neat tribute to Porter Wagoner featuring Dolly Parton (that didn’t happen either). Instead, I saw Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland perform “Stay” <- Click here to view the video.

Fortunately for me, I recorded it and could watch it over and over again. Fortunately for Matt, he wasn’t around to be tortured with me playing it over and over. But, I discovered I can watch all the Sugarland videos I want on the CMT website. In this over-processed world in which we live in (awards shows included), it is was so refreshing to hear raw talent, acoustic style. But, I wasn’t convinced this was the real deal. Yeah, they’ve got fun songs with beats, but what are they worth following. My ballot is cast and I vote “yes”. Hell, they beat Brooks & Dunn in the “Best Country Duo” category, which is quite an honor considering Brooks & Dunn have won the award 15 of the last 16 years.

[Sing along with me for TAGT this week.]

You say it’s your birthday? It’s my birthday, too, yeah! They say it’s your birthday. We’re gonna have a good time. I’m glad it’s your birthday. Happy birthday to you.

Yes, it’s my birthday this week and no, I’m not going to say how old I am, for a variety of reasons.  Who else has a birthday this week with me?

a. my brother
b. my mother
c. my grandmother
d. my grandfather

…in the sun. I’ve created a gallery showing the dogs in their favorite sunny napping spots. Our oldest dog loves to hang out by the back door to keep an eye on the squirrels that love to terrorize her. When she tires of watching the squirrels, she snoozes in the sunlight. Our youngest, a couch potato, moves the pillows as she follows the sunlight coming in from our side window. Smart girls.

And, apparently, our oldest dog isn’t as deaf as she may appear. The click of a camera shutter startles her awake.

October 31, 2007, 4:00 pm
38 - pre-made treat bags filled with candy, and stickers. And lots of extra candy, just in case.

October 31, 2007, 9:00 pm
17 - number of trick-or-treaters that came to our door

November 1, 2007, 9:00 am
40 - Kit Kat bars leftover
24 - Snickers bars leftover
20 - Reece’s cups leftover
21 - empty treat bags leftover

Because we move so often, predicting the number of trick-or-treaters is a crap shoot. However, I always buy too much candy. This year I had convinced myself we would get hoards of kids. After all, we live in a neighborhood ripe for ghosts and goblins to appear on Halloween night. Maybe the goblins need a couple more years to fully mature? Anyway, the result is a ton of candy to put in the freezer for later use.

Do the chickens have large talons? Yes, here’s Matt, decked out as Napoleon Dynamite for Halloween.

And I was Deb, Napoleon’s friend. For the past few weeks we have been quoting lines from the movies (to get in character, of course), cracking ourselves up in the process. The costumes were pretty easy to put together. Matt already had a “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt, jeans and boots and we bought the wig and glasses to complete Napoleon’s look. Deb’s outfit was thrown together from items out of my closet. Thing is, I had clothes that looked just like what Deb wears at one point in my life. We had a lot of fun pulling it all together. So, for all those loyal Take A Guess readers, the correct answer was A!