Joplin recently got a new steakhouse. One thing about Joplin, there may be quite a few chain restaurants, however, when a new restaurant opens up, everyone and their brother seem to want to go eat there.
For Christmas my uncle and his girlfriend gave us a gift certificate to go to Longhorn Steakhouse… the new steakhouse in Joplin. For Tbug’s birthday, we were going to go eat there, however the wait time was 1 hour 15 minutes. No thank you. Dad travels for work and he says that’s pretty much the wait time at any he’s been to…. Crazy! So we left and went to eat at Jim Bob’s as there was no wait that night.
Jump forward to this past Sunday, when hubby and I woke up he wanted to go to Joplin so we got up and around and headed to town. After we went everywhere he wanted, but before heading to the store, we decided to try out our gift certificate at Longhorn Steakhouse.
We got there around 11:45 and were immediately seated. By the time we left there was a huge wait.
Back when I was in college – geez that seems like forever and a year ago! – my friend Janet introduced me to McAlister’s Deli, in fact it was this McAlister’s she took me to, over on Sunshine in Springfield, MO.
I swear, they are known for their sweet tea! It’s purdy darn good too! :). In fact one time in college on my way home to see my parents I stopped in to get a sweet tea. I pulled out onto Sunshine and dumped the entire thing all over the floor board of my car. To say I wasn’t a happy camper is a bit of an understatement because I wasted some extremely gooooooood tea. Tea in the floorboard didn’t bother me, it was the “wasting of the tea” that bothered me!
Something you may or may not know about me…. I can cuss up a storm. Sad but true.
I’m trying to give it up, and you’ll be happy to know very seldom does Tbug hear me swear, or even a lot of people to be exact. In fact, when someone I’m around a lot hears me, the look on their face is rather amusing.
Maybe I’m more of an in the closet swearer… you know, like in the closet eaters… Well anyway… My goal is to quit cussing all together, although I’m not doing so hot at that, I’m giving it great effort, you know until something goes wrong….
Anyway, all that being said to tell you this little ditty.
My friend Earl really wants a Kitchen Aid mixer. Had I thought of it, I should have told her husband before Christmas, but I didn’t know he needed ideas. Oh well, that’s how luck has it sometimes :).
So on New Years I got the brilliant idea that we should put up a “Swear Jar” at Earl’s house. A lot of people cuss there, and yes if I say something most people look at me like I’ve lost my mind because again, I don’t generally swear around people.
Earl thought that was a fabulous idea. Then Pokey, rather lovely said that he might as well just buy her the bleepity bleep mixer because he’d be bleepity bleeping putting bleepity bleeping money in the bleepity bleep jar all the bleepity bleeping time, or something kind of like that.
Of course we all got a big laugh out of it.
So the next day (New Years Day) Doti placed this message on our facebook pages:
Pretty smart thinking huh? I like it!
Well then sadly… one of my 101 goals is to go an entire week without cussing. Yeah later that week I had a really rough morning getting up and out of the house headed to work and this message showed up on Earl’s facebook page…
I’m pretty sure I had enough cuss words going on in a short period of time to put a nice down payment on her Kitchen Aid and a girls trip for all of us. Luckily for hubby, he didn’t answer the phone when I called because halfway through my rant I kind of calmed down, called him, something went wrong again and off I went cussing up a storm.
Wow, my cheeks are red just typing this because I don’t want people to think badly of me. Remember I generally don’t cuss around kids or adults. Hubby of course hears me and my parents have, sad but true. My grandma has even caught a word here and there coming out of my mouth, but nothing too foul.
So a few days later… this is what happened….
You guessed it… another bad, rough start to my morning. I actually calmed down a bit faster this time… but the joke around this neck of the woods is.. Swear Jar. We’ll even say that sometimes in place of swear words. See making progress right?
I’m pleased to announce I haven’t had a rough start to my morning since then… well knock on wood. This morning is still young…
Until next time….
!@#$%@#%$&$%^&%^&^&#$%^@#$!
hahaha. And yes, I’m working on not swearing… btw, what is your take on Crap? Swear word, or not?
Earlier this year I participated in a Blog critique. It was pretty cool really. You were assigned a few blogs to read and comment on. These were the comments left about my bloggy blog blog :).
Life’s a Beach
I loved this blog. Her writing and the way she describes everything is so heartfelt. I love that she is helping other people cope through the same things just by blogging about what she is going through. Navigating her site is easy, although as in the previous blog I reviewed I see now it much be the way this blog format is designed to have so many posts on the main page. She is an uplifting, gifted writer and I am happy to have found her blog. Thank you for that. I like how she has a writer’s page as well and link to the articles she’s written. Nice and precise. Pictures are great. I think it so special that she has a gratitude page where she thanks so many people. Really wonderful blog.
Life’s a Beach
What I liked about their blog: Layout & format: I like the photo strip as a header. It tells a new reader a lot about the author before they even read a word. I like the tabs across the top – it’s easy to see what she blogs about. Navigation & functionality: I love all the social buttons, that she has a search tool and a listed blog archive. It’s super annoying to me when blogs don’t have those things. It’s good to know that if I want to link to one of her posts on my blog, I could easily find it. This blog is very easy to navigate and everything seems to be working properly. Very nice. Content: I like the blog title and “sub-title” of “I wish I was on one.” I like the writing style – funny, light and easy to relate to. Also, LOVE the “101 in 1001” tab and that she’s actually doing it and tracking it. Super cool. And the photos are great! I love a photo-heavy blog. Design: Other than being a little heavy on buttons in the sidebars, I really like how clean the design is. There aren’t a lot of design elements just for the sake of having design elements, and I like that. What I didn’t like about their blog: Layout & format: The blog is really busy with a lot of buttons and links along both sides. A little too busy for me, but when you’re lucky enough to have sponsors, I guess you have to make them happy. I wouldn’t know anything about that yet. 🙂 Navigation & functionality: Nothing to say here – love it! Content: Maybe this is the jealousy talking, but blogging every day makes for a lot of content to wade through. It’s all good stuff, but it’s sort of overwhelming. But then again, I’m easily overwhelmed by all the blog reading I want/need/have to do. Design: The “Meet Us’ tab has different fonts and text colors than the rest of the site. I think text should be limited to two fonts/colors – one for the body and one for headers, titles, tabs and other key text. (And a third color for links.) Also, the contrast between the script text and the Times New Roman is a little stark to me. She has such a pretty blog, with such pretty writing, and it deserves something prettier than Times New Roman. Yet still clean and easy to read!
My dad was traveling for work this last week and he shot me this email:
Hey Boomer:
Last night on the radio there was an ad for a method to stop snoring. From what the ad said the device is free if you call this number 1-800-516-7126. Apparently it is a “cloth” that you place under your pillow that ends snoring. Thought of you when I heard it.
Dad
I forwarded this on to hubby because shhhh don’t tell him, but he snores! And this was the response I got back:
Call it…..
I don’t have a snoring problem….. al though come to think of it I do have an issue where I get kicked in the middle of the night… do they have a solution for that??
I just about cracked up laughing. I have a video of him snoring, which I’m not going to share just yet. Use it more for blackmail material. Watch out hubby… don’t get on my bad side… and by the way I like jewelry and diamonds and flowers and food and some chocolate and………..
I’ve been seeing these around for a while, but do you know how hard it is to remember to take a photo of yourself or things you’ve done throughout the day?
So hubby and I started off the morning Tuesday reading my blog post after we ate breakfast. I woke us up early thanks to my bladder (tmi? maybe) so we went ahead and got up.
While leaving for work is when I saw this beautiful sky!
Then I had to make sure I was out of the house in time to drop a package off at the post office before heading to work. Remember I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go :).
As I was pulling away from the post office I saw this slug bug, so turned the corner, no one was coming so I stopped right in the road to shoot this photo and send a quick text and away I zoomed off to work. Kind of a perk to small town life, especially early in the morning :).
As you can see I made it to work with time to spare… sort of anyway 🙂
We had webinar’s going on at work so I sat on the phone for a lot of the day either troubleshooting people’s problems, helping them sign up, or actually participating in the webinars :).
For lunch. Oddly enough it was yummy! And it looks like a lot but really it wasn’t. My lettuce was really spread out on my plate :).
The rest of my lunch hour was spent blogging.
Then after work I met up with hubby and we headed to BFE. I’m not sure if we were in Oklahoma, Kansas or Missouri because we were right on the border of all three states.
We were headed to this pool.
So that we could go scuba diving! BTW throw your camera in the pool and let someone who doesn’t know that it is a water camera see you, they’ll think you’re nuts :).
By the time we were done and got dried off and changed it was 8:34, rainy and we were hungry.
So we headed to Hardee’s to grab dinner before heading home. Pokey showed me how you “get ketchup” I don’t think I’ll question him 🙂
I love the Frisco Burgers. Good and fattening :).
And I was so happy to report that on our way home, I’m happy to scream from the roof tops that it was raining!!!!! We like rain in these parts of the country!
I went home, jumped in the shower to wash the chlorine smell off and we crashed by like 10:30. Real exciting life I lead huh? Happy day friends…. It’s Friday!
…And see how people react 🙂 Disclaimer! Only do that if you have a waterproof camera!!
Anyway… Tuesday night hubby and I got the opportunity to do something wild and CRAZY :). haha.
We got the opportunity to “Try it Tuesday” also known as scuba diving in a heated swimming pool. Earl’s sister and brother in law are certified scuba divers and through different means, we all got invited to go try out scuba diving.
Not going to lie, I always kind of wanted to learn to Scuba Dive and I even put it on my 101 in 1001 list. Yup, I sure was confident, wasn’t I? lol.
And those aren’t called Flippers, Flipper is a dolphin, they are called fins, just so you know. And fins are extremely hard to walk in! Then add the weight of the air tank and I about fell over 4 times until I got the weight distribution thing figured out.
They had to try 3 different pair of fins on me before they gave up and gave me adjustable ones.
T beat us in the water. Now being 8 he can’t become certified yet, however he can scuba dive in a swimming pool with an instructor present. You bet he was all over that and he had a blast. Of course he’s always been a fish, you should see him when he comes over to our pool in the summer. He’s going to have a long year and a half wait time to turn 10.
Now Pokey doesn’t like water in his face. Earl wasn’t quite sure if Pokey would like it, but Pokey is also one, let him do it at his own pace and he’ll even get underwater in our pool. He was doing sooo good. In fact, Earl said he didn’t like water especially in his eyes and they got him to take his mask off, under water, put it back on and blow the water out.
oh Hai, Yup, that’s hubby and me. The pool water was a bit on the murky side, not sure why.
They wanted us to swim down along the bottom. At first I couldn’t get off the top portion of the water so they put a 2lb weight in my vest and that helped me. Then I was scraping my knees on the bottom and could actually sit on the bottom. Earl didn’t have any problem getting down there, in fact she put some air in her vest (so not the right technical name) so she wouldn’t worry about scraping her knees.
It’s Pokey and Earl 🙂
I tried smiling with all my might but those goggles refused to let me. And they aren’t goggles either… goggles are what someone wear (I forget what they told me). This is a mask.
It was a busy night and luckily we got there early. Once we were done, they took our tanks/masks/fins and gave them to other people to try out. We went and sat in the lovely hot tub to chilax.
And then the gator tried to get us… or is it a croc?
Hey again. Ignore the makeup running down my face and the hair all over the place, k?
T wanted to get back in so he went on the hunt for fins to fit him. He’s learning that I’ll stalk him until I get a picture. ha!
And Moo even got in on the action and is becoming a fish. Can’t wait to see what this summer brings for her in the pool!
I may yet get to cross a task off the list of becoming scuba certified… we’ll see. I’ll let you know 🙂
Yesterday morning as hubby and I were getting ready to head out for the day, I looked out the front door and saw the most beautiful sky. Well I grabbed my camera and I was on a mission to catch it with our windmill in the way :). And this was the photo that I captured. Hello beautiful January morning! Only thing to make it better would be the ground covered in snow.
Wait, did I really just type that… me, the girl who loves the summer heat over the winter cold. Yes. Because if you’re going to make me cold, might as well enjoy some snow to go with it :).
Hubby went ahead and got in his vehicle to pull out of the driveway and as I was walking back to the house he put it in park, got out and started walking to the house.
I asked him what he forgot and he ignored me, so I asked again and he said huh? By this time I repeated myself a third time and we were both at the front door.
His answer, “I just needed to give you my heart.” and handed me this.
p.s. Happy Birthday to my wonderful Father-in-law!!
Sunday morning when we got up, Tbug, hubby and I decided to go over to my parents to ride horses. A lovely crisp Sunday morning….
Let’s just say my feet got a little LOT cold. In fact, I was sitting on the fence for a little bit and when I got down to jump on the back of a horse I about fell because I couldn’t feel my feet. So after horses were unsaddled and put away Tbug and I went and laid on the floor with our feet next to the fire place.
When we got done riding we decided that it was lunch time and Tbug we were all hungry. After debating for a while we decided upon Outback Steakhouse. So we all loaded up and headed for Outback.
