Regular kind of girl

Well, I've learned a valuable lesson. When inspired to eat healthier and include fiber in one's diet, don't do it all in one week.

After looking at these sweet pictures, I was inspired by the Raisin Bran cereal box. (Sorry, Mom. I wasn't inspired to give you grandbabies yet. Can't wait to meet Mariella, though!) Raisin Bran, I thought, What a great and tasty way to promote digestive health. So I had a bowl for breakfast on Sunday. And a bowl for breakfast on Monday. Monday night wasn't so much fun, digestively speaking. Lesson learned. Slow down there, little camper. Everything in moderation.

And speaking of food, I'm puzzled by my second banana bread attempt. Mind you, banana bread up north is a relatively easy, wonderful and delicious thing, saturating the air with its sweet aroma, beckoning you to have a thick slice with peanut butter. Mom's banana bread always has a dark brown crown for a crust, often with a split down the middle where you can see the light soft bread inside. But down south, the loaves rise like they should, only to sink once removed from the oven. In November or so I made two large loaves from some aging bananas-- same sweet aroma, great flavor, but canyon-like structure-- very disappointing. Maybe that's why I haven't tried again until now. I had some leftover sour cream, two aging bananas, and a little bit of extra energy, so I tried again. This time I tried to make five little mini loaves. Again, it's the Grand Canyon made of banana batter. The taste is great, and they're the usual 2.5 inches tall on the sides, but the center is all gooey and about 3/4 of an inch thick. They're dark brown on the top, so I don't think I should bake them longer, but maybe that's the problem? Being at sea level and living with ridiculous amounts of humidity really affect simple science, I'm finding. Have I told you about this? It's so interesting. Cookies get done about a minute before the minimum amount of time. Ice cubes melt much faster, even inside in air conditioning (no excuses about the heat outside). Bread grows mold in only a few days-- even preservative-laden Wonder Bread. Ground beef and fresh meats go bad in two days easy. Any explanations? Jamie, any suggestions?

Tomorrow is family night again. Last time, two weeks ago, was at Beth and Ricos and it was fantastic, except for the puffed up eye I got from dog allergies. Weirdest thing- I was never allergic to any living thing until I married Brad. Now I'm terribly allergic- sometimes more than Brad is- to cats and dogs. Rico and Beth's two dogs somehow got into my right eye and it puffed up and itched like a mother. One heavy dose of Claritin later and I was feeling fine, until I got home and was wired for a few hours. So this time we're back at our pet-free house. I planned to make Chef Boyardee pizza-- this was one of their family favorites growing up, and Brad says I make it as well as he remembers from his childhood! The family-size boxes make two jelly roll pans of very thin crust pizza, and Brad and I can easily split one pan in a sitting (verrry thin crust, only parmesan cheese, no heavy mozzarella), so figuring on eight adults, a few of whom are hearty eaters, and three kids, I made three boxes worth. I made the shells tonight since dinner's at 6:30 and I won't get home much before that. Just after I got all the dough mixed up Shelley called. Little Chase has pneumonia and they won't be coming over. I'm grateful for not getting us sick, but I'm sad to not get to see them, and now I have a boatload of pizza crusts. If you're free Friday night and want some pizza, come on over.

This weekend I'll be scratching my creative itch. Inspired by 1154 Lill, a design-your-own-purse store in Chicago, I'm going to go to the half-price-fabric sale at Joann fabrics and make me some summer purses. I've offered to make some for anyone needing a purse if they'll pay for their own fabric (about $15 or less), so if you're in need of a summer-looking bag, check out 1154 Lill and drop me a line.

On Saturday we'll be working on starting our housegroup-- small group from church. We were given the names of four couples, and then another couple was referred to us at church last Sunday. We also want to ask one other couple we know, bring the current potential population of our living room to 14 adults. We went out this week and wouldn't you know, Cost Plus World Market had floor cushions half price. Don't tell me God doesn't care about details. We bought four and now have almost enough seats. Anyone have suggestions about kids? Some of the couples have babies, some have kids up to age 6 I think. We're not exactly kid-friendly in this house, meaning we haven't kid-proofed anything. Suggestions solicited.

Oh, and one more thing. I was inducted on Tuesday into a special society-- Those Who Have Received A Speeding Ticket. I saw the unmarked Mustang up ahead-- he had just pulled someone over. I checked my speed- 47-- phew, just over the 45 limit. When I got closer he stepped into the middle of the road and waved me over. Apparently I was in a residential area and the speed limit is 30. Dur. I was on my way to the reprographics place to pick up some floorplans we were having reproduced, so I wasn't familiar with the area. Man, I just hate that. And really a warning would have done just fine. My perfect record should have meant something, dangit.

That's it for tonight. It's a late one and tomorrow I will conquer the world of builder's risk and liability insurance. It's a project I've been putting off, and I just need to do it. My boss will be out of town, so it will be quiet in the office.

Happy Thursday night to you. Sweet dreams.

Our Easter Weekend

(the bunnies in their little baskets)

We had a really great weekend with the family! Friday night was our every-other-week family night at Beth and Rico's, where Rico made enchiladas for all of us for dinner. Yum! Saturday Brad and I spent lazing around just a bit, taking care of odds and ends at home and then getting my passport taken care of. We put Maude the Toyota out at Walmart to try to catch a buyer's eye, and sure enough on Saturday night we had a legitimate bite (not counting the way low ball offers we got). The couple has a 16 year old son and Maude will be his first car. We settled on a price and they gave us a down payment with a promise for the rest of the cash to follow on Monday. (We met them last night at Walmart and got the rest of the cash. We were both near tears and we miss Maude. She was a really great car. We had dinner at Perkins-- mistake, ick--and had a little goodbye ceremony where we said things we liked about Maude. I felt some closure but I still miss her.) Below is the For Sale sign, punished by the Florida sun.


On Sunday we went to early church and then to Ralph and Chris's house where we prepared for lunch. I was in charge of dessert and wanted to make this angel food cake I'd seen in a magazine. The filling is vanilla pudding, crushed pineapple, and cool whip. It turned out ok, but I didn't really like the filling. The cake was tasty, though.

Inspiration cake from Kraft:
My cake, pre-strawberries:


Brad and I are loving being aunt and uncle and decided to hide lots of Easter eggs for the kids-- the eggs came in packs of 48, so we got two. Ninety six eggs for three kids! When everyone got there and we had eaten, Brad held a pow wow with the kids to explain the rules:


And then we let them loose!

After all the eggs were found the kids went through them. Kena ooo'ed and ahhh'ed after every egg and had us all in laughter.


So that was the weekend! I'm off of work today as I had a dentist appointment this morning. I had gone to another dentist in town and was told I needed a root canal. I went for a second opnion this morning and was told that it wasn't a problem, not even a cavity, just needs to be watched periodically. I have another filling that needs to be replaced, so they're taking me back in this afternoon. It's nice to have a few unexpected hours to myself!

Love to you all!

With flying colors

So we got our visa photos taken this week in preparation for our trip to Africa in November. I look like I'm retaining water like it's going out of style, and Brad looks like an Aryan terrorist. Yeah, we'll get through the borders with flying colors.

In other news, we are enjoying our well-working cars-- one huge load off our minds. We had a scare with the Honda this week-- the transmission was skipping and the engine light went on. We took it in and it turns out the oil was low. Instead of the oil light going on, the engine light goes on for some reason. Anyway, big ordeal avoided.

Work has been nutso this week. We've finally gotten the financing issue solved for the time being for our investors, which means we're ready to start 5 or 6 houses in the next few weeks. And we're going in for permitting on four others. So that means I'm on the phone a lot--oh, and we have two closings next week-- yeah, I'm on the phone a lot and also am assembling permit packages. I so just love my job. I am constantly learning more and more aspects of the building process and it's really exciting to me. We also have two really large projects that are strong possibilities- like 100 and 300 "units" (homes) respectively. So things may pick up even more in the next few months. I love it.

Brad picked up a new client this week who will be a weekly client-- consistency is a good thing.

This weekend we're getting my passport taken care of, will stuff Easter eggs for the kiddies for tomorrow, and will get the house cleaned up. I haven't opened mail in far too long, and I know I have a few good magazines to read as well. :)

Love to you all!

Kenneth Hazen Parker, Jr.
April 7, 2006

After courageously battling cancer for the past five weeks, Kenneth Hazen Parker, Jr., 59, passed away peacefully on April, 7, 2006, at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Born October, 11, 1946 to Mary Rossi and Kenneth Parker in Bradford, Mass., Kenny was a lifelong resident of the Bradford and Haverhill communities. He rejoiced in his family, and many of his acquaintances referred to him as the ultimate family man.

Although he enjoyed watching his sons participate in sports at Haverhill High School, the University of Maine, and Syracuse University, he was even more proud to see them earn their college degrees and develop into mature, professional young men. Kenny loved spending time with his family, taking pride in his job, and contributing to his community.

He was an active member of the Sacred Hearts Church where he served as a Eucharistic Minister and Usher.

Kenny graduated from Haverhill Trade School and Northern Essex Community College. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1969. He was the Superintendent of Plant and Facilities in Andover, a member of the Planning Board in Haverhill for 20 years, a member of the Lion's Club for 20 years (including Lion of the Year and a Melvin Jones Fellow for Humanitarian service.)

Kenny's extended family members will remember him as "Uncle Kenny," the man who provided leadership, selflessness, and warmth. He was a big man with a heart that was even larger. He also was known as a reserved, quiet man who was a natural at being a committed husband to his wife and father to his sons.

Kenny is survived by his wife of 36 years, Kathleen Horgan Parker, along with their three sons and their families, Corey and his wife Jacqueline; Brendon and his wife Sharon; and youngest son Barrett and his wife Tracy. He also was the proud grandfather of five grandchildren, Christopher, Lauren, Konrad, Bryce and Maia. He is also survived by his sister Edith Mazzaglia of Bradford, as well as several nieces and nephews.

The Parker Family will receive friends Monday, April 10, from 5-8 pm and Tuesday, April 11, from 2-4 and 7-9 pm at the H.L. Farmer and Sons Bradford Funeral Home, 210 So. Main St.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend the Funeral Mass Wednesday, April 12, at 11:00 at Sacred Hearts Church in Bradford. Entombment will follow at the Elmwood Mausoleum, Bradford.

Contributions may be made to The Kenneth Parker Memorial Scholarship Fund; c/o Haverhill Bank, 163 South Main Street, Bradford, MA 01835.

Picture updates

I owe you some pictures-- here's a quick run through. I usually put the captions underneath the pictures, a la high school newspaper experience. However, I find it confusing when I go back and read it. I'll try it the other way, with the caption on top. Let me know which is easier for you.

Here's the ^&*) car, the unbeloved Mercedes. Buh-bye. It was so pretty, but so ugly in its intentions. My sister even said she was afraid it was contagious and that she'd start having car trouble. (It just so happened that her house lost hot water today, three days after ours went out... nooney nooney. She thought our bad luck was going through the phone lines or something.)


And here's lovely Maude. She's such a great car, but it's time for her to make another family happy. Right now she's sitting out on a vacant corner lot where other people put their cars out on the weekends. Hopefully she'll sell quickly.


Here's a bad picture of the finished lockers. They look awfully green here, but they're more gray-bronze than anything else.

Last weekend we went to a little street market they have in downtown Fort Myers. They have it on the first Saturday of the month, November through April, so we hit the last one until the fall. They're supposed to have produce, etc., but just had a few tables of antique-y stuff. I picked up a few finds that just called my name.

Here are the four vintage tea-party sets that I got for $4. They are glass plates with a little indentation to hold one's teacup. Terribly cute. Brad didn't understand why I would want them, as I don't often have tea parties. But sometimes things just call my name, and at four bucks, I didn't hesitate to answer.


These are the enamel pans I got for $6. There are two mini-bread-pans inside a bigger pan, and all have lids. They actually have a little leftover whatever-was-last-cooked-in-them left in them-- mmm, crusty. They're in decent shape and terribly cute. I think one will be a little salt pan so I can sprinkle salt with my fingers over my cooking just like the Food Network people do it. Salt shakers are soooo for amateurs.


This is the cute Snoopy pillowcase Brad found for $3. Brad's a huge Peanuts fan, so this made his day. The guy who sold it to us was going to frame it, but we think it looks best on the pillow.


And this is my newest creation. I have a huge need to create and be creative, which has been a bit stunted for a very long time-- since leaving Baltimore, actually. I haven't had space or time to act on inspirations I get until now. I came across this very cute pattern on Wee Wonderfuls (look at the free downloads in the right margin) and was compelled to make a few for the nieces for Easter. I made one, figuring that if it turned out bad or was too hard to replicate I'd just keep it for myself. However, this one turned out pretty well! The front is fuzzy fleece and the back is regular fleece. Kena loves all things tactile, so I think it will be for her.

Brad has been doing a lot of work in the garage. It looks soooo neat and organized! I just love it. He put up the hanging stuff a week ago-- the yard tools and ladder, etc.


He also reorganized the pegboard. Everything has a home now and is easy to find. Oooo, ahhh.


This is my newest project. We bought this metal table last year in Chicago at the same place we bought the lockers. It's in great shape, just needs a sanding and a coat of paint. I've scrubbed it down and will get to sanding it sometime in the possibly distant future. It's getting hot nowadays, so we have to wait for cool nights or unusual days to be able to work outside.


And this is what we're going to put in our front yard eventually. When Mom was here we worked on getting a landscaping plan together for our yard. We want to put a date palm in the little area by the front door.


And we went to a garden store to look at plants and stuff-- we found this groundcovering I considered putting under the tree, in honor of my dear friend Heather. But she's not Mexican.

Finally, here's what's in our garage nowadays. I'm driving a car much like the one below-- it's not a pic of my car, but one like it. It's an '01 Honda Accord, gold color, cloth seats, cd player (my first cd-playing car!), four wheels, windows, the whole nine yards. I love it to pieces and feel so lucky to have it!


This is Brad's new baby-- actual pic of our garage. It's an '03 Volkswagen Jetta, sunroof, stickshift, exactly what Brad wanted. (You can see the side of my car there as well.)


We are thrilled and relieved to own two cars with less than 45,000 miles each on them. Praise God for his hand in all the dealings. What a relief!

One more thing I forgot-- I was inspired by a stack of very old photographs we saw at an antique-y store in downtown Fort Myers last weekend. Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, to have a weekly Write-Your-Own-Caption thing on the blog?! (Ok, so I just want to see if anyone is reading the blog, and I'm hungry to hear from my friends. But doesn't this sound mildly amusing at least?) I bought a stack of somewhat quirky photos and leave the challenge to you, dear readers, to write a fitting caption for the picture. If you don't play along, it won't be any fun, so don't be a lurker. Write me a caption, or you won't get another picture.

Here's the first installment. You might say, "Short on measuring devices, Harold decides to calculate the height of his tree based on his own height." Or, "Yummy Miracle Grow really works! Just one sip and you'll be as tall as a tree!" Or something far more clever than that. Please keep it relatively clean. It's a family show.

Puffin' the magic dragon...

It's GONE! The $%^&* car is GONE! Oh, what a drama we've been living. I'll start from last weekend.

We've been trying to sell the Mercedes like mad. Brad put it online, we have signs in the windows, you name it. We had Ralph and Chris's lawn guy scouting out buyers for us. We even put it out on vacant lots but got calls from the police to get it out or they'll ticket us. This car has been like a really bad game of hot potato, where the hot potato sticks to your hands and won't leave. Or like a nightmare where someone throws you a grenade, but for the love your hands just won't release it when you try to throw it.... you get the idea. Since we got it in August-ish, we've put nearly $4000 into maintenance. Unreal. So now that it's maintained, we're trying to sell it... huh. That does sound like a buy high, sell low kind of mistake, but trust me, one never knows when another nail will go through a tire, or a transmission will need adjusting, or air conditioning will go out... etc.

So last weekend we showed it to a nice man and his wife down in Naples. They live in Santa Barbara, California, and are down here two weeks a year. In order to save money on car rental, they want to buy a Mercedes for $6000. At that rate it will take them approximately 10 years to even out, but that's not my problem. They liked the car, and voila, on Monday night, they handed us a check. We went for pizza and celebrated like we were little kids.

And then they took it to a mechanic on Tuesday. This mechanic was some friend-of-a-friend guy who told Buyer that the thing needed a rebuilt transmission and that the head gasket was leaking. So, like only another $4000 and it would be good as new. Brad was in my office when we got that call, and I think the air pressure of Fort Myers dropped a bit as we both gasped. As we processed it together, it just felt fishy to us. And a lot like a spiritual attack. This thing has been draining us financially, has been a source of stress and striving, and wouldn't it make sense for the Enemy to throw it back in our laps. Well, in a matter of minutes we got pretty smart with our heads together. We called our mechanic who is Mercedes-certified and asked his opinion. To our relief he said that it sounded fishy, that he knows those transmissions inside and out, and that they're bulletproof. He said he could look at it but not until Thursday. We called Buyer and told him that we were not willing to just give him his money back, that it needed to be looked at by a Mercedes certified mechanic and that would be Thursday morning. He said he wanted to take it to a certified mechanic as well to eliminate bias, which was fine.

So he called on Wednesday after taking it to the Mercedes dealership. Duh, dealerships just want your money. So of course they said the transmission needed servicing and the harness that connects wires in the front to wires in the back was bad, whatever that is. They also said something else that I can't remember. So last night we just prayed and begged God to let truth come out this morning at our mechanic.

This morning Brad went down there and was there by 8 a.m. and it all went beautifully. Our mechanic, who we don't really know or anything, but who knows our car, did a thorough check up of all the concerns. He said that he didn't know where it was coming from, but he thought there was some dishonesty in the air about all these problems. He explained the wiring harness thing (there's a crack in the sheathing- no big deal) and the head gasket thing (not a problem) and said the car was safe, reliable, and mechanically sound. The Buyer agreed to it, and reversed the stop payment on his check. And we are FREE of the ^&#$%^ thing. Sorry for the swearing. We really have named it The Damn Car. The Toyota is Maude, but the Mercedes is just damned.

And so we are finally free of the hot potato. We have our money in the bank, and we're about to go spend it tomorrow. We found a great Volkswagen Jetta at the Acura dealership and spent three hours Monday night talking with a guy there. Turns out Adam is a really great salesman but not the shmoozy kind-- a 26 year old car lover who also happens to sell cars. He also told us all about his Jewish mother and the guilt trips she sends him on. It was a very entertaining night. Anyway, we're going to go buy the car for Brad tomorrow. Congratulate him!

So why the title? Puffin' the magic dragon? Yeah, I mean it in the weed kind of way. On Sunday we took the Toyota Camry (we're also trying to sell Maude) to the Walmart to leave in the parking lot. Around 3 p.m. we got two phone calls from interested people. Walmart on the weekend is like Mexico City East, so it was hard to understand them, but we told them we'd be there in 10 minutes. Well, an hour later, we had been standing in the hot parking lot but no one showed up. While we were waiting, "Willie" walked over to ask about the car. Willie seemed interested in the car, and even promised the full price, but he couldn't pay until Friday. Somehow I doubt we'll be hearing from him tomorrow. He was a little toasted, as he was smoking a joint right there in the parking lot. Unbelievable.

Later we got a call from someone whose first language is Creole so it was tough to communicate, but we met him in the parking lot and showed him the car. He offered us a way low-ball amount of money so we couldn't do business. Plus he scared the bejeezus out of us just driving around the parking lot and I doubt he had a driver's license, so I wouldn't feel comfortable handing over the title anyway. Yikes.

So yay about the Mercedes. We're thanking God for that, big time! And we're still in the midst of trying to sell Maude. We'll keep you posted.