Location? Check!

As part of my fundraising efforts for the MS150 Bike Ride, I decided to do a silent auction. J, having owned a motorcycle for 5 or so years and having several friends that are bikers, suggested having it at Plant City's Bike Fest. Plant City does this the first Saturday of every month. They usually have a bike contest, different vendors and a band. The people watching is amazing too!

So anyway, J had this brillant idea to have it at Plant City's Bike Fest. I got the okay from the chamber president today and I can officially start collection auction items. I've never planned a silent auction before, but I'm very excited to be doing this. I'm hoping this will help to raise lots of money for the MS Society!

I may or may not have an addiction...

to yarn. Is it my fault I could get such a good deal on them today? After all, they come in such pretty colors and such soft textures. Who could resist? And it is all my fault since I wasn't paying enough attention to what I had availible and I ran out of the blue I was using right smack in the middle of a section on J's blanket. So of course, since I had coupons for Joanne, I had to go get more blue today. It bothered me that I didn't pay attention and I ran out.

So off to Joanne I went, around 11 this morning. Another problem that I had, I didn't keep the wrapping for the last batch I bought, so I couldn't remember what brand it was. Although I was fairly certain it was Caron since I remember it being in clear plastic (not all yarns are in plastic, most usually have paper around the middle with the name and other information), I knew it was the pound size and I frequently see those in Caron brand. If it was, Joann no longer carries that. But I was able to find a very very close match. If it's not an exact match, it's pretty dang close! But while I was at Joanne, I also picked up the yarn for my next project, 2 new crochet hooks and a garland of poinsettas for the wall candle holder. Here's my Joanne's foray:

This afternoon J and I went to see Enchanted (very cute, btw) and stopped at Michael's before the movie. Wednesday I stopped there after work to pick up an item and noticed a clearance bin of novelty yarns for $1 each. These are the yarns that look like fur or feathers and usually start at $5. I was kicking myself for not getting them, even though I have no idea what/how I would use them. But they were $1!!! So, as I said, J and I stopped so I could do some more shopping for yarn. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with them. But they were soooo pretty! And only $1!!!! So here's the batch I got from Michaels:

So let's recap, shall we.

Joanne's:

9 skeins of yarn

2 crochet hooks

1 poinsetta garland

Michaels:

30 skeins (rolls?) novelty yarn

Yep, I'd have to say I did pretty darn good. Now, I just have to figure out what to do with all those pretty fuzzy ones! Any ideas?

American Gangster - the movie

I've been meaning to do a review of this movie for the few people who read ;-) Fair warning, if you don't want any information on this movie other than it was good, then don't read further.


Last chance....



Are you still here? Okay. J and I met up with a friend of his and her fiancee to see this movie last Sunday. The movie is based on the true life story of Frank Lucas, a narcotics dealer located in New York in the late 60's and early to mid 70's. Frank was the driver and collector gangster Bumpy Something-or- other for 15 years leading up to Bumpy's death of a heart attack of all things. The movie opens with Frank making a collection which involves shooting something. It was a rather gory and surprising opening to a movie. In fact, the first several minutes (10, 15, 30?) was along this same vein. But it was also educational in a way. It was rather surprising to see Frank go to the heroine re-packager (I'm really not sure what to call her) and all the little female worker bees were either in their underwear or naked. Apparently that was so they wouldn't steal any of the merchandise.

Denzel Washington was fabulous in this role. It's a little strange to see him playing the part of the bad guy, as it's not something seen all that often with him. As I was watching, it struck me how introspective he made his character. You could see him watching and not missing a single detail of what went on around him and filing it away for later use.

I haven't really seen much with Russell Crowe, so I was pleasently surprised at his portrayal of the detective. It was very well executed and very believable. My favorite character portrayal, however, had to have been done by Cuba Gooding Jr. He played another drug dealer and played him in a flamboyent, pimp style. Sadly, there wasn't enough of him in the movie.

Over all I thought this movie was very well done. Yes there were several moments where I hid my eyes because of the violence, but given the subject of the movie, I can understand why it was needed. As I was watching, I kept thinking of the documentary Urban Cowboys which chronicles the rise of the drug business in Miami during the same time period. It's amazing the different ways people manage to get drugs into the country, something that is still happening today. I do recommend this movie, but keep in mind, it's not for the faint of heart or stomach.

I love long weekends!

W0rking for a bank, I get Monday off in observance of my birthday. Okay, it's not for my birthday, I'm not that special. It's the observance of Veteran's Day. And because I still have lots of time off, I need to use it or lose it. So I took Friday off for a nice long four day weekend.

My plan was sleep in, get up and go for a bike ride which would eventually end up at work. I can hear you all now. Why work? Because that's where the gym I joined is at, right in the middle of work. And the gym found a new Yoga instructer, so Friday was to be the first day of the new Yoga class since the middle of September. I've missed Yoga. I love how it stretches all of my muscles and how some days I even have soreness in some surprising muscles, like the day we did a backwards arm raise and the muscles between my shoulder blades were very sore.

After waking up, I returned mom's phone call and found she needed a ride to her doctor appointment. I can't even remember all the times she has scrapped her plans or gone into work on little to no sleep because of medical situations, so without hesitation I headed to mom and dad's. One doctor appointment and 3-4 hours in the ER later, mom is sent home the official diagnosis of "I'm very very sure it's chest wall pain" which can encompass anything. On the plus side, all of the tests came back negative, so I guess we can live with a diagnosis of chest wall pain and a promise that it'll go away in a few weeks.

After putting mom into bed and waiting for dad to get her prescription's filled, I headed home as I needed to work my part time job at 7. Now, let me back up and provide some background information to my few readers before I continue. I bought my car in 2003, at the time it was technically a year old. Recently my car has decided it wants to very roughly idle while stopped and in gear. So roughly that I would physically be moved as well. J, after riding and contemplating, was thinking it's a vacuum leak and the biggest problem with that is actually locating where the leak is. Unfortunatly, that's not something he has had time to do just yet.

Last night I was heading home on the freeway a good hour plus before I had to log in for work. I didn't get very far when my Service Engine Soon light came on. Now, never having had this light come on before, I had a mild panic and called J. Which didn't do a whole lot of good since he was currently in a work truck heading to Riveria Beach with a bunch of co-workers and he was at least an hour away. But my hope was that if I could describe the clicking sound I was hearing (which I still can't and still have no idea where it was coming from) he could let me know if my car was safe to continue home or not. I pulled off the freeway and J called a friend of his who knows cars and used to work for his dad's auto shop. S came and plugged in a little computer, 5 minutes later he was telling me the problem is something called an EGR (Dad says it's part of the emissions system), could cost me around $130 and was totally safe to drive home. Not only that, but fixing the EGR will most likely take care of the rough idle. I was very relieved to know it wasn't something that would cost many many $$$'s.

It was how cold?

I want to share a couple of weather related things that made me chuckle this past week. First off, friends and family tease me for getting cold so easily, especially since I lived roughly 22 years in Minnesota (or as I refer to it, the Arctic Circle). But I have always gotten cold easily and never liked the cold. That being said, here's what made me chuckle.

First, NBC's Today Show had three anchors spend time at the Ends of the Earth, one being at the North Pole (okay, Greenland), one at the equater and the third at the Antarctica. The anchor at the North Pole earlier this week was stating it's cold there, at the time about 10 degrees farenhiet. The Antarctic anchor yesterday or today was saying the weather there is about thirty below zero farenheit. And my reaction to both of them? Is that it? It's only that cold? Psshhawww, that ain't nuttin'!

My second observation was driving into work this morning. Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Depression whatever Noel was good for one thing around here, it lowered our humidity drastically. The weather has been so nice that the AC got turned off and windows are open! Taking Ciera out this morning, I was chilled and hugging my arms. But I decided not to grab a jacket to go to work as my car was right outside my apartment building and the walk into work from the parking garage isn't all that long, maybe a block if that. While on the drive in this morning, the dj's stated the weather was getting a little cooler rather than warming at that point and the temp was 47. My thought was hmmm, maybe I should have brought a jacket. Going into the building at work, I noticed the heat, yes you read that right, the HEAT was on. Not only that, but the registers are in the ceiling, so I wonder if they're aware heat rises. And I couldn't tell you how many people were bundled into sweaters and jackets and here was me, the original freeze baby, in a tee shirt. Go figure.

He makes my heart flutter

Have I mentioned lately how much I love and adore my wonderful boyfriend? If I haven't before, let me shout it from the rooftops, hire a skywriter, take out an ad. John is so fabulously wonderfully fantastic. Not only does he not listen to me when I'm whining that I can't pedal anymore and there's no way I'll make it up that hill (which, here is Florida is usually smaller than those of Minnesota), he often times will actually push me when needed. He always knows when I need that little extra oomph and is excellent at ignoring me when I say I'm not tired. He takes such fabulous care of me. John has even signed up to ride the MS 150 with me. He's going to be there as my support and will probably be riding beside me as we cross the finish line, with a hand on my back giving me that extra Oomph! So John, thank you for being in my life and loving me so much.

What a busy weekend!

John and I both took Friday off from work and went to Epcot's Food and Wine Festival. We had a lot of fun eating our way through the different countries and trying new things. Friday was John's birthday, so he decided he wanted to see if guest relations does anything for birthdays. They gave him a birthday button and a hat.

John decided to inform them that my birthday is in a week, so I ended up with a button of my own.

The most entertaining part of the day however had to be the free Jon Secada concert. I don't know what it was about the show, but I was giggling throughout. It seemed to me he was trying to hard and instead came across as insincere. I told John he reminded me of Ricky Martin, and John said he's the original Ricky Martin. Video from the show is located in my photobucket account found here for those of you who really want to see what had me giggling. There is no sound as my camera isn't new enough to have that.

Regarding the food, we had some really yummy items from Morroco. We had a chicken item called Bastilla which was shredded chicken in phylo dough. It was a little sweet and tasted almost like it had cinnamon included in it. We also had a Kefta, which was a beef type meat (lamb? beef?) in a pita. And of course lots and lots of yummy wine!

Yesterday I bought a new bicycle. It's a comfort bike and I was almost in tears while test driving. With the MS, even though my hands seem the most affected, my thigh muscles also make sure I remember I have MS when I bike. I was riding on a 18 speed Magna mountain bike from Target. Mom and I used to go bike riding and I would never have a problem being in my higher gears, usually 8th and up. Since the onset of MS, I've been lucky if I could be in 4th gear without my legs getting very very tired. It's similar to lifting weights and getting to the end when you don't think your muscles will let you complete what you're doing because they're so tired. Except that would happen like five to fifteen minutes into my ride. It was definitely lowering to experience that. Now, with my fabulous new bike, I don't have that problem. John and I went out today and I was able to ride in 18th and 21st gear. I had a huge smile on my face for most of the day. Oh, I do adore my fabulous new bike!